Malabarista

SATURDAY, AUGUST 18
chapter 4

“You need to be at work this early?” Matt climbed to the top of the stairs. He wore his heavy khaki-coloured denim work pants and tan golf shirt.

Shit, Lane thought, I forgot he gets up early to work for a few hours at the golf course. “Couldn’t sleep. Want a cup of coffee?” Lane slid his chair back.

“I’ll get it.” Matt reached into the fridge for chocolate milk. He poured it into a cup, and set it in the microwave.

“What are you doing?” Lane asked.

“I heat up the chocolate for forty-five seconds, then add coffee. Try it.” Matt pulled the cup out of the microwave, filled the cup with coffee, and sipped.

“Want me to make you some breakfast?” Lane looked into his half-empty cup.

“It’s Saturday. I buy breakfast at the snack shack on Saturdays.” He sat down beside Lane at the table.

Lane looked out the window. When kids get older, they get a life of their own. The belly of an overcast sky was purple with a hint of pink. “Is Christine driving the beer cart today?”

“Tomorrow. There’s some kind of tournament going on.” Matt hesitated. “Uncle?”

Something in Matt’s tone warned Lane he was about to say something important.

“What’s going to happen to Uncle Arthur?” Matt looked out the window.

“All I can tell you is I think it will be okay. Everybody says I’m depressed, but I think it will all work out fine,” Lane said. Matt must think I’m crazy, Lane thought as he sat in the driver’s seat at a red light. He looked to his left.

The female passenger in the adjacent pickup truck looked down and smiled. Her hair was blonde, her full lips were red, and she was smoking a cigar.

Lane smiled back. I’m talking to myself. The doctor is right, I do need a shrink. That’s on the to-do list, right after Arthur beating cancer and finding out who killed Andelko Branimir.

The light turned green. The pickup roared ahead, leaving behind a cloud of diesel smoke. Lane changed lanes before turning left. Towering condos and hotels gathered along the south side of the Bow River around an upscale enclave called Eau Claire. It was the area of the water park, the bridge to Princess Island, and the concourse in between that Lane was headed for.

He parked the car in front of a hotel across the street from a restaurant that had, at one time, been home to a lumber mill. It was ten in the morning and the sun was forcing its way through the clouds, promising a rare warm, summery day. Glad I didn’t wear a sports jacket, Lane thought as his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket. “Hello.”

“Where are you?” Christine asked.

“Eau Claire, looking for street performers.” Lane looked around at the people on bicycles and rollerblades weaving around the walkers and joggers and wheelchairs.

“We’re coming too.” Christine hung up.

At the wading pool, kids aimed water guns at one another. Adults dressed in shorts or rolled-up pants were bent over, holding the arms of toddlers who splashed the water with their feet.

A trumpet blasted a saucy salsa tune. Lane looked toward the source of the sound. The trumpet player leaned on one crutch. He wore a red T-shirt, shoes, and shorts. His red cap was turned backwards.

“It’s Leo,” Lane said under his breath.

The Latino music turned heads. A pair of toddlers began to dance. Lane smiled at their natural grace and total lack of self-consciousness.

Lane spotted a juggler. He was taller than Leo, but close to the same weight. He was black-haired, and wore a white loose-fitting shirt and knee-length shorts. He began to juggle four knives. The sun flashed on the metal blades as each knife spun to the top of its arc before falling back into the man’s hand, only to be launched again into the sky. The knives and the juggler moved to the trumpeter’s beat.

Soon the music stopped. The knives fell. The juggler caught them neatly and stashed them in his equipment bag. He looked around at the crowd. “I need a young assistant.”

Parents looked at one another. Children waited for the music to start up again so they could dance. A teenaged brother pushed his little sister – she was about five and wore a blue jumper and running shoes – out into the open. Lane noted the butterfly painted on her face.

The juggler bent down to her. She whispered something to him. “This is Katie, my new assistant!” He walked her to the edge of the crowd. “Show your appreciation for Katie!”

Katie’s brother stood and encouraged the crowd to clap and cheer. Leo played a tune that sounded like it belonged at a bullfight. Katie smiled and walked a little taller.

The juggler bent over his bag and pulled out a sword. “Katie?”

