Читать книгу Serpents Rising - David A. Poulsen - Страница 7

We took Cobb’s SUV, an older Jeep Cherokee with four wheel drive and the biggest engine Jeep makes. While we drove, Cobb filled in a few more missing pieces.

Blevins had given him an envelope filled mostly with cash — I didn’t ask how much — the address of the house on Raleigh, and a picture of his son. Blevins had said the picture was a year old but that Jay hadn’t changed much. A little skinnier and a couple of tattoos, rattlesnakes, but they were on his shoulders and upper arm, not visible if he had a shirt on. The envelope also contained the name of Blevins’s lawyer (in case the money was insufficient) and Blevins’s own business card with his home address on the back.

“What do you think Blevins was wanting to do before he turned himself in?”

“I really don’t know. Maybe try one more time to find the kid. Or look after personal stuff, financial stuff. He didn’t say. I offered to help him with the surrender to the cops but he said he’d handle it on his own. Besides, he wanted me to get started ASAP with looking for the kid.”

We got where we were going in a hurry, partly because the area wasn’t far from where I lived and partly because Cobb seemed determined to test the Jeep’s speed capabilities.

We started in a part of Calgary that shoppers and diners don’t usually frequent. I reasoned that Jay Blevins would have tried to stay fairly close to where he was buying drugs. Convenience.

Inglewood is Calgary’s oldest neighbourhood and has made a comeback from a couple of decades ago when it wasn’t a place you wanted to be. Now, as the transformation moves forward, it’s a funky mix of mostly good and some not so good — both in its architecture and its populace.

Cobb found a parking spot between a couple of sub-compacts and we stepped out into a maze of buildings three quarters of a century old or older. The not-so-good part of Inglewood: a military surplus store, a couple of warehouses, what was once a hotel, a few shelters, the Salvation Army, street counsellors, a couple of community churches run out of very non-church-like buildings. I’d been here before when researching stories and I guessed that Cobb, even if drugs hadn’t been his focus as a cop, was not unfamiliar with the area.

I suggested we start with the shelters. Blevins had said Jay had taken off before, sometimes for fairly long periods of time. He’d need a place to sleep, would know what was out there.

A couple of people hanging around outside the Sally Ann knew Jay Blevins; he had stayed there a few times. But if they knew where he was now they weren’t willing to share that information.

Cobb and I headed inside. I knew one of the people who worked there — a pastor who ran twelve step programs out of the Sally Ann and a couple of other rehab centres in other parts of town. I’d interviewed Scott Friend a few times, and found him to be optimistic without the over-the-top cheery you see on the religion channels. I knew he spent a lot of time on the street and hoped he’d be in.

He was. He was sitting at a wooden desk working on a sandwich and tapping at a keyboard. He looked up, recognized me, and stood up, smiling.

“Adam, how’ve you been?” He extended a hand.

I shook it. “Good, thanks, Scott. This is Mike Cobb. Mike, Scott Friend.” They shook hands. “We’re looking for someone,” I told him. “I wish we could take time to visit but it’s kind of urgent.”

He looked at me. “No need to apologize. I hope I can help.”

Cobb showed him his P.I. card, then held out the picture of Jay Blevins. “Know him?”

Friend took the picture looked at it for several seconds, handed it back, and nodded. “Sure, I know Jay.”

Cobb tucked the picture back in a jacket pocket. “Seen him lately?”

Friend shook his head. “Not in … I’d say a month, anyway. Is he in trouble?”

“We’re not sure. Just need to talk to him. A family matter.”

Friend looked at me. “But urgent.”

“Yeah,” I said

“I heard he had an OD episode. I’m guessing he must be okay or you wouldn’t be looking for him.”

“Yeah, he recovered from that,” Cobb said.

Friend nodded. “And he’s back on the street.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Using?”

“Looks like it.”

“We get a lot of people looking for family members. Some hire guys like you.” Friend said it casually. “Most don’t find the people they’re looking for. Mostly because the people they’re looking for don’t want to be found.”

“He attend your meetings regularly?” Cobb asked.

Friend shook his head. “He’d start with the best of intentions, come to a couple of meetings, then drop out of sight and go back to using. That happened three, maybe four times.”

