Rolling Thunder:
[roh-ling] [thuhn-der]
noun; verb (used with object)
1. The action of a forward roll towards an opponent using the complete rotation to spring up onto their feet and into the air and perform an attack. The most popular version of this ends with a jumping somersault senton.
Two thoughts popped into my head when the three-hundred-pound woman on roller skates slapped me on the ass.
First, that she must have been skating very fast before delivering the spank as the force with which she pummelled my posterior sent shock waves throughout my body and caused me to stumble forward, no small feat when you consider that I’m six-foot-three and weigh close to two-forty, give or take a few pounds, depending upon whether there’s been a spike in my milkshake intake.
The second thought was that the sheer size of this heavy-set hellion on wheels’ hand was astounding, for when she delivered her vigorous blow to my buttocks, her giant meathook nearly engulfed the entire circumference of my behind.
I regained my balance and was rubbing my stinging rump when I realized what had just transpired turned a simple bum assault from a playful incident into a full-blown calamity—upon impact the large, delicious, Dairy Queen banana milkshake I had been nursing flew out of my hand and splattered onto the concrete floor.
I was no longer annoyed. Now I was livid. I heard the rolling fanny-whacker cackle riotously, her laughter echoing throughout the arena. I locked eyes with her across the track and she winked at me and blew me a kiss. I furrowed my brow and opened my mouth to let fly a string of obscenities, but before I had the chance Stephanie Danielson—AKA Stormy Daze—ripped into her teammate like a tornado in a trailer park.
“Jesus Christ, Jabba!” she yelled. “What the hell is the matter with you?” Stormy turned to me and gently rubbed my arm. “Sorry, Jed. I know how much you like your milkshakes.”
I stared at the banana-flavoured ice cream goodness as it continued to spill out of the cup onto the glossy grey concrete like a brother-in-arms bleeding out on the battlefield. I sighed deeply. At that moment the booty-smacking milkshake assassin completed another lap on the roller derby track.
“You got yourself some nice buns there, Butterfingers!” she hollered as she whizzed by and continued around the track for another lap.
“That’s enough, Jabba!” barked Stormy, before patting my arm some more.
I finally snapped out of my milkshake mourning and focused.
“Why do you keep calling her Jabba?” I asked.
“That’s her name,” replied Stormy. “Jabba the Slut.”
“That’s not really her name.”
“Yes, it is.”
“So if I looked at her driver’s licence it would say ‘Jabba the Slut?’ ”
“It may as well. This is roller derby, Jed. Our names are what empower us as warrior women and make us who we are. It’s why, back when I used to wrestle, I was ‘Stormy Daze,’ but now when I hit the track I become the ‘Amazombie.’ ”
Stormy put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest proudly. I had met her eight months ago while unofficially working my first case. Her ex-boyfriend—and my former friend and pro-wrestling tag-team partner Johnny Mamba—had been murdered and my investigation led me to her. Although I briefly considered her a suspect in Johnny’s death, it quickly became clear that she was a good woman who had loved him dearly. I’d not seen Stormy since Johnny’s funeral. She left professional wrestling after Johnny died and I hadn’t heard anything about her until she called the office that morning and asked to meet as soon as possible.
Stormy looked even better than I remembered, especially decked out in her roller derby gear. She was dressed in a pair of form-fitting, blue short-shorts and a red sports bra underneath a white baseball baby T-shirt that covered her curvy chest but left her taut midsection exposed. Her blonde hair was in pigtails, the tips dyed red and blue, while her symmetrical face was painted in white and black makeup, with drops of fake blood around her pouty, ruby-red lips to give her that oh-so-fashionable, sexy undead look. Finally, she wore retro, knee-high, striped athletic socks underneath a bedazzling pair of rainbow-coloured roller skates. With the extra three inches in height, for the first time we were standing nearly eye-to-eye.
With her gaudy outfit and lean, yet feminine muscular build, she looked like a walking-dead version of the Batman villainess Harley Quinn on steroids.
“Jabba the Slut and Amazombie,” I said, shaking my head. “And I thought professional wrestling was overly theatrical.”
“Never mind Jabba,” Stormy said. “The one you really need to watch out for is ‘Barracougar.’ If she gets her paws on you, she’ll make Jabba’s spank feel like a love tap.”
At this point the locker room doors slammed open and over a dozen women all dolled up in different outfits and makeup—and all wearing retro-style four-wheeled roller skates—charged toward the roller derby track and joined Jabba the Slut for warm-up laps. Stormy escorted me out of their way as they attacked the track with the ferociousness of rabid wolverines. Hoots, hollers, and war cries were spit out with both confidence and vitriol, and by the time I wrapped my head around the unusual sight before me, Stormy had guided me over to the players’ bench and taken a seat. She tapped the hard plastic and motioned for me to sit. I slowly eased my aching bottom onto the unforgiving surface and joined her, still transfixed by the colourful swarm of skaters rolling around the track at varying speeds.
