Vancouver Noir
Table of Contents
___________________
Introduction
PART I: BLOOD MONEY
Terminal City
Linda L. Richards
English Bay
Saturna Island
Timothy Taylor
Kitsilano
Eight Game-Changing Tips on Public Speaking
Sheena Kamal
Financial District
The Perfect Playgroup
Robin Spano
West Vancouver
PART II: RAGS & BONES
The Midden
Carleigh Baker
South Cambie
Wonderful Life
Sam Wiebe
Commercial Drive
Bottom Dollar
Dietrich Kalteis
Strathcona
The Landecker Party
Nathan Ripley
Mount Pleasant
Burned
Yasuko Thanh
Yaletown
PART III: NIGHT VISIONS
The Demon of Steveston
Kristi Charish
Britannia
Stitches
Don English
Crab Park
The One Who Walks with a Limp
Nick Mamatas
Greektown
Survivors’ Pension
S.G. Wong
Victoria-Fraserview
The Threshold
R.M. Greenaway
Waterfront
About the Contributors
Acknowledgments
Bonus Materials
Excerpt from USA NOIR edited by Johnny Temple
Also in Akashic Noir Series
Akashic Noir Series Awards & Recognition
About Akashic Books
Copyrights & Credits
To Chris and the staff at Pulp Fiction Books,
and Walter and Jill at Dead Write Books,
keeping the city well-stocked with darkness.
INTRODUCTION
Black Rain and Broken Glass
Noir is a messy term. Borrowed from the French and best-known in reference to film, noir has been applied to everything from The Long Goodbye to The Dark Knight Returns. Purists will only award the term to the work of half a dozen white guys who wrote in the early 1900s. Others throw it around as a loose synonym for mystery.
Dennis Lehane borrowed heavily from Arthur Miller when he called noir “working-class tragedy.” I admire that definition, I think it’s true, but it wanders slightly afield from the heart of the matter.
Noir is bad shit happening to people much like ourselves.
At its heart, noir is the ugly shadow of ourselves we always knew was there, but out of convenience chose to ignore.
You might wonder what shadows could exist in Vancouver, rain-spattered jewel of the Pacific Northwest. Nestled between the US border and the Coast Mountains, the city’s postcard charms are familiar even to those who’ve never been here, thanks to the films and TV shows shot in Hollywood North: The X-Files and Deadpool, Rumble in the Bronx and Jason Takes Manhattan. Vancouver is the so-called City of Glass. A nice place, in any case, and much too nice for noir.
Looked at from afar, Vancouver may seem idyllic. But living here is different—cold and baffling and occasionally hostile. While outsiders focus on high-test BC bud, locals see a heroin crisis: Vancouver is home to the first legalized safe-injection site in North America, now heavily taxed by overdoses resulting from street drugs cut with fentanyl. It’s ground zero for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, a nationwide catastrophe involving the deaths and disappearances of hundreds of marginalized women. Money and status trample culture and community.
If Vancouver is a city of glass, that glass is underneath our feet.
* * *
The stories in this collection come from very different writers, yet themes emerge linking them together. Land and violence, sex and community.
Vancouver is a colonial outpost on the unceded territory of three First Nations: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlil̓wətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. Moreover, the city is one of North America’s largest immigration hubs, and includes one of the oldest Chinatowns. Land speculation and a lack of low-income housing have created a real estate crisis: most of us nonmillionaires have either left, or cling tenuously to our homes. The cost of living here—the cost of life—is examined in Carleigh Baker’s “The Midden” and Nathan Ripley’s “The Landecker Party.”
In the last thirty years or so, half a dozen serial killers have stalked Vancouver’s streets. Most of them have targeted at-risk women: addicts, sex workers, those on low incomes, indigenous people, and people of color. Those whose voices struggle to be heard, to whom large parts of the culture remain indifferent. Gendered violence is a part of city life; the topic is tackled here in several forms, in depictions of the sex trade by Yasuko Thanh and Don English, as well as female perpetrators of violence, such as the protagonists of Linda L. Richards’s “Terminal City,” Dietrich Kalteis’s “Bottom Dollar,” and Sheena Kamal’s “Eight Game-Changing Tips on Public Speaking.”
Neighborhood and community exist in Vancouver, though they are harder to define in a city caught in the throes of gentrification. Whether the elderly immigrants of S.G. Wong’s “Survivors’ Pension,” the Lululemon-clad mothers in Robin Spano’s “The Perfect Playgroup,” or the aging mobsters trying to hold on to long-lost Greektown in Nick Mamatas’s “The One Who Walks with a Limp,” communities are made and refashioned by the people in them.
From Stanley Park to the Britannia shipyards, from Jericho Beach to the bohemian mess of Commercial Drive, Vancouver Noir offers readers a tour through the dark nooks of the city, from an expert group of guides. These stories knock holes in the City of Glass. They paint a picture of a city in flux, a city struggling to redefine itself. A city under siege by drugs, poverty, racism, colonialism, violence directed at women. In other words, a city like any other.
So welcome to Vancouver, the place where the west ends. And welcome to Vancouver Noir. It gets dark here. Know that going in.
