Live Bait (22 page)

"Where are you?" was his only answer.

"I can be up at that corner waiting by the time you've made your calls and got there. Can I see you there? I've got a blue two-year-old Chev."

"Northeast corner," he said, and hung up.

I worked in Toronto for nine years as a policeman and I know the city like the back of my hand. In less than five minutes I was crossing the Bloor Street Viaduct, heading for the Parkway. I glanced north from the viaduct to make sure it was clear, then accelerated down on to it and north to the 401. As I drove I went over what Su had told me. It all fit. Willis was rattled. Kennie had blown his cover completely. His career with Bonded was over, as soon as they could mount a proper investigation. If he was into organized crime, he was now all in. Nobody else would hire him for legitimate work. He was alone and angry and his first thought had been to lash out. He must have realized how things stood when he saw Su with me in court the previous morning, or perhaps he had been talking to her brother since then. If he had worked in Hong Kong it was a cinch he knew enough Cantonese to carry on a proper conversation with him. He knew the way to hurt me was through her.

I was at the rendezvous ten minutes ahead of Goldman and I waited impatiently, wishing I had asked him for the address so I could have staked it out. The thought of Willis getting away was an agony. I wanted him locked up, if I could keep from breaking him in half in the process of arresting him.

Irv pulled in behind me and blinked his lights in my mirror. I was glad to see he was alone in the car. I jumped out of mine and went back to slide in beside him.

"Just like old times," he said cheerfully and I had to stop and program myself to grin. Irv was a policeman. He didn't deal in vengeance, he dealt in policework and this was just another case. He would solve it and head home to help his kids with their math homework. That was the kind of guy he was.

"Yeah," I said.

He glanced over at me. "Is she hurt?"

"She was hemorrhaging," I told him. "I want that bastard inside, Irv. She's a straight, pretty, fragile little thing and he's a head-beating sonofabitch with a grievance with me that he took out on her."

Irv drove, nodding, until I stopped. Then he asked, "You carrying?"

"No. My gun's in the station up at Murphy's Harbour."

He nodded again. "Good," he said. "I don't want to have to lock you up for plugging this guy, good or bad, right or wrong. He has to go inside or I'm not playing. Okay?"

"My first choice would be to put the bastard in traction," I said savagely. "But I know the rules. I'll settle for having him inside. That okay?"

He reached across with his right hand and said, "Welcome back, I've missed you."

The body shop was closed. There was a sign outside, crudely painted in red undercoating that had been applied with a spray nozzle. "Gord's repairs, closed until September 20th."

Irv looked around. "No sign of the locals," he said. "Unless they're out the back waiting." He took the key out of the ignition, shaking his head wearily. "You never can tell with these bastards in the sticks. They wouldn't realize the guy could come out the front door just as easy as the back."

He got out of the car. "So let's go see if anyone's home."

I followed him to the front door. It was glass, set in a glass-windowed office, the typical automotive or gas station setup. The inside door to the work area was closed. Irv tried the door. It was locked. Then he leant forward and pressed his ear against the glass. "There's somebody inside," he said. "Let's try the back."

We walked around the back, not hurrying, not looking at all concerned, not policemen, just a pair of guys ambling aimlessly. At the back we found a single small door, locked. Irv tried it once, quietly, then put his ear against it and listened hard. "They're awful quiet in there. Maybe they heard us out front and are keeping their heads down." He straightened up and we looked at one another for a moment, then he said, "The smart thing to do is for you to stay here and pound hell out of this door while I go around the front. If they're up to anything, they'll bust out that way."

"Just don't let them get by," I said softly. "Okay, you head around there. In thirty seconds, I start hammering."

He bumped me on the shoulder and strode off. I watched him go, concentrating on him, not Willis, thinking how he had put on weight since we last worked together. I hadn't, but then I didn't have Dianne at home cooking for me like he did.

The thirty seconds stretched on into the next century but I used it well, finding a metal rod on the ground and using it to jam the door so it couldn't be opened. That made it time and I started hammering, shouting "Police, open up!"

