The God Game Read online

  Then without warning he convulsed with shame at the memory of his dismissal. The tears came quickly, clouding his vision. In his grief he sat heavily on the pavement, groping with blind hands to feel the earth beneath him.

  From a distance, footsteps headed his way. He jerked his head around, wiping his eyes and stumbling to stand, not wanting to be caught in this forlorn posture. Someone was coming toward him, silhouetted by the light, monstrous and grotesque, like a giant alien enlarged and projected against a screen of fog.

  Suddenly he felt stone-cold sober from fear.

  It was a little past seven when the fog began to lift. An early-morning jogger looked up to see the figure suspended from the bridge, an outline coming in and out of the mist that clung on in the ravine. It was a man in dishevelled garb — a woman’s overcoat, mismatched gloves, and boots tied with broken laces — suspended by a yellow nylon cord.

  At first the police thought it was a tramp, a vagabond living in the gully, until they emptied his pockets and took a look at the ID he carried. This was no ordinary man who’d hanged himself. This was a man who’d recently been publicly disgraced. And soon the awakening city would know why.

  One: Toronto, 2014

  You or No One

  Things weren’t going well for private investigator Dan Sharp. He had just spilled coffee on his new suit, and he sat dabbing ineffectually at the stain with a damp cloth. Just five minutes ago, he’d learned the warehouse that housed his investigations office would close permanently come summer, to be gutted for condominiums. This was prime real estate overlooking the Don River; it was bound to happen sooner or later. Like it or not, he had three months to find a reasonable substitute for the place he’d thought of as a second home for the past five years.

  On top of that, the food for the wedding had come in priced at nearly twice what he was expecting. They’d already tossed out the idea of flowers as an unnecessary expense, but this was a gay wedding and food was a must. It went without saying that theirs had to be a spectacular menu.

  Weddings were not Dan’s idea of fun. Not because he was afraid of commitment; he just didn’t like circuses, whether three-ring or of the domestic variety. For Dan, a vow meant giving your word and sealing it in your heart. Ceremonies were for the crowning of monarchs, the consecration of altars, and the opening of shopping malls and theme parks.

  Getting married was Nick’s idea. At first, Dan had laughed. He thought his partner was joking. They’d barely known each other a year then. He shook his head and said, “Thanks, but I’m not the marrying kind.” Nick had stared him down. “Well, I am.” Then he got up and left the room, leaving Dan sitting there dumfounded.

  That wasn’t the end of the subject. Not by a long shot. Dan wasn’t sure whether they were having an argument or just a difference of opinion. Nick could be garrulous one moment and silent as the grave the next. Something about him demanded attention. Put it down to all the police training. Even off duty, cops commanded authority; they didn’t confer it on others. Any time they disagreed, Dan felt as if he were being given the third degree by an officer of the law investigating with probable cause.

  For Dan, it boiled down to whether he wanted to buy into an institution that had long denied the validity of non-traditional relationships. But he hedged, couching it in material terms when they next discussed it: “It’s a racket, Nick. Thousands of dollars for what? To say ‘I love you’ in a church?”

  “How much is my love worth to you?” Nick asked.

  “Low blow,” Dan countered. Still, he knew better: to give Nick an inch was dangerous. He went in for the kill. “As an institution, marriage is conservative and backward thinking. I’ve given you my word. Do you need to own me on paper like some sort of real estate transaction?”

  “It’s a statement, Dan. A very radical statement. It says we’re willing to stand up and be counted in a world that denies our legitimacy. They hate us. They outlaw and kill us in many places around the globe. Why not say we’re proud of who we are in one of the few countries where we can do that? And in case you’re wondering, I wouldn’t marry just anyone. It’s you or no one.”