“Any idea where Jay lives when he’s on the street? Where he stays?”

Another head shake. “Sorry, I’d like to help but I really don’t know where you might look … other than maybe the other shelters.”

“How about a guy about the same age as Jay? Name’s Max Levine. They were friends. Or a girl named Carly? Don’t have a last name. Probably younger than Jay or Max.”

Scott Friend thought, then shook his head slowly. “Sorry, can’t help with either of them. Maybe try some of the folks outside.” He pointed at the people we could see through the windows that faced the street.

“Thanks, Scott,” I said. “Good to see you again.”

Cobb handed him a business card. “If you happen to run into him or hear anything about where we might look, I’d appreciate a call. And thanks.”

Friend took the card, nodded. “Any time.”

We had no luck on the street with Max Levine or the girl named Carly. It seemed to me there was a less cordial feel to our second pass through the people outside the Salvation Army building.

Cobb and I split up to cover more ground faster. We mapped out two routes that would take us to several places where a runaway kid might hang out. We’d meet up two hours later outside a take-out pizza joint on 9th Avenue.

I got two hours of nothing. A couple of times I thought the person I was talking to knew something but wasn’t about to tell me. Code of the street people.

When I got to the rendezvous point, Cobb was already there but he wasn’t alone. He was engaged in a conversation with a short, bearded man wearing a bundle of winter clothes, none of which were what could be called colour coordinated, including his mitts, one of which was tan and huge, the other not a mitt at all but a glove, orange with blue trim.

The conversation was one-sided. Cobb was doing the talking, his voice low and controlled but forceful. He saw me, paused, and indicated I should come over.

“Adam Cullen, meet Ike Groves, the Grover.”

I nodded. Ike Groves did not respond.

“Now Grover, we’ve talked about the importance of manners. Say hello to the gentleman.”

Groves growled something that approximated hello. Cobb turned toward me without removing a hand from the shoulder of a coat that may have been tan once but was now the grey-brown of undercooked hamburger.

“Grover here was just about to tell me what he knows about a particular house not far from where we’re standing where some enterprising people are selling illicit products, isn’t that right, Grover?”

Groves looked around … worried.

“My friend Grover lives in the neighbourhood and knows everything, but sometimes he’s reluctant to share information with his friends. I was just reminding him about his involvement in an ill-advised scheme involving a number of automobiles that didn’t belong to him but somehow turned up in a storage garage he was renting.”

Groves squirmed but the hand remained firmly attached to his shoulder, and even with the coat as padding I guessed that the shoulder was in some discomfort.

“Happily for Grover the police never learned about the vehicles in question,” Cobb turned to Groves in mid-sentence, “but who did know all about the operation and chose not to inform the authorities about what was going on in that garage, Grover, who was that again? Speak up, I’m having trouble hearing you.”

“You, Cobb, and I appreciate it but I can’t say —”

“Oh, now see Grover, there’s a word I hate — that word but. Now what would have happened on that stolen auto thing if I’d been thinking, ‘I don’t really want to turn my friend Grover in for doing something very illegal, but …’ Thing is, Grover, there was no but then and there really shouldn’t be a but now. You can see my point here, can’t you?”

Groves winced and I was fairly sure the grip on the shoulder had just got tighter.

“Alls I know is that there’s a guy owns a few houses around here. Maybe three or four. That’s one of them. He buys places cheap, fixes ’em up a little bit, rents ’em to people who have … business interests.”

“Crack houses,” Cobb said.

“You didn’t hear that from me.”

“This particular house — you know the tenants?”

Vigorous head shake. “Uh-uh, and that’s the truth, man. From what I hear I don’t wanna know.”

“Bad guys?”

“There’s bad guys and there’s bad guys. These are guys people like me stay away from.”

Cobb said, “Jay Blevins.”

“Who’s that?”

“That’s my line, Grover. You know him?” Cobb held out the picture.

Groves studied the picture, thought for a few seconds. “I’ve seen the kid. Didn’t know his name. Pothead, crackhead, maybe other shit too.”

“He ever buy from you?”

“Aw, come on, Cobb, you know I don’t —”

Louder. “He ever buy from you?”

