Authors: Anthony Bidulka
depressing dimness. Outside the windows,
despite the morning hour, it was still the dark of
night. It was too early for any neighbours to have
commenced their business day and we seemed
very isolated in our lone tower on this winter
morning in the north end of Saskatoon.
“So why then? Why is he following me?”
Daniel finally asked, having sufficiently calmed
himself.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe he’s just
keeping an eye on you, or seeking some thrill by
watching you squirm now that the cat is out of the
bag. I don’t know, Daniel, but I think this is good
news.”
He shot me an incredulous look. “What are
you talking about?”
“Until yesterday all we had was a piece of
paper. Now we’ve got a real live person. He’s
shown himself. And if he shows himself
again…well, we just might be there to catch him.”
“How? How are we going to do that?”
“Leave that up to me for now. Tell me, was the
car a green Intrepid?” I bit my lip waiting for the
Anthony Bidulka — 75
answer I was sure would be yes.
“No.” My heart sank. “It was blue I think. I’m
not sure of the make. Why do you ask?”
Bugger. Oh well, Hugh had a buddy with him
the other night; perhaps the buddy was driving a
blue car. I gave Daniel a quick rundown of my
South Corman Park Landfill escapade. He doubt-
ed it had anything to do with his case. I wasn’t so
sure.
With the immediacy of Daniel’s situation dealt
with, we each took off our coats and Daniel
offered me a seat while he went down to put on
some much needed coffee. He’d been coveting my
Starbucks, but I wasn’t in the sharing mood.
Daniel’s office was a corner suite with a metal-
and-glass desk parked in front of two large win-
dows that looked out into the parking lot, a barren
area beyond it and some indistinguishable ware-
house type buildings in the distance. Given the
dark outside there wasn’t much to see, but I
guessed the same could be said in full daylight.
The rest of the room was more glass and stainless
steel furniture that looked nice but not necessarily
comfortable, and pale walls sporting several mas-
sive Darrell Bell originals: stunning watercolours
of lazy rivers carelessly winding their way
beneath turquoise skies and through wooded hills
of ochre, vermilion and pumpkin umber. I could-
n’t help wonder if these impressive canvases were
placed here to make up for the rather drab view.
Although each piece was worthy of closer perusal I
didn’t have time to lollygag. I only had a few min-
utes for skullduggery.
76 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
I headed for Daniel’s desk. I picked up a pho-
tograph in a surprisingly heavy silver frame. It
was of four people, two men and two women.
One of the men was Daniel; the other was a distin-
guished-looking character probably ten or fifteen
years older than my client, with greying hair thin-
ning at the top and a slightly buck-toothed smile.
Next to him was a woman with short blond hair
who, although not as old as the man, was definite-
ly older than the other woman, whom I took to be
Daniel’s wife. She had dark, curly hair and a
roundish, pleasant face dusted with freckles.
“Russell?”
That was quick. I turned around to see Daniel
looking a little more like his usual put-together
self. I indicated the picture in my hand and said,
“Just admiring the photograph.” He eyed the
photo as he closed the office door and took a seat
behind his desk. “This must be your wife,” I said
about the brunette, “with all the freckles.”
“Actually no,” he said. “The woman next to
Mick is Cheryl.”
I took another look, trying to hide my surprise.
Pictures are sometimes deceiving, but Cheryl
Guest looked several years older than her hus-
band. Either that or she’d spent too much time in
the sun. She was attractive, but…well, there was
no other way to say it: she had a mess of wrinkles
on her face. “And Mick, the other gentleman, is a
partner here?” I asked, still trying to gloss over my
obvious snooping.
“Please,” Daniel said, playing the gracious
host, “take a seat. The coffee’s going to take a few
Anthony Bidulka — 77
minutes.”
I replaced the picture on the desktop and
plopped down in the stiff metal chair he indicated.
“The Soloways are our next-door neighbours,”
he told me. “Mick and his wife, Anita, are close
friends of ours.”
I nodded politely.
He sighed. “I’m sorry about…about earlier and
for insisting on meeting you here so early and,
well…”
I waved it off. “Don’t mention it.” I pulled a
sheaf of photocopied photographs out of the
leather folder I’d brought with me and placed
them on the desk in front of him.
“What are these?”
“Copies of photographs of young, blond actors
who’ve appeared in the last three Persephone
Theatre plays.”
He looked up at me and smiled. “You’re good.”
Yup. “Now it’s your turn. Is one of them Jo?”
He glanced at the closed office door as if some-
one with X-ray vision might be behind it, then,
satisfied no one was spying on us, began a careful
study of each picture. He stopped on the fourth
one.
“It’s him,” he said in a hush, gazing at the like-
ness.
I leaned closer and looked at the gap-toothed
actor, a pleasant-looking young man. “Are you
sure that’s him?”
“That’s him,” he said without hesitation.
I reached over and flipped the picture so we
could read the information on the backside.
78 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
“Now we know,” Daniel uttered cryptically.
“Now we know who Loverboy is. James Kraft.”
He looked at me and grimly said, “Go get him.”
After we’d spent too much time staring at the pic-
ture of Jo/Loverboy/James Kraft and his related
biographical information, such as it was, I shoved
all the photographs and bios back into my leather
folder and prepared for a difficult conversation.
