Straight No Chaser (32 page)

At the next station, St. George, I copied Tran's stunt. When the train stopped, I darted from my car and into the next car down the line. I glanced back. Tran had moved up. He was in the car I'd just deserted. Wily devil.

The train reached the next station, and I bailed out for good. It was the Bay station, and there were two routes that led up to the street. One of them, the biggest and busiest, was down at the east end of the platform. I couldn't take that route. Tran was between it and me. I lit out down the west end of the platform to the other, much smaller exit. And I could hear the light flap of Tran's shoes at my rear.

The Bay station at the west end was spick and span, done in white tile, free of graffiti and other defacing. My bathroom should be so impeccable. I reached the stairs and took them two at a time. At the top, there was one turnstile for exit. And there was no attendant at that late hour on duty in the booth. And nobody else in sight except Tran. I could sense him getting closer. In no time, he'd be breathing down my neck. Except he wouldn't breathe on my neck. He'd give it a karate chop.

The exit turnstile was a bizarre arrangement of metal bars. Three sets of two-feet-long horizontal bars were attached to a central vertical pole that ran floor to ceiling. The bars formed three little cage-like enclosures that you got in and pushed through to the outside lobby. I shoved forward in the first enclosure, and when I was on the other side, in the small lobby, I turned and waited for Tran.

He rushed into the next enclosure. I paused a half-second, and with Tran inside the cage I grabbed one of the sets of horizontal bars and pushed back. The enclosure stopped turning, and Tran, caught off balance, pitched forward. His forehead slammed into the bars. I yanked the cage toward me. Tran's head whiplashed, and the back of it banked off the set of bars behind him.

Tran stumbled out of the cage, shaky and dazed. I fired a low right hand into his stomach, stepped to the side, and clipped him with a left hook high on his cheek. They were picture punches, the kind you see in boxing highlight movies. Not bad, even if I was up against an opponent who'd already been blitzed by two sets of metal bars.

Tran lay flat on the station floor. Out cold? I dragged him to the corner of the lobby and rolled him over. Yeah, out cold. I ripped off his white shirt, tore it in two, and tied his wrists and ankles. Tran was packing two pieces of equipment on his belt. A walkie-talkie and the little pop-gun. I left the walkie-talkie, and stuck the pistol in the small of my back under my sweater. The walkie-talkie? Had Tran used it to keep Big Bam up to date on my peregrinations? I'd better watch my rear. And flank. And front.

There was a pay phone in the corner of the lobby. I dialled 911.

“That raid tonight on the booze can near College and Spadina,” I said to the woman cop who answered. “One of the guys who ran the place is waiting to be picked up at the west exit of the Bay subway station.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I have no record of a raid at College and Spadina.”

“Okay, try this one,” I said. “The body of the man in the alley next to the booze can, the guy in the subway is responsible for that killing.”

“You been drinking, sir?”

“My last shot,” I said. “This guy here at the subway station, he's lying on the floor with his shirt off, and it's going to be a disgraceful sight for people using the facility.”

“I have a car on the way, sir.”

I walked up the steps of the exit to the street. The street was Cumberland. On the south side, there was a small parkette and a big parking lot. The north side was chockablock with smart shops and restaurants. La Belle Boutique. A place that specialized in Cuban cigars. Jacques's Omelettes. Esthetics of Lara. Wonder what Lara did when she wasn't losing at spelling bees. There were no-parking signs along Cumberland, but the north curb was lined with cars. BMWs. Audis. Jaguars. A Rolls-Royce. Ferraris. The owners of the pricey automobiles were undoubtedly taking their pleasure in the restaurant at the end of the block, the place I was headed for.

The Belair Café.

35

M
IDNIGHT
, and the Belair was peaking. At the bar, the smart set stood four deep, and in the restaurant, the floor was so thick with table-hoppers that it took me a couple of minutes to pick out Cam Charles and Annie. They were sitting opposite each other at two single tables that had been pushed together. Empty glasses and plates were strewn across the other two places at the table, but the chairs were empty. Probably the only empties in the room.

I plunked down in the seat beside Annie.

“Honey,” Annie said, glad to see me, but concerned too. “You look frazzled.”

