David Worschuk ran as fast as his frame could carry him, dropping the pornography in the snowbank. He fumbled with his phone, informing the City Desk about the explosion and promising video that he would upload to the Sentinel site. Like most smartphone videos, it would be full of jiggling and horrible audio, but it would get the drop on the rest of the media teams, who were no doubt en route to the explosion, thanks to their emergency channel scanners. The debris cloud was starting to dissipate, though there was still plenty of mangle from the remnants of The Other Woman to post. He couldn’t make out if there was anyone trapped inside. There were no moans of pain or pleas for help. There was only the warble of easily triggered car alarms.
Tommy Bosco dabbed at his face with an old napkin from his pocket, which he had moistened with the cleanest of back lane snow. He knew Jasmine was dead, as well as whomever else was inside The Other Woman. The sirens were getting thicker in the crisp air. He saw police units, fire, ambulance, Winnipeg Gas and Power, and media vans descending on the scene as his trudge arrived at the Mountain Avenue bus stop. He entered the bus that was parked next to the McDonald’s, depositing his change as the driver followed him in, a fresh coffee in hand for the rest of his shift. Little notice was given to Tommy and his wounds at the back of the bus. It was just another day in the North End.
~
Nathaniel was parked in his Chrysler, idling near St. John’s Cathedral on Anderson Avenue, barely noticing a funeral in progress in the ancient graveyard. The blast and the sirens had done little to quell the sombre proceedings, with the exception of the younger attendees checking their smartphones and looking towards the direction of the explosion. His Blackberry vibrated on the dash top. Without looking, he hit the power window for the driver’s side. A Toyota Prius wearing Buddy’s Taxi colours was approaching from O’Meara Street. It slowed to a fast crawl as it neared the Chrysler. The Prius window descended and the driver’s arm extended outwards, passing a letter-sized envelope to Nathaniel. There was no need to identify the driver. He clutched the envelope with purpose as the cab continued down St. Cross Street. Nathaniel knew the contents before the envelope was emptied. He held Claire Hebert’s locket aloft, letting the sunlight dazzle on the sterling silver case. He flipped open the clasp, revealing a photo of Claire as an infant, held by her mother. Momma-Bear, Claire-Bear. He snapped it shut hard.
Chapter Thirty
Tommy Bosco was playing out the immediate goings-on at the scene of the explosion as he tried to get comfortable on the beaten bus seat. Fire crews would already be in douse mode, cooling the hot spots. The gas main would be in the process of being shut off. It would take at least fifteen minutes before anything resembling a search occurred. They would find Jasmine’s body and anyone else who chose the wrong dildo shop that morning. Once that happened, The Other Woman was a crime scene with the sped-up convenience of two Robbery-Homicide badges out front. The tape would already be going up around the scene, courtesy of the first patrol units to arrive. It was only a matter of time until Miles Sawatski noticed the Guiding Light van. The tape, and the damage, would invite a query. Tommy figured that was at least worth a visit, and one that would be without courtesy. Once any cop had decided you were a bad seed, no amount of reformation was going to help; there were no grey areas.
“Con is con,” Sawatski had said years ago as he blocked Tommy’s exit at the Remand Centre, when he was first released. “And the one thing I know is that you won’t disappoint me; maybe not today, maybe not in six months, maybe not for two years. But you will fuck up, Bosco. That’s what cons do. And I can’t wait for you to fuck up.”
The immediate concerns for Tommy were the ones expected by most reasonable people after a traumatic event. That’s when it hit him: what were the cops really doing there? He knew that Sawatski and Spence were Robbery-Homicide. They were on the hunt for Claire for the Stephanos killing. Jasmine must have shown up somewhere as a known associate from the Albert Street days. Still, it seemed like going through the expected cop motions of a homicide investigation. Had the building not exploded, Sawatski and Spence would have explained who they were looking for. Had Jasmine heard from Claire? Tommy smiled to himself as he thought of the conversation that would never be. Sawatski and Spence would be looking for tells, the slightest hiccup in Jasmine’s story. Tommy knew that Jasmine wouldn’t crack, which would be a tell in itself. There was a danger in being too stone-faced, too matter-of-fact with the law. What was she hiding? They would thank her for her time, then promptly commence with surveillance and questioning neighbouring businesses, especially those with security cameras. Somewhere in those grainy images was the possibility of Claire Hebert, running frantic, frigid from the cold and lack of outerwear. The laundromat camera could show the truck arriving for the washing machine escape pod. They would probably check with the trucking company. That’s when they would see The Guiding Light on the manifest. That’s when there would be a knock on the door.
