| "THE COMPTROLLER" CONTINUED |
Like everything else in his life since this nightmare started, Audrey abruptly vanished during
Cavanagh's stay in jail. He left daily messages on her voice mail, telling her specifically when he's
going to call back, but to no avail, she doesn't answer her phone. After a week the recorded voice
from the phone company tells him her message box is full. He missed hearing her voice on the
voice mail. Eventually her number went out of service altogether. Did she dump him? he
wondered. And if so, what made her leave? All the women in his life seem to come and go,
including a wife from a brief marriage when he was an infantry soldier with the Canadian Army
deployed in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the mid-'90s. He left the army in '99 and he's been drifting ever
since.
Cavanagh calls Superstar Spa from his unit in a prison located in Maple Ridge. "I'd like to speak to
Audrey," he says to the girl answering the phone. "When is she working next?"
"Audrey doesn't work here anymore," she tells him.
"She doesn't? What happened?"
"I don't know why she's gone. I just answer the phone and book sessions."
"Do you know where she's working now?"
"No. Would you like to see one of the other girls we have working?"
"Not right now, thanks." He hangs up the phone and goes to his cell.
The first thing Cavanagh did when he was released from jail was take a bath with a bottle of Crown
Royal - below surveillance in a seedy, rundown room in a residential hotel on Hastings Street. The
air in the Prior Hotel smells like mould, the walls are paper thin and the landlord is a bitter,
suspicious old woman that life has succeeded in breaking. The tenants are drug addicts on welfare.
When the sun goes down, police sirens wail like banshees while drunks brawl and hookers ply their
trade on the street outside his third story window. It was all he could afford with the remaining
cash he had in his bank account from the security guard job. It's Friday night. Monday he goes to
Paramount Bank and Trust and moves some of that corporate money into his personal chequing
account.
Imprisonment forced him to abandon his apartment and, as a result, his possessions were seized by
the landlord. Except his car. Saturday morning he picks up the Olds from the impound lot and
then heads for Audrey's apartment in the pouring rain, windshield wipers on maximum sweep. He
arrives at Audrey's place and knocks on the door. A lady of about fifty answers.
"I'm looking for a woman called Audrey Varga. She used to live here, about eight months ago.
Brunette, really good looking. Do you know anything about the previous tenant?"
"Never heard of her," the woman says and shuts the door.
That night he drives to Superstar Spa to see Sherelle. If anyone knows what happened to Audrey
it'll be her best friend. He sits down with her on a couch in the lounge.
"Audrey told me about what happened with that stalker Wade Latimer. He's not welcome here
anymore after what he did to you. When did you get out of jail?"
"Yesterday. What happened to Audrey? Where is she?"
"She left," Sherelle answers.
"Left? What do you mean she left?"
"She lost her make-up job at the shopping mall," Sherelle recounts, "so she started working here
full-time. She seemed unhappy, like something wasn't quite right. She hinted she might leave. She
told me she wanted to go back east, back to Ontario where she's from. Then she stopped coming
to work altogether. Cimone couldn't reach her on the phone to schedule her for shifts. I got really
worried thinking maybe she was sick so I went to her apartment to check on her but she didn't
answer the door. The building manager let me into her place and the funny thing is, everything was
there, all her stuff, just like normal. Everything except Audrey. Wally was sure happy to see
someone. I don't think that dog had eaten for a week. I have Wally with me now."
"She even left Wally behind?"
"Yeah, it's crazy. Women do crazy things sometimes."
"But still. Did you report her missing to the police?"
"Of course. They didn't give a damn. The cops are useless. They didn't even want to open a
missing person file on her. Never heard anything more from them after that."
"Sounds like something happened to her."
"There's been a problem downtown with girls going missing for years. We all knew about it long
before it hit the news. Those girls walked the streets for their money though. Audrey never
hooked or worked outside a place like this. She wasn't vulnerable and exposed like those girls."
"Do you know about her ex Mel? She told me how they used to travel all over the world. Maybe
she's back with him."
"Nah," Sherelle says, shaking her head, dismissing the idea. "Audrey wouldn't have left like that
without talking to me first. We were close."
A look of dejection surfaces in Sherelle's eyes. "I miss her too, you know." She adds, "She would
have taken Wally with her. She loved that dog. You know why she called him Wally?"
"No."
"Wally was the name of this boy she went to school with. She was in grade two; he was grade one.
Elementary school. One day after school she was walking home with her friend Amy and she saw
some bullies push Wally down an embankment. The boys left Wally there, lying at the bottom of
the hill, crying, his face covered in dirt from the fall. They took the boy to Audrey's house and
pulled him through the dining room. Audrey's parents were sitting right there at the table, like they
were waiting for them. Audrey and Amy took the boy into the bathroom and wiped the tears and
dirt from his face. Her parents saw the whole thing. That was Wally."
"Doesn't surprise me."
"A lot of men loved Audrey. No one ever loved her like you did though."
"Yeah."
"It looks bad, but I don't think she's dead or anything like that. I'll bet you anything that for some
reason she felt she had no choice but to get away and she went back home to Ontario. That's what
I believe."
Cavanagh had been with girls who were unbalanced in the past. The girls who shone unusually
bright on good days often had bad days that were less than joyful. And Audrey shone like the
summer sun. Sherelle just might be right - maybe Audrey had had enough of the west coast and it
was time for her to get out. He hoped it was nothing more serious than that.
Sherelle changes the subject. "Is it still raining outside?" she asks him.
"Pissing."
"Are you staying for a visit? You've been away a long time, Jeff."
"Too long." He kisses her on the cheek as he gets up to leave. "Tempting offer. Not tonight."
On the way back to the Prior Hotel he buys some more booze and picks up a gram of pot from a
dealer on Hastings. He's got some serious heartache to kill.
Audrey really is gone, Cavanagh realizes. Shit. An absolute fucking heartbreaker. Well that's it.
Last tango. You're alone now, buddy. No more love. Get used to it. Not worth the inevitable
pain that follows. Erase her from your head. Shut down the love component within your mind.
Do a reverse wash on your brain. Try not to think about her. Thirty days, then she'll be out of
your head and you'll be over her. Yeah right, thirty days.
