Ocean Drive, page 10
“What about us?” Brad said.
Cam led him down the aisles, keeping a safe distance from the lanes in case of another vehicle. They passed by the Hydro shed just as the lights flickered on.
“Hello?” someone called out.
They ran for the fence, pushing their way through to the parking lot, gunning the borrowed Focus that had been left there the night before. Shooting onto River Road, Brad gave a loud wail of happiness. And Cam gave one, too.
* * *
They ditched the car in a mall parking lot, taking Brad’s stupid luxury pickup back to the house. Tito was there, already deep in celebration.
“No one else could’ve pulled that off ’cept us,” he said. “We are the fuckin’ League, us three.”
Still no sign of Ivan.
There was booze and cocaine and pot, and Cam was forced to indulge in all three. In truth he was as exhilarated as the others. His plan. His execution. Despite all the obstacles thrown in their way, they’d pulled it off. Goddamn right it was cause to celebrate.
Harv and Sukhi showed up later and congratulated them. Harv was beaming. Slightly uncomfortable in their company, like a slumming college kid in a bar full of night shift janitors, he nevertheless cracked a beer and saluted them, drinking it in one gulp.
“Way to fucking go,” he said, pronouncing fucking as if the word were new to him. “Honestly, I thought if you were lucky you might get a few cases. But you got almost the whole thing.” He handed out envelopes, their first initials pencilled in the corner.
“A present,” he said. “From Dalton Hayes.”
The head of the League knows who I am, Cam thought.
“He also wanted you to have this.”
Harv passed him an object wrapped in a garbage bag that looked to Cam like the shape of a rifle. Opening it, Cam grabbed a taped and tapered handle, saw wood grain and a signature. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
“The proper tool for the proper job,” Harv said.
Cam took a practice swing with the bat. “Tell him thanks.”
Even Sukhi seemed impressed. She followed Harv back up the stairs, pausing briefly to wave to Cam, the gold tips of her fingers sticking out beneath the cuff of her coat. Cam nodded back, thinking this was already better than the warehouse.
* * *
It made the local news. A headline read, Blackout Bandits Steal Millions in Meth Chemicals From Port. The reporters had some of the details right. No witnesses, no statement from police other than they were investigating thoroughly.
He was surprised when they estimated the chemicals taken to be worth in the range of seven million dollars. His envelope had contained five thousand. Of course that was just the bonus, not the payoff itself. Harv had said they’d be taken care of.
The day after, Cam drove out to South Surrey, to the area of older, smaller houses near the Nicomekl River where his uncle lived. He knocked on the door, and when Uncle Pete opened it, he handed him a milk crate with his lineman’s gear inside.
“Figured you’d want that back,” Cam said. He had a roll of money in his pocket, but seeing his uncle’s expression, left it there.
“That’s you on the news, huh?” Uncle Pete said.
Cam said nothing, turned and stepped off the porch. After a morning of icy rain, it was turning into a nice day.
Pete followed him down the steps, his clawed yellow feet padding on the cement.
“I spent a lot of time defending you to people, saying you weren’t bad, just did a wrong thing. Guess you had me fooled.”
“Guess so,” Cam said.
“The hell are you thinking, Cam? Think these people are gonna care for you? These are scum.”
“Gave them your fucking tools, though.”
“Think I had a choice?”
Cam turned, shaking his head, smiling. “No one has a choice in anything. ’Cept me, right? According to you, I got unlimited options in life.”
“All right, Christ.” Pete sighed. “We’re both hypocrites. That your point?”
“No point,” Cam said. “You told that cop you saw me.”
“Not much Meghan Quick couldn’t find out on her own,” his uncle said. “And I worry about you.”
“Keep worrying,” Cam said. “Makes a real big difference in the world.”
He drove back to Surrey to get ready. The real celebration was tonight.
* * *
They’d rented the private room of a strip club in Surrey, catered it with stacks of joints dipped in hash oil, lines of coke. Women circulated in silver heels, nipples pasted over with sparkling tassels. He was taken into a booth with a leather couch and red wallpaper, given a lap dance and then told anything else he wanted had been paid for ahead of time.
Anything you want, he’d hear again and again that night.
At one point two women pretended to fight over the privilege of servicing him. Sitting on the couch with his pants around his ankles, Cam thought the whole thing was silly. Phony. Over the top. He chose the one who seemed more comfortable, or maybe the better actor, and closed his eyes, and thought of Elizabeth Garrick.
* * *
There was no more money coming to them. Tito told him this a few days after the party, when Cam called about getting an advance. He’d spent two thousand at the party, tipping lavishly despite the League footing the bill. After repairing an oil leak in the Civic, there was only twenty-five hundred left.
It seemed impossible, after all that work, that kind of street value—seven million—that this was the sum total of his payoff.
“I know,” Tito said. “I asked about it and Harv said the stuff wasn’t as good as they’d thought.”
“Took no less effort to get it.”
“I fucking know, man. What can you do? He also said ditch our phones and change up our routines.”
Routine, Cam thought. Looking for work, waiting around his half-empty apartment. He couldn’t afford routines.
