“That’s cute.” His lips brushed against my ears. “But I know your ticklish spots.”
Bastard proved it, too. I shrieked, letting go of him to whack his hands away and stop the torture. He took grievous advantage and tossed me into the water. I landed on a jet that fired up–right up my ass.
Rohan doubled over laughing, half-heartedly fighting me as I dragged him in. Parents smiled indulgently. One cow-licked little guy in a red aqua suit stared at Rohan with wide eyes as my darling boyfriend liberally splashed me with long sweeps of his leg. “Wanna help?” Rohan asked.
The kid hesitated for a second then let me have it, jumping up and down in a frenzy. Water flew up my nose.
“That’s it! Water fight!” I corralled a bunch of youngsters onto my team and the war was on. My clothes must have absorbed about seventeen pounds of fountain juice because when I finally sloshed my way out of there, water streamed off me like a river.
I acked on the hair plastered to my mouth and Rohan snickered. “Shut up. You look like a drowned rat, too.” I popped my trunk, pulling out the thick beach blanket that Ari and I kept there along with our first aid supplies and an emergency road kit.
Rohan shook himself, more dog than rat. “You got another one of those?”
I closed the trunk and wrapped the blanket around me. “Nope.”
He sat on the hood of his car, parked next to my Honda, and wrung out his shirt. “I can’t drive back like this. Shelby will get wet.”
“Isn’t that your dream?” I waggled my eyebrows. “I’m sure you could find somewhere private to service her. Lube her up. Rotate her tires.”
“Ha. Ha. Come on. Let me use that.”
“No can do. So sorry.” I pulled the blanket tight around me. “You’re a creative boy. You’ll think of something.” I finger-waved, got in my car, and with a twist of the ignition, roared off.
11
The drop was scheduled to take place at 6:30PM in Crab Park, a stretch of green on the edge of Gastown. I stared out the window at the crowds milling on the sidewalks in Vancouver’s downtown east side. It was home to our most marginalized citizens, many of them homeless, drug addicted, or forced to turn to prostitution to survive. After passing one of the open “markets,” with the goods on offer set out on blankets on the grimy sidewalk or stuffed in trash bags and shopping carts, we hit the overpass leading to the waterfront park.
Chinese stone lions carved in intricate detail flanked each side of the road like sentinels. Beyond it, the Burrard Inlet winked blue in the sunlight.
Rohan parked my Honda, the more nondescript of our cars, in a small lot across from the park facing a stand of trees. To our left were the train tracks with an endless stretch of parked railcars, and behind that, gentrified condos in retrofitted brick buildings that still bore traces of their original use. Faded ads painted directly on the bricks proclaimed “janitorial supplies” or “wholesale grocers.”
The most mouthwatering smell of BBQ hit us when we exited the car.
We looped around to the water side of the park. Shipping containers in rusts and greens were stacked under the towering cranes at the port terminal directly east. There was the occasional distant siren and scrape of metal wheels and pulleys from the cranes.
Cyclists and joggers used the seawall path, exercising to the cry of seagulls. This stretch of the seawall was practically empty compared to deeper in the downtown core to our west. Even fewer people were in the park itself. It was hard to believe that thousands were close by in densely packed glass office towers, under the towering sails of the Pan Pacific hotel that was designed like a giant ship, or milling around the plaza that was home to the Olympic flame from when we’d hosted the 2010 Games.
Mounds of bright yellow sulfur were stockpiled across the Inlet, with the North Shore mountains looming over it all.
I buttoned up my cardigan against the breeze drifting off the water.
Even though Ro and I had shown up to the drop early, we had no idea if the park was already being watched. Crab Park itself wasn’t particularly exciting. Mostly grass, there was that one stand of trees with a scraggly rock garden. Some vagrant with matted hair and dirty clothes slept the snorey sleep of the drunk on one of the scattered wooden benches.
I had to check twice to confirm it was Drio, then I grimaced like a snotty brat. “Do we have to stay here?” I picked up my feet, stepping gingerly like the park could give me cooties. “I want ice cream.”
“Anything for my girl.”
Gagging loudly at Ro’s earnest–and bullshit–tone would have blown the charade so I settled for a soft snort.
We followed the path up to the small stone marker anchoring the rock garden, stopping to guess the language written on its plaque. Really we were checking on the navy backpack full of cash that Drio had tossed into the bushes under a tall pine tree behind the monument. He’d gotten here a while ago with the cash-filled backpack, put it in the drop spot, and then hung around in his guise as a homeless man to keep an eye on it until Candyman showed with the drugs. It was beat up and dirty enough that no one was going to want to abscond with it. To the casual observer, it would look like the backpack had been stolen and dumped here.
Keeping up my whiny persona, I made Rohan go back to the car.
“You sure Drio will spot the guy? His eyes were closed.” I wriggled in my seat.
“Are you going to fidget the entire time?”
“It’s possible.” My stomach growled and Ro shot me an exasperated look. “What? I’m hungry.”
“I’ll feed you after.” He reached across me and rolled up the window. Not that it helped because the car now smelled of grilled meat.
I pulled a granola bar out of my purse. Ro gazed longingly at it and even though I tsked him, I slapped the extra one I’d started carrying for him into his palm.
He flipped over the package. “This is a real granola bar. Not even dipped in chocolatey coating or with a ton of chemicals and sugar.”
“Yeah, you’ve broken me. Happy?”
“Yup,” he said, munching away.
The drop time came and went. At 6:40, a black Trans Am came off the overpass and turned the corner by the trees to the park. It was out of our sight line but three minutes later, Drio texted the word Go.
The Trans Am must have pulled a U-turn because it blew by us as we pulled out of the lot. Rohan proved quite adept at blending in traffic farther back, while keeping the car in view.
“Trained, were we?” I said.
“Oh yeah. The driving module rocked.”
Hmm. Maybe I could make them teach me all the cool things I’d missed. Not until I’d exposed all the corruption and destroyed Rabbi Mandelbaum obviously, but after that. It was important to make plans for the future.