Читать книгу She Demons - Donald J. Hauka - Страница 7

Chapter Two

Jinnah drove home humming a Bhangra tune and puffing happily on a smoke. Caitlin Bishop was going to shit herself when she saw the paper. It would have her and the rest of the Vancouver media — no, the international media — trailing in his wake. They’d be busy for days following this one up. Graham would, of course, be pathetically grateful. He wondered what else he might be able to squeeze out the sergeant in exchange for his gratitude. Hmmm …

“You have reached your predetermined destination. Please power down the warp engines and secure the starship before leaving,” Ensign Sulu’s voice reminded him as he pulled up in front of his house.

Jinnah made sure the car alarm was on and looked at his home. The “Jinnah-mahal,” as Sanderson called it, was an aging Vancouver Special with dirty white stucco on the walls and iron bars on the windows. Given the day’s events, these precautions seemed somewhat inadequate. Jinnah wondered if he should spring for that perimeter motion detector Sanjit had been pestering him about. Surely that would keep the Yakshas out? He thought of Thad Golway’s face and shuddered. Uttering a brief prayer for the poor boy, Jinnah walked down the concrete path to his door. After a hard day of horror at work, it was good to be back in the relative safety of home. Manjit would pour him a scotch, fuss and fret over him, then tell him all about her day at work or Saleem’s time at school — the normal, domestic stuff that was a balm to his frayed nerves.

“You are not going and that’s final!”

As Jinnah opened the door, his picture of a quiet, family evening collapsed into a heap of ruins. Manjit’s voice carried all the way from the kitchen. Jinnah frowned. His wife almost never raised her voice. There was only one thing that could possibly irritate her more than his own behaviour.

“Saleem!” Jinnah roared, striding into the kitchen.

Manjit’s dark eyes flashed at him as he entered the room. “Really, Jinnah,” she said calmly. “There’s no need to bellow like that.”

Jinnah flinched as if he’d been slapped. There stood his beautiful wife, dressed in her white health care worker uniform, all five-feet nothing of her. A second ago she had been trembling like a clarinet reed, facing their sixteen-year-old son who was taller by a scruffy, peach-fuzzed head. Having raised her voice only a moment earlier, now she was composed and elegant as Mahal herself.

“Bellowing? You call that bellowing?” protested Jinnah, trying to control his voice. “If my father were here —”

“But he is not, Hakeem,” said Manjit, sweetly but firmly. “Yelling didn’t work very well for your father on you, did it?”

“He was a Kenyan police chief! Yelling was one of the perks of the job! And stand up straight, for God’s sake!”

Saleem turned his bored, bespectacled, adolescent face on Jinnah and sunk slowly into a chair sideways, dangling one long, skinny leg back and forth. Jinnah fought to control his temper. Saleem was insolent, stubborn, self-possessed. Excellent qualities in a crime reporter but liabilities in a son, as far as Hakeem was concerned.

“What’s all the shouting about?” Jinnah demanded.

“Saleem wants to go to a rave tonight.”

“The boy’s got lips of his own,” said Jinnah irritably. “And you might say ‘hello’ to your father.”

“Didn’t hear you saying, ‘Hi, son’ as you blasted in,” said Saleem.

Jinnah opened his mouth, his volume cranked up, but Manjit’s melodious voice cut him short. “He might say more if you let him get a word in edgewise, Hakeem.”

Jinnah closed his eyes. Allah, strength. Dealing with Manjit was frustrating. Under that slender form and angelic face beat the heart of a lioness. She could be maddeningly reasonable. It was like being set upon by an attack sparrow. Conceding the point, Jinnah pulled a chair towards him and sat down on it backwards, his arms folded over the back.

“All right, son,” he said, choking only slightly on the words. “Let’s rap.”

Saleem rolled his eyes. “Dad! That’s so retro!”

“I’ve already told Saleem how dangerous raves can be,” chirped Manjit. “Drugs everywhere.”

“But mom! It’s a legal rave. It’s licenced by the city, for God’s sake!”

“Don’t say ‘For God’s sake’ to your mother,” snapped Jinnah.

“Saleem,” said Manjit. “I’ve seen the overdoses. I know what those drugs can do to kids. Besides, the problems aren’t on the dance floor. They’re around the edges, in the parking lots, the washrooms….”

Jinnah marvelled at how swiftly he’d been cut out of the conversation his wife had urged him to have with his son. Fine. If she wanted it that way, fine. He wouldn’t say a thing.

