by Warren Court
“Hang on, Sergio.” Sergio looked up at him with glassy eyes. He was going into shock. There was a knock at the door and then it opened. Temple reached for his gun but did not pull it.
“I’m a nurse,” the woman said. “Can I assist?” It was the woman from 415.
“Yes. She’s dead.” Temple indicated the stricken call girl. “My partner needs help.” The woman came into the room and despite Temple’s declaration that the prostitute was dead she checked her pulse anyway, then quickly moved to Temple’s side.
Time stopped for Temple as the pair of them worked on Mendoza. He wasn’t aware of the sirens or shouts. The only way he knew the paramedics were there was when one of them put his hand on Temple’s shoulder to pull him away. Temple stood up and was pushed aside as a swarm of paramedics descended on Mendoza. There were cops there, too, uniforms. Some had their guns drawn but pointed down at the floor. Temple could see the anger in their eyes: one of their own had been shot. He didn’t feel that, not yet. But he would. When Mendoza was finally on a stretcher and being rushed out of the room Temple just stood there, watching. Then his training took over.
“Everyone out.” He pointed at the dead prostitute. “This is a murder scene. I need everyone the fuck out of here, now!” he screamed. The uniform cops left, fanning out through the rest of the hotel. Radios crackled with updates on the shooter. Temple could hear more sirens outside now: the outside world was forcing its way back in. He looked down at the blood on him. It was from the prostitute and from Mendoza. Then other detectives were on scene. One was Daniel Marinelli, leader of Homicide Team Three—his team was catching today. He came over to John, stepping gingerly over the dead body that was now covered in a sheet.
“John, let’s get you out of here. I want to talk to you. SIU is going to be here any minute.”
26
Temple and Marinelli went out into the hall. The hotel manager opened up an unoccupied room for them to talk in. Marinelli wanted to do the briefing quickly and at the scene of the crime. The more distance and time between the event and the discussion, the less Temple might remember.
“What’s the story, John? What happened?”
“We were meeting a pro.”
“Prostitute?”
“Yeah, call girl. We met one earlier off a website and we had another one coming. We’re trying to find the missing Nair girl. That’s the case Mendoza and I are working.”
“Nair as in the trunk victims? The Sobeys parking lot”
“Yeah. Their other daughter is missing, I think she’s the key,” Temple gestured back out towards the hallway, “and I think what happened here can confirm it.” Temple spoke softly and stared at the wall, trying to make sense of what had just happened. He rubbed his face. Marinelli wrinkled his brow and took out his notebook.
“What happened in the room?”
“I left the room. Mendoza was meeting the hooker. Then I was going to come in and we’d talk to her. You can’t track down these call girls any other way; it’s not like they’re out on the street.”
“They don’t show up alone,” Marinelli said.
“I know that, but they usually don’t pull out guns and start shooting people either. The first one went okay. A guy and a girl showed up. The guy checked Mendoza out and let the girl stay and he left. The second one… I don’t know what happened. I heard the shots, came around the corner, and put some rounds down on our shooter, but he got away.”
Temple strategically forgot to mention that he had come from the bar where he was meeting Karen Kindness. As he was talking with Marinelli, telling him the version he thought was best, his mind was also racing with possibilities of who the shooter was.
“You get a look at the guy?”
“No. The hallway is dark. I saw his face but not well enough. White male, probably around forty or fifty. Stocky build. Had a nine-millimetre, I think. Tan overcoat. Christ, he almost tagged me. Two rounds right beside my head.”
Detective Jergenson, Marinelli’s partner, stuck his head in the room. “Dan, SIU is here. They’re going to want to speak to John.”
“How’s Mendoza?” Temple asked.
“Too soon to tell, he’s in surgery.” Jergenson said, and closed the door again.
A Special Investigations Unit, or SIU, was called any time a cop used his weapon. Marinelli could stall the SIU team for a bit but sooner or later they were going to dig into Temple.
“What about the girl?” Marinelli asked.
“Found her on a website, same one that featured the Nair girl last year. Thought she might know her. Know where she is.”
“Her name?”
“On the site it just listed her as Linda. They’re all phony names anyway. I’ve never seen her before.”
“What website?”
“TO Vixens,” Temple said. “We just happened upon it. We got lucky in that, I guess.” Another lie. He wasn’t going to let Marinelli know that he was still going after the Villains motorcycle club and that TO Vixens was their site. If he figured it out on his own, okay, but Temple wasn’t going to connect the dots for him too easily. He wanted to do that himself. The last dot would be his own, and would involve a bullet going into the head of the guy in the tan overcoat.
“If you want to avoid talking to SIU, you can get a ride to the hospital to check up on Mendoza. No one could argue against that. Get yourself checked out while you’re at it,” Marinelli said.
“I’m fine. I’ll go talk with them now.”
“You and I will need to speak again,” Marinelli said.
“I know,” Temple said. “Anything to help catch the shooter.”
Temple did go to the hospital, a uniform drove him, lights and sirens the whole way. Temple had hung around emergency, talked to a doctor and then to a senior staff sergeant. SIU got word he was there and one of their teams showed up.