“You guys dress up like this for every practice?” I asked.
“No, usually only for games,” replied Stormy. “But today is a sort of a dress rehearsal.” I nodded as Stormy continued.
“So how about I tell you why I really asked you here.”
“You mean it wasn’t for an enormous woman on wheels named after a Star Wars villain to beat my ass like a rented mule?”
She smiled briefly before reaching out and squeezing my hand.
“I need your help, Jed.” She waved her other glittery-gloved hand toward the roller skaters. “We need your help.”
She let go of my hand and I shifted uncomfortably, my butt still stinging from Jabba the Slut’s powerful smack. I glanced around the modest arena, a multi-purpose facility in the Greater Vancouver suburb of Coquitlam that, when not chock full of estrogen-charged roller-skating maniacs, was used for indoor soccer, box lacrosse, and ball hockey. Numerous purple and gold banners hung from the rafters, all sporting different years of championships won by the Coquitlam Adanacs, the local lacrosse club. I tried to ignore my aching rump and looked Stormy in the eyes.
“What can I do for you, Stormy?”
“We want to hire you.”
“For what?”
“You’re a real detective now, right?”
“Private investigator. And yes, I am, on a provisional basis under supervision until I log enough hours.”
“Good. I told the girls I was pretty sure you were legit. After what you did for Johnny it didn’t matter to me, but a few of the ladies insisted we hire a professional. I told them I knew just the guy.”
“Hire me for what?”
“Our coach is missing. We’re all a bit concerned, plus we have playoffs coming up and the team is nervous to take to the track without him.”
“Has he ever disappeared for periods of time before?” I asked.
Stormy shook her head emphatically. “Not once. He lives for derby. He would never flake out like this.”
“Can you think of any reason why he would leave town?”
Stormy let out a beleaguered sigh. “Well, maybe. You see, there are some rumours about him….”
“What kind of rumours?”
“Gambling.”
“You think he might be in some trouble?”
Stormy shrugged. “I’m not sure. A couple times a guy with really big muscles came around to our practices and he and Larry would go off and have a chat. And one time Vicky Von Doom swears she heard some shouting.”
“Larry, that’s your coach’s name?”
“Yes, but only I call him Larry. He goes by Lawrence. Lawrence of O’Labia.”
It took everything I had not to smack my hand against my forehead.
“His real name, Stormy.”
“His first name really is Lawrence. O’Labia is his derby name. I don’t know his last name. Pippi Longstomping would know.” Stormy slipped her index fingers into opposite sides of her mouth and let out a high-pitched sound so piercing you would have thought it came from a steam whistle. “Yo! Pip! Get over here.”
A short, stout woman with fire-truck red hair hopped off the track and skated over to us. Her long pigtails flapped in the air behind her and, as she rolled closer, I noticed she had her face painted with over-the-top freckles the size of dimes.
“What’s up, Cap?” she asked, before wiping perspiration from her brow with her matching red wristband.
“Pippi Longstomping, I’d like to introduce you to ‘Hammerhead’ Jed Ounstead. He’s the investigator we’re hiring,” said Stormy as we both rose from the bench.
Pippi sniffed, wiped her palm on her shorts, and stuck out a stubby arm. I nodded and shook her hand.
“Nice to meet you, Jed. Think you can find Lawrence?” she asked.
“I know I can, but I need a surname to get started.”
“Kunstlinger.”
“Very funny.”
“That’s it, man.”
I looked to Stormy for help but she just stared blankly back at me. Behind both Stormy and Pippi the rest of the team had started chanting while stretching and continuing to skate laps on the track. Jabba the Slut led them in the cheer.
“I’m the queen!” Jabba screamed.
“You’re gonna die!” answered the team.
“Cross my path?” Jabba screeched.
“You’re gonna fly!” echoed the roller derby women.
The ladies then broke into more whooping and war cries. I looked back and forth between Stormy and Pippi as my frustration bubbled up from within.
“Look, I want to help you guys. But I’m getting a little irritated here. My ass hurts like hell, my milkshake is history, and I’ve got whiplash from trying to keep up with all of your different roller derby names. I just need Lawrence’s legal surname.”
Pippi Longstomping looked stunned and glanced at Stormy before looking back at me.
“It really is Kunstlinger. I’ve seen it on his driver’s licence.”
“Lawrence Kunstlinger,” I said, my voice tinged with disbelief.
“I think it’s a German name,” added Stormy.
I took a deep breath and glanced over at what was left of my banana milkshake. It had almost completely melted.