She looked up at him. Leo played louder, faster. Now it was the music of a warrior.

“Would you hold this for me?” The juggler handed her the sword. “Here, with two hands.” He showed her how to hold the sword so that it was at a right angle to the ground. Then he turned, reached into his bag, and pulled out a basketball. He spun it on his finger as he walked around Katie. He spun the ball one last time and placed it on the tip of the sword before bowing to Katie and backing away.

She stood there for a full thirty seconds with the ball spinning and the crowd cheering. The ball fell off. The juggler caught it after the first bounce. “Everyone! I give you Katie!”

Leo blasted notes of triumph from his trumpet. Katie handed the sword to the juggler and walked to join her brother, who put a proud arm around her shoulder.

The juggler put the basketball into his bag and pulled out a blue glass ball the size and irregular shape of a cantaloupe. He held the glass in the air, allowing the audience to appreciate its fragile beauty. He reached for a unicycle made ready by Leo. Once balanced on the bike, the juggler walked the lopsided ball from the palm of his right hand to the back of the hand, up his forearm, across his shoulders, and down his left arm as Leo’s trumpet sang a saucy number.

A flash of sunlight on metal caught Lane’s eye. He stared at the juggler’s right leg. Just below the man’s knee was a flesh-coloured cup connected to a shaft of metal reaching a plastic foot. He’s doing all of this on one good leg!

The audience clapped as the juggler pretended to lose his balance. He fell off the bike, flipped the glass melon in the air, recovered, and caught the lopsided globe mere millimetres from the concrete. He stood, raised the globe over his head, smiled, and threw it to the ground. It bounced into the hands of a surprised woman in the front row.

Applause and laughter erupted.

Leo took off his cap to lay it on the ground at the juggler’s feet. Bills and coins dropped into the cap. Lane waited for the crowd around the hat to thin before he dropped in his contribution. He studied the juggler more closely. The man looked to be about twenty-five. He drank from a bottle of water and wiped his face with a towel. The juggler sensed Lane’s interest and returned the detective’s stare.

“Detective? That you?” Leo leaned on his crutch with his right hand as he swept up the cap with his left. The trumpet hung from a strap around his neck in much the same way his withered right leg hung a few centimetres above the pavement.

“How are you, Leo?”

“Mladen and I are doing really well as long as the sun keeps shining.” Leo handed the cap to the juggler, who emptied the money into a cloth bag, which he pulled closed with a string before dropping it into his equipment bag.

Lane kept his attention on Mladen. “Do you have time to talk between shows?”

Leo looked at Mladen. “What’s it about?”

Mladen shrugged. “I was going to grab a coffee.” He looked over to the terrace near the coffee shop, where tables sat under faded green umbrellas.

His accent sounds like Spanish mixed with something else. “Works for me.”

“Okay.” Leo didn’t sound convinced. “What’s this about?”

“A murder.” Lane waited for the pair to gather their equipment. We must look odd - me pushing a unicycle, Leo with his crutch and trumpet, and Mladen with his bag of tricks and artificial leg. Somehow, though, it feels about right.

Lane leaned the unicycle up against the red brick wall next to an empty table. He waited and watched over the equipment until the two performers returned with their coffees. Then Lane went off to buy his own. All of this done without a single word.

Mladen sat with his back to the brick wall. He sipped his espresso while studying the crowd.

Leo had his crutch propped up against the table and was watching Lane as if challenging the detective to speak first. Lane attempted to look where Mladen was staring. The detective squinted at the glare of the sun upon the water in the wading pool.

“What murder?” Mladen asked.

“A body was found in the northwest in a slough at the edge of the city. The man’s name was Andelko Branimir.” Lane turned to study Mladen’s face.

Mladen met the detective’s gaze. “Don’t know him.”

Try a different approach. “How do you and Leo know each other?”

“We met at the doctor’s office,” Leo said. “We go to the same specialist. We got talking about street performing and decided to make some extra money on weekends.”

Lane turned to Mladen. “Where did you learn to be a juggler?”

“Malabarista.” Mladen studied Lane’s reaction.

“Malabarista?”

“He was trained in Spain at a school for jugglers. Over there he was called a malabarista.” Leo looked at Mladen to see if he’d said too much. Mladen allowed no visible reaction.

