Buffalo Jump

by Howard Shrier

  “So,” Hollinger said. “You were doing Franny’s work while he was romping around. Were you annoyed?”

  “Of course.”

  “How annoyed, Mr. Geller?”

  “Please. Call me Jonah.”

  “Are those his knuckle marks on your face, Jonah?”

  You have to love a question like that, especially when delivered with a fetching smile. “No, these are not Franny’s knuckles.”

  “Whose then?”

  “An unrelated dispute. A misunderstanding that got out of hand.”

  “And into your face.”

  I shrugged.

  “Your side too? Take one in the ribs?”

  “Why?”

  “The way you’ve been moving in your chair. You’re hurting there.”

  “I hadn’t noticed you noticing.”

  “You never will. What started you looking into Kenneth Page? What led from the nursing home to him?”

  “I told you, it was a long shot that didn’t pan out.”

  “Let’s hear it anyway. And don’t hold anything back.”

  I batted my eyelashes and said, “Would I hold anything back from you?” Oh, God, Geller, you Percocet-addled puppy, shut up. And stay shut.

  “Come on,” she said. “Meadowvale. Page. What’s the connection?”

  “Places like Meadowvale get their drugs from somewhere. Often a pharmacy with a wholesale licence.”

  “Which Page had?”

  “Yes. He could get large quantities from manufacturers without questions, and the doctor who runs the home, Bader, could write phony scripts until his hand cramped up.”

  “And sell them to whom?”

  “The most lucrative market seems to be the States.”

  “And who’s taking receipt there?”

  “No idea,” I said. “Not yet.”

  I never did get a coffee out of McDonough. He returned with one for Hollinger and one for himself. Clint had gone back to his office to take a call from Franny’s mother, Dorothée, in Ottawa. I went over everything again with McDonough in the room. He perked up at the thought that Franny might have punched me out, but Hollinger reminded him that Franny’s autopsy showed no bruising or other marks on his hands to suggest he had recently hit anyone.

  Which she had known when she asked me about it. Katherine Hollinger was a girl who liked to have fun. Definitely not your average homicide sarge.

  After I got back to my desk, Jenn was called in. Andy stayed focused on his research. He didn’t like to talk at the best of times, and this was anything but. I went to the men’s room, where I ensconced myself in a stall to check my wound. I untucked my shirt and held it up with my chin. The adhesive strips holding the gauze dressing in place came away easily but the pad itself stuck to the gash. I winced and sucked air and pulled until it came free. The wound itself looked good: red around the edges but no pus or other sign of infection; the gash itself warm and tender but not hot. I put the dressing back— Dr. Klein had warned me against changing it myself—and washed down two more Percocet and another stool softener. The stalemate between them was continuing apace. There’d be a reckoning at some point. Like an economy heading toward recession, maybe the best I could hope for was a soft landing.

  Hollinger was waiting at my desk when I got back.

  “Tuck your shirt in,” she said. “We’re going out.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Franny had lived in a high-rise on Carlton just east of the old Maple Leaf Gardens, where the Leafs played for sixty-odd years—some very odd—before moving to the Air Canada Centre, where corporate revenues could flow more freely. I had never been inside his place. Any time people from the office got together for drinks after work, it was usually at a bar on King or Front.

  Outside his apartment door, Katherine Hollinger handed me a pair of disposable surgical gloves. “Put these on.”

  “I’m not contagious,” I said.

  “Or infectious,” she shot back. “You know the rule. No touching.”

  “I know.”

  “Not even with the gloves.”

  “I get it. No touching. I’ll pretend we’re in high school.” Oy. Was it just the Percocet that made me so giddy around her?

  “You see anything at all, let me know.”

  “Of course.”

  “More convincingly, please.”

  “Of course.” I snapped on the gloves.

  “Much better.” She opened the deadbolt with a single brass key and in we went.

  Franny’s one-bedroom apartment was about the same size as mine, but his windows faced south onto a blighted stretch of Carlton frequented by low-rent hookers wobbling on too-high heels and in too-tight skirts. I much preferred my view of the city skyline and the Don Valley. The Track, as this part of town was known, had a darkness all its own.

  Franny’s living room/dining room combo was effectively divided into three functional spaces: a eating area, living room and office.

  The eating area consisted of a round table and two chairs, over which a chandelier hung. It didn’t look like he’d dined there recently. The table was covered in newspapers from the weekend, the Sunday Clarion on top.

  The living room had a black leather sofa and recliner facing an entertainment centre with a large flat-screen TV and stereo system. Next to the recliner was a small table on which rested a number of remotes and on the floor beneath that a pizza box. That’s where he probably ate his last meal. Books and CDs filled smaller shelves in the entertainment unit, along with DVDs of action films featuring muscled-up Hollywood hunks and whippet-thin fighters out of Thailand and Hong Kong.

  The office was built into a corner of the living room, its centrepiece an old-fashioned rolltop desk with dozens of pigeonholes that should have been stuffed with notes, bills, statements, parking tickets, takeout menus and other detritus of metropolitan life. They were empty.

  I asked, “Where is it?”

  “What?”