“Naw, I’ve seen him on the street a few times. Goin’ in and out of shelters. I don’t pay attention to them kind.”

“Because he’s not one of your customers?”

“Punks like that attract the wrong kind of people. Parents, cops, guys like you. Like I said, I steer clear.”

“When’s the last time you saw him?”

Another shrug. “No idea. Month ago maybe … or maybe two.”

“Where?”

“Told you man, I don’t pay attention to punks like him. Bottom feeders. Low life, you know?”

“I can see how having to associate with riff-raff like that would be upsetting.”

“Yeah, so now you know what I know and you can let go of my shoulder.”

“I need a name, Grover.”

“What?”

“A name. I’ll buy your story that you don’t know the people in the house. But I need the name of the owner. The guy with several properties.”

Groves shrugged. “Shit, how would I know that?”

“Guy owns three or four places around here that house the kind of businesses you described. You know who owns them.”

“Jesus, man …”

“The name.”

Groves winced again, looked over at me, and leaned closer to Cobb, whispered something. Cobb let go of the shoulder, took a step back. “Now, Grover, I’m hoping you aren’t thinking that you can mess with me, because if that happens, it will come back to haunt you.”

Groves feigned indignity. “I wouldn’t do that. You know me better than that, Cobb.”

“One last thing, Grover — you hear anything, I mean anything about that house or the people in it, I’m your first phone call. You got that?”

Grover didn’t answer and started moving quickly away from us.

Cobb and I watched him walk away, flexing the shoulder, rubbing it with the other hand.

“Friend of yours?”

“Yeah,” Cobb managed a half smile. “We’re real tight. He was one of my informants back in the day. And I wasn’t kidding — there isn’t much that happens in this part of Calgary that Grover doesn’t know about. Kind of fortuitous running into him.”

“You think he knows about the shooting?”

“If he doesn’t he will soon. The question is, will he call like I told him to.”

I looked down the street. Groves had already disappeared. I looked back at Cobb. “How’d you make out?”

“Like the song says, ‘I got plenty of nothin’.’ You?”

“Zeros. I asked some guys that looked like regulars on the street person circuit. A couple of vague, ‘Yeah, I think sos’ as far as having heard the name, but that’s it. Scouted the area under the train bridge. Three or four people sleeping. A couple of guys just sitting, not talking, not sleeping — just sitting. They didn’t know Jay. At least that’s what they said. They didn’t change it up even after I told them the kid could be in danger, so maybe they really don’t know him. Hard to say.”

“I didn’t expect it to be easy. And if Jay’s old man has tried to find him before, the kid might be pretty practiced at leaving no trail.”

I nodded. “Could be.”

“Looks like I’ve got a stop to make before we carry on with looking for the kid. Follow up on what my friend Grover told me. Won’t take long. Care to come along?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

Gifford Sharp was a realtor, his office located in a strip mall not far from the University of Calgary. We’d caught a break in traffic. In just under a half hour we were parked in front of Sharp’s office, the Jeep nose in to a tired two-storey, red brick building, flanked by a hair stylist and a computer repair place that didn’t look open.

Cobb sat, not moving, staring at the window that said “Gifford M. Sharp, Realtor, Million Dollar Club.”

“Million dollar realtor, fifty dollar office,” Cobb said as he climbed out of the Jeep. I followed him onto the sidewalk and through the door that took us into the office.

Apparently being a million dollar club member doesn’t mean you can afford office help. One man sat at the only desk, staring at a computer screen. He was fifty-ish and bulky in a wrinkled grey shirt and loosened red tie with what looked like post-modern penguins on it hanging limply around a thick neck that sported a schematic of prominent red veins. Dirty fingernails. He looked over the top of the computer screen as Cobb stepped up to the desk.

“Why do I get the feeling you guys aren’t looking for a nice four-bedroom with a spacious yard and several recent upgrades?”

“Gifford Sharp?”

The man eyed Cobb for a few seconds before answering. “I’m him,” he said. “If you’re in the market, it’s Giff.”

“I’m Mike Cobb. I’m a private investigator looking into the shooting at your house on Raleigh.”