“But Mom! Lionel Simons is playing tonight and everybody knows he’s —”

“A fraud!” roared Jinnah, springing out of his chair so fast that it toppled over, beating a drummer’s tattoo on the kitchen linoleum.

“— anti-drug,” finished Saleem, his voice rising above his father’s.

“Hakeem!” said Manjit, warning.

“Don’t give me that ‘Hakeem’ bullshit!” shouted Jinnah. “Lionel Simons is a cult leader and a crook! He works his devotees into a frenzy and then sends them out to beg for cash so he can live in his West Vancouver mansion in the lap of bloody luxury!”

“Then how come he tells all his followers not to do drugs?” said Saleem defiantly.

“So there’ll be all the more for him! Next thing you’ll know you’ll be a member of his Millennium Magi gang, singing at the top of your lungs in some posh pit —”

“It’s called a mosh pit and they prefer to be called the MiMis,” Saleem interjected.

“Whatever! You’re not ending up as some screaming MiMi!”

Saleem gave up shouting at his father and appealed to his mother. “But everybody goes to raves, Mom! Like, everybody!”

“Not everybody, Saleem.”

“You’re going!”

“I have to go. It’s my job. Somebody has to hand out the free water and deal with the overdoses.”

“I mean all my friends go.”

“Name one of your friends who is allowed to go,” said Manjit, brightly.

Ahchah! She has him, thought Jinnah as Saleem stared, open-mouthed at his mother. Poor kid’s searching his memory banks. There were not many parents in Jinnah’s social circle within the Indo-Canadian community who would knowingly let their children go to a rave. If Saleem actually gave a name, he could be sure that Manjit would be on the phone in an instant, checking the veracity of his claim. But Saleem only hesitated for a couple of seconds.

“Andy Gill goes.”

Jinnah was stunned by this. Surely this couldn’t be the same Andy Gill who Graham had mentioned?

But Manjit was already ahead of him. “Andy Gill is two years older than you and his parents wouldn’t know what he was up to if he was on the nightly news,” said Manjit. “Try again.”

“No, wait a minute,” said Jinnah, sitting down again, instincts tingling. “This Andy Gill, Saleem? He’s about eighteen, right? Just out of high school?”

“Why do you wanna know?” asked Saleem, eyes narrowing with well-founded suspicion.

“Because his reputation precedes him.”

Manjit looked at her husband quizzically. “Hakeem, what’s this about? You sound like you’re interviewing your own son.”

“I am,” agreed Jinnah. “Look, Saleem, this is more important than any stupid argument we’re having. Who is this Andy Gill?”

“If I tell you, can I go?”

“We’ll talk about it. I’m offering you a plea bargain. Anything you say will not be held against you.”

Saleem studied his father’s face in much the same manner that Hakeem had earlier sized Sanderson up. He spoke smoothly, echoing his father’s tones. “He’s Mr. Puri’s nephew. Now can I go?”

Jinnah felt a significant piece of the jigsaw puzzle that was Thad Golway’s death go click! Right in his own kitchen. Ram Puri was an éminence grise of the Indo-Canadian community and a sort of ethical guidance counsellor for Jinnah. He was now even further ahead of Graham than when he’d left the newsroom.

“Well? Can I go, Dad?”

Jinnah looked at his son and smiled. Then, Graham’s words came back to him. “Thad Golway was a good kid. He got caught up in the rave scene and started dealing.” In a flash, Jinnah saw Saleem there on The Corner, squeegee in one hand, nickel bag in the other, being stalked by the Dark Figure with an axe under his overcoat….

“Dad?”

Jinnah snapped back to reality. “I think I’d like to hear more about these raves — and other things, Saleem,” he said, rising from his chair.

“Hakeem? Where are you going?”

Jinnah paused in the doorway. “I am going to find Andy Gill and perhaps solve a murder. You, darling, are going to work. And Saleem? You’re staying here and doing your homework, hmm?”

And before anyone could contradict him, Jinnah was out of the house.

* * *

Within minutes Jinnah was walking down the sidewalk on Main Street. But this was not Main and Terminal. This was well south, near 49th Avenue, an entire world away from where Thad Golway had been found. Jinnah was in the heart of Little India, walking along the several blocks of the Punjabi Market. Here, the windows of the shops were ablaze with lights. Everywhere the deevas — little clay lamps — glowed yellow, shimmering like a desert mirage against the glass panes. The light from the flickering flames of the lamps danced on bundles of traditional sweets in red and gold wrappings that were heaped high behind them. Even though Jinnah wasn’t a Sikh, he was married to one, and he couldn’t help but be swept up in the mood of celebration that swirled through the market. This was one of the highest points in the Sikh calendar: the festival marking the release of the Guru Gobind Singh from captivity and his return home to Amritsar. Everyone seemed happy. Smiles greeted him as he passed friends and neighbours. It was how Sanderson usually described Christmas, only he never saw Sanderson smile at Christmas. He always left his shopping until the last minute and looked so stressed that Jinnah usually offered him one of his many prescription tranquillizers.

