The Ambitious City (5 page)

“What are they for?”

“They mark where someone was shot. Just shot
—bang!
The shooter walks away. But to cut someone up, that’s Naples. Neapolitans, they like chopping people up—making a statement.”

“A statement?”

“Yeah, you see bits, chunks, of someone you knew—maybe you were related to them or loved them—and you think twice about life. But you know, the Russian mobs are worse than any in Naples. I’ll get the Shiraz. Sparkling water too?”

“Perfect.”

MacNeice was wrestling with the idea that someone would go to the trouble of sinking a body into the bay knowing that someday it would come up again to bring the “statement” home.
That’s patience—a concrete time capsule with no fixed opening date—just sublime patience and serendipity. That’s sophisticated
. If the plan for the steel company’s eastern dock had been known, then known too was the moment—give or take—of the opening of the time capsule. It was brilliant, and twisted.

As Marcello passed by, MacNeice stopped him. “Tell me, if I were to ask someone from Naples the same question, is it possible they’d agree? Or would they say something like, ‘Not us, no. But those crazy Calabrians—man, they’re the worst’?”

“Yeah, probably.” Marcello erupted in a full body laugh and slapped his shoulder, then carried on to the kitchen.

—

After lunch, feeling somewhat renewed, MacNeice headed down to the morgue. As Richardson was about to be inundated with bodies from Cayuga, he was counting on first-come, first-served for the pair from the waterfront.

Walking along the white-tiled subterranean corridor always made him uneasy, but as he neared the double stainless doors, he could hear classical music—Bach, one of the Brandenburg concertos. He leaned his shoulder into a door and went in. Richardson swung around from the gurney and greeted him. “Just in time. Right, Junior?”

“Right,” said Junior, with his creepy smile that suggested he liked his work too much. MacNeice had never seen Richardson’s young lab assistant when he wasn’t wearing his whites and those tall grey rubber boots. Clearly his job included hosing the gore from the red-tiled floor, which was spotless and glistening wet.

He wasn’t looking forward to seeing “No-Face,” as Richardson had dubbed him, but this time at least he was no-face down.

Returning from her office, where she’d turned down the music, she said, “We’ve found something I think you’ll find interesting.” She pulled the long hair away from the base of the skull, where she’d shaved a patch to reveal a small blue tattoo. Nine numbers—177126619—a serial number. On the lower back there was also a small scar from an entry wound, probably a .22 calibre; Richardson thought it had been there for years. She was guessing the contents of No-Face’s stomach—beer and a cheeseburger—but would confirm that with further analysis.

“Anything else?” MacNeice asked.

“He had an impressive hood ornament,” Junior said under his breath, and snickered.

“I’m sorry?”

“He was very well endowed, Detective,” Richardson answered, shooting a withering look Junior’s way.

“Right. Anything on Bermuda Shorts?”

“Not yet.”

As he left the building, MacNeice thought about how even brilliantly committed homicides could be undone by equally brilliant twists of fate. No one would think to check under a man’s hair for a hidden tattoo … and that’s when it hit him. The tattoo had likely been put there at a time when it would be visible.
He’s a convict or a soldier—a man living among men with shaved heads
.

Sitting in the Chevy, he took out his phone and punched in a number. “Swetsky, it’s Mac.”

“Whaddya need, brother?”

“Two men. I’ve got a couple of bodies dredged up from the bay.”

Swetsky covered the mouthpiece and yelled at someone. MacNeice pulled the phone away; he disliked the sensation that his right ear was underwater.

“You’ve got Williams. You want Vertesi back too?”

“If possible, yes.”

Swetsky covered the phone again during another short burst of yelling, and then he was back. “No problem. I’ll make do with Palmer and the two DIs from the west end. Truth is, I got so many cops out here it’s hard to get any police work done. I’m more a traffic cop than a detective.”

“I can imagine. It’s a huge case, Swets.”

“We’ll be okay. I’ll send Vertesi back tonight.”

Driving back to Division, MacNeice made two more calls, the first to Wallace to tell him he had reassigned the two DIs, and the second to Bob Maybank, to collect on his promise. He wanted immediate resources to hire a researcher and would let the mayor know when he’d found one. Maybank listened quietly, and when MacNeice had finished his pitch, he said, “Done.”