Sharp looked back at the computer screen, tapped a couple of keys, looked up again. “I already talked to the cops.”

“We won’t take much of your time. Just wondered if you could tell us who your renters are.”

“I could, but like I said, I already spoke to the real investigators.” He dragged out the word “real.”

I reached in my pocket, pulled out a notepad and a pen, flipped open the notepad. Cobb saw me do it and said, “This is Adam Cullen, reporter for the Herald.”

Sharp shifted his eyes to me. “I don’t need no publicity here.”

I steadied the notebook, pen poised to write.

“We don’t need to give you any,” Cobb dragged out “need,” a couple of beats longer than Sharp had with “real.”

Sharp said, “What do you want to know?”

Cobb said, “Your renters — who might they be?”

“Outfit called M and F Holdings.”

I put my notepad away.

“How long have they been renting the house?”

“Just coming up on two years. I bought it in January, had it rented by February 1.” Proud of that.

“How did the rental come about?”

“Two people walked in here, just like you did, except it was a man and woman.”

“What were their names?”

“Smith.”

Cobb raised his eyebrows.

Sharp shrugged. “I’m not the government. I don’t ask for ID. People sign a contract, give me the first and last month’s rent and the damage deposit, they move in.”

“How much rent?”

Sharp cleared his throat.

“What was that?” Cobb leaned on the desk.

“Two thousand.”

“A month?” I asked.

“Yeah, a month.”

“So they gave you four thousand dollars and the damage deposit,” Cobb said.

A beat.

“Not exactly.”

“Then what exactly?”

“They … uh … paid for a year in advance.”

“Twenty-four thousand.”

“Well, actually, thirty-four.”

“Sorry,” Cobb said. “You lost me there.”

“Twenty-four grand for rent, another ten damage deposit.”

“You normally charge ten thousand dollars damage deposit on your rental properties?”

Hesitation. “Not normally, no. It was … uh … their idea.”

“So they wrote you a cheque from M and F Holdings for thirty-four large in advance.”

“Right.”

“And no catches?”

“No…. Well, only one. They told me they didn’t want me coming around the house — no owner drop-in checks or anything like that.”

“And for thirty-four thousand clams, I’m betting you didn’t see that as any kind of obstacle.”

Sharp shook his head again. “Look, I got work to do here.”

“What happened when the year went by? You see the Smiths again?”

“Just her. She came in a couple of weeks before the lease expired, paid up again.”

“But just twenty-four thousand this time, right? Because the damage deposit had already been paid.”

Sharp looked down, didn’t answer.

“Let me guess, Mr. Sharp. It was thirty-four thousand again and maybe a reminder from Mrs. Smith that you didn’t need to be coming by the house.”

Sharp didn’t look up.

“Mr. Sharp?”

“Yeah, something like that,” he looked at me. “You ain’t writing any of this in the Herald, right?”

I tapped my pocket and smiled at him.

Cobb said, “What did they look like?”

“The Smiths?”

“No, Giff, the Obamas. Who are we talking about here?”

“She was a looker. Classy broad, expensive clothes, tall, dark hair, nice smile, not movie star looks but not far from it.”

“You see what they were driving?”

“Uh-uh.”

“What about Mr. Smith? What did he look like?”

“Hard to tell. I was looking at her, you know what I mean?” He chuckled. Neither Cobb nor I smiled. “Big guy, not in terms of height but broad like a football type, maybe a linebacker, you know? Probably works out or maybe does steroids, what do I know. Hair sort of reddish, I think. I only saw him once, I don’t remember exactly.”

“Guy writes you a cheque for thirty-four grand, you don’t recall what he looked like? Why am I having trouble with that?”

“Had one of those noses that looked like it had been broken a time or two. Maybe fights or something. And real big hands, I remember that. Good dresser too, like her that way.”

“How old?”

“Mid to late thirties maybe. Both of ’em.”

“And you never went by the place since that first time they came in.”

“That was part of the deal.”

“That isn’t what I asked you.”

“I might’ve drove by a time or two, just to make sure the place was still standing.”

Cobb laid the picture of Jay Blevins on the desk facing Sharp. “You ever see this kid? Maybe during one of your drive bys?”

