Slow Recoil

by C. B. Forrest

  He yawned wide and saw the back of his throat in the rearview mirror. Hard to believe he was here, really here, closing the loop on this final case. After leaving the RCMP officer, he had gone to the avenue of car rental agencies. He’d selected a black Hyundai Accent, joined the Gardiner Expressway, and wound his way downtown to the Royal York Hotel. He passed on a free upgrade to a full-size car, much preferring the familiarity of a smaller vehicle, which was the norm back home. Even the police vehicles were tiny Renaults. The flats, too, and the hotel rooms, the pant sizes. Here, everything was larger, starting with the sky. The attitude seemed to be “more space, so why not take it up?” But it was his accommodations that he refused to downgrade, choosing wherever he travelled to stay in four-star properties, which was of course covered within the expense claim guidelines as set out in a sixty-page booklet that every agent was expected to memorize—despite the fact the bureaucrats in Financial Control were constantly updating the thing with sub-clauses and fine print to guard against complacency and fraud. Yet another reason he couldn’t wait to retire, to leave behind the universe of reports and receipts and statements and testimonials, dotted ‘I’s and crossed ‘Ts’. There would be no bureaucracy at his chocolate shop, mais non; as long as he listened to his wife, he expected they would be just fine.

  The red wine he’d ordered in the dark and small Library Bar on the main floor of the Royal York Hotel had been half decent, he had to admit, but it still did not compare to the wines of home. He could not be certain if this was a question of quality, which he doubted, or more a question of setting—les environs. This was the je ne sais quoi of French cuisine, the small miracles of fresh and warm baguettes brought home under your arm at the end of a long day, strong cheeses and red wines partaken of in the middle of the afternoon. He was sure this was the case, as the wine he had ordered had actually been French, so go figure. It just didn’t taste the same over here. Not to mention the fact that the waiters didn’t know wines from their assholes, even though they pretended to know the difference between a syrah—or Shiraz, as the Americans called it in their sensitivity to corporate branding—grown in the scrublands of middle California or the Rhône Valley of France.

  Maxime followed the white Corolla. And the white Corolla followed the Subaru driven by Bojan Kordic. There were two targets that he was aware of: Bojan Kordic and Goran Mitovik. There was no police science to his choosing to begin with a stakeout of Bojan Kordic, it was simply flipping a coin. But Maxime had been a cop long enough to appreciate that strange mix of luck and hunch and a little nudge from the cosmos. He had been sitting slumped down in the seat of the car for just under two hours when his choice to begin with Bojan Kordic had so quickly brought about a promising lead. While there was no way he could be certain at this point that the man in the Corolla was in fact one of the Colonel’s operatives—perhaps it was a creditor or a jealous husband or a disgruntled former employee—the odds were heavily in his favour.

  That Bojan Kordic had perhaps only hours left to live worried Maxime not at all. It was not his concern, not his place to intervene in the fate of this man. These events had been set in motion years before. His interest was solely in tracking the man in the white Corolla, who would eventually—hopefully—lead him to the man he had travelled across the ocean to find. It was all about working your way up the chain one link at a time.

  Kadro followed the Subaru down the DVP, across midtown, then southward to Spadina at Queen. The so-called Fashion District was home to the city’s largest selection of garment and fashion accessory producers, custom bridal shops, fabric and leather and fur outlets. Many of the producers and boutiques were housed in renovated former warehouses.

  Bojan Kordic pulled into the lot behind his factory, a fourstorey brick warehouse with the words “Garbo Garments” painted neatly in black lettering on the bricks above the front entrance. The parking lot was big enough for forty cars, four rows of ten. Today there were only half a dozen cars, and it made the place look all the emptier. Bojan got out and started for the back doors, and after a few steps he sounded his car alarm with a click of his key fob. Kad pulled in and stopped so that his car was still concealed by the side of the building, not yet visible in the parking lot. As Bojan unlocked and slipped inside the rear double doors, Kad eased back out of the lane onto Spadina. There would be fully functioning video surveillance cameras to catch a one-eighty field of view, of that he was certain.

