Julian (13 page)

Gulun’s face went blank. He swallowed. Then his chin began to quiver.

“God willing, you will meet him someday,” he said quietly. “Here.”

And just as quickly he composed himself. “I forget to tell you,” he said, businesslike again. “Mr. Curtis ask me to say go and see him today if you can.”

Curtis was on the phone when I got to his office. He uttered a long sentence sprinkled with legal terms I didn’t understand, then dropped the handset into its cradle.

“Thanks for dropping by. Good weekend?”

“Fine.”

“You’re looking hale and healthy.”

I couldn’t think of anything other than “You too.”

He put his smile on. “Interested in a little job?”

It didn’t take him long to scare up a client with a missing kid, I thought.

“Depends.”

“Always the cautious one,” he commented after a forced laugh.

I figured I’d cut him off before he started the sales pitch. “I’ve thought it over. I can’t help you find runaways.”

“Run … No, no! This is something else. But what we talked about before—your youth—will still be a key advantage here, too. That’s why I thought you’d be the ideal person.”

That took me by surprise. “Oh,” I managed.

“Let me fill you in, see what you think. What do you say?”

I nodded.

“Okay, here it is. Do you know what a peace bond is?”

“Somebody can’t go near somebody else, and if he does, the cops pick him up.”

Curtis was nodding.

“If they’re not too busy,” I added.

This time his chuckle was genuine. “Exactly! Which brings me to the job. A peace bond is imposed by a judge if the court thinks an individual is a threat to another individual. In this case the parents of a young woman are concerned their daughter’s ex-boyfriend may hurt her. They persuaded her to swear out the bond. Apparently he has a history of abusing her—verbally and, at least once according to the father, physically. Hence the bond, and the parents’ concern. Clear so far?”

“Crystal.”

“Now, here’s where it gets a little complicated. The young lady is over eighteen. This means that, legally, this is all none of her parents’ business, so to speak. Therefore we need to remember: it’s mom and dad who came to me for help and retained me, not the woman. I got the impression from them that she wouldn’t be too grateful for their role in this.”

“Retained you. That means hired you, right?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the daughter’s attitude? How will she react if she finds out her parents are interfering?”

“She mustn’t find out.”

“But isn’t she the one to choose the best way to handle the problem? It’s her life. It’s—he was—her boyfriend.”

“All true, Julian. All true.”

“So …”

“The parents think she’s being naive. Given enough time, they believe, he’ll hurt her, or worse. God knows
there’re lots of examples in the news every week. Are you aware that most murdered women are killed by men they know? And many or most of those men had once had a relationship with the woman they attacked?”

“No, I wasn’t,” I admitted. “Listen, if this is so serious why bring me in? I don’t know anything about all this stuff. I can’t be a bodyguard.”

Curtis held up his hands, palms outward, as if to ward me off. “Whoa, Julian. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. You’d do one thing and one thing only: track the guy and if he gets close to her—”

“Take pictures.”

“Exactly. Don’t interfere. Don’t intervene. Don’t let either of them know you’re on the scene. And if this guy tries to hurt her, call 911 like any citizen would. Just make sure you remain undercover.”

“What good would photos be?”

“They’d be ammunition I can use on behalf of the parents to get the cops to bring the guy in. See, a peace bond is a legal document. If the guy breaches the conditions, that’s a crime, and anyone can report a crime. If someone reports on the parents’ behalf, that adds weight and the police will have to move quickly. We hope.”

“Okay, I get it.”

“So you’ll help?”

“I guess so.”

“Excellent.”

Curtis made to stand.

“But I have a condition.”

He sat back down, spread his hands. “Okay, shoot.”

“I want a smartphone I can keep, not a loaner. Registered
in your name, paid for by you. Second, I need you to set up a dedicated e-mail address that can’t be traced to me. I’ll send any photos I get to there, then erase them from the phone.”

Curtis thought for a moment. “That’s all?”

I nodded.

“Done. I’ll courier the phone and background information on the young man and woman to you tomorrow.”

