Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle (56 page)

He held out the roach to Dan, who shook his head.

“Look, dude. Don’t even come here if you’re thinking of chatting with the cops.”

He glanced at a window high above where a finger of light pointed into his underground cavern from the Other World.

“How do I know you weren’t followed?” The head tilted skyward. “They could be up there right now planning to raid my place.”

He stood and headed to a console hosting a dozen miniature display screens, tapped in a few quick commands and scrutinized a monitor in the lower right-hand corner. Satisfied with what he saw, he swivelled in his seat and faced Dan.

“All good. Nothing moving out there. You weren’t followed.”

“You know me, Germ. I’m cool.”

Dan was never sure if Germ was just paranoid or if he ran a sideline business that required him to keep watch on whoever or whatever approached his private underground preserve. Better safe than sorry, in either case.

Dan shook his head. “Besides, I never told them I was coming here to see you. As far as they know, I could be visiting my grandmother right now.”

Germ gave him an ironic look. “Yeah, right. Your grandmother who lives in a derelict underground garage.”

Dan smiled. “She probably did once. She was a very cool old lady in her day. Anyway, it’s not like I mentioned your name or anything. They just wanted to know if I could put them in touch with my sources.”

“And you said?” Another quick intake of spliff. No coughing. The guy was hardcore.

“I told them not a chance. I said that if I named you I’d lose you and that you were worth far too much to me to risk losing.”

“Good man,” Germ squeaked out.

Smoke dribbled from the edges of his mouth, hypnotic and swirling. The milky-blue strands gave a decorative embellishment to the graffiti covering the walls. Every inch of floor, walls and ceiling, even the pipes, was covered in a fabulous concoction of colours and shapes and grimacing creatures. It was life as a permanent acid trip, depicted with all the fervour of a manic cartoonist or an obsessive tattoo artist. Van Gogh or Toulouse Lautrec as street artists, David Wojnarowicz at his transgressive heights, Keith Haring at his most radiant, and Jean-Michel Basquiat at his most manic-hallucinogenic. It was the sort of artwork found in unexpected places — subway lines, construction fences, the underside of bridges — like an alternate meaning superimposed on top of everyday reality. As though you could read into things only if you knew the secret code that allowed you to penetrate the city’s inner core.
And people say the underground is dead
, Dan thought.

“Nice work, by the way. Yours?” he asked

“Nope. This is Velvet Blue’s stuff. Cool, isn’t it?”

Velvet Blue was the Japanese girlfriend of the man smoking pot. A female ninja in her own right, she was a whirlwind with the litheness of a pygmy gymnast. The pair was famous for their artwork-cum-industrial sabotage, collages of graffiti and photographs installed over commercial advertising campaigns, signed R.Y.M.
Reclaim Your Mind
. Art with a social message. The signature was Internet code for the curious to inquire who was behind the toothpaste ad featuring earthworms wriggling from the tube, the mad lyricism of Baudelaire superimposed over sunscreen bottles, or the skull-and-crossbones laid across Tylenol capsules. Germ and Velvet Blue were among the last few practitioners of civil disobedience in public spaces. They were adept at it. “That’s highly valuable mindspace being exploited by these corporations with little or no public benefit,” Germ told Dan the first time they met. “Also valuable in a financial sense, of course. They don’t take well to having their little campaigns fucked with,” he said jubilantly. Germ and Velvet Blue were also among the most knowledgeable people in the city in terms of what was happening on the ground level, dishing dirt with the hoi polloi.

Having accomplished what he’d set out to do in alerting people that their minds were under attack, Germ changed strategies and took up another target. His latest fascination was for abandoned buildings —
the detritus of modern living — and thus Dan’s great respect for his arcane knowledge. If you wanted to find someone living off the grid — the ones who didn’t show up on CCTV feeds all over the city, the people who never ventured into banks and shopping malls and subways or entered their PINs in ATMs —
then Germ was your man. A sophisticated urban guerrilla, he knew the terrain better than anyone Dan had ever met.

“Anyway, I just wanted to pass the idea by you. You could be doing something significant to help others escape harm.”

