“What did Mae steal?”
“Does it matter?” Tranh offers him a cold smile. “It wasn’t hers to take.”
It’s not much of an answer. There are some people Drew can push, but Tony Tranh is not one of them.
“Thank you, Mr. Tranh.” Drew places his teacup on the table and stands up. “I appreciate your time.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Tranh escorts him back to the front door and they shake hands again. As Drew is putting on his shoes, Tranh’s mother rushes toward him with a plastic container. It’s full of cinnamon cookies.
“You take home,” she says. “For your family.”
“She likes you,” Tranh says with a grin. “And you should know my mother doesn’t like anyone. She hated Mae.”
Tony Tranh lowers his voice. He speaks so quietly that Drew has to lean down slightly to hear him.
“And if you ever find her, let her know I’d like back what she took from me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Drew opts to take Lakeshore Road all the way back to Toronto from Oakville, as traffic at this time of day has the highway jammed. It’s a slow but easy drive, giving him time to sort through his thoughts.
Occam’s razor: The simplest explanation is usually the right one.
Okay, fine, so he only knows this because of the movie Contact, starring Jodie Foster. It was one of his and Joey’s favorites, and they would find any excuse to work the line into a conversation. It drove Simone nuts.
Drew: I can’t find my wallet, I think someone stole it.
Joey: Did you check the jeans you were wearing yesterday?
Drew: Found it!
Joey: The simplest explanation is usually the right one.
Simone: Oh my God, would the two of you shut the fuck up?
A good chunk of people who are considered “missing” are either dead or don’t want to be found. If Mae is still alive, then whatever she stole from Vinny and the Blood Brothers—Drew is guessing drugs—is the reason she can never come back.
The thing is, though, it’s not that easy to disappear. You can’t just go someplace new and get a job and rent a house and start over. First, you’d need a new name, which requires new ID, which takes time to procure. You’d have to keep your story straight for anybody new that you meet. And you’d need start-up money. In cash. A lot of it. To assume a whole new identity and build a whole new life takes time, commitment, and an exceptional talent for telling lies.
Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation, the one that makes the most sense, is that Mae is dead. Vinny killed her, and then Vinny got killed, because that’s what gangs like his do. Live by the sword, die by the sword, and all that.
But did Vinny murder Joey, too? If Drew is being logical about it, the answer is probably no. The fire in the basement apartment was ruled an accident all those years ago, and there was never anything back then—nor is there now—to suggest otherwise.
Drew needs to accept that maybe he wants the fire to not have been an accident so there’s someone to blame for Joey’s death, other than himself.
He sighs into the silence of the car. It would have been nice to have a conversation with Betty Savage, one of the few people Joey let herself get close to during the last year of her life, the year Drew wasn’t a part of. There are probably a thousand things Mae could have told him about Joey, like how she decided to become a stripper, and why, out of all the names in the world, she would choose to call herself Ruby.
Joey used to call her mother Ruby. Literally. She hardly ever referred to her as “Mom” or “Mother.” Drew can still remember asking her about it, because the conversation it led to was the last one they ever had while they were still living together. Simone was taking the job in Vancouver whether Drew was coming or not, and he had not yet decided.
“Why do you call your mother by her first name?” he’d asked Joey.
It was just the two of them in their usual spots on the sofa, eating junk food in front of the TV while Simone worked a dinner shift at The Keg. They were watching Showgirls, which was arguably the worst movie in the history of cinema, but he and Joey loved it precisely because it was terrible. The two of them would compete to see who could remember the best worst lines.
Zack: Nice dress.
Nomi: It’s a Ver-SAYSE.
Al: You’re a fucking stripper, don’t you get it?
Nomi: I’m a DANCER!
“Do I call her Ruby?” Joey seemed surprised, and then she grew thoughtful. “Yeah, you’re right, I guess I do. That’s weird, right? You don’t think of your mother as Brenda, do you?”