The city itself is stunning. City of Glass. Of ocean. The Terminal City, I’d seen in my research. So called because it was the end of the line when they built the railroad. Or the beginning, depending on your perspective.

My hotel is on English Bay facing the ocean. A venerated hotel that has been here since the century before the one just past, I’d read. A long time.

“Do you know Errol Flynn’s dick fell off at this hotel?” says one of the young women checking in right ahead of me. There are two of them.

“Who’s Errol Flynn?” asks the other.

“Wasn’t he with Pearl Jam for a while?” I offer, deadpan. The two girls look at each other, then give me a wide berth as they head for the elevator. I don’t blame them. It’s probably the right call.

I have arrived in the evening and it’s raining. After spending not much time in my hotel room, I grab an umbrella from the concierge and head out the front door into a light and refreshing rain. I don’t need time to think, but I’ve got time to kill and walking seems like the right call.

There is a seawall in Vancouver. It snakes around the edge of the city, a pedestrian highway at the edge of the water. I walk this now. Not thinking about my destination or if I even really have one, just enjoying the city at night.

I am in a safe area, at least at first, populated by tourists and fashionable couples. I walk on the seawall toward the city, not the big park near the hotel. After a while I have an idea of where I am going. I let my feet take me there.

I walk along the seawall as far as I can, then up a few blocks to where tomorrow I plan to do what I’ve been sent to do. And when I get where I’m going, I stand there in the rain for a few minutes, looking at the building, thinking of what approach I will take on the following day. I am so focused, and maybe so tired, that I am startled when the front door opens and a man pops out. He is energetic and more youthful than the photo I’d been sent led me to think he would be, but I have no doubt it’s he.

Though I am a few feet from the entrance, to my surprise my invisibility shield of middle-aged woman doesn’t hold and he crosses to me in a few strong steps. He does it so quickly, I have no time to collect myself and scurry away.

“Is everything all right?” he says. He is concerned. It is possible this is not a neighborhood a woman can safely wander around in by herself at night. I hadn’t known that.

“Well, sure,” I reply reflexively. “I’m a bit of a tourist. Out for an evening walk. I guess I got turned around.”

“I guess you did,” he says, and I look at him quickly, but there is nothing but warmth in his voice, on his face. Honest concern. “What’s a bit of a tourist, anyway? Never mind. You can tell me while we walk. I’m heading home now myself. Where are you staying?”

“I’m at the Sylvia.”

He nods approvingly and starts guiding me west as we walk. “In the West End. Good choice. Charming. Not ostentatious. And all the right ghosts.”

“Errol Flynn?” I say, pushing myself to keep up with his longer strides.

“Oh yeah. Him. Sure. But others. Some apparition sits on the bed in one of the rooms on the sixth floor. Something I read. You’re not on the sixth floor, are you?”

I shake my head.

“You should be all right then.”

“Well, that’s a relief. Where are you walking me?”

“I live in Coal Harbour, which is quite close. I’m going to see you home.”

“Ah,” I say, trying not to think about how complicated this is getting. And then after a while, not minding. We enjoy a companionable silence, and when we chat, words move easily between us. As we walk, he points out things of interest. He does it easily and well, and I can tell he is used to being treated like he has things worth saying. He asks what I do, and something I’d read in the in-flight magazine provides the answer. I tell him I’m a civic planner, sent to Vancouver to evaluate local design.

“A lot of people are doing that now,” he says. “I read that somewhere. Apparently we have a lot of civic design worth emulating. Who knew?”

I wonder if we’d read the same article, but don’t say anything.

“For various reasons,” he says when we reach the hotel, “I’m loath to go back to my lonely abode just yet. Will you join me for a drink in the bar?”

We sit at a table by the window. As we sip and chat, a part of me dips down to darker places. Who wants this man dead? An ex-wife? A business partner? A competitor? I seldom wonder. It’s not part of my concern. And I seldom have reason to know or find out. I try to stop myself from wondering now.

“Are you married?” I give it thought before saying the words. It might even seem curious if I don’t ask, that’s what I tell myself.

“I was,” he says. “I’m not now. What about you?” And this is another thing I find myself liking in him: his directness. Even his eyes meet mine as he asks. A pleasant slatey color. Like stone warmed by sun.

“Same,” I hear myself say. “Just the same.” And we smile as we sip, almost as though we’ve shared a joke, something like fire growing between us.

It is not inevitable that he should end up in my bed on the not-haunted third floor of the Sylvia Hotel. When it happens, though, I try not to think about consequences. I wonder at what I am feeling. As though I’d known it would happen from the moment he’d taken those few strong strides toward me as I stood outside his office building in the rain. Like nothing else had been possible. If I wasn’t certain of that before, it had become clear in the elevator, the hard length of him pressed into me, his tongue exploring the delicate lines of my ear, my chin, my neck.

By the time our unclothed bodies join in the ancient bed, I know it solidly: this was meant to be. Human touch has become difficult for me. But not here now, with him. His warmth and laughter and the touch of his skin have melted whatever reserve there might have been.

We call for room service after a while. His exertions have made him hungry, he says. And he wants something to drink. He answers the door with a towel wrapped around him and I admire the way the muscles move under his skin.

He’s ordered grilled squid and stuffed mushrooms, and a crab cake too big for its own good. We share the food and wine with the abandon and comfort of long lovers. Feeding each other and laughing together, giddy with something too precious to hold.

I like the strong, hot feel of him. And the way laughter storms his face. And the intensity with which he watches me when I speak, meeting my eyes. Watching for signs of things not said. Ever watchful.

There is a time when we sleep, feet touching, his hand cupped gently into the curve between my legs. I don’t know when wakefulness falls away, but it comes to both of us all at once. After a while, though, I wake. I pull the covers over us and extinguish the lights and try not to think about what I need to do. As I’ve said: human connections don’t come easily to me anymore. And yet I feel something easy growing more quickly than I would have thought possible. It leaves me a little breathless. Leaves me thinking about the possibility of a life that has more light.

I think about the Bersa, snug in the room safe. See myself, in my mind’s eye, creeping toward him, holding the gun to the soft, flat spot just behind his left ear. Letting in the bullet that will find its way home.

His eyes fly open and he regards me levelly. I feel my color rise.

“What are you thinking about?”

“I was thinking about how beautiful you are,” I say without missing a beat. “When you sleep, I mean. You looked so very peaceful.”

He smiles then. A real smile. His teeth are white and even. A movie star’s smile.

“You’re lying,” he says cheerfully. “But that’s okay.” I start to protest but he stops me. And he is right. It is okay. My thoughts are my own.

In the morning, he leaves early with the air of a man who has places to go. He drops a kiss on my forehead before he bustles out the door. I realize we haven’t made any plans and I find I don’t mind. I have my own plans to consider. My own future. Because, at the moment, his doesn’t look bright. I feel a pang at the place where comfort and satisfaction should be.

I stay in bed for a while, luxuriating in the feel of crisp hotel sheets and my own postcoital glow. I am outwardly calm but my brain is seething with all of these new permutations. I am processing.

I have a job to do. If I decline, he’ll end up just as dead. It might delay things by a week or so, maybe not even that. I’m not the only hired gun around.

Thinking that makes me realize something: they’ve brought me a long way and from another country to do this hit. There is a reason for that. I think further. Who is this guy?

Some simple googling brings results right away, but none that answer the question. He’d designed a Sterling engine that purifies water based on a proprietary system that uses graphene. A byproduct of the purification system had been a graphene-based fuel cell that is thinner and lighter than any other. That had been a decade ago. He now heads a company that develops and implements new solutions for both of those things: water purification and alternate fuel sources. The company has been successful enough that he is also at the head of a large nonprofit doing good work in third world countries cleaning water and providing power. He is a good guy with a social conscience and the success to do something with his gifts. Nothing I read about him makes me like him less.

And someone wants him dead.

I see no one obvious who might be responsible. He heads a private company, so a takeover move seems unlikely. No visible enemies. But experience has shown me that you can never tell what it looks like inside someone else’s life.

I give thought to sending a text, beginning a sequence, to find out who bought the hit, but I know it is a useless avenue. A network like the one I am part of didn’t get and stay successful by easily giving up sensitive information. It strikes me that even asking about it might put both him and my livelihood in jeopardy. Maybe even my life.

I consider my options. I can do the job I have come to do. If I do, I will know it was tidy and he didn’t suffer. Or I could feasibly not do the job without too much loss of face or reputation if I did it quickly and like a professional. “Something’s come up.” He’d certainly end up just as dead, but it would not be by my hand.

I don’t love either of these options, so I toy briefly with the idea of telling him the truth, or something close to it. That there is danger here. For everyone concerned. But I know his knowledge won’t protect him. Possibly nothing can.

