Getting there took about eighteen months, a few finger-points at low-level/no-retaliation drug dealers, and all his assets as proceeds of crime. He worked at a damaged goods warehouse on Logan Avenue after his release. He made fast friends with the owner, Sidney Guberman. When he told him about his idea for a mission, Sidney called in a favour to the owner of the Light and the Way property, which had been vacant since the front-page incident. If Tommy agreed to look the other way on the building code violations, spruce it up, and keep the prostitution trade reputation in the past tense, the space was his for $500 a month. That included the living quarters in the back for him. You could hardly rent a flea-infested studio apartment for that number. And with that, The Guiding Light was born.
Chapter Five
Noonan figured they had to be about ten minutes from the Emerson border crossing when Tommy made a left onto a gravel side road. They passed a sign that read “Pembina Crossing First Nation,” slightly obscured by blowing snow pack. “Yeah, it’s a crossing alright,” said Tommy, as he corrected a slight skid from a patch of glare ice. “The whole rez butts up right against the border.” The new chief, David Clear-Sky, had done a good job of cleaning up the reserve’s reputation with snowmobile patrols that discouraged crime. There was still smuggling going on, though it wasn’t drugs or guns; it was people. Clear-Sky had had his run-ins with the law, having done some time in Headingley Correctional for receiving stolen property. “I met him in Headingley when I was nineteen,” said Tommy. “I had six months on a break-and-enter. When I saw his name on a list of cons, I thought he was Ukrainian: Clearsky.” Like Tommy, Clear-Sky knew how hard it was to start over, and he knew that some of those people couldn’t stick around in their old postal code to do it.
The Econoline crested the next hill, greeted by three Ski-Doos with flashing blue LED lights. Chief Clear-Sky rode the centre unit, flanked by one of his constables on each side. He smiled as Tommy emerged from the van, topped with a hand-knitted toque to guard against the wind.
“How’s that toque my grandmother made for you, White Bitch?” said Clear-Sky. White Bitch was the standard name lobbed by Aboriginal prisoners at Caucasians who were spending time in the Canadian prison system.
“Itchy as fuck,” said Tommy, as he removed the garbage mitt to shake Clear-Sky’s hand. The Chief was a beefy presence, about six-foot-two and 350 well-fed pounds, with jet black hair and a moustache that bordered on Tom Selleck. Tommy always took a dig at the obvious. “How’s that low-carb diet working out? Too many perogies?”
“Fuck you, White Bitch,” said Clear-Sky, smiling wider. “The store needs to start bringing in those low-fat chips. Besides, chiefing is hard work!”
“Stressful, too,” said Tommy, as he handed him a bottle of Alberta Premium rye. Clear-Sky pulled the bottle out of the paper bag to confirm. “My favourite firewater,” he said, stroking the label like the wool of a newborn lamb. “It’s the only way I can get through the band council meetings.” He stowed the two-six inside his parka. “So who’s on tonight’s departure list?”
“Just Mister X here,” said Tommy, pointing to Paulie, who nodded at Clear-Sky while keeping his hands firmly in his pockets.
“That ain’t no proper kind of Ski-Doo suit,” said Clear-Sky. He retrieved the plastic garbage bag that had been attached with bungee cords to the rear of his Ski-Doo. Paulie removed the black suit, noticing that the reflective arm and leg stripes had been removed. “Suit up,” said Clear-Sky. “Just don’t wave your little white dick at us while you’re doing it.” The constables laughed at the jab as Paulie stripped off his coat for the suit. There was the sound of another snowmobile approaching, though the surrounding blackness offered no visual evidence until the blacked-out vintage Polaris sprang onto the roadbed. There were no lights on the Polaris, just a rider, clad in black, with a matching helmet that had been modified to hold some form of oversized night-vision goggles. He motioned at the constables. “Turn off your fucking lights!” said the rider. “It burns my fucking eyes!”
The constables complied as the rider removed his helmet. A scraggly blond mullet emerged. Paulie figured that the rider had to be of Norwegian or Swedish descent, as many North Dakotans were. He rubbed his eyes incessantly. “How fucking hard would it be for you guys to turn off your fucking lights when you hear me fucking coming?”
