Clean Sweep

by Michael J. Clark

  “Hopefully each other later,” said Tommy. “For now, it’s all these brackets.” There were six oak book stacks in the main library area, each stack about eighteen feet in length. Tommy and Cindy busied themselves removing the screws that held the vertical sides of the stacks. Claire wasn’t sure what to make of the recent activity, though she had finally reached the point of wanting to be useful. “What can I do to help?”

  “Start grabbing books from the second-lowest shelf,” said Tommy. “Grab the ladder and start stacking them on the top shelves as fast as you can.”

  Claire took to the task with a speed and agility that neither Tommy nor Cindy had thought existed within her. The book stacks that had been removed of their anchor screws were starting to sway slightly as Claire-Bear continued to pile the various volumes on the highest shelves.

  The plan was to use the unstable stacks to pin their attacker, or attackers. Tommy would position the ladder at the rear stack, next to the wall. When the attacker or attackers arrived, Tommy would send the stacks crashing forward, putting his legs against the wall and giving the stacks the best shove he could muster. The problem was how to draw the attacker, or attackers, into the stacks and keep them in such a position that escape would be highly unlikely. If the attacker(s) heard any commotion at the back of the stacks, they would make a beeline for the noise. The challenge was to lure them mid-stack and keep them there. Tommy was trying to figure out how when he tripped on one of the books that Claire had removed from the second-lowest shelf. He bent down to pick it up and smiled.

  “Hey, Cindy, you feel a little slippery?”

  “Well, it would be nice if you took me to dinner first.”

  “I mean slippery in tight places.”

  “Like I said, dinner is a good place to start.” Cindy had figured that Tommy meant something else by now and was heading over to his position when they all heard the sound. It wasn’t the boiler, the clank of the steam radiators, or the buzz of the fluorescent tubes overhead. It was the sound of someone trying the latch on the front door of the St. John’s Library.

  Claire almost lost her footing on the ladder when she heard it. She kept it steady as she looked at Tommy for direction. He motioned her down the steps and then pointed to the ladder, adding a new pantomime to indicate its new location at the back of the stacks. Claire moved the ladder as quietly as possible, then hid in the office, as per Tommy’s wordless direction. Tommy explained his next wordless plan the best he could to Cindy, who had now become the decoy. Cindy nodded that she understood, without looking thrilled about it. She was crouched down in the middle aisle of the stacks when she thought of something. As Tommy watched, he wanted to cry out to make her stop. It only took ten steps from start to finish, but it was a huge gamble. Cindy grabbed the ledger off the front counter. As she returned to her position, the front door flew off its hinges with a deafening crash.

  Like most explosions, this one came with the expected haze, as well as various bits of rubble and splinters. The smoke that moved inward from the event burned Cindy’s lungs. She remembered a similar burning sensation, when her car had slid into the back of a city bus two winters ago. The plume from the exploding airbag tasted exactly the same.

  Outside the library, the Two Pauls were disconnecting the twelve-volt car battery from what was left of their improvised airbag-firing wiring harness. The trio inside did hear their attempts to unlatch the door by hand, but they had missed the additional soundtrack stylings of Paul Bouchard, who had knelt down to slice off the rubber weatherstripping on the bottom of the front door with a box cutter. With the gap exposed, Bouchard slid two airbag membranes under the door, a sound which may have been mistaken inside for the shuffling about on the other side of the door. The pair stood to the side of the front door, shielded by its identical heavy oak twin. The blast from the air bags pushed the door upwards with violent force, snapping it in half at its mid-section. Bouchard and Lemay stepped inside, each fanning the air with one hand and holding their recently acquired firearms in the other.

  “Okay, story time’s over,” said Bouchard. “Give us the bitch and the book, and maybe we’ll leave you breathing.” It was a hollow promise from the Two Pauls; Bouchard and Lemay would have to kill everyone inside to ensure their continued anonymity.

