by Ted Wood
She dried the dishes and hung up the tea towel with a little flourish. "Okay, O wise one. It's just that the roses round the door are feeling a little wilted just now."
"I'm glad you found him. You needed one another. I just hope that Fred can be like you."
"You mean you're going to keep on being a copper?" She's like our mother, getting right to the heart of anything, no beating around the bush.
"My options are limited," I said. "I'm thirty-seven years old, and it's all I know."
"You could go back to the university, get a degree, and go to work at something different."
I laughed. "Can you see me in the ivied halls, surrounded by kids half my age? And can you see me in the job market, up against them when they've got twenty more years of service to offer a company?"
"It's an option," she said.
"Not one I can take up with any enthusiasm." I gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. "I may be home late. The best thing might be if I shacked up at Fred's apartment."
"No," she said firmly. "You come back here. The spare room is yours, you know that."
"Thanks, then. Try not to be too noisy when Elmer gets back."
She grabbed for the tea towel and flicked it at me. "Men," she said, but she was laughing.
I decided the best thing I could do was talk to the pilot of the Michaels company jet. From the way he'd greeted Jason at the airport, I figured they hung around together. Probably the pilot didn't drink or smoke dope or any other rich-boy vices that Jason Michaels might have, but maybe they tagged along, sharing the ambience and the girls who were drawn into the fast lane. So I drove up Yonge Street and east to Buttonville Airport.
It's a small place, mostly used by recreational fliers, and it closes at night except for local flights, circuits and bumps for people working on their licenses. By the time I got there, it was virtually deserted, but the landing lights were on along the runway, and the tower and the interior of the terminal were lit, so I went in and started playing detective.
The security man was impressed by my badge, but he was a summer replacement, while the regular man was on vacation, and didn't know anything about the Michaels jet. However, he did allow me to go up into the tower, and I went up and found a couple of guys, one of them sitting looking at the radar screen; the other one, at a radio.
The guy on the radar was busy, so I went to the other one and introduced myself as a copper. He shook hands abstractedly, then turned and gave somebody clearance to taxi.
Then he half turned from the radio and shoved his headphones up on one side so he could listen to me. "Yeah, Chief, what can I do for you?"
"I'm trying to get in touch with the pilot of the Michaels company jet. It's a Lear jet, and he landed here this afternoon. 'Fraid I don't know the guy's name."
"He in trouble?" The controller frowned. His forehead looked as if he did it a lot. It was permanently creased. He was fortyish and plump, an unhealthy plumpness that made me think his tension had turned him into a chronic nibbler. There were sandwich wrappings and a candy-bar wrapper in the garbage can beside his desk, so I was probably right.
"No, nothing like that. We have a mutual friend I wanted to get in touch with. I know the other guy better than the pilot. In fact, I don't even know the pilot's name."
The man frowned again and then popped a peppermint Life Saver as intently as if it were Valium. He was about to put it away but thought about it and waved it at me. I shook my head and smiled. He needed all the candy he could get. He shoved the cylinder back into his shirt pocket and said, "Well, we don't like talking about our pilots." He waved one hand and crunched his Life Saver and swallowed the pieces. "Especially to the law. You know how it is, one or two of them bring in the odd extra bottle on trips from the States." He thought about his words and added, "Not Gerry, mind, he's straight arrow. But you know how it is."
"This is strictly social. Does the plane live here? I mean, is he in and out regularly?"
"All the time. Generally short hops. But his outfit is big. They have holdings in the States, Mexico, all over. He goes everyplace you can think of." He was still unsure of me, but I didn't think anything I could say was going to change that, so I didn't try. I just beamed.
"His name is Gerry?"
"Yeah, Gerry Bowen. Not Boeing, Bowen." In his trade I guess it was a joke, and he grinned at it. I matched him. Uncle Tom taught us all a lesson.
"Do you have a phone number for him?"
"Sure, it'll be in the register. We keep a book on all the owners and pilots." He turned back to his radio and spoke crisply. "Roger one-seven-nine. Clear to taxi runway zero-three."
