Chapter 92

Alan Lee scanned the edge of the parking lot looking for vans or cube trucks the RCMP might hide a surveillance team in.
“Don’t you have any Visine?” He asked his son. “There’s TV cameras everywhere, God dammit. We should clear these men out.”
Dee and Alan had smoked an incredibly powerful salad joint with honey oil.
Alan couldn’t remember the last time he was as baked as this.
His mouth felt unbelievably dry, like he could choke at any moment. His chest burned with a light so bright it was like he swallowed the sun.
The 60-year-old man-about-investments and attorney only felt comfortable speaking freely in the outdoors if he kept a cigarette in his mouth at all times. The cigarette would obscure his lips enough that a lip-reader would have difficulty deciphering his words.
Dee unfortunately was not carrying any ordinary cigarettes, only joints today, given the solemn occasion.
The joint made Alan even more paranoid than he already was.
He wanted to know where the pigs were so he could keep his back turned to them altogether.
Alan Lee’s surveillance man, Robin Aubin, was positioned on the rooftop of the Kentville Justice Centre across the street. Aubin had called in a moments ago to report there didn’t seem to be any RCMP teams at all. Of all the vehicles parked at White’s Family, there was one Kentville Police Interceptor, and not a single van or minivan.
Hiding in one of the media vans? Alan Lee thought. In a virtual police state, it wouldn’t fucking surprise me.
A big fat female reporter with blonde hair and a trucker voice came brazenly up to him and started asking questions.
“Mr. Lee? I’m sorry for your loss. My name is Elnora Redden, with the Gazette. How is your family coping?”
He gave her a red eyed glare, like a dragon. “What kind of question is that? How are you coping?”
The reporter stopped what she was going to ask next. “…. I was going to ask if you knew or had an idea who might have done this? Have police spoken with you at all?”
“I haven’t thought about who was responsible, Ms. Redden. I’ve been grieving with my family. That question is the difficult job of police. I’m mourning the loss of a nephew. Now fuck off.”
With that he turned his back on the furiously scribbling Elnora, and began to speak to his son about funeral business.
“Dee, have you seen Rev. Pye? He was supposed to be here, but all I’ve seen is the White brothers. Kinda hard to miss him, eh?” When the reporter was far enough away, Alan changed the subject back to the murders and spoke in a low voice.
“-Where are we on Jack?”
“I’m working on it.”
“This is family, for Christ sake.”
Dee sighed, his big hands were stuffed in the rough pockets of his jeans.
Alan was in Armani, but Dee Lee was wearing a ‘Glace Bay tuxedo:’ Jeans, open dress shirt, blazer, jeans and steel toe work boots.
“No one’s got a fuckin’ idea, Dad, believe it or not. I don’t know what you want me to do about it? We’re investigating. The cops are investigating. I’m going to talk to the reporters in Valley Bureau. Jack’s boys. Rawley Powder and Kyle Verryn. I want them on side. They’re gonna be investigating it, I imagine…” He exhaled a cloud of cold winter smoke and let the cigarette-style joint hang on his bottom lip, stuck to a thin slick of saliva.
“Couldn’t hurt,” Alan said, fitting his own mouth with another joint. He declined to light this one. “What else? You must have some leads?”
“Normally, we would. I don’t know what to tell you, it’s like this has come right out of left field. Why in hell would anyone want to kill Jacky?”
“This is an attack on me, personally,” the elder Lee said, taking off his wire-rim bifocals and cleaning the cold fog on the glass with a silk handkerchief.
Dee tapped the toe of his work boot on the shiny bumper of the hearse. “You’re probably right… I thought Wid Missions was all about the coke, y’know? But maybe it was more than that, one of our friendlies making some kind of full-on assault. Wid and Jack. They’re both fairly small targets, but then they both have their things with you and me, personally. Jack was blood. Wid was Diddler Division-”
Alan flinched at the words ‘Diddler Division.’ “-Hey! Don’t say that,” he snapped. “You got the cigarette- I don’t care. Those words are too uniquely enunciated. They’ll read that right off your lips. Don’t ever say that.”
Dee Lee took a hands-free drag of his joint and shrugged. “Whatever you say… Anyways, that’s two of our people. Someone’s definitely gunning for the Lee family.”
“What about your other problems? You’re moose? Did you pay Evan Dale?”
“Fucking hell,” Dee bristled at the apparent lecture. “It was the first fucking thing I did, Dad. What am I fifteen?”
“How are you then? That’s a lot of money, out of pocket. Are you okay? Can you keep everything covered?”
“I told you I’m fine, dad. I’ve got this totally under control. I paid off my debt, and I’m getting my fucking moose back. Guarranteed. Now just drop the Jesus subject.”
“Suits me. So long as our responsibilites don’t suffer from this, whatsoever. How’s the farm doing?”
“Drop it I said.”
Alan Lee grasped his son suddenly by the shoulder and twisted him to the south, toward the direction of the Kings Transit bus terminal on the other side of the funeral home parking lot. “Look there. The MT&T van.”
“Where?” Dee’s eyes followed his father’s outstretched arm toward the bus station. There was a white, full-size phone company van with a ladder and emergency light on the roof, partly hidden between two parked Kings Transit buses.
“Right there, see it? Right by the transit buses. Son-of-a-bitch! I told you they would not miss this funeral.” Alan Lee took his Blackberry out of his Armani jacket and called his surveillance man.
“Aubin. I see it now. There’s a MT&T van parked at the bus terminal parking lot, next door. It’s got a yellow ladder up top. Tinted widows. It’s probably blocked out of your view by the bus…. Those Jesus….”
“I still don’t see it,” Aubin said over the phone.