The shaggy head nodded. “Which I have no problem with. Just that helping them means participating in the System. And I know you understand my position on that entirely.”

Dan held up a hand. “No need for the lecture.
I know the score.”

Germ grinned and took another toke. “You probably know it by heart by now, right?”

“Nearly,” Dan said. “Hey, I come from the dirt. I’m no fan of the System either. My father and his father both lived and died in the mines.”

“Which makes us brothers under the skin. My old man? A sanitation engineer. That’s garbage collector to the rest of us. So I come by my trade legit.”

By “trade” he meant street art as much as picking up the cast-offs that people above ground considered waste. His underground bunker was outfitted with salvaged furniture and electronics.

While Germ thought of himself as a social critic, he was also a highly talented photographer. His online galleries of abandoned places and discarded objects had the aura of high art. Unmoved by ordinary beauty, only the lowest of the low received his loving adoration: peeling paint, mould-covered surfaces, rusting fixtures, broken furniture, shattered glass, rotting mattresses, dangling wires. Here was Jackson Pollock with a camera and a social vision. With the right agent, his work might have been showcased anywhere: New York’s MoMA, London’s Saatchi, or any prestigious gallery worth its name featuring the avant garde. Instead, he spilled his work online, where anyone could access it for free.

Dan had come across him by accident while tracking a young drug addict. His mother had warned him her son was suicidal. Dan put all his effort into finding the boy, who had a penchant for hiding out in abandoned buildings. He needed an expert on the city’s abandoned sites and found one through a site called
Germ Warfare
.

Germ — short for Germaine — was its author and creator. Dan contacted him and asked for his help, explaining the urgency. Off the top of his head, Germ named ten buildings that had recently been vacated — meaning their interiors were up for habitation by anyone looking for a free place to sleep. He’d been correct in helping pinpoint the building in question, but not in time for Dan to prevent the young man’s suicide.

The connection continued. Dan found reason to draw on Germ’s specialized knowledge several times in the intervening months. Germ eventually trusted Dan enough to invite him to his secret hideout, introducing him to his girlfriend, Velvet Blue.

Germ and Velvet Blue inhabited their underground lair like a pair of happy moles, making their way to the surface only when necessary. A slight girl, Velvet Blue could take care of herself in a scrape. She was the martial arts expert in the family, where Germ handled the creative-espionage side of things. They lived in abandoned warehouses and underground tunnels, planning raids and industrial sabotage, taking the city’s pulse from below ground level.

“So you said you’re looking for someone,” Germ said.

“
Was
. I was looking. He’s dead. I think one of your contacts called to tell me where he was, but I got there too late. He was murdered.”

Germ contemplated this with a grim expression. “Taking a life, man. That is definitely not cool.”

“No, I think not. So tell me about your last visit to the slaughterhouse.”

“Right. Like I said on the phone, it was a little weird. I was doing one of my photo essays on urban decay. Places like that usually you find, like, these kids. You know — the stoner type looking to get away from their parents.” He glanced at the roach in his hand and laughed. “Been there, still doing that.”

Dan waited patiently for Germ’s thoughts to get back on track.

“Anyway. Saw this strange kid there. Something odd about him, something a little off. Not sure what.”

“In what way ‘odd’? Physically?”

Germ shook his head. “Just … something. Couldn’t put my finger on it. You know when that little voice inside says something isn’t right, but you can’t always tell what it is? Something says, ‘Be wary, stay alert.’ New York subway style. Like that. Looked like he was waiting for someone. Only it felt odd somehow. Like he already knew whoever he was waiting for wasn’t coming.” He shook his head again. “But then why would he be waiting? You know what I mean?”

Dan shrugged. “Not exactly.”

Germ seemed to lose focus for a moment. He ran his hand over a long blue outline on the wall behind him, following the minute convolutions of his mind.

“Wow, cool.”

He left off with whatever had captivated him and looked back at Dan.

“Anyway. Like I said, I saw him twice. First time, I was making a preliminary run of the place for when I came back to take the photos. That’s another thing.” He looked meaningfully at Dan. “He seemed to freak a little when I took out my camera. You know? You could tell he was up to something, because he acted like he didn’t want to be seen — you know the way kids do — though he didn’t go to any great length to hide himself. He was just … there, but sort of removed at the same time.”

