City of Crime

by Warren Court

  “I’m coming over now.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “Isn’t there?” Temple said. He hung up.

  Temple didn’t know where to go, so he pushed through the double emergency room doors. It was busy. There were a dozen people in the waiting room. Most of them looked like they were in anguish. A black man with a bloody T-shirt was holding a bandage to his nose. He was glassy eyed. Another guy, a white male, was holding an ice pack to his head and moaning. A woman was trying to comfort him.

  “It’s okay, Ruddy, it’s okay.” She kept saying over and over.

  “It’s not fucking okay,” Ruddy said, loud enough to cause some attendants and two uniforms cops standing by the admittance desk to look over.

  Temple went up to a duty nurse, badged her, and explained who he was. “I need to see Detective Mendoza, the cop who was shot.”

  “He’s in ICU.”

  “I know that. Take me to where he is.”

  “I will not. You’ll have to sit here and wait.”

  The cops came over, alerted by Temple’s agitated and obviously inebriated state. He whirled on them. “It’s okay, fellas. I’m Mendoza’s partner.” He recognized one of them vaguely.

  “Nurse, can we take him to where the detective is? We know where,” that cop said.

  The woman was overworked and exasperated. “Fine,” she said. The two uniforms escorted Temple down the hall. They followed the blue tape on the floor to the ICU wing.

  “He’s going to be okay, Detective,” the other one said. Temple just nodded.

  When they got to ICU, there were several white shirts from Command standing around. Wozniak was in the throng. He saw Temple and came over.

  “Told you to go home.”

  “Guy’s my partner. He got shot on my watch. I’m staying.”

  “How drunk are you?”

  “Not enough.”

  “Sit over there. There’s a lot of press around. What we don’t need is a drunk cop on camera, even if it is the guy’s partner.”

  Temple went over and slumped in a chair and busied himself checking his phone. In a couple of hours, the cops cleared out. Wozniak came over and said he was going home to grab a couple of hours’ sleep. He tried again to persuade Temple to do the same, and offered to drive him home. Temple ignored him. He was starting to sober up. An orderly came by with some coffee and Temple tipped him twenty bucks to keep it coming.

  The press drifted away. All that was left were the comings and goings of nurses and doctors into a room he knew he could not enter. On the other side of the door was his drugged-out, shot-up partner. A man for whose presence here he was at least partially responsible. Could he have stopped it? Even if he had been on the floor and just right around the corner, Mendoza might still have gotten shot. But he would have definitely have put the shooter down. That was one thing he couldn’t get over.

  Temple heard a clattering on the polished floor of the ICU and looked up to see Karen Kindness coming in. She looked at him and did a double take, slowed a step, then came at him full bore, flicking her hair twice as she did. Temple didn’t bother to stand up.

  “Detective, how is Sergio?” She said it like she knew the man.

  “He’s going to live. Can’t get in to see him until the morning when he wakes up.”

  “Is no one else around?” she said, looking around. She had changed into her new uniform, that of the Deputy Shirt. Her new white shirt looked crisp and starched under her jacket.

  “Nope, everyone’s gone. Even the press,” Temple said.

  She looked down at him and gave him her version of the cop stare, which was supposed to scare him. It didn’t.

  “I’m here to check on one of my officers,” she said.

  He said, “Sit down, why don’t you?”

  She did, putting one chair between him and her.

  “Want a coffee?” There were two fresh ones on a little table next to him.

  “No, thanks,” she said. “So how’d it happen? I’ve read the notes but what are you leaving out?”

  “You know what I’m leaving out.”

  “You weren’t on that floor, were you?”

  “You know I wasn’t. At least not in time. I got up there just as the shooting started.”

  “You tell anybody where you were?” she asked coyly. She was covering her ass. That sweet bell-shaped nylon-covered ass of hers.

  “Nope. Couldn’t do that, could I?”

  “I’d hope not. I don’t want to get caught up in this thing.”

  “Might lose your new cushy gig.”

  She said, “Cushy? You have no idea.”