  Maxime slowed down along Spadina just in time to catch the white Corolla backing up the laneway between two warehouses. Maxime was in the flow of traffic and unable to stop, but he glanced over his shoulder and watched as the Corolla pulled out and found a parking spot along the street. He went two blocks farther and did the same. He sat in the car for a moment with his notepad, marking the times and locations, the license plate of the Corolla. He opened his attaché case, which contained his Walther P38 sidearm locked within a smaller case, his files on the two known targets—Kordic and Mitovik—as well as a much thicker file on the operations and known associates of The Colonel. He moved these aside and found the slim black case that contained his GPS tracking device and the handheld receiver that looked like a cellular phone.

  While the global positioning system technology had been tested and toyed with by the U.S. government since the late 1970s, it was not until the 1990s that the technology was made available for non-militaristic purposes. With each generation, the technology improved, allowing users to draw an ever closer bead on the exact latitude, longitude, altitude and time of a tracked object. Or, in the case of Maxime, the subjects he followed. The first GPS tracker he had employed during his undercover days following the murky arms and drugs dealers was not provided or even authorized for use by the police force. He had purchased it on his own, seeing this as the future in terms of surveillance tools. The model he had with him now would allow him to trace a subject to within roughly half a block. One day in the not too distant future, he believed the technology would be refined to the point where the subject’s exact and precise location would be known to within an eyelash. Good for dropping bombs and finding errant husbands.

  Maxime got out of the car, and with his hands tucked inside the pockets of his black leather jacket, he moved down the sidewalk towards the white Corolla. It was a beautiful late summer day, clear sky and warm. In fact, Maxime felt a little conspicuous in his leather jacket. He had come to the country prepared for the worst, all these stories you heard about Canada. Ice floes and Eskimos. He felt foolish now, for he had left his short-sleeved shirts at home. He had even purchased a new black wool toque, which was packed in his bags at the hotel. As he walked towards the Corolla, his mind drifted to his wife and his unborn child, and he thought: If it’s a boy, then, yes, it will be Gabriel. After the angel.

  TWENTY

  McKelvey was buttering a toasted slice of Wonderbread— the last piece of bread in the cupboard—when the phone rang. He grabbed the receiver and, on instinct, barked: “McKelvey.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” the male caller said. “I must have the wrong number.”

  McKelvey’s mind clicked. “Wait,” he said. “Who are you looking for?”

  “Leyden, Dick Leyden,” the caller said.

  “You’ve got him,” McKelvey said. “Sorry, I’m just answering my friend’s line. How can I help you?”

  “It’s Peter Dawson calling. I’m the executive director of Bridges. I got a message from one of my volunteers that you stopped by and had some urgent business.”

  “I appreciate you calling back so quickly. I’m working on a case that involves a woman named Donia Kruzik. Does that name ring a bell?”

  “Perhaps. I think so, yes,” Dawson said. “Yes, I remember her. She came to Canada about a year ago. Is she in some kind of trouble?”

  McKelvey glanced at his watch. It was closing on noon. After Hattie had left for work, he had drifted off again, his body and mind exhausted. It seemed he closed his eyes and disappeared.

  “L
isten, if you’ve got the time, I’d like to buy you lunch and ask you a few questions. I can’t really talk about it over the phone.”

  “I’m not sure how I can help. Much of the information we collect is protected by privacy laws, you understand.”

  “I understand,” McKelvey said. “Even some background on the centre and what you do would be helpful.”

  McKelvey hoped the man’s dedication to his work, as the volunteer had suggested, would be sufficient motivation to get him out on the long weekend.

  “I could do that, I guess,” Dawson said. “I’m heading down to the Eaton Centre to do a little shopping this afternoon. I could make time for a coffee.”

  “Just name the place,” McKelvey said.

  He hung up and turned back to his piece of toast. It was cold now. It looked utterly pathetic sitting there on the kitchen counter, a pad of unmelted butter at its centre. He couldn’t eat now anyway. His body thrummed with the surge of energy that came with each new possibility, each tiny crack that might bleed a little light. He took the piece of toast and tossed it in the garbage on his way to the bedroom to throw on a shirt.

