Last of the Independents Read Online Free PDF Page A

the Ampex around ten to a music studio. Twelve hundred dollars. Cost me ten dollars fifty cents.”
    â€œName of the studio and address?”
    â€œEnola Curious. Broadway near Cambie, a couple of blocks from the Skytrain station.”
    â€œWho did you sell to?”
    â€œAmelia Yates, she owns the studio.”
    â€œIs that Yates with an A or Yeats with an E-A?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” Szabo said. “She’s bought from me in the past. We finished about 10:45, then Django and I went to some coin shops Downtown, but I didn’t sell anything else.”
    â€œLet me stop you for a second,” I said. “Why exactly did you pull your son out of class?”
    â€œTo show him.”
    â€œShow him what, exactly?”
    â€œHow the world works.” He sat down, not on the bench, to the left of the desk in Katherine’s chair. I watched him flex his left knee several times.
    â€œSchool is important, of course,” he said. “He has to get an education. But school doesn’t tell you how to make money. How to survive. They teach you Tigris and Euphrates. Tigris and Euphrates is good, but try and pay the Hydro with Tigris and Euphrates.”
    â€œYou pull him out often?”
    â€œOnce a month, usually. We go on holidays and Pro-D days as well.”
    â€œAfter the coin shops?”
    â€œLunch,” he said. “We went to Little Mountain. He rode the bike around. He wanted to keep it. I told him we had to sell that bike, but we’d find another. Bikes are easy to find, but original BMX bikes are too valuable to keep.”
    â€œAnd he was upset over this?”
    â€œNot upset. He’s very well-behaved.”
    â€œDisappointed? Bummed out?”
    â€œYes, a bit. When I went to the bike store he sat in the car.”
    â€œWhat time was that?”
    â€œOne.”
    â€œOne,” I repeated, typing it into the file. “And after you sold the bike?”
    â€œI didn’t sell it,” Mr. Szabo said. “The bike shop low-balled. Times are tough, he said. Not tough enough to give away a Stingray Bicentennial for chicken feed.”
    He waved his hand in dismissal of the owner.
    â€œAfter, we went to a pawn shop, and that’s where it happened: Django and I went into the store. I was talking to the owner. Django asked could he wait in the car. I gave him the keys. I made a deal with Mr. Ramsey who owns the shop. I came out and the car was gone.” Anticipating my question he said, “2:43 p.m.,” and repeated “Friday, March 6th.”
    â€œThe car was never recovered?”
    â€œNo, it wasn’t.”
    â€œMake and model?”
    â€œBrown Taurus wagon, 1994. Transmission not so good, few dents in the passenger’s side door. Previous owner practically gave it away.”
    â€œWhat happened then?”
    â€œI was in shock for some time. I checked my watch. I looked around to see if I had parked somewhere else and forgot. I went into the store. I told the owner and his daughter my son had been taken. They smirked like I was joking. I kept saying it until they saw I was serious. They called the police for me. I repeated to them what happened again and again. An officer named —” He dug through his wallet, shuffling through business cards and creased scraps of paper. “Sergeant Herbert Lam.” He offered me the card. I waved it away, aware of who Lam was.
    â€œAny phone messages after?” I asked. “Any response to the news stories?”
    â€œSomeone said I should check a house on Fraser. Three tips said that, but it turned out to be the same person each time. Sergeant Lam said the woman had a problem with her neighbour and was trying to get the police to arrest her.”
    â€œSounds like my grandmother.”
    I saved the file as Szabo-prelim.txt and sent it to the LaserJet.
    â€œI’ll need all the missing persons data, including a full description of Django, what