He lies on the bed, drunk and stoned, still dressed, and thinks of Audrey. When he first met her in
a coffee shop at the mall, both on a break from their jobs, it was as though she had whacked him
across the head with a two-by-four emblazoned with the words "YOU WILL LOVE ME." That
was the effect she had on him. And love her he did. Goodbye Audrey, he thinks. Thanks for
letting me come into your life for a while. He breaks into tears.
That night he has a disturbing dream of having concrete weights chained to his legs that drag him to
the bottom of the sea. He's dragged along the ocean floor through the mud and the silt and the
sediment. The dream shifts and now he's lying on his side on the hotel room bed, looking at the
clock radio and the lamp on the dresser and beyond the dresser, at the open bedroom door. The
green LED display on the clock says it's 3:11 a.m. Cavanagh is frozen, unable to move. An
invisible force descends upon him and he senses that this force is about to download the meaning of
his relationship with the universe into his soul. The ultimate answer of all answers. Transcendence
is staring him naked in the face, only slightly beyond his grasp. Just as he's about to take of hold of
it, his body is overtaken with heat. It's as though every atom in his body is combusting. The
rapidly intensifying burning sensation feels frighteningly real. At the instant the heat becomes
unbearably painful he screams, "NO!" and wakes up. With the jolt of the dream dissolving, he
checks the time. It's 3:12.
Sunday morning he uses his credit card to buy ten bucks time on his cell phone to call his mother in
Saskatoon.
"It's been such a long time since I've heard from you, Jeff," Jocelyn chides him.
"I've been trying to get things happening business-wise out here in B.C., Mum. I've been very
busy. What happened to Uncle Martin? Did he recover?"
"No, your Uncle Martin died eight months ago."
"It's very sad."
"Jeff, when your uncle died a man came to see me to invite me to the funeral. At first I thought it
was someone from the military service, something to do with your time in the army. But then he
said it was about your Uncle Martin's death. He said he would pay my fare and hotel for the trip to
the funeral service. But I wasn't feeling well enough to attend. He asked me where he could find
you. He said he wanted to talk to you, to ask you some questions. I can't quite recall his name."
"What was his relation to Uncle Martin?"
"He said he was an accountant in your uncle's company."
"An accountant."
"Yes. He wanted to ask you some questions about a company. Oh, I remember his name now.
He said it was Vic. Vic Morrison. Vic is probably short for Victor but he said his name was Vic."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him I haven't heard from you for months and I didn't know anything about any company.
Are you in some kind of trouble? What's this all about, Jeff?"
"I haven't a clue." It made Cavanagh uneasy to hear that a man had approached his elderly mother
for information about him. Perhaps Vic Morrison simply needed to ask some questions about
settling his uncle's estate. Who else, other than Martin Cavanagh and the bank, knew about MC 80
Inc.? he wondered. In any case, he hadn't touched any of the corporate cash. It was all still intact.
"I'm going to come and visit you soon in Saskatoon," he says to his mother. Opting to avoid
upsetting her, Cavanagh decides not to tell his mother about his prison stint.
"Oh that would be so nice. I haven't seen you for such a long time," his mother replies lovingly.
"Bye Mum."
Monday morning Cavanagh drives to Paramount Bank and Trust. His intention is to confirm his
authority over MC 80 Inc. by withdrawing five thousand dollars from the corporate account. He
sits down in Claudia Cooper's office and gives her the company name and account number from
memory. Cooper punches the information into her computer keyboard. She frowns.
Cooper looks at Cavanagh and tells him, "That account was closed."
"Closed?"
"Yes, a few months ago. And all the securities transferred out."
The information triggers an acute seismic brain-quake within Jeff Cavanagh's skull. He swallows
and says, "When-"
"I beg your pardon?"
"When," Cavanagh asks Cooper calmly, "did this happen?"
Cooper reads the account info on the computer screen. "The account was closed last May.
There's a note here that says it was closed as per a court order."
"Who closed the account?" Cavanagh asks.
"It doesn't say here. Let me see if I can locate a copy of the order. I'll be back in a moment."
Cooper leaves Cavanagh alone in the office to think about the situation. He has a criminal record
so employment opportunities are now limited, as is his ability to travel internationally. His girl left
him. And his stash of cash is gone. Reality is hitting him hard and it makes him sick to his
stomach. Instinct immediately tells him a fraud has occurred here. You can't kid a kidder. The
pieces are falling into place like a jigsaw puzzle. I've been played for a fool, Cavanagh realizes.
Jacked. He feels like he just got kicked by a horse. All he wants now is to go back to the hotel and
sleep.
Cooper comes back to the office with two stapled sheets of paper in her hand and sits down at her
desk. She looks at the top page and says, "According to this order you are restrained from dealing
with MC 80 Inc. in any way and control of the company and its assets was given to a man called
Bernie Skrivanos. I'm afraid I can't give you any more information than that as you no longer have
control of this company, Mr. Cavanagh. You can have this copy of the order." Cooper hands
Cavanagh the two pages of paper.
"Can you tell me where the money went? Where it was transferred to?" Cavanagh asks Cooper.
"As I've said, you no longer have any authority over MC 80 Inc. so privacy regulations prohibit me
from giving you any more information about this account. You may want to consult a lawyer."
Cavanagh and a boy step into the elevator in the lobby of the Prior Hotel. Cavanagh pushes the
third floor button.
"Which floor?" he asks the boy.
"Two."
Cavanagh punches the two button and looks at the court order Claudia Cooper gave him at
Paramount Bank and Trust. The order was pronounced by Justice Matthew Hamilton of the
Supreme Court of British Columbia. He doesn't need a law degree to know he's been ripped off.
He's never heard of court orders being granted without a hearing with all sides represented.
Especially with the amount of money at stake here. Someone has capitalized on his uncle's death
and his own imprisonment. And who the hell is Bernie Skrivanos? Cavanagh was of the
understanding that he was the only, and thus controlling, shareholder of MC 80 Inc. The owner.
That's what his Uncle Martin had told him and that's why his uncle had required a power of
attorney to operate the company. As far as Cavanagh was concerned, his uncle was the one and
only person who superseded him in entitlement to this money. And Uncle Martin is dead.
The elevator stops at the second floor. The boy exits, the door closes and the elevator begins
ascending again. He turns the page on the order. On the second page is the name of the lawyer
and the name and address of the law firm that obtained the order from Justice Hamilton: Bernie D.
Skrivanos of Skrivanos Associates, located at suite 910 - 140 Water Street, just a few blocks from
the Prior Hotel.