“Cause it’s fun blinding you, White Bitch,” said Clear-Sky. The nickname wasn’t just for Tommy, Paulie realized; Clear-Sky called every Caucasian White Bitch.
“Hey Svenn,” said Tommy. “How you been keeping? Are those the Russian surplus goggles?”
“Yeah,” said Svenn Tergesen, as he fiddled with the makeshift battery pack fastened to the side of his helmet. “The battery life sucks, so I RadioShacked this one on.” Svenn was about forty, lanky, with a family farm about ten miles from the border. He pointed to the gas cap. “Who’s got the gas?” One of the constables produced a five-gallon jerrycan from his Ski-Doo. Svenn began topping off his tank, ignoring the safety issues of a running engine. “Cargo, please,” said Svenn, motioning to Paulie. With that, the cargo eased himself onto the back of the Polaris, careful not to rip the Ski-Doo suit, an easy two sizes off. There were no grab handles and no strap to steady him.
“Hang on to me,” said Svenn, shouting over the din of the engine. “It doesn’t make you gay.” Paulie took one last look at Tommy as he complied with the request. Tommy nodded the type of nod that says, “Hey, man. It’s cool. You’re welcome. Get the fuck out of here. Have a nice life.” Then Svenn gunned the throttle, launching the Polaris off the roadbed and almost losing Paulie in the process. The tune of the engine continued to fade as the blackness swallowed them whole.
Chapter Six
While Tommy Bosco drank in the band office, a rusty brown Chevy Caprice idled across from the Driftwood Apartments on Osborne Street South. Ernie Friday waited patiently in the driver’s seat, scanning through radio stations in a futile attempt to find something he hadn’t heard a million times before. He settled on a college station. He didn’t know the band. He didn’t really like the progression of the beat. The singer sounded like a boy and a girl all at the same time. At least it was something new.
Ernie was about sixty, and everything about him said so, except for one thing: his hair. While his face had sunk, his belly had expanded, and his eyes were assisted by bargain bifocals, his hair had remained black, lush, and full. The running theory amongst those who knew him was that it had to be a rug. A couple of years ago, a drunken bouncer at the Stock Exchange Hotel decided it would be fun to find out. Ernie gave him the Vise Grip, as his neck clutch had become known. In his younger days, Friday would have lifted the offender off the ground, squeezed till he was unconscious, and then thrown him through the nearest plate-glass window. After three heart attacks, Ernie simply squeezed the would-be rug snatcher to sleep and returned to his rye and 7 as he hit the floor. Ernie had mellowed. The offending bouncer learned to behave, after a month in a neck brace.
The front passenger door handle started to jiggle. Ernie hit the power lock, allowing entry for Teddy Simms. Teddy had been known for his solid B&E work when he was sober, which was about ten years ago. He wasn’t good for much these days, especially after getting a tire-iron beating by a couple of fifteen-year-olds behind the neighbourhood Safeway. He managed to get by on the stupidity of others, the kind that still populated the suburbs. Simms was amazed at how many people forgot to close their garage doors for the night. With the disability check, plus whatever he could steal and pawn, Teddy could easily handle the rent, plus the one-gallon jugs of swish whiskey he would buy from a barrel connection at the Seagram’s Distillery in Gimli. The old Crown Royal barrels could still produce a palatable rye, without the colour or texture of the store-bought mix. Two twenties bought eight litres, delivered in the plastic water jugs that were emptied into the barrels to leach out the whiskey. Teddy reeked of the mix.
“You better
not be completely fucked up,” said Ernie as he handed Teddy a double-double. “I can’t move this fucker all by myself.” Teddy looked towards the direction of the unseen corpse in the trunk of the Caprice. “Anybody I’d know?” said Teddy as Ernie pulled into traffic.
“You’ve been out of the loop for a while, don’t yah think?” said Ernie, as he headed south on Dunkirk. “You probably think the Wilsons are still cooking up the primo meth.”
“Hey, I may be a drunk, but I’m not completely stupid,” said Teddy, as he opened the coffee lid. “I saw the news.”
Ernie didn’t answer as he signalled for the right onto St. Mary’s Road. Teddy kept looking at the trunk. “So, who is it?” said Teddy.
“Nobody important,” said Ernie.