He paused and seemed to get lost in his thoughts.

“You said you saw him twice.…”

Germ waved the roach around, took one last toke, then stubbed it out on the floor.

“Yeah, right. Second time, when I came back to take the rest of the photos, he was there in almost the same spot. It was as if he hadn’t moved from one week to the next. Like he was frozen in place. That was part of the weirdness, I guess. Everything about him registered as odd on some level. Even his clothes. He was all dressed up like a proper little British schoolboy. So what was he doing in a derelict old place like that?”

Dan nodded. “Maybe he was doing the same thing you were doing — getting stoned and exploring.”

Germ laughed. “Yeah. So true.”

He turned back to the console and typed in a command. A series of thumbnail images popped up onscreen. He scrutinized them for a moment then brought up three.

“Here, have a look. That’s the kid.”

Dan examined the photographs. All were shot from behind or in profile. Germ was right — the boy seemed purposefully to be avoiding his camera. Dan noted his slight figure, the navy blazer and hair poking out from under his cap. He might have been any kid wandering around a deserted spot. There was nothing to distinguish him in the photos, nothing particularly unusual except the setting.

“I can’t see much of him,” Dan said. He pulled out the photo of Gaetan Bélanger that Ed had given him. “Could it have been him?”

Germ focused on the snap, picked it up, and moved it around in the light. He scowled and scratched his head. Then he nodded.

“Could be. Wrong clothes, of course,” he said, referring to the sweatshirt and jeans Gaetan had on. “About the same age, though. But if I place him in context, there is a similarity.” He put the photo down. “Who is he?”

“A teenage boy wanted for the murder of a priest back in Quebec.”

Germ picked up the photo again. “This kid? He looks too cute to be mean.”

“Cute but strong, apparently. He garrotted his victim.”

“No shit?” Germ looked down at the shot with greater respect, almost reverence, as though he might be considering changing his photographic interests from social decay to physical violence. “Yeah, it coulda been him now that I think of it. I’ll take a closer look if I see him again. Guess I better be more careful running around these old places. Never know who you’re going to run into.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Dan said.

Germ looked up at Dan. “Why’d he do it?”

“The priest molested him, but the boy felt he hadn’t been punished enough after he got out of jail, so he tracked him down and finished him off, if what I’ve heard is correct.”

“Wow! As lurid as they come. There’s a headline for the
Sun
.” He brushed aside a lock with his hand. “Velvet Blue was molested by some guy when she was, like, thirteen.”

“What’d she do?”

“She kicked him in the balls and told him next time she’d break his neck for him. Never tried it again, apparently.”

Dan tossed down the photo of Darryl Hillary.

“What about this guy? Ever see him at the slaughterhouse? This was the guy who was murdered a couple days ago.”

Germ looked it over. “Nah. Not him. For sure I didn’t see him there. I recognize him, though.”

Dan’s interest was piqued. If Darryl was such a recluse, it seemed odd that Germ would know him. “From where?”

“Scored our dope from the same source. He showed up at the guy’s porch when I was there one day. Can’t say why I remember him, but I just do. Something about how frightened he looked. Something in his eyes that reminded me of a beaten dog. Yeah,
I guess that was it.”

“Do you think he was afraid of the pusher?”

Germ laughed. “No, man. Not Dudley. He’d never hurt a fly. Guy’s a nervous little wreck of a man. Kids rip him off all the time. Just cuts off their credit and puts them on his black list, but he never goes after them. Not the type, man. Not the type.” He thought about this. “Killing’s not his thing. That’s more for the hardcore drug dealers.”

“Do you think this guy might have had dealings with any of the hardcore types?”

Germ shrugged. “Impossible to say. As I said, I only saw him the once. Didn’t say a word to him, just nodded and went about my business.”

A phone rang. Germ reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a cell. He flipped it open and listened without saying a word.

Dan looked around at the walls. The colours were lurid, mostly primaries with dull browns and greys splashed in between, the better to offset the subjects from their backgrounds.