Jinnah finally came to the lamp-lit shop where he hoped to find illumination of another sort, the dry goods store of his friend Puri. The door opened with a bright chiming of little bells.

“Ah, Jinnah. How nice to see you.” Mr. Puri’s smile beamed at Jinnah from behind the counter while the rest of him fussed with merchandise.

“You are stocking up for Diwali, perhaps? I have just the sweets for Manjit.”

“Actually, Mr. Puri, I wonder if you can assist me with my inquiries.”

Puri closed one dark eye, adding a few more wrinkles to his lined, round face. “Inquiries? Then you had better sit down and have some chai.”

Jinnah moved to the back of the store, where a small card table and a couple of battered folding chairs sat. This was a tradition. Puri preferred to sip and slurp his hot, fragrant tea while slipping Jinnah the information and advice he needed. Jinnah accepted a small, porcelain cup painted with a bright blue motif of Ganesha, the Hindu elephant god of wisdom. He breathed in the sweet, dark scent of cardamom and cloves mingling with cinnamon and anise.

“Now, how may I help you, Jinnah?”

The steam rising from his cup fogged the bottoms of Puri’s glasses, condensing like cataracts.

“You have a nephew, Mr. Puri,” Jinnah said, blowing gently into his cup. “Andy Gill.”

A shadow passed over Puri’s pleasant, clean-shaven face, as if the steam had turned to smoke. Here it comes, thought Jinnah.

“Yes, Andy,” Puri sighed. “A most troubled young man. He lives with his father, Sadhu. His mother, my sister, is still in India.”

Jinnah nodded. It was an all too common story. Andy was already starting to fit the profile of a street kid.

“They are close, Sadhu and Andy?”

“Is any young man of his age close to his father?” Puri smiled sadly. “That much I can understand. Andy is a difficult boy, but he has a good heart. He wants to do what is right. But his idea of what is proper is not his father’s. Sadhu is content to follow the Kirat Karna, earning an honest living like a good Sikh.”

Jinnah could not suppress a lopsided grin. He had a good idea what an eighteen-year-old boy let loose in the metropolis of Vancouver after growing up on the farm in the Punjab would think of his father’s devotion to hard work. He took a big slurp of chai, the sugary condensed milk leaving a coat on his tongue.

“How does Sadhu earn his living, Mr. Puri?”

“He has two jobs at the moment. I know that he is working on a house as we speak. Consequently, he has a difficult time trying to keep track of Andy’s activities. Mostly, they fight.”

“Fight?” said Jinnah, leaning forward slightly, instincts tingling. “Over what?”

Mr. Puri paused, cup halfway to his lips, and leaned his head sideways. “You have asked a great many questions about my nephew, Mr. Jinnah. What, may I ask, is your interest?”

Jinnah was ready for this one. He had his cover story courtesy of Saleem. There was no need to trouble Puri with tenuous links to headless bodies.

“My son has informed me that Andy goes to raves — you know, these warehouse concerts. He therefore thinks it is entirely appropriate for him to go, hmm?”

Mr. Puri shook his head and sighed. “Then you know, perhaps, the malady that affects Andy. He is not just rebelling against his father. He is searching for something else. He has a spiritual thirst, which he has tried to quench with materialism. The Western way. But he feels empty and seeks for something more. It’s a problem many children in the community face.”

Jinnah’s solution to the problem of rebellious sons involved a month in boot camp, not a weekend at a temple retreat, but he kept this thought to himself. “There may be something in what you say, Mr. Puri,” he muttered into his tea.

Puri looked especially grave as his put his empty cup down. “Then perhaps you could talk to Andy’s father, Sadhu? Give him the benefit of your experience, Jinnah. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

If Jinnah had not already finished his tea, he would have choked on it. Puri wanted him to give parental advice? He must be mad! But unless Puri told him where Sadhu worked, it would be harder than hell to find him in the forest of Gills sprouting in the Vancouver phone book — if, indeed, Sadhu had a phone.

“Of course I will, Mr. Puri,” Jinnah promised. “You can depend on me.”