  In the end, they had compromised: a small ceremony, but legal. Not much pomp and lots of standing up to be counted among those who mattered to them. Which still didn’t mean Nick was willing to settle for cheap, Dan reminded himself. And that was why he found himself staring at a quote from a very chic catering company offering a menu created by a three-Michelin-starred chef for twenty-five people at four hundred bucks a plate. Maple-glazed bison on black truffle pasta, grilled Mission figs stuffed with Stilton and wrapped in prosciutto, wild boar meatballs in almond sauce, an arugula-walnut-cranberry salad, and lemon tiramisu with white chocolate lace pastry to finish. All this with hand-selected cheeses and wines. Nothing but the best. Yes, it was more than impressive, but was it worth it? Dan struggled with that. Ten thousand dollars would go a long way toward paying for his son Kedrick’s education, for instance. Or feeding a homeless person or getting LGBT youth off the street and into safe living conditions.

  Being conscientious had its price.

  Dan pushed the quote aside and picked up the phone to tell Nick they needed to find another caterer. He was interrupted by a knock. A shape hovered over the frosted glass like a milky alien outline. Cold calls were rare in Dan’s world. Most first-time clients were either fearful of consulting a private investigator or else so obsessed with their privacy that they contacted him by phone or email.

  This one apparently wasn’t put off by such concerns. The door opened on a big man with a bulky torso, bristling with energy. On seeing Dan, he entered without waiting to be asked and offered a large, furry hand. “Peter Hansen.”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar.

  “Dan Sharp.”

  Hansen’s gaze went around the office, gauging and appraising: old furniture, raw brick, original art, classic texts on the bookshelf. A man in a hurry. Better to make your assessment first and then decide what you want.

  “You come recommended,” he said, seemingly satisfied. “Yeah, you’re the one I want.”

  It wasn’t much of a compliment, but Dan could tell a man like Peter Hansen wouldn’t have come had the recommendation been half-hearted.

  He named a client Dan had worked for several years previously. The case hadn’t been unusual or noteworthy, but Dan’s results were both quick and decisive. That, more often than not, was why people kept coming to him.

  Hansen placed a valise on Dan’s desk, snapped it open, and slid a black-and-white photograph under Dan’s gaze.

  “My husband,” he said in a tone that suggested a deep ambivalence.

  Dan looked down at a thin, handsome face whose expression hovered somewhere between uncertain and fearful. A man trying to escape notice.

  “Name?”

  “Tony Moran.”

  “How long has he been missing?”

  Peter regarded him warily. “How did you know he was missing?”

  Dan looked him up and down. “You don’t look like the kind of man who would pay someone to sort out his domestic affairs if you thought you could do it yourself.”

  “Fair enough. Tony’s been missing since the weekend. Friday, probably. I was away for the evening. He wasn’t home when I got back in the early hours on Saturday.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I don’t want sympathy. I want you to find him.”

  Dan overlooked Peter’s abruptness. “Do you suspect foul play? Kidnapping? Anything dire?”

  Peter shook his head. “Not at this point.”

  “Where do you think he might be?”

  “He’s got a fear of flying and he doesn’t drive, so chances are he’s right here in the city. I’ve cut off his credit cards.”

  “Any obvious reasons for disappearing? An affair, perhaps?”

  “No.” Peter
paused. “Maybe. We had an argument. Over money.”

  “Did you hit him?”

  Hansen made a face. “No.”

  Dan pushed the photo back and looked at Peter. “Well, then that pretty much covers it. My guess is he’ll come home when he cools off and runs out of places to stay.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Peter added. “He’s a gambler. He lost a lot of my money and doesn’t want to have to confront me over it.”

  Nor would I, Dan thought. “How long have you been married?”

  “Three years.”

  “I still say he’ll be back when he’s ready.”

  Peter stabbed Dan’s desktop with an angry finger. “I came here to hire you.”

  “And do you want your husband back or just the money?”

  Peter bristled. “Just find him. Please. Before he causes me any more embarrassment.”

  “Have you been on my website? Do you know my terms?”

  Peter nodded. “I have. I do.”

  “Okay. I’ll take a look around. If I agree to take on the case, I’ll draw up a contract and we can set up a time to go over it together in the next couple of days.”

  Peter shook his head. “No contract. I don’t want anything on paper.”

