Last of the Independents. Sam Wiebe

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      “Yes.”

      “What’s her name?”

      Hesitation. “Lisa.”

      “When will Lisa be in?”

      “Not today.”

      “Tomorrow? Thursday?”

      “Thursday.”

      “I’ll be back Thursday then.” I closed up my notebook, the page empty. While we’d been talking a dreadlocked white kid in cutoffs and sandals had entered the store and started perusing the racks of dusty Nintendo games. I thanked Mr. Ramsey for his time. He didn’t respond.

      Tuesday, 2:50 p.m.

      Place: Brahmin Stamps Coins and Collectables, 3rd Street.

      Speaker: Germit Gil, owner and proprietor

      “Yes, I’ve done much business with Mr. Szabo. I believe he is a good man. I like his son very much. At least once a month I’d see him. Sometimes he brought his son. I liked them very much. They seemed happy. He sold me some silver coins that day. I still have them. A very good man. I’m very sorry for him.”

      Wednesday, 10:45 a.m.

      Place: Coin Land, International Village Mall

      Speaker: Bill Koch, store manager

      “Cliffy, yeah, he did stop by that day. Sucks for him, huh? He’d bring the kid but usually send him to the food court with a dollar. A single dollar, like four quarters. What can you buy with that, a packet of ranch dressing? He never seemed cross with the kid, but he’s not an affectionate guy. But then I knew a guy in the service, nicest, most brave guy I ever met. They found two hookers buried under his house. Goes to fucking show you, doesn’t it?”

      Wednesday, 12:10 p.m.

      Place: Diaz Bicycles and Sporting Equipment, West Broadway

      Speaker: Arturo Diaz, co-owner

      “You know how I know Django ran away? ’Cause whenever they came into my place Cliff would tell him not to go anywhere, not to touch anything, and Django would usually do both. We’d look around and he’d be gone. Then we’d find him downstairs trying to pedal one of the ten-speeds. Just the kind of kid he was. No, Cliff never hit Django that I saw, but maybe he should’ve. My dad tuned me up a few times. That’s how we learn.”

      Wednesday, 2:00 p.m.

      Place: Mumbai Sweets, Cambie Street and 49th

      Speaker: Ashraf Dillon

      “Don’t remember, sorry. Lots of people bring their kids to eat. Rice or naan?”

      Wednesday, 3:45 p.m.

      Place: Emily Carr Elementary School, King Edward and Laurel

      Speaker: Henrietta Chang-Clemenceau, seventh grade teacher

      “It was so horrible, so sad. It’s why I changed schools. No, I never noticed any physical abuse, bruises and such. Believe me, if I had I would have spoke up then and there. But I’m pretty attuned to moods and attitudes, and Django was troubled. He’d rarely write in his Classroom Journal, and when he did it was about looking forward to the next Friday when his dad would take him out of school. I had words with his father about that.

      “I guess that seems counter-intuitive, that you would look forward to spending more time with someone who treats you poorly — and believe me, I did witness Mr. Szabo treat Django like that several times, snapping at him to get his coat, expressing frustration when he didn’t move fast enough. Have you heard of the Stockholm Syndrome? You may think it’s bull, but I’ve seen it.

      “Between us? What’s so horrible, Mr. Drayton, is that I can’t shake from my head the idea, the feeling, that Mr. Szabo killed his poor son.”

      Thursday I hung back until half past eleven. I’d made about fifty pages’ progress in the Veblen, decidedly less on either of my cases. I’d met with the Kroons and we decided to give the Corpse Fucker two more months of weekends: if he hadn’t reappeared by Hallowe’en, we’d leave the cameras up but forego the nightly watch. That meant resigning ourselves to another attack. No one was happy with that. Everyone agreed to it.

      When I walked into Imperial Pawn I saw Mr. Ramsey seated on the stool showing unpolished jewellery to a lanky East Asian woman of about forty. They were the only two people in the room.

      “Afternoon,” I said. “Is your daughter in?”

      Ramsey looked at me as if he’d never set eyes on me before, and wasn’t all that impressed now that he had. He turned his attention back to the woman, helped her with the clasp on a bracelet.

      I leaned over the counter close enough so the two of them were within arm’s reach. “Did some tragic illness befall her? A seventy-two-hour virus, maybe?”

      “I like this one,” the woman said. Ramsey nodded.

      Looking between them I said, “I don’t understand why you’re not more cooperative, considering you and your daughter are two of the last people to see that child before he went missing.”

      The woman looked up, looked at me, looked at Ramsey. “What child?” she asked.

      I took a flyer from my coat pocket and unfolded it. Two Django James Szabos stared at her, the petulant expression from the school photo and a lower-quality image blown up from a birthday 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. СКАЧАТЬ