Sharp looked at the picture, picked it up and handed it back to Cobb. “Never seen him. Who is he?”

“Missing kid we’re trying to find for his family. A kid who did some buying at the house you rented to the Smiths.”

“Don’t know anything about that.”

“I’m sure you don’t. Appreciate your time, Giff.”

Sharp handed each of us one of his cards. “You ever lookin’, give me a call. I’ve got some nice condos in the southeast … nice condos. Or if you know somebody and send them my way, I usually offer a five hundred dollar incentive, but you guys, seven fifty.”

I took the card. “Is that Sharp with an ‘e’?”

I smiled at him as Cobb turned and led the way back outside. I fought the urge to grind the business card under my heel on the way to the door. Cobb didn’t say anything until we were back in the Jeep.

“Sharp,” he said. “Middle name Notso.”

“I’m not sure about that. Seems pretty savvy to me. I don’t know of many landlords pulling down that kind of revenue.”

“Good point. By the way, nice touch with the notepad.”

I grinned and Cobb chuckled.

“You hungry?”

I looked around hoping there was another option besides the donair spot a few doors down. “I am, but I’d be a whole lot hungrier if we were anywhere but here.”

He nodded. “Got any more ideas as to where we might look for Jay Blevins or Max Levine?”

“A couple.”

“Good, let’s grab a sandwich somewhere and get back at it.”

“We can do better than that — head down to Chinatown. We do dim sum and talk to a couple of guys I know. Longshots maybe, but worth trying.”

Cobb looked at his watch.

I said, “There’s a place that’ll get us in and out fast. One of the people I think we should talk to works right near there. The other guy won’t be hard to find. Both of them are … uh … connected.”

Cobb nodded. “Let’s do it.”

Twenty minutes later we had miraculously found a parking spot on 3rd Avenue just off Centre Street and were sitting at a corner table at the Peking King. The “King-King” as it’s known to the locals is one of those best kept secrets, virtually unnoticed and unknown except to the Chinese residents of the area and a few non-Asian types like me who have stumbled across it by accident.

Cobb told me he didn’t know dim sum from chop suey so I ordered a few things I thought were conservative enough for the fledgling diner: shrimp dumplings, steamed wheat buns with pork filling, a couple of bowls of duck egg and pork congee (a kind of porridge with non-porridge-like stuff mixed in), some lotus leaf rice and, to test Cobb’s limits at least a little, a few Phoenix talons — deep fried chicken feet served in a black bean sauce.

Cobb did well, eating at least a little of everything — he seemed to like the dumplings a lot, the congee somewhat less and, to my surprise, he went back at the Phoenix talons a second time.

As he chewed on a wheat bun, he looked at me and nodded. “I wanted to thank you for this.”

“I don’t need much of an excuse to come to King-King.”

“I meant helping me look for the kid.”

“Haven’t helped much so far. You think he’s in real danger?”

Cobb’s shoulders moved up a couple of centimetres, then back down. “If I was a betting man, I’d lay five to two on they go after the kid. Show the world nobody fucks with them, that kind of thinking.”

“A lesson.”

“Something like that. These two guys you mentioned, what’s the deal with them?”

“One of them, Jackie Chow, works down the street, runs an adult video store. Sells more than videos there. The other guy is a part-time pimp, part-time dealer. Buys and sells guns as a sideline. I only know his first name, Yik. Bigger player than Jackie Chow but not the top banana. Not a nice man, but I did him a favour once and if he’s in the mood he might tell us something interesting.”

“Yik.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t like it if people make humorous remarks about his name.”

“Maybe he should change it.”

“That would be the kind of remark I’d avoid.”

Cobb shrugged. “What kind of favour?”

“It was while I was doing the series on drugs in Calgary. I’d met with Yik and he’d filled me in on the coke scene — without any names, of course — in this part of the city. While we were having coffee at a place not far from here, a couple of cops came into the place wanting to be macho. They spotted Yik and thought this would be a good time to interrogate, aka hassle, him. I let them know I was a newspaper guy and then made a big deal of taking down badge numbers, descriptions, anything I could think of; I wrote down their questions as fast as they could ask them. They either got nervous or pissed off and finally stomped out of there. I didn’t think it was any big deal but Yik liked that I backed him. We’ll see if he remembers.”

