The God Game. Jeffrey Round
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missing?”
Peter regarded him warily. “How did you know he was missing?”
Dan looked him up and down. “You don’t look like the kind of man who would pay someone to sort out his domestic affairs if you thought you could do it yourself.”
“Fair enough. Tony’s been missing since the weekend. Friday, probably. I was away for the evening. He wasn’t home when I got back in the early hours on Saturday.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I don’t want sympathy. I want you to find him.”
Dan overlooked Peter’s abruptness. “Do you suspect foul play? Kidnapping? Anything dire?”
Peter shook his head. “Not at this point.”
“Where do you think he might be?”
“He’s got a fear of flying and he doesn’t drive, so chances are he’s right here in the city. I’ve cut off his credit cards.”
“Any obvious reasons for disappearing? An affair, perhaps?”
“No.” Peter paused. “Maybe. We had an argument. Over money.”
“Did you hit him?”
Hansen made a face. “No.”
Dan pushed the photo back and looked at Peter. “Well, then that pretty much covers it. My guess is he’ll come home when he cools off and runs out of places to stay.”
“I’m not so sure,” Peter added. “He’s a gambler. He lost a lot of my money and doesn’t want to have to confront me over it.”
Nor would I, Dan thought. “How long have you been married?”
“Three years.”
“I still say he’ll be back when he’s ready.”
Peter stabbed Dan’s desktop with an angry finger. “I came here to hire you.”
“And do you want your husband back or just the money?”
Peter bristled. “Just find him. Please. Before he causes me any more embarrassment.”
“Have you been on my website? Do you know my terms?”
Peter nodded. “I have. I do.”
“Okay. I’ll take a look around. If I agree to take on the case, I’ll draw up a contract and we can set up a time to go over it together in the next couple of days.”
Peter shook his head. “No contract. I don’t want anything on paper.”
Before Dan could protest, Hansen put up his hand. “I’m in politics, Dan. My boss is a high-profile minister at Queen’s Park and there’s an election coming up. I can’t have a whiff of this hitting the street. I want no paper trails. I need your absolute discretion.”
He reached into his case, drew out an envelope and placed it on the desk.
“Here’s your retainer. I don’t want a receipt. All I care about is results. Everything you need to know about Tony is in here.” He glanced down at the caterer’s quote on Dan’s desk. His eyebrows went up. “Thinking of getting married?”
Dan nodded.
“My advice? Don’t do it. They’re always more trouble than they’re worth.”
He turned and strode to the door. Then, with one hand on the knob, he looked back at Dan. “If you need more money, let me know.”
The door opened and closed. The whirlwind subsided.
Dan waited till Hansen’s footsteps receded, then slit open the envelope. He thumbed through a pile of thousand-dollar bills, ten in total, wrapped in a sheet containing Tony Moran’s particulars. His eyes ran down the page. Tony was a high school graduate, with a further couple years at a business college. A few of his past jobs were noted, including a stint as assistant manager of a Wendy’s franchise. Not a big achiever, then.
Dan glanced at the picture again. Despite Tony’s good looks, there was something skin-deep about them suggesting he might attract a certain type of partner quickly, but not stay the term. His polo-shirt-and-sweater combo smacked of conservative taste, but with a narcissistic undertone. Then again, he had a low-rent sort of sex appeal. The sort of man a Peter Hansen might look on as material for moulding, someone to impress with a helping hand out of the gutter. Pygmalions were a dime a dozen.
Three local addresses were listed at the bottom of the sheet. Dan suspected they would turn out to be gambling dens. He picked up the bills again. It was a lot of money, far more than what he normally asked for as a retainer. It seemed Peter Hansen was serious about wanting his husband returned. Maybe Nick would have his chi-chi caterer after all.
Dan turned to his laptop and did a search on Hansen. A series of links appeared, including an article about his marriage to Tony Moran on a downtown Toronto rooftop three years earlier. It looked to have been an impressive affair. The premier and several prominent ministers had attended, which might explain why a major paper had covered a gay wedding. They weren’t a bad-looking couple, Dan thought. Not mismatched the way a wealthy older man might seem with a cute but brainless younger man. But where Peter’s face showed force and determination, a tenacious grit, Tony’s showed something softer, more malleable. Dan knew which one of them he’d rather be friends with, if it came to that.
Dan realized why Hansen’s name had sounded familiar. He’d worked hard campaigning for civil rights, proving a standard-bearer for LGBT issues, though one article suggested he’d lost an election four years earlier by being openly gay. Thus he’d ended up as special assistant to the educational reforms minister instead.
Dan was about to close his laptop when a headline caught his eye. It was dated just before Christmas: Disgraced Queen’s Park MPP found dead in ravine. He clicked on the link. A cheerful-looking man in his mid-thirties met his gaze. Dan recalled the story: John Wilkens had been the opposition critic for a man named Alec Henderson. Peter Hansen’s boss. Despite his relative youth, Wilkens was once regarded as a contender for House Speaker, and possibly prime minister material, until he’d been dismissed for improper use of government funds. An investigation had been pending at the time of his death. The coroner’s ruling was suicide.
Dan scanned a follow-up piece. There were the usual official condolences from party leaders for their deceased colleague: John Wilkens was a good man who believed that public service was the most honourable way to serve others, etc. No mention of his indiscretions with public funds. Never speak ill of the dead. Wasn’t that what they taught?
The dead minister’s lineage was impressive. He’d come from one of the most established families in Ontario, scion of a proud race of industry leaders and charity funders. It was the usual muck, a political whitewash. The dead had no enemies. Dan smelled a story larger than what was written here, but the formal speak of politics had closed ranks around the dead minister, leaving the truth gagged once again.
He picked up his cell and dialed the number on the paper. Hansen answered.
“Dan Sharp here, Peter.”
“Yes, what? Anything wrong?”
“You left an awful lot of money on my desk.”
“It’s yours. Keep it.”
“It’s far more than a retainer.”
“Consider it a bonus if you find him.”
“I won’t keep it unless I earn it. I’ll put it in my safe for now.”
There was a pause. “You may need it to find Tony.”
“Meaning?”
“Spend it if you have to.” He hung up.
Dan sighed quietly. He hadn’t even begun to work on the case and Peter Hansen was already turning into a pain in the ass. It worried