I go for another walk. The seawall is a different place on a sunny midday than it was at night in the rain — large ocean-going vessels at anchor in the protected water of the bay, while sailboats bob around them like ponies playing in a field.

The seawall itself is packed with jovial traffic. Mothers and nannies pushing strollers. Kids on skateboards gearing up to make injuries they’ll regret in a couple of decades. Hairy youths followed by clouds of marijuana smoke flouting a law that is imprecise. All manner of humanity out to enjoy Vancouver in the sunshine. I soak it in, enjoying the feeling of sun on my skin and the warmth that kisses the top of my head. I lift my face to it and my phone rings.

“What does your day look like?” he asks.

“Looks like sunshine,” I say in truth. “What a gorgeous city.”

“How would you like to see beyond it? I have to run up to Squamish to see a man about a dog. Wanna come? I figure after we could go to Whistler for dinner. How does that sound?”

None of the place names have any meaning to me. It doesn’t matter.

“Do you really have to see a man about a dog?”

“I do not. It’s an expression. It’s a meeting. Won’t take long.”

“Sure. Okay. If it’s not an actual dog, that changes everything. I’m maybe half an hour from my hotel. So any time after that?”

“Perfect.” I can hear the smile. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

By the time he pulls up in a sleek, long car, I’ve checked out of the hotel and am sitting on a bench out front, enjoying the sunshine. Waiting.

We follow a ribbon of highway out of town — raw young mountains, snow-kissed peaks, an ocean that laps at the edges of our journey at various points. I am lulled. The feeling of being out of control, like a little kid, and the grown-ups are taking you on vacation. That is how I feel. It’s not terrible.

At Squamish, he has his meeting while I find a café nearby and do more research, trying the dark web this time. Still nothing. He truly seems to be a straight-up, straight-shooting, well-liked guy. If there are skeletons, I can’t see them.

“You looked so intense,” he observes when he joins me. “As though what you were contemplating was life and death.”

“I was googling you.”

“Me? Why?”

“I just wondered if we had... I dunno? The right stuff.”

He drops down into the chair opposite mine. “Right for what?” he asks with an air of innocence.

“Exactly,” I say, deliberately obtuse.

“What did you conclude?”

“No conclusion,” I say tartly. “And here we both are.”

“Exactly,” he says. And the smile he gives me goes right to his eyes. “And what would I find if I were to google you?”

“Nothing,” I say. “I am an enigma.”

One eyebrow shoots up, but he doesn’t say anything.

“A cipher,” I add. “Maybe I don’t exist at all.”

“A cipher. An enigma. Those are interesting ways to describe oneself. And if that is the case, how is it that this cipheric—”

“I don’t think that’s a word.”

“—enigmatic woman should come into my life? What message does that bring?”

“That would be an arrogant way to frame things,” I say, smiling brightly and hoping he doesn’t see how close to the mark he’s come.

To my relief, he laughs. “It would, wouldn’t it? Of course. Everything is about me!”

“But all our worlds are, aren’t they?”

“I guess they are. Never mind. Let’s get back on the road. We’ve still got nearly an hour before dinner.”

The big car slips along the highway soundlessly for a while before I chance the question I’ve been formulating. It seems a risk worth taking. And we’ve got a long drive.

“If someone were going to kill you, who would it be?” I say, as conversationally as I can manage.

He looks at me quickly before pulling his eyes back to the road. “That’s a weird question.”

“Right?”

He laughs. I’m not sure if I hear an uneasy note, though I listen closely for it.

“Okay,” he says. “You first.”

“Me?” He’s taken me by surprise. He does that a lot. “Well... I’d have to think.”

“That’s what I’m doing. My turning it around was a stall tactic.”

“Ah.”

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not interested. Go ahead and answer.”

“Well... there might be too many to count,” I say truthfully. “But they wouldn’t know my name.”

“Well, it would seem you are safe then.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“So no one in particular? Your ex?”

“No. He’s dead.”

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly.

“It’s okay,” my response is automatic. In this moment almost not remembering the man who had been my husband. I put it from my mind. “Sometimes I barely remember myself.”

“Children?”

“No,” I say, turning my head quickly. I watch the darkening scenery. We are powering through a forest. The trees going by so fast, they are a solid blur of brown and green.

We are quiet for a while. When he speaks it’s like there has been no interruption.

“I don’t think there’s anyone who would want me dead. I don’t know if that means I’ve lived an exemplary life or if I’m just too vanilla.”

“Maybe neither,” I say. “Maybe something entirely different is true.”

“I think most people go through their whole lives without anyone ever trying to kill them,” he says, as though he’s given it some thought.

“You say that based on what?”

He laughs. “I don’t know. The number of people running around not dead?”

“So not your ex-wife?”

“We’re still on the kill-me thing?”

I grunt.

“Okay then,” he says. “But not my ex. No. We get along and our arrangement suits us both. And she’s well compensated. It’s possible she’d get less money if someone offed me.”

“Well that’s good. No one wants to sit around wondering if his ex is thinking about putting a knife in his back.”

“Exactly. So do I pass?”

“Pass what?”

“Well, I don’t know. It felt like some kind of courtship test. I wonder how I did.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re too competitive?”

“All the time.” He pats the steering wheel. “How else do you think I ended up with a Tesla?”

“You play to win.” It’s not a question.

“Always.”

He is slowing, pulling into the village. We are months from ski season, but at a glance, the sort of Alpine-village-meets-Rodeo-Drive motif seems to have something for everyone year round.

Walking around the village, I see it is even more charming and unreal than I’d first suspected. Disney does a ski village. Quaint little shops, trendy bars and eateries block after block. See and be seen. He leads me into one of these.

The food is exceptional yet somehow not memorable, though conversation between us is as engaging as ever. It’s easy to talk with him. No uncertain pauses or painful holes. I am easy with him. I surprise myself.

After dinner, we walk through the village hand-in-hand, sharing jokes and effortless conversation. In that walk, a shaft of pure happiness comes to me. Just this moment filled with nothing but what is right here, in front of me. For the first time in my recollection, everything I have is enough. And maybe I am enough too.

Maybe.

Other thoughts try to crowd in, but somehow I keep them at bay. Just a little longer, I plead with no one at all. Just let me feel this a bit longer. I’ll figure things out later, but right now let me have this.

“So what now?” he says when we’re heading back toward the city.

“I don’t have a plan.”

“You checked out of your hotel.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” I say.

“How long are you in town?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You’ll come and stay with me.”

“All right.”

His place is exactly what I’d expected. The top floor of a glass high-rise with views of the city all around and whispers of ocean and far mountains beyond.

“Do Vancouver views get any better than this?” I ask.

“Not much,” he admits. “That’s how I ended up here.”

“It’s all about the view?”

“Sure. And the jetted tubs. Check it out.”

He leads me to three bathrooms, each one more exquisite than the last.

“Multiple bedrooms too,” he says with a theatrical leer. “You can take your pick.”

“I’ll want one close to where you are,” I quip back, a line he finds uproariously funny.

He opens a beautiful bottle of wine and we sit on high stools at the counter in the kitchen. The view of the city is stunning. It takes my breath away.

“So beautiful you could die.”

He looks at me sharply. “What is it with you and dying all the time?” I can’t read his voice.

“I... I don’t know. I’ve... I’ve lost people. I guess that’s what it is. It brings it closer. Makes it more real.”

“Your husband,” he says.

“Yes. Him... and others. Listen, I’m enjoying myself so much with you. I don’t really want to talk about this now, okay?”

“Some other time, maybe?”

“Yes. Okay. Some other time. Maybe.”

We both know it is a lie.

In the morning, he gets up to go to the office. Before he leaves he drops a kiss on my forehead and a set of keys on the bed.

“Make yourself at home. And if you’re into it this evening, there’s a new restaurant I’ve been wanting to check out. You’re a good excuse.”

“Again with the excuses. I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Dork,” he accuses.

“And the keys,” I say. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll rob you blind?”

“Not particularly. As far as I can see, there’s nothing more precious than you in this apartment.”

I just look at him, my heart in a cloud. I don’t know what to say and part of me feels dangerously close to tears. I put it down to hormones and move on.

Without him in the space to warm it, the apartment is even more massive. I drink the coffee he left for me and nibble on some fruit, then roam around the space dwarfed by his bathrobe, looking at his stuff.

In the sports-themed media room I turn on the television, then spend a quarter-hour figuring out how to make the channels work, remembering for a moment a time when there was only on and off.

When I finally locate the channels, they are filled with news. A serial killer is under discussion. Everything is heinous. There are hushed tones. The thought comes to me that there are those who would view me as a serial killer. I sink into the plush sofa behind me, pushed by the weight of this thought.

