So I admit it, I'm a sucker for a woman in distress. It doesn't hurt that when she says my name it sound like a caress or that four-foot-nine of her five-feet-seven are legs. Those are just what we call fringe benefits in this line of work. Sort of like free drinks at a bar, or a discount on a sandwich for work done in the past.
So it was pretty much a no-brainer that when that husky voice, made even huskier by tears, washed over my ear I'd be saying yes to doing anything Ms. Magnesen wanted. If it means ferreting around in the muck of the quagmire that we call politics in Canada then that's what I'll be doing.
Lucy's voice sounded a bit calmer, less full of tears when she called me as agreed the next morning. If we were going to get to the bottom of this whole mess there was no time like the present to begin. I was hoping that she would be able to give me some clues; the names of any of the Greenpeace and granola types that had been hanging out with her dad in those last days would be a good place to start.
Unfortunately she couldn't remember any more details about them that morning than in our previous conversation. It looked I'd be getting on a lot closer terms with soy burgers, herbal teas, and hemp shirts than what I'd consider good for a man's soul. But those are the sacrifices you have to be prepared to make for the job.
I'm sure you've noticed how groups tend to congregate into a geographical centre of activities, and the granola rollers are no different. In Ottawa they've taken over a couple of square blocks of what used to be the red light district until the girls got wise and moved out to where all the embassies are and can now get work as escorts and blackmail material (usually one and the same thing in the embassy district).
In the end it meant another nice seedy neighbourhood falling victim to the 'let's improve the downtown core so people from the suburbs want to come here' mentality. It's that type of thinking that has ruined more areas in this city then you can shake a by-law exemption on zoning laws at. The first signs of trouble are when the adventurous ones in their SUVs and Dockers start showing up in your favourite greasy spoon.
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