The Vanishing Track (19 page)

“Okay. Well, let's wait and see what happens.” Cole paced back and forth in front of the church. “Thanks for being here, Denny.”

“Wouldn't want you to have all the fun.”

“While you're having fun in the nice hybrid, I'm freezing my ass off in the rain.”

“Well, the fact that you brought a car back to the Co-op a week late and missing its spare tire might have something to do with why I'm sitting in the Prius right now and you're freezing in the rain.”

“The spare tire was there. It was the original that was missing. It was a logging road.”

“It was a hiking trail.”

“It looked like a logging road. Anyway, thanks for being here.”

“Cole, I got
you
into this.”

“We're all in this together now, Denny.”

Cole closed his phone and held it in his hand. He pulled the collar of his coat up. It was a cool night and the rain was soaking right through his worn Gore-Tex shell. It was hard to believe the rain would ever end.

Cole wore a black watch cap on his head over his messy curls for warmth and fingerless gloves on his hands to allow operation of his cell phone. He leaned against the wall and waited. He sent Denman a few short text messages to practice. Kids seemed to be able to do this in their sleep, but it took him some getting used to the rhythm of the numeric alphabet.

After an hour, his cell phone buzzed. He flipped it open to read the message. “Showtime.” Cole looked up and saw a new Chevrolet Impala parked in front of the restaurant. Two men got out. He watched until the men disappeared into the alley next to the Golden Dragon, then crossed the street, his feet splashing through the running water. They had agreed if there was time he would join Denman in the car.

He reached the Prius just as the two men slipped out of the alley and returned to their Impala, each carrying a takeout bag. A third man joined them, getting into the driver's seat. Their car did a U-turn in the street and came within twenty feet of the Prius.

“You ever followed anybody before?” asked Cole, dripping wet. He yanked on his seatbelt.

“Nope.”

“You know what you're doing?”

“Nope, you?”

Cole shook his head. Denman started the engine and pulled out into traffic, a few cars back from the Impala. The car turned right on Gore Street, where the Dunsmuir viaduct began, and Denman followed. He was now right behind them. His head lights illuminated the back of the occupants' heads.

“Not so close,” said Cole.

“Trying,” said Denman, easing off.

“Try to make it look like you're just out for a drive.”

“How do I do that?”

“I don't know,” said Cole. “Drive casual.”

The Impala drove north and then turned right. The traffic thickened and Denman managed to keep a car or two between them. Cole was pretty sure that the two pickup men were the same guys he had seen the previous night, but he had to admit that when you've seen one two-hundred-pound cop, you've seen them all.

“Where are these guys going?” asked Denman.

“Turning again,” pointed Cole.

“I think they're on to us,” said Denman.

“No way. We're just one of hundreds of cars out here.”

“Making all the same turns.”

The Impala stopped at the lights. The Prius was two cars back. Cole and Denman watched silently as their quarry idled. When the light turned green the Impala drove ahead and then, without signaling, stopped at the corner of Abbott Street in front of Tinseltown, a sprawling shopping center that featured a massive cinema complex. The two back doors opened and the pickup men got out.

“Great, now what?” muttered Cole, unhooking his seatbelt.

“Cole . . .”

Cole already had the door open. The Prius rolled to its silent stop. Cole was out before Denman could finish saying, “I'll park.” Denman watched as he splashed across the street after the two men.

The two men crossed the sidewalk, deserted in the driving rain, and went into the Tinseltown mall. Cole dashed after them, holding his sore ribs. The mall was quiet on a Tuesday night. Cole watched as they mounted an escalator to the second level, the cavernous space making them easy to see, and Cole easy to spot following them. He drew a deep breath as they stepped off the escalator. He ran a few steps and reached the top of the moving stairs as they walked through the concourse toward the food court.

“Forgot the chopsticks, boys?” Cole muttered. His cell phone buzzed and he flipped it open while he walked.

“Where r u?” was the message. He awkwardly keyed in “Fdcrt,” then looked up to see the two men moving past the court toward the row of shops beyond.