The elevator door opens on the third floor, Cavanagh's floor. He puts the court order in his jacket
pocket and steps into the hallway. To his left, at the end of the corridor, a tall, grey-haired, fiftyish
man in a tan raincoat is knocking on the door to Cavanagh's hotel room. Without thinking,
Cavanagh retreats backwards into the elevator and watches the doors close in front of him. He
returns to the lobby. The Olds is parked in front of the Prior. He gets in, starts the car and pulls
out onto Hastings Street. He makes a left at Carrall Street, right on Cordova and then drives down
Columbia. Turning left onto Powell which becomes Water Street, he looks for 140. He finds it.
140 Water Street is a brownstone office building probably built in the 1930s. He parks the car and
goes in. The directory on the wall in the lobby says Skrivanos Associates is on the ninth floor. He
takes the elevator up to floor number nine and follows the arrow on the wall to suite 910. The door
is locked. He cups his hands around his eyes and peers through the window. The office is vacant,
completely empty.
As Cavanagh turns to leave he sees two men walk out of the elevator and approach him. One of
them he recognizes as the man in the tan raincoat from his door at the hotel. In the time it takes
him to decide not to run the men are standing in front of him.
"My name is Morrison," the man in the tan raincoat says. "I'm an accountant with your late uncle's
firm. We want to talk to you about some missing money, Jeff."
An accountant? These guys seem more like CSIS agents, Cavanagh thinks.
Touching Cavanagh's shoulder, the other man, wearing a black suit and tie, gently guides him down
the hall to the elevator. All three of them get into the elevator and Morrison pushes the seventh
floor button. The other man makes a call on his cell phone and says, "We have him."
On floor number seven Morrison pulls out a set of keys and opens up the door to another office.
Like the Skrivanos Associates office upstairs, this one is vacant too. It's one large room with two
pillars cutting through it. Exposed, coiled metal electrical wires hang from openings amid the
lighting in the ceiling like silent, waiting snakes. Taking up the far wall is a long, expansive picture
window looking northward out over the waterfront docks of Vancouver Harbour. Two empty
chairs surrounded by shards of discarded electrical wire sit in the middle of the room. In the
distance, across the grey waters of Burrard Inlet, dark storm clouds have descended upon North
Vancouver.
"Have a seat," Morrison says to Cavanagh.
Cavanagh sits down in one of the chairs and crosses his arms. "What do you want?" he asks
Morrison gravely.
Morrison lights a cigarette with a silver, flint lighter. He walks to the window and gazes out.
"Lovely view, isn't it? This is one of ours."
It registers with Cavanagh that these people own the building. He says nothing. Morrison turns
around and places the lighter in his raincoat pocket.
"We'll be back to ask you some questions later," Morrison says. Morrison and the other man
depart the office, locking the door behind them, leaving Cavanagh alone in the room.
Cavanagh tries the door. It's locked. And there's no window to smash; just the one overlooking
the Vancouver shoreline. He paces around the room for a while then rolls a chair over to the
window, puts his feet up on the sill, and observes the boats and seaplanes in the harbour. He
watches the SeaBus ferries crawl the length of the inlet. Then he gets out of the chair and sits
down on the floor, his back to the wall, and waits. If there's one thing he learned in jail it's how to
wait. It seems to Cavanagh that the building is deserted; he hears no sound of people, only the
air-conditioning system.
Hours later, dusk falling, Cavanagh hears the elevator door open and footsteps approaching down
the hall. He hears keys in the slot. The door opens and Morrison, the man in the suit, and another
man in an expensive Italian suit enter the room. Cavanagh rises up off the floor.
"Is this him?" the man in the Italian suit asks, appraising Cavanagh with a look of vague distaste.
"That's him," Morrison says.
The man in the Italian suit is tall and imposing like Morrison. He has a severe, concerned look
about him that says he is undertaking an unpleasant task that he would rather not.
"Set yourself down, Jeff," Morrison says to Cavanagh. Cavanagh settles into the chair.
"Let me introduce you to Jimmy Dickson," Morrison says to Cavanagh, gesturing to the man in the
Italian suit. "We're associates of your late uncle. Jimmy is the comptroller. Do you know who the
comptroller is, Jeff?"
Cavanagh has never heard of a comptroller. He wonders for a split second if Morrison actually
means "controller." It seems very unlikely that these people don't know what they're talking about.
Cavanagh indicates "no" with a slight shake of the head.
"You don't?" Morrison exclaims with some condescension. He grabs the other chair, turns it
around backwards and sits down, directly facing Cavanagh. "Allow me to describe the role of the
comptroller within a corporate enterprise. It's a very powerful position. Jimmy here takes his job
very seriously. The comptroller is the corporate officer responsible for accounting activities. He
conducts management and financial audits; he reviews contracts and payrolls; he reviews payments
to suppliers before they're issued. He basically oversees the fiscal affairs of the entire operation. In
other words, it's the job of the comptroller to keep an eye on the capital. The money. Do you see
where I'm going with this?"
Cavanagh looks at Morrison incredulously then answers, "No I don't."
"A holding company called MC 80 Inc. Ring a bell?"
Morrison and Dickson are silent in anticipation of Cavanagh's answer.
"I haven't touched any of that money," Cavanagh finally says.
"Look!" Morrison says with delight, glancing at Dickson. "He does know what I'm talking about!
Has anyone accused you of taking the money, Jeff? I haven't said anything about you taking the
money. I don't think Mr. Dickson here has said anything about you taking the money. We know
you didn't take the money. We want to talk to you about the person who did take the money -
Bernie D. Skrivanos. What do you know about him?"
"Bernie who?"
"Skrivanos."
"Never heard of him. I just finished an eight-month stay in prison. I got out on Friday. Three
days ago."
"For what?"
"I got set up on a bogus break and enter charge and a bogus uttering threats charge."
"Where'd this happen?"
"Here. Vancouver."
"Who do you think set you up?"
"I know the Crown was in on it."
"How do you know that? Talk like that can get you sent back to jail pretty quick around here."
"I can't prove it," he states with conviction. "But I know it."
Morrison stares at Cavanagh silently for about a quarter-minute. Then the comptroller steps
forward and speaks.
"There are no rules anymore, Jeff," Dickson says, his voice low and absent of emotion.
