by Scott Mackay
They waited for an hour, then waited some more. Gilbert wondered how his knees would behave tonight. As he listened to the sound of the rain against the car roof he felt oddly detached from the prospective takedowns, was so familiar with the process, had done so many takedowns, not only as a detective but as a patrolman, he couldn’t get worked up about it, simply viewed it as a normal part of everyday life, part of his job.
At ten-thirty, Joe went to get a couple of coffees. Gilbert was left alone in the car. Alone with his thoughts. He stared at the old building. Converted into a boardinghouse now. He wondered if the arrest of Tony Mok would make a difference to anybody whatsoever. Lombardo came back with the coffee fifteen minutes later. Gilbert was about halfway through his coffee when someone turned the corner.
“Is that him?” he asked. He put his coffee in the dashboard cup holder. “Joe, I think that’s him.”
A short Chinese man walked down Boulton Street, hands in the pockets of his Harley-Davidson bomber jacket, shoulders huge, legs slight and wiry. He wore black denims and running shoes. Lombardo took the identification photograph, a mug shot from a previous arrest, off the dashboard and had a look.
“That’s him,” he said.
As Mok passed the Que Ling Seafood Restaurant, he glanced in their direction, then looked away.
“We’ve been made,” said Gilbert. Gilbert lifted the radio and immediately called backup. “He’s not going to wait for the uniforms to get here. He’s going to go upstairs. He’s going to get whatever he can and then he’s going to bolt. We’re going to have to do this now, Joe, and hope the uniforms get here fast.” They watched Tony Mok enter the building. “Looks like I’ll have to break that glass,” he said. “Let’s go. You guard the back entrance. I’ll go in and take him down.”
Lombardo glanced skeptically at Gilbert. “You know what?” he said. “I think we should do it the other way around.”
“Why?” said Gilbert. “We’ve both got flak jackets.”
“I know,” said Lombardo. “But he’s twenty-three, and you’re forty-nine, and I think I might have the lungs and the moves to handle him better.” Lombardo smiled uncomfortably. “No offense.”
Joe had a point. Forty-nine. Like an old jet with metal fatigue. “Okay,” he said. Still young enough to fool himself into thinking he could beat someone like Tony Mok. “I’ll give it a minute or two at the side entrance, then I’ll come in after you.” But wise enough to realize he couldn’t trust his body to perform like it once had. “Let’s go.”
Both men got out of the car and drew their guns. They hurried across the rain-soaked street. Gilbert walked down the alley and stationed himself by the rear fire doors. Would have to shoot the lock off, if it came to that. Wise enough to understand that though he might feel well at the moment, his cardiovascular ice was getting thinner every year and he had to watch himself. He had to tread carefully, had to open the door a little wider for the unwelcome guest of his own mortality. He had to remind himself that his father had died of a heart attack one cold morning at the age of sixty-four while starting his bus in the transit barns on Coxwell Avenue five months before his retirement. Spray-painted graffiti covered this side of the building. Five discarded tires sat stacked across the way. Rear-echelon now, in these kind of takedowns, despite all the swimming. He heard the tinkle of glass out front—Joe smashing the glass in the door to get inside. Gilbert pointed his gun skyward, elbow bent, and pressed his back against the wall, hiding himself in the shadows. The smell of fish drifted up the alley. The swimming could only retard his slow decline. Far in the distance he heard the sound of police sirens approaching. If they could only restrain Mok until the uniforms got here.
He heard thumping on the stairs from inside, footsteps, somebody racing down the steps, and he knew that Mok, right on cue, was making a break for it, behaving the way all Gilbert’s other fugitive suspects had behaved, true to type, running, fleeing, in a mad panic to get away. The fire-exit door burst open and Tony Mok came out with the energy of a runaway train.
Gilbert grabbed him by the shoulders and immediately felt the man’s bristling strength. “Stop! Police!” he commanded.
Mok clutched his hands together, brought both arms up in between Gilbert’s, and, in a martial arts move, broke Gilbert’s grip by pulling his own arms apart. Then he darted away with such speed, Gilbert knew he had little chance of catching him. But he tried anyway, struggled to convince his body one more time that he was really a young man, told himself that swimming three nights a week really did make a difference.
