by Jack Batten
In that moment, with Trevor at the midpoint between rooftops, Tran turned his back on Trevor and stepped away from the side of the building.
Trevor’s face lost its look of confidence. His body thrashed in the air. The tuck of his feet, the compact question mark, the outreaching arms all dissolved in a confusion of windmilling limbs. There was no one, no Tran, to catch Trevor and pull him to safety. And Trevor’s eyes could see his fate.
“Noooo!” I screamed.
No one heard me because Trevor was screaming the same word much louder.
“NOOOOO!” Trevor screamed.
I jumped forward, past Tran, and grabbed for Trevor.
His hands slapped the top of the tin and bounced off without gripping. His right hand brushed mine and flew away, clutching nothing.
Trevor was still airborne. And dropping. And screaming.
He screamed all the way to the bottom of the alley. He screamed until he hit. I didn’t hear him land. I only heard the scream.
“No,” I said, much quieter.
No one heard it either.
Not Trevor.
And not Big Bam or Tran. They were running across the roof to a door in the building like the door we’d come out of on the booze can building.
“You guys!” I called after them.
Both stopped.
“Hustle that money on over here,” Bam called back.
I leaned over the edge of the building. Trevor was down there.
He looked like a bundle of thrown-away clothes. And he seemed to have landed face first. It was going to be tough on the person who found Trevor. The person was going to find a splat of a corpse.
I trotted over the roof to Tran and Big Bam. Bam had a key and was putting it in the lock to the door.
“You planned that,” I said to him. “That fall Trevor took.”
“What do you care?” Bam said. He swung open the door. “The bastard stiffed me and knocked off the other guy.”
“Fenk.”
“Never remember the name,” Bam said. He said it airily.
“You didn’t have to kill Trevor,” I said. “Not like that.”
Big Bam gave his largest grin.
He said, “I thought it had an inventive touch, as executions go.”
The guy was loony. Or totally gone in amorality. Didn’t matter which. I was still in his company, his and Tran’s. Tran, the designated executioner. And what of an inventive nature did they have in store for me?
Past the open door, the stairway was in deep blackness. Bam took a small flashlight from another of his pockets. He might be loony or amoral, but he was one step ahead in every crisis. The light shone our way on the stairs, and we raced down four flights. At the bottom, Bam produced a key that unlocked the door. Keys, flashlights, guns. For his next trick, Bam might pull a Honda out of that damned jumpsuit.
The door opened on to another alley. It was on the west side of the empty warehouse, as far away from the booze can and the cops as we could get. The alley was unlighted, but across it I could make out a row of backyards. They belonged to houses that ran about a half-block to a main street that had fairly heavy nighttime traffic. The street was Bathurst, and I wished I was on it. Any place but the alley with Bam and Tran.
“Wheel the Porsche up here,” Bam ordered Tran.
Tran beat it down the alley in the direction away from the street, and disappeared around the corner of the warehouse.
“Well,” I said, “guess you want the money belts.”
My voice had a tremor in it that was new to me.
Bam said, “What say you and me get into some brainstorming?”
“Right here? Can’t it wait till we’re comfy in somebody’s conference room? That be better?”
“Indulge me.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “Why not I deposit the three hundred grand with you, and we call it a night? Been great, Bam, but, tell you the truth, I got a late date with some hot stuff.”
I lifted my sweater and tugged at my shirt.
“For instance,” Bam said, “coincidence.”
“You go right on, Bam, free think, whatever,” I said. “I’ll just unbuckle here.”
“One day, Crang, you come into my place,” Bam said. “Next night, the cops come down on it.”
“Oh,” I said. “That kind of coincidence.”
I stopped fiddling with my shirt and sweater and left the money belts around my waist. Better to focus on a more pressing issue. Saving my own hide.
“You’re speculating,” I said to Bam, “is there any connection between my visit and the raid?”
“If there is,” Bam said, “I’m basically gonna have to take steps.”