“Okay, then,” I said.
“Thanks, big guy,” chirped Pippi cheerily, before pulling a mouthguard from her shorts pocket and popping it between her teeth. She skated off and back onto the track to rejoin the other players.
“Do you have a picture of Lawrence?” I asked Stormy. She pulled out a black-and-white booklet and a pen from her back pocket.
“This is the program from our last game. It has pictures of Lawrence and the team and all of our bios inside. I glanced at the cover illustration of an anthropomorphic taco and a buff babe, both grappling one another while on roller skates. The large retro font read: TACO KICKERS VS. SPLIT-LIP SALLIES and underneath the date, venue, ticket pricing, team website, and Facebook page were all listed.
“Please tell me your team isn’t the ‘Taco Kickers,’ ” I pleaded.
Stormy giggled softly. I had forgotten how silky smooth her laugh was.
“We are not,” she said.
“All right. I think I have enough to get started.”
“I checked the rates on your website and I have a cheque in my purse for the retainer,” she said. “Just hold on a second while I go to the locker room.”
“Don’t worry about that now. Besides, you’re an old friend, so that means I’ll charge you the friends-and-family rate our agency offers. Let’s see what I can dig up first before we talk payment.”
Stormy seemed relieved.
“Thank you, Jed. It took a lot for me to convince the entire team to go in on a private detective.”
“How long has Lawrence been missing?”
“The last any of the girls heard from him was a week ago. He sent out an email to the team and since then no one has been able to get a hold of him. All calls go straight to voicemail.”
“Do you have his phone number?”
Stormy plucked the program out of my hand and scribbled on the booklet.
“That’s Lawrence’s cell. I wrote mine down too,” she said coyly. “Call or text me anytime. And if you could keep me updated as much as possible, I would really appreciate it. The girls and I are starting to get really worried.”
I nodded and folded the program in my hands. Before I could say goodbye Stormy slowly rolled forward, cocked her head to the side, and gave me a soft, seconds-long kiss on the cheek. The rest of the Split-Lip Sallies wooed loudly from the track.
“I really appreciate this, Jed,” she said, before spinning around and skating off toward her teammates. I turned and headed for the exit before my face flushed more red than the lipstick lingering on my cheek.
The mayor of tent city was holding court. He stood on a podium made of yellow milk crates and disseminated his edicts via a makeshift megaphone that, as far as I could tell, was nothing more than a rolled-up newspaper. He gesticulated wildly with his other hand, making long sweeping motions that seemed to imply, at very least, he was being inclusive to those he thought he governed. Of course, considering he was shirtless, wearing sunglasses, a bandana, and sporting a long ZZ Top-style beard, as well as the fact no one in tent city was giving his ramblings the time of day, I doubted any of his decrees would be heeded.
Although an injunction had caused the previous tent city in the Downtown Eastside’s Oppenheimer Park to be dismantled and its homeless population forced to relocate elsewhere, the uncharacteristic heatwave Vancouver was experiencing in mid-to-late May had caused a new, smaller flare-up of portable shelters to appear at the same site.
A dozen or so orange, blue, and green tents—some interconnected with long, overarching black tarps—were clustered together in the centre of the lot. A few homeless people milled about, either chit-chatting with one another or soaking up the sunshine in lawn chairs, but the majority of tent city’s residents were either likely roasting in their portable homes or had found another way to beat the heat.
I slurped back what was left of my replacement banana milkshake, switched off the air conditioning in my Ford F-150, and rolled down my window. It would probably only be a matter of days until these poor unfortunate souls were ousted from their tents yet again, but I found myself hoping that they might find themselves left alone for awhile. As my truck idled at the intersection of West Hastings and Abbott Street, a skinny man with stringy hair charged my vehicle armed with a squeegee. He did a little happy dance when he saw me nod and then proceeded to do at best a mediocre job of wiping my windshield. I slipped him a ten-dollar bill as the light turned green and he was so surprised and thrilled he not only resumed his happy dance, but this time included some karate kicks and wielded and whipped his squeegee around his upper body like pair of nunchucks.
I drove another block and parked on the street. I eased my way out of my truck, certain a bruise was now forming on my behind, and walked with a slight waddle into the Emerald Shillelagh, the pub that my father had owned for years.
“You bloody wanker!” bellowed a familiar Irish brogue. “You’re as useless as tits on a bull!”
My cousin Declan St. James towered over a short, disconcerted-looking young man holding a Guinness pint glass in one hand and a bottle of grenadine syrup in the other behind the pub’s lacquered mahogany bar.
“What did I do wrong?” asked the kid, confused.
“You feckin’ know what you did,” snapped Declan.
“She ordered a black and blood,” the kid said in defence.