He had no sooner pulled into the division parking lot than he turned around, put the red cherry on the dash and sped along Main
Street, heading back to the eastern dock. As he entered the worksite, he stowed the cherry under the dash. It was 5:16 p.m., and he could see Ellis walking to his car, briefcase and white helmet in hand. MacNeice pulled up beside him just as he reached his silver Volvo. He cranked down his window.

“Question for you, Ellis.”

“What is it?” He seemed impatient to get going.

“How much concrete will this project use?”

“That’s a big question. The easy answer is, a lot. A lot of concrete.” He opened the door and put his briefcase and helmet on the passenger seat.

“Has the contract been assigned to a local firm?”

“There are several kinds of concrete needed on this project, and three firms won the bids to provide them. For a better idea of how they’re split, you should go see the model in Terence Young’s office. He’ll give you all the details you need.” Ellis told him where to find the architect’s office and got into his car.

The reception room was a symphony of black leather and chrome, with models of buildings on stands like art in a museum. But Young’s office was even more of a statement: dark grey walls, a sleek low desk, black leather sofa, matching armchairs and a wall of glass that overlooked the bay.

“What do you want to know about the project, Detective?” Young asked, leaning against his desk.

“I have a basic knowledge of what this project is, but I need more detail.”

Young went on at length about the new technology that would allow them to lift the ships and transport them in their refrigerated state. He moved to a large grey model of the eastern wharf. “The wharf is 380 yards long, 100 feet wide and 60 feet deep. The building you’re looking at will rise another five storeys above grade for a total
of ten storeys.” The ships would be housed in large tanks of fresh water kept at the same temperature as their current resting place.

“Tell me more about the actual building.”

“Well, as the name suggests, the Museum of the Great Lakes will be an orientation and interpretive history centre that places the War of 1
812
in the larger context of what was happening in the world beyond—Napoleon, Wellington, even Beethoven—to get North Americans to understand that this was much bigger than a regional conflict.” He swung out the end of the model table, which split lengthwise to reveal cutaways on both sides. “It’ll be like Santa’s Village—you go through the development of human life on the lakes, the whole history of the war, and then you arrive at the ships, housed in this huge water tank.” A light came on in the model schooner aquarium, enveloping the ships in ghostly blue-grey. Hundreds of tiny plastic figures lined the glass wall, looking at the ships from three levels. In scale they appeared only yards away from the wrecks.

“Santa’s Village … and Beethoven.”

“Sure, he composed ‘Wellington’s Victory’ in 1813, as the crews on these ships were living and dying.”

While MacNeice did find it fascinating, he had come for another reason. “Tell me about the concrete contracts. I understand there are three firms involved. Was it an open bid?”

“To everyone within fifty miles. The government wanted it to be local for all kinds of reasons, job creation being one, but also environmental. The winning bids went to Mancini Concrete, not far from here, McNamara in Waterdown and ABC Canada–Grimsby.” These companies would supply Smith-Deklin, the subcontractor that had won the bid for pouring. “It’ll take thousands of tons of concrete to complete this project, and the steel company will benefit as well, perhaps even more.”

“By supplying structural steel?”

“That certainly, but also the rebar for the concrete. This will be a major undertaking simply because of the enormous water tank and the robust structure required to maintain its integrity.”

“Who were the losers in the concrete competition?”

“DeLillo, out of Buffalo–Fort Erie. They were scooped by ABC and probably weren’t too happy about it. ABC’s also American; they bought up a failing business in Grimsby in order to bid.”

“Isn’t there an international law against disturbing marine war graves?”

Young smiled and said those issues had disappeared when Ronald Reagan signed into law—and Congress approved—an agreement that Canada could raise the ships. “Once his signature was in place, there was and is no erasing it, even though it’s now decades later.” The President had stipulated that the remains of the crews would be repatriated to either Arlington or Annapolis for burial with full military honours.

