The Ambitious City (34 page)

“What are you going to do, Pat? Stay, or cut and run?”

“You’re crazy, you know that?” He snapped his head towards MacNeice.

“Believe it or not, that’s the second time I’ve been told that today.”

“Oh, I can believe it, I can believe it. All right, I’ll stay. But not for long—you gotta wrap this up fast.”

MacNeice couldn’t help smiling at the irony of Pat’s plea. Having started the fire in the first place, he was desperate to have it put out before it consumed him.

Mancini was studying his face and correctly interpreted the smile. “Okay, yeah, well, I know I got this—”

“Don’t sweat it, Pat. I’m here, as it says on the company cars, to serve and protect. What I need to know is, what can I count on you for?”

“You get these guys locked up or, like today, dead, and I’ll testify … Fuck, man, I’m a hockey player, not a soldier.”

Another ironic statement, but this time MacNeice made sure his face didn’t betray him. The soldier found in the bay had only been trying to provide for his family—by taking a so-called security job that Pat had unwittingly created.

Mancini got out of the car and leaned in to shake hands. “I know you’ll come through for me. Pa never makes mistakes about men—except maybe me.”

“Pat, don’t give up on yourself just yet. It took a lot of courage to seek me out. Stay low, and stay away from women and dope, agreed?”

Mancini smiled for the first time. “I will, I promise … but I have to ask, have you ever had a Ukrainian dancer?”

“Goodnight, Pat.”

MacNeice stood watching as Mancini eased the overpowered red machine tenderly down the rough road to the highway. Then he
opened the door, put down his keys and gently smacked the bum of the girl in the photo.

Approaching the cut-off that would lead either to the Peace Bridge and America or over the Sky-High home, the red Corvette suddenly sliced across the lanes and powered down the ramp towards Niagara.

That isn’t an easy decision
, he told himself.
I’ve grown up giving my word—to my father, to coaches, to owners, to fans. I’ve put body and fucking soul behind my word. I even gave my word to MacNeice. But fuck it, just plain fuck it! I’ve given enough. It’s time for me
. Merging with the late-night traffic, he cranked up the classic vinyl channel on his satellite radio and howled along with Hendrix.

Then, somewhere between Secord and Vineland, worms bored holes in his resolve. MacNeice’s logic—about who would pay the cost if he bolted—was killing his case for disappearing. Pat swung off the Queen E at the Vineland exit, looped around and joined the sparse traffic heading for Dundurn and beyond. The guitar licks of “Hotel California” argued for a slower speed, so he set the cruise control to 70 mph and took the middle lane.

As he approached Secord, another car fell in behind the Corvette. It was late and there were lots of road to choose from, but it closed the distance and sat fifty feet behind him. He studied the headlight pattern and the reflections off the grille.
It’s not a cop, unless they’re driving Mustangs now. Don’t panic, Pat
.

Mancini slid into the slow lane but left the Vette on cruise control. At first the Mustang maintained speed in the middle lane, then it suddenly accelerated. Mancini could feel his chest tighten as he waited to see what it would do. When it came alongside the Corvette, the Mustang slowed to match his speed again. He resisted the urge to look across the short distance. Easing his car closer to the shoulder, he could sense that the Mustang was edging closer,
straddling the lanes. Mancini gripped the wheel with both hands and looked across at the other car, which was now no more than two feet from him.

The passenger in the Mustang lowered his window, pointed an index finger at him and lowered his thumb, letting his hand recoil. Then he smiled—a wide, menacing smile set in a massive head.

Mancini slammed the accelerator down and the Corvette responded, pinning him to the seat, its rear end grinding onto the gravel shoulder before correcting again on the pavement. The Mustang dropped back in his rear-view mirror, but by the time the Corvette hit 110 mph, it had closed the distance to seventy yards.

This is my world. I know how to do this: every rink is divided into invisible lanes, every player—like every car—an obstacle. This is my world, fucker
.

Mancini changed lanes, flashing past cars and sliding around eighteen-wheelers like they were rubber cones.

Come on, bring it on! When I’m in the zone, no one can touch me. Bring it on. I’ve deked past the heavies … Keep your head up, Patman. You own the ice—keep your fucking head up!