They would not be wrong, those people. I have killed serially. One after the other, I have taken lives. I don’t know how many now.

I wonder if I have not considered it that way before because of the money. There is no emotion for me with any of these killings. It’s a job. These are not random, violent acts. I am a professional. I put thought into what I do, never emotion. And the deaths are always humane. Many of my targets go from living to death completely without awareness. I’ve watched their faces at times, so I know.

I look again at the sketch of the unknown serial killer on the screen.

I think again of my lover, my host.

I close my eyes tightly. Push back the flood that threatens. I’ve held it off this long. It has been years now. I know I can do it again. I turn my attention back to the screen. The clipped Canadian accent now describing the killer’s heinous act. She’s mixing gun control into the conversation baldly. And she is matter-of-fact. There are statistics that all add up to the fact that people kill people with guns. The numbers are so horrendous they seem to make no sense. So deeply do I immerse myself in these thoughts that when my phone rings I jump, startled, and feel my heart begin to pound.

“What are you doing?” His voice, firm and warm. I suddenly want him here. To feel the firm, real length of him. To feel his strength. His warmth. And, yes, his desire and humanity.

“I’m watching television, if you can believe it.”

“Good! You figured it out. Bright girl. I often have trouble with it myself.”

“Why are you calling? Did you want to check to see what I stole?”

His laugh is deep. I could listen to it all day.

“Not at all. But if you do steal something, can you please take the sculpture in the foyer? My decorator said I paid a lot for it, but I don’t care for it much.”

We chat a bit more. To me we sound like normal people and that wrenches at my heart. I had not thought I’d sound or feel like normal people again.

And yet, of course, we aren’t like normal people at all. The reality of that washes over me again in a wave.

“You ever think about running away to a desert island?” The thought comes from nowhere and I just blurt it out.

“Let’s do it. I’ll peel grapes and fan you with coconut leaves.”

“What sort of desert island has grapes?” I ask.

And so on. Because it is right there and because we can.

We agree: I’ll meet him at the restaurant at six and then we’ll come “home” together. The way that makes me feel confuses me so deeply I can’t look at it.

I spend the rest of the morning performing a methodical search of the premises. I don’t know what I’m looking for but I need to do something to dispel the restless energy. Plus I have questions. And I feel some of the answers might be hidden here.

So I toss the place. Searching deeply and carefully without leaving a trace. I don’t know what I’m looking for but when I find it — deep in a bathroom cabinet — everything falls into place.

It is a stash of drugs. Prescription medications. Zytiga. Rasburicase. CAPOX. Lenalidomide. Dexamethasone. Elotuzumab. Neupogen. And more still. I have no idea what I’m looking at, but all of the prescriptions have been filled within the last year. And they are all in his name.

I photograph the bottles, then replace them before heading to my laptop to hunker down and do some more googling. I easily determine they are all drugs used in the treatment of cancer and, coordinating the dates, it doesn’t take an oncologist to guess that the prognosis is not good.

We’re in Whole Foods with our daughters, both one and a half. Sage and her blond-ringleted Emmaline share a kale smoothie while I struggle to keep Hannah from smearing mac and cheese all over her face. Sage is dressed down today, in five-hundred-dollar riding boots and organic green leggings. I’m dressed up, in jeans and my polo shirt from Costco.

Our tables are adjacent. Her shopping cart is filled to the brim with organic goodness. Mine has the discounted family meal, the Wednesday special where your family can get fat for twenty dollars. I wouldn’t normally talk to someone so perfect, but Hannah shouts, “Hi!” and Emmaline giggles, and soon we’re chatting gaily as rain pounds the two-story windows.

“There’s a fundraiser on Saturday.” She fishes a flier from her Coach diaper bag. “My friends and I are hosting. Proceeds send underprivileged kids to camp.”

“That sounds worthy.” Does the rip in Hannah’s raincoat make it obvious we’d qualify?

“The event’s sold out but I have an extra seat at my table. No charge. If your husband doesn’t mind watching Hannah for a night, it could be fun, right?”

Husband. Yeah. I’d have better luck asking the grumpy Polish lady who used to clean his parents’ house. They fired her when we moved into their boathouse last month. Now it’s my job to scrub their toilets in lieu of rent. The upside? We get to raise Hannah in a neighborhood where all her little friends will have weekly allowances bigger than her parents’ net worth.

“Why me?” I say.

“Why not? You’re a mom. You seem like a good one, which means you need a break. Have you had a night out since Hannah was born?”

I snort.

“But your husband has, right?”

“Of course.”

“So this is fair. It’s also free and fun. Say yes.”

I search for excuses. “None of my dresses fit since pregnancy.”

“Come raid my wardrobe.” Sage toys with the hem of her shirt. “I gave up and bought all new clothes after Emmaline. Stroller fitness, mom and baby yoga, and thousands of dollars in pelvic floor physio won’t budge my annoying potbelly.”

I laugh. “It’s a generous offer, but your entire body could fit into one leg of my jeans.”

“Not true! But there’s a designer in Dundarave who’s been brilliant for my postpartum body. Emmaline and I could play with Hannah while you try on dresses.”

“Hannah won’t stay with a stranger.”

“Sure she will.” Sage smiles at Hannah’s cheesy cheeks, holds her arms out like she wants a hug.

Hannah shocks me by reaching for Sage.

Around the time things started to get a little rough with Ben, I started going for long walks in the neighborhood. The first time, I was getting out of the shower and he was pissed because I’d used all the hot water. This isn’t hard to do, since the water heater has been leaking like crazy for ages. I told him if we just showered together it wouldn’t be a problem, and for some reason he flew off the handle and started yelling, pushed me and I slipped on the wet floor and banged my face on the towel rack. I chipped a tooth and split my lip. Pretty dramatic, I guess, but Ben swore that hadn’t been his intention — like, to actually injure me — and of course he was right. He’s not a violent guy. Still, the last thing I wanted to do was crawl into bed next to him. I slipped out while he was screwing the towel rack back into the wall, looking miserable. He really did seem to feel guilty about it.

The place next door — creepy in the day and downright terrifying at night — looks right into our backyard, since someone ripped the plywood off the windows. Awful whether I pictured a human standing in the shadows watching, or the vacant stare of the house itself. I went out the front. We’re on the southwest corner, surrounded by huge laurel hedges that hide the house completely. But we exist. There’s an overgrown staircase that’s easy to miss, almost like bushwhacking out of a magical secret garden, except totally not. I bushwhacked out of a giant, moldering house that was somebody’s affordable palace in the seventies, but it’s a dump now, because why would anyone take care of something with numbered days? Spongy walls, split hardwood floors, and high ceilings that cave in a little and dump plaster muck on the floor when it rains.

It was one in the morning, and there wasn’t much open in Cambie Village. The presence of the Canada Line station across the street makes the neighborhood a fairly unsafe place to be at night, even though it’s sandwiched between Shaughnessy to the west and Queen Elizabeth Park to the east. I decided to walk south, toward 49th. That’s where I met Diezl.

He passed me on his skateboard, then stopped. “You should be careful, there’s some guy in the neighborhood grabbing women at night.”

“Grabbing them?” I looked at his hands and quickly back up at his face, hoping that hadn’t made it seem like I was implicating him. Those humongous hands on such a small guy.

He didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah, sorry to be creepy but...”

“That’s not creepy — I mean, you telling me isn’t creepy. Thanks.”

“Okay.” His eyes searched my face for a second and I felt a little thrill for some reason, like this was a movie and something amazing was about to happen. “Your chin.”

I remembered my split lip, and rubbed the dried blood off my chin.

He nodded, and pushed off on his skateboard, looking back at me once before he disappeared out of the streetlights.

Three nights later, when Ben and I drank a lot of beers in the backyard, and he smacked me across the face for breaking his second-favorite pint glass, and then cried for nearly an hour, I took off again. This time it was closer to two a.m. Eyes peeled for any dudes who looked like they might want to grab me, I found myself smiling at the approaching sound of wheels clicking on the sidewalk cracks.

“You again,” Diezl smirked. “Living dangerously.”

“I’m looking for some action,” I said, and then immediately worried that he might think I was hitting on him.

“You better come with me then.” He picked up his skateboard and we walked down an alley, past several of those slightly-fancier-than-average Vancouver Specials. Special Vancouver Specials. From the sixties to the mideighties, these boxy beauties were filling up neighborhoods, until they were considered an eyesore. This isn’t a very old neighborhood, at least from a colonial perspective. If you check Wikipedia, that’s where the history starts — when the first colonizers arrived in the 1800s. Henry Cambie was an engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway. The land was given to the CPR by the government, which is funny, because it wasn’t theirs to give. It was xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territory. Forest and salmon streams. Some people call that untamed wilderness, and some people call it home. Diezl stopped in front of a boarded-up rancher. He put a finger to his lips and we snuck into the backyard through a space between the tall construction barriers.

