Slow Recoil

by C. B. Forrest

  Kad felt the presence of the man an instant before he felt the barrel of the gun touch his scalp. He held his breath, motionless.

  “Put it down,” Maxime said. He was flush against the wall, hiding in the shadows. “Come this way, Charlie,” he yelled without turning his head away.

  Kad was reluctant to lay his gun down. But he had other tricks, and he could wait for the right moment. He set the gun on the floor and put his hands in the air. McKelvey closed in on them. He was gripping the piece of pipe.

  “Put it down, Charlie. Please. No disrespect,” Maxime said.

  McKelvey stared at him. He didn’t move. Maxime took the gun off Kad just long enough to wave it in McKelvey’s direction.

  “Just put it on the ground, Charlie,” he said.

  McKelvey bent at the waist and put the pipe down. “You mind telling me what the fuck is going on?” he said.

  “There will be time for that,” Maxime said. “Right now I need your help. We will need to tie our friend to a chair.”

  “And then what?” McKelvey said.

  “And then,” Maxime said, “we get him to tell us everything he knows about The Colonel. He looks very stubborn, so I expect it to be a messy job. You have a strong stomach, Charlie?”

  Maxime kept the gun trained on Kadro while McKelvey was to tie the man’s hands behind his back. Out of habit, he first checked the man’s pant pockets, as he had done a thousand times before throwing a suspect in the back of his cruiser. He found a few papers and stuffed them in his shirt pocket without looking at them. He was about the sweep the rest of the man’s body when a knock on the door to the adjoining office startled the three of them.

  “Put your weapons on the floor,” came a voice from behind the door. “I’ve got the school teacher here.”

  Maxime motioned for McKelvey to open the door. The man with the eye patch was standing there with a gun to Fielding’s head. Fielding was barely conscious, held up on his feet by the collar.

  “Davis Chapman,” McKelvey said.

  “Or Chapman Davis. Today you can call me Turner,” he said. “Looks like we have a decision to make. Drop the gun, Frenchie.”

  McKelvey glanced between Turner and Maxime. He shook his head.

  “You guys know each other?”

  “Interpol here has been doggedly following us with interest for some time now, I do believe. I must admit, I had no idea you were this close,” Turner said. “I have little faith in the general level of talent at Interpol these days. Now why don’t you tell your friend here what you’re really doing over here.”

  “I am here under the authority of the Secretary-General of Interpol with a Red Notice for the arrests of Bojan Kordic and Goran Mitovik.”

  “And to collect your bounty from the Serb mob at the same time,” Turner said. “Don’t forget to tell that part.”

  “What’s he talking about?” McKelvey said.

  “That’s right,” Turner said. “Mr. Interpol here wins a medal for bringing the lot of us to justice then pockets a couple hundred grand for making sure we don’t ever make it to trial. But it sounds like he double-crossed the mob, too. You let us kill Kordic, and we will get Mitovik, too. You played both sides. Just like the French during the Second World War.”

  “Shut up,” Maxime said. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

  He still held the gun to Kadro’s head where he was sprawled on the floor. “We are the same, you and me, Charlie,” he said. “It is the same with your son, no? Why can’t we have both justice and revenge in the same meal? These men Bojan Kordic and Goran Mitovik, they are not worth the cost of a trial.”

  “It’s true?” McKelvey said. “You’re here to kill these two? You used me and Tim to draw them in?”

  McKelvey felt weak at the knees. He looked over at Fielding held up by the shirt, the gun at his head. He should have taken Fielding out of the plant when he’d first untied him. He would have gotten him to the safety of the car. Now Turner pushed the gun to the teacher’s temple and stared at Maxime.

  “Okay,” Maxime said. “I’m putting it down.”

  He was lowering himself at the knees, the handgun still in his grasp, when a man stepped into the doorway facing the stairs. The light was at his back, and his features were indiscernible. When he took another step forward, the light fell across half of his face and McKelvey saw that it was Leyden. He had the department issue shotgun from the trunk of his unmarked cruiser. He racked the action. Turner pushed Fielding forward so that the school teacher stumbled headlong into McKelvey and Maxime, then used the moment of confusion to slip away into the darkness.