Sam Wiebe
Vancouver, British Columbia
July 2018
PART I
BLOOD MONEY
Terminal City
by Linda L. Richards
English Bay
I first hear about the assignment through a text, as is usual. The text never varies much in tone, though the number is always different.
Hey, sunshine! How’s life treating you?
And my response is always pretty much the same: I told you it was over. Stop bugging me or I’ll block you. Or, I’ve moved on. Let’s not do this anymore, okay? Or something else that indicates there will be no further response. And that’s how I know to go to e-mail.
The e-mail is untraceable. It comes from the deep web via a Tor browser and it stays on the server. There’s nothing downloaded to my computer. I don’t take any chances. And neither do they, even though I don’t know who “they” are. Only that I get my instructions, execute the job (pardon the pun), then report back when it’s done. Within twenty-four hours, there is a deposit to my Bitcoin account. By now I have more Bitcoins than I know what to do with. Not a lot of the things I desire can be bought. I keep doing the work anyway. At this stage, I wouldn’t even know what else to do.
So I check my e-mail. And it is cryptic, but I know what it all means.
49.256094-123.132813 49.283847-123.093670 ASAP. AD.
And a name.
The first two numbers are the target’s home. The second two are the preferred location for the hit. And they want him taken out as soon as possible and it has to be an accident. AD. Accidental Death.
; I plug the second set of coordinates into an app on my phone. It turns out to be an office building in downtown Vancouver. I book my travel and hotel then get an early night’s sleep. Tomorrow will be a difficult day no matter how well it goes. Assignments always equal difficult days. Nature of the beast.
I decide to take my Bersa. Check a bag. I don’t plan to use the gun, but I’ve done some research: license to carry means I can legally bring it along. I pop it into the compartment in my suitcase where I used to store my underwear while traveling. Most of the time I can’t remember that person anymore.
There is nothing that binds me to my house. No man, no kids, not even a cat. Still, when I lock the door to go away even for a few days, I leave a little pang behind. Maybe missing something I don’t have. Again. I try not to think about that.
There are no direct flights from my local airport to Vancouver. I have to go through Phoenix, an airport I know well, because it’s a hub. I have a lunch in the airport so good it’s ridiculous. Airport food is not supposed to be excellent, but I savor it. I’m heading to a foreign country. One I’ve never been to before. I’m not certain there will be anything good to eat. Maple syrup and beavers. Possibly cheese. I just can’t imagine what Canadians might eat.
I sleep much of the way to Vancouver. There is nothing else to do. But once we land I have an awakening of the senses. It smells very green. As soon as the plane’s stale conditioned air is released, I smell something rough and new. A bit of the mountains. A bit of the sea. My heart quickens with it in a way I don’t understand.
In the terminal one must deal with customs.
What is the purpose of your visit?
Why, pleasure. Of course.
What else?
To see this jewel. This well-designed city perched charmingly on the sea.
How long will you be here?
A few days. Perhaps a week. There is so much to enjoy!
Have a great visit!
Oh yes. Yes. Of course. I shall.
* * *
The city itself is stunning. City of Glass. Of ocean. The Terminal City, I’d seen in my research. So called because it was the end of the line when they built the railroad. Or the beginning, depending on your perspective.
My hotel is on English Bay facing the ocean. A venerated hotel that has been here since the century before the one just past, I’d read. A long time.
“Do you know Errol Flynn’s dick fell off at this hotel?” says one of the young women checking in right ahead of me. There are two of them.
“Who’s Errol Flynn?” asks the other.
“Wasn’t he with Pearl Jam for a while?” I offer, deadpan. The two girls look at each other, then give me a wide berth as they head for the elevator. I don’t blame them. It’s probably the right call.
I have arrived in the evening and it’s raining. After spending not much time in my hotel room, I grab an umbrella from the concierge and head out the front door into a light and refreshing rain. I don’t need time to think, but I’ve got time to kill and walking seems like the right call.
There is a seawall in Vancouver. It snakes around the edge of the city, a pedestrian highway at the edge of the water. I walk this now. Not thinking about my destination or if I even really have one, just enjoying the city at night.
I am in a safe area, at least at first, populated by tourists and fashionable couples. I walk on the seawall toward the city, not the big park near the hotel. After a while I have an idea of where I am going. I let my feet take me there.
I walk along the seawall as far as I can, then up a few blocks to where tomorrow I plan to do what I’ve been sent to do. And when I get where I’m going, I stand there in the rain for a few minutes, looking at the building, thinking of what approach I will take on the following day. I am so focused, and maybe so tired, that I am startled when the front door opens and a man pops out. He is energetic and more youthful than the photo I’d been sent led me to think he would be, but I have no doubt it’s he.
Though I am a few feet from the entrance, to my surprise my invisibility shield of middle-aged woman doesn’t hold and he crosses to me in a few strong steps. He does it so quickly, I have no time to collect myself and scurry away.
“Is everything all right?” he says. He is concerned. It is possible this is not a neighborhood a woman can safely wander around in by herself at night. I hadn’t known that.
