The Vanishing Track (11 page)

Martin had called him from the Cambie Hotel to say that Cole was in the bar, drunk, and looking for a fight. “Normally, I'd let him fight it out,” said Martin above the racket all around him. “But with his ribs, he's liable to get hurt. You're the only one he'll listen too, Denny.”

He could hear the pub from a block away. Twenty or so young men and woman were huddled by the door, smoking. The gas-fired heaters warmed the outdoor patio where people packed tables and music blared from speakers. Denman smiled as he threaded his way between the revellers and into the bar. Cole, Martin, and Dusty Stevens were at their favorite table toward the back of the pub.

“Hey Denny!” Cole stood and lunged for his friend. He tripped on the bench and nearly fell, but Denman caught him by the arms and returned the accidental embrace. “Denman Scott, you old bugger. How are you?” Cole pounded Denman on the back.

“I'm good, Cole, good. A little tired.”

“I have the perfect antidote for that,” Cole said, grabbing Denman by the shoulders and looking earnestly into his eyes. “Sleep. Let's sit before some of these frat boys think we're queers and try to beat us up!” Cole lurched toward the table and jostled the bottles on it.

“How are
you
, Cole?” Denman asked.

“Never better. Top shelf,” he slurred. “Right next to the peanut butter,” and he laughed.

“You've just been drinking tonight, right? Nothing else?”

Cole looked at Denman through bleary eyes. “Whaddaya mean?”

“No meds?”

“Nothing. Just some brews with the boys.”

“Just asking,” said Denman. Cole was usually a quiet, brooding drunk, so his effervescence surprised Denman.

“It's all good,” said Cole, dragging out his words. “It's aaaaaaall good.” He splashed beer from the pitcher on the table and into his pint glass. He raised the glass above his head.

“To Denny Scott,” he yelled, “my best friend. Man of the people. A hero for our times!” He stood and clashed glasses with Dusty, who was drinking a pint, and Martin, who hoisted a half-empty glass of cranberry juice. Then Cole swung his arm around to the cabal of college students.

“Raise a glass to my friend, Denman Scott!” he shouted over the din of the room at the dozen or so men and woman at the table.

A few of them raised a glass in Cole's direction, but still not satisfied, Cole hollered, “Raise a glass, you pre-pubescent punks!” Cole's voice had slipped from jocular to edgy in a heartbeat. A few of the men at the table looked in Cole's direction, but none offered their glass. Denman put a hand on Cole's shoulder. “Come on, buddy. I'll drink to me . . .”

Cole shrugged off Denman's hand. He swung his glass toward the half-pint a boy at the next table was raising to his lips. The boy's glass flew from his hand, spraying beer over his friends, the glass rolling across the checkered tablecloth and crashing to the floor. A girl at the table screamed and the room grew still. The boy stood up, and Cole reached for him as if to embrace him. The angry young man shoved Cole away, a scowl on his face. Denman tried to get between the two, but the drunk and stumbling Cole was still quick with his hands, and he took a poke at the boy. He managed only to clip the boy's shoulder. The boy, more surprised than worried to be in a bar fight with a man twice his age and slobbering drunk, was slow to strike back. By the time the punch came, Denman was able to easily guide it harmlessly past Cole's astonished face, and Dusty quickly moved in front of Cole.

“Everybody cool down,” Denman said, loud enough for Cole and the boy to hear him. He turned to the boy, his face open and friendly, but meaning business.

“Your fucking friend is wasted, man,” the boy said. Several of the other young men at the table were standing now.

“You're right. He is. I'm taking him home before he gets hurt,” Denman said.

Denman turned and helped Dusty manage Cole out of the Cambie.

“Call us a cab, would you?” said Denman to Martin.

Ten minutes later, Denman was sitting next to Cole in the back of a cab moving out of the downtown area, passing the Carnegie Centre. Cole was half asleep, and Denman watched the street scenes unfold. He thought about Juliet Rose and the people she knew were missing from the area. In the midst of the debacle over the Lucky Strike and the riot on the streets of the Downtown Eastside, she had come to him to report that another of her flock had failed to surface in over a week.