He chased Mok down the alley past all the garbage, his black wing tips slipping on the slick pavement. He forced his lungs into a rhythm. To his right rose the backs of shops; to his left, over fences and garages, dark backyards lay soaking in the rain. Tony Mok ran like a black streak ahead of him, the Harley-Davidson logo with the catch phrase More Than A Machine jumping into relief on his jacket as he passed a streetlight. The sirens got closer. Gilbert saw headlights swing into the other end of the alley, his backup, cutting off Mok’s retreat. Gilbert kept running, despite his weakening knees. Tony Mok searched for a way to escape, spotted a small warehouse to his left, and ran for it.
“Stop!” Gilbert shouted again. “Police!”
Security bars crisscrossed the warehouse windows. With the agility of an acrobat, Mok leaped to the nearest security bar, climbed the succeeding ones like the rungs of a ladder, pulled himself up onto a junction box, and struggled from the junction box to the roof. Gilbert stopped, awed by the display, immediately knew he was dealing with a different caliber of fugitive, that their takedown might not succeed after all. Mok darted over the roof and disappeared into the dark.
Gilbert ran the rest of the way to the warehouse, pulled himself onto the security bars, climbed them to the top, grabbed the junction box, but simply didn’t have the strength in his arms or upper body to pull himself up, couldn’t make the awkward maneuver to the roof. He eased himself back to the pavement. The radio car skidded to a halt in front of him and the uniforms got out.
“He went over the roof,” he called. “Can one of you climb that?”
“I’ll go,” said the younger of the two. Gilbert glanced at the older patrolman, a man of about fifty. Something passed between them, an acknowledgement that they were both losing the fight, that they now had to step aside to let the younger men do their work.
The young patrolman scaled the security bars on the windows to the junction box and pulled himself up onto the roof. Whereas Mok had made it look easy, even this young patrolman had difficulty, possessed none of the simian strength Mok possessed. Mok was a force, a phenomenon, and Gilbert regretted not having gathered more intelligence on the man’s ability before attempting to arrest him.
Gilbert turned to the older constable. “Let’s get in the car and go around to First Avenue,” he said.
They got into the radio car and sped down the alley. They turned south on Boulton, then right on First Avenue, heading against one-way traffic. The officer punched on the siren so oncoming traffic would get out of their way. They sped past the Toronto Alliance Chinese Church, the tires making a ripping sound as they rolled over the wet pavement. Gilbert wondered if Lombardo had been hurt. It took less than a minute to get to the other end of the street, but even so, Mok had vanished. Gilbert scanned the front yards, guessed the one Mok might have escaped through, squinted, and saw the young officer lying on the ground up ahead, down but not dead. Gilbert lifted his arm and pointed.
“There,” he said. “On the front lawn. Your man is down.”
The older officer bounced the car up onto the curb and came to a quick stop. He snatched up the radio. “Ten-three-five to Dispatch. We have an officer down, repeat, an officer down at First Avenue and Broadview. Dispatch, do you copy?”
Gilbert left the older officer to the radio work and got out to help the young one. He found the whole thing galling, especially because Mok knew they were after him now. The young officer
groaned, shifted. As Gilbert got closer to him, he saw blood all over the poor guy’s face. Gilbert knelt beside him. Galling, yes, but there was also a bright side. If nothing else, the whole frustrating episode helped confirm Mok’s guilt in the murder of Edgar Lau. Why else would he run?
“He took my gun,” said the officer, who looked as galled as Gilbert felt. “I don’t know how he did it, but he took my gun. He came out from that bush at me, all hands and feet.” He waved groggily toward a huge cedar bush. “A real kung-fu guy. I was down before I could draw my weapon.” He pushed himself into a sitting position and touched the big gash at the corner of his eyebrow, then pulled his fingers away and looked at the blood. “He kicked my feet right out from under me. I went down hard. Can you imagine? A small guy like that doing that to a big guy like me.” The officer tried to catch his breath. The rain made the blood run in diluted rivulets down his cheek. “I should have had him pinned. I should have had him cuffed by now.”