When Big Bam talked steps, he meant baseball bats or guns or dropping people from tall buildings.
“Your suspicion,” I said, buying time for reflection on my predicament, “cuts me to the quick, Bam.”
Big Bam was standing with his back to the street. He held the flashlight in his right hand, and the black pistol was zipped in one of his jumpsuit’s many pockets. It’d take him three, four seconds to draw it. The distance from Bam to the street was about thirty yards. There were cop cars on the street, but Bam’d pick me off before I got close to them. Back of me, in the other direction, it was no more than ten yards to the alley behind the warehouse. That was my logical route, go back, not forward, and count on making it around the corner of the building before Bam assumed his target-practice position.
“Bottom line, Crang,” Bam said, “you call in the cops?”
“Know this old saying, Bam? All good things must come to an end? Your booze can? Your cocaine trade? Your freedom?”
Bam looked briefly mystified.
I popped him with a short, straight right on the point of his Turhan Bey chin.
It was no knockout blow, but punchy enough to topple Bam over backwards.
I spun around, and took it on the Carl Lewis down the alley.
34
WHAT I HAD IN MIND, my intention, was to circle the warehouse at top speed and maintain velocity until I reached the booze can. Search out Stuffy Kernohan and seek asylum. Claim refugee status. Anything to evade Big Bam’s clutches. Not to mention his black gun. I skittered around the corner of the warehouse, and I came bang up against Tran. There went that intention.
Tran was behind the wheel of the red Porsche convertible, top down, and he was gunning on a line that would catch me about knee level. He was twenty yards away, and he hadn’t turned on the headlights. Probably to avoid the cops’ notice. The turned-off lights might work to my advantage. Make it harder for Big Bam to pot me with a shot from his gun. Too dark in the alley for accurate marksmanship. I reversed directions and bolted for the fence into the neighbouring backyard. Could I outrun a Porsche? Maybe over the short haul. It was ten yards to the fence.
I caught a glimpse of Big Bam out of the corner of my eye. He was on his feet, but was his gun in hand? I couldn’t tell. I was two yards from the fence. The Porsche’s bumper touched the back of my jeans. Just touched. Tran must have been braking. He didn’t want to hit the fence. He was probably wrestling with a dilemma. Bang into me and the fence? Or stop short of both? With the first, he’d nail me, but put a dent in Bam’s expensive car. With the second, he’d let me get away, for the moment anyway, but preserve the car. He chose in favour of the Porsche’s integrity. He braked. The fence was a little more than waist high. I dove into it and flipped over, head first, feet in the air, bum thumping the ground. I landed in somebody’s rhubarb patch.
“Leave the lights off,” I heard Bam say to Tran. Bam’s voice was an urgent whisper.
I kept low in the rhubarb, and scrambled through the dark toward the next fence. My bum hurt, but it wasn’t impeding progress. The only trouble was noise. I was making a lot of it. Bam and Tran might not be able to see me, but they sure as hell could hear me.
“You’re going nowhere, Crang,” Bam called. His voice was still urgent.
I reached
the second fence, and flattened myself on the ground at the base of it. Time was on my side. Or so I figured. With all the cops in the area, Bam couldn’t afford to dally. When the police finished processing the mob in the booze can and came up short on guys in the boss’s office, they’d spread their net wider. I hugged the earth down among the rhubarb plants.
Bam and Tran were leaning over the fence on the alley. I could see their heads and shoulders in outline. Bam had the gun in his right hand, the small flashlight in his left. He switched on the flashlight’s beam and flicked it around the yard. Ha, I got another break. The beam wasn’t strong enough to carry all the way to my fence. Bam switched off the flashlight, and he and Tran backed away from their fence, out of my sight.
I stayed prone. Or was it supine? Flat anyway. And the next sound I heard was the Porsche driving away. It was going south, away from the warehouse, down the alley in the opposite direction from the street where the cop cars and vans were jammed up. Had I outwaited Bam and Tran? I stood up.