Three people now gone. Had they simply moved on? The only better place to be on the streets, and even then only if you didn't like the weather in Vancouver, was Victoria, across the Strait of Georgia on Vancouver Island. Vancouver had better social services, more shelter beds, and a community that wasn't so hostile to the homeless. If they had decided to head to Victoria, they would have had to take the bus, which meant money, always in short supply. Stashing away the bucks it cost to take the bus and ferry wasn't something that happened overnight. Juliet or one of her colleagues would have known if any of the locals were planning on making that move.

They had to be here still. Somewhere. If the unthinkable was true, if they were dead, where were their bodies?

Cole grumbled beside him.

“You're going to start the program on Sunday, my friend.”

“What's that?” Cole's head bobbed up.

“You and me, we're going to start your training on Sunday.”

“Can't. Ribs busted.”

“Don't worry. It's not in the ring.”

Cole seemed to drift off to sleep again.

“But it's going to make the ring look easy,” murmured Denman.

OVER THE WEEKEND
, the weather turned. Summer vanished inside of two short days. Saturday showed up with scattered clouds, and Sunday threatened rain. By Monday, the sky had closed in on the Lower Mainland, clouds bunched between the mountains and holding fast to the low alluvial plain where the city of a million people sprawled. By noon, the rain was falling in sheets across the Downtown Eastside.

Denman walked from his office to the headquarters of the Eastside detachment of the Vancouver Police Department. He wore his flat cap and a Gore-Tex coat and carried an umbrella.

As he approached the reception desk, he closed his umbrella and took off his cap. He stated his business and a uniformed staff sergeant he didn't recognize asked him to wait. Two minutes later a red-haired woman in a business suit came into the reception area carrying a cup of coffee and a thin file folder. She tucked the file folder under her arm as she approached Denman and held out her hand. She had a firm grip and held his hand a second while she said, “Marcia Lane. I'm the Missing Persons Task Force's team leader.”

“Denman Scott. Priority Legal. Nice to meet you.”

“Coffee?”

“Sure.”

She led him down a set of stairs to a cafeteria. The room was mostly empty. Windows along the top of one wall let what little light the day provided into the room. Overhead, fluorescent bulbs cast their stark glow over the room, erasing shadows. Even under the glare, Marcia Lane was surprisingly beautiful. Her long red hair was tied back in a single ponytail, with a few errant strands artfully left to fall across her temples. Her cheeks were high, her skin soft and clear and alabaster under the glare of the lights. Her blue eyes were almost translucent.

“This isn't Starbucks,” she laughed when she handed Denman a cup, “but it's not as bad as you might think. The one thing cops have a discerning taste for is coffee.” She poured herself a cup and offered the pot to Denman. “Like a donut?” she asked, and when she saw the expression on Denman's face, laughed again.

They sat in a table close to the high windows, next to a fake palm tree, and sipped their coffee.

“It's turned pretty cruel outside,” she said. “How is the City doing with emergency shelter space?”

“They managed to add another thirty-five spaces for use during the extreme weather protocol this winter, but we need to add a thousand spaces to meet demand. Trouble is, even those thirty-five spaces are designated
only
for extreme weather. So, for example,” Denman turned his face toward the window, “tonight likely won't count.”

Marcia raised an eyebrow. “Not cold enough . . . The solution seems simple. Build more community-supported housing.”

“Simple to say, hard to do,” Denman responded. “There's simply no political motivation. The mayor and council are elected for three-year terms. It takes longer than that to build these spaces, in the market we're in. And what council wants to be the one to say, ‘We're going to spend a billion dollars to house people who in all likelihood will never pay a dime of taxes in their lives.'”

“I thought the argument went that if we could just get a roof over these people's heads, they would become contributing members of society.”