  “It. Everything. His mail, bank records, phone bills.”

  “We took it all downtown,” Hollinger said. “Gregg and I will sort through it there.”

  “Does he move his lips when he reads?”

  “Easy, you. He’s my partner.”

  “But you’re the brains.”

  “Someone has to be.”

  The artwork was all generic: prints of a waterfall pouring over moss-covered rocks, a hooked marlin breaking through aqua waters, red-tailed hawks wheeling over a green forest canopy, all in the same chrome-and-glass frames. They could have come from any hotel chain.

  I turned to Hollinger. “Did you find a notebook on him?”

  “I don’t have the complete inventory.”

  “He wasn’t much for computers.”

  “So we’ve gathered.”

  “He usually had a black notebook in his jacket pocket.”

  “Thanks. If we find it, I’ll let you know.”

  The kitchen was a small galley like mine. A few basic pots and pans in the cupboards. A dish set that had to have come from Ikea. One drawer had cutlery and a few utensils, the other a thick sheaf of takeout menus. It wasn’t hard to guess which got used more.

  The bathroom had the basic items a man needed to keep himself shaved, showered and reasonably well groomed, plus a few more. Grecian Formula: who knew? A tube of K-Y jelly and a box of 12 condoms, about half of which remained. A few prescription medicines, including one for arthritis pain.

  The bedroom had room for a queen bed, a dresser and night table and little else. The closet had the usual mix of inexpensive suits and casual clothes, along with a collapsible ironing board and shoeshine kit. Of course he’d have those, the old-fashioned lug. A freshly pressed shirt, a shine and his pompadour in place, and he’d be ready for action in no time.

  So who would murder him? There was nothing to indicate he was living beyond his means. If anything, the apartment was distressingly plain. And too much like my own. Same little kitchen and bathroom, same parquet floors, same fixtur
es and windows. Same little place built for one.

  Was this my future? Nights alone eating in front of the TV, an array of remotes at my side? Would the ghosts that followed me home from Israel ever stop rattling their dusty bones long enough to let me settle down, fall in love again, do more than simply keep my head above Toronto’s ever-rising tide?

  I turned to Hollinger. “Can I ask you something?”

  “You just did.”

  “Do people call you Kathy?”

  “Not since they issued us Glocks.”

  “Kate?”

  “Friends and family only.”

  “So it’s Katherine then?”

  “No, it’s Hollinger. Detective Sergeant Hollinger if you want to be formal.”

  “Okay, Hollinger. Why’d you bring me here? You’ve carted out everything that matters.”

  “How do we know what matters?”

  “How would I? I’ve never been here before and I didn’t really know him outside work.”

  She pursed her lips and looked down and shifted her weight from foot to foot. When she had made up her mind about whatever she had been pondering, she said, “Sit.”

  We sat on the leather couch.

  She snapped off the gloves and indicated I could do the same.

  “I hate these things,” she said. “Even the powdered ones make my hands clammy.”

  “So why were we wearing them? If you’ve removed all his documents, surely you’ve processed the place.”

  She held my gaze with hers, held it more gently than any cop in my experience ever had, and asked, “Who wants you dead?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I thought I spoke clearly. Who wants you dead?”

  “I’m not following.”

  “Then you’re not trying. Your colleague, Ms. Raudsepp, provided an interesting piece of information this morning. Something you couldn’t have known.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it happened after you left the office Tuesday.”

  “What happened?”

  “According to her, Mr. Paradis came in sometime after three o’clock. He was there until at least seven. Just after six this call came in.”

  Hollinger pulled a small chrome tape player from her briefcase. “All incoming calls to Beacon Security are recorded, correct?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Then have a listen,” she said, and pressed play.

  Franny: Hello?

  Male voice: You the detective looking into a nursing home called Meadowvale?

  Franny: That’s me. Who’s calling, please?

  Male: I have information.

  Franny: What kind of infor—

  Male: The helpful kind. As long as you can pay, say, five hundred cash. That a problem?

  Franny: It depends on the information, of course. It’s the client who pays.

  Male: You bring the cash, I’ll bring what I know. Then you decide if it’s worth it.

  Franny: I don’t think so.

  Male: Okay, three hundred. What I know about this place, your client can sue the shirts off their backs.

  Franny: Who are you?

  Male: I used to work there, okay? See what I’m saying? I know all kinds of shit about it but I got to keep a low profile. I don’t want them to know it was me who told you. Tell you what, man, we’ll start with a hundred, okay? Like a down payment. You like what I got, we’ll talk terms.

  Franny: Why don’t you come by the office now?

  Male: I told you why. Look, there’s a warehouse on Commissioners just west of the recycling plant. Erie Storage. Park behind there at twelve-thirty tonight with a hundred cash and I’ll tell you enough to show you I’m your man.

  Franny: I don’t think so.

  Male: You think I’m going to all this trouble to rob you of a hundred bucks? I could mug an old lady for more.

  Franny: I’m not worried.

  Male: Then be there. You’ll solve your case hands down.

