Free Last of the Independents by Sam Wiebe

fifty pages’ progress in the Veblen, decidedly less on either of my cases. I’d met with the Kroons and we decided to give the Corpse Fucker two more months of weekends: if he hadn’t reappeared by Hallowe’en, we’d leave the cameras up but forego the nightly watch. That meant resigning ourselves to another attack. No one was happy with that. Everyone agreed to it.
    When I walked into Imperial Pawn I saw Mr. Ramsey seated on the stool showing unpolished jewellery to a lanky East Asian woman of about forty. They were the only two people in the room.
    â€œAfternoon,” I said. “Is your daughter in?”
    Ramsey looked at me as if he’d never set eyes on me before, and wasn’t all that impressed now that he had. He turned his attention back to the woman, helped her with the clasp on a bracelet.
    I leaned over the counter close enough so the two of them were within arm’s reach. “Did some tragic illness befall her? A seventy-two-hour virus, maybe?”
    â€œI like this one,” the woman said. Ramsey nodded.
    Looking between them I said, “I don’t understand why you’re not more cooperative, considering you and your daughter are two of the last people to see that child before he went missing.”
    The woman looked up, looked at me, looked at Ramsey. “What child?” she asked.
    I took a flyer from my coat pocket and unfolded it. Two Django James Szabos stared at her, the petulant expression from the school photo and a lower-quality image blown up from a birthday photo taken by his aunt.
    â€œHe disappeared just out front, parked in a car on that side street.” I pointed through the wall. “Mr. Ramsey hasn’t been much help. I’m not really sure why.” I turned to Ramsey and gave him an expression of innocent puzzlement. “Do you not want the child to be found, Mr. Ramsey?”
    â€œI don’t want to get mixed up,” he said in explanation to his customer, who had withdrawn from the counter, leaving the bracelet.
    â€œYou put your own convenience over a missing child?”
    â€œI don’t know anything.”
    â€œNot what he said on Tuesday,” I told the woman.
    She said something to Ramsey that I didn’t catch, but couldn’t have been too different from “I want nothing to do with you, asshole.”
    After he had buzzed her out, Ramsey turned to me, dull fury written on his face.
    â€œShe looked like a good customer,” I said. “That would’ve been, what, a four-hundred-dollar sale?”
    â€œGet out of my store.”
    â€œWhere’s your daughter?”
    â€œShe doesn’t know anything. Go.”
    â€œWe both know you were there,” I said. “You think Szabo didn’t tell me? Or that the cops wouldn’t back him up, I ask them?” I picked up the bracelet and let it fall. “The fact you tried to game me tells me something.”
    No answer, just a sullen, unblinking stare. I pounded my fist on the table, causing the jewellery to rattle and Ramsey to wobble on his stool. He was squat and solid-looking, but age and a sedentary lifestyle were working against him. Once he regained his balance he was quick to sweep the jewellery back into its display box.
    â€œSee, I don’t think you’d hurt a child. You have one of your own, which generally means you have some degree of empathy. But why run interference for someone like that? Kind of parent does that to another parent?”
    â€œI know nothing,” he reiterated. I could tell by his expression the words sounded false even to his ears. I could also tell that he’d cling to them as long as he could.
    â€œHow ’bout you talk to me and let’s decide that together. Doesn’t have to involve the law or anyone else. Or you could talk directly to Mr. Szabo.”
    The door to the back room opened. If Ramsey had wavered at all during our conversation, at the sight of his