I waited, and he turned back to me and waved at a file cabinet. "Top drawer, red cover. Bring it over, would you, please."
I brought him the book, and he flipped through it. "Yeah, here we are, Gerry Bowen." He read me the phone number. It was a four-eight-nine number, an exchange in the north end of Toronto. "Could I get the address as well, please?"
He frowned again, thinking about it, then shook his head. "Sorry, I'm not supposed to tell anybody anything. I know you're a policeman an' all, but that's policy."
"No sweat. Thanks for the number." I nodded politely and wrote it down. "If Gerry comes in, tell him I was asking after him." That was camouflage. I knew he would tell the pilot, anyway. At least now it would look innocent. He wouldn't bother ringing the man right away and warning him.
"Yeah, will do." The radio took his attention again, and he carried on a quick conversation consisting mostly of numbers.
I turned to leave, and the other controller called out over his shoulder, "You wanna see him, better do it tonight. He filed a flight plan for Boston in the morning." He turned to see how I was taking the information. He was younger than the other man and more laid back, and I waved thanks.
"What time's he leaving?"
"Eleven a.m. Usually our guys file the day of the flight, but he said he'd be busy in the morning, so he did it early."
"Thanks for the news. I'll hustle my bustle." I nodded to him and left, making a note to be back there next morning if I came up blank on the night's work.
There was no guarantee I'd get anything from the pilot, especially over the phone, so I called Elmer Svensen. He was in his office, sounding tense. "Hi, Elmer, it's Reid. I'm trying to find the pilot of the Michaels jet. Do you have the backwards phone book handy?"
"Hold on." He was crisp, wound up tight over the case and its proximity to his private life. I stood and listened to the sounds of the detective office, male voices arguing and a typewriter making a cop's pace as somebody took a statement or wrestled with a report. Then Elmer came back, and I gave him the number.
"Yeah, Gerald Bowen, 32 Laager Crescent. That's two a's, not like the beer."
"A new one on me," I said. "Any idea of the cross streets?"
"Hold on, I'll check." Another pause and he came back on. "West off Yonge Street, north of Lawrence."
"Thanks, Elmer, I'll drop by."
"Think that's going to help?"
"I'm not sure. He was buddy-buddy with young Michaels. Maybe he knows where the kid is."
"Still doesn't get us anywhere," Elmer said gloomily.
"Maybe not, but we ought to talk to the kid. He's the only one we haven't heard from. The mother's dead, the girlfriend's dead, the father's clammed up. Maybe he knows something, and the little bastard owes me."
"Good luck," Elmer said. "Where'd you get the number?"
"Up at Buttonville Airport. They keep the Michaels company jet there. Oh, and while we're talking. He's due to fly out at eleven tomorrow, to Boston."
"Boston?" Elmer said. "And the father's clamming up? Likely going down to get some chowder." He laughed shortly at his joke.
"I guess, but he'll be gone like a wild goose in winter, so we'd better talk to him before then."
"And you're going to do it?" I could have told what his caseload looked like from the anxiety in his voice.
"Count on me, kid,"
I said. "See you later."
EIGHTEEN
Bowen lived in the north end of Toronto, close to the 401, the main artery that shoots you around the worst of the city traffic, except in rush hour, when the worst of the city traffic congregates there. At other times, though, he would be only fifteen minutes from the Buttonville Airport should Michaels rub the lamp and order him to appear.
His home was a renovated semidetached on a street that had Audis and BMWs parked all down one side. I found a place up the block from his door, left Sam in the car, and walked. The house had an ornate brass knocker that shone like gold, and I rapped it smartly, wondering if he was ex-service and couldn't resist polishing any brass he had on the property. After a thirty-second pause the door opened and a small, pretty woman in her twenties smiled at me without speaking. She looked Hispanic, and I got the impression that maybe her silence was caused by an ignorance of English. I smiled back and said, "Good evening, is Mr. Bowen in?"
She smiled a little harder and said, "Habla español?" I did, a little. I'd picked it up from Ramón Chavez in my platoon. Most of what I knew was swearing, not much use here. I shook my head and used up most of my repeatable knowledge. "Perdoneme, no hablo. Señor Bowen es aquí?" Sorry, I don't. Is Mr. Bowen here? There. From this point on it would be sign language.