  McKelvey removed his black sports coat and hooked it over his shoulder with his forefinger. He stopped walking long enough to light a cigarette, his first of the day, and he smiled as he remembered Hattie’s joke about the cigarette after sex. It was too bad about the two of them, he thought. He knew that she wanted him to want her all the way, to live with her without concern for titles or legalities. They had tried it for awhile, it was true, this idea of modern co-habitation. But the thing was, he was getting old. And it was getting too hard to fake, this endless energy, this enthusiasm for new things, new foods, whatever. That was the cold, hard truth, and it made him think of the last time he had seen his father. McKelvey’s mother had died a few months earlier, and McKelvey had gone up north to see if his father was planning to sell the house and move into a senior’s home. Of course he knew the answer to that question before he even got behind the wheel of the car to make the eight-hour drive. Caroline had said it was what any good son should do, so he had done it. Images of the old man sitting at the cluttered kitchen table, dust dancing in the sunlight streaming through the window, bony cigarette-stained fingers curled around a half bottle of beer, bits of the label peeled off. The silver hair on top of the old man’s head was tinted with yellow, and it was uncombed, his undershirt was dirty, and his muscles, which had once been toned and tight as snakeskin, were slack and soft as baby’s fat. McKelvey remembered feeling absolutely staggered by the sudden advance of years in his dad, this shovel in the face. He just stood there, couldn’t say a word. There was something terrifying about realizing the truth of mortality.

  Now he smoked and walked. The morning chill had burned away beneath a brilliant sun, and now, at noon, the day was fully in bloom—perhaps even a record temperature for this time of year. He walked the few blocks up Yonge to Dundas, the hub of the city. If New York had Times Square, then Toronto had Yonge-Dundas. It sat at the crux of what was probably the country’s busiest intersection, right across from the Eaton Centre, which was without argument the country’s busiest shopping centre. The five-storey mall drew more than fifty million visitors each year.

  The public square was right now under construction as part of a massive urban redevelopment plan to return the area to its former glory as a focal point for open-air concerts, exhibits, receptions, community celebrations. The winning bid for the redevelopment included plans for a large open court comprised of granite slabs, twenty fountains, water and lighting effects, a canopy shelter. While McKelvey’s first reaction to news of the upscale redesign was one of trepidation—who wanted some goggle-eyed, sandal-wearing architect to determine the course of the city’s very heart, after all—but now, as he passed by the work site, he figured it deserved some benefit of the doubt.

  The Eaton Centre had just opened its doors for the holiday weekend crowd, and the place was already filling with tourists and locals both, employees and cleaning staff, those using the centre as a cut-through between Dundas and Queen Streets. McKelvey took the escalator down to the food court level. He was immediately assailed by the strange perfume of sickly sweet cinnamon buns mixed with the fecund scents of freshly brewed coffee, cheesy pizza, pretzels, buttery popcorn, deep fried fish. It was no wonder young people were getting so fat. He saw teenagers hanging around the doors to the mall, pot-bellied and stoop-shouldered as though they were in their late sixties, for Christ sake, stumbling around with gout from a lack of vegetables and fruit. They thought poutine was one of the seven food groups.

  He and Dawson had arranged to meet at the Starbucks Coffee island just past the water fountain at the mouth to the south food court. Before McKelvey could tell him that he had his picture from the annual report, Peter Dawson had provided the helpful piece of information that he was “tall and skinny and will be wearing a plaid British wool driving cap”. McKelvey joined the queue for coffee and again took note of the number of young teens buying these silo-sized concoctions of froth and whipped cream and drizzled chocolate with a fucking cherry on top.

  “Medium coffee, please,” he said to the young server.

  “Would you like to try our new pumpkin spiced latte?”

  “Pumpkin what?”