  Kad did not hesitate within this window of opportunity. He was up on his feet and threw himself at Maxime, hands thrusting, grabbing for the weapon. McKelvey jumped in, got his arm around Kad’s neck and pulled back hard, getting the man off balance. Kad was too strong, and he rolled his shoulders and wrestled free. McKelvey didn’t see the pocket knife Kad had pulled from the strap on his calf, a flash of silver. Leyden set Fielding on the floor and was taking his pulse, using one hand as the other levelled the shotgun out in front. Maxime disappeared after Turner.

  “Krupps!” Kad said, breathing hard. His eyes were wild.

  McKelvey saw the glint of the knife, then knew he had no choice, and he took two fast steps with a hand out in defense to catch the blade, and he brought his head down against Kad’s forehead. It was a concussive blast, bone on bone, and the adrenalin surge allowed McKelvey to maintain the momentum, to use his weight to drive Kad backwards. He put a foot behind the man’s legs to trip him, then they were both going down in a heap of dead weight, McKelvey on top. It was a full second before he realized that in the commotion, in their falling together, the blade had punctured him. Somewhere in the middle of his stomach, below the solar plexus. There was no pain, just the warm rush of blood.

  “Put it down!” Leyden yelled, but Kad was up now, blood running in a thick line from the cut McKelvey had opened across the centre of his forehead.

  Leyden swung the shotgun and fired. The blast rang like a bomb going off in the cavernous factory, and the load caught Kad in the centre of his torso, knocking him off his feet. The knife flew from his grip and skidded across the floor. Leyden stepped in and used a foot to nudge the body. There was no response. McKelvey was on his back, and his breath was coming in short bursts. He was shaking again.

  “Is it bad?” Leyden said.

  He was standing over McKelvey now, the shotgun raised at his shoulder, index finger prone alongside the trigger guard. McKelvey sat up and felt his stomach, his hand sticky with blood, and he pulled his shirt from his pants and raised it to have a quick look. It was a puncture wound, but he was sure the blade had not made it past the layers of fat and muscle.

  “Not too deep,” he said. “Jesus, Leyden, you were following me again.”

  “Thank your girlfriend. She told me not to let you out of my sight.”

  “Go,” McKelvey said. “Get that crazy son of a bitch.”

  Leyden nodded, levelled the shotgun, swung out into the hallway and disappeared. McKelvey held a hand to his stomach then went and picked up Kad’s handgun from the hallway where Maxime had kicked it. Tim was sitting with his back to the wall. A band of light fell across the upper half his body, and he looked ghastly. He was white-faced, lips and cracked and bleeding from the days of dehydration.

  Shouts echoed throughout the plant, disembodied voices across the distance. Then two shots rang out. It wasn’t the shotgun, McKelvey knew. A handgun. Pop-pop. He stepped into the hallway. The sounds were coming from the far end. Voices, taunts, metal against metal. He came to the corner and hugged the wall, staying low and coming around with the handgun gripped in both hands. The hall opened up to a catwalk that spanned the entire work floor. It was too dark to see what was going on at the far end.

  McKelvey came upon a dark figure sprawled in the middle of the catwalk. Leyden. The tall man’s legs were splayed at an odd angle. The shotgun
was just out of his grasp. McKelvey knelt and checked for a pulse. There was nothing. He rolled the detective from his side to his back, and he saw immediately that he had been shot twice in the chest, the rounds grouped close together. The shirt was soaked with blood. No protective vest. McKelvey wondered what sort of marksman could make these shots in the dark, at this range. He tucked the handgun in his belt and grabbed the shotgun, hoping to even out his odds. He crouched and racked the action, delivering a fresh shell to the chamber.

  He made his way along the catwalk.

  Two more shots tore the silence, bounced and echoed.

  Then a return shot from a handgun, smaller caliber.

  A man yelled out then moaned. A wounded animal.

  McKelvey walked on.