  “I bet I don’t.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Look, let’s cut the shit. If I go down on this, are you going to come to my rescue? Explain I was meeting with you? You don’t have to tell them why I was meeting you—make something up.”

  “Covering our ass, are we?”

  “You better get on board with that.”

  “You threatening me again, Detective?”

  “Just trying to give you a reality check. We’re in this together.”

  She stood up and moved over him, and then put her face close to his. “Remember this: you and I are in nothing together. Understood? You speak my name to SIU and you’ll not only lose your badge, you’ll lose your ability to see sunlight.”

  “I can smell the corruption on you.”

  “Ha, ha. Funny. It’s actually called Power. It’s by Christian Dior. The chief likes it. He told me so.”

  “In bed?” She moved her hips as if to strike him, then stopped as a nurse came by with a tray covered with a towel.

  “Just remember what we talked about.” She turned and walked out, and he watched her ass as she went. She stopped just outside of the double swing doors to talk to a doctor and then was gone.

  A doctor tapped Temple on the shoulder, waking him. “Your partner is coming out of it,” he said. “You can go in in a minute.”

  Temple checked his watch. It was 6 a.m. His neck was kinked. He stood up to stretch and felt every vertebrae of his back crack.

  The hospital was quiet at this time. The emergencies from the previous night had been taken care of, and it would be several hours before the usual daytime car accident and heart attack and stroke victims started coming in. The hallways were cast in a muted blue light and the only sound was that of a cleaner moving a mop back and forth and rinsing it in a bucket. A nurse came out of the ICU unit room Mendoza was in. She nodded at Temple. He fixed his hair and straightened his clothes and went in.

  Mendoza had more tubes coming out of him than Temple could count. There were a host of machines next to his bed. The room stank of disinfectant and dried blood and saliva. Shit and piss. There was no chair for Temple, just cabinets with the machines on them. The message was clear: don’t linger. Temple stood over his partner. Maybe his former partner. There was a good chance that after recovery Sergio would be shipped somewhere else because his slot on Wozniak’s team needed to be filled. That is, if Wozniak even had a team left. They were now down to three people. Again there was that feeling of nausea as Temple caught himself putting his future and that of Team Two over Mendoza.

  Mendoza’s eyes were slightly open and they opened further when he saw Temple standing over him. Temple reached out and touched his hand. Then he grabbed hold of it and smirked a little. He stood there for the longest time before speaking.

  “Hang in there, kid. You’re going to be fine. You’ll be back on the job and screwing up again in no time.” Temple saw a slight smile at the corners of Mendoza’s mouth. There was nothing else to say.

  The hour Temple spent at Mendoza’s bedside flew by. A nurse holding a tray with a needle on it finally made him leave. The guy needed his rest and the family would be coming in again soon. Only so many people could fit in the ICU room. On the way out, Temple saw two people he thought were Mendoza’s mother and father. He was going to go over to speak to
them but a chief inspector was speaking to them.

  There was a diner across the street that cops and ambulance drivers knew well; they made a great breakfast. Temple went in and had a steak and eggs and a half dozen glasses of water and a couple of cups of coffee. When he was feeling clearheaded and satisfied, he called Wozniak.

  “I just saw him,” he said.

  “How is he?” Wozniak said.

  “Pretty beat up but he’s awake. Can’t speak. Can’t move or anything. It’s going to be a while before they can get anything out of him on the shooter,” Temple said.

  “Good. I’ll be down later to see him. Sylvia wants to know how you are.”

  Temple paused before responding. Was this a test? Did Tim know about their affair? “Tell her I’m fine.”

  “She still wants to get together with you, for dinner.”

  “I’m not seeing anyone. Maybe I’ll bring one of the Villains’ girls. I know the website.”

  “Funny. I told her we’ll wait a bit.”

  “Where are we with catching this prick?” Temple said.

  “Every swinging dick in the TPS is out looking for this guy—count on that.”

  “Including me,” Temple said.

  “I told you I wanted you gone. Two weeks.”

  “I don’t care. Maybe I spend my vacation looking for this guy.”