Cam didn't care how I looked.

“Too bad you didn't come earlier, Crang,” he said. “Daniel Day-Lewis just left.”

“That would've rounded out my evening just about right,” I said.

Cam said, “Annie and I had a fascinating chat with him.”

Annie was still giving me her worried attention.

“Apart from frazzled,” she said, “you look kind of chunky around the waist.”

“I got three hundred thousand reasons for that,” I said. “Tell you later.”

“You smell funny,” Annie said. “What is that? Rhubarb?”

The waiter came by, and I asked for a double vodka on the rocks.

“I bring good news, Cam,” I said. “And bad news. And really bad news.”

Cam flicked his eyes at Annie.

“Don't worry about Annie,” I said to him. “She knows all the past history.”

“And I'm discreet,” Annie said.

“But you're press,” Cam said to her.

“Only way I'll report on this story,” Annie said, “is if it gets made into a movie.”

“Could happen,” I said.

Cam's face arranged itself into his stern expression.

“Let's have your report, Crang,” he said.

“The good news,” I said, “is Trevor won't stand trial.”

“Thank heaven for that,” Cam said.

“The bad news is he killed a man,” I said. “And the really bad news is someone else killed him.”

It might have been the first moment in his career when words failed to spring to Cam Charles's lips.

Annie spoke before Cam recovered his wits and vocabulary.

“Who did he kill?” she asked me.

“Fenk.”

“No.” Cam had found a word.

“Yeah,” I said. “Probably nothing premeditated. I think his coke dealing must have been driving him a little crazy, trying to keep the turnover going, earn the money to pay the bills for the grand way he lived. And when Fenk crossed him on the last part of a deal the two of them had going, Trevor's temper went past the boil. He took everything out on Fenk. Frustration, rage, all the stuff that was knocking his judgment and balance loose.”

“No,” Cam said. He was sticking to the one word he had under control.

“That's my analysis anyway,” I said. “But I think the homicide people, your mate Stuffy Kernohan, they'll put it together the same general way.”

“So who killed Trevor?” Annie asked. “And when and how?”

“How, I don't think you want to hear,” I said. “Trevor's body isn't going to be a pretty picture. It happened an hour ago, and the two guys who did it—killed Trevor—are from the cocaine bunch he was selling to. A thug name of Tran, and the coke boss and booze can proprietor, guy who goes by the handle of Big Bam.”

Cam cleared his throat.

“Does Stuffy have the two in custody?” he asked me.

“Cops should have their mitts on Tran any time now,” I said. “But Big Bam is somewhere loose in his Porsche.”

“You mean he's likely to be leaving the city?” Cam said. “Trying to run from the police?”

“Not immediately,” I said. “Right this minute, he's hunting for me.”

“You?” Annie said. “Why you?”

I lifted up my sweater and shirt.

“What is the world are those?” Annie said, looking at my waist.

Cam stood out of his chair to see over the table.

“Why are you wearing money belts, Crang?” he asked.

“Big Bam's idea,” I said. “He'll have done some serious rethinking on that one in the last hour.”

Cam sat down and retreated into silence. If I knew my Cam, his brain was ticking over, conjuring up ways to put daylight between his law firm and the Trevor Dalgleish fiasco. Or tragedy. I tucked my shirt in with one hand. Just one hand because Annie was holding the other. The waiter with my double vodka arrived at the table.

And so, right behind the waiter, did Big Bam.

“Oh, wow,” I said.

Cam and Annie looked up at Big Bam. They had the same first reaction to him. They started to smile a greeting. Why not? Bam was a presentable guy with his matinee-idol face and his ritzy blue jumpsuit. But the smile on Bam wiped the smiles off Cam and Annie. Bam's was a cold smile. Menacing. At last, the kind of smile I'd been waiting for.

I took a gulp of vodka.

“Annie and Cam,” I said, “like you to meet Ng Thai. Also known in cocaine and booze can circles as Big Bam.”

Cam's system must have adjusted to shocks. He wasn't struck speechless this time.

“You have your nerve,” he said to Big Bam. “At this moment, the police want you for a number of crimes.”

