“Want to know something kind of personal?” Mia asked quietly as we drove away from the park.
“Only if you want to tell me,” I replied.
“This was where I gave it up for the first time.”
“Oh yeah, how old were you?” I said thinking back to the parking areas of my own youth.
“Fourteen—no, maybe thirteen I think. If I knew then what I know now … jeez—I was lucky I didn’t get pregnant. We came here a few times. I don’t think the guy ever even used a rubber.”
“Who was the guy?”
“Oh, just a sixteen year old kid from the neighbourhood. His name was Chance. I think we thought we were in love—whatever that means. That we would get married and have lots of money and two kids. He borrowed his dad’s old Chevy. I’m not sure if he’s even still alive. He joined the navy.”
“Thirteen’s pretty young isn’t it?” I asked wondering if this was an opening to discuss the sexual abuse I suspected. “Did you know what you were doing?”
“I’d seen movies—some of them were pretty raw. My brother, Terry, and my stepfather, Ted showed me some videos. I don’t think I want to talk about it anymore. Let’s go.”
‘No sense pushing,’ I thought. ‘Exposure of the abused youngster to porn by the abuser—it was classic.’
Mia had to give me directions for the next four minutes until we pulled on to a major throughway. We followed it for another fifteen minutes before we turned off onto 686. We were heading back towards Belleair when I became aware of a white Escalade flashing its headlights in my rear-view mirror.
“Double damn,” I said as I pulled over. “Stay here—“I’ll just be a minute.”
I walked back to the Escalade as I knew Max wouldn’t be interested in letting Mia see him.
“Max …”
“Doc … Having fun? Nice looking girl! Did you lose the cell I gave you?”
“Er—no, but I don’t seem to have it with me.”
“Did you call Frank with it?”
“Yup—I did Max.” I was starting to feel like the village idiot.
“Did you turn it off after you left your message about the storm?”
“I guess.”
“Well then Doc—how was Frank going to call you back when you didn’t call him?”
“Duh, I have a phone in my room.”
“But it’s disconnected Doc—I know because I was just there,” he said as he handed me the Blackberry for the second time in two days. “Sooner rather than later—yeah? Have a nice day Doc.”
“Thanks,” I said as I walked slowly back to my Jag. This was a complication and an explanation I didn’t need in my life right now.
“Who was that and what did he want?”
“Max—and he wanted to give me a free cell phone. Neat, eh?”
“And I’m the tooth fairy!”
“The guy is an acquaintance of my brother Frank. My brother would like me to call him about certain personal matters, so he gave me a secure throw away cell.”
“So he stops you in his monster hundred grand SUV and hands you a cell worth three or four bills so that you can make a phone call to your brother—and then maybe throw it away? Am I missing anything here? And does this have something to do with your wife—who we have not yet talked about—even though you said we would. What’s the story here Joe?”
I started the Jag and tried to figure out the best way to deal with what could be the end of our relationship. The truth was one option—but not the only one.
“Okay Mia—let me think for a minute while I find a place to park,” I said in an effort to buy time.
“So you can make up some story…
“Hold on Mia, will ya? The guy just told me that he had picked up the cell he gave me yesterday in my room and beyond that—my land phone is disconnected. That means he let himself into my room. Max is good at that. We won’t notice a thing out of place. But that’s not the most interesting part. How did he know exactly where to find me unless he has a tracking device on my car—or me? And then how do I use that?”
“Who is that guy?”
“Just who I said—Max is a friend of my brother—maybe a bit more.”
I pulled into a vacant parking spot in a small strip mall lot.
“Ask away Mia. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Is your wife really dead?”
“Yes. She was killed by a bomb blast that took out some big name politico from Iraq who was supposed to become a major player in the re-unification of that country when Saddam went down. You may have heard or read about it. It happened five years ago at a television station in London. Despite strict security, a suicide bomber got close enough to take out the honcho and everybody in the studio.”
“I’m sorry. Where were you when all this happened?”
