I’d driven into town for two reasons. (1) To buy a slab of fresh fish. (2) To drive up to Roy Barlow’s Gospel Rock estate, talk my way in and broadside him with a news flash.
On both counts, I changed my mind.
My news flash for Barlow was going to be a bluff. I was going to let him know that I had decided to write the Growers Coast story and had successfully pitched it to an editor back east, e-mailing all my notes, contacts, phone numbers, everything—so that if something did happen to me, the editor would easily be able to assign the story to another writer. One way or another, it was getting out. The purpose of my visit would be a magnanimous one. I was going to give Barlow a chance to give his side of the story. “No point in denying it, Roy,” I’d say. “I’ve got enough documentation to bring it home without you.”
Problem was, I didn’t. Not yet. Nevertheless, I figured that by going to him like that, there was a fifty-fifty chance he would play ball. And even if he didn’t, at least he would think that the secret was now out in the open, and that national print had it. Yes, I was looking for insurance. Because, like Big Bill, I now considered Barlow an extremely dangerous man.
I decided instead not to bluff. I could get the story. Shimizu could feed me the names of the other displaced families. I could track down a handful, bring in the Japanese Canadian Association—or whatever they called themselves, because I knew there had to be one—and talk to some history profs at UBC and Simon Fraser who were steeped in the confiscation and internment saga. Sell the experts on the plausibility of Harry’s story, make them want to pursue it, report the fact that they intended to, and pick off the quotes of conditional outrage. I could do, in short, what Albert should have done a year ago. Feature Harry prominently, and use his powerful photograph. Barlow’s silence would be nothing less than a sinful admission. I could do it all, working the phone, in two, three days.
Do it, I thought. Just do it.
On the highway, I stopped at Baldur’s Meats and bought a twelve dollar porterhouse steak.
No, sir. I wasn’t fooling around.