"Armageddon finally annihilated any semblance of a level playing field five years ago. With the turn
of the millennium things came crashing down, hard. More and more we see open contempt for the
truth. I'm talking about the government, the bureaucracy. The malaise is everywhere. Even those
who live and die by the law are ignoring that very law. The judiciary in B.C. has slid into a criminal
grey area that looks very much like anarchy. It's in our interest to see that the law pertaining to
doing business in Canada is complied with. But when the government is this far gone it can be
difficult for legitimate operations like ours to operate."
A feeling of unease runs through Cavanagh's body. Dickson's personality seems devoid of empathy
and mercy, colder than any criminal he had met in prison.
"That money you think is yours," the comptroller says, "it's not. Nor was it your uncle's. It
belongs to the corporation. And we'd like it back. However, it appears the capital was removed
through means that are well beneath the bar of any recognized legal conduct. That's obvious. It's
the work of the V mob, the Vancouver legal mafia. It's a regional thing. As such, we want to keep
this matter at arm's length. In certain instances we don't have access to the courts to solve
problems. This is one of them. Relying on judges to solve your problems is a game for fools
anyway. They rarely get it right. We can't actually prove we own MC 80 Inc., technically
speaking, although we do. When a company as large as Expedited Shipping Lines goes into a
courtroom to make any kind of claim we absolutely must have hard facts that can be proven with
irrefutable evidence that will support our claim. Not having those facts can be very expensive. And
it can get you noticed. And we really don't like to get noticed. Because if you get noticed next
thing you know you're a target. In the scheme of Expedited this missing capital is small potatoes.
We wipe people like Bernie Skrivanos off our shoes when we show up for work in the morning.
It's more the principle of the matter. We dislike this nonsense as much as you do. It's sure to blow
up in someone's face sooner or later. We'd rather it wasn't ours."
The comptroller pauses for a moment then goes on, "Expedited is writing MC 80 off. It seems to
us that you really should have a talk with Bernie Skrivanos and see if some of the missing capital
can be retrieved. I know a thing or two about deadbeats myself, Jeff. Before I worked my way up
at Expedited I worked in collections as a skip tracer in Ontario. People in general can't be trusted.
They lie, they cheat, they steal. Skrivanos committed an act of fraud against Expedited. He wasn't
aware of that, mind you. He committed an act of fraud against you too. That he did know. He
did it wilfully. Intentionally."
The comptroller asks Cavanagh, "How does that make you feel? That Skrivanos had no qualms
about stealing property he knew you owned?"
"I'm not too happy about it," Cavanagh tells the comptroller coolly.
"Skrivanos obliterated your one and only shot at the big prize. This is an enlightened country, Jeff.
A nation where rights are respected, by and large. We're not in the jungles of Africa. This is
Canada. We're civilized. Civilized is when a million dollars disappears from your bank account and
the man who stole that money is able to go on living right there in your community, without fear of
physical retribution. However, civilized can be overrated if it allows monkeys like Skrivanos to
behave this way. Skrivanos and everyone involved in this theft should swing like Louis Riel. They
should be hung from the Burrard Street Bridge as an example to others. We encourage you to do
what you have to to put this affair right."
Dickson ceases speaking. Morrison gets up out of his chair. The two men walk to the door where
the third man silently waits. The comptroller turns and looks over at Cavanagh and addresses him
for the final time.
"The MC 80 Inc. money was skimmed by your uncle over the course of his tenure at Expedited,"
Dickson tells Cavanagh. "We watched him appropriate every dime. Even saw how he invested it.
Probably thought he was entitled to it having spent thirty years with us. We could have fired him.
We didn't. He was well-liked. A good employee. We were willing to see the MC 80 money be
bequeathed to the beneficiaries of his estate. We're not happy seeing it all change hands to Bernie
D. Skrivanos. The idea in business is to take a little bit from a lot of people. Even if they think
they didn't get their money's worth, most people are willing to let a small loss go. The V mob
seems to think they're entitled to everything you've got. We're not police. We're not lawyers. We
don't deal in lies and innuendo. We're businessmen. We deal in hard numbers. Ones and zeros."
Morrison reaches into his coat and pulls out an envelope. He tosses it to the floor at Cavanagh's
feet and says, "For your time."
The three men leave. They don't lock the door behind them. It is with considerable relief that
Cavanagh realizes he is free to go. Even though they intimidated him, Cavanagh finds himself
admiring the professionalism of these high level "executives." It occurs to him that he's just been
introduced to an elite element of corporate society he wasn't aware existed.
He picks the envelope up off the floor and makes his way out of the building. In his car he opens
the envelope. It's filled with cash. Hundred dollar bills. He's starving. He'll count the money in
his room. He hits a grocery store and buys a steak and some potatoes. Back at the hotel Cavanagh
cooks and eats his meal and counts the money in the envelope. He has a shower. Downstairs in
the lobby he leafs through the phonebook and looks up the number of a buddy he served with in
the army. Two hours later he's sitting with his friend Ziggy MacIntosh in a bar on Hastings Street.
"Are you working?" Cavanagh asks MacIntosh.
"Been working construction, on and off. I've been off work for a while because of the rain."
MacIntosh has his hands around a glass of beer. "Construction grinds to a halt in this kind of
weather. Things are tight. Holly's not working either. She's at home with the kids. Can't really
even afford this drink."
"I'm buying. I have a job for you."
"What kind of job?"
"Muscle," Cavanagh says. "It's all very illegal."
"You want to rip someone off?"
"No. Nothing like that. I don't do that. I want to have a talk with some people who ripped me off.
The last person in the world they want to see is me. That's where you come in."
"If you tell me this is undertaking that has to be done then I'm in."
"There's something going on out there, Ziggy," Cavanagh says, thinking about his meeting with the
comptroller. "A secret war has been declared in this city. The legal bar, the lawyers, are marching
in unison, as a block, like a unified political party. They've seized control of the courts so you can't
oppose them there. They simply write their own ticket in the courtrooms. That machine isn't
about justice, it's about feeding the children of the men and women who make their living in it on
the backs of people who can't fight back. It's the God's truth, I've seen it. The government is too
weak to fight them so it's on their side, not the side of the people. A plague of bastards. Other
means must be deployed to resist them. It's an underground civil war. Everyone knows it, they're
just not talking. It's not in the news or in the papers. But it's on. Yes, this is something that has to
be done."
Cavanagh hands MacIntosh the envelope Morrison gave him. MacIntosh drags his thumb along the
edge of the cash.