“That notebook of yours is a handy little implement.”

“Sometimes.” I grinned.

We finished the main course and though I recommended he try the Malay steamed sponge cake for dessert, Cobb settled for green tea. I ordered an egg tart and opted for oolong tea.

When my dessert arrived, Cobb pointed at it, not in a good way. “What is that?” It was an accusation disguised as a question.

“It’s called an egg tart.”

“I know that. I heard you order it. What’s the stuff on top that looks like hay?”

“Bird’s nest.”

“Sure, that’s what they call it. What is it?”

“Bird’s nest.” I tucked into it.

“Nice.”

He watched me eat for a while. “I haven’t asked you because I think I know the answer but did anything further come up in connection with your wife’s death? Any leads? Suspicions?”

I shook my head, set my spoon down. “Nothing.”

“I wish I could have helped you more than I did. That damn thing still doesn’t make sense to me.”

“You did all you could. I wasn’t unhappy with your investigation.”

Cobb nodded. “I know you weren’t. But I was. I wanted to get the son of a bitch.”

I nodded.

Cobb stared at his tea cup, not seeing it. “I think about it sometimes … even after all this time. That there must have been something we … I missed.”

“The arsonist didn’t give you or the police and fire investigators much in the way of clues.”

“Maybe. But there’s something or someone out there that if we could just find it, or him, we could finish this thing. I’ve thought about it a lot. Sometimes I even wonder if we shouldn’t have looked a little closer at your wife.”

I stared at Cobb. “What do you mean?”

“I know you said she didn’t have any enemies but I sometimes wonder if there wasn’t something, maybe, in her past.”

I shook my head. “I know it’s tempting to think about especially when we’ve got nothing else, but as I said then, there just isn’t anybody who could possibly have any reason … Look, I know every guy thinks his wife is perfect, but —”

“Not every guy thinks that.”

“You’re right. And I know I sound like a parent with the smartest, best-looking kid in the world, but Donna was the person others came to when they were having some spat or other, they’d ask her for advice, like an unofficial counsellor. I just don’t think —”

“I know. I get that. But what about before she knew you? Something in her more distant past. Not necessarily something she did or even knew about. Maybe some guy that had the hots for her in college and years later the guy’s a whack job and decides to show her that nobody gets away with dumping him. I know it sounds far-fetched, but believe me, Adam, weirder shit than that — a lot weirder — has happened. And does happen.”

“Believe me, I’ve thought about it, gone through every moment of our lives together, every conversation … I just don’t buy it. Even her growing up. We talked about that, the way couples do. Donna was the braces and glasses kid in school, kind of geeky, she didn’t become the beautiful woman … okay, there I go again.”

“It’s okay. I saw pictures. She was beautiful.”

“But she wasn’t that way all her life is all I’m saying. She didn’t really bloom until she was pretty well through university. Didn’t even date much. And if there had been a guy like the kind you’re talking about, she’d have told me.”

Cobb took a last drink of tea. Nodded. Not looking convinced. “Anyway,” he started to rise. “We’ve got other things we have to take care of. Let’s go talk movies with Jackie Chow.”

The video store was as unpleasant as I’d remembered it. A big window that faced the street didn’t let much light in, mostly because it was covered in posters that announced “XXX Rated,” and had the word ADULT plastered all over it in foot-high capital letters and repeated at every angle possible, sometimes the letters overlapping. Artistic.

When we went into the store, a bell jangled to announce our arrival. We were the only people there. No one at the counter. I figured the jangling would bring Jackie Chow or someone at a dead run to head off shoplifters on a street where shoplifting was like breathing. I was wrong.

The store was decorated in a minimalist motif. A couple of posters on the chipped plaster walls, all of which needed painting. The most recent coat had been a light blue once, now it was the colour of washed-out denim. The floor, however, looked relatively clean, maybe because it’s easier, and cheaper, to sweep than it is to paint. There were a couple of aisles of empty DVD cases. Not a lot of stock. I was reminded that renting movies wasn’t the primary business conducted in the store.