“I don’t care. We don’t serve that sugary shite here.”
“But it’s what the customer wants,” he pleaded.
“You’re asking for there to be wigs on the green if you serve that bollocks, Boyo.”
The kid adjusted his black, backward Kangol flat cap and seemed genuinely perplexed.
“I honestly don’t have a clue what you just said,” he said quietly, before continuing to make the abomination of pomegranate syrup mixed with a pint of Guinness.
Declan gritted his teeth and looked to me for support. “I’m gonna rip this dense dosser’s throat out, Jed. I swear to Christ.”
Considering my cousin was ex-IRA and possibly more deadly with his hands than he was with a weapon, I took his threat a bit more seriously than I would another man’s.
“Take it easy, D,” I said calmly, trying to keep my cousin’s feisty temper from going from a simmer to a boil. “There’s no need to go full Road House on him.”
Declan smirked. “Aye, I suppose not,” he conceded.
“Speaking of eighties cinema, instead of getting frustrated why don’t you just send him to the back and have him watch Cocktail for a bit?”
“That’s not a half bad idea, especially if it keeps me from effin’ and blindin’ ’til I’m all but knackered.”
Just then the bartender trainee looked up after topping off the blasphemy that was a sweetened Guinness.
“What’s Cocktail?” he asked.
Both Declan and I did a double take.
“The Tom Cruise bartending movie?” I replied, hoping for the kid’s sake he had seen it.
“Never heard of it,” said the bartending trainee.
Declan clenched his fists and I swear steam almost shot out of both of his ears like Yosemite Sam after losing a hand of poker to Bugs Bunny.
“GET THE BLOODY HELL OUT O’ME PUB RIGHT NOW YOU SKAWLY SACK O’SHITE! ” Declan bellowed.
The former trainee almost jumped out of his skin and stared at us both in shock.
“He means it, Bub,” I said, nodding toward the door.
The kid put down the black and blood Guinness he had yet to serve and bolted for the door. Although the place was mostly dead, the few customers scattered around the pub gawked at the commotion.
“And don’t ever let me catch your stupid, mingin’, kangaroo-cap-wearin’ arse in here again!” Declan yelled after him. “You sicken me pish!”
I patted my cousin on the arm, feeling his hard, sinewy muscles taut with rage.
“Come on, let’s have a pint of the black stuff. I’ll pour.”
I slipped behind the bar and selected two twenty-ounce, tulip pint glasses bearing the stout’s name from the top shelf. I tilted the glass away from me at a forty-five-degree angle and filled it until it reached halfway up the iconic golden harp. I put down the pint to let the Guinness settle and repeated the process with the second glass.
Still seething, Declan slowly made his way around the bar, over to a bar stool, and sat down. I slid a bowl of mixed nuts in front of him and he started crunching salted cashews and almonds between his teeth with a vengeance.
“Let me guess … another film student?” I asked.
“Aye,” Declan grunted. “Last time I let one o’those poncey muppets apply. I don’t care how jammers we get around here because o’them no more.”
Since it was a favourite watering hole for both students and staff of the Vancouver Film School, which was literally across the street, the Emerald Shillelagh had seen an uptick in budding filmmakers seeking to fill the part-time position the pub had recently posted.
With enough time passed, one by one I held the pints level and topped them off. I aimed to etch a shamrock in the foamy head of both, a true talent of a master pourer and something my cousin could do in his sleep. Unfortunately, my efforts left the foamy heads each looking like they had a squiggly letter Q carved into them instead.
“Damn it,” I bemoaned before serving the pints.
“You’ll get there,” said Declan supportively.
I proceeded to tell my cousin about my encounter with Stormy and the Split-Lip Sallies, and how they had hired me earlier that afternoon to find their missing coach.
“Burly butt-slappin’ broads and big-boobed babes on roller skates?” Declan asked. “You’re takin’ me to one o’their games, Mate.”
“Maybe later. Right now I need your help.”
I showed Declan the photo of Lawrence from the roller derby program and explained the gambling rumours.
“Lawrence of O’Labia?” he chuckled. “Jaysus, that’s bloody priceless.”
“They all have weird names. It’s a roller derby thing. His actual last name is Kunstlinger.”
Declan almost choked on his beer from laughter. “Quit takin’ the piss.”
“I’m serious.”
Declan finished chuckling and took a closer look at Lawrence’s photo from the program. In the picture the coach of the Split-Lip Sallies rocked a porn-star mustache and big, curly, ’fro-like hair, while his eyes were glazed over as if he were very stoned.
“So this pervy-lookin’ git is a wee bit of a punter then, I take it?”
I gave my cousin an odd look. “I don’t know if he frequents prostitutes.”