“Let me have his number,” Cam said.
In the midst of dialing, a thought hit him—that he was so in character he forgot he was playing a role. He’d be paid later, by Zoe Prentice, once he established himself a bit further. What did it matter if the person he was playing was ripped off a bit?
It mattered. It was more than a role. For once, he deserved to be compensated fairly for his work.
“Go ahead,” the female voice on the phone said. Sukhi. Suddenly polite, maybe flirtatious. “Oh hey, Cam.”
“Is Harv there? I’d like to talk about getting paid.”
“Would you,” she said. “Did you enjoy the party?”
“It was fine. I still need some money.”
“How ‘bout you and I speak?” Sukhi said. “There’s a fish and chips place by my house. Moby Dick’s. You know White Rock?”
* * *
At first he worried about being recognized. People pointing at him, whispering. There goes Roger Garrick’s killer. He’d worn shades and a Jays cap, let his facial hair grow.
It hadn’t been necessary. This was White Rock, after all. Everybody had money, and problems of their own, and barely looked twice at a guy in cheap clothes.
Entering Moby Dick’s, Cam spotted Sukhi at a side table, drinking a massive cup of soda with two straws. Her gold fingernails drummed the counter.
“You have a better chance of getting a blow job from the First Lady than getting your money,” was the first thing she said.
Cam seated himself, took off the baseball cap, then decided it was better to leave it on. “Yeah?”
“Best to move on, you ask me. Harv will tell you the chemicals are weak, not worth that much.”
“Papers said that stuff was valued at—”
“Millions.” Sukhi rolled her eyes. “But that’s after processing, wholesale, cutting it. Street value is bullshit. Plus there’s the Exiles, who take a big piece. We just get the crumbs.”
Cam was surprised, partly at Sukhi’s knowledge of the business, more from her interest. She spoke like someone sick of the arrangement.
“Doesn’t seem fair,” he said.
“It’s totally not. But that’s the way it’s set up.”
The waitress came by and they ordered two-piece meals, a basket of fries to split. Sukhi refilled her soda from the machine in the corner, brought him back one.
“Harv’s super smart,” she said. “He’s totally impressed by what you did.”
“Impressed but not willing to pay.”
She smiled. “That’s how we do.”
“If I’d known it was only that much—”
“Think about it like an investment,” she said. “You don’t know how big it’ll pay off yet.”
“Why’re you telling me this?”
“Because you’re smart,” she said. “You got it done when even Harv said it couldn’t. He only sent Tito because he figured he could spare him.”
“And us.”
“Yeah. And you.”
The cola was flat and syrupy. Cam put the drink aside.
“Like everything else,” he said. “The people that do the work end up with nothing.”
“Doesn’t have to be like that forever,” Sukhi said. “Harv has plans. So do I.”
So that was it. Cam crossed his arms.
Sukhi reached over and ran her nail along the scar above his eye, down to his cheek. “I like it,” she said. “Makes you look badass.”
He didn’t feel badass. Powerless, yeah. And used. And about to be used again.
“Look, Harv knows you’re better than what you’re doing now. And I’ll put in a word with him, and with Cody if I see him.”
“Thanks.”
“But I need something.”
“Course you do.”
“Oh quit it,” Sukhi said, flashing anger and then hiding it, smiling. “I have to be around them and pretend to be a fucking ditz. Think I like that? Think I don’t know Harv has bitches on the side? He gets more white pussy than a Bond villain. And I put up with that, in order to make moves of my own.”
The food came and she picked up a giant steaming battered flank of fish, bit into it, spoke while she chewed.
“There’s lots going on you don’t know about. Harv wants things to change much as we do. More League independence, a better rate for the risks we take. He used to be with the Vipers, but he thought Dalton Hayes was better connected. That’s why he jumped over. Harv says they could be partners, League and the Vipers, push out the Exiles and deal direct with the cartel. He says it’d be like that if Dalton had a bigger set of balls.”
She spoke passionately, jamming food in during the breaks between sentences. Cam ate his meal and listened.
“This town is right along the border and totally open,” she said. “That’s why Harv moved his people out here. Get a foothold. You know what’s coming?”
He shook his head.
“A fucking casino. And there’ll be thousands more people here. More opportunities. It’ll be this big resort ‘tween Seattle and Vancouver, get all the tourist traffic. All we got to do is be patient and keep things moving our way.”
“And what’s our way?” Cam said.
“A little more slack from the Exiles, a bit more turf from the Vipers. Make White Rock League territory exclusive. We do that, when the casino comes in, we’re running things.”
She smiled, dabbed ketchup onto the last morsel of fish. “What do you think?”
“Sounds great,” he said.
“I know.”
“I’m still broke though.”
“God, you are so fucking small time.” Without asking, she broke off the corner of one of Cam’s untouched pieces of fish. “You need money so much, I got something I need done. Only you can’t tell Harv or the others.”
“Sounds like I’m being put in a real good position.”
“Shut up and listen,” Sukhi said. “My brother Tequila. You met him?”
“No. He’s their dealer isn’t he?”