I kept it up for almost a minute, before I heard Irv shout from the front, and then the sound of a shot. I left the door and sprinted around to the front. Irv was standing there, his gun drawn. "Stand back, they're shooting," he called. And then the crazy bastard slammed his foot through the front door, shattering the glass in a rainbow of sound. He reached in lefthanded and opened the door and then we were in, him first, me behind him, picking up a stamp machine and a distributor cap full of pencils off the desk, missiles of my own in case Irv went down and I had to face somebody with a gun.

There was another door inside and I knew it was the Rubicon. Whoever was inside would be covering it. We had to open it and we had to face fire to do so. Irv didn't even hesitate. He crouched low, turned the door knob gently then threw himself inside to the right away from the door. I heard a ripple of shots one after the other, so close I couldn't tell who had fired them. But I didn't wait. I caught the door as it was about to click closed, launched myself against it and crashed through, throwing the machine to my left, the distributor to my right and shouting loud enough to make my old Marine instructor proud of me.

Two shots slammed my way and I rolled further, under the side of the tractor trailer that was standing in the bay. From there I checked the terrain all around. I couldn't see anybody's legs at my level, but Irv Goldman was lying collapsed against the wall beside the door. He was alive, I could tell that from where I lay, but he was badly hurt. His gun was in his right hand, which was lying on the floor two feet from the trailer. As I glanced at him he saw me. He took a big, gasping breath and nodded imperceptibly to his right and high. Then, with the guts I had always admired in him, over years together, he flicked his gun under the trailer to me. I grabbed it, as the shot rang out above me, then rolled out the other side of the trailer, Irv's .38 in my right hand. I glanced up. There was some kind of loading platform at the rear of the trailer. I guessed the gunman was up there. He was probably edging to my side now, ready to snap a shot down the side of the trailer at me. I did what I'd been trained to do. I made for the high ground. Darting to the front of the trailer I clambered onto the roof, treading softly, training my gun ahead, watching for the gunman.

As I inched forward he fired again. The echoes filled the whole workspace. I could not judge where he was, but I guessed he had come to the side I'd been, and snapshot without looking. I ran forward on tiptoe to the end of the trailer and looked down. Kennie was below me, holding a pistol. I took careful aim, before he knew I was there, but I didn't shoot. This isn't Nam, I'm a copper here, not a grunt. I said, "Drop it!" in a clear voice and waited while his eyes came up and then the muzzle of the gun. And that was when I fired, into his right arm, smashing it above the elbow so that he roared with a pain bigger than anything he had ever known before and the gun slammed away from my shot, back on the ramp, skidding across it to fall with a clatter into the well of the shop.

I darted across the top of the trailer and checked the ground on both sides before I vaulted down on to the loading ramp. Kennie was on the floor, clutching the compound fracture with his left hand, rolling back and forth in blind agony. I grabbed him by his good shoulder. "Where's Willis?"

He turned his face to me but he didn't recognize me, nothing mattered but the reality of his pain. I know, I've been there. I shook him again and this time he said, "He isn't here."

I left him then, jumping down into the pit to pick up the gun and stuff it into my belt before running around the other side of the trailer to where Irv was lying slumped against the wall. All the color had drained out of him and his eyes were closed but he opened them when I spoke. "Get him?" he whispered.

"Yeah. Where are you hit?"

He made a vague swoop with his left hand towards his shoulder. "Up here, I think. It's numb."

I glanced around again, checking there was no one else there. There wasn't. I pinched him, on the inside of the thigh. "Can you feel that?" His eyes narrowed with pain. "Yes, what the hell was that for?"

I patted his good shoulder, not speaking. His spine was intact, that was the good news. The bad could come later. I ran out to the car and called in an emergency. They crowded me for details but I just told them, "I'm alone with the injured officer, send help," and went back to Irv.

He had not moved but his eyes were open and he tried a grin. "Check the back," he said hoarsely. "I thought I could hear somebody out there."

 

 

 

Chapter 26

 

 

I
gave him Kennie's pistol. He tried to hold it but the weight was too much for his injured arm and he let it clunk to the floor under its own weight. "If you hear me holler, get the gun up and stand by to use it," I told him. He nodded and I went back to the end of the truck and up on the loading ramp again.

