And something or someone, in motion, near the top.
I can’t see much through the narrow grill. Just a shadow, a shadow that shouldn’t be there, moving with some purpose, lifting something, or hiding something, or shifting a piece of machinery.
My new size thirteen dancing pumps have given me a blister on my right heel and my left knee feels like it’s swelling up. Whoever is down there isn’t going to wait around for me to creep along. I was never much of a creeper anyway. Not a great runner either.
The truck entrance is around the corner, wide chain-link gates, padlocks, and numerous signs insisting upon hardhats and safety shoes and absolving Streiner Construction of liability for injuries incurred by unauthorized visitors who are correspondingly threatened with criminal prosecution for unlawful entry.
The gate is ajar, the chain hangs loose.
I can hear him now; he’s near the top of the ramp. He’ll have to get by me if he wants to leave.
I’m ready for just about anything except the sudden appearance of a motorcycle roaring up the ramp, scattering a roostertail of mud and gravel and heading straight for me. I make the mistake of trying to haul the rider off his saddle as he powers by and get knocked off my feet by a flying elbow to the side of my head.
As I’m rolling down the muddy ramp I can hear the bike bouncing over the curb and howling away in the general direction of Stanley Park. I stagger almost to the bottom, shaking my head to clear it and manipulating the jaw sideways. Both actions are painful. I don’t think anything’s broken but I’ve taken left hooks from professionals that hurt less. Han Chuen Chu’s creation will need dry-cleaning.
Almost pitch black down here. There’s a half-moon and scattered street lamps visible, and on the far side of the pit the north side of the hotel shows a few lighted windows, but precious little illumination makes it all the way down. The floor of the excavation has the look of a giant child’s construction project abandoned in favour of a trip to the circus. Random, bound stooks of rebar jutting from truncated concrete pilings, meandering trenches, massive stacks of pipe and lumber, plywood walkways to nowhere in particular. All of it without apparent plan or purpose.
The south edge of the pit rises like a cliff face and above the rim the Lord Douglas looms like a second mountain range. Leo’s aerie is a faint glow high above. And, if I trace a line directly down from the penthouse, a plunge of probably twenty stories in total, I arrive at the dead man impaled on jutting rebar on top of a piling.
In the darkness I can’t make out features or details except that he’s lost a shoe, and his blood is staining the concrete.
The detectives who catch the case are both men, Geoff Mooney and “Looch” Pazzano. Mooney is the senior guy, about fifty, mournful features, bags under his eyes, quiet and careful the way he moves around. His partner is in his thirties, a bruiser, bristly black hair, thick neck, small feet. There are two uniforms in the room as well — first officers on the scene. One is a woman. She’s Asian, possibly Chinese, I’ll know soon enough. Her partner is a guy I met some years back. His name will come to me. I’m not thinking very straight right now. The four cops have taken over the living room and the kitchen. We’re all in the elevator foyer. Leo is sitting beside Connie. He’s looking straight ahead, his eyes reaching for somewhere else he’d rather be.
“That’s a good-looking bruise,” Gritch says.
“I hope he broke his elbow.” I’m still a bit woozy. “At least I think it was his elbow, might have been a handlebar.”
Gritch is keeping his voice down. Roland is behind him, leaning over his shoulder to catch the words.
“Knew something was up as soon as the elevator got here,” Gritch says. “The armchair was on its side. I told Leo to hold it. The living room was trashed, the TV, the French doors. Roland checked down the hall, I went across to the kitchen.”
“Nothing down the hall,” Roland says. “Bedrooms, bathrooms, nothing.”
“Whatever happened, happened in there,” Gritch says.
Mooney comes out of the living room and looks in my direction. He comes over.
“Joe Grundy, right? I’m Detective Mooney.”
“I chased somebody down the fire stairs, Detective,” I say. “Don’t know if they started from this floor. And someone had a motorcycle stashed at the construction site.”
“Get a look at it?”
“Went by in a hurry. Wasn’t big. Sounded like a dirt bike, 250cc, something like that. And you’ve got a dead body at the bottom of that construction pit. Hard to tell anything in the dark. He could have come straight down from the railing out there.”
“Oh,Christ,” he says sadly. “Wait here.”
Mooney goes off to make arrangements for more police.
“Tell who it is?” Gritch asks.
“He’s stuck on top of a pylon or something. Twelve feet off the deck.”
“Be tricky getting him down,” he says.
Roland says, “Somebody fell from here?”
“Or got tossed,” says Gritch.
Mooney looks around at the crowded foyer. More cops are arriving. “Can you arrange for another room?” he wants to know. “We’ll have to seal off this floor.”
Gritch gets on the cellphone and tells Raymond D’Aquino, the night manager, what needs to be done.
“What does it look like to you, Detective?” I ask.
“Tell you one thing,” he says. “Looks like she put up a helluva fight.”
I don’t find the statement comforting. The image doesn’t sit well.
The Lord Douglas has almost a full house tonight and Leo won’t inconvenience guests. Raymond did the best he could. We’re on the eighth floor, in a small suite that hasn’t yet reopened because the new shower stall was damaged during installation. Leo looks completely out of place, sitting at the writing-desk/vanity/entertainment centre, doodling on hotel stationery with a hotel ballpoint, diamonds and Xs and checkerboards, now and then looking at his face in the mirror, looking his age, not liking what he sees.
Gritch is standing in the hall giving a statement to Pazzano. Roland has been released to continue his shift. Connie comes to me, puts her arm through mine, we stand side by side squeezing each other’s upper arms.
“You okay, big guy?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Might want to restrict kisses on the right cheek for a few days.”
“Aww, that’s my favourite.” She glances at Leo. “He going to make it?”
“It’s killing him,” I say.
“You knew her, didn’t you?”
“She was always there.”
She looks up at me. I know what she’s asking. She has eloquent eyebrows. I shrug.
“After you talk to the detectives why don’t you head home?” I give her arm an extra squeeze. “I’ve got a lot to do. They might want to bring us down to the station for statements.”
“Why?”
“I was his bodyguard. Obviously he was concerned about his safety. They’re going to want to know what he was concerned about.”
“But you don’t know.”
“I never did,” I say.
She pulls her arm free,