MacNeice studied the model, peering into the various floors of exhibits on early North America, the Aboriginal and French halls, the United Empire Loyalists, who had swept through the area to claim land in the wake of America’s Declaration of Independence from Britain. Slab after slab—floors, walls, exterior walls—the place was a marvel of concrete. Even the solar energy panels, curved to capture the sun’s movement across the sky, were mounted on concrete wings.

Later, in his living room, MacNeice poured himself a double grappa and studied the tall, slender bottle of clear liquid against the light. Over the past four years grappa had become his most constant evening companion. Tonight he considered how appropriate that was—a forty-proof salvation wrung from the last dregs of the vine—such pleasure, born of such pain.

T
HEY HAD BEEN
fighting, he couldn’t remember about what, but it was enough of a fight to separate them in a town neither of them knew. It was dark; there was no moon and MacNeice thought he knew the way back. There was something intangible and threatening about the place, and the more MacNeice walked, staying to the middle of the road, the more he felt it. He had lost her but was counting on her sense of direction—besides, there’d be no point in retracing his footsteps, he told himself, since he couldn’t see where he’d been anymore than where he was going. It was strange to be in town without any streetlights.
A blind man sees nothing
, he said to himself.

At a cul-de-sac, MacNeice discovered a dirt path. It was well worn, or so it felt underfoot. Walking slowly along the path, opening his eyes as wide as possible in an attempt to allow more light in, he came to a waist-high wire fence. Beyond it, the ground dropped off vertically to a ledge fifteen or twenty feet below. Beyond that he could see nothing. Looking around for another way
out, he discovered an irregular and very narrow path between a dark brick wall—perhaps it was a building—and the fence. He pushed on the fence and found that it was barely secured by posts in the ground on either side. It was as if someone had been working it loose.

MacNeice knelt down, both to keep his imagination from throwing him over the fence and to collect his thoughts. He could go back, but to what? He’d never felt such a fear of the unknown, as a cop or as a tourist. He tried to steady his breathing and kept looking for some light, some sense of what lay beyond the narrow path.

He remembered hiking with his father when he was ten. They had gone out hunting for grouse. Miles from their cottage, a storm descended on them, and the late October afternoon suddenly became as dark as midnight. His father said, “Use the sky, Mac. Use the sky. Shapes will appear and you won’t be frightened.”

He stared again, trying to find it, but there seemed to be no distinction between the earth and the sky, just the flimsy wire fence and the darkness beyond. He studied the brick wall to see if anything was lurking in the shadows, and that’s when he heard it.

Someone was coming up behind him, running wildly, breathing heavily, as if they’d been running for a long time—away from or towards someone. The sounds grew louder but he still couldn’t see anything. MacNeice stiffened for the impact and waited. He told himself that he’d stand up quickly and start swinging his fists; he told himself he’d have to push back, or the runner’s forward momentum would carry them both over the edge.

He clenched his fists, widened his eyes and was about to throw himself at the runner when he suddenly saw that it was Kate. He let out a yell, but she was on him and past him so fast that she hit the fence and toppled over into the void. The sound of her breathing stopped when she fell.

MacNeice leapt up in time to see her land on her stomach, close to the edge. She was stunned by the fall, and she turned to look at him. But before he could call out, “Don’t move!” she rolled the wrong way and disappeared over the edge without a sound.

MacNeice screamed and tore at the fencing till it came away in his hands.

He awoke in a sweat, breathing heavily in the blackness of his bedroom. Instinctively he reached over to Kate’s side of the bed. Gasping for air, he wept, and couldn’t make out whether it was because of the dream or because she wasn’t there.

When he’d calmed down enough that the dream had faded to being just a dream, he sat in bed wondering what to make of it. It was a mug’s game trying to figure these things out, but still, he wondered.

It was the only dream in which he’d actually seen her, even if only in the moment when she ran past him and fell, and again, briefly, on the ledge before she disappeared. For years, in countless other dreams, he would hunt for her, catch a glimpse of her as she turned a corner—just her leg or her back, perhaps—but when he got there, she would be gone. Or he’d smell her perfume, hear a door shut, see the shiver of the window sheers, just feel her presence, but he’d never actually see her. This one was more terrifying because he could have saved her and didn’t. What’s the only conclusion one could draw from such a dream? He wondered, but in truth he knew the answer—he’d failed her.