Mann Hunt (The Declan Hunt Mysteries), page 2
Declan leaned a little farther to the left to get a better view. Suddenly the building was moving upward and he was heading down. His body hit the dumpster lid with a sound like a mallet pounding on a giant kettle drum. As the dumpster continued to roll, he blinked to clear his vision, only to see the high-mounted alleyway lights and the face of Brick Wall staring down at him.
“Whadda we got here?” he asked. “A little late to be sightseeing.”
Declan rolled himself off the dumpster and hit the pavement. He had intended to run, but before he could get to his feet, Brick Wall had grabbed him by the jacket and hoisted up his one-hundred-and-eighty-five pounds without effort, then slammed him back down on the edge of the steel dumpster. Declan crumpled to the pavement.
“A guy’s gotta learn not to poke his nose in another fella’s business,” Brick Wall said, before sending the toe of his sizeable right shoe crashing into Declan’s ribs. Several kicks followed before Declan felt himself being picked up again. He heard the sound of the dumpster lid being opened, then fell into a pile of rotting waste as the lid slammed shut and he was surrounded by darkness.
* * * *
Joan Beckerman unlocked the street-level door of the office, picked up the mail that had come through the slot and began the slow walk up the flight of stairs to the second floor. She wasn’t sure which creaked louder—the wooden steps or her sixty-eight-year-old knees. She turned the key in the lock and entered the outer office.
Mrs B, as Joan was known in the office, occupied the only desk in the main reception room, along with a couple of comfortable chairs, a couch and a coffee table with up-to-date magazines to ensure that no one would confuse this with a doctor’s office. She loved this space. It was warm and comfortable. Large, mullioned windows let light pour in from the street. The walls were a deep red-brown brick—rare for Calgary where most old structures were wood-framed. And the floors—wide planked wood, worn by the feet of a thousand people over the seventy-year history of this building. It wasn’t old by international standards, but here in Calgary, it was a grand old dame.
She dropped the mail on her desk. There were a couple of bills and an envelope, probably containing a payment—she recognised the return address of the elderly man who had hired them to look for his missing brother. They’d found him buried legally in Queen’s Park Cemetery.
Before she could deal with any of these matters, coffee had to be made. Without caffeine, her brain didn’t function properly.
As she waited for the coffee to finish brewing, Mrs B tidied her desk for the day. She was, undeniably, an organised woman. As the sole employee of Declan Hunt Investigations, aside from Declan, she was responsible for dealing with the clients, maintaining Declan’s schedule, billing and whatever else was required to keep the company going. And for that, organisation was the key to success.
The coffee maker gurgled, letting her know that caffeine was mere moments away. She returned to her desk, coffee in hand—black, two sugars—and sorted the contents of the envelopes. The bills went into one pile, the payment from the man in search of his brother in a second stack. The payment also included a note.
Seeing as how you found my brother deceased, and now of no use to me, I see little reason to pay you the full amount demanded. Enclosed you will find a cheque for half your bill.
Mrs B let out a sigh. She had wanted today to go smoothly.
The street door opened, followed by heavy footsteps on the stairs. A man dressed in a long dirty coat entered through the office door. His face was unshaven and grimy. He walked with a limp.
“Good Lord, what the hell happened to you?” Mrs B asked.
Declan paused. “Some people in this city have no respect for the homeless.” As Declan straightened his body, he winced and grabbed his side. “Can’t take a kick like I used to.”
“Did you find Mr Attwal?” she asked.
“Not yet, and I’ve pretty well run out of leads,” he said as he winced again.
She moved towards him. “Here. Let me help you.”
Mrs B got him up to his apartment, which occupied the third floor of the building. She helped him take off his coat and shirt. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll chuck these into the wash,” she offered.
“Thanks.”
She looked at his strong chest and rippled stomach muscles. While attractive to many, they had no effect on her. The bruising, however… She pursed her lips and inhaled. “Oooo, that’s going to hurt tomorrow.”
She touched the area. Declan inhaled sharply.
“Oh, come on. I’ve seen you in worse shape.”
“What—no sympathy for the guy who gets beaten up just so you can get a paycheque?”
“Stop your whining. Nothing appears to be broken.”
“You’re a harsh woman, Mrs B.”
She walked over to the fridge and took out an ice-pack, which she wrapped in a tea towel and handed to him. “Here. You know what to do.”
She went into his bathroom and returned with the first-aid kit.
“Take these,” she said, passing him a couple of pills. “Vitamin C might help lessen the bruising which, if I know my beatings, will be spectacular over the next few days. I’ll wrap you up to give you some support. But first… You’ve gotta go shower. You smell like you’ve spent the night in a dumpster.”
“Where do you think they threw me after they did this? It took me an hour to crawl out after I came to.”
Declan went into the bathroom and had a shower. By the time he had finished, Mrs B had laid clothes out for him on the bed. She returned with a coffee.
“It has sugar in it. I figured you could use the energy.”
He took it from her and had a sip. She stood there, trying to figure out how to break the news to him.
“You’re a lifesaver. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Declan said, as he eased himself down onto the edge of the bed.