"How much is this?"
"Five grand. It's an important job."
Cavanagh's stay in jail. He left daily messages on her voice mail, telling her specifically when he's
going to call back, but to no avail, she doesn't answer her phone. After a week the recorded voice
from the phone company tells him her message box is full. He missed hearing her voice on the
voice mail. Eventually her number went out of service altogether. Did she dump him? he
wondered. And if so, what made her leave? All the women in his life seem to come and go,
including a wife from a brief marriage when he was an infantry soldier with the Canadian Army
deployed in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the mid-'90s. He left the army in '99 and he's been drifting ever
since.
Cavanagh calls Superstar Spa from his unit in a prison located in Maple Ridge. "I'd like to speak to
Audrey," he says to the girl answering the phone. "When is she working next?"
"Audrey doesn't work here anymore," she tells him.
"She doesn't? What happened?"
"I don't know why she's gone. I just answer the phone and book sessions."
"Do you know where she's working now?"
"No. Would you like to see one of the other girls we have working?"
"Not right now, thanks." He hangs up the phone and goes to his cell.
The first thing Cavanagh did when he was released from jail was take a bath with a bottle of Crown
Royal - below surveillance in a seedy, rundown room in a residential hotel on Hastings Street. The
air in the Prior Hotel smells like mould, the walls are paper thin and the landlord is a bitter,
suspicious old woman that life has succeeded in breaking. The tenants are drug addicts on welfare.
When the sun goes down, police sirens wail like banshees while drunks brawl and hookers ply their
trade on the street outside his third story window. It was all he could afford with the remaining
cash he had in his bank account from the security guard job. It's Friday night. Monday he goes to
Paramount Bank and Trust and moves some of that corporate money into his personal chequing
account.
Imprisonment forced him to abandon his apartment and, as a result, his possessions were seized by
the landlord. Except his car. Saturday morning he picks up the Olds from the impound lot and
then heads for Audrey's apartment in the pouring rain, windshield wipers on maximum sweep. He
arrives at Audrey's place and knocks on the door. A lady of about fifty answers.
"I'm looking for a woman called Audrey Varga. She used to live here, about eight months ago.
Brunette, really good looking. Do you know anything about the previous tenant?"
"Never heard of her," the woman says and shuts the door.
That night he drives to Superstar Spa to see Sherelle. If anyone knows what happened to Audrey
it'll be her best friend. He sits down with her on a couch in the lounge.
"Audrey told me about what happened with that stalker Wade Latimer. He's not welcome here
anymore after what he did to you. When did you get out of jail?"
"Yesterday. What happened to Audrey? Where is she?"
"She left," Sherelle answers.
"Left? What do you mean she left?"
"She lost her make-up job at the shopping mall," Sherelle recounts, "so she started working here
full-time. She seemed unhappy, like something wasn't quite right. She hinted she might leave. She
told me she wanted to go back east, back to Ontario where she's from. Then she stopped coming
to work altogether. Cimone couldn't reach her on the phone to schedule her for shifts. I got really
worried thinking maybe she was sick so I went to her apartment to check on her but she didn't
answer the door. The building manager let me into her place and the funny thing is, everything was
there, all her stuff, just like normal. Everything except Audrey. Wally was sure happy to see
someone. I don't think that dog had eaten for a week. I have Wally with me now."
"She even left Wally behind?"
"Yeah, it's crazy. Women do crazy things sometimes."
"But still. Did you report her missing to the police?"
"Of course. They didn't give a damn. The cops are useless. They didn't even want to open a
missing person file on her. Never heard anything more from them after that."
"Sounds like something happened to her."
"There's been a problem downtown with girls going missing for years. We all knew about it long
before it hit the news. Those girls walked the streets for their money though. Audrey never
hooked or worked outside a place like this. She wasn't vulnerable and exposed like those girls."
"Do you know about her ex Mel? She told me how they used to travel all over the world. Maybe
she's back with him."
"Nah," Sherelle says, shaking her head, dismissing the idea. "Audrey wouldn't have left like that
without talking to me first. We were close."
A look of dejection surfaces in Sherelle's eyes. "I miss her too, you know." She adds, "She would
have taken Wally with her. She loved that dog. You know why she called him Wally?"
"No."
"Wally was the name of this boy she went to school with. She was in grade two; he was grade one.
Elementary school. One day after school she was walking home with her friend Amy and she saw
some bullies push Wally down an embankment. The boys left Wally there, lying at the bottom of
the hill, crying, his face covered in dirt from the fall. They took the boy to Audrey's house and
pulled him through the dining room. Audrey's parents were sitting right there at the table, like they
were waiting for them. Audrey and Amy took the boy into the bathroom and wiped the tears and
dirt from his face. Her parents saw the whole thing. That was Wally."
"Doesn't surprise me."
"A lot of men loved Audrey. No one ever loved her like you did though."
"Yeah."
"It looks bad, but I don't think she's dead or anything like that. I'll bet you anything that for some
reason she felt she had no choice but to get away and she went back home to Ontario. That's what
I believe."
Cavanagh had been with girls who were unbalanced in the past. The girls who shone unusually
bright on good days often had bad days that were less than joyful. And Audrey shone like the
summer sun. Sherelle just might be right - maybe Audrey had had enough of the west coast and it
was time for her to get out. He hoped it was nothing more serious than that.
Sherelle changes the subject. "Is it still raining outside?" she asks him.
"Pissing."
"Are you staying for a visit? You've been away a long time, Jeff."
"Too long." He kisses her on the cheek as he gets up to leave. "Tempting offer. Not tonight."
On the way back to the Prior Hotel he buys some more booze and picks up a gram of pot from a
dealer on Hastings. He's got some serious heartache to kill.
Audrey really is gone, Cavanagh realizes. Shit. An absolute fucking heartbreaker. Well that's it.
Last tango. You're alone now, buddy. No more love. Get used to it. Not worth the inevitable
pain that follows. Erase her from your head. Shut down the love component within your mind.
Do a reverse wash on your brain. Try not to think about her. Thirty days, then she'll be out of
your head and you'll be over her. Yeah right, thirty days.
He lies on the bed, drunk and stoned, still dressed, and thinks of Audrey. When he first met her in
a coffee shop at the mall, both on a break from their jobs, it was as though she had whacked him
across the head with a two-by-four emblazoned with the words "YOU WILL LOVE ME." That
was the effect she had on him. And love her he did. Goodbye Audrey, he thinks. Thanks for
letting me come into your life for a while. He breaks into tears.