  Before Dan could protest, Hansen put up his hand. “I’m in politics, Dan. My boss is a high-profile minister at Queen’s Park and there’s an election coming up. I can’t have a whiff of this hitting the street. I want no paper trails. I need your absolute discretion.”

  He reached into his case, drew out an envelope and placed it on the desk.

  “Here’s your retainer. I don’t want a receipt. All I care about is results. Everything you need to know about Tony is in here.” He glanced down at the caterer’s quote on Dan’s desk. His eyebrows went up. “Thinking of getting married?”

  Dan nodded.

  “My advice? Don’t do it. They’re always more trouble than they’re worth.”

  He turned and strode to the door. Then, with one hand on the knob, he looked back at Dan. “If you need more money, let me know.”

  The door opened and closed. The whirlwind subsided.

  Dan waited till Hansen’s footsteps receded, then slit open the envelope. He thumbed through a pile of thousand-dollar bills, ten in total, wrapped in a sheet containing Tony Moran’s particulars. His eyes ran down the page. Tony was a high school graduate, with a further couple years at a business college. A few of his past jobs were noted, including a stint as assistant manager of a Wendy’s franchise. Not a big achiever, then.

  Dan glanced at the picture again. Despite Tony’s good looks, there was something skin-deep about them suggesting he might attract a certain type of partner quickly, but not stay the term. His polo-shirt-and-sweater combo smacked of conservative taste, but with a narcissistic undertone. Then again, he had a low-rent sort of sex appeal. The sort of man a Peter Hansen might look on as material for moulding, someone to impress with a helping hand out of the gutter. Pygmalions were a dime a dozen.

  Three local addresses were listed at the bottom of the sheet. Dan suspected they would turn out to be gambling dens. He picked up the bills again. It was a lot of money, far more than what he normally asked for as a retainer. It seemed Peter Hansen was serious about wanting his husband returned. Maybe Nick would have his chi-chi caterer after all.

  Dan turned to his laptop and did a search on Hansen. A series of links appeared, including an article about his marriage to Tony Moran on a downtown Toronto rooftop three years earlier. It looked to have been an impressive affair. The premier and several prominent ministers had attended, which might explain why a major paper had covered a gay wedding. They weren’t a bad-looking couple, Dan thought. Not mismatched the way a wealthy older man might seem with a cute but brainless younger man. But where Peter’s face showed force and determination, a tenacious grit, Tony’s showed something softer, more malleable. Dan knew which one of them he’d rather be friends with, if it came to that.

  Dan realized why Hansen’s name had sounded familiar. He’d worked hard campaigning for civil rights, proving a standard-bearer for LGBT issues, though one article suggested he’d lost an election four years earlier by being openly gay. Thus he’d ended up as special assistant to the educational reforms minister instead.

  Dan was about to close his laptop when a headline caught his eye. It was dated just before Christmas: Disgraced Queen’s Park MPP found dead in ravine. He clicked on the link. A cheerful-looking man in his mid-thirties met his gaze. Dan recalled the story: John Wilkens had been the opposition critic for a man named Alec Henderson. Peter Hansen’s boss. Despite his relative youth, Wilkens was once regarded as a contender for House Speaker, and possibly prime minister material, until he’d been dismissed for improper use of government funds. An investigation had been pending at the time of his death. The coroner’s ruling was suicide.

  Dan scanned a follow-up piece. There were the usual official condolences from party leaders for their deceased colleague: John Wilkens was a good man who believed that public service was the most honourable way to serve others, etc. No mention of his indiscretions with public funds. Never speak ill of the dead. Wasn’t that what they taught?

  The dead minister’s lineage was impressive. He’d come from one of the most established families in Ontario, scion of a proud race of industry leaders and charity funders. It was the usual muck, a political whitewash. The dead had no enemies. Dan smelled a story larger than what was written here, but the formal speak of politics had closed ranks around the dead minister, leaving the truth gagged once again.

  He picked up his cell and dialed the number on the paper. Hansen answered.

  “Dan Sharp here, Peter.”

  “Yes, what? Anything wrong?”