  “You’ll fuck everything up, John. You’re already in hot water.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You were told to leave the Villains alone, that an operation was underway against them. You went after them anyway.”

  “Just trying to do my job.”

  “I know it’s personal for you.”

  “He’s your partner too. We’re a team.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. The missing girl.”

  Tim Wozniak was probably the only person on the force whom he had told about his sister. It was during a murder investigation of a twelve-year-old boy. At the time, he thought that he had conveyed the information in an informal, unemotional way. Maybe Tim had read something in him that day.

  “Anyway, John, you’re digging yourself deeper. I can’t protect you.”

  “It’s good to know where I stand,” Temple said, and ended the call.

  On the way home Temple gave some serious consideration to what Wozniak had said about him going so hard after the Nair case because it was personal. He knew full well that when an investigator takes a case personally, it clouds his judgment. Puts blinders on them. Shields them from other possible suspects, makes them rush into situations that put lives in danger. Maybe it wasn’t just this one case; maybe things had been building for some time and he’d ignored the warning signs. He’d spoken to a shrink only once since he got on the job, after viewing his first murder victim.

  He was still in uniform then, and was called to a house where a man was found with an axe buried in his skull. Temple had been told by his sergeant to speak to a psychiatrist. Being new on the job and wanting to follow his sergeant’s orders, he went. He didn’t know he could have declined the offer. He’d been given an order and he’d followed it. The session with the psychiatrist was almost laughable, and Temple had cut it short. The guy had basically wanted to get Temple to cry, to reach inside and pull out those inner demons. Temple had walked out laughing. But now, maybe all those crime scenes were adding up, and this case was the final straw. He should really heed Wozniak’s advice and take some vacation. Let Team Three pick up the Nair case. He could come back to homicide when he was ready.

  At a stoplight, he pulled up behind a black Navigator. He recognized the four-digit licence plate. It was the mayor’s ride. It had its blinker on to turn right onto Kingston Road. Temple was going straight through the intersection. At the last second, he flipped on his blinker, made a hard right, and came up alongside the vehicle. The windows were completely blacked out so he floored it and passed the SUV to get in front of it. Through the rear-view mirror he could see that the driver was alone. He recognized the driver, though, as the same one he’d seen the first time. He was a big man, Temple could tell. A thick jawbone covered in a scraggly goatee. He had a shaved head and wore black wraparound shades. After a half kilometre, Temple pulled into an Esso station and waited for the mayor’s ride to pass him. When it did, he pulled back out onto Kingston Road and followed it again, letting it get six car lengths ahead.

  There were three cars between him and the Navigator on the westbound lanes of Kingston Road. One was a green Pontiac Sunfire, an unusual car in that it was quite old, Pontiac having been laid to rest years before. The Pontiac got behind the SUV, then pulled into the right-hand lane, the same one Temple was in. Then, oddly, it slowed right down so that Temple had to swerve into the middle lane to avoid it. Looking in his rear-view, Temple saw the green Pontiac dodge back into the middle lane and follow after him. It made no sense to Temple: what had the driver of the Pontiac seen to make him back off the SUV like that? “There’s a spin team working the mayor’s ride,” Temple thought. He didn’t recognize any of the surveillance vehicles; they must be owned by the OPP. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he thought. He had come upon the pointy end of the stick of Operation Carnivore.

  Temple started making note of all the cars around the SUV, even the couple he could see immediately in front of it. If the SUV was in a spin team’s surveillance box, they would have a car in front. These cars would be cycled back and forth in front of the target vehicle so that the driver would not notice any one vehicle following it. Temple noticed a silver Impala that seemed to be keeping speed and hanging back from the Lincoln Navigator. “That might be the control car,” he thought.

  Temple decided to slow down even more in the outside lane and let the entire pack of cars pass him. If he was right, then he would start to spot the entire box. The Pontiac kept up with the SUV for another mile, then it sped up for one mile before dropping back. “They’re cycling the box,” he said to himself. After a half dozen lights, Temple was sure he could spot at least four cars of the spin box: the green Pontiac, the silver Impala, a black Subaru Forester, and a blue Kia Sorrento. Hot damn. Temple smiled at the thought of the inside knowledge he possessed. He didn’t know why he was enjoying this, but he kept at it.