Cobb checked out some of the merchandise while I read the titles on a flyer that was stuck on the wall with a single piece of aging Scotch tape. “Top 10 Adult Films of the Month.” No indication what month. Probably didn’t matter. The Virgin Surgeon, Depth Chart, and Insatiable Nurses were the top three. The latter had a promo line that read, “In this hospital anything goes and everybody comes.”

I quit reading. “This place always makes me want to have a long bath in disinfectant.”

“Roger that,” Cobb looked around, impatient. “Much as I’m enjoying all this exposure to culture, we need to keep moving. Is our boy here or not?”

On cue Jackie Chow came out of the back part of the store carrying a newspaper and a half-filled Styrofoam coffee cup. He stepped behind the counter and looked at us. “Gentlemen.”

He hadn’t changed much. Average height, still thin, too thin to be healthy. He was wearing a Les Miserables T-shirt. I guessed Value Village. Jackie Chow didn’t strike me as a guy who got to a lot of Broadway musicals. The makings of a moustache sat above his mouth, dark eyes set close together, grey ball cap with the letter L sitting fashionably off-centre on his head.

I wasn’t sure he recognized me at first. I stepped closer to the counter.

“Hey, Jackie. Adam Cullen. Writer … freelance. I interviewed you a couple of times. Drug stuff. Crack and a few things.”

Chow raised a pair of glasses to his face, studied me, took the glasses off again and set them on the counter. “Sure, I remember. Newspaper dude. Didn’t use my name. Kept your word. That was good.”

“Yeah. Jackie, this is Mike Cobb. I’m helping him find a kid who’s missing. Might be in some trouble.”

Chow smirked. “Most of the kids around here are missing. A lot of them are in trouble.” He kept looking at me. Hadn’t glanced at Cobb. “Cop.” Cobb pulled his wallet and showed Chow his PI card. Chow didn’t bother to put his glasses on and barely glanced at the card. “I’m pretty busy here so if you don’t mind —”

“I can see how busy you are and Mr. Cullen and I don’t want to keep you from all that industry any longer than necessary.” Cobb set an elbow on the counter, just grazing the eye glasses. “Just like you to take the time to look at a picture.” He held out the photo of Jay Blevins.

Chow glanced at it. “Don’t know ’im.”

“Yeah, maybe try again. With your glasses on. Just in case.”

Chow looked at Cobb. Not scared but wary. Cobb straightened, lifted the glasses, held them out.

Chow took the glasses, set them on his face, looked at the photo, then handed it back to Cobb. “Like I said, I don’t know the kid.”

Cobb said, “So he’s never come in here to buy any ‘movies’?”

Chow looked down at the counter then up at me. “I ain’t seen this kid. Here or anywhere else. And I got work to do.”

I moved closer. “Jackie, you hear about what went down last night?”

A flicker of interest. “As in?”

“As in a couple of dealers getting wasted.”

Slow nod. “Yeah, I might have heard about that. This kid have something to do with it?”

“He’s what the police call a person of interest. We’d like to find him before they do.”

“If the kid had anything to do with those two guys getting blown away, the cops are the least of his problems.”

“Any idea who might be a bigger problem for him?”

“Nope,” Chow shook his head. Too quickly. “But the word is that the people who are behind the residence where the two gentlemen were shot are not happy. And when they aren’t happy, it’s not a good thing.” Chow looked at Cobb for the first time. “For anybody.”

Cobb pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket, dropped it on the counter. “If he happens to drop in, or if you see him somewhere or hear about him, I’d appreciate a call.”

Chow picked up the card, crumpled it in his fist. “Nice chatting with you gentlemen.” Still avoiding eye contact with Cobb.

“Thanks, Jackie,” I said.

I looked at Cobb to see if he had anything else he wanted to say or ask. He turned away, not doing a real good job of hiding his disgust. Back out on the street, both of us took deep breaths. Like we were trying to get the place out of our lungs. Bad air out, good air in.

Cobb grunted, “I didn’t like that guy.”

“No one would have guessed. At least now I know who’s who when we do good cop, bad cop.”

“I could use some of that disinfectant you mentioned.”

“The next guy makes Jackie Chow look like Robin Hood.”