“Before or after the accident?” Lane pointed at Mladen’s artificial leg.

“No accident,” Mladen said.

“He lost it in a war.” Leo shifted in his chair. “How come you’re asking us about this Andelko guy?”

“I was told that Andelko was afraid of a juggler who works at Eau Claire, so I came to take a look around.” Lane watched Mladen.

“Malabarista.” Mladen smiled.

“So,” Leo said, “who sent you after two dangerous one-legged street performers?”

Quick, before this becomes one big joke! “The victim may have gone by another name: Borislav Goran.”

Mladen’s face went white. His shoulders and head sagged. “Pinche bastard!”

Lane, stunned by the reaction, leaned back in his chair.

“Pinche pendejo!” Mladen said.

“Who was Goran?” Lane asked.

“Murderer! Rapist! Laughing! Laughing! All the time laughing! Él mató a mi padre! Drunken pig!” Mladen stood, lifted the table with its umbrella, and threw it over Lane and Leo’s heads, showering them with what remained of the coffee, then picked up his bag and unicycle and stomped away.

Leo looked at Lane after they got untangled from the table, chairs, and umbrella. “Man, you sure know how to screw up a beautiful day.”

Lane picked up his spilled coffee cup. “Last name?”

“What?” Leo picked up his crutch.

“Mladen’s last name?” Lane tossed the cup into a nearby garbage can.

Leo shook his head. “Why?”

“Because this isn’t over.”

“Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” Leo tucked the crutch under his arm.

Lane waited.

“Asshole.” Leo turned his back and walked away.

“You okay?” Matt asked.

Lane turned.

“We came to take a look around,” Christine said.

“And keep an eye on you,” Arthur said with a smile.

“We should have brought you a change of clothes,” Matt said.

“Join us for a cup of coffee?” Arthur asked.

Matt and Christine righted the table.

Unaccountably, Lane found himself on the verge of tears.

“You never said why those street performers acted the way they did.” Christine stood next to the closet across from the front door.

Lane caught the scent of strawberries and noticed Christine’s hair braided at the back of her neck and her low-cut white T-shirt and lipstick. “Where are you off to?”

She eased past him. “I’m gonna meet some friends from school. A couple of them have the same class with me in the fall. Now answer my question.”

“I asked him something that made him angry,” Lane said.

“Whatever.” Christine shook her head and shut the door behind her.

Lane kicked his shoes off and stepped into the kitchen. Arthur was in the backyard with Roz. Both were digging in separate flowerbeds.

Lane went upstairs to change clothes, then downstairs to throw his coffee-stained shirt, pants, and socks in the wash. Matt’s room was across from the laundry room. He could hear snoring through the closed door.

The phone rang after Lane turned on the washing machine. He ran upstairs, searched the kitchen for his cell phone, and found it where he’d left it, under the newspaper. “Hello.”

“Colin Weaver here. I have some updates on the remains of Andelko Branimir.”

Lane thought he heard some emotion breaking through Fibre’s usual monotone. You’ve become a man of surprises, Lane thought. “Go ahead.”

“A fractured skull and the resultant blunt force trauma to the brain is the most likely cause of death. After we measured the remains, we found that the height matched that of Branimir. And we will try a computer-generated image of the victim’s face to see if it matches the picture on the driver’s license. So far, that’s what we have.” Fibre waited.

“You’re being very thorough with this one,” Lane said.

“I like to be exact.” Fibre hung up.

Lane leaned his head back on the couch and listened to the hum of the washing machine and Matt’s snoring.

Lane closed his eyes. I feel like a nap.

“Uncle?” Matt asked.

Lane opened his eyes. Matt was leaning over him and shaking his shoulder.

“After I get home from work tomorrow, can we take the dog for a walk down by the river?”

“What time is it?” Lane asked.

“After seven. Uncle Arthur saved some supper for you.” Matt turned and went upstairs. Lane followed. He found Arthur asleep in the living room armchair.

Dinner was on a plate wrapped in tinfoil in the oven. The chicken, rice, and corn were still edible, but Lane found he’d lost his ability to taste or enjoy food.

