by Warren Court
It was close to one AM when he landed. Traffic on the 401 was light. He was cruising along at 160 kilometres an hour when his rear window exploded, sending glass throughout the interior of his Buick. Temple slewed hard left; his tire blew out and he slammed into the guard rail, careened back across three lanes and slammed into the other rail. The passenger-side front fender buckled up, sending a shower of sparks over the hood and windshield. Temple’s airbag inflated in a nanosecond, punching him back into the seat, knocking the wind out of him.
The Buick dug into the guard rail and ran down it for five hundred feet before coming to a stop. Good thing. It could easily have bounced back out into traffic and been T-boned by a convoy of tractor trailers that were coming by.
Temple clawed the airbag back from his face and pushed it off his lap. The last thing he had seen before it had inflated was a black SUV careening past him. And the distinct shape of a rifle barrel pointing out the passenger-side window.
Temple tried his car door; it was crumpled in and the plastic of its panel was all bent and jabbing out at him like knives. He felt something sticky and warm on his neck. He rubbed it and his hand came away bloody. The shoulder of his sport coat was stained a deep purple. He was bleeding. He tried to reach across to the passenger-side door, but was stopped by his seat belt. He tried to use the automatic locks to undo it, but the crumpled door had jammed the mechanism. He couldn’t have gotten out that way anyway; the door was jammed up against the guard rail. It was then that Temple smelled gasoline.
Temple started beating at the shattered window, cutting his hands. Then there were people around him, peering in, talking to him, but he could not hear them. Or maybe he could just not understand them. He was going into shock, he realized. Then red and blue light filled the car and the sound of a fire truck’s siren managed to cut through all the confusion.
A firefighter came up to his door and cleared out what was left of his side window. He looked in but said nothing. Another one with a fire hose started dousing the exposed motor. The hood was all bent up and the stream of water turned to a geyser of steam as it hit the engine.
Temple kept beating at the windshield, but it wouldn’t budge. The firefighter took a crowbar-like implement, poked it in, hooked the broken windshield and pulled it out in one single, spiderwebbed piece. Fresh air flooded the cabin, reviving Temple fully.
“Get me out of here,” he said.
“Working on it, bud,” the firefighter said.
“Get me out through the window.”
“We’ll get the door open. Wait one.”
“I don’t want to burn to death,” Temple said.
“Who does?” the firefighter answered. “Relax. It’s under control. There’s no fire.”
A female firefighter with biceps twice the size of Temple’s appeared. She was carrying the jaws of life, that yellow-painted tool that looked like a huge pair of pliers. She and the first firefighter put the tips of the jaws into the gap of the crushed door. There was winding sound and then crunching and wrenching metal, and slowly the crumpled door pulled away from the car.
When it was sufficiently apart, the jaws were removed. Both firefighters grabbed hold of the twisted door and pushed and manoeuvred it up alongside the front of the car. Temple tried to get his belt undone.
“Just hold on. Stay still,” the woman said. She bent over Temple and, with a small crescent-shaped knife, cut him free. Then the paramedics were there. They manoeuvred Temple carefully onto a stretcher and pulled him away from the car.
A paramedic cut away his sport coat and shirt. There was a deep gash in his shoulder, maybe caused by a bullet, maybe just by some sharp metal or even that jagged plastic. The car was a write off. If there was evidence of a shooting, SIU and forensics were going to have a tough time proving it. Retrieving a spent round from that crumpled mess was going to be difficult.
“My phone,” Temple said.
“Relax,” the paramedic said. Temple recognized him.
“Carlos?”
“Detective Temple—I didn’t even recognize you.”
“I’m not at my best.”
Temple watched the slow parade of rubberneckers file past as he was loaded into the ambulance. Carlos climbed in beside him.
“I’m fine, really.”
“No, you’re not. You have a deep gash here.” Carlos started dressing it as the ambulance pulled away.
Temple spent the rest of the night in emergency. They stitched him up and put some antibiotics into him to stave off infection. They were more worried about brain trauma, but the MRI scan came back negative.
Later that morning, Carlos the paramedic ran down to The Gap and came back with an undershirt and a long-sleeved shirt for him. Temple wanted to pay him but Carlos wouldn’t hear of it. He said he felt bad for cutting Temple’s clothes; least he could do.
Temple was discharged and walked the five blocks back to 40 College, refusing a ride or a taxi. The walk would do him good, he figured; he wanted to clear his head.
His phone was still missing. It had been on one of those magnetic air vent holders and had gone flying when he hit the first guard rail. It had probably gone right out the shattered windows. Hopefully the firefighters would recover it.
When he got to 40 College, he swiped in and went to the locker to retrieve a sport coat. Two of Maranelli’s team were there, Detective Rosetti and a detective constable Temple didn’t really know. Rosetti came over.
“You look like hell, John.”
“I was in an accident on the 401. Totalled my car. Someone sideswiped me.” Temple had contemplated informing TPS that someone had shot at him but decided against it. He had gone over the events, tried to rule out what he’d seen, but could not. Someone had fired at him, trying to either kill him outright or just cause a fatal accident. Either way, Temple wanted payback, and he wanted it his way. An SIU investigation and follow-up by Team Three—technically it would land in their lap—was not what he had in mind.
