LITMIR.BIZ

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on the anti-gang squad: money laundering, drugs, pornography, gambling, prostitution—you name it.”

      It actually had taken them an hour-and-a-half, battling the morning traffic, but Mike Phillips had dropped Ruth at the front door of Vancouver General.

      “I’ll be fine,” she’d assured him when he’d wished her luck, but she had quickly found that she was in the wrong building. “The oncology department is way over on West 10th,” a helpful nurse had told her, and she ended up two blocks away after walking a maze of corridors with scary signs and frightening smells.

      An hour later, Ruth sits in the soothingly decorated waiting room of the Cancer Agency surrounded by a dozen equally anguished relatives and wipes tears from her eyes.

      “Mrs. Jackson ...” calls the receptionist, and Ruth leaps to her feet.

      “Yes?”

      “The administrator will see you now.”

      Martin Dingwall has had years of experience delivering devastating news and has switched off his computer, blocked incoming calls, and turned down his smile. “Come in, please,” he greets Ruth at the door, and solicitously guides her to a chair.

      Ruth sits with the anxiety of a convict waiting for the switch to be thrown as Dingwall deliberately settles himself behind his desk and picks up a single sheet.

      “I really don’t know what to tell you, Mrs. Jackson,” he begins solemnly, looking deeply into her eyes. “We simply have no record of anybody named Jordan Jackson fitting your husband’s profile.”

      “I know that,” she cries. “The receptionist told me that ages ago. But there has to be a mistake. He’s been coming here for months.”

      “Not according to our records.”

      “But what about Dr. Benson? He’d know surely.”

      “Mrs. Jackson ... May I call you Ruth?”

      She nods.

      “Ruth. We have no Dr. Benson registered here.”

      “I might have got it wrong. Jenson—What about Jenson?”

      “Ruth. We’ve checked all of our records; we’ve even had someone phone all the other hospitals in the region. Nobody has any record of your husband whatsoever.”

      “Wait,” says Ruth, with an idea. “He’s probably using a different name. He didn‘t want anyone knowing he had cancer.”

      The administrator’s face lights up in hope. “OK. What name? We’ll check.”

      Ruth’s face falls. “I don’t know ...” Then she brightens, “But Dr. Benson will know.”

      “Ruth. There is no Dr. Benson,” says the administrator with more than a hint of exasperation.

      “I could give you a description of Jordan,” enthuses Ruth.

      “We have thousands of patients,” says Dingwall shaking his head. “Though a photograph might help,” he adds doubtfully.

      Ruth bites her lip and doesn’t bother to look in her purse. She has no photographs. The ones she had taken with the new camera had vanished into cyberspace.

      “Sorry Ruth. The computer crashed,” Jordan had sheepishly explained a few days after his birthday when she was anxious to view them. “It seems to have mucked up the camera as well,” he’d claimed, though insisted that he’d be able to fix it when he was better.

      “Do you have any other information?” continues the administrator. “What type of cancer? What treatment he was receiving? Are you sure he has cancer?”

      “Of course I’m sure. I’ve been going to the support group. They would have known.”

      Dingwall shakes his head again as he puts down the single sheet bearing only Jordan’s name, address and date of birth. “I can only suggest that you go home and ask your husband,” he says with a tone of finality. “But I have to warn you, this isn’t the first case like this that I’ve dealt with.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Sometimes people have delusions about illnesses, Ruth. They may even believe something is seriously wrong with them ...”

      Ruth’s mind has been racing out of control from the moment she arrived, but suddenly everything is clear. “I know what you’re doing. You’re lying to protect Jordan’s privacy, aren’t you?”

      “No ...” he tries, but Ruth angrily flourishes Jordan’s authority.

      “I’ve got permission ... Here—that’s his signature. You can check.”

      “I know. You’ve already shown it to me. Believe me, Ruth, that is not the problem. I’m trying to help. Even if I couldn’t give you specifics, I could certainly confirm that he was a patient. Why don’t you just phone him? You’re welcome to use my phone.”

      Ruth can’t explain her reluctance to phone Jordan, even to herself, but decides to take action. “I’m going to the other hospitals,” she declares. “Your computers must be wrong. I know he’s been treated somewhere. He had pills ...”

      “OK. What was the name of the drug?” asks Dingwall with a final ray of hope. “We might be able to track the prescription.”

      “Zofran,” says Ruth remembering the name Trina had found on the pack.

      Dingwall sits back, shaking his head again. “I was afraid of that.”

      “What?”

      “It’s too common. Most of our cancer patients take it to quell nausea. We’d never trace an individual dose.”

      Three hours and nearly two hundred dollars in cab fares later, Ruth is back at Vancouver General, admitting defeat. There is no record of her husband, or a Dr. Benson, in any of the Vancouver area hospitals, and if Jordan has used an alias there is no way of tracing him. Bewildered, and destitute of ideas, she finally seeks a payphone.

      Trina picks up on the first ring, and sighs in relief. “Ruth. Thank God it’s you. Jordan’s gone missing—he’s not with you, is he?”

      “No, of course ... What do you mean, ‘missing’?”

      “I couldn’t hear anything from his room, so I had a quick look in to make sure he was all right ...”

      “I told you not to.”

      “I know, I know. But it was lunchtime, and I thought he might like some of my cauliflower–banana soup. Honest, Ruth, he’s not here.”

      “Banana soup?”

      “I ran out of cauliflower, but banana’s the same colour. Anyway, he’s not here, Ruth. We’ve looked everywhere. Cindy hasn’t seen him either. He’s gone.”

      “Stay there. I’m coming back.”

      “I gotta get the kids from school—the guinea pig’s having babies—but Jordan’s mother’s on her way over. I found her number ...”

      “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Trina. Did you have to? Why couldn’t you just do what you’re asked for once?”

       chapter six

      For the second time in two days, Ruth Jackson finds herself crying as she undresses in front of strangers.

      “Everything?” she asks, trying to hang on to her panties.

      “Everything,” says the police matron as she holds out a one-piece prisoner’s suit. “Put this on, then sit over there and look straight into the camera.”

      “But I haven’t done anything,” blubbers Ruth, as another female officer sweeps up her clothes and carefully seals them in an evidence bag.

      “Tell

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