Julian (20 page)

Chang’s face was as blank as a brick wall.

“We know,” he replied.

And that was all he said.

The techie, whose name I hadn’t been told, came through the door and got into the car beside the driver. In all, he had discovered eight listening devices. Top of the line, he told Chang. Rawlins, my place, the two downstairs rooms. Only Fiona’s place was clean.

“That concludes today’s work,” Chang announced. “We’ll need to sweep the house regularly from now on. Good day, Julian, and thank you.”

I climbed out of the car and the chauffeur backed out the driveway and motored away.

Had cops planted the bugs? Or immigration officials? Both were possible actors in the drama, but professionals, either cop or government, weren’t consistent with the watchers. Those guys were amateurs.

And they were all Asian. And Chang and company were Asian.

Then again, the techie Chang had brought along wasn’t.

The pieces didn’t fit together no matter how I moved them around.

“Although …,” I mused as, back in my apartment, I poured tea into a mug and sat down at the table, under the light that until a few minutes ago had held a listening device.

Police forces, no matter what their category, weren’t the only people who used high-tech surveillance. You could buy all kinds of “spy” toys at any electronics store. Everybody knew that. I cast my thoughts wider, keeping in mind Occam’s razor.

Then, inspiration. “You blockhead,” I hissed with disgust. How could I have missed it?

Fact one: I got involved with Bai because of a kidnap attempt. The men who tried to grab the obnoxious little Wesley were crooks. Asian crooks.

In meeting my request for a new identity, Bai had had to break a few laws, even if his offences weren’t as threatening as kidnapping or breaking and entering.

Bai and Chang seemed to be involved in illegal activity having to do with immigration.

Was it like a TV show? Was it really that simple? A conflict between rival criminal organizations?

And was I right in the middle of the whole mess?

“W
HAT HAPPENED
?” Ninon gasped, her eyes wide with surprise, when she met me at the streetcar stop. We hadn’t been together since before the Rubashov case wound up.

“Aw, a guy caught me off guard.”

“But why?”

“A minor disagreement. Not important.”

As soon as I said the words I wished I could take them back. Being secretive had been an automatic response for so long I’d forgotten how to talk normally. My answer was a reflex. I realized I wanted to tell her, to share more of myself.

So I did. As the streetcar carried us toward High Park I told her about the work I’d been doing for Curtis on the Marika case, including Plath rearranging my face and Fiona helping me. I was rewarded with the ironic smile.

“I didn’t know my boyfriend was a private eye,” she joked.

“Hey, it’s a living.”

At High Park we walked to the grassy slopes beside Grenadier Pond. It was a perfect day, the clear sky a blue dome above, the breeze off the lake soft and cool, the beds of flowers a riot of colour against the green lawns. Ninon, in her T-shirt and shorts and leather sandals, looked summery and beautiful. Very kissable. But her flu was making her suffer with puffy eyes and cheeks glowing with fever. Periodically, coughs shook from deep in her chest. I should have postponed the picnic.

We spread our blanket beside a flower bed with a view of the pond and unwrapped the sandwiches. Ninon tried to eat, but each bout of coughing seemed to tear something loose inside her. She rummaged in her backpack and came up with a bottle of cough syrup. That helped a bit. I ate sandwiches guiltily while we talked, but Ninon had no appetite.

“Do you mind if I ask you something?” I said.

“How can I say if I’d mind until I hear the question?”

“So …”

“So ask.”

“I’ve always wondered why you didn’t want me to know where you live. You said it’s a hostel, but that’s all.”

Ninon looked away, as if something on the far shore of the pond had suddenly attracted her attention. I waited. Finally she replied.

“I never told you because I’m ashamed.”

A second later there were tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I shouldn’t have—”

“It used to be that I lived in a big sunny flat with my parents and I had my own room with a view over the
quai
to the big school across the way. My
maman
was a respected
seamstress with her own business. My
papa
was a chef. Now they’re dead and I’m in a foreign country and I’m poor—no, not poor. Destitute. I live in a mission, sleep in a dorm with other women. I beg on street corners. And I
steal!
”

That word released a flood of emotion she had held back for a long time. I pushed her satchel aside and put my arm around her. After a while she calmed. I knelt in front of her and wiped away her tears with my shirt-tail.

