LITMIR.BIZ

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well off Scottie’s girl.

      Six

      Aam niin (You are good)

      MORNING HAD BROKEN, and down in the Super 8’s diner over coffee and toast, Dion had folded aside his paper and was mostly listening.

      “I had a pal once,” the old Indian named Willy told him, turtle-slow. They were sitting at the window booth, sharing the view on highway and windblown litter. “He’s Gitxsan. Looks lot like you. You got some Gitxsan in you, not so far off.”

      It was a statement, not a question, and probably as wrong as Giroux calling him Cree. “Lot like you,” Willy repeated, nodding. “Name is Johnny.”

      “Oh, so that’s why you keep calling me that.”

      “Hey?”

      “Forget it. What happened to him?”

      “Dead. It’s years ago, before you came into this world. He’s dancing now … at the big powwow in the sky.”

      Dion shut an eye in case his collar was being yanked. But Willy’s expression, side-lit by the low morning light and gnarled by age, gave nothing away.

      “So how’d he die?”

      No answer came. Willy seemed to go adrift, unlit cigarette clamped between his puckered lips. Dion dropped his attention back to the news of the day, stale breaking news from the Lower Mainland, all that murder and mayhem he was forced to watch from the sidelines.

      “Drowned,” Willy said, minutes later. “Twenty-two.”

      “That’s too bad. Was he a good friend?”

      “No. He’s a liar and a cheat and he drinks too much. We worked together. Deckhands. Trawlers, just out of Rupert.”

      “Oh. So it happened on the job, did it?”

      “No. Fell in the river, down here.” Willy’s bluish left eye and semi-clear right eye stared at Dion fiercely, as if he’d had something to do with the tragedy.

      “So how did it happen?”

      Again no answer, and this time it seemed there would be none any time soon. Willy was looking at his own hands on the tabletop, cradling the cup of coffee Dion had ordered for him.

      “Well, tell me about it tomorrow,” Dion said. He pushed Willy’s book of Eddy Lites across the table. “It’s bad for you, you know that? Bad for me too.”

      “I know. Tried to quit. Can’t.”

      “Go ahead, few puffs, then put it out.”

      “Aam niin,” Willy said, slowly. Slow even for him. It was an annoying habit of his, teaching. “You are good,” he translated, and waited.

      “Aam niin,” Dion said. “You are good.”

      Willy struck a match to light his hand-rolled. He took a pull then sat back pluming smoke like a chip-burner. “I will teach you not Gitxsan,” he said. “I will teach you Nisga’a, my language. But close enough. Don’t want to lose the language.”

      “Thanks, no. I have a hard enough time with English.”

      But the old Indian sat there being willfully deaf, nodding to himself, making plans. “It’s a good thing,” he said. He put out his cigarette and tapped at his own chest, somewhere over his heart. “Time to come home, eh?”

      * * *

      Andy Blair was being watched, everywhere he went, and the surveillers weren’t shy about it, ranged around the Chev dealership in their shiny cars and trucks. “Maybe now he’ll break a sweat,” Leith said from the office, pushing papers around, waiting for something to give.

      In the afternoon it gave, in the shape of Andy Blair’s father Clive, local big shot, owner of the dealership, with Andy pushed and prodded in front of him through the police station doors. “Little asshole has something to tell you,” Clive told the desk constable and marched out.

      Andy Blair’s hair and clothes hadn’t settled back into shape after whatever shaking he’d just received. Leith sat down with him in the nastiest of the Terrace interview rooms and said, “What is it your dad wants you to tell me, Andy?”

      “Nothing. He thinks I’ve been taking cars off the lot without permission and joyriding. Not true. I grew out of joyriding long time ago.”

      “Oh, so your dad’s just assumed you’re the Pickup Killer for no reason, is that right? You have nothing to say to that except he’s wrong?”

      “He didn’t say I’m the Pickup Killer. He said I have something to tell you. Which I have not. That’s where he’s wrong.”

      Leith chose to lose his patience at this point, a faster escalation than usual, but he didn’t have the luxury of time. “I’m here investigating the Pickup Killer,” he blasted. “And your father knows it. He’s not going to turn you in for some minor infraction, is he? What’s it about, Andy? You need a lawyer? You want me to get you a lawyer so we can get to the truth without fucking around here?”

      Blair’s eyes widened. “Oh, c’mon. I didn’t do anything.”

      “Is that what your father’s going to tell me?”

      Blair’s thumbs twiddled fast, like whirligigs in a storm. “I maybe helped out a friend once or twice, let him take a truck out. Not the good ones. The trade-in junk from the back of the lot. And it wasn’t for any killing sprees, that I can swear to.” He lifted the left hand in oath and switched swiftly to the right, and grinned, not a criminal, just a charming brat.

      Leith sat for a moment, looking at the brat, wondering. Blair could be a sociopath, but he didn’t think so. “Who’s the friend?”

      He expected more waffling and instead got a straight-up answer, at least a partial. “John. Not a friend, really. Just an acquaintance.”

      “John’s got a last name?”

      “I don’t know. Knew him on first-name basis only.”

      Leith stood with purpose, and Blair said, “No, wait, I remember. John Portman. No, Porter. No, Potter. Yeah, Potter. John Potter.”

      Leith was back in his chair, asking who exactly John Potter was and where he lived. The name was familiar in only the foggiest way, one name of thousands he’d maybe read on a list in the course of the investigation. But that was good; if the name were on a list, they’d find him. They’d drag him into the light and scrutinize him, if this was actually going anywhere.

      Blair said he didn’t know where Potter lived, but he had the feeling it wasn’t close. Or what he did for a living. Some kind of a contractor, he believed.

      Leith said, “So you helped him out. Go on.”

      “He wanted to buy this old trade-in truck, it was a 2004 Tacoma, I think, not in good shape, which I told him so. But I slapped on the plates and let him take it for the spin. Around the block, he said. It must have been a pretty big block, ’cause he brought it back about a week later. So we had a fight about it and came to terms. It was a misunderstanding, okay? A miscommunication. He acknowledged that and paid me under the table for the inconvenience. Which I declared on my income tax as ‘other,’ by the way. You can check.”

      Leith didn’t care about the payoff at this point. He wanted more on Mr. Potter, and he wanted to tread softly now. Treading softly wasn’t his forte, so he did as Blair did, twiddled his thumbs. Not fast, but slow, a kind of metronome. “You grabbed a copy of the guy’s BCDL, I take it, before he took the truck out?”

      Blair seemed to gaze into the past. “Hell, I must have at least looked at his driver’s licence. Might not have copied it. Not for a spin around the block.” He flung up both hands in surrender. “I know, I know, it’s the law. But I spent my week in hell. Learned my lesson. Never cut corners again. Dad never found out, ’cause I’m

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