“Well, sure,” I reply reflexively. “I’m a bit of a tourist. Out for an evening walk. I guess I got turned around.”
“I guess you did,” he says, and I look at him quickly, but there is nothing but warmth in his voice, on his face. Honest concern. “What’s a bit of a tourist, anyway? Never mind. You can tell me while we walk. I’m heading home now myself. Where are you staying?”
“I’m at the Sylvia.”
He nods approvingly and starts guiding me west as we walk. “In the West End. Good choice. Charming. Not ostentatious. And all the right ghosts.”
“Errol Flynn?” I say, pushing myself to keep up with his longer strides.
“Oh yeah. Him. Sure. But others. Some apparition sits on the bed in one of the rooms on the sixth floor. Something I read. You’re not on the sixth floor, are you?”
I shake my head.
“You should be all right then.”
“Well, that’s a relief. Where are you walking me?”
“I live in Coal Harbour, which is quite close. I’m going to see you home.”
“Ah,” I say, trying not to think about how complicated this is getting. And then after a while, not minding. We enjoy a companionable silence, and when we chat, words move easily between us. As we walk, he points out things of interest. He does it easily and well, and I can tell he is used to being treated like he has things worth saying. He asks what I do, and something I’d read in the in-flight magazine provides the answer. I tell him I’m a civic planner, sent to Vancouver to evaluate local design.
“A lot of people are doing that now,” he says. “I read that somewhere. Apparently we have a lot of civic design worth emulating. Who knew?”
I wonder if we’d read the same article, but don’t say anything.
“For various reasons,” he says when we reach the hotel, “I’m loath to go back to my lonely abode just yet. Will you join me for a drink in the bar?”
We sit at a table by the window. As we sip and chat, a part of me dips down to darker places. Who wants this man dead? An ex-wife? A business partner? A competitor? I seldom wonder. It’s not part of my concern. And I seldom have reason to know or find out. I try to stop myself from wondering now.
“Are you married?” I give it thought before saying the words. It might even seem curious if I don’t ask, that’s what I tell myself.
“I was,” he says. “I’m not now. What about you?” And this is another thing I find myself liking in him: his directness. Even his eyes meet mine as he asks. A pleasant slatey color. Like stone warmed by sun.
“Same,” I hear myself say. “Just the same.” And we smile as we sip, almost as though we’ve shared a joke, something like fire growing between us.
It is not inevitable that he should end up in my bed on the not-haunted third floor of the Sylvia Hotel. When it happens, though, I try not to think about consequences. I wonder at what I am feeling. As though I’d known it would happen from the moment he’d taken those few strong strides toward me as I stood outside his office building in the rain. Like nothing else had been possible. If I wasn’t certain of that before, it had become clear in the elevator, the hard length of him pressed into me, his tongue exploring the delicate lines of my ear, my chin, my neck.
By the time our unclothed bodies join in the ancient bed, I know it solidly: this was meant to be. Human touch has become difficult for me. But not here now, with him. His warmth and laughter and the touch of his skin have melted whatever reserve there might have been.
We call for room service after a while. His exertions have made him hungry, he says. And he wants some
thing to drink. He answers the door with a towel wrapped around him and I admire the way the muscles move under his skin.
He’s ordered grilled squid and stuffed mushrooms, and a crab cake too big for its own good. We share the food and wine with the abandon and comfort of long lovers. Feeding each other and laughing together, giddy with something too precious to hold.
I like the strong, hot feel of him. And the way laughter storms his face. And the intensity with which he watches me when I speak, meeting my eyes. Watching for signs of things not said. Ever watchful.
There is a time when we sleep, feet touching, his hand cupped gently into the curve between my legs. I don’t know when wakefulness falls away, but it comes to both of us all at once. After a while, though, I wake. I pull the covers over us and extinguish the lights and try not to think about what I need to do. As I’ve said: human connections don’t come easily to me anymore. And yet I feel something easy growing more quickly than I would have thought possible. It leaves me a little breathless. Leaves me thinking about the possibility of a life that has more light.
I think about the Bersa, snug in the room safe. See myself, in my mind’s eye, creeping toward him, holding the gun to the soft, flat spot just behind his left ear. Letting in the bullet that will find its way home.
His eyes fly open and he regards me levelly. I feel my color rise.
“What are you thinking about?”
“I was thinking about how beautiful you are,” I say without missing a beat. “When you sleep, I mean. You looked so very peaceful.”
He smiles then. A real smile. His teeth are white and even. A movie star’s smile.
“You’re lying,” he says cheerfully. “But that’s okay.” I start to protest but he stops me. And he is right. It is okay. My thoughts are my own.
In the morning, he leaves early with the air of a man who has places to go. He drops a kiss on my forehead before he bustles out the door. I realize we haven’t made any plans and I find I don’t mind. I have my own plans to consider. My own future. Because, at the moment, his doesn’t look bright. I feel a pang at the place where comfort and satisfaction should be.
I stay in bed for a while, luxuriating in the feel of crisp hotel sheets and my own postcoital glow. I am outwardly calm but my brain is seething with all of these new permutations. I am processing.