  THIRTY

  Maxime clutched at his belly, legs pulled up to his chest. He went to speak, but he choked, and a roll of blood came out of the side of his mouth. Dark red, thick as pudding. He began to shake, and he looked for a moment like a kid playacting in drama class. Arching his back, knees twisted, bucking back against the pain. It was as though the shot had splintered him at his very core.

  McKelvey had fingers to Maxime’s throat, checking the heart rate.

  “Ch-Charlie…listen…je ne suis pas un criminel…I want you to know. I was a good cop. Like you. The money, it was for my chocolate shop…” here Maxime laughed a little and coughed again, and there was more blood. “My chocolate shop…I thought why can’t something good come from all this war. One stone and two birds, as you say…let these bad men die and still collect some bounty… ”

  “Is he up ahead?” McKelvey said. His only focus.

  “He was laying d-d-down on the catwalk in the dark. He surprised me.”

  McKelvey snuggled the butt of the shotgun against his shoulder and did his best to slow his breathing. He ran through an image in his mind of what he would do so that when the moment came, he would not hesitate. He knew that he would kill Turner if it came to it. Or Davis Chapman, or whoever or whatever he was.

  Maxime Auteuil held his belly and rocked himself. His face was slick with sweat, and it had chilled against his skin. He thought of his wife and his unborn child. Gabriel. Yes. But maybe it wasn’t a boy after all. A girl? The protection it would require in this wicked world. What wonders and joys and mysteries would that bring into his life? Dresses and hair ribbons and a whole new language of the heart. He clenched his eyes, and he held onto an image of the three of them, just the three of them—him with his wife and his daughter in the back of their chocolate shop, the place filled with the rich scent of cocoa bubbling on the stove like dark sweetness…

  His mind flipped then to a technical thought: how he had always heard that a gunshot wound to the stomach was the worst way to die. He guessed, as he lay there with his hands pressed to his belly, with the warmth of his life spilling from him with each beat of his heart, sirens coming from somewhere in the distance, he guessed that he was about to find out firsthand.

  McKelvey made his way along the catwalk, stepping through sheets of light and tunnels of darkness. He squinted and made out a rectangle of light at the far end. A window. He caught the edge of movement down there, a blur of activity. The light coming in this way would put him at a distinct disadvantage. He would have a spotlight on him long before he could make out the figure in front of him.

  He stopped, crouched and listened to the darkness. There was a voice. A lone voice. He made progress an inch at a time, swivelling his old hips in this low duck walk, the gun growing heavier by the minute.

  He got close enough so that he could make out the trace of a human figure in silhouette against the broken window. He squinted. This lie he had been telling for years now, that he didn’t need eyeglasses, well, what good had it done him? Curse your vanity, Charlie McKelvey. Eyeglasses and an oxygen tank were definitely in order.

  He kept moving. Suddenly, without realizing it, he was washed in a band of dirty light pouring through the shattered panes. He froze.

  “This is my fort,” Turner said.

  McKelvey edged himself just out of the light so that he could make out Turner standing at the ledge of the window. The window was twelve feet high, and half its panes were missing entirely or cracked. McKelvey could smell the fresh air out there, the stink of the harbour, sounds of gulls.

  “You can see everything from here. The whole city. All the boats out there like toys. I used to come here when I was a kid. My dad worked at this plant. Until he died in an industrial accident. That’s what they call it, you know, an accident. But there are no accidents in life.”

  Turner moved his feet so that he was half facing McKelvey now. And McKelvey saw the handgun hanging from the man’s left hand.

  “Easy,” McKelvey said. He could hear the laboured sound of his own breathing.

  The wail of sirens drew closer. McKelvey knew the Emergency Task Force would surround the place within minutes after receiving a call for multiple gunshots in the populated downtown core. McKelvey needed to keep Turner talking, to buy some time.

  “I’ve made a living at engineering accidents,” Turner said. “Falls down stairs, from buildings, hotwired light switches, exploding toasters. Coups and victory parades. My only mistake was in not getting rid of Peter Dawson. I was soft. He could have had a peaceful passing, no pain whatsoever. See what you get for being Mr. Nice Guy?”

  “Why the eye patch for someone looking to go unnoticed?”

