Outside it was a beautifully warm fall day. The kind Claire’s aunt would have called an Indian summer, which would have resulted in Claire’s cousin giving her a lecture on political correctness. This would have resulted in a fight of some seriousness which I would have probably had to break up. Which would have meant someone would have called me a thieving so-and-so.
Sometimes I’m glad Claire and I don’t live in the same city as her family.
Outside the library, on the sidewalk, I decided to burglarize Ultra Realty. That meant I’d need tools. I walked a few blocks to a small store that specialized in selling cheap junk at low prices; there a pinch-faced young Asian man greeted me with bustling cheer.
“Can I help you?”
“I’ll just look around.”
“Sure! Ask if you need anything.”
For a moment I felt nostalgic and thought about going back to my favourite independent hardware store on Main where the owner hated me. I kept trying to make friends with him and it wasn’t working. He couldn’t forgive me for being an ex-con. A few months before he’d gone along with a Winnipeg detective named Walsh to try to force me out of town. After the dust had settled the cop had retired under psychiatric care and I was still coming into the hardware store whenever I could. And the old man kept snapping at me.
But this guy was worse, he was too damn happy.
Burglary requires thought and consideration and planning, all of which I was avoiding. Instead I picked up a couple of metres of different gauges of wire, some cheap screwdrivers, and a roll of wide, clear tape. Then a roll of paper towel, some lightweight canvas gloves, a glass cutter and a little pry bar forty-five centimetres long. When I went to pay, the owner kept smiling at me over the cash register. “Thank you for shopping!”
I nodded and he went on, “And have a nice day!”
It was barely 3:00 so I found a coffee shop to drink good coffee and wait. I figured the office of Ultra Realty probably closed at 5:00 or 5:30, so I’d wait until 6:00, early enough for people to be on the street so my presence wouldn’t be as noticeable, because burglary is a profession best practised in peace and quiet.
#12
The office was west of downtown past the University of Winnipeg in a pretty battered neighbourhood. It was a region full of gangsters and hookers, drugged-out stoners and sniffers, determined panhandlers, stunned teenagers, and endemic poverty. And dozens of cops, walking in pairs down the sidewalks, driving in singletons in Crown Victorias, fingering their belts, saying please and thank you as long as the citizens were watching.
A blue blanket, thick and comforting.
Ultra Realty’s office was on a tree-lined street, an older house turned into an office suite. I walked past it and saw the lights were out before heading down the alley behind it and checking that side out. There was a chain-link fence and a partially covered porch and small steel shed near the back of the house, not quite touching the wall. No dog that I could see and no piss marks on the lawn, which meant I was probably safe.
Without pausing I walked through the gate towards the shed, ducked down between it and the house, and pulled on a pair of gloves. There was a small window so I took out the tape and glass cutter and went to work. Within seconds I had the tape over most of the window, leaving a big loop for a handle, and had scored around the outer edges with the cutter. Although there was a prominent security company sign promising instant alarm response on the front lawn and in the back window, there were no sensor wires on the window in front of me.
I wondered if that was an error or an omission.
With the glass on the grass beside me I took a deep breath and slid face first through into a dark basement. Standing on my tiptoes, I reached back and picked up the glass, held it by the tape loop, and put it back into the frame. Then I taped the glass back into place. My handiwork would be easily visible at close range but no one would probably notice from one or two metres away.
I went exploring. Fortunately there was enough light outside that I neither had to turn on the overheads nor use my flashlight. Because nothing attracts cops and nosy neighbours faster than lights suddenly going on in a supposedly empty business, except perhaps a flashlight beam bobbing along in a supposedly empty business.
Overall I gave the owners a grade of B for design and decor. Basement with an old furnace and water heater, walls stacked with file boxes, Rubbermaid tubs of smoke alarms and dead bolts, and a fairly complete set of decent quality hand tools in a kit under the stairs. The first floor had two offices, each with a desk and a couple of comfortable chairs, and a combo kitchen/dining room turned into a big meeting room with multiple coffee pots. The second floor had been turned into a single large room with many phones, assorted computers and towers, printers, fax machines, work tables, and a whole wall of filing cabinets. On top of the work table, under a lamp, was a metal cash box which rattled pleasantly, but I left it alone with just a little twitch of my larcenous soul.
First things first. I plugged in a big brand-name photocopier and let it warm up. Then I stood there and thought about the place. The purpose of any space defines its design, and this business rented houses. The offices downstairs were probably used by the realtors meeting with clients, so they had a casual and relaxed feel to them. The big meeting room was for the staff to have lunch and build morale and the upstairs was where the work was done, records were kept, properties tracked, and bad renters dunned.
I went to the filing cabinets and started at the one prominently labelled A. Ever wonder how a rental company organizes properties? They could do it by the street name of the property, which would be reasonable. Or they could do it by the owner of the property, which would make no sense because you’d have to know which property was owned by which owner. Of course, Ultra Realty did it by the owner, so it took me two hours to find the address I wanted. I also found one bottom filing drawer that was locked, which piqued my curiosity.