“He slings a little, yeah. He disappeared about a week ago. Hiding out. I need you to find him for me. You do that, there’s another five grand in it for you.”
“What’s he done?”
“Don’t have a fucking clue,” Sukhi said. “After that Alexa bitch turned up in the fire, Tequila started acting weird. Two grand if you find him.”
“Thought you said five?”
“It’s two now, plus I’ll see you again. Are you going to finish those?”
Cam pushed the basket toward her. “Tell me where I should start looking.”
Eight
Denny offered to run out and get her an iced coffee, or anything else. Katy Qiu smiled and held her chair for her. Even Amanpreet Brar nodded and asked if there were duties she needed done.
I must look like trampled shit, Meghan thought.
Bruises on the side of her face, what felt like a small tear on the outside of her left nostril. Thankfully her wrist was only sprained. The doctor had wrapped a tensor bandage around it and told her not to overtax herself for the rest of the week.
There was too much to be done. She read over the statements taken from the people at the beach, along with the notes Greg Grewal supplied her from the arson scene. The autopsy would be tomorrow, but “gunshot death, fire post-mortem” seemed inevitable.
The accelerant used in both fires was kerosene, dyed red and several years old. The fuel was highly sulphuric, hence the smell, and sludgy from years of sitting around gathering bacteria. Grewal guessed that it was leftover camp stove fuel.
A jogger on the beach had smelled smoke during her morning run, sometime between 5:15 and 5:25. At that time Michael May was still ablaze. The human body could burn at most for seven hours; Grewal would hopefully be able to narrow the time frame further.
When she’d caught up, Meghan opened the Alexa Reed file and went over it, looking for connections. The Reeds’ banking information, too. It seemed a constellation of strange, ill-fitting facts. She tried plotting them on a timeline to see if that would jog something loose.
The Reeds begin withdrawing their savings, three thousand at a time. Around then, Emily Reed has her first stroke.
What happened next? Richie Reed is struck down by a hit and run.
Two months ago, Emily Reed suffers another stroke, this one fatal. Alexa flies home from college to attend the funeral, has a spat with her mom’s rich cousin, Liz Garrick, and doesn’t make her flight back to Buffalo.
Instead, she stays at her parents’ home, removing the For Sale sign.
Alexa asks Michael May, a former classmate, for a connection for heroin. He puts her in touch with Sukhi Kaur, whose brother, Tequila Narwal, deals for the League of Nations.
May then turns up dead, and Tequila turns up in May’s apartment. Meghan had surprised him there and got her bell rung for her efforts.
Meghan stood up, worked the kinks in her neck and shoulder. She downed a pair of extra-strength Advil, chasing them with water. Then opened her desk drawer and pulled out the bottle of Laphroaig she kept for emergencies.
Whisky and pills, she thought. This heady concoction was believed by superstitious middle-aged divorced lesbian police officers to contain miraculous curative properties. Often paired with cigarettes and reasonably fresh coffee…
The others had gone home, leaving only the night patrol officers and the desk clerk in the station. Meghan turned off the lights in the offices except those in her own.
Okay, brain, you’ve had your fill of stimulants. Let’s try for a connection.
First, the fire. Both Alexa Reed and Michael May were set ablaze with kerosene. Most likely May was burned post-mortem, as was Alexa.
That means the fires are ancillary. They’re done to cover up or obscure something. Murder? Hard to disguise a bullet wound, and the newspapers had trumpeted the fact that Alexa’s neck had been broken.
Robbery, maybe? Was this where the Reeds’ missing money came into play?
Had the killer slept with Alexa, or Michael, or both? Maybe the fire was an attempt to remove DNA.
Or was this meant to disfigure, to desecrate. We’ll show you who you’re fucking with.
Or the killing itself was the message.
May being set on fire at the beach would draw unwanted attention, unless it was done for that very reason. As a message to someone still out there that this would continue.
Meghan sighed. As theories went, it wasn’t awful, but didn’t exactly lead her anywhere. Just back to the same few instances of seemingly random horrors.
* * *
Richie Reed’s hit and run had occurred on 24th Avenue in South Surrey, near the turnoff for the highway. Meghan pulled up the report. Reed was crossing the street in front of his office. There was a Coffee Hut nearby, and Reed was known to dash across in the early afternoons, not bothering to walk down to the intersection. No witnesses. Neck broken on impact.
Accidental. Or not. But if not, it didn’t provide much to go on.
Why would someone target the owner of a gas station?
There was more to this. Meghan crumpled her timeline and went through again, stopping only for another drink and another pair of pills.
Her eyes blurred. The murders, the arson, the money, the house, it was all getting muddy. She should stop. Go home. Throw together some sort of dinner. Phone Trevor and say hi, Cop Mom had a bit of a run-in this week, but she’s fine, and she loves you very much.
She stood and leaned against the desk until the dizziness of the alcohol and painkillers wore off. She called for a cab. The taxi dispatcher laughed when she told him the address.
“Someone in trouble?” he asked. The joy of small towns, Meghan thought.
Closing up the files, shutting down her computer, her gaze lingering over a picture of the Reed house before the fire. The white L of the sign picket on the lawn—