“You’re not a cop, right?” he whispered.

“Uh, SkyTrain police.” My punch lines always come one second too late. He laughed anyway. That was nice. Ben only laughs at his own jokes.

This place must not have been empty too long — the backyard was clean, grass mowed. Developers are supposed to keep the acquired houses tidy, but they don’t. Diezl put his backpack on the ground and pulled out some spray cans.

“Hey, you aren’t Fukit, are you?” I asked. “Kitten, perhaps? With asterisks?”

“They’re South Cam,” he said with a sneer that suggested more of a friendly rivalry than any actual distaste. “This is Langara, baby.” He deftly outlined a juicy-looking Diezl on the back wall, between two boarded-up windows. “I’ve never done this with somebody. You want to fill it in?”

“I’ll fuck it up,” I squeaked, and Diezl shushed me as a light went on next door.

We squeezed up next to the house and crouched low beside the bushes, my heart beating like crazy.

“Nah,” he whispered, “go ahead.”

We waited for the light to go out — “Probably just the bathroom,” Diezl said — and he handed me a can. Purple, maybe — it was hard to tell in the dark. I held my breath and got to work while Diezl supervised.

“What room do you think is on the other side of this wall?” I asked.

“Bedroom, probs,” he said.

“Ever go inside?” I cringed as a little paint dripped outside the lines.

“Nah. Hold the can farther away and it won’t drip.”

I wanted to tell him that I’d been planning to break into a dead house at the end of my block. Maybe invite him along. But I concentrated on spraying in the lines instead.

Afterward, Diezl offered to walk me home, but I wasn’t sure he should know where I live. So we just walked around. Strange to see what affordable housing used to look like. Even the roads are sprawling, with big grassy boulevards. It’s kind of obscene, all that space.

Katz Itami finished putting his father to bed and joined me on the porch. He lit a cigarette, a Rooftop, and blew smoke toward Nanaimo Street. His father’s house had a view of the distant North Shore mountains. Katz stared forlornly at the V-shaped strip of ski lights blinking atop Grouse.

“I got a woman coming in next week,” he said, “make sure he takes his meds. Aricept, memantine. It’s Alzheimer’s, Dave. Dementia. Probably from all those years living alone.”

“There been other incidents?” I asked.

“I’ve been on his couch less than a month. We have oatmeal together, then I go to work. He’s usually asleep when I get back.”

“Doesn’t answer my question,” I said.

Katz shrugged. “I mean, he gets names mixed up. When Barbara dropped my stuff off, he called her by her mom’s name. But that’s nothing new.”

“Why me?”

“He was probably out walking, noticed your name on the buzzer.”

“My name’s not on the buzzer, Katz, but he knew it. Joe was looking for my father. Acting like he was still walking a beat.”

“Christ.” Katz flicked his smoke off the porch, into the trough of dead mulch that had once been a flower bed. Joe Itami’s house had been standing for eighty years, and looked every day of it. The property alone would probably fetch three million.

Katsuyori was eleven years my senior, a sergeant with the VPD. He was taller than his father, slightly heavier, and had a genial, compassionate air that had netted him more than a few confessions. Katz also had the exhausted look of the recently divorced. I didn’t judge him when he chained another smoke.

“Always thought my dad had it... not easier, but simpler,” Katz said. “He was born the year my gramps came out of the internment camp. Nisei, second-gen. Him being a cop, and then on top of that marrying Mom, putting up with her WASP-ass family looking down on him — not a lot of guys could carry all that.”

“No.”

“But he always knew what to do. Work the job, raise a family, come home each shift in one piece. Difficult things, but straightforward, y’know? I admired that. Part of me moving back here, aside from getting my shit sorted, was to learn from him. How he kept it all together. ’Cept it’s hard to ask him if he doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know himself.”

I left him my card. “Anything comes up.”

“’Preciate it, thanks.” He put it on the guardrail and continued staring at the lights in the dark sky. I wondered if the card would end up among the crushed filters in the barren garden. Something else forgotten.

It was raining when Ronnie Trane arrived at the Strathcona address. Some old factory near Venables and Clark, used to make sensible shoes. He’d heard some realtor on a talk show call this part of town gentrified. Lofts going in, an exotic car dealer with a Ferrari in the window, promises of Starbucks and yoga studios, ladies walking dogs that fit in a purse. Sure didn’t look like that to Ronnie.

Counting a dozen heads in the outdoor line ahead of him, Ronnie guessed they were all applying for the same job. Some A-list entertainer needed a personal assistant. The Craigslist ad didn’t say who it was, only that the successful applicant needed no experience, just a valid driver’s license. Ronnie had to lie about that, not due to get his back for a few months.

The rain was light when the door opened, letting the next applicant in and closing again, the line inching forward. A couple of twentyish women under a black umbrella in front of Ronnie speculated who the star was. Too busy bandying celebrity names, they didn’t notice him without an umbrella. Every man for himself. One hoping for Beyoncé, the other going for Bieber.

Flipping up his collar to the rain, Ronnie saw the guy across the street marching back and forth with the sandwich board, out front of some swank French bistro that just opened. Ronnie thinking, what kind of job was that, walking back and forth in the rain? Letting the world know soup, salad, and entrée was under twenty bucks.

The Mercedes pulling up out front of the place put on its four-ways. Recognizing the black S-Class, the same one Ronnie used to drive when he chauffeured Lonzo around, his name on the vanity plate. The psycho gangster got out and looked his way, but didn’t recognize him. Lonzo fired Ronnie for losing his license to a DUI, told him he drove like an old bat anyway. Did it in front of Bobbi Lee and a few of his guys. All of them laughing except Bobbi.

With no job, Ronnie went back to his former livelihood, breaking into places, scraping up enough to pay the DUI fine. Tripping a silent alarm at this mansion in Altamont, he met two security guards as he came out, holding a pair of vases he thought were Ming. Noting the DUI on his sheet, the judge told Ronnie his grandkids played hockey in the street, then handed down twelve months, Ronnie getting out of Mission after serving six. Having to report to BC Corrections and show some guy named Maxwell a list of places where he’d applied for legit work every Friday. The system keeping him on a leash.

Standing in the rain, he watched Lonzo doing the two-step with the guy with the sandwich board, knocking him out of the way. Typical Lonzo. The women in front of him missed it, still tossing about celebrity names, one saying Ryan Gosling was dreamy.

“Asshole,” Ronnie said, watching Lonzo walk past the guy on the sidewalk with the busted sandwich board. Both women turning on Ronnie, giving him a sour look, thinking he just dissed Gosling.

“You see that?” Ronnie pointed across the street, but Lonzo was already in the restaurant, the sandwich-board guy lost from view behind the S-Class. The women clicking their teeth and turning their backs, using the umbrella to block him out, talking in hushed tones. Ronnie shrugged into his jacket, feeling the rain coming through the denim. Watching Lonzo step from the restaurant a couple of minutes later with Bobbi Lee. Tall, blond, and fine. Lonzo escorted her around the sandwich-board guy. Opening her door, Lonzo got her inside, then played the big man and slipped the sandwich-board guy a tip and gave him some words of advice, like next time get out of the fuckin’ way. Getting behind the wheel, Lonzo pulled away from the curb, the wipers swishing.

The job line moved some more, the rain picking up, water in Ronnie’s shoes making a squishing sound. Thinking screw this, but he needed to show Maxwell his list on Friday — probably have pneumonia by then. Another ten minutes before the door opened again, the recruiter sticking her head out, looking surprised it was raining and saying sorry, that was it for today. Telling the rest of the applicants they’d have to come back early tomorrow, she wished them luck and closed the door. The star remained a mystery.

“Bitch,” Ronnie said under his breath. The women ahead of him gave him another look and left.

When he got back to his flat, he stood under the shower’s spray till the hot water tank ran cold, then he revived himself with a couple cans of Cutthroat, popped a thin-crust Delissio in the oven while he eyed the classifieds, still enough time to get to the library before it closed to check for any new online job postings. Looking out the window, seeing it was still raining, he decided to stay home.

Mark and Esther were still playing around when I got back, mixing some brutal new-country Tim McGraw shit with a pretty great house track, creating a sickening aural soup that made them giggle and made me want to pour a warm Coke onto Mark’s PowerBook. We were on the lower floor of a shitty two-level, and Mark and Esther had the music cranked already, hours before anyone was due here.

