“Were we too hard on him?”
“Not at all. There were questions that needed to be asked and we asked them. Did you notice his eyes, though?”
“I’m not sure I follow—”
“He looked directly at me when we talked about Lydia, but when we got on to his son, he’d look away, sometimes to the table, or off to the garden.”
“What do you take from that?”
“He’s lying.”
“If it’s all over, what’s left to lie about?”
“I’m not certain, but I think Gregori will know. Right, here we are.” He turned into the lane to the Chelsea Manor. “We’ll do a quick circuit of the parking lot.”
The radio barked to life as they passed beneath the columns.
“MacNeice.”
“The little shit is booked out of two airports. He’s got tickets on flights leaving from Dundurn Regional and Toronto International,” Swetsky said.
“Smart. What times?”
“International at 1:30 p.m., Dundurn at 1:10 p.m.”
“Where are you?”
“Ten minutes away. Do we take him down if he’s there now?”
“No, we wait till they leave the hotel.”
“Don’t start this party without us.”
MacNeice hung up. Aziz nodded to the doorman, who had stepped out ready to open the door of the Chevy, but MacNeice drove slowly past, leaving him standing on the pavement. After a complete circuit of the lot without seeing the Range Rover, MacNeice came back to the doorman. Rolling down the window, he asked, “The black Range Rover and the three men who travel in it, have you seen them?”
“Yes, sir. They left here about a half-hour ago. Gave me a ten-dollar tip.”
“You mean they’ve checked out.”
“That’s right, sir. Two of them had duffle bags and the leader—I mean the guy with the nice suit—he had suitcases and a briefcase. They wouldn’t let me load them in; they did it themselves.”
“So why the ten-spot?”
“I dunno. I mean, I was nice to them like I am with everyone. They wouldn’t even let me open the car door for the guy in the suit. The first time I tried, this big guy gets out of the front and puts a hand up, like it was a crime to open the door for the guy in back. So I never tried again.”
“Did you happen to see which way they were headed?”
“I did, because the driver laid some rubber as he turned onto the street—that caught my attention. They went left, towards downtown.”
MacNeice thanked him and pulled away from the hotel.
“What’s downtown that would interest these guys?” Aziz asked as MacNeice turned left too.
“I bet Gregori’s figured out there’s a missing link. He’s either gone back to his father’s house or he’s at the antique shop looking for it.” MacNeice reached for the radio. “Swetsky, come in.”
“We’re a half-block from the intersection. What’s up?”
“They’ve checked out. I have a hunch that they’ve gone either to the old man’s house or to his shop. You two go to the house, but don’t engage. Just let us know if you see the Range Rover there.”
“We’re on it.”
“Check around the back of the house too. They may have parked in the laneway.”
As MacNeice came to a stop at the intersection, he saw Swetsky’s unmarked car making a U-turn south. Williams waved to them from the passenger side as if he were Queen Elizabeth. MacNeice turned right towards the shopping district, speeding past the parked cars and smartly maintained lawns of the quiet west-end neighbourhood.
Twelve minutes later Swetsky was on the radio. “MacNeice, we’re just approaching the house now. Nothing on the street out front.… Wait a minute.… Nope, nothin’ in the back lane. Do you want us to hang in here or come to you?”
“We’ll be at the shop in five minutes. Hang in, but stay on that side street so you’re not spotted if they do show up.”
“Turning now. I’ll leave the radio on.”
“Thanks, Swets.”
“I don’t know what we’re worried about, though. I mean, these guys fight with sticks and I’m sitting here with a forty-four on my hip.” MacNeice heard Williams laugh.
“Don’t underestimate them,” he said firmly. “Now, sit tight.”
TWENTY SIX
—
THE WEST VILLAGE HAD BEEN CREATED to meet the needs of an expanding city and of Brant University, whose campus hugged its edge on one side and the ravines of the escarpment on the other. Over the decades, the main-street restaurants, galleries, gourmet emporiums and antique shops had multiplied to reflect the affluence of the surrounding neighbourhood.