  “I lost my eye in Bosnia in the first days of the war,” Turner said. “It pissed me off, what can I say. I don’t want to ease anybody’s discomfort. I don’t want anybody to forget. Sacrifices are being made each day, and not just by soldiers. Look at 9-11. There are heros among us. This,” he said, and he tapped the patch with his index finger, “is my badge of honour.”

  The two men stared at one another. A dead draw. Their guns at their hips. McKelvey had firepower on his side, and at this range he’d have to be blind not to hit at least some part of Turner’s core. But he’d seen the shots Turner had made, in the dark against moving targets. He was likely a fast draw.

  “Even dumb beat cops like you make sacrifices for things you don’t really understand,” Turner went on. “You just do what you’re told. It’s how the chain of command works.”

  “Who do you work for?” McKelvey said.

  Turner laughed. “For you, of course. For queen and country.”

  “And The Colonel,” McKelvey said. “You work for him, too?”

  Turner shifted his weight just slightly, and his face for the first time was fully illuminated by a band of daylight. “I am The Colonel,” he said.

  McKelvey saw the first indication in Turner’s left shoulder as he raised the handgun. Turner got it to hip level before the load from the shotgun struck him square in the chest. The blast was seismic, concussive, as though Turner was yanked by a rope backwards through the window, a stuntman doing tricks on a movie set. Shards of glass rained down.

  McKelvey set the shotgun on the grating, a tendril of smoke curling from its long barrel. His ears rang. He pulled up on his aching knees and went to the end of the catwalk. He put his hands on either side of the window frame and he looked down. Turner’s body was floating, back side up, in the green-blue waters of the Toronto harbour.

  Maxime was still breathing, but he was slipping in and out of consciousness. His hair was drenched, matted to his forehead. There was nothing McKelvey could do. He felt lightheaded himself. The sirens wailed from just outside the building now. The screech and squawk of a megaphone, a sergeant ordering his men into position. McKelvey set a knee on the grating of the catwalk, and tried to catch his breath. His chest was tight, and he could feel his heart pressing against his ribcage. Each beat sent a rivulet of pain to his chest wound.

  “I’ll get help,” McKelvey said.

  He went to pull up. The catwalk tilted on an axis and the floor came up to meet him. It was the last thing he remembered. A smell of damp concrete, mildew and must.


  THIRTY-ONE

  Three Dead in Harbour Gunfight

  (Staff)—Three men are dead following an exchange of gunfire late yesterday afternoon in the vacant Canada Malting Company factory located at the end of Bathurst Street along the Harbourfront. Unconfirmed reports indicate one of the dead is a Toronto Police detective and another victim may be a foreign police officer.

  Patrol officers from 51 Division, along with members of the Emergency Task Force (ETF) responded to multiple reports of gunfire at about 10:50 a.m. Officers found two dead and two wounded on the second floor of the former malting plant; a third victim was found floating in the waters of the lake on the east side of the building.

  Homicide and Forensic Identification officers cordoned off the entire yard area of the facility located adjacent to the ferry depot for the Toronto Island Airport. Responding officers were joined by members of the provincial Special Investigations Unit. The dead have not yet been identified pending notification of next of kin.

  A source within the police department said late last night that the detective believed to have been killed in the shootout was a twenty-four-year veteran. A former member of the Metro force is also believed to be among the wounded. The source indicated the former cop is ex-Hold-Up Squad detective Charles McKelvey, who was involved in a shootout with reputed biker, Pierre Duguay, just over a year ago after the police officer allegedly conducted an unauthorized investigation into his son’s murder.

  A senior investigator with the SIU said it would be a number of days before they pieced together what happened in the factory.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The doctor said it was part of his routine, that every time he took blood from a man of a certain age, he would run a series of standard tests that might not otherwise find their way into a regimen of infrequent medical visits. Cholesterol. Liver enzymes. PSA. And the thing is, he said, you require some follow-up tests. McKelvey was tongue-thick and groggy from a restless sleep on the gurney in the emergency department, the hall lights and the equipment and voices running all night as he fulfilled the mandatory observation period. He woke to yellow curtains, the sounds of institutional function.