The upstairs neighbor had been gone all week, his Jetta missing from its usual parking spot. Nice dude, a kid from Taiwan who near as we could tell was AWOL from his Sauder School of Business program and waiting for his parents to find out and haul him back home. We were surprised he was living in this place, one of the last true dumps on the block, instead of one of the endless condo buildings, only about half of which were tarped and scaffolded up for leaking roof repairs. He’d introduced himself to us when he moved in over a year ago, told us his name was Phil, waved off our occasional invitations to driveway beers, but clearly did some extremely committed partying of his own. In hangover he metamorphosed into a disapproving phantom, leaving us imploring Post-its about needing sleep. He’d knock on the door and run back upstairs, leaving notes on our door that said things like, Pls turn down your Call of Duty. But I’d seen Phil at an after-hours in the West End no less than three times in the past month, a booze-free and drug-heavy space where Mark and I netted five hundred dollars to split for playing from two to seven. A pretty shit deal, looking back on it, but we used each gig to get better at mixing, at reading a room. The more serious we were at clubs and parties, the more we could goof off at home.

Mark took mercy on me and switched from Ableton over to his iTunes, putting on a Hot Snakes record at low volume. There were twenty-four green bottles of Landecker around the living room, kitchen, and bedroom, which we’d collaborated in cleaning up and turning into a secondary hanging room for the party, carrying the couch over from my apartment on the next block and leaning the mattress against the wall. It looked pretty good in there.

“You going to do the tent?” Mark asked. He was sitting on this beautiful leather office chair with a circular base that his dad had given him, a piece that looked alien on a carpet we’d been staining into an accidental pattern and between the two living room couches, both road salvage — this was before bedbugs reared up big-time and made street furniture an idiotic risk.

“If I need to,” I said.

Mark just looked at the ceiling, taking a pack of Belmonts out of his pocket. He’d gatewayed into smoking last — after booze, which we started with when we were fifteen and playing in a shockingly bad death metal band in Kamloops; weed, which we’d dealt to pay for gas money for two summers of touring cross-country in our slightly better prog-rock band; and MDMA, which we both embraced eagerly when we sold our Orange amps and Les Pauls for the laptops and decks we needed to start making money in the clubs. We pirated all the software.

Esther, unwrapping a sleeve of red plastic cups in the corner, looked over at us. “What Mark means is, Could you please set up the tent, Raj, neither of us have the basic skills required.” She was three years older than Mark and me, about ten years better at communicating, and Mark would collapse mentally if she left him. Esther didn’t need him at all, and all three of us knew it, but she got something out of hanging out with the two of us, watching us knock heads, develop, devolve. She got paid double what we did for the same gigs and was worth it. Rivko had her sub in for him when he couldn’t do the doo-wop night, and she’d gotten to open for Steve Aoki once, Diplo twice. Guys we mocked endlessly and envied deeply.

I headed out back with the tent canvas, seeing through the kitchen window that the poles were already out there, probably from an earlier rage-filled attempt by Mark to get it up. It was a big one, tall enough to stand up in. I had it rigged in twenty minutes, and Esther and Mark carried a white table with folding legs out into it right as I finished up. We put three bottles of Landecker on it, and Esther took three steak knives out from where she’d tucked them into her belt.

“What are these for?” I asked.

“We need to ventilate the sides or it’ll just become a hotbox for cigarette smoke, especially if it rains, which it’s supposed to. I want to be able to tell people something nice if they try to smoke inside and complain that there’s no covered porch.”

“It’s the point of the fucking tent,” Mark said.

“Did we have some fight I don’t know about, dude?” I said. Even with just the three of us in the tent, it was markedly hotter than it was outside.

“He’s just stressed about the party,” Esther said. “His hero Rivko’s coming. So’s Lana.”

“Lana’s Occasional Lana?”

“Yep.” Lana took party pictures, good ones. Instant social capital for events, people who did parties, deejays. Enough notice for us, scored piecemeal through these pictures, through people talking about what we did for parties, could eventually mean regular higher-paying gigs, could mean avoiding getting a job. The point of all this shit.

I took a steak knife and started poking and slicing the sides of the tent my dad had given me when I moved out to go to college. I’d only gone camping once the whole time I was out here, anyway.

I live in a condo on West 14th and Oak by the Jewish market where you can buy the best perogies in the city. I own a mountain bike. Drive a Beemer. Deb lives down the street. When she laughs too hard she sprays beer out of her mouth. Because I’ve started hanging out with her wife-in-law, Paula looks at me through that thin veneer of prettiness, and smiles at me in that I’d-stab-you-if-I-could way.

But I’m smart, I make money. Girls wonder how I do it.

Paula doesn’t say nasty things to me. She knows better. I get my respect. I knew Paula was fucked up. I never knew how much until the night in the Korner Kitchen when she was hissing in my ear, telling me about the robbery.

The streetlamp shines down on Deb and me and the corner store. All the action for us starts in the Helmcken Street parking lot, because if a trick won’t pull over and take a cab from there, that’s it for the date before it even begins.

I like working on Helmcken. From here we can see the Korner Kitchen, the window sill littered with a line of Styrofoam takeout cups, can see who’s going in, who’s coming out, who’s spending more time taking coffee breaks than working.

A.C. told Deb right in the middle of their having sex, while A.C. was pumping it in and out, just like that he said to Deb, “Paula doesn’t make love like a woman.”

Deb tells me this in the cold, under a streetlamp, flicking her cigarette into traffic. Girls stand around the block, their elbows touching like paper dolls, two of us on one side of the alley, three or four girls on the other.

Deb puts on bedroom eyes and imitates a man’s voice. She says, “Now you make love like a woman. And then he gave me the ring.”

Paula doesn’t make love like a woman. What does she make love like then? An alien? A zombie? I’ve seen her on doubles, when two girls take one guy (“One starts at your nose, one starts at your toes, and we meet in the middle”), or when two girls do a date with two guys in the same hotel room. But, naturally, there’s no comparing what a working girl is like with a trick and what she’s like with her man. You have to call both “sex” because there’s no other word to use. But “sex” with tricks is about as interesting and erotic as peeling potatoes, especially since we mostly do fake lays. As in, there’s no penetration. As in, we make the trick fuck our hand and they can’t tell the difference, because they’re wearing two condoms and there’s so much KY slathered everywhere.

Now you make love like a woman.

Does Deb moan as she stares into his eyes, no shame in her own pleasure? Gazes locked as she comes, her eyes not letting go of his?

I imagine Deb on her back, looking at A.C., the roundness of her potbelly, the soft rolling hills of her breasts. He grabs her ass, fingers digging into her flesh. What does it feel like to make a man lose control like that? The sun rising through the curtains. The room smelling like sex. Maybe it makes you feel grateful. To know you’re part of something bigger than yourself.

The two-carat diamond, rose-cut, catches the streetlight. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Maybe if you turn out late — the difference between turning out at fifteen and turning out at twenty-five — you’ll just always do stupid things on the track by accident. You’ve already lived too much square life to not have bad habits. Like carrying a wallet or wearing a diamond ring to work. But I put aside Deb’s stupidity and try to take pleasure in her excitement. I nod politely and give her a big grin.

An hour and another cigarette later, I arrived home at my condo in a refurbished heritage building on the edge of China and Gastown. My living space clashed with my income and what I alone could afford — or deserved. A peace offering from my father when he’d paid the deposit on an exorbitant North Van home, a wedding gift for my brother. Not wanting to break a streak in fairness, he’d purchased this place for me. The fact that it was now worth well over four times what he’d paid in the nineties just dug the knife in deeper.

I dropped my coat on the wooden stand by the front door and headed straight for my desk. I didn’t smoke inside — it was the one concession I’d made to my ex and the only lifestyle improvement I hadn’t been able to renege on. The ashtray was still out on the porch with a view into the gated alley — turned-garden two stories below.

I put the coffee pot on, then headed into the shower, something I hadn’t had a chance to do before Murray had called. It wasn’t until I was dry and had a warm mug in my hands that I checked my phone.

I was relieved not to see a text from Murray. Trafficked babies weren’t the same as trafficked girls. I had half a mind to go visit my brother for the weekend in North Van, just to avoid being useless.

The scrape of the metal gate outside distracted me.

Sliding my phone in my pocket, I took my coffee out to the porch, knowing who would be below.

Sitting on the rim of one of the large flowerpots was a woman in her fifties, face framed in a brown bob, with high cheekbones, tanned skin, and a slimness that hid or flattered her age well. I guessed First Nations, but had never gotten up the courage to ask, and she’d never brought it up.