He looked in the rear-view and checked the side mirrors. The Mustang wasn’t as quick to weave, but once it was in the open he could see its lights shaking crazily as it closed the distance. At 125 mph the Corvette opened the gap again, but only for a few seconds—the Mustang cleared a pair of RVs and was gaining again.

Approaching the Sky-High Bridge, Mancini could see the Mustang’s lights jiggling in his side mirror maybe a hundred feet behind. His chest was tight but he felt exhilarated, pumped—as if nothing could touch him. He adjusted himself in the seat, relaxed his hands and held the accelerator to the floor.

Shoulda’ done this long ago. Bring the game to what I do best. I can see everything. The net, the lanes, the players—I can even see
the players behind me. I can measure their speed, their legs, their instincts for the game. There is no noise … I can hear my heartbeat. I can breathe easily
.

The Corvette started climbing the bridge, leaving the land below. As if they were tethered by an elastic band, the Mustang fell behind—150 feet—and then the elastic contracted and the gap closed again. Mancini held the pedal to the floor. The speedometer rose to 184 mph as he raced towards the top, the peak of the bridge. He felt supremely capable of outrunning, outdriving and outdistancing his opponent. He was certain the other driver’s heart was red-lining, while his was actually slowing down. He smiled, realizing that he was still breathing easily. For the first time in a long time, he wasn’t afraid—wasn’t faking or lying—he was back in the game. Mancini took the time to glance over at the city and then laughed. Dundurn was jiggling too.

Less than two hundred yards from the top, in one of those strange coincidences, a David Bowie classic came on the radio. It suddenly occurred to him that at this speed the Corvette could probably lift off. He re-established his grip—not too tight, not too loose.

Ground Control to Major Tom …

And he knew he was safe, that he was home free, that his legs were steel pistons. Anticipating the launch, sinking further back in the seat, Mancini laughed out loud, then sang along. “Ground Control to Major Tom
…
”

Sixty yards, and the iron superstructure above seemed to zip by like a lightspeed spaceship, the Mustang’s lights now at least a hundred yards behind. The wind jolted the suspension, but the Corvette held the road and screamed higher, only steel and sky ahead.

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
.

—

The phone rang before the alarm went off. It was Vertesi. “Have you heard the news, boss?”

“What news?” MacNeice said, looking over at the clock radio, only to realize he’d forgotten to set the alarm. The time was 8:49 a.m.

“Pat Mancini. His car blew up on top of the Sky-High Bridge around 1:30 this morning. Bits of him and the car ended up in the canal—what’s that, 120 feet or so below?”

“Christ, no—” MacNeice pulled himself up in bed.

“Yeah. They’ve closed off the Toronto-bound lanes and are using the other side as a two-way. Crews have been up there all night. They even found part of the car’s roof on the lift bridge, and that’s hundreds of feet away.”

“Do you know what caused the explosion?” MacNeice got out of bed and headed into the kitchen. He turned on the espresso machine, opened the grappa bottle and poured a shot into a cup.

“They think it was plastic, probably a pile of C4 right under the driver’s seat. There wasn’t any structural damage to the bridge but it tore up the asphalt pretty bad.”

“Who’s with the family?” MacNeice cradled the phone on his shoulder, put the cup under the spout and pressed the button for a double shot of espresso.

“Far as I know, only their priest and family. I’m going to pay my respects at nine. I can wait if you want to join me.”

“Who’s on the bridge?” He swirled the coffee and grappa together, then drank it down.

“DS Whitman and a couple of guys from the east end. Firefighters were there first, and there’s a bomb unit and a forensics team. Divers go down around ten this morning.”

“I’ll go over to the bridge. You go alone to the Mancinis. Keep it respectful but let him know I’ll want to speak with him today.”

“Any thoughts on why Pat was blown up?”

“Let’s talk about it at Division.”

The coffee helped MacNeice shake off the fuzzies from his heavy night’s sleep. He was amazed that after the events of the previous day he had slept so dreamlessly. Nonetheless, he still felt bone-weary.

M
AC
N
EICE ARRIVED ON
the bridge thirty-four minutes later. As he got out of the Chevy he was immediately whipped about by the wind.