  The server must have seen the look that Hattie was always telling him about, this scrunch-faced, slit-eyed squint that came so naturally in moments of confusion or frustration or condemnation. When you do that to your face, Hattie had told him, it makes people literally want to run the other way.

  “For Halloween,” the girl shrugged. “Never mind. Mild or bold for your coffee?”

  “Bold, I guess.”

  With the complicated transaction complete, McKelvey went to the condiment stand and stirred in a shot of cream. It was eighteen per cent, thick as yogurt, but the doctors were nowhere in sight. As he turned, he caught view of a man standing off to the side. Peter Dawson. And he wasn’t kidding, McKelvey thought. The man was six-six, a hundred and fifty pounds, this plaid wool cap on top of his head as though to guard against the weather patterns at that altitude.

  “Mr. Dawson,” McKelvey said and went over.

  “Mr. Leyden, I presume,” Dawson said, and they shook hands.

  The joke had gone far enough. McKelvey was wishing he hadn’t kept on with the play on Leyden’s name. Too late now to turn back without drawing suspicion.

  McKelvey said, “Can I buy you a coffee?”

  “Sure,” Dawson said. “I might try one of those new pumpkin lattes, actually.”

  McKelvey got in line again as Dawson went and got them a table in the food court. The same server came to the counter, She smiled at McKelvey.

  “Pumpkin spiced latte,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “You changed your mind, that’s great,” she said, grabbing an empty cup and marking the order on the side with her grease pencil. “Room for whipped cream?”

  “Of course,” he said. “As much as you can fit.”

  McKelvey took the drink over to the table. Dawson thanked him, removed his cap and ran a hand over thin reddish-brown hair that was halfway gone. He leaned in and drew a mouthful of the whipped topping then licked his lips. There was no way, McKelvey thought, for a man to drink a drink like this without looking ridiculous.

  “Thanks for taking a few minutes,” McKelvey said.

  Dawson nodded. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but can I see your business card? I mean, if you’re an immigration lawyer.”

  If you’re a lawyer. McKelvey saw that he needed to show a little goodwill in the domain of truth. That, or risk the man closing up entirely. He said, “I’ll be honest with you, Peter. I’m a former police officer.”

  Dawson nodded as though he had come prepared for this information. “Then I’ll be honest as well,” he said. “When Pamela called me and gave me the message, well, I’m not twenty-two years old. I figured there was something else to it. I thought maybe it was taxe
s, some audit of our funders by CSIS. You know, in the wake of 9/11 and everything. So what are you doing exactly? What are you looking for at Bridges?”

  “I have reason to believe Donia Kruzik was murdered. A friend of mine was seeing her. He was worried about her,” McKelvey said. “She just stopped calling, disappeared. I went looking for her on behalf of my friend. She was gone, but someone was in her apartment. Things have become increasingly complex from that point on.”

  Dawson drank some of his latte and wiped his mouth with a napkin. He was fair-skinned, lightly freckled, and his cheeks were a little scarred from teenage acne. He seemed innocuous. McKelvey saw the man at the front of a Rotary Club meeting with a name tag taped to his suit coat.

  “This is that case that’s all over the news, isn’t it? I mean, they haven’t released the woman’s name, but that’s why you’re here, right?”

  McKelvey nodded. He took a drink of his coffee and watched the man’s eyes for signs of where this was headed. The man had no obligation to sit here and talk to a civilian.

  “I should be speaking to the police, in that case,” Dawson said, as though reading his mind. “I mean, whoever is handling the investigation. To keep this above board.”

  “I can put them in touch with you,” McKelvey said. “I’m just hoping for some basic background information. My friend is in a real jam here. Time is of the essence.”

  “I don’t know much about that particular client, Mr. Leyden. What I can tell you is that Davis Chapman was her intake volunteer. And he was our most senior volunteer, in terms of career and background experience. Most of our team members are third or fourth-year university students.”

  “You said ‘was’. He no longer volunteers?”

  Dawson sat back. He shrugged and his head tilted to the left. His body language told McKelvey to keep picking. The man wanted to let go of something. “He works for the government. He travels a lot,” Dawson said.