In the subway en route to Grange Park I thought about the job I’d accepted—following a stranger and documenting him if I found him near his ex-girlfriend. Technically, I supposed, he’d be violating the bond even if he got close enough to call out to her. He didn’t have to do anything. I wasn’t blind to the fact that not long ago I tailed Ninon after she made it clear she didn’t want me to know where she was going or where she lived. No, I hadn’t threatened or abused her. I cared about her, but still. It was a betrayal of trust. My gut burned with shame. I almost left the train to go home, but I kept my seat, captured by thoughts of Ninon and the scent of sunlight on her skin.

“I’m getting a cellphone soon,” I told Ninon, omitting the fact that I already had one.

We were sitting on a bench in Grange Park, eating ice cream cones—chocolate for me, butterscotch for her—and trying to stay ahead of the effects of the heat, our fingers gooey, the little napkins that came with the cones a soggy mess.

“Oh,” she replied, devoting her attention to the ice cream running across her knuckles.

“Yeah. I’ll give you the number and you can call me. If you want to, that is.”

“Okay.”

She tossed her sodden napkin into the bin beside the bench and began to suck on her fingers. “There’s a Monet exhibit at the gallery soon.”

“Who?”

“He was an Impressionist.”

A dim light glowed briefly in my brain. “Oh, like Van Gogh.”

“Vincent was a
Post
-Impressionist, but close enough. Anyway, want to come?”

“Definitely.”

Ninon slung on her bag. “Good. It opens next Sunday. Now, I gotta go. Thanks for the cone.”

“This time,” I joked, “maybe you should buy a ticket.”

She gave me a lopsided smile. “It’s free on Sunday.”

W
HEN
I
WENT TO BED
that night my room was hot and close. Rainfall woke me, a steady whisper at my open window, a hushed gurgle in the eavestroughs. I lay on my back, wondering what had disturbed my sleep. Then I focused on it: the hiss of tires on the wet road outside. The vehicle slowed and turned into the driveway below. The engine died. Doors opened and closed with the minimum of noise.

Quickly I crept out of bed, pulled on my shorts, tiptoed to the door of my apartment. I let myself out and stole down the stairs and sat on the third step from the bottom. Anyone who came in through the door to the garage wouldn’t see me. But I’d hear them.

A moment later, a key in the lock. Whispering, in Chinese. Two men and a woman. The doors to the single rooms opened and closed softly. Likewise the entry back
into the garage. A moment later, out in the driveway, the car started up, reversed, drove away. It was all over in minutes. I waited awhile, then stole down the hallway and stood still. A line of light under each door, a few thumps, a toilet flushing. Then nothing.

No further ahead, I padded upstairs and went back to bed.

In the morning I got up an hour earlier than usual and took the hoe from the toolshed in the yard. The ground under the windows of the downstairs rooms didn’t really need reworking, but the new guests wouldn’t know that. The morning sun sparkled on the wet grass; the air smelled of blossoms and rain. I hummed and whistled, hoping to attract attention, to see a curtain move, a face in a window. After almost an hour of completely unnecessary work and bad music I was rewarded.

A disembodied hand appeared, gripping the edge of a curtain, which unhurriedly moved aside. In the gap, most of a face, enough to show a long braid of black hair, a broad forehead and a bandage covering a swollen nose. Then face and hand disappeared as the curtain fell back into place.

Satisfied that I’d see no more, I put the hoe away and headed off to the QuickMart.

Around mid-morning a bicycle courier pushed through the door of the store, put a fat lumpy envelope on the counter and asked for a signature. It was from Curtis. I carried it to the back room and laid it on the table without opening it, enjoying the frustrated curiosity Gulun was trying mightily not to show.

I got home at the usual time, took a quick sneak along the downstairs hall on the off chance I’d see or hear something. A waste of time. In my kitchen I made a sandwich, poured myself a glass of orange juice, then sat down and slit the package open with my box cutter. A smartphone tumbled out—scratched and obviously used—along with a charger and fresh SIM card. There was also a file folder. Curtis had put together a dossier including notes and photos of both Marika and the ex, Jason Plath.