“With a bazzer like that you can bet he does.”
“Bazzer?”
“His haircut,” said Declan, tapping his ’fro in the photo.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“What the bloody hell are you talking about?”
“You just said he was a punter.”
“Aye, you know, a gamblin’ man.”
“Punter means ‘john’ over here.”
“Piss right off!”
“It’s true.”
“You goddamn Canucks. The only thing more dumb than your slang is your poutine.”
“Watch yourself, D. It’s a national delicacy.”
“Cop on with ya, you big, hairy oaf.”
“Can we get back to business here?”
“Aye,” said Declan, before downing a big gulp of his Guinness. “So this Kunstlinger bloke, he likes his bets then.”
“The girls weren’t certain but it tracks. I think he may be into the sharks. And since I know how much you love to bet on your football—”
“Ya figured I could call me bookie and ask around,” said Declan, finishing my thought. “Aye, I’ll get on it right away.”
Declan laid the program flat on the bar and snapped a pic of Lawrence with his phone. “Kunstlinger,” muttered Declan under his breath, before chuckling some more.
We enjoyed some silent sips of Guinness before a middle-aged brunette with a pixie cut slid out of a booth across the pub and approached us.
“Excuse me, but I ordered a black and blood awhile ago and I’m still waiting….”
Declan slowly started to emit a low guttural snarl before I cleared my throat and walked back around the bar.
“I’m afraid we only serve our Guinness as Sir Arthur himself intended it, Ma’am,” I said, trying to act as a buffer between the customer and my exasperated cousin. “How about a pint on the house for the delay instead?”
The lady nodded uncertainly and returned to her booth, her eyes lingering on the bottle of grenadine syrup still sitting on the bar where Kangaroo Kid had placed it. I left Declan to serve up one of his masterful creations of barley and hops, and after taking my pint to go, made my way into the hallway, past the restrooms, and up the spiralling staircase to the office on the second floor.
I used my key to unlock the door, shaking my head at the large engraved sign I still hadn’t gotten used to. The brass plaque read OUNSTEAD & SON INVESTIGATIONS. My old man was so thrilled when I received my under-supervision private investigator’s licence that he replaced the door and went all out on a new sign, which, with its jumbo font, seemed more like an entrance marker for a big-shot Hollywood film producer instead of a couple of local PIs working out of a modest office above a pub. In addition to the large sign, my old man had wanted to get a double-side partners’ desk to face each other. Considering how in my face my father already was, a partners’ desk would have been absolutely unbearable. Fortunately, I was able to convince him to stick with a single desk we could share and instead upgrade his archaic rotary phone and Windows PC with a conference phone and an iMac. In exchange for his technological progressiveness, I reluctantly conceded to my father’s insistence that photocopies of both of our framed private investigator licences hang front and centre on the wall behind the desk. If it were up to me I would have kept mine in a drawer, but instead there they floated on the wall, the matching silver frames jumping out against the backdrop of the metallic blue paint. Several times I had caught my father gazing at the licences with the same look of pride you would see on a fishing enthusiast staring at a Haida Gwaii trophy salmon he had battled, caught, and mounted for display.
I slipped behind the cherry-red executive desk, fired up the computer, and logged into our joint investigative software. My old man had been working a fraud case for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia the last few weeks and his logs revealed he was currently out on surveillance duty. Although ICBC had slowly cut back on the number of private investigators used for fraud investigations in lieu of their own cyber analysts, my father knew people within the company who preferred to have a retired Vancouver Police Department veteran work their cases instead of a bunch of selfie-stick-owning hacker twentysomethings who, while great at digging up a person’s digital activities online, lacked the skill and subtlety it often took to catch a seasoned scam artist.
I started a new case file for Lawrence Kunstlinger, and after plunking in all the relevant info began the tedious task of scouring the web for any and all information I could find on the Split-Lip Sallies coach. Most of what I found was straight-forward enough. When not mentoring derby ladies, Lawrence worked as a delivery driver for a local auto parts shop. He was in his late thirties, had never married, and lived in a one-bedroom apartment in New Westminster, near the very hospital where he was born.
I sipped my Guinness as I started sifting through Lawrence’s social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. His Instagram was the one in which he posted most often, and nearly all the pictures were taken at either roller derby games or practices. All of his accounts were public and shared the same profile picture, which was a close-up of Lawrence making a goofy face while Jabba the Slut kissed him on one cheek and Pippi Longstomping kissed him on the other. The last post he made was a snap of Lawrence leading the Split-Lip Sallies in a post-game cheer. It had been uploaded ten days prior, which fit with the date of his disappearance Stormy had given me.