“You did your best,” said Gilbert. He looked down the street, his eyes roving quickly from pedestrian to pedestrian, hoping to see Mok. “Did you see where he went?”
The young constable bent his elbow carefully a few times. “He went that way, toward Broadview. Maybe some of those guys at the Salvation Army saw him.”
Gilbert got to his feet and looked up and down the street. Mok had to be an extremely able street fighter to subdue such a large and youthful constable. Garbage cans and blue boxes lined the curb. Discarded Christmas trees, sparkling feebly with bits of tinsel, sat on the sidewalk ready to be collected. He sniffed the air. Cat piss. He saw a couple of toms squaring off under the bumper of an Oldsmobile across the street. His shoulders eased, his knees started to ache, and he knew he had to let this one go. He saw a small Chinese boy staring out a window at him. He had to admit, reluctantly, that Tony Mok, at least in this first encounter, had eluded him.
“Barry!” a voice called.
He turned. Lombardo limped toward him from the direction of the Toronto Alliance Chinese Church. In the flashing of the police-car light, Lombardo squinted, as if there were something wrong with his eyes. Gilbert hurried toward his partner.
“What happened?” he called.
The two men met up. “He threw something in my face, vinegar or something,” said Lombardo, “then whacked me over the head with a chair. This guy’s fast, Barry. I was out cold for a minute or two. I’ve never seen anybody move so fast.”
“But you’re okay?” asked Gilbert.
“I got his gun,” said Lombardo.
Gilbert felt his pulse quicken. “You did?”
“I found it in a dresser drawer,” said Lombardo. Lombardo pulled a revolver from his pocket. “I guess I spooked him before he could get it. A Colt Diamondback thirty-eight.”
“A thirty-eight?” said Gilbert. “That’s great, Joe.”
“And not only that, look at this.” Lombardo pulled a plastic Ziploc freezer bag from his coat pocket. “There’s got to be at least six hundred caps of horse in here. The guy must be a major heroin dealer around here.”
Gilbert and Lombardo got back to College Street Headquarters around ten o’clock that night. Policy dictated that Lombardo go to Occupational Health immediately to have his injuries assessed.
While Joe was downstairs having the nurse practitioner look him over, Rosalyn Surrey telephoned Gilbert. He was surprised to get a call from her so late.
“Garth’s here,” she whispered, her voice tense and scared. “He’s come back. He’s here right now. He’s on the couch, drunk and asleep. Can you come over? He’s insisting he killed Edgar. I don’t want to be alone with him.”
So Gilbert went over to Rosalyn Surrey’s house on Palmerston Avenue. But before he went, he phoned Occupational Health and talked to Lombardo.
“Can you come with me?” he asked.
“No,” said Lombardo. “They want to keep me here for at least an hour. I shouldn’t have told them I was out cold. They’ve got to observe me now.” Lombardo said this as if he thought it was a big waste of time.
“Okay,” said Gilbert. “I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Barry?”
“What?”
“Be careful,” said Lombardo. “We don’t want two of us down here.”
Rosalyn opened the door quietly for him when he finally got to Palmerston Avenue, and put her index finger to her lips, urging him to be quiet. The rain had stopped, at least for now, and a distinct chill had settled into the air. Rosalyn wore a double-knit skirt and blazer, looked as if she had just come home from work despite the late hour. Gilbert took off his coat and rubber overshoes and followed her into the living room.
A large man lay on the couch. His jeans and denim shirt were filthy. He lay facing away from Gilbert, snoring quietly. Despite a profusion of long, ringleted brown hair, Surrey had a bald spot on the top of his head. Gilbert smelled alcohol fumes rising from the man.
“I guess you better wake him,” said Gilbert. “He won’t try anything, will he? We’ve already had a bit of a fight tonight.”
“I’ve never seen him hurt anybody,” she said.
“Okay,” he said. “Go ahead. Wake him up.”
She walked to the couch and shook Surrey’s shoulder. “Garth?” she called. “Garth, wake up. There’s someone here to see you.”
Surrey groaned, turned, opened his eyes, and looked at Gilbert through tiny round glasses. Glasses just like the ones Dock Wen had described. “Who are you?” he asked, in a rough dry voice.