This morning she had the same stroller I’d noticed last night squeaking down the sidewalk. Her other grandchildren had grown well beyond it, so this one must be new. I smiled as I leaned over the rail. “Marnie.” She was the only neighbor I knew by name.

“Ricky.” She offered me a warm smile and settled the baby on her lap — a girl in a pink outfit with black hair and expressive eyes that searched the courtyard.

The infant gave me a brief glance before fixating once again on her fingers, apparently much more interesting. I noted a darkened birthmark on her leg, exposed by bare feet.

“Haven’t seen you in a couple weeks,” Marnie said.

She had lived in the building since the eighties, before it was fashionable to live in Gastown. I had no idea what her financial situation was, if she’d been married, widowed. I’d never seen a man or her adult children, though they must have existed as she had three grandchildren. Two boys and now the girl. I had no idea what their story was. Marnie had never once asked me about the tabloid-like stories in the paper. Maybe that was why we were tentative friends — we didn’t bother each other with the usual details. Our acquaintance was centered around living proximity. No need to pollute it with the outside world.

“You going to show that coffee up in my face, or get your manners together?”

I headed back into my kitchen and filled a second mug, adding the cream and sugar Marnie preferred. She nodded in thanks as I passed it down.

Marnie and her grandchildren were the only ones who used the garden regularly. The rest seemed either ignorant or uninterested in frequenting an alley in Vancouver, however gentrified. Creatures of our environment. It took someone who knew what a dangerous alley looked like to recognize when there was no danger. Maybe another reason we were friends.

Juggling the infant on one knee, Marnie took a deep sip, savoring the warmth. “How are things?” she asked. “More dead girls?”

That took me aback. Marnie had an unhealthy interest in my obsessions. There was something ironic in that — or comical.

She tsked. “The only thing that gets you out of your bed before noon is a dead girl.” The baby fussed and Marnie jostled her until she stopped. “Well?”

I shouldn’t tell her, in theory it was confidential with Murray... Screw it, I wasn’t even an official consultant anymore.

“False alarm so far — not a prostitute or a runaway.” Though that didn’t make it more or less tragic. I sipped my coffee. “Missing baby though.”

Marnie made a cross sign over her chest and out of reflex held the infant tighter. “That’s much worse.”

“Depends on whether the baby is still alive.”

I inclined my head as my phone buzzed in my pocket. Murray. I excused myself from the balcony and closed the door before answering.

“We found the SUV,” Murray said. “Empty car seat, no sign of the baby anywhere.”

So much for finding the baby. “Who was she?”

“June Xian. Kitsilano housewife, first kid born five months ago, named Blossom. June was born in Hong Kong, the husband and baby here.”

Despite my reluctance, my brain churned through the possibilities. “Suspects?”

“Husband. House and most of the cash is in her name. Her parents used her to invest heavily in real estate.”

“Money for motive?”

“According to the neighbors and a slew of noise complaints, the two have been fighting. Apparently she kept threatening to take the baby back to Asia.”

Money and children, common enough motives. “Affair?” I asked, completing the trifecta of domestic discourse. Still not in my realm, but closer.

“That’s what the husband claims.”

Maybe some of my old vice channels would prove useful. More rabbits ducked in and out of their holes. “Whoever killed June might simply have gotten rid of the baby—” I froze. The Asian woman in the old-fashioned dress was standing in my kitchen, her translucence unmistakable in the sunlight. She lifted a finger and jabbed it at me, her face, almost featureless, twisted in anger.

“Shit,” I said to myself. No, not here, anywhere but here.

“Ricky?” Murray’s voice on the phone.

“Yeah.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Where’s forensics at?”

“Waiting on the preliminary.”

“In the meantime I could tag my old contacts and dig up dirt on the husband.”

“Just — can you be discrete? We, ah, don’t need a repeat of last time.”

The professional thing would be to assure Murray there wouldn’t be a repeat. I decided not to jinx it and risked opening my eyes. She was gone from my kitchen. I stifled a sigh of relief while Murray carried on, as if lack of my response was normal. “I really appreciate it, Ricky.”

My goodbye verged on rude. It was almost eight a.m. now. I made my next call.

Pilot Cassidy is lined up to get into a concert at the Astoria and is amusing herself by eavesdropping on the two women behind her in line. The sound from the bar leaking out into the street is brutal, but the women are drunk and loud and Pilot can’t help but overhear. One of them had met a guy though Craigslist who was willing to exchange a six-pack of beer for a hand job, any kind of beer, and so she’d done it and would totally do it again.

“Weren’t you afraid he was going to murder you or something?”

“Nah, he wanted to meet in Dude Chilling Park, daylight and everything. It took about five minutes, max. Didn’t even get any on me. I told him in advance what kind of beer I wanted and he had it right there in the trunk of his car.”

“You went with him to the trunk of his car? You are so stupid!”

“Bitch, I shared that beer with you!”

Pilot lies on her mattress after the show, the room lit only by her phone. She makes herself scroll through pictures of the night first — a sea of raised hands obscuring the shitty opening band, a bloody-nosed selfie taken in the bathroom mirror after someone threw an elbow back and hit her, one of her roommates barfing with scary accuracy into a pint glass — before opening Craigslist and cruising Men Seeking Women. She answers the first one that seems weird, offers the most money, and doesn’t get specific about what her body looks like.

Rob messages bright and early the next day, tells Pilot he hasn’t had many replies so far, and she blinks through her hangover and tells him that she doesn’t imagine vaguely worded ads involving punishment has ladies beating down his door. He seems quiet, rich, and boring, and he likes it when Pilot tells him she isn’t scared of anything. He sends Pilot a series of wardrobe ideas, tells her not to wear underwear (followed by a wink emoji that curls Pilot’s lip), what corner to stand on, and what he’ll be driving.

It had taken a couple of weeks of nightly walks, but the manga was used to the snickering. It was the other Greeks who most often guffawed, pointed at him from across the street, yelled, “Hey, nice hat!” or simply nudged one another and muttered, “Mαλάκας,” as he passed.

The normal white people in the neighborhood, with their tight old-man sweaters, all-weather scarves, and arms covered in tattoos, didn’t matter at all. They were just in the neighborhood to raise the rents, and to annoy waiters with obnoxious questions — Where do you get your beef? and Are you people really like that movie about the wedding? Their women were like titless little boys; like hippies from old TV shows, except that they didn’t believe in free love.

The manga knew they didn’t matter, because when he walked down West Broadway, normal white people lowered their eyes, suddenly very interested in their smartphones. Occasionally, one would sneak a picture or a quick video of the manga in his big hat, with one sleeve of his long jacket hanging from his shoulder, the practiced limp that ostentatiously suggested a hidden weapon or stamping along to music in a hashish den.

The manga was a modern man, his sartorial choices aside. His thoughts were still his own, even if everything else belonged to the past, to another continent. He even thought of himself as “the manga” when taking his nightly promenade down the streets. The outfit — a costume, really — helped. The fedora, the striped pants and pointed pimp shoes, the mustache he waxed and twirled at either end. Greektown was all but a memory, so it was easy to search West Broadway — Ουέστ Μπροντουέι, as they used to say with their accent — from end to end. The people knew who he was, yet nobody dared snicker at his suit. They stared, but nobody would tell him where the Nazis were, or even if they’d ever shown up for a meal.

Finally, Stelyo’s son Vangelis spotted them while eating dinner out, and snuck a picture with his phone. Minutes later the photo showed up in the manga’s Twitter feed. Now his walk tonight had a purpose, a destination.

The manga eased his large frame through the door of the Dionysus Diner. “Diner” was a stretch, really. Dionysus was a lunch counter with three four-tops up against the wall. There weren’t even mirrors lining that far wall; the place felt like a furnished alleyway. The daily specials were written on the backs of white paper plates with black markers, for Christ’s sake. It wasn’t very busy. It had opened after the decline of Papou’s business, after Greektown was nothing more than a parade one day each June.

There was a girl behind the counter. Rhodanthi, who worked there, had taken the night off, but the manga had come by often enough even when she wasn’t working. The girl’s name tag read, Anita. Too embarrassed to be called “Athena” by the ξένοι, eh? the manga tsked. This waitress normally frowned and turned her head when he walked into the Dionysus Diner. This time she smiled.

“Hey, Χαλιαμπάλιας,” Anita said. The manga had no idea why the last name of an old Greek soccer star was an insult, but it was something their parents used to shout at one another. Usually the girl’s eyes were brown and half-dead, like a cow’s. Tonight they burned with glee. She was with the Nazis now, happy her family had an edge on Papou after all these years.

From one of the four-tops, a man said, “Haliabalas! Shitty baller. Welcome to the 1970s! Nobody says that no more. Vancouver’s like a time warp.” The guy’s accent was thick. If immigrants still arrived via boat, he’d have been fresh off of one.