I updated the case file with my notes. There was also nothing I could dig up on Lawrence that revealed him partaking in any gambling whatsoever. Not even a few random pics of him at a casino or even playing cards. Lawrence Kunstlinger may have been a betting man, but if he was he clearly went out of his way to keep that fact hidden. I left a yellow sticky note on the computer screen requesting my old man to call in a favour with one of his buddies at the VPD to run a full criminal records check on Lawrence, before jotting down his current address on another sticky and slipping the paper in my pocket. I finished the rest of my Guinness, locked up the office, then headed back downstairs only to find Declan behind the bar muttering to himself as he poured the bottle of grenadine into the drain in the sink. I told him I was headed to New Westminster to check out Lawrence’s residence in person.
“Never show surprise, never lose your cool, Mate,” he said with a smirk.
“Coughlin’s Law,” I replied, passing his test and correctly quoting back to him a line from Cocktail.
I left the pub with a smile on my face. Unfortunately it didn’t last long.
A tugboat horn blasted as I walked down the hill and took a sharp left onto the sidewalk. I looked past the quay in the distance and while I couldn’t see the little ship chugging along, the big riverboat the tugboat had in tow was visible, its bright red paddlewheel slowly turning as it was dragged up the Fraser River.
Lawrence’s apartment complex was on the corner of Eighth and Carnarvon in New Westminster, just a block northwest from a Salvation Army Thrift Store. I loitered as casually as possible in front of the large, grey, rectangular building, hoping for someone to either exit or enter. After five minutes I had run out of patience and taken to buzzing apartments and answering “pizza delivery” when curious voices from the intercom inquired who I was. After three tries someone buzzed the lock and I slipped inside the building.
I took the stairs up to the fourth floor and then hoofed it to the unit furthest down the hall and on the right, facing the street. I slowed as I approached the door, noticing that it was slightly ajar. Upon closer inspection I saw that the lock was busted and the door frame was split. From the amount of damage done, it was clear that a crowbar had likely been used. The door hinges creaked ominously as I pushed it open and slipped into the apartment. The place had clearly been tossed. I had heard enough cop stories about illegal searches and B&Es from my old man to be able to recognize the difference between a professional and a sloppy search, and what had taken place in Lawrence’s apartment was definitely the latter.
A table had been overturned in the hallway, the dingy carpet sprinkled with key rings, loose change, and red and white peppermints. The kitchen was to my left and the cupboards were all open and the floor littered with broken plates, pots, and pans. Both the freezer and refrigerator door were wide open, revealing nothing except empty ice cube trays and a ghost town of condiments. Either the intruders had been hungry or Lawrence Kunstlinger ate out a lot.
I kept moving until I reached the living room, which was as Spartan as a Buddhist monk meditating inside an oversized cardboard box. A modest flat-screen TV had been ripped off the wall and smashed, and a musty-looking chesterfield had been sliced open a dozen times, its white upholstery bulging from the slits like a scuba diver disemboweled by an outboard motor.
I crept cautiously toward the apartment’s single bedroom. I poked my head into the room only to see more of the same. The mattress had been flipped and a dresser raided and turned over, while all of Lawrence’s clothes had been pulled out of the closet and strewn about the room. Aside from having a penchant for bell-bottom jeans and bowling shirts, there wasn’t much else in Lawrence’s bedroom that told me much about him. His entire apartment was quite bland, and it appeared that someone tearing it apart was perhaps the most exciting thing to ever happen in the dreary living space.
Confident that I was alone, I suddenly realized I had been holding my breath in an effort to be as silent as possible. With stealth no longer a priority, I exhaled and began to move about the room and inspect the damage closer. Eventually I made my way to the window, which was open a crack. I pulled up the blinds and took in the view of Carnarvon Street as well as the New Westminster quay and Fraser River beyond it.
I spotted a man in a grey suit just as I finished scanning Carnarvon for the last time and was about to turn around. He was as motionless as a statue, standing by a parking meter directly across the street. He looked to be in his early forties, was of medium height, slender build, and, most peculiarly, was holding a black umbrella on an otherwise hot, sunny day. He also wore a bowler hat that perfectly matched the colour of his suit so he immediately reminded me of Chauncey Gardiner in the Peter Sellers film Being There, albeit with one significant difference.
The hairs on the back of my neck were standing straight up because this odd-looking, unnaturally static man was staring right at me. His beady black eyes betrayed no emotion. He continued watching me, his steely gaze slowly transforming into unnerving leering as the seconds ticked by.
I decided to make a run for it and try and catch up to the well-dressed watcher, however, the moment I resolved to do so I heard the first footstep. I had only turned halfway around when I caught a glimpse of the weapon coming at me, and despite ducking and using my forearm to absorb some of the blow, the blunt object caught me on the back of the head just behind my ear. I stumbled to one knee, the room spinning as I felt warm blood trickle down my neck. I managed to look up in time to see two twin attackers, but quickly realized I was seeing double.