“There it is, ahead on the left. Nothing in front, though.” Aziz was craning forward, her hands on the dash.
“We’ll check the street to the east.” MacNeice slowed as he passed in front of the shop. There was no sign of anyone inside. He paused at the stop sign and scanned the vehicles parked along the cross-street. “There it is.”
“Where?”
“Six cars down, tucked behind the green van.”
He went through the intersection and did a U-turn halfway up the block. “Swetsky, get over here now. We’re a half-block to the east of the shop. Just pull in behind us and get into our car.”
“Be there in a jiffy.”
From where they were parked they could see the front of the shop and its side door. A woman pushing a stroller was coming towards the shop and an older couple was walking on the other side of the street, but other than that it was quiet. Several minutes later, Swetsky eased in behind them.
Both rear doors opened, and as Swetsky and Williams climbed into the back seat, MacNeice was vaguely aware of cologne—Williams, he assumed. When the doors closed, he said, “That’s the shop up on the right. Front and side doors. The Range Rover’s a hundred feet or so down the side street.”
“Got it. So what’s the plan, Stan?” Swetsky leaned forward, his bulk filling the rear-view mirror.
“We’re making it up as we go. To a certain extent it’s driven by the Romanians, but it will come together fairly quickly, I suspect.”
“Do we call in the troops?” Williams asked.
“No. We’re trying to be effective but discreet. We’ve got Wallace’s support, but beyond him are External Affairs and the Romanian consulate. If we do this right, we can shortcut their involvement till we have so much evidence they can’t spring them.”
“So we’re Jesuits, and we’ll seek forgiveness afterwards,” Williams said.
“Exactly. See the Vanilla Bean ice cream shop across the street?”
“Yeah,” Williams responded.
“Go get yourself a cone and wander down the street like a gentleman out for the day. Cross over beyond the antique shop and casually do some window shopping while you enjoy your ice cream. If we’re lucky, Petrescu won’t recognize you from the interview room, and his bodyguards have never seen you.”
“Do I get to choose the flavour?”
“Anything your heart desires, Williams. Take your time, but keep wandering. When you’ve checked out the window, cross the street and call me.”
“Chocolate.”
“Figures,” Swetsky said as Williams got out of the car.
“I heard that, cracker.” Williams pointed at Swetsky and smiled.
When he came out of the ice cream parlour, he held up the cone, and it was indeed chocolate. He turned away and began to walk casually down the street.
Swetzky laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “He’s got a sense of humour, but he’s a good cop.”
“I’m counting on it,” MacNeice said.
In a few minutes Williams had crossed the street and was sitting on a bench just outside Petrescu’s shop. With one arm stretched out along the back of the bench, he really did look like a guy with time to kill. A drop of ice cream fell onto his shirt; he took a tissue from his pocket and tried to wipe it off while licking around the cone to stay ahead of th
e melting chocolate. To get a better view of the damage to his shirt, he walked over to use the shop window as a mirror. He kept wiping at the stain and licking the ice cream before giving up and turning away. He dropped the ice cream in the waste bin on the corner and slowly crossed the street. On the other side, still checking out his shirt in the shop windows, he took out his cellphone.
Pushing the hands-free button, MacNeice said, “That was brilliant, Williams.”
“I worked in improv before I went to the academy, sir, though the stain wasn’t planned.…”
“That’s why they call it improv. What have you got for us?”
“There’s movement in the back. You can’t see anyone clearly, but the lights are on back there and I could see maybe two or three shadows. I guess it’s the office. You’ll love this, though—the front door is slightly open. Caught on the frame so they thought it was closed, but it’s definitely open. In my old neighbourhood that place would be cleaned out in three minutes flat. In the middle of the back wall, which is all bookshelves, there’s a panelled wood door to the back room. On the right side there’s a narrow horizontal window between the shelves, a kind of peek-a-boo slider, to see into the store from the office behind. It’s made of translucent glass, and that’s where you can see the shadows.”
