(10) Managing Your Information
Andrew awakened with several of those Burlingame teenagers swirling about in a misty scene. He’d been talking to them, or thought he had. No actual memories, just the feeling. And that feeling was sad, dark, a bit despairing. Or something. Bo had been kidnapped, he was sure, they wanted to silence him, or at least shut him away. What did he know that made him a liability? Was he a mule, a runner, who saw something he shouldn’t have? Maybe there was some trafficking going on. Human on top of dope. Right here in Rowanton? Probably not. But Hamilton, Niagara Falls? Maybe. And disgraced vice squad guys, there was a connection there, or could be. Get caught up in some high stakes gambling. Wind up owing the mob plenty and have to work it off. Old story. Plenty of examples.
He made the call and was given a meeting place in thirty minutes. Just a block or two from where he’d made the drop. He’d anticipated the request for more money and got one hundred out of the ATM. College Boy nodded and handed him the package with barely another word. The Beamer roared off, Andrew peering after it in the morning chill. He drove back south to Bean There and joined the morning regulars, relinquishing the mystery for a round of bright chat, lattes and croissants. After spending twenty minutes with Sheila and John, a retired couple from Yorkshire who could do Monty Python’s lick plate clean wit tung as though they’d written it, along with Shakespeare’s sonnets, he spied Bridget hunkered down with a couple of her fans and sidled up to join them. The topic was watercolour painting and the course they were all about to take, so he held his fire politely, mentioning only his love for Constable’s Cloud Studies at an appropriate juncture. The three ladies took their leave together about twenty minutes later. Bridget, buttoning up, asked how things were going. Andrew, smiling, asked when she’d be home. Three hours she guessed. He promised to call then. He asked about Asha. She seemed, well, oblivious. Andrew nodded
Not ready to depart himself, he ordered another latte, commenting favourably on James’s new muttonchop whiskers. That’s five votes in favour now, James grinned. And none against apparently. Andrew took his latte and searched the rack for newspapers. Yesterday’s Star seemed like the best bet. He glanced through, unable to settle on anything beyond headlines. A small story in the middle pages caught his eye. One of the decomposed bodies found in Muskoka, back whenever, looked very much as though it was a nephew of a former police chief. A cop nephew. A man disappearing overnight, leaving a wife and two children. A man suspected of running off with a girlfriend. Whether it was dental records or DNA the article did not say. It also did not mention either of the other two decomposed bodies discovered around the same time. Andrew realized that proximity had never been established. A mile, ten or seventy? It would make a difference.
He read a couple more articles, one about Toronto’s smallest house, another about food bank usage. He made a note to investigate further. Surely he could do more. Thinking to return home and plunder his package for some holy grail snippets of info, he stood up and immediately bumped into Chris, a real estate broker he’d shared chuckles with before. Chris asked if he was still getting lost in his own house. Andrew said he wouldn’t have it any other way. Andrew left a few moments later with a ticket to a silent charity auction Chris was sponsoring.
Back at the pile he shook out the package onto the couch. Two cells, the old crushed one and another, not much better, but in one piece basically, and a note saying all information transferred. Well, there it was. All he had to do now was go through it all. Andrew the technophobe who hated cells. What if he pressed the wrong button and deleted it all? It was entirely possible. His breath became a bit tight. He was paralysed by his own paranoia, not to mention his terror of asking anyone he knew for help. Particularly Vee, who would doubtlessly ride him for weeks on it. Luddite would be the least of it.