He stood up. A young guy — maybe just out of his teens. Muscular, like an underwear model with a broad chest and flat stomach. The manga was simply large — a Volkswagen Beetle with arms and legs. The kid wore a black T-shirt with an odd symbol on it — a white swastika on a blue field, like the canton on the Greek flag. Χρυσή Αυγή. Golden Dawn.

The kid said, in Greek, “Get the fuck out of here, mafia. You dress like a rebetiko album cover. A Greek preying on Greeks? Who do you think you are?”

The manga laughed. “How much is she paying you?” he said, tilting his head over to the girl. The few customers at the lunch counter looked up from their coffees, interested. The four-top at the back emptied out. Two other young men, both wearing the same black T-shirts, took up positions right behind him.

“You’re the one who’s going to pay, μαλάκας,” said the first one. These men were new in town. They weren’t backing down. The manga realized that, and he was afraid.

But he was afraid only inside. The manga was outside, with his coat slung over one arm. There was a reason for that, now and then. The arm is quicker that way. The manga’s knife was in his hand and slicing up into the first man’s nose before anyone knew what was happening. It was like a blood-filled balloon popped in midair. Everyone started shouting, but the first man’s shriek stood out. The manga kicked him in the crotch to make him stop.

The guy on the left flew at the manga and ran face-first into the coat the manga has just shrugged off his shoulder. The third man followed the first to the floor, kneeling and clutching at his comrade. The first man’s hands were up at his face, blood pouring out from between his fingers. The manga glanced down and decided to take the third man’s ear off, then spun and plunged his knife into the flailing second man, piercing his own long coat. He finished with a kick to the second man’s head.

“I’ll call the police!” Anita shouted from behind the counter. The manga briefly considered throwing his knife at her, but instead just covered the ground to the countertop in two steps, leaned over it, and smacked her hard across the face.

“Money! Four hundred dollars,” he said. “And you owe me a new coat.”

As Anita was falling to the floor, he said to her, more calmly, “I see another Nazi in this place, it burns down.”

It was a very late night for the manga, and for his Papou. There were calls for the old man to make, and even a two a.m. meeting with a few of the friendlier police officers from the old days. Self-defense, sure. It was three on one. And the fascist with the stomach wound had been carrying a pistol. Not on him, but in a knapsack under the booth. The one with his EU passport in it.

All three of the men were named Nikos. They were being stitched up. The one guy might even be able to use headphones again one day. It would be easy for the police to get them back to YVR, so long as Anita insisted that she had seen nothing at all, not even the manga, and that the bruise from her face came from slipping on a spilled egg in the kitchen earlier during her shift. Another phone call, from Papou to her parents’ home, made sure she would.

Used to be, when I first came to Vancouver as a young woman, you’d have to actually go to Chinatown to get decent groceries. These days, I’m only a ten-minute walk away. We’ve our own little community, along Victoria from 41st to 49th. The fishmonger’s got as fresh as anyone in Chinatown and he’s not a forty-minute bus ride away. The cheapie salon across the street from him cuts my hair for thirteen bucks. There’s barbecue on the corner, fresh produce at two different stores, and a musty dollar store rip-off too. We have an apothecary when we want herbal remedies, and a London Drugs when we want the other stuff. It’s not glamourous. The sidewalks are always grimy and spotted with crushed gum and wet gobs of spittle; the air smells like bus exhaust; the rain never washes anything clean — but it’s home.

Joint pain or no, I make that walk every day. It’s something to do with the long hours and it’s good to get my grandsons out of the house. They’re four years old, twins. Happy and rambunctious, dark of hair and light of eye. They take turns pulling our small, wheeled shopping cart. I’m sure we’re adorable. I’m going to miss seeing them and caring for them when I’m out of the house. They start kindergarten in the fall.

“Are we going yum-cha, Mah-mah?” Ewan is always hungry.

“After we visit Brother Wing.” I hurry them along. “We have a bus to catch first.” That gets them running. Austen falls and skins his hands. He brushes himself off, matter-of-fact, not a tear in sight. That’s my boy.

Life is pain, I tell them. Best get used to it and move on.

I let Austen beep my Compass pass on the reader as we board. It’s a twenty-five-minute bus ride west on 41st, into the leafy streets of Kerrisdale. Wing’s house is a half-block from the stop. The twins point at the tree on the corner.

“A monkey puzzle tree,” I say. They giggle.

Brother Wing’s house is small. I imagine it must be worth millions. I climb the outside steps to the front door, the twins scampering up and down twice before I’m done. Wing welcomes us inside. I’m surprised at how bright and airy it is.

Wing isn’t actually a monk. He left the temple years ago, but it’s a harmless honorific and it makes him feel better. I need him to feel good.

I settle the twins on the plump sofa in the front room, sharing their old froggy-shaped electronic reader toy.

Wing looks awkward, ushering me across the narrow hall to a smaller reception room. “I wasn’t expecting you to bring your grandchildren. I can’t perform the dissolution ceremony with them here.”

I shake my head. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I had to talk to you, but I care for them while my son and daughter-in-law work.” I pause, settle my nerves. “Something’s come up. I need to have it done tomorrow.”

He looks at me, wary. His bald head gleams palely.

I pull a manila envelope from my bag, fat and crinkling. “I don’t have the full six thousand, but I have five, now. This is two thousand if you can do it tomorrow. I’ll bring the remaining three when I come back.”

Ewan shouts as the frog-reader beeps a saccharine-sweet song. I look over. Austen reaches over and pushes a sequence of buttons. The reader’s song cuts out abruptly. Ewan laughs.

I see Wing move in my peripheral vision, reaching for the envelope.

I pull it back. “You’re sure you can do it, right?”

Wing raises a brow, calm. “You came to me. I told you the odds.”

I realize I’m chewing on my lip. I straighten up, relax my jaw. “I just want to make sure. It’s a lot of money for a risky result.”

Wing sighs. “I’ve been up front about that from the start.”

I nod. “It’s just... I don’t know how the ether works. I only know how to use it.” My face tightens. “Barely.”

“Wouldn’t matter,” he says. “Healing’s not spell casting. I’ll be cutting the tether to your husband, simple enough. Since you’re only the secondary host, you should be all right. As should he.” Wing pauses. “That’s what you want, correct? You don’t want him permanently dispersed? Because that’s a different price. Much bigger risk to you and his main host.”

I think of her. Winnie. Frank’s American mistress. His host. “No, I don’t want to be responsible for that. I just want him to stop siphoning life energy from me.”

“It’s more common than you think.” Wing shrugs. “Ghosts are becoming rarer, even in Crescent City. That’s where your ghost is, right, and his host?” I nod. “Energy tithes there are costly. All that infrastructure.”

I blink at him.

He frowns, takes the money from me. “One thirty, tomorrow.”

I’m abruptly light-headed.

We make our goodbyes and I take the boys back eastward on another bus, then yum-cha at the corner dim sum shop, as promised. I’m inside before I remember.

Ming Dynasty.

Too late now. The staff greet us with smiles, showing us to a table near the fish tank. Distracted by worry, I let the boys order their favorites. Soon, our table’s filled with enough steamers and plates for six full-grown adults. I’m so busy cleaning faces and wiping hands that I don’t notice company until he pulls out a chair.

“Hungry little monsters.”

I gasp, swiftly cover my terror with a fastidious manner. “Boys, this is Pau-pau Stella’s great-nephew. Say hello.”

Ewan remains silent, staring and suspicious. Austen obeys in a whisper, cringing away, moving closer to his brother.

“We’re just finishing up and I’m afraid this table’s a mess,” I say. “You’ll be better off at a different table.” My heart’s hammering so hard, I think I’m going to vomit.

He’s taken the remaining chair, between me and Austen. He ruffles my grandson’s hair. Austen scrunches away. Ewan begins to cry.

“That’s enough.” That damned quavery note again. “You’ve frightened them. Please leave.” I move to Ewan, pull him up, slide onto his chair, and hold him tight in my lap. I draw Austen into my side.

Stella’s great-nephew shrugs. “Making sure you understand your priorities.” He rises, saunters to a different table, sits with his back to the wall. A waiter places a Coke and a plate of rice and chah-siew in front of him, then backs away with a nervous nod.

None of the staff will meet my gaze.

I pay the bill hurriedly and take the twins home, searching the bushes we pass for lurkers, looking over my shoulder, wondering if the reedy one’s set up to ambush us. I fumble the key in the door, lock it firmly behind us. I can’t stop trembling.

When I’m ready, I put on an old DVD of that strange blue dog the twins like so much and pull out my phone. In the kitchen, I take a long, deep breath, then tap my son’s contact.