“Anything else?”
“No, that’s it.”
“Williams, take a seat on that bench to your left. I’ll get back to you.”
“Why would they leave the front door open?” Aziz asked.
“Don’t know,” MacNeice said.
“Maybe it has something to do with the security system. They must’ve disarmed it,” Swetsky said, but without conviction.
“Or it’s as Williams said—they shoved it, but it’s an old door and it stuck without closing. Whichever it is, you can bet there’s a buzzer or bell that sounds in the back room when it opens wide.”
“What’s this?” Aziz said.
An old woman with a tiny dog on a leash had stopped at the bench outside the shop. She sat down and began feeding the dog something that looked like popcorn.
“Swets, there’s a pair of small binoculars in the seat pocket beside you. Can you hand them to me?”
“Sure thing.” He picked them up; they looked tiny in his hand. Swets winked at Aziz. “These are the opera glasses the boss uses for all the uptown cases.”
“They actually are, smartass.” MacNeice unfolded them and looked towards the shop. The dog was on the woman’s lap and a bag of PuffyPop was in her hand. She was feeding the kernels one by one into its tiny snout. The dog munched each one quickly, then looked up at her face and then to her hand in the bag.
MacNeice called Williams, who was tracking a young woman walking along with her toddler. “Williams, look over at the shop. See her?”
“The old lady? Pink twinset? Yup.”
“I want you to go over there and, as gently as possible, get her to move along. There’s another bench down a block. Tell her that’s the one everyone favours because of the sun or something.”
“What if she don’t wanna leave?”
“Be persuasive and gentle.”
“I’m on it.”
MacNeice, Aziz and Swetsky watched as Williams crossed the street, a little more purposefully than before, though he slowed as he got close to the woman. Through the binoculars MacNeice could see that she was aware of Williams, and she seemed to hug the dog closer to her chest as he approached. What followed was a Charlie Chaplin movie. Williams reached for her arm and the woman pulled back, horrified. Undeterred, Williams put his large black hand on her thin pink arm. MacNeice could see the woman’s mouth open wide as the dog seized Williams’s wrist with its nasty little jaws. MacNeice rolled the window down in time to hear her scream.
The dog was still locked on Williams’s right wrist. When he turned towards them with a look of What now? it hung in mid-air, its tiny legs clawing at nothing. The woman was screaming, “Help! Please help me!”
Williams looked stricken when the door to the shop opened and the heavyset blond with the black eyes came out. He was smoking a cigarette and had one hand in his pocket. He was also laughing. Williams instinctively turned away from the Chevy. The lady was now on her feet. She threw the bag of PuffyPop at Williams and looked over to the Romanian, yelling, “Help me!” The blond was laughing so hard now he was coughing. He flicked his cigarette into the street and walked over to Williams.
“This is it,” MacNeice said. “Aziz, head for the side door but watch out for the Rover. We don’t know if the driver’s still in it or inside the shop. Swetsky, come with me. We’ll go through the front door. Quickly now.” The three got out of the Chevy and didn’t bother closing the doors.
Williams was trying to pry the dog off his wrist, which was bleeding—another stain to deal with—when the blond tapped him on the shoulder.
“Leave lady alone, Sambo.” The blond’s back was to MacNeice and Swetsky as they approached.
“Sambo? Who the fuck do you think you’re talkin’ to, white boy?”
“Leave lady.” The blond reached out to grab William’s shirt front.
“I’ll tell you what, motherfucker—get your hand off me, and after I deal with this rat-dog, you and I will have some special fucking time together.”
The F-bomb in all its glory was too much for the old lady, who hit the deck beside the bench. Her pink wrist was still tethered to the dog by its leash, and the dog was still locked on Williams’s wrist, its little legs clawing at the air.
“You kill lady, Sambo.”