Something had bothered me since my first meet-
ing with Daniel Guest. But now that I’d shown
him some results and hopefully garnered a bit of
trust, it was time to tackle it. I didn’t know how to
broach the subject delicately—so I hopped in with
both boots and hoped for the best.
“Daniel, I know that because of what hap-
pened between the two of you you’re certain
James Kraft is the blackmailer, but…well…are you
telling me you’ve only ever slept with one man?”
It didn’t sound odd when I first heard the ques-
tion in my head, but as it rolled off my tongue I
realized it might sound as if I was making fun of
him. After all, he was a married man. It was as if I
was chiding him for fooling around on his wife
only once. “And that’s okay if that’s true,” I quickly
added, “but if not, I need to know. Because if
you’re only considering men you slept with
immediately prior to receiving the note, well, I
don’t think that’s reasonable.”
Daniel’s nostrils were flaring and the palette of
colour in his cheeks was intensifying in hue. The
poor man was certainly experiencing a full gamut
Anthony Bidulka — 79
of emotions this morning. For an uncomfortable
moment we sat in silence. I decided to sit it out
and see what happened.
The silence finally broke. “Why are you doing
this? We know who the blackmailer is—James
Kraft—I’ve hired you to stop him. Why aren’t you
just willing to do that?”
Ahhhhh crap! The answer was in his eyes. They
were shifting back and forth as if trying to escape
their own sockets. He’d lied to me—or at least he’d
omitted the whole truth. “I’ve just told you why,” I
said, keeping my tone admirably even.
More silence, then, “There is someone else,” he
revealed in clipped tones as if he’d been forced to
admit a dirty little secret on which he’d be poorly
judged. “Someone other than Jo…James Kraft.”
I swore in my head but kept my mouth shut.
An uncomfortable thought crossed my mind.
James Kraft obviously wasn’t Hugh, but this new
man he had just admitted to could be.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.
I was betting he was only partially right. I was-
n’t in the business of judging him or even caring
how many people he slept with. But I was in the
business of thinking he was a big, fat liar. Or, at
the very least, a big fat…omitter of truth.
“Could this other man be Loverboy?” I asked,
remaining sedate.
“I really don’t think so.” His face was closed.
He knew I was a bit mad at him for lying and he
was a bit mad at himself for being caught at it.
“Maybe you should tell me about him. Just in
case.”
80 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
“I shouldn’t have to talk about this. I can’t talk
about this. I have clients to attend to.”
His words were dismissive, but his face and
tone of voice told me the truth. Suddenly I found
myself softening towards this liar…er…client. It
wasn’t me he wanted to get rid of; it was his whole
life for the past twenty years.
Realizing I wasn’t giving up, he let out a loud
sigh and gave in. “James wasn’t the first,” he
admitted. “This past summer, late August, I met a
guy in the chatroom. I’d only been doing the cha-
troom thing for a couple weeks. I didn’t really
know what I was doing. But it seemed harmless
enough. It was just typing words on a computer. I
never dreamed I’d ever go any further with it.”
Another sigh, then, “I met a guy whose nickname
was…SunLover. And before I knew it I’d agreed
to meet him the next afternoon at Bare Ass Beach.”
When most people think of Saskatchewan,
they don’t necessarily think of beaches with
brown sugar sand. But a little known fact is that
there is such a stretch of beach, well hidden along
the banks of the South Saskatchewan River.
Although Bare Ass Beach is not its real name, the
oft tittered-at moniker is liberally used to refer to
a miniscule portion of a beach formally known as
Cranberry Flats. The shores of the Flats, ever-
changing due to the ebbs and flows of the river
regulated by the nearby Gardiner Dam, are locat-
ed several kilometres south of Saskatoon. They’re
surrounded by rolling hills of arid land and scrub-
by vegetation one would sooner expect to find in
Cape Cod rather than on the Saskatchewan
Anthony Bidulka — 81
prairie. Over the years, serious beach-hounds
have forged a web of paths through the slopes
down to the beach. It’s not easy to get to, but if
you’re physically fit enough to make the trek,
your reward can be mighty.
Bare Ass Beach, rumour to some, myth to oth-
ers, is a real place to those who, still not exhaust-
ed after reaching the main beach, are willing to
make the voyage, sometimes requiring portaging,
to the farthest tip (although I found a shortcut
some years ago) where it is said nubile young
nudes, mostly male, worship the sun.
It was quiet. I looked at Daniel. He looked at
me.
“You want more?” A plaintive query.
I wished for something profound to say.
Having Daniel speak about his experiences out
loud was like urging him to admit to his willing
acquiescence in the activity of being a gay man. I
came up empty. Where was Beverly when you
needed her? Instead I said, “Try your best, Daniel.
It might help.”
“I don’t know why I agreed to it. I hadn’t
thought through the risks,” Daniel said, a mysti-
fied look covering his face. “All I know is that I
was growing more and more…frustrated…each
day, searching for something I couldn’t identify.”
All I could do was nod my head. Indeed he
was right. In less than five months Daniel Guest
had gone from playing a straight, loving husband
to meeting strange men for sex to being black-
mailed by one. This was no piddly little craving
we were talking about. Whether he realized it or
82 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
not, this was Daniel’s true self suddenly awak-
ened and trying to claw its way, biting and
scratching, out of a deep, dark closet.
“I planned it like some sort of top secret mis-