And saw Tran hurtling the fence from the alley. I hadn’t out-waited the guys. They’d outsmarted me. I put my hands on top of the second fence and swung over. At least I had a lead on Tran. I was one backyard ahead of him, but he owned an edge in speed. He wasn’t bad at high jumping either.
The next backyard was all grass. I made swift time through it, and cleared the next fence. There looked to be five or six more yards before I reached Bathurst Street. Bathurst Street? Omigawd, that was probably where Bam was headed in the Porsche. The guys were putting on a pincher move.
I didn’t look back, but I seemed to be holding my advantage over Tran. Crang in front by the length of a backyard. The yards were varied. One was all flagstone. Another showed the devotion of a fanatical gardener. I caught the fragrances of herbs as I whizzed by. Sage. Basil. Lavender. And in the second-last yard before Bathurst, five people were winding down over the remains of a barbecue. A table was cluttered with wine bottles and half-filled glasses. Nobody paid attention to me scurrying through the party. Maybe they’d invite Tran to stop for a drink. If it was Sprite, he’d accept.
I got over the last fence, and came down on the sidewalk. Bathurst Street. No sign of the red Porsche. I ran north to the intersection of Bathurst and the side street. Tran’s feet flopped to the sidewalk behind me. I looked over my shoulder. Tran was over the last fence too, but he was on his knees. Must have turned an ankle. Yet another break for me.
A streetcar was stopped at the intersection, and three people were climbing aboard. Not my first choice in getaway vehicles, but it was no time to act particular. I swung on to the first step, and the driver closed the doors. Tran was still limping up the sidewalk.
“Fare, please,” the driver said to me.
“Wouldn’t happen to have change for a five hundred?”
“Why, sure,” the driver said. “Long as you don’t mind 499 singles.”
The driver was a joker. I counted out the right change from my pocket, and dropped it in the fare box.
The car was about a quarter full, mostly with women who looked like they worked at the Western Hospital up the street. I went straight through to the back of the car, and watched out the window for Big Bam’s Porsche.
The streetcar travelled north. It stopped at College Street. No appearance by the Porsche. The streetcar pulled up to the Harbord stop, and when I checked out the back window, I was looking down on Big Bam’s grinning countenance.
Bam was in the Porsche’s driver’s seat. Tran sat beside him. The top was still down, all the better for me to appreciate the Porsche’s fine appointments. Shiny red upholstery. Tape deck. Cellular phone. And Bam with a smug expression.
At Bloor, the streetcar steered into the station that marked the end of the line. Bam couldn’t follow in the Porsche. The station, surrounded by fences and gates, was for streetcars only. That didn’t mean the pair of them, Bam and Tran, wouldn’t come after me on foot.
I was first off the streetcar, and ran across the concourse and down two flights of stairs to the subway platform. No trains were in the station. I was on the eastbound side. So were another dozen people. None of them was Bam or ban.
In two minutes a train pulled in. I boarded a car near the middle, and hung at the door watching for pursuers. I saw one. Tran. He came storming down the stairs, the limp all gone, and squeezed on to the train just as the conductor was blowing his whistle and closing the doors. The train rattled out of the Bloor station. Tran was in a car two up from mine. Did he know where I was? Had to. He’d probably been holding back, waiting to see if I stayed on the train or jumped back on the platform.
I sat in a seat under a poster advertising Druxy’s Deli. Eccch. My idea of a long, dull evening was watching a ball game on TV, beer in one hand, pastrami on rye in the other. The train rolled in to the Spadina station. I popped my head out the door. Tran was on the move. He bobbed out of the car he was on, and before the train started up again, he bobbed back into the car next to mine. Not only did he know where I was, he was sneaking closer to me and my car.
At the next station, St. George, I copied Tran’s stunt. When the train stopped, I darted from my car and into the next car down the line. I glanced back. Tran had moved up. He was in the car I’d just deserted. Wily devil.