Kennie was lying there, numb with pain. He looked at me dully but did not move or say anything. There was no menace left in him. I checked around. There was a door to one side of the ramp, leading out to the back area inside the rear exit, I guessed.

Moving carefully, carrying Irv's gun in my right hand ready for use, I opened the door and jumped through it. Something crashed against the wall behind me, and as I dived and rolled away from the door it fell with a clatter onto the concrete.

I snapped off a shot in the general direction of where the wrench had been thrown from. I've been under fire enough times to know it was necessary. I didn't expect to hit anybody, just to teach him a little respect for my firepower. It might even shock him into surrendering.

I rose into a fighting crouch, facing an empty oil drum with a pile of cartons behind it, still flicking glances all around me, searching for whoever had thrown the wrench. And then Yin Su's brother jumped up with a scream and advanced on me, straddle-legged, ignoring my gun. I shouted at him, "Hold off or I shoot," but he kept coming. I took the time to gesture with the gun, wordlessly, letting him know I was the equal of any martial artist. But still he came, like a kamikazi pilot, oblivious to the weapon. And at last, when he was ten feet from me, I aimed, two handed, for the meaty part of his upper leg, on the outside where it would not smash his thigh, and fired. And the hammer clicked on an empty shell. I fired again, twice, while he stood taller, knowing he could win. Desperately I hurled the gun at him, hard enough to smash his head, but he batted it out of the air without looking at it and it fell with a clatter against the oil drum. Then he composed himself into a tighter stance, coiling himself for maximum power and began to stalk me.

I was too far from the door to make it before he leaped. I saw his face crease into a tight little grin. He had me. Now I would pay for the shame Sam had worked on him. In those seconds, he was a cocked weapon and I was a man about to die, except for my one hole card.

It had sat in my pocket, round and flat and harmless, since I purchased it the day before. I had already opened the lid a time or two, now I reached into my pocket and loosened the lid again before bringing it out, concealed under my clawed hand.

I knew it would give me a moment, no more, and then only if I timed it perfectly, so I concentrated on the fighter while I opened the lid totally, working with my fingertips, out of his sight, and waited for him to advance.

He was playing with me. He could have launched himself across the space and hit me at will but he was too angry. He wanted revenge, wanted to be close, to savor my fear.

We circled, about eight feet apart, for maybe fifteen seconds. By now the container was open in my hand and I was poised to make my move waiting for him to decide when he would kill me. I was still praying for the door to open behind me and a big uniformed copper to come in and blow the little guy away, but that wasn't going to happen before I was dead. So I waited, holding my hand loosely until he made his move. I saw the flicker in his eyes, fast as a camera shutter, and in the instant he advanced I uncoiled my clenched hand and threw the contents of my tin into his face. He ducked back instinctively but not far enough. A fine cloud of English snuff filled the space around him and before he could stop himself he had breathed and was sneezing.

As his eyes closed reflexively, I was there, slamming my full weight down my left leg and against his right shinbone. I heard it snap in the same second he sneezed convulsively and fell. Then I backed off while the cloud of snuff settled to the ground on top of his writhing body.

He was almost too tough, he was back on his feet, in his stance again, before I could find something to hit him with, but the snuff was too much for him. He could control everything, the pain, his balance, everything except the automatic closing of his eyes as he sneezed. And as he did, I hit him hard on the right collarbone and it was my game.

I stooped for Irv's gun, picking it up and checking the cylinder. All chambers had been fired, he must have shot four times before I got hold of it. I looked down at the dazed kid on the floor, still blinking and sniffing, rubbing his eyes with his good hand.

"Unlucky for you I remembered my father's bad habits," I said cheerfully. Then I picked up the snuff can, a 25 gram container of Top Mill #1, the kind my father had carried with him down the mine every day, joking that if they ran out of blasting powder, he could help. There was a thin crust still clinging to the bottom groove of the can and I ran my finger around and assembled a good pinch which I took, not sneezing but feeling the immediate buzz that makes this the best way there is to enjoy tobacco. Then the door opened behind me and a young policeman in uniform sporting the standard moustache was standing looking in. "What's your name?" he asked me sternly. He was just a baby, fresh from writing parking tickets around one of the shopping malls, suddenly confronting his first crime.