Since his “troubles” in recent years, his son had been demanding of Dan’s sobriety, and rightly so. Dan had been on a path to self-destruction when Ked intervened. Following a period of self-imposed abstention, they now had an agreement — occasional social drinking was fine, but not to excess. So far, Dan had kept the faith.
“I was out with your Uncle Donny, if you want an alibi. At least for the first part of the evening.”
“What happened after that?”
Dan grabbed his keys and wallet and checked his watch.
“No time for the third degree right now,” he said. “But I swear I didn’t overdo it. No secrets between us, remember?”
Being a good father was one thing, but trying to lead the life of a single gay man and keeping the two paths separate was nearly impossible with an inquisitive teenager in the house.
“I believe you,” Ked said cautiously. “I’m just curious.”
“I know. And thank you for your concern. I’ll see you tonight.”
Dan closed the door behind him before his son asked any more awkward questions.
Dan preferred to walk to work when he had the time and inclination. Today he decided to take the time. Spring was late, but the sun was at least making an effort to break through. If it could then so could he. The walk revived him somewhat.
His office was in a warehouse at the foot of Broadview Avenue, a red brick fortification surviving from the period just after Confederation. It had been modified and made chic enough to attract an IT operation, several independent design companies, and an import-export business. The area was in an enclave just far enough away from the rising towers of downtown to afford open vistas and an unimpeded view of the city’s skyline. To the west, a lone church stood out against the meagre, miserly flow of the Don River.
The plaque on the outside door bore his name. Below, it read simply PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS. The lettering was small and discreet enough, and the neighbourhood fashionable-unfashionable enough, that Dan wasn’t regaled with requests from people trying to get the goods on their unfaithful spouses. He invariably turned those down. There was low and then there was too low. Messy karma stuff. That wasn’t how he wanted to make his living.
Inside, all was quiet. The premises were modest, but they suited his needs and income. In fact, he was lucky to be renting from a former client, an international shipping agent for whom he’d once done a favour. He gratefully accepted the unused space directly over a warehouse where a treasure trove of tagged and numbered cartons rested briefly on their way to and from the airport. On any given day they housed premium artwork, fine furniture, family heirlooms, fresh flowers, exotic foods, pricey liquor, and even Cuban cigars prior to being transferred from their original cartons to more innocuous-looking boxes — transformed from contraband to sanctioned goods, from crooked to straight, with a simple change of dress that meant they could easily be transported across the U.S. border and resold in their new guise.
That he hadn’t been given front and centre in the building’s operations suited Dan’s needs perfectly. Despite being shuffled off to the far end, he did not feel himself a pariah in the bustling world of importing and exporting. To make him feel more at home, he’d been given access to Sylvia, the matronly secretary who lorded over her domain like a deposed queen just trying to make the best of things under diminished circumstances. Among her chores, both official and unofficial, Sylvia added to the ambience with a talent for baking.
Dan’s office was a soothing grey-blue, a statement of earnest sobriety. Two modest murals chosen by Donny added a personal accent. While Donny’s taste in art tended toward the modern, the pieces were refined enough not to bewilder the average viewer yet without being reduced to mere decorations. There was ample room for a filing cabinet, a desk, and two client chairs. The overall impression was just one step away from Philip Marlowe, but Dan was glad to quit his study in leafy Leslieville and head out to this place each morning. It felt like a giant step up, no matter the cost or size.
He grabbed a coffee in the lobby then checked in with Sylvia for messages and a cinnamon bun. She gave him a smile that stopped just short of flirtation. Both of them spent far too many weekends there than was good for them, though Dan knew nothing of her personal life. He knew she liked to mother him, but maybe a glimmer of sexuality spiced up her day. There was nothing pressing, she said. Anything important would be waiting for him on his office phone. He headed down a long, echoing hallway — the trademark of a true industrial building — and unlocked his door, depositing himself at his desk before a discreet grouping of files that contained the bare facts of the lives he’d been hired to restore to something like a state of normalcy, inasmuch as that was possible.
He flipped through the top three to see what he could reasonably update. All those sad stories with no happy endings in sight. Some people left behind families, careers, and cars abandoned in empty lots. Others left full suitcases and empty bank accounts. The variations were endless, as were the reasons for vanishing. It all spelled heartbreak and despair. No matter the circumstance, there was always someone who wanted to know the why of it, even if they were saddened to learn that the incurable addict had preferred to wind up dead in some alley with a needle in her arm rather than spend a life in and out of rehab.
The stories seldom ended well, even when Dan found his quarry alive. Some expressed a desire to return to their former lives, but few were able to do it. Going back home was a tough act to pull off. Moses knew a thing or two about that. So did Noah and Thomas Wolfe. Whatever their reasons for leaving, people who reinvented themselves did not remain the same afterward, even when the vanishing was by choice.
He found it difficult to keep focused on work. Before long it was clear the morning would not go well. Concentration was not in the cards. Thoughts of the previous night’s tryst stayed with him like memories of a drunken debauch. Intoxication was one word for it. His senses were on fire, his heart pounded each time he drifted off into reveries of what he’d experienced. The images shimmered on the edge of his mind, distant and unreal. Or maybe what he’d felt the previous night was real, while the rest of life’s modest little expectations were just an anteroom in which he waited for reality to catch up.
The phone jarred his nerves. He caught the name of a police contact on the display: Sergeant Ian Cunningham. He couldn’t recall having made an inquiry of this particular officer, at least not recently. His hand hesitated over the receiver: answer or don’t answer. Better to answer, he told himself. Police intel didn’t come easy. It was best to take it when he could.
In fact, the officer wasn’t responding to an inquiry, but hoping for a favour. After an awkward greeting, he explained that he was looking for information on a young woman who had disappeared not far from Dan’s neighbourhood. After a few prudent queries, it turned out she was the officer’s daughter and had vanished following an argument about boyfriends and drugs and a salacious Facebook posting. The tale quickly unfolded: piercings, tattoos, and constant back-talk to a formerly much-respected father currently at his wit’s end. This, followed by a few angry, over-heated words now much-regretted.
“Teenagers, eh?” the rueful father said.
“I’ve been there,” Dan replied.
“A good girl gone bad,” the officer lamented.
Aren’t we all? Dan thought, though he kept it to himself.
A simple request: Would he keep an ear open for word on the street?
Dan said he would do what he could, asked for the girl’s photograph to be forwarded, and put the phone down. Before he could return to the pile of waiting cases, it rang again. It was Donny.
“One waits, trembling with anticipation.”
“Ask all you like. I may not admit everything, though.”
“Was it as wonderful as it looked from an envious distance?”
“It was good, but a bit disconcerting.”
“Do tell.”