“Forget it. You might as well come down. I can see it better down here, for fuck sake.”
“That’s Special Investigations?” Dee said. “Why do they hide in a phone company van? Don’t they got no imagination?” Dee raised his hand up and waved at the white van. RCMP SI had been known to use fake phone company vans, because of all the crap they have on the roofs, like the safety light, which gave police something to conceal a camera inside. “I saw cops inside the Jesus funeral home. Why would they sit way over there and spy like that?”
“I told you. They read your lips. And tape us. They now have a record of every man who attended this funeral. They’re collecting data.”
“I’m going to go pound on their fucking windshield,” Dee snarled. “They can collect that for data, motherfucker.”
Alan reacted with his standard, practical paranoia. “Don’t do it. They’d love to arrest you for it. They’d love to bring in the Almighty Dorchester Lee for a 24-hour talk all night long and maybe a Taser blast. If you want to go over there, stand there and let them know you see what they’re up to. That’s it. And make sure you look good and outraged.”
“Why?”
“Just go over there.”
“Alright, old man.”
Dee yelled to Glen Frederick, who was chatting with a group of biker mourners over by the line of motorcycles. Everyone was admiring one guy’s custom-built Trike that stood about six feet high of the ground.
“Glennyn-y! Let’s go see the 6-Up.”
The two large men in black suits strode casually, but quickly through the funeral home parking lot, weaving in and out of the packed-in, shiny cars.
Inside the MT&T van, CFIU Det. Sgt. Bob Smith sat hunched in the back on a folding metal stool. He cursed out loud and a trickle of sweat came running down his armpit.
He was staring intently at a series of monitors from hidden cameras recording crowd scenes outside the funeral home.
The bikers got nearer and nearer and would reach the van in seconds.
“What should we do?” a Special Investigations cop working the computer system said.
“Hold tight. Can we get audio on Dee Lee and Glen Frederick?”
“They’re moving fast, sir. What are we gonna do?”
“Just hold. I wanna see what they do.” Smith stared intently and even smiled at the video.
“Come on, you fuckers.”
“I don’t like this, sir. We should vacate, before they get here. With all respect. This is only going to get worse.”
The bikers hopped a short railing and entered the bus station parking lot.
In a minute, they stood in front of the MT&T van windshield. Smith and the SI cop were safely curtained out of sight in the back. A tiny camera mounted in the orange emergency light on the van’s rooftop captured the biker’s facial expressions in close up, black and white.
Dee Lee looked more than ever like a young, thin Santa Claus, with bodybuilder bone structure.
‘Snowball’ Glen Frederick was much thicker and taller. He looked like a real life monster, with coffee-coloured skin and huge eyebrow bones. He reminded Smith of the vampire monsters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Dee Lee appeared to be copying down the license plate of the van, on a funeral home napkin.
Glen Frederick was snapping photos, with a miniature digital camera, circling the van to get all sides and angles. The pictures would no doubt wind-up on the Gypsy Halifax chapter website, or worse the Gazette. Another Rawle Powder story, no doubt.
If Smith tried to climb up front and drive away, his face would very possibly be in the newspaper tomorrow morning. He could see the career-ballsing headline now: Cops spy at reporter’s funeral.
“Jesus!” Smith whispered, gritting his teeth at the foolishness of not driving away, when he had the chance. He just hated to back down.
“Let’s radio a couple squad cars. Disperse these men,” the SI cop suggested.
“Do you know how dumb that would be? They’d make a huge scene about it. That would be even worse.”
“You should climb up front then, sir and take us out. I need to keep my face clean.”
“I know.”
“Or I could put something over my head, like I’m on a perp walk. That’d be nice.”
“Yeah.” Smith blew out a blast of hot air that was strangling his chest.
“Look. They’re giving us a stink-finger.”
Dee Lee was rubbing his hand between his ass cheeks and smearing his fingers on the windshield, leaving a greasy smudge. Glen Frederick did the same thing to the door handles.
“Ha.”
“OK, I’m getting out, this is ridiculous,” Smith said. “I’m not afraid of these bitches. When I get out, you wrap a towel on your head and drive the Jesus thing out of here.”
“Wait. Shit!” The SI cop hissed. “Look at the hearse!” He was pointing at the main monitor showing the front of the funeral home viewpoint again where Alan Lee was standing. The senior Lee was speaking emphatically to a television news crew and pointing in the direction of the MT&T van, no doubt giving an Oscar-caliber show of faux outrage, alleging the RCMP were spying at the funeral of his innocent cousin, a fellow member of the free press.
“Oh shhhhhh,” Smith mumbled.
The TV Face gesticulated wildly at his camera girl and they both started trotting together at top middle-age man speed across the parking lot in their suits and ties, dragging microphone wires behind them.
“Now we run away.” Det. Sgt. Smith yanked the curtain around his body and piled into the driver’s seat, sticking the keys in the ignition. The bikers exploded into action all around him, it seemed.
“Snowball’s ‘round back,” the SI cop gave in play-by-play. “Dee’s climbin on the passenger door.”
Smith paid no mind and floored it, in reverse, holding the horn down. Glen Frederick barely leaped out of the way in time and had to kick off the bumper with his huge boot.
Dee stepped down off the passenger door and banged the palm of his hand on the hood. “We saw you, you pussy.”
The camera girl had her lens up and was focusing in, but she was still pretty far away. Hopefully, they had nothing but a distant scramble of activity.
Smith would advise the provincial media spokesman to craft a subtle non-denial denial that made it sound like nothing happened. Like: We don’t comment on undercover operations, but several police officers were already present at the funeral in a free and visible capacity, to pay respects. There would be no need for an undercover police officer to be there.
Something like that. And promise the reporter a future scoop.