  As the assassins started up the staircase, Cindy stepped out from behind the cover of the book stack. She held the ledger aloft. “Hey, assholes! Looking for this?” She immediately darted back into the stack as the first volley of shots was fired. Tommy had figured that shots would come, making sure to stack plenty of thick, heavy books in the line of fire. The literature did its job for the most part. Puffs of exploding paper followed Cindy as she ran. She wriggled through the space on the second shelf that had previously been populated by books, as the Two Pauls entered the stack. They had expected to see her running at the midway point of the skinny aisle and already had their guns aimed to fire at a target that simply wasn’t there. They walked forward slowly, looking all around for another position that had given her safe haven.

  “Hey, assholes! Over here!”

  The Two Pauls turned quickly, looking through a space on the fourth shelf where the books had been removed. Cindy was smiling and waving at them, then disappeared as quickly as she had appeared. The Two Pauls stuck their guns through the shelf access, firing at the general position of their antagonist. Bindings and pages continued to explode around Cindy as she readied her last line of defence. As the Two Pauls moved towards the centre of the stack, they were hit by a volley of books at eye level, as though they had been lobbed at them with spectral hands. They looked through the stacks at Cindy, who was standing in the book stack aisle that was bordered by the wall of the library. She had pushed the books onto the Two Pauls with an oversized push broom, with a handle that was long enough to cover the width of an additional book stack. Cindy smiled at them, knowing what was coming.

  “Book ’em, Bosco!”

  Tommy Bosco had readied himself when Cindy had entered the last aisle through her second-row wriggle. With the cheesy tag line uttered, Tommy moved his legs off the ladder and onto the wall, pushing with full force onto the book stack. The stacks fell forward onto the Two Pauls as Tommy held the stack he had just pushed for the ride to its final resting place. Like the exploding door, there was plenty of dust that presented itself from the collapsing stacks, which seemed to be as noxious as the exploding airbags.

  Tommy peered through the opening in the stacks to see if there was anything to report on the condition of the would-be assassins. The domino effect had appeared to dispatch Paul Bouchard instantly, his eyes in a wide-open death stare, with a portion of the shelves lodged in an area best used for his former windpipe. Paul Lemay was equally crushed, though he had yet to make his final exit. His injuries appeared to be in his chest, most likely the spears of broken ribs that had penetrated his organs and major arteries. As he bled out internally, Tommy noticed that Lemay still had his gun in his right hand. Lemay looked at Tommy with bugged-out eyes, wheezing as he tried to will the revolver into firing position. The revolver fell out of his hand instead as he wheezed once, twice, three times. Then he was quiet.

  Cindy and Claire tried to look through what was left under the fallen stacks, satisfied that no one would be wriggling out to cause them any more trouble. Claire looked up at Tommy as he started to move himself off the debris. “Aren’t you supposed to say something, like, you know, Goddish?”

  “Sure thing,” said Tommy. He stopped and casually clasped his hands together. “Dear Lord, thank God these guys are dead. Amen.”

  “Amen,” said Cindy.

  Claire didn’t know what to make of it all, though she figured it was better to be safe than sorry. “Uh, yeah. Amen, man.”

  If the trio was expecting a Hallelujah from on high, it didn’t come. What did come was the sound of a vibration. Tommy listened, and then realized that it was coming from
the pocket of one of the assassins. He reached down between the shelves and tore open the Velcro pocket flap on Paul Bouchard’s jacket, pulling out a well-used Samsung Rugby flip phone. The phone was new enough that it registered the incoming calls on an exterior LCD. The caller was simply Unknown. Why not, Tommy thought. He flipped open the phone to chat. “St. John’s Library, home of the Fugitive Brigade, how may I direct your call?”

  There was silence at the other end for about five seconds, much like the silence that Tommy had previously heard on the library’s landline. Then the voice spoke. “Good evening, Pastor Bosco. Would you happen to be in the company of the two men I sent to collect you, your lover, and Miss Claire Hebert?”