Mrs B paused, then said, “Well, now that you mention it… I guess there’s no point in beating around the bush.”
“I wouldn’t expect you would.”
“You remember how I told you my daughter and her friend were going on a three-week trip to South America?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Declan replied, taking another sip of his coffee.
“Well, it seems her friend tripped over her cat, and somehow fell out of her window.”
Declan choked and hot coffee shot up and out through his nose. “Ow, ow, ow,” he cried.
“Luckily she lived on the second floor, so she only broke her leg.” Mrs B shook her head.
Declan mopped his face with his towel. Mrs B took it from him and proceeded to use it to clean the floor. As she got up, her legs began to buckle and she steadied herself against a chair.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Anyway, I got a call from my daughter last night, all in tears because of her vacation. Well, it was—look, she asked me to go with her in her friend’s place and I said yes.”
She stared at him, waiting for a reaction. “Well, I couldn’t let her go on her own, could I?”
“And when does this happen?” Declan asked.
“I leave Sunday.”
“Sunday? Like this Sunday? Two days from now Sunday?”
“That would be Sunday. So, you’ll need to hire a replacement for me for the time I’ll be away.”
“Well then”—he seemed to be piecing things together—“would you call a temp agency and see what they can do?”
“You’re not going to be using one of those companies. They charge an arm and a leg, and the poor temp only sees a fraction of it. Anyway, I’ve already placed an ad on one of those job-search websites. They’ll send you a list of the top ten candidates with interview times starting on Monday.”
“Monday?”
“No need to thank me. I’m only doing my job. Now I’d better leave you to rest.”
She left Declan, who was staring out of the window with a hurt expression on his face.
He’ll get over it, she thought. After all, it’s only three weeks.
Chapter Three
Charlie Watts woke up from a crappy, late afternoon nap. It was another crappy sleep in a long line of crappy sleeps he’d had since moving out of his small, under-furnished bachelor apartment and back into his old room in his parent’s basement in Brentwood. It might have been fine when he had been taking classes at the nearby University of Calgary, but as a grown man, it just wasn’t cutting it.
Since graduating from university with a major in IT-Systems Development and a minor in psychology, Charlie had been working a string of low-paying internships which had led to high praise but no job offers. The IT industry seemed to be a revolving door of interns. Why would they hire someone full-time when they could just cycle through high-tech student drones? At twenty-four, Charlie was beginning to wonder if a full-time, permanent job was the twenty-first-century version of the unicorn.
It had been four weeks since he had returned home—four weeks since his birthday—and his world was shrinking. Aside from his friend Carrie, he had no social life, and he couldn’t fully realise his social potential because he hadn’t gotten around to telling his parents he was gay.
He’d gotten so desperate to live out his non-existent gay life that, when the plumbing in the downstairs bathroom had started to act up the previous week and his parents had called in a plumber, Charlie had followed up their call with one of his own. He had informed them that his parents were terrified of older men coming into their house—he claimed they had been bound, gagged and robbed by a fifty-year-old cable repairman. The company had assured him that they would send out Mitch, a young, very competent plumber to deal with the issue, and they had also assured him that Mitch was very sensitive and good at dealing with seniors. Charlie’s fulsome fantasies of a well-muscled tradesman playing with his pipes were dashed when he was introduced to the plumber, a thirty-year-old woman named Michelle—Mitch, for short.
“Charlie-boy, dinner’s ready,” his mother yelled from upstairs.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself.
“Now!” his dad yelled even louder. He was obviously no happier about the return of the prodigal son than Charlie was. “And don’t forget to wash up.”
What am I, five?
He swung by the bathroom with its newly repaired plumbing and washed his hands. As he did, he glanced in the mirror. A kid with a triangular face, wispy blond hair and jade-green eyes stared back at him. The guy in the mirror was cute, if maybe a bit gangly. Wiry, his grandmother had called him. It wasn’t that he was without muscle… It was just that little of it had made it north of his waist. The way he saw himself was all thighs and ass with a series of twigs sticking out from his narrow upper trunk. Charlie and the wispy kid in the mirror locked eyes on each other. What did he think of the ‘real-world Charlie’? Did the mirror-kid find him attractive, or did he just see a geek?
I’ve got to get out of here and find a job. Now!
* * * *
As soon as Charlie had finished his mother’s traditional Friday-night dinner of meatloaf with gravy and canned peas, he pushed himself back from the table. “I’m going to go out for a bit.”
“Going to meet up with some of your friends?” his mother asked.
“Yeah—some friends,” he replied without enthusiasm, as he began to leave the room.
“Maybe a nice girl?” she added hopefully.
“I’m sure there’ll be one there.”
As he walked down the hall he heard his father call out, “Don’t forget to say goodbye to your gran.”
He pivoted on his heel and headed towards the rear of the house. His father always reminded Charlie to visit her before he went out, sounding like he strongly expected one of them not to be around by the end of the day.
