Seaweed in the Soup by Stanley Evans Page B

braced myself with a stiff one, and started looking through the Raymond Cho murder book.
    According to the ME, Raymond Cho had been murdered approximately two or three hours before Mrs. Milton discovered his body. When screened, the bloodstains on the slavekiller club did not match Cho’s DNA. The blood in the medicine bag—as I could have told them—was that of wild animals and birds, not humans. Forensics had found traces of cocaine in Cho’s room and in his BMW, along with numerous fibre samples and many disparate samples of human hair. Ultraviolet light had revealed bloody size ten shoe prints leading from Cho’s bedroom and down the corridor to the staircase. Lightning Bradley wore size tens. Nice Manners had seized several pairs of shoes from Lightning’s house, one pair of which, when examined under ultraviolet light, showed traces of blood. Bradley’s uniform had been found in the house and, when examined, it too had tested positive for cocaine.
    The crime-scene bunnysuiters who had unearthed Cho’s smut-filled digital camera had also lifted a complete set of Lightning Bradley’s fingerprints from the inside of Cho’s BMW. In addition, traces of cocaine had been found in Bradley’s Crown Royal.
    Bradley’s future—and Ricketts’—was looking increasingly bleak.
    After another drink, I used my desk phone and called Fred Halloran at the Times Colonist . Fred was out, but I tracked him down at Pinky’s. I told Fred that if he’d wait for me, I’d go over and buy him a drink. Fred was a newspaperman who had me to thank for a couple of scoops; it was time for him to return the favour.
    The sun had moved even closer to Victoria by then. I was wet under my clothes by the time I had walked the several blocks to View Street. The sun blazed above the rooftops. Wisps of steam rose from manhole covers; the sky pressed down like molten lead. Half a dozen Harleys were parked outside Pinky’s—a hole-in-the-wall bar. Rotating gaily up on Pinky’s flat roof was something new: a red neon pig driving a purple neon motorcycle.
    Pinky’s has low ceilings, bad-smelling air, and is furnished with the kind of seedy mismatched oddments that marginal restaurateurs pick up at fire sales. Rock music poured out of giant speakers. Bearded bikers with jail-tatted arms were drinking beer at tables set around a small dance floor. Female patrons dressed in clothing suitable for hanging around on street corners after dark lounged here and there. Fred Halloran sagged against Pinky’s bar clutching an empty glass. Thin and sixtyish, with a gloomy expression, horn-rimmed glasses and ill-fitting dentures, Fred wore a brown fedora and a scruffy beige raincoat that had been out of fashion since the Beatles left Liverpool. I sat on a stool and asked Fred if he expected rain.
    â€œJeez, this weather,” Fred mumbled.
    Pinky’s Irish beer slinger—a red-haired, red-nosed, beer-bellied functioning alcoholic named Doyle—was behind the bar picking his teeth with a plastic cocktail fork. Doyle wore a Guinness apron, a starched white collarless shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and black pants supported by wide green suspenders.
    â€œGlory be to God, it’s the filth, so it is,” said Doyle to me. “And here a fellow was telling me only half an hour ago that you’d been swept to your death down a drain, so he did.”
    â€œAnd the best of Hibernian luck to you too, Doyle. I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries, a pint of Fosters, and give that ink-stained wretch over there whatever he’s drinking.”
    â€œOh, you’re a great man for the drink, Silas. A double Scotch will set me up nicely, so it will,” Fred Halloran responded in a fair imitation of Doyle’s rough Belfast patter.
    Doyle shouted “Cheese and fries!” through a hatch behind the bar, poured the drinks, set my Fosters in front of me and slid the