Rosetti went back to his desk. Temple’s phone rang.
“John, what the hell? You were in an accident?” Wozniak said.
“Yeah, buddy. They took me to the hospital. Just released me. How’d you know I was here?”
“Rosetti called me.”
“I got side swiped on the 401.”
“You’re in the office? Go home.”
“I was so near 40 College, and I have no ride home. My Buick is toast. Can you phone operations, the car yard, and tell them about my car? I’m going to need a new one. I can sign a temporary one out from here, but I’ll need new wheels.”
“More paperwork for me. Great.”
“Blame the guy who sideswiped me.”
Temple got himself a coffee. He was settling down now. The trauma of the car crash was already fading, but the event itself had laser-focused his resolve.
39
Temple slapped himself to keep awake. It was 11 PM and he was parked up the street from the Kalinka Restaurant. A steady stream of people were leaving; the restaurant was closing up. A huge limo came from around the back and a middle-aged man with three of the most gorgeous hookers Temple had ever seen got in.
The restaurant lights were doused and the staff left. The last one to emerge was Stas Kumarin. The burly doorman was by his side. Where Temple had been exhausted, running on fumes, only moments before, now he was surging with adrenaline. He wanted to leave his car, draw his gun and go blast these two men to hell, but self-control got the better of him.
Kumarin and his bodyguard got in a silver Mercedes C43 and set off. Temple waited a moment and then pulled out behind them. He had checked out an unmarked work car from headquarters, a loaner—a Crown Vic painted dark blue. It was an old repurposed scout car. The mount for the MDT and the rack for the twelve-gauge were still attached to the lower part of the dash, and the seats were covered in that heavy-duty vinyl. He hoped his new ride wouldn’t be spotted by the wary Russian mobster, but he still kept well behind his quarry.
<
br /> The Mercedes took Temple down past the CN Tower and the Rogers Centre, where the Blue Jays played. It used to be called the SkyDome. Temple still called it that.
They arrived at a house in Leslieville. Temple had been cautious; the drive here might have been some very clever counter-surveillance, he knew. The bodyguard might be ex-KGB or whatever the current Russian secret service was called. When Temple saw that Kumarin had arrived at his destination, he was able to pull into an empty driveway, a rare commodity in this part of town. It gave him an excellent vantage point.
Temple saw the bodyguard do his final duty of the night and get his boss safely tucked into a rather modest two-story home. He had seen that before—a powerful, rich gangster trying to live a normal life in the quiet streets of Toronto. Nothing flashy except the car; that was something they could never lay off of. The bodyguard came out and drove away. Temple resumed the tail.
The bodyguard took Temple back up onto the DVP and north of the city into a newer development. Temple waited until they were on a quiet side street, and then put on the work car’s blue and reds and pulled the big Russian over.
Temple let the bodyguard sit there in his car and stew for thirty seconds before getting out. He approached slowly, driver’s side, his gun clearly visible. He had gone to and from the airport unarmed, partly because he had followed Markinson’s instructions not to bring a weapon on the plane and partly because he hadn’t wanted to leave his gun in the trunk of his Buick. He would not be unarmed again.
The bodyguard had his window down, his licence in his hand. He looked out at Temple, then saw the gun and shrank back a bit.
“Relax. Get out,” Temple said.
Temple took the driver’s licence and put it in his pocket. The burly Russian struggled to get out; the Mercedes was a low-slung affair. Temple backed up. They were in front of a convenience store and a row of houses. Temple had switched the strobes off but left his headlights on. He motioned for the big man to turn around and came up behind him.
The Russian was wearing a tight, black collared shirt and jacket. It bulged on one side, and Temple stepped in quick and retrieved a pistol; a Russian Makarov 380, naturally.
“You got a permit for this, Boris?”
“Yes, I do,” the man said. “And my name is Mishnikov, not Boris.”
“Like I give a shit. Get it out, nice and slow.”
Mishnikov extracted the pistol and Temple stuck it in his pocket.
“Show me your permit,” Temple said.
Mishnikov took his wallet out and handed the permit over.
“It is valid. Licence to carry concealed weapon.”
“Very rare,” Temple said. He only glanced at it, not wanting to take his eyes off Mishnikov to validate its authenticity. It was on laminated paper, and Temple did a quick two-step over to a sewer drain and dropped it down.
“It ain’t valid now.”
The bodyguard smirked and shook his head.
Temple moved fast behind Mishnikov and put a pair of cuffs on his fat wrists. He put pressure on one side of the cuffs to force the Russian down to his knees. The big man grunted in pain as the metal bracelets cut into him. Temple kept pressing on the man’s wrist until the bodyguard was lying prone on the ground and put his gun to his head.
“Boris. Where were you last night?”
“At the Blue Jays game with my employer. We have box.”
“Bullshit, you were on the 401. You took a shot at me.”
“No, I did not do that.”
“You sound like you know who did.”
Mishnikov was silent.
“I want the name of your comrade who took a shot at me last night.”
“I do not know.”
