Free Crazy Lady by James Hawkins

suggestion that the hoteliers should affix a notice to each toilet was dismissed with typical Gallic disdain as “
autant pisser dans un violon
,” or as much use as pissing into a violin, and irate members of L’ssociation des hôteliers de St-Juan were the prime suspects in the potter’s mutilation. However, as Bliss was to discover, a much more sinister organization took the man’s hand.
    I have to go back in there
, Bliss tells himself with little enthusiasm as he stares in the direction of the building. He knows that it won’t be easy; since his previous incursion more than a year ago in search of the wounded potter, the custodians have redoubled their efforts to keep trespassers out. But inwardly, he knows that it isn’t the security guards bothering him. He knows he can walk the twisted hills surrounding the château and expect only polite nods from the muscled men in dark suits while they whisper, “Zhat is the famous Scotland Yard detective who is writing a book.”
    Bothering him are the thousands of tortured souls that he stumbled over in the dungeons beneath the derelict building: souls of resistance fighters, Jews, gypsies, and anyone else who stepped on Adolf Hitler’s toes. Even inconvenient husbands, ex-lovers, or business rivals, denounced as “traitors to the fatherland” with poison pens, were whisked out of their beds at dawn with a one-way ticket to Auschwitz or Buchenwald — if they survived the first stop in the château’s notorious torture chambers.
    The château hides itself in the darkness as Bliss questions,
What am I trying to prove? The widows and orphans of the victims don’t want me prying into their cellars; they don’t want an invasion of neo-nazi relic hunters digging up their past.
    â€œ
Ce château et un panier des crabes
, a basket of crabs,” Daisy claimed, and none of his discoveries changed that. But now, as he flounders in search of an ending for his novel, he can’t help thinking that the ruined château holds the key.
    Vancouver, British Columbia, has its share of derelict buildings, though none whose age or black history comes close to the Château Roger. However, no more than a salmon’s leap from the waterfront hotels and glitzy restaurants that line the Fraser River is an abandoned warehousethat attracts the losers in life’s lottery. Potheads, hookers, mainliners, pimps, and alcoholics all seek shelter from a harsh world under its leaking iron roof, while a shanty city of those still holding out hope grows outside its walls.
    â€œLet’s try down there,” suggests Trina, dragging her husband into a tight alleyway littered with boxes and bags, the homes of the homeless, behind the warehouse.
    Rick hangs back, “I don’t —”
    â€œCome on. They’re only people,” she calls as she surges ahead with a five-dollar bill in hand.
    â€œI’m looking for a woman,” says Trina as she squats by the side of an aging Jesus look-alike.
    â€œSo am I,” he replies as the embers in his eyes briefly ignite, and he begins to reach out for her face.
    Trina nudges him, laughing. “Cheeky.” Then she gives him a brief description of Janet.
    â€œMaybe,” he says at the mention of Janet’s head scarf, and Trina catches on.
    â€œHow much?” she begins, exchanging her five for a twenty, but Rick is quickly on her shoulder.
    â€œDon’t,” he hisses. “Not until he tells you.”
    â€œOK,” she says. She rips the bill in half, thrusts the Queen’s head into the dropout’s face, and puts on a mobster’s tone. “The rest when I find her, awl’right?”
    â€œBrilliant,” complains Rick five minutes later when all the leads have fizzled and the bum has taken off.
    â€œSo? He hasn’t got the dough.”
    â€œNeither have we,” Rick is moaning when Trina spots a pile of cardboard