What remained of the Corvette was laying on a flatbed, covered with a tarpaulin. Judging by the low, ragged profile, it was just what was left of the chassis. Other pieces had been collected and put in a van, and whatever was left of Pat Mancini had been taken to Richardson’s lab.
Not for reassembly, though
, MacNeice thought. All the king’s horses and men couldn’t put Pat Mancini together again.

Detective Superintendent Harvey Whitman’s hair was blowing wildly off his forehead and his pants and shirt were pinned to his body. He was wearing black aviator shades, and his eyebrows were pulled together so tightly that only the deep vertical furrow in the centre of his brow kept them apart.

“Check this out …” Whitman walked over to the torn asphalt. The surface had been ripped open for twenty feet or more, a long
oval of melted highway. “That fucker was moving! Forensics figures he was topping 170 to 190 at this point—any more and he would have been airborne right about here. Which is funny, ’cause all of a sudden he was airborne! I’da parked the fucker and run like hell.”

“If he knew it was there, he would have too.”

“You think he was out joyriding?”

“No, I don’t think that young man and joy were on speaking terms. Were there any witnesses?”

Whitman said no, at least none that had stopped. When the firefighters arrived, there was a lineup stretching back two hundred yards. Drivers wouldn’t go any closer, as there was burning wreckage from Mancini’s lane all the way over to the other side of the bridge.

MacNeice looked up at the bridge’s superstructure. “Isn’t a traffic camera mounted up there somewhere?”

“Yep. We’ve called Highways and they’re checking to see if there’s a live feed. But traffic isn’t usually an issue at 1:30 a.m., so it was probably down.”

“Anyone gone to check Mancini’s place?”

“Yeah, I went over around four this morning. He’s got the penthouse of a condo overlooking the lake in Burlington. Apart from a small bag of weed, so far we’ve found nothing unusual. Lots of framed pictures of himself playing hockey, a few large photos of Ferrari racing cars, leather furniture, king-size waterbed, a weight room with a stationary bike an’ shit—bachelor’s pad all the way. We sealed it.”

“Any contents of the car left intact?”

“They found a canvas handle from a duffle bag, but that’s it. Everything was either blown up or blown away.” Whitman looked off to the lake, where ribs of narrow whitecaps headed angrily to shore.

“Do you know how it was triggered?”

“Not yet. Forensics guys aren’t optimistic either. What wasn’t up here when we arrived—which isn’t much—is down there.” He leaned casually over the edge; MacNeice stayed several feet back from the rail. “The current’s a bitch down there. I used to dive off at this end and surface about thirty yards down the canal.”

MacNeice’s cellphone rang; he looked at his watch—9:52 a.m.—before putting the phone to his ear. The buffeting of the wind made it impossible for him to hear or be heard. He held the phone to his mouth and yelled, “Hang on,” then ran back to the Chevy. As soon as he was inside, he said, “Go ahead—what have you got?”

It was Williams. “I connected with Buffalo Homicide last night; got a good guy, Demetrius Johnson—a brother. Anyway, Johnson got on it right away and called me about ten minutes ago. Luigi Vanucci had a house in an exclusive neighbourhood on the outskirts of Buffalo; he lived alone and didn’t mingle with the neighbours. Johnson said he rented the house furnished, then one day a couple of years ago, he left and never came back. The house sat empty for four or five months, till a new guy moved in. He got all this from a woman across the street. The new tenant is a stockbroker. He’s clean, Johnson says,
if you can believe stockbrokers are clean
.” MacNeice could tell that Williams was reading from his notebook.

“He’s checking tax records to see how Luigi made a living, but the neighbour said someone told her he owned a security company. Johnson hasn’t spoken to the owner of the house yet but thinks he’ll reach him later on today.”

The Chevy rocked and lifted in the wind. MacNeice looked out over the city and thought about Pat Mancini. “Great work, Montile. Have you heard from Vertesi?”

“Yeah, man, he’s at the father’s house. What’s it like up there?”

“Nothing left to see. What didn’t disintegrate in the explosion is either in the canal or, with this wind, somewhere out on the water.

The rest was bagged and tagged. There’s just a long, nasty tear in the road to fix.”

“Sorta simplifies our go-forward from last night, though.”

“How so?”

“Well, I mean, at least we know now that Mancini Concrete was on one side of the fight at Cayuga.”

“Maybe not … but we’ll talk when I get in. Is Aziz there yet?”