“If they get in the elevator, I'm hooped,” muttered Cole. He felt his pulse quickening, felt the surge of adrenaline course though his veins. Suddenly Denman was beside him. They said nothing. They walked slowly, keeping the men in sight, who were now heading toward an escalator at the opposite end of the mall. The men took the escalator to the main floor again.

“They're hitting the street,” said Denman.

“Hope they don't have a car waiting.”

The two men exited onto Abbott Street and walked south.

“I can see the Lucky Strike from here,” said Cole, looking east as he and Denman left the mall. The hotel's darkened bulk loomed above the city around it.

“What are they doing?” asked Denman. One of the men gave the other a brown bag of Golden Dragon food to carry.

“Don't know.”

“We're made.”

“Come
on
 . . .”

“Just watch,” said Denman. When the two men reached the corner of Abbott and Taylor, one of them dashed across the road toward the Foodmart and the SkyTrain stop at Stadium. The other headed east toward the Lucky Strike.

Denman stopped and grabbed Cole by the shoulder. “They're onto us, Cole.”

“So what!” Cole said angrily.

“It's too dangerous.”

“This is the only shot we get. Maybe they are onto us, maybe not. But this is it. There won't be another chance to find out who is dining at the Lucky Strike Supper Club.”

One of the men reached the corner by the grocery store.

“I'll go east,” said Cole, and slipping from Denman's grasp, moved toward the Lucky Strike.

“Don't do anything stupid. And keep in touch,” Denman said, and ran across the street toward the Foodmart.

Cole clutched his cell phone in his hand and followed the other two-hundred-pound delivery boy from a couple hundred feet back. Here the sidewalk was nearly empty, so his prey was easy to watch, just as Cole's presence was easy to detect. Any farther back and he ran the risk of losing his man.

The bag carrier turned north again, passing behind the darkened behemoth of the Lucky Strike. On the corner two uniformed officers sat reading in the lighted cab of a squad car, part of the effort to keep the protesters starved.

Instead of stopping, the man slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and put it to his ear. Distance and the rain, now driving in sheets, eliminated any chance Cole might overhear the conversation. He watched the meatball snap the phone shut and put it back in his pocket.

The delivery man reached the end of the block, then stood motionless at the corner. Cole quickly slipped into a doorwell, but the man never looked back.

“What are you doing?” Cole grumbled. “Your fried wontons are getting very, very cold.”

After a couple of minutes, Cole saw the man reach for his phone again, and this time Cole doubted he said a word before he snapped the phone shut and dashed across the street, a few horns blaring.

“Here we go,” said Cole, quickly following. There was a greengrocer fronting the street. The man swung open an unmarked door next to it and vanished up a set of stairs. Cole quickly texted the address to Denman. He was less than a block from the Carnegie Centre, and within sight of the Lucky Strike.

He scanned the building. It was a dreary, four-story building put up in the 1940s with tan brick and white trim. A discount shoe store and the grocer occupied the street level. Cole guessed that the inside housed offices, maybe fronts for organized crime.

Cole stood in the doorway across the street a moment. He knew damn well that he couldn't just run up the stairs after the delivery man. The likelihood of being caught there and questioned about his presence was much too high. What could he say? Instead, he stepped back into the shadow of the doorway and assumed the panhandler position, tucking his knees to his chest and folding his arms across them, watching the door. He waited.

Where was Denman?

Sitting with his face to his knees, his eyes peeled for any action at the door, Cole felt a growing restlessness and sense of urgency. He sat motionless for another minute, then two, feeling the cold from the concrete penetrate his butt and move into his spine. Across the street the door flew open. Cole pressed his face closer to his knees, his eyes mere slits, and watched as the big man he had been tailing made his way down the street toward Tinseltown, then across the street and around the corner without looking back.

Once the man was out of sight Cole jumped to his feet and crossed Pender. He grabbed the metal door handle and the door swung open. He was surprised to find the door unlocked. He quickly took his cell phone from his pocket and texted Denman, “Gng in.”

