The survivor

Twenty-Eight

When the phone rang, waking Striker at four-thirty in the morning, he was grateful for the interruption. He sat up with a jolt and snatched up the cell. ‘Detective Striker.’

The deep baritone response was as rough and smooth as sandpaper dipped in maple syrup. ‘Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.’

‘Rothschild?’

‘Get your ass out of bed.’

Striker blinked, surprised at hearing his old Sergeant’s voice. He looked across the room. Found the wall clock. Saw the time.

‘Jesus Christ, Mike, it’s not even five yet — what the hell’s going on?’

‘Just get your ass down here. And be quick about it. I’m on the Fraser. Right on the docks, south of Marine, behind the Superstore. At the C and D Plant.’

Striker scrabbled for a pen and paper, wrote down the address. Said, ‘Give me twenty minutes.’

‘Make it ten, the white-shirts are coming.’

Striker cursed. ‘Tell me it’s not Laroche.’

‘Just hurry the hell up, Shipwreck. And trust me on this one — you’re gonna wanna see this.’

Fifteen minutes later, Striker crossed into South Vancouver — District 3 — and neared the Fraser River. He sped the unmarked police cruiser down the slippery stretch of Marine Drive, then turned south on the old gravel road that twisted and turned, outlining the Fraser River. The road was half-frozen, and the car skidded at every turn.

If the road conditions were bad, the lighting was worse. The heavy blackness of night showed no hint of fading, and the relentless winds whipped the river into six-foot-high swells. Just ten feet away, the retaining wall gave way to the strong currents of the Fraser River. The water looked alive, angry. Striker eased his foot off the gas pedal.

No point in killing himself.

Just yet.

All along the shoreline, massive concrete smokestacks rose up like giant cannons, blasting steam into the night. Where the charcoal cloud ended and the billowing smoke began was impossible to tell. It was all one entity now, roaming slowly across the river. This was the industrial area, built up of pulp mills and gravel lots and concrete plants and import/export transfer stations.

No one but plant workers came down here.

At the next curve, Striker caught his first glimpse of the blue and red gleam. Three patrol cars were parked in the fog, in between a concrete plant and the shoreline.

Striker spotted Rothschild straight away. The Sergeant was loitering nearby, smoking a cigarillo and drinking what must be stale, cold coffee. Knowing Rothschild, the coffee would be his fifth of the night. Minimum.

Striker jumped out of the car and marched across the gravel roadway. The cold winds blew in from the water, numbing his face and stinging his ears. He zipped up the heavy wool of his long jacket, but it did little good.

‘Mike,’ he called. ‘Hey, Mike! Rothschild!’

Sergeant Mike Rothschild turned around, the heavy winds sending what little hair he had left into a frenzy of thin waves. He stood squarely, like a wall on legs, his shoulders turned inwards, his hands balled into fists.

‘Holy shit, man, ’bout fuckin’ time you got here. My balls are freezing, and I mean goddam freezing! Like little sperm-sickles.’

Striker grinned. ‘Tell me how you really feel, Mike, don’t hold back.’

Rothschild flashed his trademark smile — wry, almost dark, with his handlebar moustache rising higher on the left side. He slurped back his coffee, grimaced, then took off the lid and poured it out on the road.

‘Already friggin’ cold,’ he said. ‘Gas-station shit anyway. But hey, the cost is right.’ He laughed.

‘Why am I here?’ Striker asked.

‘Why you think? You’re Homicide, right?’

‘Take a look at my badge number. I’m not exactly first on the call-out list.’

Rothschild gave him a creepy smile. ‘Don’t need to be for this one.’

The way he said it made Striker nervous. ‘What exactly you got here?’

The smile left Rothschild’s lips and he pointed his cigarillo towards the river.

‘Came in as a floater. It wasn’t. The body was dumped here, but didn’t land properly in the water. Got hung up below the docks, half in, half out. Feet got a little eaten, but hey, what the fuck. I got here first and found a bullet wound to the back of the guy’s head.’ He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the white unmarked patrol car tucked away from the crime scene, in the darkness next to the concrete plant. ‘Car Ten beat you here. He’s sitting there all toasty in his White Whale. Probably reading What’s-Up-My-Ass Weekly.’

Striker looked at the car, saw nothing but a dark windshield. ‘Which Inspector?’

‘Oakley.’

‘That’s good. He’s okay.’

‘ He is. But he’s already called the Deputy Chief.’

‘Laroche?’

‘None other. And he’s on the way down.’

Striker found the notion disturbing. Homicides happened all the time in Vancouver, especially with the growing bouts of gang violence, and the Deputy Chief was never called — not unless the deceased was a person of some significance: an ambassador, or a dignitary. Maybe a celebrity. Or, God forbid, a cop.

He looked down towards the river, past the yellow strips of all-too-familiar police tape. Out there, waves crashed hard against the wooden rails of the docks, sounding angry and powerful. With the emergency lights flashing against the black waters and river mist, the scene looked like a goddam horror show.

‘Who we find in the drink?’

Rothschild grinned. ‘Don’t fall down the rabbit hole, Alice.’ He lit up another cigarillo and the leafy aroma of good tobacco floated through the air. ‘You can thank me later, Shipwreck. Captain Morgan’s the preference. Dark as it comes.’

Striker gave Rothschild a confused nod, then turned away and cut down towards the river.

The gravel-and-sand mixture was nearly frozen; it crunched beneath his boots. He ducked under the police tape and moved onto the walkway. The dock was old and wooden. Rickety. Made up of three separate sections, each one connected by a series of spiralling stairways leading down to the next platform. At the beginning of each section, a yellow lamp hung off a support beam, offering poor illumination to the platform below.