Elsie Watts, Charlie’s grandmother, looked nowhere near her seventy-eight years. She had brightly dyed red hair, green-flecked hazel eyes and perfectly applied makeup that highlighted her strong cheekbones. She occupied the large back bedroom of the house which had been set up as a bed-sitting room, complete with a comfortable easy chair and a large-screen television. She had moved in a few years earlier after falling and breaking a hip. She was fine now, but Maggie and Ted always fussed over her like she was a combination of a china doll and a needy child. She was one of Charlie’s best friends.
“Hi, Gran. How’s your day been?” he said, bending down to give her a kiss on the cheek. He moved her TV tray and the remnants of her dinner off to the side and plunked himself on the floor beside her.
“Oh, you know this place—it’s been a bucket of laughs.”
“Solve the mystery yet?” he asked, indicating the television which was playing a British detective show.
“Third character in did it…as usual. The writers must think we’re all a bit dense not to pick up on that.”
“And Constable Winslow will always wander off in mid-interrogation to take a phone call,” Charlie added, laughing.
“And they always manage to get his shirt off at least once an episode.”
“Thank God,” Charlie added, without any reservation. He smiled. This was the only place where he felt safe. He had never told Gran that he was gay. She had always sort of known it and, when she had brought it up in conversation, she hadn’t seemed to be enquiring, only stating a fact, like that he had blond hair.
“So, I heard you were going out.”
Charlie nodded.
“Then stop wasting your valuable time with an old lady, and get moving. Go find your own Constable Winslow. I dare you.”
Charlie popped up onto his feet. “Love you, Gran.”
He bent down and gave her another kiss on the cheek. He turned to leave when she interrupted.
“Oh, here. I have something for you.”
Charlie turned. Her hand was extended towards him. She held up two twenty-dollar bills.
“Gran…” he said, reprovingly.
“Go on. Buy yourself and the constable a pint on me.”
“I don’t drink anything that expensive.”
“Maybe he does. Now go.”
She shooed him out like a fly, both of them laughing.
* * * *
Charlie wandered down 17th Avenue with his closest friend, Carrie Wallace. They had met in Charlie’s second-year Introduction to Social Psychology course and soon become inseparable. Carrie was the only person, other than Gran, who knew for certain that Charlie was gay. She was sympathetic to his frustration with living back at home and had taken him out to try and drown his sorrows.
They had started at the Crown and Anchor Pub with a few pints and bar-hopped their way to the bright red and blue neon sign of the Wild Rose Saloon. They’d snuck in through an exit to the tent set up for the throngs of tourists in for the Calgary Stampede known best for its world-famous rodeo. After several shooters, they were feeling no pain. Carrie clutched Charlie’s arm as if she were trying to stop him from floating away.
“I think I gotta call it quits,” she said. “When the patio lights get this swirly, it’s time to go home.”
“Noooo,” Charlie sang out. “One more drink. Pleeeeeease,” he begged.
“I am way too drunk. Thank God I’m working the evening shit tomorrow.”
Charlie burst out laughing. “Haaaaaa—you said shit.”
“I did not!”
“You did too! You did, you did, you did.”
“Oh shut up,” Carrie countered, then gave him a big, sloppy, tongue-filled kiss, which Charlie returned in kind.
“You know what I love about you?” Charlie slurred as he held her.
“Is it my beautiful wavy black hair? My perfect nose? My copper-coloured eyes? How about my luscious lips?”
“All of those, but what I really love is that you tolerate me,” Charlie replied. “We’re perfect for each other… If only you were a guy.”
“Can’t help you there, sweet man. Anyway, I’m grabbing an Uber, which I will hopefully not vomit in on the way home. One more of those and I’m banned for life.” She thought for a moment. “Can you imagine? I’d have to lower myself to taking cabs like the other puking drunks?” She grabbed his face and kissed it again. “Look what’s become of me!”
“You look great to me, my love. Now, you take your magic carpet ride home. I’ve got one more stop before I return to prison.”
They stepped out onto the street and Charlie waited with Carrie until her ride showed up. He walked a few blocks then hailed a cab, giving the driver instructions to get to his last stop of the night.
Ten minutes later, Charlie got out of his cab and stepped into Bar-None. He admired the huge space with its wooden floors, polished over the years by many feet and grit from the streets—wood that was washed cleaner, but not entirely clean, by some poor, nameless staffer, who everybody called the Kid. The name was more of a job title than an epithet—sometimes it was a young, muscled blond, sometimes a young skinny brunette. He was responsible for maintaining some level of cleanliness in order to keep the health board happy. The clients didn’t care. Today’s Kid, a short, shaved-headed tough, walked by Charlie and headed towards the toilets with a box of urinal cakes and the ubiquitous pail filled with bleach and water. Without looking back, the Kid shouted a general announcement, “Toilets are being washed in a minute. Use ‘em now or forever hold your pees.” The Kid laughed at his own joke. Two guys at the bar did the math in their heads, then, just to be safe, slid off their stools and headed off to relieve their bladders.
Charlie had only been here a few times before. He found a seat at the bar, recognising the bartender on duty. His name was Mickey. Charlie loved his short black, textured hair with rainbow highlights. He wore an unbuttoned plaid shirt, open to the waist showing off his hairy muscular chest, and tight jeans that left nothing to the imagination.