Temple pressed Mishnikov’s wrist joint harder still and the man yelped. A light came on in a window. Temple’s time was running out.
“In thirty seconds, you’re going to die from a gunshot. You’ll have drawn on me and I defended myself. I’ll get a medal. You’ll get a grave marker. Give me a name.”
“Tsanarin,” Mishnikov said. “Viktor Tsanarin.”
“Where does he live?”
“In Etobicoke.“
“Was he involved in the Beautiful City massacre?” Mishnikov was silent. “Answer the question.”
“Yes.”
“Why did they shoot that place up?”
“As favour. They are guns for hire.”
“Favour to whom?” Mishnikov was silent again. “I said, a favour to whom?”
“I cannot say. I don’t know him.”
“Was your boss involved?”
“No, he thought it was stupid. The men who did the shooting, they are amateurs. They want to move up. Did it on their own.”
“Your boss took care of the one who got shot?”
Mishnikov tried to nod but his face was pressed to the cement.
Temple spelled out the name of the second shooter to make sure he got it; these Russian names were so hard. He let up on the pressure a bit and then put it on again, and the man yelped. Temple hit Mishnikov lightly on the back of the head with the butt of his gun, knocking him out. The window above him opened and Temple took out his badge.
“I’m a police officer. Call 911. Tell them an officer needs assistance. Do it now.”
40
Mishnikov was coming around when the scout car showed up. Neighbours were coming out now; more were poking their heads out from windows. Temple oversaw the uniforms while they hauled the Russian to his feet and stuffed him into the back of their car.
“This is bullshit,” Mishnikov said as his head was pushed into the car. “I have permit.”
“You weren’t carrying it,” Temple said.
“He put down sewer.”
Temple said, “Bundle him away, boys. Carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. I’ll fill in the paperwork later.” Temple got back in his car and called 40 College. The front desk put him through to operations and he got the address for Tsanarin from them.
It was coming up on dawn when Temple got to Tsanarin’s apartment. It was a small block, just four units and surrounded by others just like it. The charge on Mishnikov would only last a few more hours before Stas Kumarin’s lawyer could free him and alert Tsanarin. Temple had to strike now. There would be time to take of Mishnikov’s employer later. They could do him for disposing of the body along the tracks.
Temple got out and made his way to the front door. it was locked. There were three buttons with names next to them; none of them was Tsanarin’s. The fourth button was unmarked. Temple was about to try it when he saw some shadows moving in the corridor behind the front door. He stood back and waited. A stooped older man dressed in city workers’ overalls came out the door. He was taken aback to see Temple standing there.
“A big Russian live here?” Temple said, and flashed him his tin.
“Top floor,” the man said.
“Okay. Thanks.” Temple didn’t wait for the man to protest. He grabbed the door and went inside as the worker was leaving.
He climbed the stairs slowly to avoid making squeaks. The apartment building was old and the stairwell smelled like burned grease and cigarettes.
He reached the top apartment and tried the handle. It was locked, but the frame was weak; he could see cracks in the wood. He put his shoulder against it and pressed hard. The door broke inward with a crack, and Temple saw a large man in his underwear and a shitty little bathrobe sprawled on the kitchen floor of the small apartment. There was a huge hole in his head and a large pool of blood under it.
Temple rested his head against the broken door frame and let out a sigh. Then he snapped out of it and quickly swept the apartment, trying his best not to contaminate the murder scene.
When he was convinced the killer was long gone, he used the man’s land line to call Maranelli. It took twenty minutes before the cars started arriving.
41
Uniformed officers were the first on scene and they secured it. Temple went outside to
wait for Team Three. Rosetti arrived first. Despite Temple’s involvement, this was on Team Three’s watch; it was their case. Temple explained to Rosetti that he had been following a lead in the Beautiful City restaurant case. A confidential informant had told him that one of the shooters, a guy named Tsanarin, lived here. Although he hadn’t checked the dead man for ID, to avoid contaminating the scene, he was reasonably sure that it was Viktor Tsanarin up there.
When Rosetti asked him about the broken door, Temple said he’d found it that way. That answer was accepted, but Temple knew it could come into question when they questioned the city worker whom Temple had met coming out of the building. Had that man stuck around long enough to hear Temple breaking his way into the apartment?
Temple was cut loose from the scene just as the sun was coming up. He went home and crashed on his couch, leaving his pistol lying on the coffee table. He turned on Netflix and went to the new offerings. He had no intention of watching anything; it was just for background noise, helped him sleep. First thing he saw in the list of new releases was the Ken Burns documentary on Vietnam. He turned it on. Instead of going to sleep, he spent the rest of the morning watching it, aided by strong coffee.
He phoned Mendoza around noon. Mendoza yawned as he answered; must have been a late night.
“I’ve been thinking about this Beautiful City thing.”
“John—I heard you were in an accident.”
“If you heard, why didn’t you call me?”
“I did. You never check your phone.”
“I lost it.”
“Oh.”
“I was on the way back from the airport.”
“Who did you take to the airport?”
“Myself. I flew down to Washington, DC and met with the general, the one Kiet Du called just before he was killed.”