The attacker wound up again, his weapon now appearing to be a wooden stick. I dropped flat on the ground like a starfish and heard a whooshing sound as the stick flew by my head, nearly connecting. Knowing this was my only chance to get the upper hand, I rolled the dice and assumed the actual attacker was the one I saw on the left. I launched myself into a flying tackle and speared the man hard in his gut with my shoulder. He let out a cry and fell backward, falling awkwardly on the plastic and glass that was once a flat-screen TV. I heard the stick clatter to the floor, and as I struggled to get to my feet I saw the attacker roll off of the broken television and bolt for the door.
I forced myself to fight through the pain and disorientation and managed to climb to my feet. I leaned forward, holding my hands on my knees, and took in a few deep breaths. I exhaled, rolled back my shoulders, and started in pursuit. My footing was wobbly and the hallway seemed to be slowly spinning, but I doggedly ran after my attacker. I reached the stairs and was more grateful for the four flights of handrails than an out-of-shape marathoner for a water station. My balance and coordination started to return as I raced down the stairway and when I burst out of the front door, I spotted my assailant. He was sprinting down Eighth Street toward the quay’s River Market and had just made it to an overpass stairway that went over a pair of train tracks and led to the waterfront emporium.
I gave chase. I had gotten my wind back and was flying. I started gaining on my attacker, who was nearing the other side of the pedestrian overpass. He was still running fast, his long, stringy brown hair flapping underneath his backwards Vancouver Canucks baseball cap. Suddenly he dropped out of sight again as he descended the staircase toward the pier. I bounded up the stairs and shot across the overpass before coming down the other side. I reached the pier and paused, unable to relocate my assailant. I scoured my surroundings as I stood on the old wooden planks, between a decommissioned tugboat converted into a playground and a thirty-foot toy soldier that served New Westminster proudly as a “tallest-in-the-world” tourist attraction. Sunlight glinted off of the toy soldier’s glossy red jacket forcing me to squint and avert my eyes, but when I opened them again I spotted him. He was no longer running, but walking briskly, checking back over his shoulder as he left the pier and entered an organic market.
He didn’t see me. I charged after him and was moving so fast the automatic doors nearly didn’t open in time. I was suddenly enveloped in pungent scents of fish and handmade soaps, along with an aromatic whiff of hot basmati rice. Canucks Hat was standing next to a table where a hipster in an orange apron was giving out samples of fresh cold-pressed juices, but when he saw me both his jaw and the cup of whatever green concoction he was drinking dropped. The juice splattered on the floor and Canucks Hat turned and dashed out of the market, past several toy store kiosks and up an escalator to the second floor of the River Market.
I was right behind him. When we reached the second floor we found ourselves surrounded by some kind of board game tournament. Forty people or more were seated around a dozen tables, all deeply immersed in a variety of different games. Canucks Hat was caught off guard and tried to pivot and run the other way, but before he had the chance I leapt across a bench and tackled him into a table. Little plastic figures of knights on horseback and game cards depicting the Holy Grail, Excalibur, and Saxon warriors went flying in all directions as we rolled off the table and onto the floor. I straddled Canucks Hat’s chest, grabbed a handful of his shirt, and cocked a fist.
“Don’t hit me! Please!” he begged.
I hesitated, and then looked around to see dozens of board gamers staring at me in shock. I slowly lowered my duke and got off of my assailant. He dusted himself off and sat up. He made no effort to rabbit and simply waited there on his bum until I made my next move. Just then a pimply-faced, bespectacled teenager took a half step forward and pointed at the overturned gaming table.
“Dude … you just ruined our game of Shadows over Camelot.”
I looked at the kid, then at Canucks Hat, and then back to the kid.
“Just call me Lancelot,” I replied.
I grabbed Canucks Hat by the scruff of the neck and yanked him to his feet. He barely came up to my chest and was much shorter than I had realized.
“Let’s take a walk,” I said forcibly.
“Okay, man, whatever you say,” he replied.
We left the board gamers staring at the carnage in dismay and rode the escalator back down toward the organic market.
“Why did you attack me?” I asked.
“Why did you trash Lars’ pad?”
“I didn’t.”
Canucks Hat was stunned. “But then—why were you there?”
“I’m a private investigator. Lawrence’s roller derby team hired me to find him.”
Canucks Hat took of his cap and ran his fingers through his stringy hair.
“Shit, man,” he said, before securing the cap back on his head. “I had no idea. I’m, like, totes sorry.”
“Totes?”
