Last of the Independents. Sam Wiebe
photo taken by his aunt.
“He disappeared just out front, parked in a car on that side street.” I pointed through the wall. “Mr. Ramsey hasn’t been much help. I’m not really sure why.” I turned to Ramsey and gave him an expression of innocent puzzlement. “Do you not want the child to be found, Mr. Ramsey?”
“I don’t want to get mixed up,” he said in explanation to his customer, who had withdrawn from the counter, leaving the bracelet.
“You put your own convenience over a missing child?”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Not what he said on Tuesday,” I told the woman.
She said something to Ramsey that I didn’t catch, but couldn’t have been too different from “I want nothing to do with you, asshole.”
After he had buzzed her out, Ramsey turned to me, dull fury written on his face.
“She looked like a good customer,” I said. “That would’ve been, what, a four-hundred-dollar sale?”
“Get out of my store.”
“Where’s your daughter?”
“She doesn’t know anything. Go.”
“We both know you were there,” I said. “You think Szabo didn’t tell me? Or that the cops wouldn’t back him up, I ask them?” I picked up the bracelet and let it fall. “The fact you tried to game me tells me something.”
No answer, just a sullen, unblinking stare. I pounded my fist on the table, causing the jewellery to rattle and Ramsey to wobble on his stool. He was squat and solid-looking, but age and a sedentary lifestyle were working against him. Once he regained his balance he was quick to sweep the jewellery back into its display box.
“See, I don’t think you’d hurt a child. You have one of your own, which generally means you have some degree of empathy. But why run interference for someone like that? Kind of parent does that to another parent?”
“I know nothing,” he reiterated. I could tell by his expression the words sounded false even to his ears. I could also tell that he’d cling to them as long as he could.
“How ’bout you talk to me and let’s decide that together. Doesn’t have to involve the law or anyone else. Or you could talk directly to Mr. Szabo.”
The door to the back room opened. If Ramsey had wavered at all during our conversation, at the sight of his daughter his will was re-forged. Lisa was about my age, pear-shaped, with a face buried under bronzer and red lipstick.
“You get the hell out of here,” she said to me. “He’s not talking to you. Ever. Understand?”
“He said you were the one who dealt with Szabo.”
“You’re a police officer?”
“Private detective working for —”
“I don’t care,” she said. “Get out or I call the real police.”
I nodded and walked to the door to wait for her to buzz me out. Propping the door open, I turned back to hurl some scathing putdown at them. I started to point out that between the two of them they had one pair of eyebrows, but it was too much of a mouthful. I drove home alternating between coming up with better insults and telling myself I was the bigger man for holding my tongue. The perfect ending for a day/week/month full of mistakes, false starts, and what-could-have-beens.
Thursday, 7:30 p.m.
Place: Szabo residence, a small house with a wide paint-stripped back porch.
Speaker: Agatha Szabo, aunt of Django James.
“I can tell something about you, Mr. Drayton. I can tell you were a lonely child. So you know what it’s like. I was like that. So is Django. Cliff? No, he was always too angry to be lonely.
“Django is quiet. He sees everything — that he gets from his father. It’s hard for him to fit in.
“I know what his teachers think — that he was unhappy at home, or that Cliff was a bad father. It’s not true. He’s strict about business, yes, but he loves his son. And Django loves him. When Django was younger, Cliff would read to him every night.
“Since he’s been gone, Cliff has become short-tempered. He’s angry at himself. His business has been slow, and he makes mistakes he never would have before. He was distraught when Marisa died, but it was easy for him to know what emotion to feel. He’s lost now.
“The policeman, Fisk, seemed to think Django might have taken off in the car. I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t leave his father and I. He was very well-behaved.
“What do I think happened? I haven’t said it, even to myself. It’s too horrible to say. But I think it all the time. My beautiful nephew.
“I dream about him often.”
VI
The Ethereal Conduit of Madame Thibodeau
“He’s been sleeping for the last two hours,” I heard my grandmother say as she led someone down into the basement. I imagined them in single file, proceeding cautiously down the stairs, the only light my grandmother’s torch. And me, lurking in that basement like some cut-rate Cthulhu, waiting for the seals on my sarcophagus to be broken.
The expedition reached the lower depths of the household. I emerged from my room stumbling and rubbing my eyes. I saw Katherine and Ben, noted their reactions, and debated whether they’d think less of me if I turned around and retreated back into my room.
“Did you forgot Monday’s a work day?” Katherine asked.
“I didn’t forget.” I took the mail from my grandmother. “Just felt like taking a personal day.”
“Usually you phone in and tell the office.”
I tore up the flyers and subscription renewal warnings. “Usually Mondays the office is empty.”
“Would you like some lunch?” my grandmother asked me.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Well, would you mind putting on some pants?”
I stepped into a pair of jeans, turned on the light and ushered them inside. My grandmother retreated to the sanctity of the upstairs. I sat on the bed, motioned Katherine into the threadbare love seat. Ben stood against the wall. Usually he needed to be at the centre of any discussion. Today he held back.
“So what’s going on?” I said, groping behind the headboard to find my moccasins.
“You tell us,” Katherine said. “Mr. Szabo dropped off some money. About sixty bucks in change. I put it with the rest.”
“Good,” I said. “Any other developments?”
“Like what?”
“No messages?”
“None,” she said. “Oh, except for that skinny record producer chick. What was her name?”
“Amelia Yeats,” I said. “What did she say?”
“Just that she really enjoyed meeting a famous detective and wanted to have dinner with you tonight. I told her you were busy.”
“Really?”
“And afterward you might want to come back to her place and share a nice bubble bath. Come on, Mike.”
I collapsed back onto the bed. “So sorry for having a dick.”
Ben had begun inspecting the room. “You have a Sega,” he said.
“If you listen closely you can hear his fanboy-itis wearing off,” Katherine said to me.
“No, it’s a nice room,” Ben said. “It’s fine. It’s