* * *

It was a long drive to Surrey, south of Vancouver. Jinnah took the Port Mann Bridge across the Fraser River, cursing as he crawled along the slowly curving span. What the hell was all this traffic doing here at this time of night, for God’s sake, when he needed to get to his destination ASAP? He also wondered what the hell a construction crew was doing working so late. Whenever he hired workers for a project they arrived at noon and left by three, with a two hour lunch in between. Jinnah was so lost in thought, wondering just how much money one could make in the housing business, that he almost missed the turnoff for Panorama Ridge. The directions Puri had given him were excellent, but finding anything in Surrey was difficult. New subdivisions and streets seem to spring up overnight, and roughly a third of them were not entered in the satellite-guided Love Machine’s database.

In the end it was not hard to find the place, a huge monster house that was alive with lights. Nor was it hard to figure out just why Sadhu was still hard at work, along with the rest of the crew visible through the curtainless windows. There were two cars parked bumper to bumper at the head of the driveway — a red Porsche and a black BMW. They were so close together that to Jinnah’s eyes they appeared to be trying to mate. He wondered what sort of bastard offspring such a union would create: a PMW? A Borsche? Two expensively dressed men with Bluetooths surgically attached to their ears were pacing beside their respective vehicles as Jinnah approached.

One, a tall man wearing designer glasses and sporting a greying ponytail, was shouting down his mouthpiece as if it was a long, hollow tube. “I said it’ll be ready for final inspection tomorrow! Yes, tomorrow!” he hollered. “Of course it’ll pass!”

Jinnah put him down as a Type A personality. The other fellow was quite a bit stouter and looked like he had had his suit sprayed onto him. By contrast, he was taking the quiet but deadly approach over his phone. “You told me the moldings would be here this afternoon,” he said, voice icy with menace. “I still have a crew waiting to put them on. I don’t care if you’re closed….”

Jinnah felt a tiny spark of sympathy for the fellow and put his plans to make a fortune in the residential housing market on hold. He was almost past them when the tall guy with the ponytail grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he barked. “The house is sold.”

Jinnah found the man crass, presumptuous, and his manners non-existent. He felt no compunction, therefore, to be courteous in return. “I have an urgent message for one of your employees,” he said bluntly. “About his son.”

The transformation was startling. Ponytail turned from a self-absorbed, driven yuppie into something resembling a human. The look on his face was very close to concern.

“Hey, sorry,” he said. “Hope it’s not serious.”

“That’s for his father to decide,” said Jinnah, and breezed past him and into the house.

The place was crawling with workers trying to put the finishing touches on the interior without enough time or materials. The foreman, a short, broad Sikh wearing a hairnet under his chin that barely contained his wild beard, hardly looked up when Jinnah asked where Sadhu Gill was. He jabbed an impatient thumb over his shoulder and cursed foully as he tried to get his air nailer unjammed. Sadhu was on his knees when Jinnah found him, fiddling with a corner join in the living room, a chisel in hand. He was a handsome Sikh man in his thirties, his black work turban gilded by sawdust. As he looked up, bright, white teeth shone out, framed by his dark beard.

Jinnah greeted him in Punjabi. “Sadhu Gill? My name is Hakeem Jinnah. It’s about Andy.”

Sadhu’s smile disappeared and he looked suddenly older, like a beaten prizefighter struggling up from his knees in the tenth round. His dusted himself off wearily.

“Are you from social services or the police?” Sadhu replied in Punjabi.

Jinnah had thought carefully about how to open this encounter. He assumed Sadhu would be more willing to speak to someone presenting himself as a friend rather than an authority figure. But he had to be careful — not too familiar, not too friendly, or the man would grow suspicious. All Jinnah needed was a few questions answered to make the connection. He wasn’t about to blow it by being over-anxious.

“Neither,” he replied smoothly. “I’m a friend of Ram Puri’s. He thought I should talk to you a bit about the boy. Since my own son wants to emulate his behaviour.”

Sadhu looked at Jinnah, face haggard. “Now what has he been up to?” he said, dark clouds swirling about his face.

“I assure you, your son is blameless in this,” said Jinnah, trying to keep the man calm. “It’s just that my boy Saleem wants to go to a rave tonight. He said Andy goes to them and has told him they are harmless.”

“Harmless?” Sadhu cried. “There is no such thing as a harmless rave, Mr. Jinnah.”

“There are drugs, hmm?”

“It is not about drugs. It’s about the people he has met there. Immoral people. Staying up all night. Dropping out of school. After a few of these raves, he no longer goes to temple.”

