The River Killers Read Online Free PDF Page A

unfortunately, I decided to talk to him. Griffith seldom mixed with the hoi polloi. God knows why he was there. He was a consummate DFO bureaucrat who had climbed to the top over a pile of bodies that were nothing more to him than convenient footholds. He had now attained the penultimate rung of assistant deputy minister and I could almost feel his foot on my face as he strove for the highest rung of all: deputy minister. He’d trampled as well on all my old friends, everyone who had once earned a living in the fishing industry and those still struggling to make a go of it, using them as stepping stones along the road to power and a hundred and eighty grand per annum.
    They were featuring West Coast seafood, so I was able to grab a BC prawn, wrap it in a sliver of BC smoked salmon, and complement it with what may have been a glass of BC merlot. Feeling provincially patriotic, I beat a reasonably straight course for the almost and possibly yet-to-be deputy minister.
    My entry through his circle of sycophants was less suave than I would have liked. A couple of them staggered back as if I’d elbowed them. As I squared up to him, I realized once again how pale he was, corpselike but animate in a Harry Rosen charcoal suit. It reminded me of the days when I was on the other side, a lowly fisherman, and my buddies and I had attended “advisory group” meetings with Griffith and his cohorts. The fishermen were tanned to the point of health concerns and the DFO types could have been cast in Night of the Living Dead . Two separate species, then, now, and, I was starting to realize, always.
    Griffith was deigning to listen to some junior economist from Strategic Planning. When the guy was just getting to his point, which was probably as non-pointy as most economic thought, I flashed a charming smile and said a little too forcefully, “Fleming, how’s she goin’, eh?” The exaggerated vernacular was not so much a product of my drunkenness but of a desire to draw the line; tell him exactly who I was and where I stood. That was stupid, of course. No bobbing or weaving or even an attempt at self-defense. He picked me off like the smooth professional he was.
    First the faint smile, then the eyes narrowed slightly to let everyone know he was making a sincere attempt to identify me. He made sure the whole group was aware of his chummy attempt at democratic sociability as he grasped my elbow and turned me slightly. “Bar’s over there, friend. Why don’t you get yourself another one?” About half of his acolytes, the ones graced with the stuff of managerial capability, smiled at his subtle emphasis on “ another one.”
    I’d been hit and staggered slightly. Figuratively, of course. But as my old skipper used to say, “We may not always go full speed ahead but we never back up.”
    I shrugged his hand off my arm. “Danny Swanson. Fish health. Question for you.” A momentary flicker of annoyance on his face, and then the standard impassiveness.
    I forged ahead. “Fleming, you used to run the West Van lab back in the eighties. I know you never actually did any science.” That was my best attempt at a dig at him. “But were you aware of any unconventional research going on: genetic manipulation, unusual crossbreeds, that sort of thing?”
    I was shocked to see that I’d scored a hit on him. He blinked and frowned momentarily before regaining control. Then he dismissed me. “You West Coast boys have great imaginations. You should try to drag yourselves into reality.”
    His eyes fluttered and avoided my gaze before he turned and oozed from the room. I knew there would be repercussions and I felt out of my element, as if I was wading into a swamp to do battle with the thing that lived there.
    The next morning, I was not at all surprised to receive a summons from my supervisor. I walked into Bob Oldstream’s office knowing I was in shit but not