  Eventually the Mayor’s SUV slowed down and made a left turn into the parking lot of the Colonial Motor Hotel. Temple knew it well—a local hangout for hookers and drug dealers. The run-down motel comprised three two-story buildings. The office was in the centre one. Temple pulled into a small plaza across from the motel and saw that the spin team had also pulled over, separately, at various businesses that fronted Kingston Road. He guessed that there were several pairs of binoculars now trained on the Navigator.

  The muscled, bald-headed driver of the SUV got out and headed to the outside stairs of the third block, the one that was the farthest away from the road. Temple took out his own binoculars from the glove box and tracked his progress. The driver took the balcony around to the back of the block of rooms where Temple and the surveillance team could not see him. There were a few cars in the parking lot. It was the middle of the morning, and the last of the commuter traffic hit a green light on Kingston Road and came roaring by.

  It looked like a drug buy. Temple made note of the other cars in the parking lot and jotted down their licence plates. He had his car running and voice-dialled Claudette back at homicide.

  “Hey, Claudette, need you to run some plates for me real quick. Okay?”

  “I guess, John. Thought you were going on vacation.”

  “I am. Just trying to wrap up a few loose ends up so I can pass it on to Tim.”

  “Okay. What plates?”

  Temple read off the four plates he wanted run and told Claudette he’d hold on the line. There was a pause and then she came back on.

  “I got one with a hit on it, John. You want that one first?”

  “Yeah, shoot.” Claudette meant that of the plates she had run, one of them came back with a criminal as
the owner. Claudette and John had worked together for so long she could read his intentions, knew what he wanted.

  “Plate number AQBC 477 is under the name Jose Alvarez.”

  Jesus, him? Temple knew Alvarez. Every cop in Scarborough did. He was criminal number one. A full member of MI13, that vicious gang emanating out of Central America. He had two boys in the gang; both were in jail for murder. Alvarez had been arrested himself numerous times for drugs and his deportation orders were imminent. Not that that would mean anything to him, he could skate deportation for years with appeals and refugee claims.

  Temple still had his glasses trained on the motel, listening to Claudette. “Okay, Claudette. Thanks. I think that’s what I wanted. Keep the others on file for me.”

  “Will do. Where you going?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your vacation. Where you off to?”

  “Oh, maybe Cuba. I don’t know. Last-minute thing.”

  “Lucky guy. Have fun.”

  “I am. I mean, I will,” Temple said, and ended the call. The mayor’s driver came back around to the front of the block and descended to his SUV. He climbed in and headed back in the direction he had come. Temple watched the spin team expertly readjust their direction and carry on after him. Temple let them go. A few minutes later, Temple saw a middle-aged Hispanic male in a white track suit with a red stripe down the arms and legs come from around the same block where the driver had gone.

  “Hello, Mr. Alvarez,” Temple said softly. He watched the notorious gangster and drug dealer get in his car and leave the motel’s parking lot.

  Rush had said that the mayor liked his coke, but Alvarez’s product of choice was crack cocaine, that evil junked-up street product that was so highly addictive. Has the mayor moved to that junk now, or was it for the driver? The spin team wouldn’t pull the driver over; they were strictly surveillance. Temple drove past a billboard of a smiling Mayor Allen giving the OK sign and making an O shape with his mouth. Temple chuckled.

  Yeah, okay, Mayor Allen. I got your number.

  29

  Temple dropped his weapon on his dresser and stripped down. He left his rumpled suit in a ball on the floor of his bedroom, and stood under the shower for half an hour until it went tepid. He dried himself off and got dressed in a faded pair of jeans and a Bilstein Shocks T-shirt. He retrieved a laptop computer from a bag and set it up on his small dining room table. There was an RSA token on his key chain which he used to log in to the Toronto Police computer system. He had all the same functionality as if he was sitting at his desk. He brought up Solomon Quinte’s statement, which Claudette had transcribed and fed into PowerCase.