The stairs rose up from street level in darkness. He took a deep breath to quiet his heart and listened. Nothing. Just the drone of traffic on Pender, the hiss of tires on wet pavement. He mounted the steps. Halfway to the top he stopped and listened. Another step and he kicked a can in the blackness. It clanked down the steps. Cole froze, but he heard nothing else. He took three more steps into the blackness. He still faced an eerie silence, but now a familiar scent came to him: Korean barbecue.

Cole reached the top of the stairs. He now stood at one end of a long hallway that disappeared into the darkness. Many doors lined the hall, but none seemed to emit any light. He smelled the odor of stale cigarettes, takeout food, and something else, something strangely out of place.

He started down the hall, looking at the doors, some of which had small signs announcing the businesses that occupied them: Double A Accounting. Frank's Home Heating. Dominion Music. In the darkness it was hard to make out the names on some of the offices. Cole took out his cell phone and flipped it open to read the signs by the dim blue light of its display screen. The silence was broken when his cell phone buzzed with an incoming message. He dropped it to the floor where it snapped shut.

“Mother—” Cole muttered under his breath, cutting off his curse. He dropped to his knees and patted the greasy carpet, feeling for the phone. He grabbed it and read the message from Denman.

“Cming.”

He snapped it shut and made his way farther into the silent darkness.

He almost tripped over the package. Sitting on the floor next to a door without a sign was the parcel of takeout food. He bent down and touched it. It was cool and the paper bag was damp. He looked both ways down the hall. He was alone. There was no light coming from under the door. He tested the doorknob. It was locked.

“What is going on here?” he asked himself. He tried the knob again. “If this isn't an invitation, I don't know what is.”

He stepped back and quickly kicked the door. The frame splintered and the door wobbled open. Cole put his shoulder to it and pushed it the rest of the way open. He flinched with the pain that burned in his chest.

Cole stopped and listened. The room he had entered was dark and quiet. He felt for the light switch and flicked it on.

DENMAN FOLLOWED HIS
quarry up the steps to the SkyTrain station at Stadium. The man quickly turned and headed down to the platform. Denman paused at the ticket dispenser. Even though he had a pass, he needed a moment to think. It was quiet on the SkyTrain at this time of night. He would be conspicuous. His only other option was to give up on this tail and rejoin Cole.

He decided to stick with his man for the time being, just to play this out. He pretended to buy a ticket and walked down the steps to the platform. The man with the delivery was waiting for an eastbound train. Half a dozen others stood around on the platform, reading newspapers or listening to iPods.

Eastbound: the next stop was Main Street, just a few blocks from where this whole charade had started. And then Commercial Drive, a good half-hour walk from where Denman had left Cole.

He heard the whistling of the train approaching from the underground tunnel. A gust of air preceded the train's arrival. The squeal of brakes grew louder and the train appeared. Four or five people got off, and those waiting, including the delivery man and Denman, boarded the train. The delivery man took a seat, setting his package down next to him and making himself comfortable as if for a long ride. Denman stood by the doors, holding onto one of the overhead bars. The train pulled out of the station and a moment later he could see the Lucky Strike Hotel whiz past.

Denman hazarded a glance at his quarry. The man was looking straight at him. Denman let his gaze scan past the man and to the other passengers. Denman's cell buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket and flipped it open. The message from Cole read, “82 Pender.”

Denman looked back up and was certain the delivery man was grinning at him.

He felt the train slow as it took the sharp corner at Quebec Street, then speed up again as it raced toward the Main Street stop.

Grinning at him.

Cole was about six blocks away now.

Grinning
. When the train stopped Denman swung through the rear doors onto the platform. From the corner of his eye he saw the delivery man rise, leaving the food on the seat, and make for the train's front doors. About to dash for the stairs, Denman knew that the delivery man would step in front of him in a split second. As he drew adjacent to the front doors, Denman jumped high above the brick platform and with his right leg kicked sideways, connecting with the big man's chest. The delivery man's face froze in shock as the blow knocked the wind out of him and he stumbled backward into the train car.