I stood there and read the files; the drug house belonged to a Mr. Jarrod Jarelski who lived in a house in the medium-rich River Heights district. He owned eleven other rental properties managed by Ultra. His wife, named Tho, also had chequesigning privileges and other executive powers. I photocopied their contact information and put the papers back before returning to the file.
On the last page there were handwritten notes. Someone had written “Mr. J wants this property rented ASAP. Will take $300.00/per. Maybe less.” ASAP had been underlined twice. On another page the Jarelskis had waived the references normally required, which allowed Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy to rent the house. Their deposit had been $1000 cash, rental was paid in cash, dropped off on the first of each month by Mrs. Abernathy, and the contact numbers were cell phones, which raised warning flags. Most citizens have land lines AND cell phones but most bad guys ONLY have cell phones. Even a monkey can buy a cell phone, but a land line means a credit check.
When my two copied sheets were tucked away in my pockets, I unplugged the photocopier and went back to the locked cabinet. By locked, I mean seriously locked, with a steel Mastercraft padlock on a heavy-duty steel assembly spot welded onto the front frame of the cabinet.
A little voice inside me started to chirp about temptation and ego and challenge and I ignored it for a good ten seconds and then I gave in.
Curiosity plus ego plus a challenge is a nasty combination.
I studied the cabinet for two minutes and then pulled out the drawer above the locked one, but no luck; it was a model that wouldn’t slide the drawer all the way out. No problem; I reached behind and walked the whole unit out into the middle of the room so I could see the back, which was cheap steel held in place by welded and folded edges.
I went to the basement and, after a brief search, picked up a hammer and flat-edged screwdriver. Upstairs, I went to the back of the file cabinet, sat down on the floor, and slipped the blade of the screwdriver into the welded edge at the bottom of the drawer. Then I covered the butt of the screwdriver with a rag before hitting it with the hammer, which made th
e weld open a little, enough for the fine edge of the pry to go in. Then I moved the screwdriver up and did it again and again and within a few minutes I had opened up a fold in the metal thirty centimetres square. Then I simply reached into the locked drawer.
Feeling around in the dark I felt familiar metal and leather. I pulled the gun out, put it on the carpet in front of me, and exhaled softly. There was dim twilight in the room brought by the street lights outside and the occasional parasitic light thrown up by cars cruising down the street, light that made the gun glow softly once out of its plain brown holster. It was an old piece, almost an antique, but in great condition, a Polish semi-automatic Radom pistol from before the Second World War. I looked it over and saw the five-digit serial number on the side along with the Polish imperial eagle stamp. It took 9-mm parabellum rounds and there was a loaded magazine in the gun and a second magazine in a pouch built into the holster along with a cleaning rod.
I had used a Radom before and had liked it, a good, reliable weapon, accurate as any other pistol I’d ever used. I left it alone and kept feeling around the drawer and found a plastic coin purse holding eleven more rounds and a hard canvas money belt with no money in it. It was empty. There was also a manila envelope with pictures of people, men, women, even children. On the back were dates and names and addresses. Bad renters’ maybe?
Which meant what? The realtors carried the gun and the money belt when they went to pick up rent? Possibly. Very illegal and very American big city indeed. I couldn’t even imagine the series of licences and rules you’d have to jump through in order to carry a concealed, loaded firearm. The federal government would be involved with their lame-duck gun registry. The provincial government would be involved, somehow, somewhere. And lastly, city hall and the cops both would be there like… I couldn’t come up with a simile. I put everything back into the drawer, pushed the edges back into place (sort of) and then pushed the unit back against the wall.
I started to think of the realtor as being at least semi-bent and then I fixed the gun in my memory in case I ever needed a cold piece with no links to me at all. Not that I’d ever need a gun again, but you never know.
When the screwdriver and hammer were back in place in the basement, I went to the rear door and peered out from the bottom to check if anyone was outside. Unfortunately, four guys in business suits were taking down a guy in track pants and expensive shoes just outside the chain fence and I had to wait until they’d tackled him, handcuffed him, wrestled him into the plastic back seat of their unmarked car (always identifiable by the lack of whitewall tires), and driven off. Since the guys in the business suits were white, except for one Asian, and the guy in the track suit had been black, I figured the whole scene was cops taking someone down.
When everyone was gone I opened the door, ignored the alarm system by the door that started to beep, and walked, never running, down towards the alley. Behind me I knew what was happening; the alarm would wait for thirty seconds for someone to punch in an override. Then the alarm would send a message to the alarm company, which would phone Ultra Realty’s owner, who would decide that the alarm company, should respond. So they would phone the cops or security company who would send a patrol car down to look around.
But that would take time. And I was soon on a bus heading back home, ten blocks away and still moving. They’d check the place out from the outside, back door first; probably not even notice the window. Then they’d wait for the owner to show and they’d look around together.
And then they’d probably decide that the last person leaving hadn’t locked the door.
Back at home Marie had left a message that said simply, “Problems, come quickly.”
#13
Marie’s message had sounded urgent so I went into overdrive, only taking time to look for the bayonet. I’d purchased it years before, a ninety-year-old wooden-handled Mauser bayonet with a thirty-centimetre blade that held edges perfectly and featured a blood groove down the centre. I’d intended for Claire to use it for self/home defence originally, but these days we mostly used it for cutting roasts; the rest of the time it stayed under the pillow in our bedroom. Finally I asked Claire, “Where’s the bayonet?”