Gilbert pulled out his shield and ID. “I’m Detective-Sergeant Barry Gilbert of Metro Homicide, and I’m here to ask you some questions about the murder of Edgar Lau.”
Surrey turned to his wife. “You called a cop on me?” he asked.
Rosalyn looked at her husband with distant distress, the corners of her lips turning downward, her eyes dull with helpless pity, her hands unconsciously coming together in a gesture of nervous tension.
“I had to, Garth,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I had to. The minute you came in the door, you told me you killed Edgar. What was I supposed to do?”
Surrey, an affable-looking man with intelligent eyes, gazed at his wife in dim wonder. A man who knew how to live, as Rosalyn had described him. A man with a special energy. But Gilbert now saw the energy was gone. Surrey looked like a hitchhiker who, having been dropped at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, was now lost.
“I only told you that to scare you,” he said. As if this were a logical and appropriate course of action, something anyone would have done. “I wanted to make you understand how much I loved you.” His voice sounded windless, defeated.
Gilbert glanced at Rosalyn. He saw she was at a loss. She gazed at her husband as if she suspected he might be a figment of her imagination. Here was a man who had entombed himself in alcohol and self-pity, who had lost his judgment, and who couldn’t figure out that scaring someone and loving someone were two entirely different things.
“Mr. Surrey, we have an eyewitness who puts you at the scene of the crime on the night Edgar Lau was murdered,” said Gilbert. “And that doesn’t look good.” He tried to be kind. To serve and protect. Surrey looked so…so shell-shocked. “I wish you could explain that to me.”
Surrey struggled to rally himself. Maybe he realized he had reached a crucial watershed in his life. But his reply was nearly flippant.
“And if I tell you I was there, you’ll lock me up and throw away the key?” he said, as if he found the whole situation darkly humorous; he’d lost his wife, his livelihood, his dignity; wouldn’t it now be hilarious if Gilbert locked him up?
“I just want to know what happened,” said Gilbert.
Surrey raised his eyebrows. He looked like a stranger in this immaculate living room. Dirty, his black jeans covered with mud, the alcohol fumes rising from his pores like methane from a swamp, Surrey looked as if he didn’t belong here. As if he were an outcast here, in this clean room. This was Rosalyn’s living
room, not his.
“I hardly know what happened,” he said. “I can barely remember it.” He lifted his hand to his head and rubbed his right temple. “But somehow I found myself sitting in a restaurant with Edgar on the night he was murdered.”
Gilbert and Rosalyn looked at each other. A stillness came to Rosalyn. Gilbert wondered what Rosalyn and Surrey must have been like in the sunshine years of their courtship, before Surrey had forced her to live in the shade all the time. He couldn’t make the stretch. Rosalyn and Surrey were in the same room but they might as well be galaxies apart.
“Do you remember which restaurant?” asked Gilbert.
Surrey squinted, his large sensitive brown eyes narrowing as he tried to dredge up from his alcohol-addled memory any remnants of his evening with Edgar. “Down around College and Dovercourt,” he finally offered. “A Portuguese place. Had Portuguese plates on the walls, and a lot of rooster pictures. I remember being really mad that day. And…and upset. I was sitting here…” He motioned toward the bone-white baby grand. “Playing the piano…playing some old songs I wrote years ago, working my way through a bottle of wine, and I just…I just wanted to fix things…” He shook his head. “I don’t actually remember getting up from the piano or making the phone call to Edgar, but I guess I must have. The next thing I knew I was walking down the street to meet him.” He pressed two fingers to a leather coaster on the table, long dexterous fingers, piano-player fingers, and moved the coaster a few inches along the beechwood finish. “I got soaked. I was drenched by the time I got to the restaurant. It was raining so hard that night.”
“So you phoned Edgar because you wanted to talk to him about Rosalyn?” asked Gilbert, wanting to get it right.
Surrey looked at his wife, ignoring Gilbert’s question for the moment. Rosalyn’s eyes were like green ice. Ouch, thought Gilbert. To see such coldness in the eyes of the woman you loved. Surrey turned glumly his way.