  Tommy bent down and looked at the two fresh corpses before he answered. “Well, they’re a little indisposed for the rest of eternity right now. Good effort though, a really good effort. But we’ve got to get back to the matter at hand, Johnny Unknown. I’m guessing that you’ve probably got a few more fuckers out there gunning for us, one of them a close family relation, but we’ve still got this book that everyone seems really concerned about. I wonder . . .”

  “What exactly do you wonder, Mr. Bosco?”

  “I wonder how much this little book may be worth to you and the rest of your people.”

  “And why, Mr. Bosco, would there be other people involved in this affair?”

  Tommy had to think about that for a moment. “Well, I suppose the easiest way to put this is that this much asshole factor couldn’t possibly come from one guy; there has to be at least a committee or something, wouldn’t you agree?”

  ~

  Nathaniel stretched his legs in his Chrysler as he idled on Alfred Avenue. The flames were just starting to be visible in the windows of Steve Galecki’s former home as Nathaniel removed the silencer from his Glock. “You are correct, Pastor Bosco, so I would highly advise that your next course of action reflects that. I want that ledger, you want Miss Hebert out of harm’s way, and you want little to no consequence to befall you and Miss Smyth, correct?”

  “Yeah, that would be about the size of it. So you’ll play ball?”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Bosco. The department always plays fair.”

  “Awesome sauce,” said Bosco. “Tell your posse to stand down. We’re going to go get some coffee. Give us a call by three a.m., or we go to the media. They’re better than the cops.”

  Nathaniel disconnected the call. He looked over at the smoke starting to rise. He keyed through the contacts on his screen until he found Chancellor. The call was answered on the second ring.

  “Nathaniel, it’s either very good news or very bad news at this hour. Which one is it?”

  “We’re almost done here, Mr. Chancellor,” said Nathaniel. “What I need to do is arrange a tour.” Nathaniel waited a few seconds for a response, listening to the predictable cadence of the Emerson respirator. There was a long sigh before Chancellor spoke.

  “Nathaniel, for the life of me I can’t understand why we must put ourselves in peril for such an exercise. This isn’t bad television; this is very serious business. Simply get the book and kill them all. I’m not in the mood for company.”

  “I realize that, Mr. Chancellor, and killed they will be. This is simply a ruse. I have spoken to the good Pastor. He is under the impression that we are willing to negotiate for the safe return of the ledger. It is a good impression for him to be under. Yes, it will involve some theatrics on our part, but the end result will be the same. They cannot reveal what they’ll never be able to tell. With containment, on-site, we can ensure success.”

  The Emerson respirator continued to breathe for its occupant. It seemed like an eternity until Chancellor spoke. “Alright, Nathaniel, bring them to me. Meet me in the main hall. I’ll advise Mr. Finch of the plan, and insist that he attend. He needs to see the lengths that we go to for the greater good.”

  “Understood, sir. Will advise when I am at the location.” Nathaniel ended the call without any further pleasantries. He put the Chrysler into drive and pulled away from the burning home of the late Steve Galecki, Gwen Addams, and at least four cats all named Cat. Galecki never saw the point in naming something that wouldn’t come when you called it.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Miles Sawatski had used almost five dollars in change to get his partner’s attention. He pitched a combination of loonies and quarters at the rear windows of Gayle Spence’s house for at least five minutes until she noticed. He saw her gun in the window first. She was obviously sleeping, probably on the couch, which is where most hard-working cops end up for the night, when he started to pelt the glass with cash. She poked her head out the back door. “Mileage, what fucking time is it?”

  “Time for pants,” said Sawatski, pointing to the granny panties below her flannel top. “And this just in: I’m going off the reservation.”

  “Hey, that’s my line!” said Spence, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Fuck. Give me five minutes.”

  Sawatski was pleased that Spence was more or less in on his plan, a plan that was still very loose. She demanded coffee in its largest form, and Sawatski obliged, driving to the 7-Eleven on McPhillips at Mountain. He even sprang for the massive refillable take-out cup that resembled a carafe and the midnight edition of the Winnipeg Sentinel, which was free with any size coffee purchase. He told her about the Toilet Tank Bank at The Line Up and how the whole Claire Hebert case had been tainted by the anonymous requests from the get-go. He told her about Sangster and the need to run silent while he figured out what to do next.