“I was at home in the Toronto area probably writing an obituary. When I started as a cop, Annie, that was my wife’s name, started her career as an investigative journalist. We were both young and just out of university. She was good at her job and her popularity grew first in print and then on radio and television. She was attractive, intelligent and personable. The public liked her. When I had to leave the police force, she already had a growing national reputation. She was making really good money working for the national television network. She also had her faith. She was a closet “born again” Christian. Her future career potential could not have looked brighter. So, as she was finding her niche in life and a strong faith in God, I had lost mine.”
“You told me about the gunfight that ended your being a cop, and I’ve seen all the scars, so what were you doing while your wife was making the bucks as a journalist?”
“I was sort of a journalist too,” I said recalling too vividly the despair I had felt during those years after thriving as a cop. “My career as a budding journalist started almost by accident a few months after my physiotherapy ended. I knew that a disability pension wasn’t going to keep me going for long. I was still young. I needed to be doing something. I didn’t want to rely on my wife to support me—just as I don’t want Frank’s handouts now. I was bored. I guess I could have, should have, returned to university and finished my masters. I scored in the one forty five range on the I.Q. test administered as part of the hiring process the cops use. The psychologist assessing my chances of success as a law officer had subtly questioned my sanity when he suggested I might use my intelligence to better advantage by going back to university. In essence, he said—“Are you friggin’ nuts? With what you have, why do you want to be a cop?” But, at the time, I just wanted to be earning an income, any income.
I asked some friends around the neighborhood about any available jobs. Frank tried to put me on his payroll to learn the business, but when I refused, he told me about a minimum wage position working as a junior reporter for an area newspaper. Later, I learned that he owned the rag and was using it to launder money. It sounded better than working at Burger King or Wal-Mart, so I took it. In my case, the reporter or journalist description was and remained hyperbole.”
“What do you mean?”
“Perhaps in my mind’s eye this job would be the first stepping stone into the world of big time journalism—like Annie. It wasn’t. Oh sure, I wrote. I wrote wonderful obituaries and occasionally I put together a book or movie review for the Intelligencer. That was the grandiose name of our struggling community newspaper. But mainly, when I wasn’t hassling delinquent customers for payment, I flogged advertising space to soon to be bankrupt businesses. When I wasn’t doing that I was trying to get paying customers to re-new their subscriptions. The step to the big time in journalism never happened. Maybe I was too lazy. Or just maybe I was bitter about what had happened with my police career, and that bitterness made it impossible for me to do more or better. I don’t know. So while my wife was reaching the top of the success ladder in her chosen profession, I remained stuck in the bargain basement of my accidental one.”
“So what’s the story with this guy Ma
x and your brother—Frank?”
“Frank took over my dad’s businesses. Even though the old man didn’t approve of some of the things Frank was involved in—and left the Jaguar and money to me—he knew I wasn’t going to be interested in taking over for him.”
“Why was that Joe? I mean you’re a smart guy. What was his problem with you?”
“My father didn’t approve of my career choice as a cop. In fact while I was one, he never talked to me. He actually ran a number of businesses but only a couple of them were legitimate. Frank was really better suited to take them over. Max is as much Frank’s enforcer as his friend.”
“Okay. Tell me why he handed you the phone?’
“Frank wants me to call him. He has looked after—at least his pack of lawyers have—the law suits involving insurance companies and Annie’s murder, my dad’s estate problems with Revenue Canada, the sale of my home and maybe even you. Take your pick. But he wants me to call him and because of the type of business man he is, he is paranoid to the extreme. I even have to give a catch phrase when I call him or he will think I am being held at gunpoint by an enemy. Frank is a bit of a flake. He also sees himself as my protector even though I have told him countless times I’m okay on my own. I actually believed I had escaped from his influence down here.”
“How would he know about me?”
“Max—and a huge number of resources—I learned early on to never under estimate Frank.”
“That’s some story Joe. Is it all true?”
“Yup, oh yeah there’s one more thing. Frank and the people who know me back home call me Doc.”
“Why?”
So I told her that story too.
“You’re a whole different guy—aren’t you Doc?”
“Not really,” I answered as I pulled the Jag out into traffic.