She looked at me coolly and started to rummage through kitchen drawers. “Problems?”
“Yeah.”
She pulled the bayonet out of a drawer and drew the blade out of its metal sheath to show it to me. “We’re having chicken tomorrow so I sharpened it. Be careful.”
Claire’s dad was a butcher and she had grown up sharpening knives and cleavers for him, so I took her at her word and took off my shirt. She helped me tape the sheath to my chest under my shirt with the handle pointing down. Then she repeated, “Be careful.”
“I will.”
“I’m not worried about you but I really like the knife.”
I kissed her and left.
In front of Marie’s house was a tricked-out black van and, sitting in the driver’s seat, a fat kid reading a comic book. He didn’t even notice me as I cut around behind the van and checked the licence plate. I was looking for any sign that the plate had been altered or replaced but there was nothing. No fresh screw marks, no clean spots, nothing, so I memorized the number and kept on walking.
Marie met me on the sidewalk with a smile that had drawn her skin tight and dry across her face.
“We have a problem.” She licked her lips. “Inside. Her name is Samantha. Greg talked.”
It made me pause and remember advice from long ago about how to deal with problems permanently the first time. I ignored it and went inside, where I found a strange tableau in the living room; three people I’d never seen before, two men and a woman standing in the farthest corner talking to each other while in the middle of the room Eloise was making ahwah.
“Seamus Fantomas?”
It was the woman, her voice calm and relaxed, and I looked her over carefully. She was Caucasian with light brown hair, in her early or mid thirties with a thin mouth. She had a blood-red bandanna wrapped around her head and was wearing expensive blue jeans and a black silk shirt with a white bull’s-eye over her left nipple. She was also wearing a short black leather motorcycle jacket and a pair of fine-grained cowboy boots with chiselled silver tips on the toes.
Compared to her the two men with her weren’t very impressive. One was in his early twenties, thin of build with long black hair and bright blue eyes. The other was in his late twenties, short and stocky with a face covered in scars under a shock of red hair. Both wore dark blue track suits, expensive runners and short black leather jackets that were opened up to the neck. Their hands were open and loose at their sides.
I answered the woman, “That’s me.”
She smiled a thin-lipped smile and walked towards me. When she was close she looked me over from my toes to the top of my head.
“You don’t look so tough.”
“Eat me and find out.”
I said it blandly and the big, thin guy tensed up behind the woman. She shook her head and said, “I’m Sam. You chased one of my best customers right out of the fucking province.”
“I chased who where?”
“A customer. His name was Greg. You stuck a hatchet in his leg and threatened to gouge his eye out. I had some associates catch up with him in Toronto. You did a good job; he was still heading east. Asked my boys where France was.”
She reached into the pocket of her jacket and came out with small tape recorder, one of those that record directly into a hard drive of a computer. With a flourish she put it on the table and her finger hovered over the controls. “Wanna hear?”
“Sure.”
The voice that came out of the machine was recognizably Greg’s. “… okay. Yeah. This mean fucker was gonna crucify me, gouge my fucking eyes out with a spoon unless I gave him Sam’s name… I had no choice.”
Sam reached down, pressed the “pause” button, and shook her head. “Once they start to rat people out it just keeps going, know what I mea
n? You really shouldn’t have trusted him once he gave up my name. That’s free advice.”
I didn’t say anything and she pressed the button again. “It’s this chick called Marie and two old guys, Don and Al, they’re gonna run wetbacks and Chinks across to the States. They’ve got a route down and help on the other side, just like I told Sam. Anyhow …”
I turned the machine off and Sam pocketed the machine. “There’s more, but your route sounds made to order.”
She winked. “I want it.”
I looked over at Marie, who was immobile by the entrance to the living room, before I answered. “No.”
“No?”
Sam smiled with her mouth and the two guys behind her shifted their weight and moved their hands nervously.
I winked back at Sam. “No. You may not have the route.”
Sam put her hands into the pockets of her jacket and leaned back on her heels before saying conversationally, “You gonna stop me?”
I looked at her and the two guys and then nodded thoughtfully. “You don’t know me, right?”
The woman looked over at the two men and they both shook their heads before turning back to me and saying, “No, should I?”
“I could be connected. I could be laying something out for the Yamaguchi-gumi. Yakuza based in Tokyo’s Shibuya district.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
I let my voice harden. “Or I could be fronting for Mississippi Dixie Mafia hardasses looking for a new supplier of meth precursors now that the Mexico route is getting tight.”
“Nooooo.” She put her forefinger to her chin. “Probably not.”
“Maybe I’m running an escape route for the Aryan Brotherhood who don’t want to stay in Atwater or Lewisburg and, once they’re out, don’t want to spend their freedom eating beans and drinking mescal.”
Sam bit her lower lip and I smiled, “Or I could be putting the final touches on a run for the Solntsevskaya out of Moscow to deliver Turkish hash to the Midwest.”
Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal Page 7