Tommy pulled the stop signal as the bus approached the base of the Arlington Bridge. The dogs in the machine shop compound wagged their tails in recognition as he approached, two bullmastiffs with perpetual slobber hanging from their mouths. Jaime Bachynski’s machine shop was never a nine-to-five concern, so a locked compound was a reasonable expectation. The contract work was lucrative enough for the shop to sit idle for weeks at a time. This must have been one of those weeks.
The bullmastiffs followed Tommy to the entrance door of the shop. He let them in for some needed warmth, an invitation they happily accepted. The ancient fluorescent fixtures flickered to life, some faster than others. Tommy started to move the necessary items away from his Ford’s exit path. He had little concern for preserving the patina, inviting new and profound scratches to take up residence on the hood and the roof of the cab. The cargo box took longer to empty, filled to the brim with buckets of scrap aluminum shavings. Freddie rose an inch in height to the rear once the items had been removed. Tommy knelt down to assess the fluid stains. After a momentary internal debate, he opened the driver’s door and pushed the seat back forward in search of top-ups for the oil and transmission.
As he removed the bottles, he noticed the remnants of duct tape stuck to the seat back, where Claire had attached the brick of revenge hash. It gave him a moment of pause. There were plenty of acceptable reasons for not continuing, reasons that could be presented by far more acceptable people than Tommy Bosco. The residue made him think of Jeremy. The snow would have been too deep to visit his simple grave at the city-owned Brookside Cemetery, another casualty of increasing municipal budget cuts. Brookside was next to the primary runway for the James Armstrong Richardson International Airport. It was just the Winnipeg International Airport when Tommy would take Jeremy to watch the planes. They would sit on Freddie’s tailgate, quizzing each other on the types of planes, predicting how smoothly each landing would go. Dinner was two Coke Slurpees and a family-sized bag of Doritos. When he could get to Jeremy, he would always bring the same dinner combination, sitting with him like the old days, watching the planes.
Tommy blinked slow and hard, the usual prelude to his mental reboot. He had told himself many times over, in prayer, and in tear-drenched rage, that he was ultimately responsible for the death of his son. This was a truth he embraced, with the reluctance of any parent who has failed their child. He had never forgiven Claire for the act that led to Jeremy’s death; there was no need. Tommy shouldered the responsibility alone. His path had killed Jeremy long before the slugs that tore through his flesh.
He released the hood, adding the required top-ups. He found a better battery hooked to a trickle charger on the workbench, leaving a crisp fifty in its place. As a force of habit, Tommy reached down to inspect the dummy tank, the one that the border patrol had completely missed. The guns, the drugs, and all the money that it had concealed had become worthless metal, powder, and paper in the eyes of Tommy Bosco. They couldn’t buy what Tommy wanted. They couldn’t buy the life of his son.<
br />
Freddie the Ford, like most automotive things in long-term storage, gave the usual start-up protests — a backfire, rough idle, a flickering oil pressure warning light — until finally settling into a reasonable cadence of combustion. Tommy opened the large overhead door with a chain pulley. Tommy pulled the Ford into the yard, flanked by the curious pair of bullmastiffs. He thanked them both as he scooted them back into the compound, wiping their excess drool on his jacket. They were still wagging their tails as he pulled away from the fence.