Bam sat down beside Cam. Bam and Cam? What was this? A 1960s folk duo? Or a couple of characters from
Sesame Street
? Bam folded his hands matter-of-factly on the tablecloth.

“Do I need to know you?” he asked Cam.

“My name,” Cam said, majestically, “is Cameron Charles.”

“Hey, right on, Trevor's boss,” Bam said. “Heard good things about you.”

“Crang says you killed Trevor,” Cam said.

“Crang's a regular little tattletale,” Bam said, looking at me. Then, back to Cam, “But what hasn't gone down yet, the police haven't talked to Crang. Heard his fairy story. Maybe they never will.”

“What are you suggesting?” Cam asked.

Cam had regained his regular take-charge self. While he talked and kept Big Bam's attention, I held the vodka in my left hand, disengaged my right from Annie, and let it slide down my backside. Everything about my moves said Mr. Casual. Or I hoped that was how Bam would see it. I dipped the hand into the small of my back and eased Tran's little pistol out of my belt. Annie didn't notice. She was intent on Big Bam. And Bam was listening to Cam Charles's pontifications. I leaned forward, and held the gun under the table.

“Let me check you into this piece of info,” Bam interrupted Cam. “Crang over there's carrying three hundred thousand dollars. What's that say about him? Anybody going to believe a man with three hundred thousand that's not his own when he accuses another man of murder?”

“Is that what's in those money belts, Crang?” Cam asked, turning the hard look on me. “Three hundred thousand dollars?”

Annie's head swivelled to me.

“Straighten these guys out, sweetie,” she said.

“What's your play, Bam?” I said. “You want your money back? Or you think you can leave it around my waist, and that'll discredit me when I tell the cops how you and Tran let Trevor drop four storeys? Or maybe you got a plan to have it both ways?”

Did I sound tough? Well, maybe not Humphrey Bogart, but I was giving Bam stuff to chew on. Keep him occupied.

“Dropped him four storeys?” Annie said. “They can't get away with
that
.”

“Tran already hasn't,” I said. “I've sort of taken him out of commission.”

“Some kind of troublemaker, Crang,” Bam said.

“I'll agree to that much,” Cam said.

“Nice, Cam,” I said. “Really appreciate your support.”

“I've lost track of the truth,” Cam said. “That's the long and the short of it.”

“The long of it is Trevor went face first from the top of a building,” I said. “The short of it is the guy sitting beside you orchestrated the fall.”

“Where you at, Crang?” Bam said. Could eyes look menacing? Bam's seemed to. Must have caught it from his smile. Bam said, “You about to hand over the money
and
me to the cops?”

“You got it, Big Bam,” I said. “Catch my drift?”

“Catch this, asshole,” Bam said. “I still got that gun in my pocket, and it says you and those money belts are gonna walk out the door of this restaurant with me.”

“Surprise, surprise, Bam,” I said. “You got a gun in your pocket, but I got one in my hand, and right this minute it's under the table pointed at the middle of that jumpsuit of yours.”

“A gun?” Annie said.

“Just a minute, Crang,” Cam said.

“Don't fuck with me, Crang,” Bam said. He had the tough sound down pat, less Humphrey Bogart and more somebody from
The
Godfather
. “You were clean when you came into my booze can tonight, and there's no place since then you could've picked up a weapon.”

“Tran's gun,” I said. “You don't believe me, phone the cops at 52 Division. They'll tell you they took in Tran minus his gun.”

Nobody spoke for five seconds.

“Great idea now that it occurs to me,” I said. “Phoning the cops. Why not you do it, Cam?”

Cam stayed put in his chair.

Bam said, “Okay, maybe you got Tran's gun under there. But no way you got the nerve to shoot me.”

Big Bam was closer to the truth than he knew. Or maybe he did know. I'd never fired a gun in my life, not even an itsy-bitsy handgun like Tran's. But there was always a first time.

“Try me,” I said to Bam. My voice still didn't exactly ring with authority, not even like the guy who played the weakling in
The Godfather
. John Cazale?

But it was apparently enough to make Big Bam shift gears. When he spoke again, he turned smooth and oily.