That night he has a disturbing dream of having concrete weights chained to his legs that drag him to
the bottom of the sea. He's dragged along the ocean floor through the mud and the silt and the
sediment. The dream shifts and now he's lying on his side on the hotel room bed, looking at the
clock radio and the lamp on the dresser and beyond the dresser, at the open bedroom door. The
green LED display on the clock says it's 3:11 a.m. Cavanagh is frozen, unable to move. An
invisible force descends upon him and he senses that this force is about to download the meaning of
his relationship with the universe into his soul. The ultimate answer of all answers. Transcendence
is staring him naked in the face, only slightly beyond his grasp. Just as he's about to take of hold of
it, his body is overtaken with heat. It's as though every atom in his body is combusting. The
rapidly intensifying burning sensation feels frighteningly real. At the instant the heat becomes
unbearably painful he screams, "NO!" and wakes up. With the jolt of the dream dissolving, he
checks the time. It's 3:12.
Sunday morning he uses his credit card to buy ten bucks time on his cell phone to call his mother in
Saskatoon.
"It's been such a long time since I've heard from you, Jeff," Jocelyn chides him.
"I've been trying to get things happening business-wise out here in B.C., Mum. I've been very
busy. What happened to Uncle Martin? Did he recover?"
"No, your Uncle Martin died eight months ago."
"It's very sad."
"Jeff, when your uncle died a man came to see me to invite me to the funeral. At first I thought it
was someone from the military service, something to do with your time in the army. But then he
said it was about your Uncle Martin's death. He said he would pay my fare and hotel for the trip to
the funeral service. But I wasn't feeling well enough to attend. He asked me where he could find
you. He said he wanted to talk to you, to ask you some questions. I can't quite recall his name."
"What was his relation to Uncle Martin?"
"He said he was an accountant in your uncle's company."
"An accountant."
"Yes. He wanted to ask you some questions about a company. Oh, I remember his name now.
He said it was Vic. Vic Morrison. Vic is probably short for Victor but he said his name was Vic."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him I haven't heard from you for months and I didn't know anything about any company.
Are you in some kind of trouble? What's this all about, Jeff?"
"I haven't a clue." It made Cavanagh uneasy to hear that a man had approached his elderly mother
for information about him. Perhaps Vic Morrison simply needed to ask some questions about
settling his uncle's estate. Who else, other than Martin Cavanagh and the bank, knew about MC 80
Inc.? he wondered. In any case, he hadn't touched any of the corporate cash. It was all still intact.
"I'm going to come and visit you soon in Saskatoon," he says to his mother. Opting to avoid
upsetting her, Cavanagh decides not to tell his mother about his prison stint.
"Oh that would be so nice. I haven't seen you for such a long time," his mother replies lovingly.
"Bye Mum."
Monday morning Cavanagh drives to Paramount Bank and Trust. His intention is to confirm his
authority over MC 80 Inc. by withdrawing five thousand dollars from the corporate account. He
sits down in Claudia Cooper's office and gives her the company name and account number from
memory. Cooper punches the information into her computer keyboard. She frowns.
Cooper looks at Cavanagh and tells him, "That account was closed."
"Closed?"
"Yes, a few months ago. And all the securities transferred out."
The information triggers an acute seismic brain-quake within Jeff Cavanagh's skull. He swallows
and says, "When-"
"I beg your pardon?"
"When," Cavanagh asks Cooper calmly, "did this happen?"
Cooper reads the account info on the computer screen. "The account was closed last May.
There's a note here that says it was closed as per a court order."
"Who closed the account?" Cavanagh asks.
"It doesn't say here. Let me see if I can locate a copy of the order. I'll be back in a moment."
Cooper leaves Cavanagh alone in the office to think about the situation. He has a criminal record
so employment opportunities are now limited, as is his ability to travel internationally. His girl left
him. And his stash of cash is gone. Reality is hitting him hard and it makes him sick to his
stomach. Instinct immediately tells him a fraud has occurred here. You can't kid a kidder. The
pieces are falling into place like a jigsaw puzzle. I've been played for a fool, Cavanagh realizes.
Jacked. He feels like he just got kicked by a horse. All he wants now is to go back to the hotel and
sleep.
Cooper comes back to the office with two stapled sheets of paper in her hand and sits down at her
desk. She looks at the top page and says, "According to this order you are restrained from dealing
with MC 80 Inc. in any way and control of the company and its assets was given to a man called
Bernie Skrivanos. I'm afraid I can't give you any more information than that as you no longer have
control of this company, Mr. Cavanagh. You can have this copy of the order." Cooper hands
Cavanagh the two pages of paper.
"Can you tell me where the money went? Where it was transferred to?" Cavanagh asks Cooper.
"As I've said, you no longer have any authority over MC 80 Inc. so privacy regulations prohibit me
from giving you any more information about this account. You may want to consult a lawyer."
Cavanagh and a boy step into the elevator in the lobby of the Prior Hotel. Cavanagh pushes the
third floor button.
"Which floor?" he asks the boy.
"Two."
Cavanagh punches the two button and looks at the court order Claudia Cooper gave him at
Paramount Bank and Trust. The order was pronounced by Justice Matthew Hamilton of the
Supreme Court of British Columbia. He doesn't need a law degree to know he's been ripped off.
He's never heard of court orders being granted without a hearing with all sides represented.
Especially with the amount of money at stake here. Someone has capitalized on his uncle's death
and his own imprisonment. And who the hell is Bernie Skrivanos? Cavanagh was of the
understanding that he was the only, and thus controlling, shareholder of MC 80 Inc. The owner.
That's what his Uncle Martin had told him and that's why his uncle had required a power of
attorney to operate the company. As far as Cavanagh was concerned, his uncle was the one and
only person who superseded him in entitlement to this money. And Uncle Martin is dead.
The elevator stops at the second floor. The boy exits, the door closes and the elevator begins
ascending again. He turns the page on the order. On the second page is the name of the lawyer
and the name and address of the law firm that obtained the order from Justice Hamilton: Bernie D.
Skrivanos of Skrivanos Associates, located at suite 910 - 140 Water Street, just a few blocks from
the Prior Hotel.