  And then the line went dead. The caller had suckered Franny cleanly, lowering his price until it was no obstacle, then making his information sound so tantalizing—the ex-employee who knows what really went on—that Franny had followed it blindly to his death.

  “Jonah,” Hollinger said.

  “Yes, Kate?”

  Her smile all the way gone now. “The call came in on your line. Your buddy François answered it for you. Maybe he wanted to pay you back for everything you’d been doing for him. So let me ask again: who wants you dead?”

  I said, “The voice on the tape sounded American. ‘You’ll salve your case hands down.’ Like from Chi-cah-go.”

  “Or Buffalo,” she said. “They’ve got that Midwestern ah sound too. Does that ring any bells?”

  “No.”

  “I’m surprised you’re not being more forthcoming. Aren’t you still recovering from your last gunshot wound?”

  I looked at her with new-found appreciation. “You checked me out.”

  “It’s what I do,” she said. “So how’s the arm?”

  “Much better, thank you. And you’ll have to take my word for it. I’m not up for arm wrestling.”

  She gave me a quizzical look.

  “Never mind,” I said. “Long story.”

  “The gang you were investigating on that job, the Di Pietras. Heard from them lately?”

  “No,” I lied.

  She said, “Maybe they reached out to touch you.”

  CHAPTER 28

  When we got back to Beacon’s office, Hollinger went back to interviewing employees in the conference room; I stayed down at street level. I knew I should get back upstairs—Clint had made clear that we were all supposed to be on hand—but the thought that I had been the intended victim had my head buzzing like a hive of bees with anger issues. I called Dante Ryan instead and told him what had happened.

  “All right,” he said. “That’s enough. Be outside your office in half an hour.”

  “To do what?”

  “I’ll tell you when I get there.”

  “I can’t leave the office now. My boss’ll shit a brick.”

  “Let him,” Ryan said. “You got other things to think about. Besides, you’re no use to him dead, right?”

  “No.”

  “Or to me, so get ready to take a ride.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Ryan, but when guys like you say let’s take a ride, guys like me usually wind up dead.”

  “There a right way to take that?” he asked.

  Ryan’s car was a three-year-old grey Volvo Cross Country wagon, with a child’s car seat strapped in the right rear position and shades on the rear windows that featured Looney Tunes characters: Bugs, Daffy, Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam. Elmer and Sam were both armed to the teeth, Elmer with a shotgun and Sam with a brace of pistols.

  “You’re kidding,” I said as I got in.

  “Not what you were expecting?” he asked.

  “An SUV, maybe, or a Town Car. A Hummer. Definitely not the Dadmobile.”

  “That’s the point,” Ryan said. “I drove a car like this even before we had Carlo. You know why? People see what they think they see. Someone sees this tub leaving a scene, they think I’m another witness, a passerby. Not the …” He stopped short of whatever he was going to call himself.

  He adjusted his rear-view and side mirrors; he must have reset them while he was waiting for me, to give him a clear view of anyone approaching his car.

  “How’s the DVP at this hour?”

  I shrugged. The Don Valley Parkway is also known—for good reason and entirely without affection—as the Don Valley Parking Lot. The only northbound highway on the east side of the city, it’s always jammed, and conditions only get worse in the summer when the city crams a year’s worth of repairs into a few short months. “It should be bearable. It usually doesn’t clog up seriously for another hour.”

  Ryan took the elevated Gardiner Expressway west to the northbound DVP. I liked the way he handled a car: aware
of everything going on around him, cool and economical behind the wheel. Maybe it was a product of a life spent watching his back, but he seemed to anticipate what other drivers would do—handy in a city where few drivers have skill or judgment. Seconds later, as if to prove my point, a motorcyclist roared up on our right, bent flat over the front of his bike, going at least twenty miles an hour faster than anyone else. He swept through our lane a foot from our front bumper, then did the same to the car in front of us, cutting sharply back to the inside lane.

  “You believe this lunatic?” Ryan said.

  “He’ll make a good organ donor.”

  “You know what depresses me? We could find out who ordered the hit, change his mind, save the kid’s life, settle things with Marco and still get killed by a moron on a bike.”

  “If that’s all that depresses you, it’s the first sign you’re not Jewish.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ryan said. “I got plenty else on my mind.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as Marco ordering a hit on you, but with someone other than me. It could mean he didn’t believe our little act in the park.”

  “You certainly did your part to sell it,” I said.

  “No joke, Geller. Marco’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer but he has his instincts, and if they tell him I’ve thrown in with you, we’re both in extremely deep shit.”

  “It wasn’t Marco who ordered the hit.”

  Ryan actually took his eyes off the road at that, giving me a sideways look that was mostly bewilderment, salted with a dash of scorn. “What do you mean?”

  “Think about the timing. Marco didn’t get to the park Tuesday night until well after nine o’clock. The phone call Franny answered came in two hours before that.”

  “Jesus, Geller, how many people you got after you?”

  I told Ryan how Jenn and I had infiltrated Meadowvale, ending with our escape from the two hoods who had tried to corral us. I described the Melonhead and the Suit. Ryan didn’t say anything but his grip on the wheel tightened. I could see blood draining out of his knuckles.