~
The smoke was finally starting to clear at Main and Cathedral, though the air was now thick with local media and curious onlookers. The news channels were doing their very similar at-the-scene portions of what was easily worth three minutes of airtime. As far as the media knew, there were two dead, with no mention of foul play. Sawatski and Spence were waiting for the captain of the engine company to give the okay to enter the scene. Somewhere in that commotion, David Worschuk snuck around a barricade, making a beeline for Sawatski and Spence. He didn’t notice the fresh ice nodules from the fire containment. Sawatski turned just in time to see Worschuk’s legs shoot out from under him. He couldn’t stifle the laugh. He leaned down to Worschuk, who was in the throes of real pain. “You know, Dave, for a guy who’s always asking where the fire is, you sure don’t seem to know what happens when all that water freezes.”
“Fuck you, Sawatski! That fucking hurt like a son of a bitch!” Worschuk continued to wince as two paramedics helped him up. Even in his state, he was still able to reach for his voice recorder, which was now sporting the bleeding ink screen of crushed electronics. Making more noise than words, he threw it to the ground. Spence pointed at the infraction. “Better pick that up, unless you want to get brought in for littering, maybe even aggravated littering.”
Worschuk struggled to find his normal facial expression and something resembling composure. He gave his reporter’s notebook a one-two flip while engaging his pen. “You can write that ticket, and I’ll pay it,” said Worschuk. “I’ll do that right after you tell me why Robbery-Homicide is first on scene at a gas explosion. You got a meter reader with a deep dark . . .” Worschuk hesitated as the pain found new places on his person. “Fuck,” he muttered.
Sawatski rolled his eyes before answering in a complete state of mockery. “That’s right, Clowntown. There’s a maniac on the loose, and he’s got a fully charged meter reader and a white panel van with Free Candy painted on the side. He’s one sick bastard.” Sawatski stopped, realizing that Worschuk was actually taking down what he was saying. He grabbed his notebook, tore out the page containing his explanation, and threw the notebook onto the smouldering roof remnants of The Other Woman. “Whoops! Boy, it sure is slippery here, isn’t it?”
Spence smiled along with Sawatski, enjoying the momentary lapse of professional decorum. “Yeah, Sarge. It’s downright treacherous. Better watch your step, Dave. If your story doesn’t run, they’ll have to fill the space with an ad for M&M Meats.”
Sawatski chimed in. “They’ve got those coconut shrimp, right?”
Worschuk was steaming and decided to let some of it vent. “I’m going straight to the PIO on this, and I’ll tell them just how professional you guys are. Maybe even the chief. Bust you guys down to school crossing guards!”
Sawatski took the bait. “Even a school crossing-guard gig trumps being a chain-link mechanic that carries low-grade smack in his asshole.”
Worschuk’s eyes glared at Sawatski, losing all reason. While his intention may have been to defend his honour, Worschuk’s sudden movements, coupled with the ice, sent him crashing downwards, in a slightly more animated dance than the first fall.
Sawatski leaned down to assess his foe. He lifted his boot to Worschuk’s head, revealing the steel spike grids he had fashioned into his soles. “It’s winter, Clowntown,” said Sawatski. “You should be using the right tires.”
The paramedics, still none too busy, attended to Worschuk’s slip-and-fall number two as Sawatski stepped around him to assess the scene. Spence kept an eye on the firefighters working within the building shell. The street was littered with pieces of glass, window bars, and chunks of wood that had been part of the window frames. Luckily, there were no pieces of people to mess with Sawatski’s breakfast. The windows in the building across the street had also been blown out, their draperies flowing outwards to the winter chill. There were three vehicles in the path of the blast: a rusty Cavalier in front of The Other Woman, a late-model windowless Civic on the other side of Main Street, and a battered white Ford Econoline, with flattened tires on the driver’s side. All of the vehicles were total losses, the Cavalier looking as though it had been hit by some form of industrial shotgun blast. Two uniforms were getting particulars from the owners of the Cavalier and the Civic. Voices were raised. Sawatski turned to see the laundromat owner’s wife at the barricade, concerned about the business.
The mission name on the side of the Econoline failed to register to Sawatski as he tried to jimmy the driver’s side door, held closed by the former window bars of The Other Woman. He headed to the passenger side, where he found the door slightly ajar. The door gave a signature old-van creak as Sawatski made a cursory check. Nothing seemed odd about the interior — it was a mess of discarded coffee cups, fast food bags, and free community newspapers. He noticed something black and leathery sticking out from the pile in the passenger footwell. He retrieved the book and opened the cover. “Please return to Pastor Tommy Fucking Bosco, The Guiding Light Mission,” he muttered. Sawatski agreed to do so in his thoughts.