She shook her head, still smiling, and said what must have been that he wasn't. I cocked my head and said, "Yo su amigo," but she didn't bite; she just looked sad and stood her ground. We stood like that for a moment, and then I tried my second string. "Parlez-vous français?"
Bingo. She did. Not well, but better than my Spanish. So I spun her a quick little fairy story. I was a friend of Gerry's and had to leave town the next day. He'd asked me to look him up when I was in town. Would he be back that evening?
I still came up blank. He had gone. He was often away overnight. He was a pilot, as I knew, and he had to go whenever his boss sent him.
I knew that wasn't true. The company jet was on the ground until the morning, but I would have had to go and wait in the car for him except that my nose saved me. Faint but unmistakable on the warm evening air I smelled cigar smoke.
I phrased my next question carefully so she couldn't fob me off with half an answer. Was her visitor a friend of Mr. Bowen's? That made her blush and hesitate. She didn't want me reporting to good old Gerry that she was entertaining cigar smokers in his absence. She hedged, well, yes, he was, she admitted, and I took the opportunity. "In that case, perhaps he could tell me where to find him," I said, and edged past her and followed my nose into the kitchen, where the cigar smoke was coming from.
Her visitor was a compact man of about thirty, Hispanic. He was sitting with a can of beer in front of him, smoking his cigar and waiting for the woman to come back to her glass of red wine.
He looked up at me in surprise, wondering maybe if I was Gerry Bowen and going to get excited about his presence in my house.
The girl spoke rapidly to him in Spanish, and he dug out a smile of his own and stood up, offering his hand. I shook it and said in English, "Hi, name's Greg."
I was weighing him up. He had a scar on his face that looked as if it had been done with a knife. That's not unusual for a macho man from his culture, but his hair was cropped short, and there was a toughness to him that didn't fit with the city. He looked more like a soldier.
He shook my hand perfunctorily but didn't give his own name, so I played it like a tourist. "You a friend of Gerry's?"
He nodded but didn't say anything, so I pressed on, the big, clumsy WASP. "He said to look him up, and I'm just in town tonight. I wondered if you knew where he is?"
He spoke now. Probably the word he was easiest with. "No."
"Okay if I wait for him?" I didn't sit down. He was still standing, and he looked tough. I would have to be quick if he decided I belonged outside. He didn't answer, anyway. Instead, he spoke rapidly to the girl in Spanish, not taking his eyes off me.
"My friend says you should go," she told me in careful French.
"Not very friendly," I said. "This is Gerry's house. What's this guy doing here?"
She looked anguished. Women didn't repeat snotty remarks like that to men, even in translation. Not where she came from. "He is my friend," she said.
"And what does he do, this friend of yours? He looks like a soldier." She didn't answer immediately, and I repeated the last word in Spanish. "Guerrilla."
His anger flashed; I could tell from his tone, although his face didn't change expression. Not much would change it, I guessed, outside of glee as he watched somebody getting wasted.
The girl spoke now, riding over his last words. "You must go. Please," she said in French. "Mr. Bowen is not here."
"Thank you. I'll tell him how hospitable you've been," I said, and her anxiety increased again. She was illegal, I guessed, existing in this place at and probably for Gerry Bowen's pleasure. If he kicked her out, she would be back on the street looking for off-the-record work somewhere else. Or even back down south where most girls did not live in houses this nice.
I nodded to the man, then backed off a step, where he couldn't reach me with a sucker punch, and turned away. She came with me to the door. As I stepped out, she caught my sleeve between finger and thumb. "Please, don't say anything. This man is my friend. Mr. Bowen does not know." Her French was starting to slip, and she relapsed into rapid Spanish.
I winked at her. "Di nada, señorita. Buenos noches." There, that should put her mind at rest.