The elevator door opens on the third floor, Cavanagh's floor. He puts the court order in his jacket
pocket and steps into the hallway. To his left, at the end of the corridor, a tall, grey-haired, fiftyish
man in a tan raincoat is knocking on the door to Cavanagh's hotel room. Without thinking,
Cavanagh retreats backwards into the elevator and watches the doors close in front of him. He
returns to the lobby. The Olds is parked in front of the Prior. He gets in, starts the car and pulls
out onto Hastings Street. He makes a left at Carrall Street, right on Cordova and then drives down
Columbia. Turning left onto Powell which becomes Water Street, he looks for 140. He finds it.
140 Water Street is a brownstone office building probably built in the 1930s. He parks the car and
goes in. The directory on the wall in the lobby says Skrivanos Associates is on the ninth floor. He
takes the elevator up to floor number nine and follows the arrow on the wall to suite 910. The door
is locked. He cups his hands around his eyes and peers through the window. The office is vacant,
completely empty.
As Cavanagh turns to leave he sees two men walk out of the elevator and approach him. One of
them he recognizes as the man in the tan raincoat from his door at the hotel. In the time it takes
him to decide not to run the men are standing in front of him.
"My name is Morrison," the man in the tan raincoat says. "I'm an accountant with your late uncle's
firm. We want to talk to you about some missing money, Jeff."
An accountant? These guys seem more like CSIS agents, Cavanagh thinks.
Touching Cavanagh's shoulder, the other man, wearing a black suit and tie, gently guides him down
the hall to the elevator. All three of them get into the elevator and Morrison pushes the seventh
floor button. The other man makes a call on his cell phone and says, "We have him."
On floor number seven Morrison pulls out a set of keys and opens up the door to another office.
Like the Skrivanos Associates office upstairs, this one is vacant too. It's one large room with two
pillars cutting through it. Exposed, coiled metal electrical wires hang from openings amid the
lighting in the ceiling like silent, waiting snakes. Taking up the far wall is a long, expansive picture
window looking northward out over the waterfront docks of Vancouver Harbour. Two empty
chairs surrounded by shards of discarded electrical wire sit in the middle of the room. In the
distance, across the grey waters of Burrard Inlet, dark storm clouds have descended upon North
Vancouver.
"Have a seat," Morrison says to Cavanagh.
Cavanagh sits down in one of the chairs and crosses his arms. "What do you want?" he asks
Morrison gravely.
Morrison lights a cigarette with a silver, flint lighter. He walks to the window and gazes out.
"Lovely view, isn't it? This is one of ours."
It registers with Cavanagh that these people own the building. He says nothing. Morrison turns
around and places the lighter in his raincoat pocket.
"We'll be back to ask you some questions later," Morrison says. Morrison and the other man
depart the office, locking the door behind them, leaving Cavanagh alone in the room.
Cavanagh tries the door. It's locked. And there's no window to smash; just the one overlooking
the Vancouver shoreline. He paces around the room for a while then rolls a chair over to the
window, puts his feet up on the sill, and observes the boats and seaplanes in the harbour. He
watches the SeaBus ferries crawl the length of the inlet. Then he gets out of the chair and sits
down on the floor, his back to the wall, and waits. If there's one thing he learned in jail it's how to
wait. It seems to Cavanagh that the building is deserted; he hears no sound of people, only the
air-conditioning system.
Hours later, dusk falling, Cavanagh hears the elevator door open and footsteps approaching down
the hall. He hears keys in the slot. The door opens and Morrison, the man in the suit, and another
man in an expensive Italian suit enter the room. Cavanagh rises up off the floor.
"Is this him?" the man in the Italian suit asks, appraising Cavanagh with a look of vague distaste.
"That's him," Morrison says.
The man in the Italian suit is tall and imposing like Morrison. He has a severe, concerned look
about him that says he is undertaking an unpleasant task that he would rather not.
"Set yourself down, Jeff," Morrison says to Cavanagh. Cavanagh settles into the chair.
"Let me introduce you to Jimmy Dickson," Morrison says to Cavanagh, gesturing to the man in the
Italian suit. "We're associates of your late uncle. Jimmy is the comptroller. Do you know who the
comptroller is, Jeff?"
Cavanagh has never heard of a comptroller. He wonders for a split second if Morrison actually
means "controller." It seems very unlikely that these people don't know what they're talking about.
Cavanagh indicates "no" with a slight shake of the head.
"You don't?" Morrison exclaims with some condescension. He grabs the other chair, turns it
around backwards and sits down, directly facing Cavanagh. "Allow me to describe the role of the
comptroller within a corporate enterprise. It's a very powerful position. Jimmy here takes his job
very seriously. The comptroller is the corporate officer responsible for accounting activities. He
conducts management and financial audits; he reviews contracts and payrolls; he reviews payments
to suppliers before they're issued. He basically oversees the fiscal affairs of the entire operation. In
other words, it's the job of the comptroller to keep an eye on the capital. The money. Do you see
where I'm going with this?"
Cavanagh looks at Morrison incredulously then answers, "No I don't."
"A holding company called MC 80 Inc. Ring a bell?"
Morrison and Dickson are silent in anticipation of Cavanagh's answer.
"I haven't touched any of that money," Cavanagh finally says.
"Look!" Morrison says with delight, glancing at Dickson. "He does know what I'm talking about!
Has anyone accused you of taking the money, Jeff? I haven't said anything about you taking the
money. I don't think Mr. Dickson here has said anything about you taking the money. We know
you didn't take the money. We want to talk to you about the person who did take the money -
Bernie D. Skrivanos. What do you know about him?"
"Bernie who?"
"Skrivanos."
"Never heard of him. I just finished an eight-month stay in prison. I got out on Friday. Three
days ago."
"For what?"
"I got set up on a bogus break and enter charge and a bogus uttering threats charge."
"Where'd this happen?"
"Here. Vancouver."
"Who do you think set you up?"
"I know the Crown was in on it."
"How do you know that? Talk like that can get you sent back to jail pretty quick around here."
"I can't prove it," he states with conviction. "But I know it."
Morrison stares at Cavanagh silently for about a quarter-minute. Then the comptroller steps
forward and speaks.
"There are no rules anymore, Jeff," Dickson says, his voice low and absent of emotion.