“He had to be important enough.”
“Important enough to what?”
“Important enough to end up in the trunk.”
Ernie slowly exhaled in frustration. Teddy scanned the streets as the Caprice rumbled down St. Mary’s. He seemed to get excited as they approached River Park South, knowing that even in January there would be at least one garage with $200 worth of snatch-and-grab tools, open for business. Probably not a good idea to ask for a side trip, Teddy thought, especially with a fresh body in the trunk.
Ernie tapped the brakes for the slow-down to the Perimeter Highway. As he pulled up, he noticed a marked RCMP Crown Vic approaching from the opposite side. They waited in their positions at the red light. Even after more than forty years of successful criminal activity, Ernie’s stomach always tensed up when he saw a marked car. It was not the first time he had disposed of a body or had been involved in some form of illicit cargo transfer. For whatever reason, there had always been a cop at the threshold. Not to catch him, simply to remind him of where he could be going if he made a mistake. He still remembered the first one he’d faced down; a mid-seventies Plymouth Fury, black and white, from the old West St. Paul police force. The light went green. The Crown Vic turned right. Ernie breathed.
The greenhouses of St. Mary’s Road were in various stages of closed for the season. A sanding truck and a group of kids going too fast in a minivan were all that presented themselves. Ernie flicked on the right turn signal, heading over the Red River Floodway gate. As they approached Red River Road, they saw a brown community-based organization sign bent at a forty-five-degree angle that read Howden Community Centre. The Caprice turned right towards it.
“Is there a hole?” said Teddy as the Caprice drove past the oversized homes, a popular place to build thanks to the rural tax breaks.
“Not unless there’s a jackhammer in that trunk with him,” said Ernie as he slowed to a stop just outside the parking lot of the community centre. He flipped open a battered briefcase that occupied the centre of the bench seat. Inside was an aftermarket backup camera system, a cheap Canadian Tire model that Ernie had bought on clearance. He plugged in a power lead to the cigarette lighter socket. The small screen flickered to life with an image that wasn’t of the road behind the Caprice. Like most businesses on a budget, the centre was using a wireless security camera system, a popular alternative to the expense associated with a closed-circuit set-up. Ernie could see inside the centre, a grainy black-and-white image that confirmed that nobody was home. He couldn’t see the locations of any outdoor cameras, though Ernie knew that most kits came with four, if Amazon Canada could be believed. Teddy watched as Ernie produced a black box. It was connected to a series of small antenna mounts that were wired together with a homemade harness, with some form of external battery pack. “What the fuck is that?”
“It’s a Freedom Box,” said Ernie.
“What the fuck is a Freedom Box?”
“It keeps me free, and out of the box.” Ernie placed the antenna array across the flat top of the Caprice dashboard. He switched the power switch on the box to the on position. Ernie watched as the screen showing the interior of the Howden Community Centre started to flicker, then fuzz like the screen of an old television. Then he saw the image he was waiting for from the Howden wireless security system: SIGNAL LOST. He put the Caprice into drive.
The lot needed plowing, though it was not impassable. He drove the Caprice towards the back of the centre, dousing the lights and hitting a darkened toggle switch on the dashboard. The switch glowed red, an indicator to those within that the brake lights were now as dark as the rest of the Caprice. An old three-ton box from a U-Haul rental truck stood on a platform of wooden pallets. It was obviously a storage locker of sorts, thought Teddy, maybe for extra tables or folding chairs. It would also make for a good body dump. This would be a public dump, meant to send a message to others. It would probably take a few days for one of the retired volunteers at the community centre to head to the box. It wasn’t that he wished for it to happen, but Ernie had often thought that it would be quite amusing for someone like that to find the body and drop dead at the same time. Talk about confusion; the place would be littered with police vehicles, news vans, and a big white tent to cover it all — very public indeed. Sometimes, the message was obvious to the police, the media, and the public at large. Bad guy, with bad-guy buddies, gets whacked by other bad-guy buddies, because he wasn’t a buddy to the bad guys no more. The case would usually go cold before the large overhead crime-scene lights had gone out. Still, it made for great TV.