“Hi, Ma. What’s up?”

“Listen, a-jaiy, can you take tomorrow off? I have an appointment. I want you to stay with the boys.”

“What kind of appointment? What time? Lauren’s home by two thirty.”

“It’s nothing serious, don’t worry. I want to see a medium, but she’s way out in Coquitlam. It’s a long way, but Mrs. Chiu, you know her? She says she’s worth it.”

“Ma.” I picture his boyish face, that half-grin, half-frown when he’s exasperated.

I firm my voice: “Christopher, I want it to be you. For the boys. Would it kill you to take a day off for them? You’re always checking your phone anyway, even when you are here.” I huff. “Call it working from home. I don’t care.”

He laughs. “Okay, okay, don’t guilt-trip me.”

“Mother’s prerogative.”

“Fine. I gotta go. Bye, Ma.”

I swallow past the thickness in my throat. “Goodbye, a-jaiy.”

I hang up, go sit between the twins again, pulling them into the circle of my arms. I don’t want to let them go.

What a morning. Minutes after the call, the police and paramedics noisily arrive in fleets of strobing light. Shunted to the sidelines, Blaine catches a few more action shots before he’s told to cut it out. A uniform tells him to hang tight — Detective Dixon will talk with him shortly.

Dixon turns out to be a bulky woman with messy brown curls, tired eyes, and mannish clothes that look hastily chosen, like she’s been flipped out of bed without warning. She leads the way down the road, into the chilly interior of the Canfisco building, the only nearby shelter from the threat of pending rain.

Inside, fishery staff are being questioned in various locations. Dixon and Blaine go upstairs to escape the noisy machinery of the fish plant, into a large lunchroom. The swing doors wheeze shut behind them. In one corner, a woman who might be a janitor is being questioned, struggling with her English. Dixon and Blaine take a table at the far side of the room.

The detective unbuttons her coat, then flips through a small notebook. She searches her pockets, finds a phone, and a pen, places both on the table in front of her, then tucks the phone away again. Finally says, “So.” She looks at Blaine with distant interest. She studies her notes again, appears to hold her breath, exhales, and out it comes in a blurt of indifference: “Your name is Blaine Burrows and you’re an artist and you live on Union Street, is that correct?”

Blaine agrees it’s correct.

Dixon says, “What kind of artist are you?”

He doesn’t like the way she flattens the noun. “Visual.”

Dixon seems to doodle in her notebook. Seems to be etching triangles, over and over, triangles within triangles, and doesn’t ask for elaboration.

Blaine says, “Digital photography, collage, cyber-manipulation. Cold kind of art, my dad called it. His name was Stan Burrows, maybe you’ve heard of him?”

Dixon shakes her head.

“One of yesterday’s celebs. Big in the photographic world, mostly landscapes. The old silver halide dynasty, black-and-white, chemical trays, red lights. Amazing how far we’ve come, hey? Too bad Stan didn’t live to see that my cold art is being published too. This fall. The collection is called City. That’s all. City. Lot of structure, not a lot of people shots, ’cause that’s been done to death. But they’re in there, like puzzle pieces, just part of the chain-link, right? Or the asphalt, or the puddles. Except for on the cover I’ve got an old guy. I met him on Alexander. He was sitting on the curb, mad as a hatter. Fabulous cover, ’cause it’s man as city, right? Bang, centered, all face, like this.” He crops his own face with his hands to show the detective his focus. “Pale-blue irises, shiny like moonstone, shocking against dark dust and wrinkles. Symmetric wrinkles, like a network of streets and alleys. Super super high-res with just a small glitch over one pupil. Titled the shot Pixelize. Play on words, right? Pixel... eyes.”

Dixon says nothing. Blaine watches her, but his mind is elsewhere, moving between the book launch and the shot he’s going to load tonight, highlights and shadows tweaked. His heart still hammers like he’s won the lotto. He’ll call it Threshold, back of the book, the visual he’s been looking for, the perfect exclamation point to end his five-year collection of urban blowdown. Threshold. A lead-in to Book II?

Dixon says, “So what brought you to this particular parking lot?”

“Chance,” Blaine says. “Was out at dawn, taking shots. Up on the overpass, scanning the harbor and tracks. Viewfinder caught what I thought was a body. An arm, anyway. Zoomed in, went, Oh my god. Drove right over and checked. Called 911.”

He smiles at her, wanting her to smile back. Even women of her age are taken by him, and flush pink when he turns it on. He’s a good-looking guy, and he knows it. But cold shoulders make him nervous, and he doesn’t like being nervous.

“What time did you first spot the guy with your zoom?”

Blaine blinks. He places his hand on his camera, as if to shield it from flying debris. “Just about sunrise. Sorry, I never thought to check.”

“Sure. Well, let’s do it this way. Your call came in at 5:54. That help?”

Blaine shifts in his chair. So he hadn’t called 911 as soon as he might have, and it hits him, the proof is time-stamped on the chip. But a minute here or there wouldn’t change the end result. The only difference was that he had seized the chance to immortalize a nobody. If anything, he should be thanked.

He says, “Took awhile to drive over, then to find him. I guess five, six minutes from the time I spotted him to making the call.”

Dixon makes a note. And then, oddly, she seems to drift. Big woman, yet light as a bubble. She’s watching him, but seems abstracted. Her face is more interesting than Blaine had first thought. He imagines her on the cover of Book II. Stark, artificial light coming in from the side. Maybe even backlit to shadow. The Soul of Authority.

But back to his immediate problem, he decides to protect himself with a little white lie: “The guy was dead when I got here.”

Her brows hitch without interest, like she doesn’t get it and doesn’t really want to. She’s jaded beyond care. She sits here, half-asleep on the job, thick as mud. He mentally throws a frame around her jowls and brows, cutting out the extraneous, keeping to the theme of face as metaphor. He’s nailing down the brand. He’ll run it by his editor when he’s done here today. Meanwhile, get on this lady’s good side, ask if she’ll sit for him.

She says, “You see anybody at or around the scene? From the overpass, say, or as you were driving in?”

“No ma’am. I only wish.” He slouches, hooking bicep over chairback, showing off his hard-earned muscles.

She almost smiles, finally thawing. He’s got her.

He says, “Detective, I know I’m being nosy, but any idea what his story is? Drug deal gone wrong?”

Dixon surprises him with a fairly concise answer: “Drugs, oh, for sure.” She closes her notebook, rubs her nose, and says in the casual way of shutting down, “Get any good sunrise shots?”

Just being polite, but the question galls Blaine, pulling him out of his reverie. He straightens. “No sunrise shots, no. They’re kind of done.”

“Done to death,” Dixon murmurs.

It’s an echo of his own words and it startles him. Now she’s the one doing the flirting, a twinkle in her eye. She says, “Take any pictures of the dead man?”

Blaine hesitates.

“It’s just, I see you don’t have your telephoto on.” She’s pointing at the Nikon. “Not much distance with those 50 mils, is there? I take it you switched lenses, sometime between the overpass and now.”

Her stare is piercing into him, and for the first time he’s afraid.

“You got me,” he admits with a boyish shrug. “While I was waiting, I got a shot or two. Hope that’s okay.”

He won’t tell her it’s going in a book. He doesn’t know the legalities at this point, and doesn’t want her to shut him down before he can talk it over with his copyright people. He’s also having second thoughts about putting her on the second book’s cover. Sometimes ugliness reaches a certain bar...

She has extended a palm, and at first he thinks she wants to shake, but it’s a demand. “I’ll need to take the card.”

He stares. “What? No. Why?”

“You’ll get it back safe and sound, Mr. Burrows. You want to give it to me now, or do I get a warrant?”

Scowling, Blaine hands over the SD card from his camera, with its shots of the golden God-seeking eyes. “I get to keep the images, right? There’s a whole week of work on there.”

“Long as there’s nothing incriminating on it.” She gestures impatiently. “Let me see the camera too.”

He hands over the Nikon, still sulking about the chip. Of course there’s nothing incriminating on it. Ghoulish, maybe the cops would think — they wouldn’t recognize art if it waltzed up and spat in their faces — but hardly criminal. And disrespectful, but respect for what? As un-PC as it might be, cops have their priorities. They know what’s what and care accordingly. This dead man’s true name to them is One Less Drug-Dealing Shithead.

Dixon has studied the camera’s settings and made a note, and she hands it back. She deals with the paperwork of the seized chip, then both she and Blaine are on their feet. She’s so tall that they’re eye to eye. She says, “Got anything else you want to tell me, Mr. Burrows? Now’s the time.”

He doesn’t. He hoists camera bag to shoulder and stalks out.