“That’s it.” Williams whipped his right arm forward as if throwing a pass downfield. The dog became airborne—till it reached the end of the red leather leash and lurched to a halt in mid-air. The old lady’s arm flopped for a moment, then it and the dog fell to the ground, after which neither moved.
As Williams crouched to check on the woman, he was hit on the side of the head by a wooden baton and knocked to the sidewalk, then kicked in the ribs. Before the blond could launch a second kick, Swetsky wrapped his arms around him.
MacNeice stepped quietly into the shop.
“About time,” Williams said as he got up on all fours.
“Mister, I’ve got you,” Swetsky managed to say to the struggling blond. “Now just settle down, ya hear me?”
“Fuck you.” The blond leaned forward, lifting Swetsky’s feet and impressive bulk off the ground, then pushed back with such force that he hit the brick wall of the building with a crack that knocked the wind out of him. But Swetsky hung on, and tightened the bear hug.
Williams was all the way up now. The blond swung Swetsky towards him, causing Williams to back up.
“That’s one crazy fucker you got there, Swets. Do you wanna keep dancing with him, or how do you wanna handle this?”
“Tackle the fucker!” Swetsky shouted.
Squaring himself, Williams launched forward in a perfect football lunge, slamming into the two men at knee height. All three flew into the window, which exploded inwards. The impact knocked Williams off the two bigger men, who were now draped over the window frame. He landed on his back in the shop and sat up, just as a large section of glass broke free from its caulking ten feet above and sliced into the blond’s stomach, leaving a giant triangle sticking out of him. Swetsky was still holding tight.
MacNeice was at the door to the office when the window blew in. He turned towards the noise, then hit the floor when the distinctive ping of a silencer sent a bullet whizzing past his head. Glass and ceramic statuary and vases blew apart, as did the window on the other side of the front door. MacNeice rolled clear and sat up against the bookshelves. More shots struck the heavy table in front of the three downed men; its antique veneer splintered and flew about.
MacNeice drew his weapon and got to his feet. As he turned towards the office, he saw a long tubular silver barrel extending from the doorway—a custom-made weapon, as menacing and powerful as it was strange.
“Uri? Ur
i!” Moving further into the shop, the driver didn’t notice MacNeice standing against the back wall.
“Put the weapon down. Drop it now,” he said.
The driver didn’t move, nor did he lower the weapon. He looked over his shoulder and saw MacNeice with the pistol pointed at his head, but kept moving forward towards the storefront.
“Last time—put the weapon down.” MacNeice stepped forward with both hands on the pistol to steady himself.
The driver looked down to see the blond trying to pry the glass wedge out of his stomach, his eyes raised pleadingly towards his comrade. He was trying to say something but seemed to have no wind left in him. Swetsky was still beneath him, and the driver recognized him from the parking lot.
The driver looked back at MacNeice, then over at Williams, who was leaning against the door frame struggling to get his gun out. The driver slowly shifted his weapon towards Williams’s head.
“Put the weapon down now,” MacNeice said.
The driver looked at Uri, then back at MacNeice before turning again to Williams. Just as his finger tightened on the trigger, a gunshot from outside the shop snapped his head back. Hair and brain tissue hit the bookcase, and he fell back, dropping the weapon.
Williams looked at MacNeice. MacNeice said, “Wasn’t me.”
Aziz came into view, her arms outstretched and her Glock still at the ready.
“Where’s Petrescu?” MacNeice asked.
“I don’t know. Nobody came out the side door.”
MacNeice turned towards the office. “Williams, come with me. Aziz, make sure Swetsky’s okay.”
“I’m fine,” Swetsky managed to say. He had finally crawled out from under the blond and was sitting against the wall picking glass out of his bleeding hands.
“I’m coming with you, Mac,” Aziz said.
MacNeice went through the door, followed by Aziz and Williams. Petrescu wasn’t there. They opened the closet and bathroom doors—nothing. The filing cabinets were all open, as was a wall safe. There were papers and books on the floor.
Erasing Memory Page 24