Temple spent two hours with the SIU team, a man and a woman. They did the briefing in an unoccupied hospital room. The woman was a cop; the man was a civilian that Temple knew from the Tsingtao shooting. They grilled him pretty hard, wanted to know how he had become separated from his partner. How many shots he’d fired. Did he hit the suspect? Why not use some other means? Temple got angry at one point, pointed out that the shooter was firing at him, and his only recourse was to return fire. Temple couldn’t get a read on them, which way they were going to swing with it, whether or not he would receive a commendation or a reprimand. Not that he cared either way.
When they’d finished with him, he was ordered to go back to 40 College. The chief was on his way to the Marriott after having visited Mendoza in the hospital; Mendoza was still in surgery. The bullet in the neck had apparently missed the carotid artery by two millimetres. The one in the abdomen was serious, too; it had nicked one of his kidneys.
Temple was driven in a patrol car back to headquarters. The two uniforms in the front didn’t speak a word. There was radio traffic about the hunt for the shooter. The description was updated after a video camera in the hotel showed a bit more of him. White male, dark hair. Baseball cap and tan overcoat. Black shoes. About 5’8”. Pretty much what Temple had described.
Temple played through the shooting a hundred times on the way to 40 College. Headquarters was a ghost town. Every cop was out pounding the pavement for Mendoza’s shooter. Temple slumped in his chair and hung his head back. He realized he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten since the morning. Would it be wrong to go grab something while his partner was fighting for his life at General only a few blocks away?
“John.” Wozniak was standing over Temple’s cubicle. Temple hadn’t even noticed him. He was just suddenly there. “A word, please.” Temple got up slowly. His body ached. The tension and adrenaline had stretched his frame to the limit and now he was feeling it. He was getting old. They went over to Moonshine’s office, which was vacant.
“Take a seat. Tell me what happened,” Wozniak said.
“I feel like I’ve already told it a thousand times.”
<
br /> “Make it a thousand and one.”
“We were working the Nair case, trying to find the missing daughter. She’s key. Whoever did the shooting may be good for the father and daughter in the trunk of the Lincoln.”
“Where were you?”
“Down the hall out of sight, like we planned. A call girl and her bodyguard aren’t going to come into a room with two men in it. Mendoza looks less coppish than me, and he agreed to it. He had his piece handy. Just didn’t get a chance to use it.”
“You get a look at the crime scene?” He pointed at the blood on Temple’s shirt.
“This isn’t mine,” Temple said.
“You got clean clothes here?”
“Yeah, street stuff I’ll change into. Then I’m going out. Going to find that bastard and put him right.”
“Negative on that. You’re not going to do a damn thing except go home.”
“Why?”
“You’re working the case, right? Bullshit—you’re going after the Villains. TO Vixens—it’s their site. You were told to back off them.”
“What the hell, Tim? Not you. It’s the best lead we have. The guy’s daughter was turned out by these biker fucks and I’m not supposed to follow it? Isn’t putting them behind bars for murder just as good as behind bars for drugs and guns and pussy?”
“You were told to back off. Now I’m making you back off. You go home, in the morning you go see your partner, and then you take vacation. That’s an order from the chief.”
“Chief or deputy chief?”
“The chief. Kindness has nothing to do with this.”
Don’t bet on it, Temple thought. How he would love to tell Wozniak how the newly appointed deputy chief was mired in muck right up to her neck alongside the mayor. If they were going to drum him out of the TPS he might just as well do that. Then something occurred to him: suppose he was the target of the bullets in the hotel. To keep him quiet. He shook his head.
“What?” Wozniak asked.
“It’s crazy, you guys running this thing into the ground to protect a goddamn operation. These guys are cop killers.”
“You don’t know that. These call girls, they have all kinds of guys in their lives. Maybe the shooter is connected to the Villains and we’re going to nail him anyway. But you’re too emotional over it. You’ll screw it up and the guy might walk.”
“Not if I get to him.”
“Go home, Dirty Harry. Take a shower and get some sleep and then go to the hospital. After that I don’t want to see you for two weeks unless it’s in front of an SIU board of inquiry.”
27
Temple drove for blocks, thinking, barely obeying the traffic signals. Eventually he found himself in front of the Wentworth Tavern. The bar was packed. Temple hated that. Where had these people come from? Did they want to see the cop that had fucked up, broken the rules, and put his partner in mortal danger? Of course, they ignored him as he entered. He scanned the crowd quickly and did not see Wade. Good thing: he would probably have killed him in here in front of witnesses. He might have been in a rage, but he could recognize providence when it came his way.
As if sensing his arrival, Detective Bill Rush, up at the bar and in his usual place, turned to watch him approach. Bill’s face was an impassive wall of granite, until the corners of his mouth turned up in a quick smile. Probably as close to showing an emotion as Temple had ever seen him. Temple said nothing and took a stool next to him. He wanted to fire a couple of shots into the ceiling to clear the place. Tracy came over and took his order, barely acknowledging him. To hell with her. When he had a couple of sips of a double rum and Coke in him, he told Rush, who was waiting patiently, what had happened in whispered, clipped phrases.
