The first shift of morning deliveries had just gone out, the business world still demanding print copies despite all the computerized options available. The fellows gathering around the front of the shop were already chowing down on fried egg sandwiches while babbling about bad customers, slow taxi drivers and annoying bike thieves. The smells drifting out of the small shop had me drooling and it wasn’t long before I was sitting on the stoop with the rest of the riders, smearing egg yolk on my chin as I devoured one of the best hidden secrets of Toronto.
The couriers eyed me nervously, not willing to share their space with a civilian and a woman to boot. I ignored them and kept on eating, placing my business card down beside me on the step.
The curiosity was too much for one neon-green spandex-wearing young man who peered down at the card, almost falling into my lap.
“A private investigator? You got a gun?”
“Can’t afford the bullets.” I wiped my chin with a handful of napkins. “Looking for a pair of runaways. Dear old dad’s worried about his little girl.” I waved toward the street with the half-eaten sandwich. “Any of you boys know where I’d have some luck looking for her?”
Neon fell back to a defensive position and muttered to his buddy who muttered to the one next to him and so on. I watched the discussion spread out like ripples in a pond, some bouncing back close to me before stalling out.
“Over there.” An older rider, maybe in his mid-twenties and wearing a bright orange safety vest over his ripped leather jacket, jerked his thumb to the east. He rambled off instructions to find a parking garage off Church Street, where he claimed the street musicians warmed up before hitting the busking areas on Queen. “Ran into a few of them yesterday. Good music, good peeps running their own way.”
I nodded, staying silent. The sandwich helped.
“They hook up there, choose who they wanna be with for the work day, put together new sounds.” He pointed at the cars racing by with his sandwich. “You might find someone there.”
I handed him a ten and began walking, sandwich in hand. It’d take me a few minutes to walk the distance and I wasn’t going to waste good food.
My intention was to go to the parking garage.
My subconscious decided otherwise.
I stopped still and looked down at my feet, scowling through the last of the sandwich. We were nowhere near a parking garage.
I looked up to see the giant black dot swinging over my head.
I mashed up the foil in my hand and swiped at my mouth with my sleeve.
The door was open, a loud electronic blast announcing my entrance. Nothing subtle here.
A threadbare couch sat in the center of the front room with mismatched chairs. Bricks and thin planks against a wall created a bookshelf with tattered and worn volumes of the classics and a few more recent blockbusters waiting for attention.
Angie Degas flew out of a back room. She wore jeans and a tight T-shirt with a fat black spot obscuring most of the front.
I squinted, seeing it as a bull’s-eye.
She’d already opened her mouth to speak, probably ready to spew out whatever sales pitch she had to try and keep the kids there and convince them to take advantage of the Spot’s resources. I could almost see the wheels in her mind coming to a screeching halt, spokes flying everywhere and gears exploding as she processed who was standing in front of her.
“Oh. Hello.” She crossed her arms in front of her. “Rebecca, right?”
I nodded.
“I haven’t seen your kids. Put the pictures up on the inside wall for the staff but no takers yet.” She pulled a thick strand of blond hair over her shoulder and twirled it around her finger. “Can I do something else for you?”
I studied her before answering, trying to reconcile the mental image I’d been creating overnight with the reality.
She was thin, too thin. Possible result of bad nutrition in her earlier days. Her teeth weren’t falling out but they didn’t look like they were in great shape. Hair long and lush thanks to the conditioner I smelled. The fruity smell clogged the back of my throat.
An old scar over her left eye, right at the hairline, showed she’d been a brawler. Wasn’t that much of a surprise.
“Like what you see?” Angie snapped. She moved into my personal space. “Look, I know Brandon’s with you. I’m not stupid.”
I stayed silent.
“You think you’re so tough, you’re a badass detective hunting down kids.” She swept her arm around, encompassing the makeshift living room. “You don’t know what these kids have gone through, what I went through.”
“I read the article.”
She shook her head. “You and a lot of other people who figured they knew us, knew what world we lived in.” Her blond locks bounced over her shoulder. “We got so many social workers, do-gooders and flakes wanting to scoop us up and take us home. Problem was, home sucked for us in the first place. That’s how we got here.”
“You didn’t tell Bran how you got here.” I kept my tone neutral.
It was hard.
Angie swiped at her nose with her shirt sleeve. “Same old story—I fell in love. He said he loved me, would go anywhere and do anything with me as long as I was faithful.” She snorted. “Small town up north near Quebec, you wouldn’t know the name. Told me we’d come down here and build a new life, make me into a model and he’d be my manager. We were in town for a week before I caught him trying to pimp me out to some new friends of his, cutting a deal. My ass for a bag of weed. I punched him in the face and never looked back.”
I stayed silent.
“Brandon was the first man I met who was nice to me, nice without wanting anything from me.” She looked at the front window and out into the street. “I offered to do him a few times. You know, a thank you for being such a good guy.” Her lips twisted into a smile. “That didn’t make it into the article. I’ve done the therapy, I know all the medical terms and I know I’m screwed up in the head when it comes to relationships and knowing what’s healthy and what’s not. I’m still working on it. But when I spotted him last night I just—”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I just went back to that time, that place where he was the sane one in an insane world. He was my anchor and I loved him, still love him for being that. The rich little boy who saw past me and got the big picture, who tried to save all of us and not just who was giving him a blow job or a piece of ass.” Her eyes shot open and locked with mine. “He didn’t save us. But he sure as hell tried to understand us, more than anyone else I’ve ever met has. And I wouldn’t be where I am without him showing me people do care, can care and can change the world.”
I swallowed hard, feeling like a piece of gum stuck on the bottom of someone’s shoe.
She jerked a thumb toward the back of the room. “You wanna fight we can go out back. But I can tell you he told me ‘no’ again last night. Figured I’d give it one more shot now that we’re older and all that. He still wouldn’t go for it.” She pulled on the scarlet thread of hair again. “He’s a good man.”
“Yes. Yes he is.” I leaned in until our noses almost touched. “And I thank God every day that I have him in my life.”
I spun around and left, my heartbeat loud in my ears.
It didn’t take me long to find the parking lot, tucked in behind a public library. The tiny asphalt square stood three levels high and had already been filled to capacity hours ago, the sole exit and entrance via a small booth with a sleepy, pudgy guard propped up on a stool inside. This was a locals-only lot—if you didn’t know where to look or to turn you’d zip on by it and end up paying twice at much at the louder, more vibrantly advertised lots.
I could hear the pounding of drums mixed in with the spirited voices of a make-shift choir and a variety of instruments from flute to guitar to some sort of didgeridoo. Every few minutes the levels would rise and fall, shifting as teams split off. I guessed the musicians ran in shifts, with the late risers coming in to tag team the early birds and keep the corners active.