Being careful of his step, Striker hiked down to the lowest platform. Swells of river water slammed hard against the floating dock, rocking the structure back and forth and covering him with cold spray. The wind down here was even stronger, piercing his clothes and biting into his skin. Regardless, he marched on until he came flush with a young constable who stood at the forefront of the platform, shaking.

Striker sized him up. He wore the standard-issue uniform pants, which were about as effective in these wet winds as a pair of ass-less chaps in a snowstorm. His hands were tucked as deep into his pockets as he could get them, and blasts of warm breath steamed from his open mouth when he spoke.

‘Detective Striker,’ he said.

‘Tough break, kid.’ Striker pointed at his pants. ‘Use your e-points to get a pair of Gore-Tex.’ He nodded to the end of the dock where a dirty blue tarp lay spread out across the boards. There was a long lump underneath it. ‘Who found him?’

The Constable shrugged. ‘Some guy, a worker loading up for the cement plant. Dunno, really. Ask Rothschild, he was first on scene.’

‘We got a name for our John Doe?’

The kid shrugged again. ‘I just got stuck with guard duty.’

Striker left the young Constable standing there, fighting off hypothermia, and approached the rustling plastic tarp. Four large cinderblocks held it down — one at each corner, preventing it from blowing away. Striker picked up the nearest cinderblock, moved it to the side, then peeled back the tarp.

The first thing Striker noted was that the runner from the left foot was missing. In the darkness of the dock, the golden dragon design snaking down the sides of the man’s jeans was almost invisible. Striker took note of it. The white designer hoodie the man wore was stuck to his thin but muscular build like a second skin. Soil and slime smeared the stencilled designs.

The body hadn’t been in there for very long, but already the tissue was starting to bloat from water saturation, and tiny pockets of flesh had been pecked away from the face by sea creatures. Even so, with the tissue damage and in the poor illumination of the lower docks, the identity of the boy was irrefutable. Striker had seen this boy’s picture on his own ID cards.

It was Que Wong. The one they had thought to be White Mask.

The discovery made him sick, and yet it invigorated him. They now had an unidentified body back at the morgue. A faceless, handless corpse.

Striker stared at Que Wong with a hundred questions racing through his mind. Things that had made sense a few hours ago made no sense now, but he was so tired he could barely remember what they were. He reached out and gently took hold of the boy’s left hand. All the skin remained intact, connected properly to the muscles and fascia beneath. The hand hadn’t de-gloved, as is so often the case with floaters. And that was good. It meant Que Wong hadn’t been in the drink for overly long.

Striker took out his Maglite and shone a beam on Que’s hand. He looked for ridge detail on the fingers, but it was difficult to tell outside of the lab in the middle of the night.

‘Hey, Shipwreck!’ a voice called out. ‘Don’t fuck with my body!’

Striker didn’t have to turn around to recognise the heavy, out-of-breath yell. It was Jim Banner from Ident. Noodles. Striker spun about, half-irritated.

‘Christ, Noodles, even the undead sleep.’

‘Like you should talk.’ Noodles said this with a laugh, but his pudgy cheeks sagged and his eyes were heavily underscored. ‘And you should see my pay stubs. I get to pay more tax than any other cop in the city.’

‘Congratulations.’ Striker was about to say more when a movement caught his eye. He looked into the murky illumination of the dock entrance and spotted Mike Rothschild leading another man down the first set of stairs. One look at the thick, helmet-like hair, the five-foot-five stature, and Striker knew undoubtedly who it was.

Deputy Chief Laroche.

‘Here comes the circus,’ Noodles said.

‘They normally start with the clown?’ Striker had barely finished speaking when his cell rang. He snagged it, turned away from Noodles, and covered his other ear with his hand to drown out the sounds of the river. ‘Jacob Striker.’

‘Where the hell are you?’ The voice was tired and agitated.

‘Felicia?’

‘No, it’s Fergie, the Princess of Pop — who do you think it is? Where are you, Jacob?’

‘Down at the docks. On Marine. Look, they just found the body of Que Wong.’

‘Wong? But we already-’

‘Our headless corpse ain’t him, Feleesh. And if Que Wong was a set-up, then it’s pretty damn likely Raymond Leung is, too.’

‘Red Mask? Are you sure?’

‘Don’t kid yourself, he’s still out there somewhere. I know it. And we’ve got to find him.’

Felicia made an exasperated sound. ‘What are you talking about? Jesus, why didn’t you wake me?’

He shrugged as if she could see him. ‘You needed the sleep. And I didn’t know it was connected. Not till now. Look, I’ll explain when I get back. Just get up and get dressed. I won’t be long.’ He hung up his cell phone, turned around and stared at Noodles. ‘Keep me up to date,’ he said.

‘Not with your sense of style.’

‘I’m serious, Noodles. This changes everything.’

‘I’ll call. God, just get out of here, will you?’

Striker nodded. He started to leave, then spotted Laroche sauntering down the last set of stairs. He looked back at Noodles, saw the big black Ident marker sticking out of his jacket pocket, and smiled. He snatched it up, ignoring Noodles’ protest, and marched down the dock till he came face to face with the Deputy Chief.

‘What are you doing here?’ Laroche said, his voice resonating with unease.

Striker said nothing, he just handed him the black felt marker.

‘What’s this for?’

Striker jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, back towards the dock. ‘You might want to paint some stripes on that body back there — looks like I just found you your zebra.’