Chapter 3

About three hours later my GPS was telling me I was getting close to the Edmonton address Uncle Wally had given me for the seniors’ home. I pulled into the parking lot and noticed it was only about half full which left me room to park near the front door but I decided against it. With thoughts of some old codger barely able to see scraping my Charger because he had forgotten how to drive, I parked at the far end of the lot. It left me with quite a walk to the entrance but that was compensated by knowing that when I left, my beloved car was going to be in the same pristine condition it was in now.

It had been some time since I’d seen Uncle Wally, so I barely recognized the old fellow sitting with another old man in the lounge. He looked a lot older since the last time I’d seen him. Also, his considerable stomach paunch seemed to have grown a bit larger but he was still wearing the same type of clothes he always did. That consisted of an old pair of denim blue jeans held up by wide suspenders and a long sleeved checkered work shirt. It had been like a uniform for him for years. Still, it wasn’t until he jumped up and enthusiastically pumped my hand that I realized it really was him.

“Yeah, me too, sure nice to see you again Uncle. Yes, it’s been a few years, hasn’t it?”

I gave him a brief hug and patted him on the back. All the while I kept glancing at the guy who had been sitting beside him. Since he was only person with my uncle I surmised he was the one with the missing family. I wanted to get an assessment of him as quick as I could. I would take it from there and feel him out in regards to how much money he was willing to pay.

Uncle Wally introduced me to his friend. Tom Wilson didn’t bother getting up from his chair. He was dressed western style with an open necked solid dark blue shirt that had pearl colored buttons and his denim blue jeans were held up by a big shiny belt buckle. I thought the only thing he needed to complete the look was one of those big cowboy hats. He looked pale and weak and as skinny as a pencil. I thought he might keel over at any time. It was his eyes that showed he still had some life left in him. They were intense and un-wavering. When he looked up at me it was so unsettling I turned away first which is something I don’t normally do. You see, to me when you meet somebody for the first time and you know there’s going to be some heavy negotiating going on, it’s always a contest to see who’s gonna be in control. I lost and I should have taken that as a bad omen but I was too impatient to see what kind of money the old dude had to worry about it.

“Hope you don’t mind but I have trouble getting up. Since my stroke I do it as little as possible,” Tom said as he reached out to shake my hand from his chair.

“No problem,” I assured him.

I also noticed that despite his deathly appearance his handshake was quite firm and strong. And there were the eyes again. They were unnerving. When I glanced up at him they were still so unwavering with just a trace of something like amusement in them that I felt he knew exactly what I was up to.

Another bad omen? I shrugged it off and got right down to business.

Uncle Wally started coughing and hacking and announced. “I know you two want to be alone so I’ll go outside and have a cigarette. That way you can talk privately.”

He needs a cigarette alright, I thought as I watched him totter through the doors. That tobacco will kill him but then I realized he was so old he probably didn’t have too many years left anyway so why shouldn’t he go happy.

“My Uncle Wally tells me you need somebody to find some long lost family members,” I prodded Tom.

The old fellow was silent for a moment and just continued to stare at me with those eyes. It was disconcerting. I felt like he was accusing me of something and I hadn’t even started with him yet but I plowed on.

Finally he spoke. “Yup, it’s my family. They left me years ago. Now look at me ... Damn near dead you know ... I thought I was gonna go when the stroke hit me but I cheated death and managed to survive.”

I nodded in sympathy hoping the old fellow would get to the point pretty quick. However, I didn’t look him in the eye anymore. That was impossible so I just waited impatiently for him to continue.

He went silent again and just when I thought he needed more prodding to get on with it, he began his story.

“There’s three of them, my daughter Annie, my son Roger, and my wife Sofia. I haven’t seen any of them in years so Annie and Roger are all grown up and hopefully Sofia is still alive.”

I didn’t bother to ask why he was so estranged from his family because I figured it was none of my business. In retrospect I wish I would have taken the time to ask that question but then I probably wouldn’t have gotten a straight answer out of him anyway. So I guess, in the long run it wouldn’t have done me any good. Instead, all I did was nod in sympathy again and Tom went on with his story. It was taking far too long as far as I was concerned but since there could be a lot of money involved I let him ramble on at his own pace.

I watched Tom fumble in a bag he had sat beside him on the chair and bring out several photos. He handed them to me and I studied them. They were very old pictures, faded and creased but it was easy to see it was Tom as a much younger man with a very pretty woman and two teenagers. The boy looked handsome, the girl looked cute.

“Nice looking family,” I murmured. Hoping Tom would just get on with it.