After supper, he scraped most of the food into the garbage and put the dishes into the dishwasher. Might just as well go to bed, he thought. Just then, he heard a key in the lock of the back door. The hinges creaked as the door opened. Christine stepped inside. There was a red mark under her left eye. The eye was well on its way to becoming swollen shut.

“What happened to you?” Lane moved closer to her.

“Nothin’.” She looked at the floor. She was favouring her right arm.

“I’ll get some ice.”

“I just want to go to my room.” Christine tried to push past him.

“After we get some ice on the eye and I take a look at your arm.” He hugged her close when she began to cry.

“I told you I don’t want to be here! I’m fine!” Christine turned to Lane. They sat side by side at the Foothills Medical Centre Emergency waiting room.

“We’ll get you checked out, just to be on the safe side. And after it’s documented, I’ll find out who did this, and I’ll hunt him down.”

“Look, he was drunk. I told him I didn’t want to ride home with him. He grabbed me by the arm, I told him to let go, then he hit me in the face.” Christine took the bag of ice away from her face and gingerly touched the skin around her eye. “I keep telling you it’s taken care of.”

A woman’s voice reached out to the entire room full of waiting people. “I still don’t understand how you could go out for a cup of coffee with friends and end up getting drunk and being assaulted!”

Lane and Christine turned to witness the drama, just like everyone else.

The mother was just over five feet and weighed maybe one hundred and forty pounds. The son was over six feet. His brown hair was frosted, and he wore a tight mauve T-shirt. The front of his shirt was stained with blood. He was using crutches. There were stitches in his lower lip, which was swollen to at least three times its normal size. “I told you,” he said. “I fell down, hit my face on a curb, and then Rob drove me to the hospital.”

Christine developed a sudden interest in looking at her toes and holding the bag of ice against her nose.

“Don’t lie to me! I can tell when you’re lying to me!” the mother said.

The son looked around the waiting room as if checking to see if he knew anyone. His eyes focused on Christine. He halted.

Lane felt emotion toss good judgment aside. He stood. Christine grabbed his arm. The mother and son went out the sliding glass doors. Lane broke Christine’s grip. He followed the mother and son outside.

“What’s your name?” Lane waited for the pair to turn around.

“What’s it to you?” the son asked.

“Christine is my niece. You assaulted her!” Lane stepped closer.

The son looked over Lane’s shoulder and spotted Christine. “She did this to me!” He looked pleadingly at his mother.

“Leave it alone, uncle.” Christine grabbed the back of Lane’s shirt.

The mother looked confused. “You said you fell.”

“He called me a bitch, then punched me.” Christine pointed at her eye. “I hit him in the mouth and took out his knee.”

The woman looked at her son. She turned to lead him toward the parking lot.

“She hit me,” he repeated.

Lane followed them. Christine grabbed him by the back of his shirt. When her feet began to slide on the cement, she grabbed a No Parking sign and held on. “Uncle!”

The mother seemed to shrink as she turned. She looked at her son and dropped her eyes. “Please, leave us alone,” she said to Lane. “Let me take care of this.”

Lane and Christine walked across the overfull parking lot. After at least five minutes of silence, Lane put the key in the ignition. “You did that?”

“He showed up drunk. When I told him I didn’t want a ride home, he got mean. He grabbed my arm. I pushed him away. He took a swing at me and hit me in the eye. Then I hit him in the mouth and took out his knee, just the way you taught me.”

She sounds as tired and defeated as I feel.

They drove home in the darkness of the summer evening. Moonlight reflected off oil stains on the pavement, making them shimmer like black puddles of water.

“When do you think it’ll rain?” Christine asked.

Lane shrugged.

“It hurts when you shut us out like this. You know that Uncle Arthur cries in the morning after you leave? I hear him when I wake up. He pretends like he’s not upset, but I can tell. It hurts him. It hurts us all. As if we don’t have enough to worry about with Uncle Arthur’s cancer. That’s why I didn’t want to make a big deal about this.” Christine’s eyes filled with tears.

Lane started to say something but thought better of it.

“Uncle’s worried about you, and so am I.” Christine opened her window and stuck the ice bag outside. The hot air buffeted the inside of the Jeep as she opened the knot in the bag to let the water leak away.

Lane looked in the rear-view mirror. There was a splash of silver on the pavement. His eyes were reflected in the mirror. He saw and felt them filling with tears.