  Spence sipped her coffee and listened, occasionally picking at the button-tufted crushed velvet pieces of the boogie van interior. She attempted to make some sense of the whole situation. “So basically, there’s Stephanos’s murder, which is probably self-defence for Hebert. That’s the easy part. Then there’s this briefcase thing and whatever Pandora’s Box is waiting inside. Sangster just might be a professional hitter-for-hire, which makes whatever you did pretty small potatoes, we hope. Let’s face it: the best-case scenario right now is that you get fired. Just fired.”

  “I know,” said Sawatski. “I’m cool with all of that, but there are way too many bodies piling up here. We’ve gotta shut this whole thing down, and right quick.”

  Spence agreed. “What we need is all the help we can get, and it may not be from people you like, like, uh . . .” Spence felt the need to scan the parking lot at that moment. David “Downtown” Worschuk just happened to be parked three spaces to the right of Spence, in the process of inhaling another clipboard coke bump in the Sentinel Cavalier, unaware that the boogie van next to him had just been deputized. “Now, there’s an asshole we can use.” She pulled her badge from her pocket. Sawatski went to unlatch his door. Spence stopped him. “Take a break, Mileage,” said Spence. “This one’s on me.”

  Worschuk was in the process of reading his latest efforts on the Claire Hebert case on his phone when he was startled by the sound of metal tapping the side door window. He still had the rolled-up bill of cocaine-dusted Canadian Tire money in his nose when he looked up at the person holding the detective shield. “You got a doctor’s note for that NeoCitran powder, Clowntown?” said Spence. “I’m guessing the answer is no, so let’s step out of the car.”

  Worschuk complied with Spence’s orders, though he already had a story to tell as he rose from the driver’s seat. “Hey, it’s not what it looks like,” said Worschuk. “I’m working this story on the increase in recreational cocaine use, so I wanted to make sure I had a good understanding of the effects of the —”

  “Save it, Worschuk,” said Spence. “You’re not getting busted, you’re getting your big scoop.” She led him over to the van and opened the sliding door. Sawatski had already moved to the common area of the boogie van, seated on a low lounge chair of red crushed velvet. He had found an RV-style table for the steel base that protruded from the middle of the s
hag-carpeted floor. “Have a seat, Clowntown,” said Sawatski. “It looks like we’re going to be working together.”

  The sight of Sawatski immediately killed Worschuk’s coke buzz. He slid onto the half bed at the back of the van, and Spence discovered that her passenger seat swivelled. Sawatski and Worschuk were still looking at each other as though each was a different strain of dog shit stuck to their respective shoes. Spence checked the miniature fridge on the floor behind the driver’s seat, finding a six-pack of Coors that didn’t appear to be of the vintage of the boogie van. “Let’s all have a drink and talk this thing through,” said Spence, placing the six-pack on the miniature table. “We’ve got stuff, you’ve got stuff, and it’s going to be a big story.”

  Worschuk crossed his arms like an upset tween. “Not until your partner calls me Downtown.”

  “Oh, for fuck sakes,” said Sawatski. He took a hit of a tepid Coors to temper his resolve. “Okay, Downtown, we know you found out about the ledger. We know about it too, not that anyone has any idea what it’s for. We know there’s a hit in place for Hebert. We know that Bosco and his girlfriend are in on it somehow, at least aiding and abetting. They’re running, they’re scared, and it’s only a matter of time until we catch them or a hired goon sprays their brains all over a wall. So, enlighten me, Downtown Twenty-Four-Fucking-Seven, what the hell is it that you know that we don’t?”

  Worschuk smiled at Sawatski, leaned over, and picked up a can of Coors. He opened it carefully, half-expecting that one of the detectives in front of him had shaken up the beer before placing it on the table. He took a long chug from the can, wiped his arm with his sleeve, and gave a mighty sigh of approval. “That’s a lot, Sawatski. I guess the only thing you don’t know about is the magician.”