After inserting the card, I plugged in the charger and left the phone on the kitchen counter. I opened the folder, put aside the pics and began to read. Marika Rubashov, age nineteen, university student in the faculty of pharmacology, presently enrolled in summer courses to speed up her journey toward a degree. Broke up with Jason just after Christmas. Plath was at a community college in the city: computer repair, which the course catalogue described as computer “engineering.”

The peace bond had been issued a little more than a month ago, around five months after the breakup that Plath would not accept. He had defied the order twice but Marika Rubashov hadn’t informed the police. Why not? I wondered as I munched the last of my sandwich.

In his notes Curtis reminded me that he had been retained by Rubashov’s parents, not Marika herself, and Marika didn’t know that. Obviously, Curtis added, as if I couldn’t have figured it out for myself, Plath didn’t either.

In her photos, Marika was dark-haired, average height and build, not pretty but not plain. Her closed-in facial expressions suggested shyness, or maybe a lack of confidence. Plath was blondish, rail thin, tall. His long face wasn’t
exactly sunny. In all three of the pics he looked as if he thought the photographer was putting one over on him.

I bundled up the photos and papers, stuffed them back in the envelope and went for a run. While I loped along the hot streets south of my neighbourhood I worked out a plan for my new task and came up with an idea. I stepped inside a little café and used the public phone to call Curtis. When he answered I told him I needed a copy of Marika’s course schedule at the university.

“You’re supposed to watch
him
, not
her
,” he objected.

“The easiest way to catch him harassing Marika is to watch her.”

There was a pause. “Good point. I’ll get you the schedule.”

When I ran I’d normally fall into a rhythm and lose track of time, floating along with my thoughts, and today was no different. But my thoughts were prickly. Working out my method of observing Jason’s behaviour led me to wonder what kind of jerk pesters a girl who has already broken up with him. Okay, breaking up hurts; everybody knows that. You might try to put things back together but eventually you have to face facts. Hanging around someone who doesn’t want you there is pathetic.

Was it me rather than Jason I was thinking about? Was I the fool?

Before I knew it I was close to home. I slowed, jogging loosely to cool down. My tank top, drenched with perspiration, clung to my torso, and sweat trickled from the tips of my hair onto my ears. The unshaded stretches of the road surface shimmered with heat, and sunlight splintered on the windows of parked cars.

I turned onto my street about a block north of the house. In the distance, a couple of guys bounced a basketball back and forth, making their way up the centre of the road. Nearer the house they broke off and cut between the cars standing along the curb. One of them bungled his pass and the ball, on the rise from the bounce, thumped the grille of a small hatchback. There was a man in the driver’s seat of the car, a newspaper spread across the steering wheel. The ball players laughed and carried on up a driveway.

Something about the scene wasn’t right.

Instinctively I jogged past my house, eyes front, and turned onto the first side street I came to. I circled around and came at the house from the back, slipping up the driveway and entering the garage, then the door into the downstairs hall.

There were two things wrong with the street scene, now that I’d had time to think. The man hadn’t reacted when the basketball struck his car. He hadn’t even looked up. Second, the car windows were up and the engine wasn’t running—therefore, neither was the air conditioner. Who sits in a closed car on a hot day reading the paper?

In my apartment I avoided the front window. I took a shower, dressed, slipped along the living room wall and peered around the window frame. The man was still there. He was clean-cut, Asian, mid-thirties, wearing a light blue golfing shirt. He had a clear view of the house from his vantage point—which didn’t mean, I told myself, that he was staking out this particular place. But what if he was? I carried a chair from the kitchen to the window, then got a pencil and my notebook from my desk. I jotted down his license plate number, and the exact time and date. Should
I call Chang? Would he think I was silly? Imagining things? I settled in to watch.

Less than an hour later the man held a cell to his ear, then closed it, folded up the newspaper, started the car and drove away. He must have been a slow reader. He hadn’t turned the page even once.

Curtis brought Marika Rubashov’s class schedule next morning when he came into the store for his coffee and newspaper. I checked it over and found I had time to swing past Grange Park on my way to the university that afternoon. Marika had a class that ended at two o’clock. I set off from the store after work with my new cell and a map of the campus in my backpack.