Jinnah saw an opening and decided to risk it. “Immoral people, you say?” he said offhandedly. “Tell me, was one of them named Thad Golway, by any chance?”

Jinnah searched Sadhu’s face for any sign of suspicion. But the man was too worked up about his son.

“No. I do not talk to him about their names. They are not Sikhs, mostly. Some are Indian, some Asian, a few whites. They do not miss a rave. Not one.”

Jinnah cursed inwardly. It didn’t rule a connection out, but it did mean more digging. He tried another tack.

“Forgive me, Mr. Gill, but it sounds like you and your son have not been on speaking terms lately. Sometimes it helps if another adult, someone with a different perspective could talk to the boy, hmm? I would be happy to do this for you — for us both.”

Jinnah held his breath. For a moment, he thought he had gone too far, for the look of anger in Sadhu’s eyes sent a chill through his being. Then the eyes softened from anger to anguish, and tears started around the rims.

“I thank you for your offer, Mr. Jinnah, but it is not possible,” said Sadhu, his voice thick, barely controlled. “The boy is gone. He left a week ago with a young woman. I don’t know if he’s coming back.”

The words hit Jinnah square in the forehead, like a cricket ball. A dozen different possibilities sprang to mind. Was Andy one of Thad’s missing friends? A young woman? Could that be the one who had found Thad’s corpse?

“A young woman, you say, Mr. Gill — his girlfriend?” he asked quickly.

Sadhu shook his head and wiped his eyes with his dirty sleeve. “No. She’s older than he — almost like a mother, he says,” Sadhu blushed at the words. “Her name I know: Jassy Singh.”

That name rang a faint bell in Jinnah’s extensive memory bank. Jassy Singh … where had he heard of her? It was a common enough name in the community. There might be no connection at all. Jinnah realized with a start that Sadhu was looking at him, trembling, eyes wide in appeal.

“I have lost my son, Mr. Jinnah. Help me get him back. Please.”

Jinnah didn’t know what to say. Of course he wanted to find Sadhu’s son. But it had never occurred to him that he would take his offer of being an intermediary seriously. Holy shit! The man’s delusional. Perhaps I should just give him a recording of my latest argument with Saleem. That ought to cure him. But he found himself shaking Sadhu’s hand and clapping him on the shoulder and before he could stop himself, he uttered the words that would send him down the demon path.

“Of course I will, Sadhu. I will do everything I can.”

* * *

Jinnah kicked himself all the way home from Surrey. How could he be so stupid? What the hell was he — a crime reporter, for God’s sake — doing getting mixed up in family counselling? He couldn’t even relate to his own son, let alone somebody else’s! And he was at a dead end. No Andy Gill to question. No definite link to Thad Golway. Sonofabitch. Jinnah glanced at the clock glowing softly blue on the dashboard. Nearly ten o’clock. It was getting late and he was tired. But a plan was slowly forming in his mind, a plan that, when it leapt out at him fully formed, caused him to sail through a red light at First Avenue.

“No, fuck it. I’m going to bed,” he growled at the plan.

The plan would not take no for an answer and by the time Jinnah threw open the door to the Jinnah-mahal, his obsessive brain was already laying out the precise timing and cover stories that would be needed to execute it. It took him a moment to register how quiet the house was.

“Saleem! Manjit!” he bellowed.

No answer. Jinnah took the stairs up to Saleem’s bedroom two at a time, and immediately regretted it. He paused, wheezing, on the upper landing for a moment. Asthma again. Sonofabitch. He forced himself to wait until his breath returned. He wasn’t going to face Saleem without sufficient lung power. A quick blast of medication from his puffer helped and, feeling restored, he entered Saleem’s room without knocking.

“Hey!” cried Saleem.

Jinnah paused in the doorway. His son was on his computer, hands covering the screen. Jinnah could see just enough of the display to conclude Saleem was on one of his chat groups. Probably complaining about what a tight-ass his Dad was. Well, he hasn’t seen anything yet.

“Your mother’s at work already, is she?” Jinnah said, trying to sound pleasant.

“Yeah. Look, Dad, I don’t need another lecture —”

“You’re not getting one,” said Jinnah softly. “Saleem, how well do you know Andy Gill? Think you could pick him out of a crowd, hmm?”

Saleem looked at him suspiciously, like a school boy expecting to take six of the best who sees his headmaster inexplicably put the cane away.

“Yeah. Why?”

Jinnah grabbed Saleem’s jacket from off the bed and threw it at him. “Fantastic. Get dressed, son. We’re going to a rave.”