“Some will. Some may land decent jobs in a few years and find themselves actually writing a check to the tax man on April 30. But most never will. You've got to understand,” said Denman congenially, “that many of these people are sick. They are alcoholics or drug addicts, or suffer from a raft of mental illnesses. It's too much to hope that they will contribute to the country's tax rolls.”

“I read somewhere it costs the city, the province, and the feds forty thousand dollars a year just to have a person on the streets,” said Marcia.

“That's right. That was one of
our
reports.” Denman smiled wryly. “People on the street use a disproportionate amount of the province's health care resources. People like Councilor Chow have a point. I think Chow exaggerates the nature of the problem sometimes, but I'll give him credit where it's due. He's even asked council to consider a ban on converting single-room occupancy hotels while the City addresses the housing crisis.”

“Is that going to pass?”

“Not a hope,” said Denman. He paused. “I was surprised you agreed to meet with me, and here.”

“I'm not afraid of you,” she smiled back.

“Good. I don't bite.”

“But you sue and that's what's got everybody nervous.” Denman shrugged. “And just between us girls,” she said, leaning forward a fraction of an inch, “your poking around into excessive force has everybody on edge.”

“You've got to understand—”

Marcia held a hand up. “You don't need to tell me, Denman. I'm not on the beat, if you'll pardon the pun. I'm just stating the obvious. But you didn't call this morning to talk about housing or about excessive force.”

“No. It's about your task force.”

Marcia smiled, inviting him to speak.

“Do you know Juliet Rose?”

“The street nurse. She helped us out a couple of years back with a missing person's case.”

“She came to me the other day with concerns that people she knows are disappearing.”

Marcia seemed to straighten in her chair. “How many?”

“Three so far. Two men and a woman.”

“Over what period of time?”

“A month. Really over the span of September, so far.”

“How does she know that they're not just in another part of town? Or maybe moved to Victoria or Kelowna?”

“She just does. She keeps tabs on people. She sees them every day. She knows their habits. If she says they are missing, I believe her.”

“Don't take it the wrong way; I just have to ask.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“It's okay. You're used to people on the force giving you the gears,” Marcia smiled. “Before I can open a file, I need more information.”

“Okay. What do you need?”

“Who these people are; their last known address, if any; when they were last seen; and by whom. That's just to start.”

“Maybe I should call Juliet—Ms. Rose. She will have a better handle on the details.”

“Okay. You call, I'll get more coffee.”

“You want to do this now?”

“Why not?”

Denman smiled. “I'm not used to getting immediate results from the
VPD
.”

“Hi, I'm Marcia Lane,” she said, holding out her hand in a mock introduction, and grinned.

THREE HOURS LATER
Juliet and Denman stood under the marquee of the Vancouver Police Department headquarters while water poured down onto the sidewalk in front of them and cars splashed up waves from puddles as big as lakes.

“I need to get back,” Juliet said. “This is the first storm of the season. The Carnegie Centre is a zoo. By tomorrow we're going to have a bunch of sick people.”

“Can't buy you lunch? You know, debrief and all.”

“Okay, but let's make it quick.”

“I know just the place.”

They ran through the rain and stepped into the door of a small noodle bar nearby. A small woman seated them silently, and they fell into conversation, oblivious to others around them. When the waiter came, they hadn't looked at the menu.

Denman ordered in Mandarin for both of them. The waiter nodded and left.

“Your Mandarin is pretty good.”

Denman frowned. “No, not really. I'm rusty.”

“Sometimes I forget it was a first language for you.”

Their food came. “It's good,” Juliet remarked. “What is it?”

Denman slurped noodles into his mouth. “It's called Priority Legal Special. I know the cook here. He surprises me.”

“What did you think of Marcia Lane?”

“I wish every cop in Vancouver was more like her. Smart. Professional—”

“Beautiful.”

“I hadn't noticed.”

Juliet shot him a look.

“No, really. Talking with her was the best three hours I've ever spent with the
VPD
. Ever. It's almost too good to be true.”

“I feel the same way. Like our concerns were taken seriously.”