The train reached the next station, and I bailed out for good. It was the Bay station, and there were two routes that led up to the street. One of them, the biggest and busiest, was down at the east end of the platform. I couldn’t take that route. Tran was between it and me. I lit out down the west end of the platform to the other, much smaller exit. And I could hear the light flap of Tran’s shoes at my rear.
The Bay station at the west end was spick and span, done in white tile, free of graffiti and other defacing. My bathroom should be so impeccable. I reached the stairs and took them two at a time. At the top, there was one turnstile for exit. And there was no attendant at that late hour on duty in the booth. And nobody else in sight except Tran. I could sense him getting closer. In no time, he’d be breathing down my neck. Except he wouldn’t breathe on my neck. He’d give it a karate chop.
The exit turnstile was a bizarre arrangement of metal bars. Three sets of two-feet-long horizontal bars were attached to a central vertical pole that ran floor to ceiling. The bars formed three little cage-like enclosures that you got in and pushed through to the outside lobby. I shoved forward in the first enclosure, and when I was on the other side, in the small lobby, I turned and waited for Tran.
He rushed into the next enclosure. I paused a half-second, and with Tran inside the cage I grabbed one of the sets of horizontal bars and pushed back. The enclosure stopped turning, and Tran, caught off balance, pitched forward. His forehead slammed into the bars. I yanked the cage toward me. Tran’s head whiplashed, and the back of it banked off the set of bars behind him.
Tran stumbled out of the cage, shaky and dazed. I fired a low right hand into his stomach, stepped to the side, and clipped him with a left hook high on his cheek. They were picture punches, the kind you see in boxing highlight movies. Not bad, even if I was up against an opponent who’d already been blitzed by two sets of metal bars.
Tran lay flat on the station floor. Out cold? I dragged him to the corner of the lobby and rolled him over. Yeah, out cold. I ripped off his white shirt, tore it in two, and tied his wrists and ankles. Tran was packing two pieces of equipment on his belt. A walkie-talkie and the little pop-gun. I left the walkie-talkie, and stuck the pistol in the small of my back under my sweater. The walkie-talkie? Had Tran used it to keep Big Bam up to date on my peregrinations? I’d better watch my rear. And flank. And front.
There was a pay phone in the corner of the lobby. I dialled 911.
“That raid tonight on the booze can near College and Spadina,” I said to the woman cop who answered. “One of the guys who ran the place is waiting to be picked up at the west exit of the Bay subway station.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I have no record of a raid a
t College and Spadina.”
“Okay, try this one,” I said. “The body of the man in the alley next to the booze can, the guy in the subway is responsible for that killing.”
“You been drinking, sir?”
“My last shot,” I said. “This guy here at the subway station, he’s lying on the floor with his shirt off, and it’s going to be a disgraceful sight for people using the facility.”
“I have a car on the way, sir.”
I walked up the steps of the exit to the street. The street was Cumberland. On the south side, there was a small parkette and a big parking lot. The north side was chockablock with smart shops and restaurants. La Belle Boutique. A place that specialized in Cuban cigars. Jacques’s Omelettes. Esthetics of Lara. Wonder what Lara did when she wasn’t losing at spelling bees. There were no-parking signs along Cumberland, but the north curb was lined with cars. BMWs. Audis. Jaguars. A Rolls-Royce. Ferraris. The owners of the pricey automobiles were undoubtedly taking their pleasure in the restaurant at the end of the block, the place I was headed for.
The Belair Café.
35
MIDNIGHT, and the Belair was peaking. At the bar, the smart set stood four deep, and in the restaurant, the floor was so thick with table-hoppers that it took me a couple of minutes to pick out Cam Charles and Annie. They were sitting opposite each other at two single tables that had been pushed together. Empty glasses and plates were strewn across the other two places at the table, but the chairs were empty. Probably the only empties in the room.
I plunked down in the seat beside Annie.
“Honey,” Annie said, glad to see me, but concerned too. “You look frazzled.”
Cam didn’t care how I looked.