“Not very romantic,” I said. “I should have brought a hanky.”

I wanted to ask Ninon to move into my apartment. There was lots of room. She’d be off the streets and she could look for work in the neighbourhood. But I couldn’t say anything or raise her hopes until I was sure. Lately my place wasn’t safe, and it wouldn’t be until whatever was going on stopped going on. And when would that be?

Her eyes, still pooled with tears, were so sorrowful I felt my throat swell.

“Julian,” she whispered. “You’re the only one who cares about me.”

I felt water gather in my own eyes. She scrambled to her knees and put her arms around me and we held each other.

“I love you,” I said.

She squeezed me tighter. “Me too.”

“Things will get better,” I soothed. “We can work together. You’re not alone anymore.”

Then Ninon whispered in the playful voice I wished I could hear more often, “You and me. Team Orphan.”

I laughed. “Team Orphan.”

It seemed a good time to kiss, so we did.

“You’ll catch my cold,” she said, coughing.

We lay back on the blanket, holding hands and talking, shielding our eyes from the blue intensity above us. The “here and there” job Ninon had pretended to have turned out to be begging. I couldn’t criticize. It was what you did when you ran out of choices. Maybe I could ask Bai if he could find her a job. But it seemed the wrong time to approach him, when I was up in the air about him. For all I knew I could be on my own too, soon. I might be a step away from begging myself.

We walked around the park a bit, but as time passed, Ninon’s flu seemed to get worse.

“You should go to a clinic,” I suggested.

“I’ll shake it off in a few days.”

“St. Joseph’s hospital is nearby. We could go there.”

She shook her head.

“What did the doctor say?”

Confused, she asked, “What doctor?”

“The one at the, er, place you stay. He took some blood?”

Ninon was made breathless by a coughing fit. When it cleared she said, “I didn’t hear anything. I think he forgot about me.”

“Well, you ought to follow up on that. I’m worried about you. You should be in bed. Let’s go.”

On the way back, the swaying of the streetcar lulled Ninon to sleep. I didn’t wake her until we got to the stop near the mission. I helped her down the streetcar’s steps and put my arm around her.

“I’ll be okay now,” she said.

She didn’t want me to walk with her to the mission, even though I could see the white sign from there.

“Alright. Call me if you need anything.”

Slipping her satchel strap over her shoulder, she nodded.

“Promise,” I said.

Ninon smiled. “Promise.”

She walked down the deserted street, her head down, her slender back bent slightly to take the weight of her carryall. When she disappeared into the building I turned and, deciding to go part of the way home on foot, headed north, strolling along by myself toward an empty apartment, wondering if I looked as lost as Ninon did.

W
HEN
I
GOT TO MY STREET
I noticed the watcher right away.

I stopped and stared at the car. After my short break with Ninon the mysteries rushed back, taunting me, telling me I was just a bystander in a game whose rules I couldn’t even figure out, much less follow. Suddenly I was fed up. What was the point of making a new life for myself when I was allowing it to be ruined even before it got properly underway? I wasn’t the painter anymore; I was the canvas.

I turned onto my footpath as usual, but I dropped my pack on the verandah and grabbed the folded lawn chair that was leaning against the railing. Whether it was fuelled by worry over Ninon’s worsening health or frustration with the irritating state of ignorance I constantly found myself in, a rush of adrenaline propelled me down the road. Eyes glued to the watcher’s windshield, I banged the chair onto
the sidewalk directly across the street from him, sat down and stared at him through the car window.

He glanced my way, then snapped his head back around, eyes front, pretending not to notice me. I kept my eyes on him, my breathing fast and shallow, my blood boiling. He fished a road map out of his glove compartment, unfolded it and pretended to consult it as if it held directions to buried treasure. His incompetence only goaded my anger.