"Armageddon finally annihilated any semblance of a level playing field five years ago. With the turn
of the millennium things came crashing down, hard. More and more we see open contempt for the
truth. I'm talking about the government, the bureaucracy. The malaise is everywhere. Even those
who live and die by the law are ignoring that very law. The judiciary in B.C. has slid into a criminal
grey area that looks very much like anarchy. It's in our interest to see that the law pertaining to
doing business in Canada is complied with. But when the government is this far gone it can be
difficult for legitimate operations like ours to operate."
A feeling of unease runs through Cavanagh's body. Dickson's personality seems devoid of empathy
and mercy, colder than any criminal he had met in prison.
"That money you think is yours," the comptroller says, "it's not. Nor was it your uncle's. It
belongs to the corporation. And we'd like it back. However, it appears the capital was removed
through means that are well beneath the bar of any recognized legal conduct. That's obvious. It's
the work of the V mob, the Vancouver legal mafia. It's a regional thing. As such, we want to keep
this matter at arm's length. In certain instances we don't have access to the courts to solve
problems. This is one of them. Relying on judges to solve your problems is a game for fools
anyway. They rarely get it right. We can't actually prove we own MC 80 Inc., technically
speaking, although we do. When a company as large as Expedited Shipping Lines goes into a
courtroom to make any kind of claim we absolutely must have hard facts that can be proven with
irrefutable evidence that will support our claim. Not having those facts can be very expensive. And
it can get you noticed. And we really don't like to get noticed. Because if you get noticed next
thing you know you're a target. In the scheme of Expedited this missing capital is small potatoes.
We wipe people like Bernie Skrivanos off our shoes when we show up for work in the morning.
It's more the principle of the matter. We dislike this nonsense as much as you do. It's sure to blow
up in someone's face sooner or later. We'd rather it wasn't ours."
The comptroller pauses for a moment then goes on, "Expedited is writing MC 80 off. It seems to
us that you really should have a talk with Bernie Skrivanos and see if some of the missing capital
can be retrieved. I know a thing or two about deadbeats myself, Jeff. Before I worked my way up
at Expedited I worked in collections as a skip tracer in Ontario. People in general can't be trusted.
They lie, they cheat, they steal. Skrivanos committed an act of fraud against Expedited. He wasn't
aware of that, mind you. He committed an act of fraud against you too. That he did know. He
did it wilfully. Intentionally."
The comptroller asks Cavanagh, "How does that make you feel? That Skrivanos had no qualms
about stealing property he knew you owned?"
"I'm not too happy about it," Cavanagh tells the comptroller coolly.
"Skrivanos obliterated your one and only shot at the big prize. This is an enlightened country, Jeff.
A nation where rights are respected, by and large. We're not in the jungles of Africa. This is
Canada. We're civilized. Civilized is when a million dollars disappears from your bank account and
the man who stole that money is able to go on living right there in your community, without fear of
physical retribution. However, civilized can be overrated if it allows monkeys like Skrivanos to
behave this way. Skrivanos and everyone involved in this theft should swing like Louis Riel. They
should be hung from the Burrard Street Bridge as an example to others. We encourage you to do
what you have to to put this affair right."
Dickson ceases speaking. Morrison gets up out of his chair. The two men walk to the door where
the third man silently waits. The comptroller turns and looks over at Cavanagh and addresses him
for the final time.
"The MC 80 Inc. money was skimmed by your uncle over the course of his tenure at Expedited,"
Dickson tells Cavanagh. "We watched him appropriate every dime. Even saw how he invested it.
Probably thought he was entitled to it having spent thirty years with us. We could have fired him.
We didn't. He was well-liked. A good employee. We were willing to see the MC 80 money be
bequeathed to the beneficiaries of his estate. We're not happy seeing it all change hands to Bernie
D. Skrivanos. The idea in business is to take a little bit from a lot of people. Even if they think
they didn't get their money's worth, most people are willing to let a small loss go. The V mob
seems to think they're entitled to everything you've got. We're not police. We're not lawyers. We
don't deal in lies and innuendo. We're businessmen. We deal in hard numbers. Ones and zeros."
Morrison reaches into his coat and pulls out an envelope. He tosses it to the floor at Cavanagh's
feet and says, "For your time."
The three men leave. They don't lock the door behind them. It is with considerable relief that
Cavanagh realizes he is free to go. Even though they intimidated him, Cavanagh finds himself
admiring the professionalism of these high level "executives." It occurs to him that he's just been
introduced to an elite element of corporate society he wasn't aware existed.
He picks the envelope up off the floor and makes his way out of the building. In his car he opens
the envelope. It's filled with cash. Hundred dollar bills. He's starving. He'll count the money in
his room. He hits a grocery store and buys a steak and some potatoes. Back at the hotel Cavanagh
cooks and eats his meal and counts the money in the envelope. He has a shower. Downstairs in
the lobby he leafs through the phonebook and looks up the number of a buddy he served with in
the army. Two hours later he's sitting with his friend Ziggy MacIntosh in a bar on Hastings Street.
"Are you working?" Cavanagh asks MacIntosh.
"Been working construction, on and off. I've been off work for a while because of the rain."
MacIntosh has his hands around a glass of beer. "Construction grinds to a halt in this kind of
weather. Things are tight. Holly's not working either. She's at home with the kids. Can't really
even afford this drink."
"I'm buying. I have a job for you."
"What kind of job?"
"Muscle," Cavanagh says. "It's all very illegal."
"You want to rip someone off?"
"No. Nothing like that. I don't do that. I want to have a talk with some people who ripped me off.
The last person in the world they want to see is me. That's where you come in."
"If you tell me this is undertaking that has to be done then I'm in."
"There's something going on out there, Ziggy," Cavanagh says, thinking about his meeting with the
comptroller. "A secret war has been declared in this city. The legal bar, the lawyers, are marching
in unison, as a block, like a unified political party. They've seized control of the courts so you can't
oppose them there. They simply write their own ticket in the courtrooms. That machine isn't
about justice, it's about feeding the children of the men and women who make their living in it on
the backs of people who can't fight back. It's the God's truth, I've seen it. The government is too
weak to fight them so it's on their side, not the side of the people. A plague of bastards. Other
means must be deployed to resist them. It's an underground civil war. Everyone knows it, they're
just not talking. It's not in the news or in the papers. But it's on. Yes, this is something that has to
be done."
Cavanagh hands MacIntosh the envelope Morrison gave him. MacIntosh drags his thumb along the
edge of the cash.
"How much is this?"
"Five grand. It's an important job."
3 / 4