She waited anxiously at the door while I walked back to my car, then closed it. I got into my car and sat and patted Sam for a moment, thinking. Gerry Bowen was a flier. He got around. But why would he have a Hispanic girl working for him, or living with him, an educated girl who spoke French? And why would the same girl have connections with a guy who came across like a mercenary? None of it would have mattered if young Michaels hadn't been involved with Freedom for Hire. It made me wonder whether there was a deeper connection between the Michaels organization and the mercenaries. Was Michaels Senior involved in some force-of-arms takeover in Central America?
There was nothing to do but wonder and wait, so I waited. One by one the lights went off along the street. A few residents came home, one or two couples, laughing and relaxed after an evening on the town, and a couple of solitary men with briefcases, shutting their car doors wearily and walking slowly to their houses. And then, at quarter to two, the Bowen door opened, and the man came out. He didn't look back. He turned at the curb and walked to the corner, moving at the leisurely pace of a man who had enjoyed his evening.
I started my car and drove after him, keeping far enough back and going slowly enough that I might have turned in from the far corner and been checking for house numbers. He didn't look back. Either a clear conscience or a complete lack of concern. Not a nervous citizen.
At the corner of Yonge Street he waited and after a minute or so caught a cab. I pulled out behind him and followed, down Yonge and across Eglinton, toward the cosmopolitan west end of the city.
He paid off the cab at a fleabag hotel called the Alameda. Maybe somebody Spanish had owned it once, and maybe that was why this guy was staying there. If he'd wanted anonymity, he had chosen well. I guessed that most of the patrons wouldn't be there much longer than it takes to warm up a pillow. I gave him a minute or so to go in, then sauntered after him.
A middle-aged man in a greasy suit was sitting behind the counter reading an Italian soccer magazine. He looked up at me suspiciously. Most visitors at this time of night would be signed-in guests or couples.
"Yeah," he said.
"Hi. Looking for a guy. He just came in." I took out my wallet and extracted a ten. He watched it warily.
"No visiting in the rooms after midnight," he said.
"Except for broads." I did a big grin, and he cracked a smile of his own.
"Well, you know."
"Yeah, I know. What's his name, this man?"
He folded his newspaper
. "I'm not supposed to tell names or nothin'." Not supposed to, as opposed to not allowed to.
"But if I was to drop this ten-spot on the floor and while you picked it up, I happened to check the book, what would I see?"
"Room three oh five," he said, and reached out for the ten.
I held on to it. "Name'd he give?"
He sighed and flicked through his card index. I reached over and took the box off him. Room 305 was occupied by Mr. J. Alvarez. The only home address given was Detroit.
"Thanks." I handed him the ten and then took out a second one. I was feeling flush with Michaels's reward money stashed in the bank. "I'm just going up to see him. Don't bother letting him know. I want it to be a surprise."
"Hey, listen." He suddenly got Italian on me, waving both hands. "I don' want no trouble."
"You're not getting any, are you? You're getting twenty bucks. Is he alone up there, or has anyone else dropped in?"
He licked his lips. "Well, there was one guy, fellah 'bout his size. He came in an hour or so back. Like it's a double room, we don' complain. Two guys, guy 'n' a broad. You know how it is."
"Intimately," I said. "Tell me, are the rooms either side of him taken?"
"Why you wanna know?" He was so worried now that he wasn't even looking at the second ten.
"Well, I've got a jug in the car, and we might just laugh it up a little."
He knew it was a scam, but he didn't mind. Booze he could live with. "Oh, 's okay," he said, and reached for the second bill.
I held on to it. "I'm just going to the door and get the jug. You get this when I come back in. Okay?"
He shrugged, palms up. "Sure, is fine."
I went to the door and whistled Sam. He squeezed through the open car window and bounded up to me. I held the door for him, and he came in ahead of me. The desk clerk gave a little gasp of alarm. "Hey, you said a jug."
"You really should get your ears looked at." I tucked the ten into his top pocket and went up the stairs. He talked to himself in rapid Italian, but I didn't look back.
There wasn't any sound on the third floor. Not surprising at that time of night but encouraging. I guessed that most of the patrons wouldn't want police around, anyway. Unless I burned the place down, they would stay quietly in their rooms. There was light showing under the worn, old threshold of room 305, and I banged the door confidently.