While he studied his map I got up and circled the car, stopping a few paces in front of the hood. I pulled out my cell and took a photo of the license plate and a few pictures of the watcher. That seemed to rattle him. I returned to my chair and resumed staring. Eventually he folded his map, started the car and drove sedately up the street. What a clown!

The whole episode had lasted no more than a few minutes. When I got back to my apartment, my hands were shaking.

As if things weren’t confusing enough, a new guest arrived that night. He was no underfed, scared young woman destined for a restaurant kitchen. He was confident enough to break the most sacred of Chang’s rules, leaving his room the next morning to knock on my door just as I was getting ready to go to work. Dressed in a rumpled blue three-piece, stocky, with wire-framed glasses perched on a broad fleshy nose, he looked like some kind of professional who had seen better days. He also stank of cigarette smoke.

“I from downstairs,” he announced in broken English.

“Oh,” I replied, shocked to see him out of his room. None of the other guests had voluntarily shown their faces. It was strictly against Chang’s regulations.

“Er, come in.”

He took a step inside the apartment, his face pinched with anxiety. A man out of his element.

“They not to give me
xiang yan
.”

“Oh,” I said again.

“Cigarette,” he explained, holding up his hand and forming a V with the first two fingers. “You have?”

I shook my head. “But I can bring you some, I guess. I work in a store.”

Behind the glasses his eyes slid to the side as he processed the words.

“Thank-a-you. Now?”

“No, I can’t. After lunch.”

“Mmm, long time.”

Where did he get off, being so demanding?

“Best I can do.”

The man nodded and left, thumping not at all secretively down the stairs. A moment later I heard his door open and close. I locked up and headed off to work.

Soon after I got home, a cough told me the smoker was back on my doorstep.

He followed me into the kitchen, where I had begun to make lunch—a few samosas heated up in the micro and a pot of tea. He eyed my backpack, scratching his ear with nicotine-stained fingers. I plugged in the kettle, then pulled out two packs of “tax-free”—smuggled—cigarettes and put them on the table.

“Here you are.”

He picked up one pack and broke the seal. I stopped him.

“Sorry, no. Not in here. Outside or in your room.”

I handed him the second pack.

“Come back and have some tea.”

“Yes, yes. I will back. Thank-a-you.”

Half an hour later we were sitting at the table, crumb-strewn plates and a second mug of tea before us, stumbling through a halting conversation about not very much. He never gave me his name and I didn’t ask. More Chang-inspired hush-hush. I wondered what had brought him to this country. He was different from the others, who were, from what I could tell, anonymous and frightened. This man was uneasy—I could see that in his face and gestures—but underneath were signs of confidence. He was apparently not interested in spending all of his time under a blanket in his room.

“I sorry my poor English,” he said. “I am, mmm, rusty. That is the word?”

“Yeah. It’ll do.”

For the first time he seemed to relax a bit. He sat back and looked around the kitchen and living room. “You have many books,” he observed, looking at the full shelf in the living room.

“Would you like to borrow a few?”

The next thing I knew he was on his knees, pulling paperbacks from the shelf.

“No offence, but can you read them alright?”

“Yes, yes,” he replied. “I read well. Speaking very …”

“Rusty.”

“
Dui!
Yes.”

He got to his feet, smiling, clutching a half-dozen mysteries. He had nothing to do in his room all day except smoke and wait and worry until Chang sent someone to whisk him away some night. There was no TV or radio in either
downstairs room. The boredom must be driving him nuts.

“Would you like me to bring you a newspaper?” I asked.

“You can get English? Chinese?”

“I’ll try.”

I could ask Mama Zhu what Chinese papers to buy.

“Can you tell me your name?” I asked on impulse, thinking maybe he’d break this rule too.

“
Lao
Chang say not.”

“Well then, what should I call you?”

His eyes rolled up as he thought. “I choose an English name … um, Charr.”

This is an English name? “Did you say Charr?”

“Yes. You know Charr Dicken? Famous English writer? I very like his books. I borrow his name.”

“Okay, Charr it is. I’m Julian.”

He nodded. “Jurian.”

“Close enough,” I said.