“You tag the guy?” Rush asked.
“No. My rounds hit the door.”
“How many shots you get off?”
“Seven. That’s what SIU said. I had to give them my weapon for inspection but they returned it. They’ll want it later, I’m sure. The optics on this whole thing, with a cop fighting for his life, is bad for them. Even those pricks could see that.”
“Watch those guys. Most of them are civilian idiots who hate cops.”
“I know,” Temple said. He sipped his drink and said nothing more.
“What else is there?” Rush finally said. His voice went down at the end in anticipation of something dark coming his way.
“I wasn’t there. I told SIU I was around the corner. I wasn’t. I was coming up in the elevator.”
“Where were you?”
“Down in the bar.”
“Drinking?”
“Fuck, no. I had a ginger ale. I was meeting someone.”
“Who?”
“Rather not say. It’s bad, though. I leave my partner to go down to the bar and he almost gets his ticket punched.”
“You went down to meet a confidential informant. Your partner had no need to know.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking that’s the smart move. The first hooker didn’t show up for an hour. This one was probably going to be late, too. My bad luck the pair showed up early.”
“Why are you meeting hookers in hotels?”
“Call girls. Only way to get to them. Trying to find the missing Nair daughter.”
“So they pop Mendoza. Why?”
“Don’t know. I’m going to find out, though. Fucking right I am.”
“Lot of eyes on you now. Be careful.”
Temple ordered two more drinks.
“So who were you really meeting?” Rush said.
Temple sipped for a while. “Just how dirty is this fucking mayor of ours?”
A rush of air went out of the senior detective. “How much do you want to know?”
“I know a bit already. Biker gangs. Police investigations. Federal, provincial, TPS internal affairs probably.”
Rush said nothing.
“Well?” Temple said. “You going to tell me or not?”
“I worked for him last couple of years, before they put me back on homicide. When he first got in as mayor he had some death threats, mostly crazy animal rights activists. Even when he had his slaughterhouse closed up, they still kept at it. Anyway, he asked for a security detail and I ran it. It was just me mostly and a couple of uniforms. We’d go with him to speaking engagements. I caught this one hippy chick one time who was going to throw blood on him. Grabbed her by the arm. She smelled like shit. Hairy armpits. It was disgusting.”
“Where’d she get the blood?”
“That’s what I said. Some animal rights nut job. Unless it was human blood, which I doubt it was, it had to come from some animal. She never said where she got it. It’s not against the law to walk around with a milk bag full of blood. It should be but it ain’t.”
“Why would there be an operation directed against him?” Temple asked.
“Any number of reasons. I know he likes his coke. Likes his women. A little too much.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Likes it rough. Things get out of hand sometimes. He wanted us to clean up his mess one time. I told him to go fuck himself so he brought in his own people. Told the TPS he would handle his own security. I said fine. They put me on homicide.”
“He’s into coke?”
“Of course. He can afford it. Likes his booze too, but everyone knows that. Speaking of which.” Rush held up his empty glass and tinkled the remaining ice cubes. Tracy came down and did a refill.
“You working tomorrow?” Temple asked her. She ignored him but served him anyway. Rush grinned. “Anyone outside of the TPS know this about him? I mean anyone without a badge?” Temple said.
“Couple of reporters I know. They’re waiting on the big break. They’ll get sued if they ever report on anything without solid proof and that’s what they can never get. The mayor thinks he’s untouchable, too smart for them.”
“I voted for the prick,” Temple said.
“I’m not going to tell you anymore. And we never spoke on it.�
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“Yeah, I hear you.”
There was a long wait, just two friends drinking and watching the Maple Leafs. The Leafs were almost out of contention for the playoffs. The crowd thinned; it was an after-work thing. They came in occasionally for the cheap drinks and the dive bar atmosphere before moving on to somewhere better.
“What are you going to do?” Rush said.
“Close the Nair case. I don’t care who it drags in. Oh, and kill the son of a bitch that shot my partner.”
The hockey ended and a news program started. The sound was down and they watched a grim-faced reporter outside a hospital. Then Mendoza’s picture was on the screen with some details: age, years on the force. Then Karen Kindness’s mug came on the screen and both detectives cursed under their breath.
“Turn it up, would you, Trace?” Rush asked.
They caught the tail end of Kindness’s statement from the hospital. “The chief and I stand behind the brave men and woman of the Toronto Police Service, as does the entire city. We’re all behind Detective Constable Mendoza, and rest assured we will find those responsible.”
“I hate this place,” Temple said.
Rush looked around. “It’s not bad. Cheap drinks. Nice bartender.”
“No, I mean the city.”
“Right. Yeah, hand your badge in, get transferred to some quiet town up north. Blow your brains out from the boredom.”
“Or I could wait around and do the same thing right here for other reasons, right?”
“You got it, Jack.” Temple finished his drink.
“Watch your step,” Rush said as his friend left.
28
Temple’s phone rang as he was getting in his car. It was Wozniak.
“Sergio’s out of surgery. He’s going to make it but he’s going to be out of action for a while.”
“When can I go see him?”
“Tomorrow morning. He’s still under and they’re keeping him in ICU.”