  “You left an awful lot of money on my desk.”

  “It’s yours. Keep it.”

  “It’s far more than a retainer.”

  “Consider it a bonus if you find him.”

  “I won’t keep it unless I earn it. I’ll put it in my safe for now.”

  There was a pause. “You may need it to find Tony.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Spend it if you have to.” He hung up.

  Dan sighed quietly. He hadn’t even begun to work on the case and Peter Hansen was already turning into a pain in the ass. It worried him. Something smelled wrong — he just wasn’t sure what. He glanced over the paper with the scant facts of Tony Moran’s life. Maybe the answer lay there, but it wasn’t much to go on.

  He picked up his Day-Timer and wrote Hansen’s name along with the time of his visit. Beside it he wrote $10,000 CASH, underlining the entry.

  In the space below he wrote: Find another caterer.

  Two

  Sweet Domesticity

  Dan was comforted by the smell of roast chicken on arriving home. Apart from being a great companion, Nick was also an excellent chef. It was just one more thing that made him an outstanding partner.

  There was no dog at the front door, but that wasn’t unusual these days. Ralph the Geriatric had given up his duties as official greeter to anyone he knew returning home. Only strangers still merited that calling.

  Ralph had been many things in his long life, including a rabble-rouser and back-porch broadcaster of neighbourhood news, but he was now enjoying his retirement. Dan had named him after the unmarried uncle of one of his exes, whom he’d met one Thanksgiving. Uncle Ralph had had bloodshot eyes and been wracked with a terrible croup. It turned out he’d also briefly been the secret lover of actor Rock Hudson back in the 1950s when the term “confirmed bachelor” covered a multitude of sins. After dinner, Dan jokingly declared to his ex that he wanted a dog like the uncle. Stopping by the pound on a whim a month later, he found a ginger retriever pup with bloodshot eyes, just recovering from kennel cough. He brought the dog home for Kedrick. While the boyfriend soon dese
rted and the namesake uncle died not long afterward, taking Rock’s secret to the grave, Ralph was still around fifteen years later. Of late, however, he spent much of his time lounging on a cushion, thumping his tail when called, and surveying his kingdom from this private throne.

  In the kitchen, Ralph looked up with an approving glance before settling back down again. Dan gave him a pat on the head, then reached for a mug in the cupboard. He turned on the tap and heard a yelp from upstairs. Nick was in the shower. The touchy thermostat had no doubt given him a sharp reminder of its finicky nature.

  When they met, Dan had been single so long he wasn’t sure he could let another man into his life while retaining his emotional balance, the outer signs of self control so important to him. Still, Nick had given him reason to try. Surprisingly, gratefully, Dan had concluded that domestic life agreed with him so long as the man at his side brought more happiness than grief. In the meantime, to his pleasant surprise, a recurring stress disorder retreated to the far shores of consciousness till it was a mere echo of the turmoil and anxiety he’d once lived with daily.

  So far, with Nick, there’d been little to regret. Dan had worried about dating a cop for all the usual reasons, but for the most part they turned out to be unfounded. True, Nick had a peppery temper, but it was as sudden as it was brief. Here and gone, like a summer squall. He had emotional depth and he was patient. He was also refreshingly direct.

  Dan liked that Nick could be funny and serious in equal measure but never hid his true feelings. He was his own man. “You’ll never have to guess with me,” he’d told Dan at the relationship’s outset. Not entirely true, Dan discovered, as Nick’s emotions and moods changed like quicksilver. But he was reliable, loyal, and loving.

  Dan was still not entirely sure how Kedrick felt about Nick, however. Ked had been happiest when Dan was with a man named Trevor. But Trevor had been unnerved by Dan’s choice of profession, living in constant fear for Dan’s safety. The split had been amicable, but since then Dan was never entirely certain of Ked’s approval of any man in his life. The problem had been temporarily resolved when Ked moved to B.C. to pursue a degree in oceanographic and environmental studies and could only vet his father’s boyfriends at a distance. Still, Dan would have preferred to know that Ked approved of his choice of mate.