“Yeah. Totes. Like as in short for ‘totally.’ ”
I felt the adrenaline slowly fading from my system, although it was immediately replaced by irritation that this guy thought dropping a few letters from a word was a time saver.
“Let’s go back to Lawrence’s apartment,” I said, as we passed children playing on the tugboat playground, and started marching up the stairs toward the giant toy soldier’s head and the pedestrian overpass. Canucks Hat nodded obediently and we walked the rest of the way in silence. When we reached the apartment complex Canucks Hat whipped out his keys and unlocked the door.
“You live here?” I asked.
“Yeah, man. I’m Lars’ neighbour. I live across the hall.”
We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked until we were back inside Lawrence’s humble abode. Canucks Hat shoved his hands deep into his jeans pockets and slouched against a wall. I ripped a few sheets of paper towel off of a roll on the kitchen floor and used them to dab the cut on the back of my head. The wound was small and had clotted, so I was pretty sure I didn’t need stitches. I caught Canucks Hat’s eye as I wiped the remaining blood off my neck and he hung his head as if in shame.
I moved to the living room and found the weapon he had used to attack me—an old-school, wooden lacrosse stick. I used the stick to scoop up a small-framed photograph near the broken television. In the team picture Lawrence stood proudly behind the Split-Lip Sallies. I placed the photo on the kitchen countertop bar.
“That’s the only thing they didn’t mess up,” said Canucks Hat.
“What’s that?”
“His roller derby stuff.”
Canucks Hat pointed above me on the hallway wall. I had missed it before due to its height, but a large floating shelf hosted a variety of roller derby memorabilia. Framed photos, a yellow helmet covered in spandex with two black stars on it, and numerous trophies all hovered safely over the rest of the trashed apartment.
“That picture must have fallen off or something,” reasoned Canucks Hat.
I slung the lacrosse stick behind my neck and with both arms on opposite ends used it to stretch out my chest and back.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Troy Whitlock.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I work at Safeway. Produce department.”
“How long have you known Lawrence?”
Troy shrugged. “Couple years, I guess? He was already living here when I moved in.”
“Do you have any idea who could have done this?” I asked, motioning toward the massive damage.
“I wish, man.”
“When did this ransacking take place?”
“Must have been this morning. His place was locked up tight when I got in last night.”
“Have you seen anything else suspicious around here lately?”
“No, man. Look, if we’re going to play twenty questions do you mind if I at least have a puff? You scared the shit out of me back there.”
“Have at it, Bub.”
Troy dug in his pocket and pulled out a slim, black vape pen. He pressed a button, inhaled deeply, held his breath, then blew out a blueberry-scented cloud of vapour. I leaned the lacrosse stick against the wall and waited for him to take another hit before continuing my questioning.
“Is that nicotine?” I asked.
“Weed oil,” said Troy, grinning.
I nodded. “Better?”
“Much.”
I took a step forward and crossed my arms.
“Do you know if Lawrence had any gambling debts?” I asked.
“Nah, man. I mean, not that I know of. But he did like to gamble.”
“On what?”
“Sports mostly. NFL, NBA, NHL, even some MLB in October. Sometimes we used to talk strategy before he placed his bets.”
the countertop bar that divided the kitchen and the living room as if in a trance.
I snapped my fingers a few times. “Troy? Troy!” Troy rejoined the land of the living and looked at me with a confused expression. “Yeah?”
“What fish?”
“Carlos.”
“Carlos?”
“Larry’s Siamese fighting fish. That’s where his little tank usually is,” he said, pointing to the bar countertop. “He’s gone, man.” The short stoner frowned. “I liked that fish,” he said sadly.
“Troy?”
“Yeah?”
“If the fish or its tank isn’t here, then I’m sure it’s okay.”
“Oh man, I hope so. I really liked that fish.”
Realizing I was reaching a point of diminishing returns due to Troy’s puffs of Mary Jane, I decided to wrap up my inquiry.
“Last question. Have you ever seen a man in a grey suit around here before?”
“What, like a professor?”
“A professor?”
“Yeah, man. Don’t professors wear grey suits?”
Troy was fading and fading fast.
“I mean like a slim guy in a nice suit, with an umbrella and a bowler hat.”
Troy started laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Bowlers don’t wear hats, man,” he said, snickering some more.
I decided to throw in the towel. I gave Troy my card and told him to call if he remembered anything else that might be useful in tracking down Lawrence. I escorted him out of Lawrence’s apartment and back to his own. He was still giggling as he opened his front door.
“Bowler hats,” he chuckled to himself as he rode his high back into his apartment.
Twenty minutes later I was halfway to my pop’s pub and three quarters of the way through a large banana milkshake when my phone chimed.
I opened my text messages and saw a single sentence from Declan.
Found Mr. O’Labia’s bookie, Mate.