Sawatski’s phone started to vibrate as he closed the door to the Econoline. It must be that fucking puppetmaster. He answered as angrily as one physically could with a cell phone. “What the fuck do you want?”
There was a brief pause, then his partner, Spence, spoke. “I just wanted to see if you wanted a coffee, Sunshine. Then again, maybe you’ve had enough for today.” Spence waved at Sawatski from across the street, standing next to the rookie who had drawn the short straw for java detail. She punctuated the wave with a What Gives? shrug.
Sawatski quickly composed himself. “Sorry, partner. Thought you were Tyrannosaurus Ex for a minute. Yeah, the usual, please and thank you.”
“Sure you don’t want some piss in it, too? You sound like you’re a quart low.”
“Fuck you, Spence. Fuck you very much.”
“No, Sawatski. Fuck YOU very much!” She hung up her cell phone as Sawatski watched. He turned to flip through the Bosco bible, checking for anything that looked unique, half-hoping for a notation of self-incrimination. His phone buzzed again. Probably Spence, Sawatski thought, asking about the doughnut. Sawatski answered. “Sour cream glazed, as per usual.”
~
Nathaniel paused, but quickly recovered. “I bring you money, Miles. You can buy your own doughnuts.” Nathaniel didn’t wait for Sawatski’s response. “I understand that our dear Miss Hebert is not part of the rubble you’re standing in front of right now.”
Nathaniel watched Sawatski from two blocks south, just outside the barricade and away from earshot of the crowd. He saw Sawatski’s hopeful glances for a face to assign to his aural intruder. Sawatski did not see him.
“It’s not her,” said Sawatski.
“I know,” said Nathaniel. “My operative confirms this.”
“This was you?”
“Management always stays out of the hands-on, Miles. But yes, it was my directive.”
“You sick son of a bitch. I should —”
Nathaniel cut Sawatski off. “You should continue making actual progress, Miles. Without progress, we don’t proceed forward. We don’t reach our destination. In your case, that’s keeping your pension intact, your semi-good name unsullied, maybe a casino security job in a warmer climate. Or perhaps it’s public embarrassment, disciplinary action, maybe even time behind bars with some of your favourite
people. By the time I’m done with your personal and professional destruction, you may want to consider eating your gun instead of today’s special at The Line Up.”
~
Sawatski breathed heavy as Nathaniel talked. He was more intent on listening, trying to decide if he knew this man from the arrests of years past. He wondered if it was a former cop, maybe ex-military. He was still breathing hard when Nathaniel spoke. “Miles, Miss Hebert is obviously in protective custody, but not through any official agencies, as that is my bailiwick. My operative confirms that the ledger was not on the premises of The Other Woman, in its pre-destruction state. She has most likely determined that it has some value, possibly worth trading for. She may reach out to you or a member of your team. When she does, I will need to know all the particulars.”
“And what if I can’t get you that information?” Sawatski felt the pause to be too long, a possible disconnection. “Hello? Are you there, asshole?”
“Then Headingley Correctional gets you,” said Nathaniel. “Happy hunting.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The Two Pauls were hungry. Ernie Friday was also hungry. The chances of them all being hungry for A&W late breakfast fare was slim. The chance that they would all order from the drive-thru window at Main and Inkster was slimmer still. Where it got really skinny was the A&W parking lot. The Two Pauls sipped their coffees as they watched Ernie Friday sip his.
“I wonder where he’s going to go next,” said Bouchard. He fished around in the takeout bag for a hash-brown patty, keeping his eyes locked on Friday. Lemay nodded, his mouth stuffed to the brim with sausage, powdered eggs, and indifferent biscuits. He was just about ready to speak when he stopped in mid–vocal formation. Bouchard looked at him strange, then with annoyed concern. “Oh, fuck, don’t you go and have a stroke and shit yourself in my truck.”
Clean Sweep Page 14