Ernie killed the motor, handing Teddy a pair of rubber work gloves with winter lining. He reached into the glovebox, hitting the power release for the trunk. The two exited the Caprice, Teddy moving the half-pace slower of a man not ready to see what was in the trunk. The trunk light was either loose or verging on replacement. The lamp flickered over the contents, a large blue hockey bag presented itself, with the Toronto Maple Leafs logo centered, in white silkscreen.
“Oh, great. A Leafs fan,” Teddy said, with a hint of snicker. “Wouldn’t that make this a mercy killing?”
Ernie wasn’t in the mood. “Just grab that end,” he said, motioning to the right. Teddy gave the bag a tug. It was heavy, at least 200 pounds. The duffle was large, though anything but a natural fit. Whoever was inside was broken up good. “Get the door,” Ernie motioned as they rolled the bag out of the trunk. It hit the snow-packed ground with a sickening thud. Teddy kicked the latch open, finding that the cold had done little to jam the door rollers. They dragged the bag into the centre of the box, dropping it with little thought to its cargo.
“Hey, Teddy, you wanna take a peek?” Ernie asked, panting. Teddy was confused. Usually, a simple dump would be a couple hundred bucks and maybe a double-double, depending on who called you. The rest was usually kept anonymous. Who needed the nightmare? As dead as whoever the stiff was, it didn’t make sense to tempt fate. Plus, Teddy had done four other dumps with Ernie over the years. He had never asked if he wanted a peek before. Maybe it was someone important. Maybe it was worth a look.
Teddy bent down, slowly unzipping the duffle. The top was layered with black plastic garbage bags. Teddy pulled back the bags, already squinting in anticipation of the damage or decomposition that would be present. What he saw was yellow, a lot of it. The duffle bag was full of paper. No body, just a stack of expired phone books. Teddy looked up just in time to see the first muzzle flash from the silencer on Ernie’s Beretta. A slight fluff of down insulation leapt forth from his jacket as the first slug entered his chest. He fell back against the wall of the box. Bullets two and three were clustered close to the first, to ensure maximum internal bleeding. Teddy looked up at Ernie, hopeful for some form of explanation in his final moments.
Ernie wasn’t forthcoming. He didn’t have to be. Teddy had been doing low-level snitch work for the Vice division for the past few months. He had tried to be careful, fingering the soldiers of the various criminal organizations around town. He figured he had played it smart, since most of them were too junior to turn. They needed a bit of prison time under their belts to establish credibility. He hadn’t
bet on one of them being chatty enough to bring down a sergeant-at-arms with the Heaven’s Rejects. The soldier “committed suicide” at the space-age Remand Centre, where even multiple cameras and bed checks were no match for dirty guards ready to look the other way. Teddy, like everyone with a contract on their life, was the last to know.
“That’s the great thing about Winnipeg,” said Ernie as he raised the Beretta to line up with Teddy’s forehead. “You can get anywhere in fifteen minutes.” Ernie was right. One more shot shipped Teddy straight off to eternity. Ernie stacked the old phone books in the corner, a little hard to carry without a helper. He decided not to double back on his initial route to Howden. No sense in tempting fate with the RCs, he thought. He put the empty duffle bag back in the trunk, removing a folding sweeper as wide as the Caprice, with bristles cut from old semi-trailer mud flaps. The metal framework that held it together was welded to a trailer ball mount. He plugged the mount into the receiver on the Caprice with the usual cursing and fighting that occurs with old, cold metal. He drove around the parking lot three times, making sure to stagger his tracks to erase any forensic evidence. He knew it was overkill. Overkill was what separated him from freedom and wearing a number at the Stony Mountain institution. The Caprice would go to the scrap yard in the morning, to be shredded.
About a half mile south of Howden, heading towards 75, Ernie stowed the sweeper in the trunk. When he reached the intersection to the highway, he sat idling for a moment at the stop sign. He could have gone — the approaching headlights were at least a minute away — but this was typical Ernie: take a moment to process. Was it a clean dump? Did anyone notice his detailing of the snow? Were the tail lights working on the rusty Caprice? Ernie checked the cut-off switch to make sure, checking the glow in the rear-view mirror. A deep exhale followed. Ernie fumbled in his coat for his pack of Peter Jacksons, a harsh finish for a harsh deed.
Clean Sweep Page 3
