by Warren Court
I got the rear line off and threw it on board, and then vaulted back over the gunwale onto the rear deck. I should have just pushed the boat off when I was still on the dock and run back up the jetty to my car. Yeah, that would have been real smart; then I’d have been the next one to be bound and gagged. I was probably well on the way to ending up like that anyway.
When my boat was moving out into the harbour, I turned on the red, green and white running lights but left the cabin in the dark. It was a clear night; the half-moon shone bright on the choppy water.
The bridge was up and, in the distance, I could see a massive freighter lining up to come in. Good thing we wouldn’t have to call the bridge master to raise it; that call would have been logged.
Enzo sat in his chair, rocking it violently back and forth, looking out the windows like a little kid, a smile on his face. Bruno had grabbed a tarp and draped it over Garigue. I could hear a moan coming from under that tarp now and then, as the cabin doors had been left open. We cleared the bridge. I wasn’t going to be a smartass; I knew they wanted to go out deep into the lake.
“What do you got to weigh him down?” Bruno said. He’d come back into the cabin and was sitting on a side bench, looking down at the floor.
“Dummy,” Enzo said. “What’s on a boat that’s big and heavy and goes in the water?”
“The anchor,” I answered for him. “It’s in the front compartment. I never use it.”
“Bruno,” Enzo said, and indicated the front compartment. I watched as Bruno made his way unsteadily his way out there. Maybe he’d fall off. I could wait for the right wave and yank the wheel and send him over the chrome railing. Then Enzo would be on me in a second. I gulped as I thought of those huge sausage hands squeezing my throat.
While Bruno was wrestling with the eighty-pound anchor and twenty pounds of chain, Enzo asked for a drink.
“Sure,”. I said. “I got scotch, rum.” Enzo didn’t move. “It’s down below,” I said. “Just hold the wheel.” He gave me a look. I had just told him what to do. It was an innocent and helpful suggestion, but still, no one told Enzo what to do.
The waves were even bigger out in the middle of the lake and the wheel was going to bounce around unless someone held on to it. The fat man reached over without moving off his chair and steadied the wheel while I ducked down below into the cutty.
First things first: I retrieved the Browning Hi-Power from its hiding place. I knew it had one up the spout. I flicked then safety off and put it down the front of my jeans. Better to take the chance of shooting my prick off than to come up against these killers and fumble with a safety catch. Then I made three drinks, straight scotch. Three fingers each.
I could get them rip-roaring drunk, I thought. They’d pass out and I could drop Garigue off at Fifty Point Harbour. Give him my credit card and tell him to get off the planet.
No chance. I knew Enzo could drink all the live-long day. Bruno was a lightweight and this scotch would put him over, but not his brother.
I handed the drinks out and took the wheel over from Enzo. Bruno had dumped the chain and anchor on the back deck next to Garigue; he gulped at his drink.
A crisp mist with stinging drops swallowed us up. I switched on the radar. The lake was empty this time of year except for freighters like that one going under the bridge. The green, snaking line of the Hamilton shorefront was just dropping off the bottom of my radar scope.
“Bruno, I need you to watch this screen here. It’s radar. I want to make sure we don’t run into anything.”
Bruno drained his glass, put it in a holder and came over to the console. He looked down at the screen.
“Here,” I said, pointing. “I’ll turn the range out to five miles.”
Bruno bent over and cupped his hands around the scope to reduce glare.
I smirked. With the amount of booze in his system and his lack of knowledge of boats, I knew he’d be seasick inside of ten minutes and wouldn’t be able to get rid of it until we got back on land. If I couldn’t fling him overboard, the least I could do was make him sick and weak.
We heard another moan come from the back deck, and then a muffled scream and another one.
“How far we going out?” I asked Enzo.
“To the middle.”
“That’ll take two hours.”
“Give it another ten minutes.”
He looked a little green himself. I checked my depth finder; it was over a hundred feet and dropping steadily. Lake Ontario, not the deepest of the Great Lakes, still has a maximum depth of around three hundred feet. I thought first about Garigue down there for ever and ever with the slimy things and fish nibbling at him, and quite possibly me sitting right beside him. I went a little green myself.
“I gotta get some air. Enzo, take the wheel.”
He jiggled his huge frame off his chair and sat in mine. He hadn’t complained this time or given me an evil eye for ordering him around. Maybe he enjoyed driving the boat.
“Just keep this heading for another ten. There’s the depth gauge. How you doing, Bruno?”
He looked up and staggered a little. “There’s nothing out here,” he said.
“Keep a close eye on it. Something could pop up. We don’t want to collide with anything out here or we won’t make it back.”
I ducked outside and went over to Garigue and pulled the tarp off him. He was shivering and bleeding.
“Jack, is that you? You gotta help me, man. Untie me.”
I hushed him. “Here.” I pulled the mickey of scotch from my pocket and put it to his lips. He drank too much and choked.
He said, “Where are we?”
“On my boat.”
“Mother of God, Jack. They’re going to do me. You gotta get me out of this. I got money. Not a lot. It’s yours.”
I grabbed him and hauled him up to a sitting position. He saw the anchor and the chain on the floor two feet from him.
“Mother of Christ, Jack.”
“What can I do?” I said.
“What can you do? Get me out of this.”
“Keep your voice down,” I said, and clamped my hand over his mouth. The noise of the wind had increased and the cutty door was closed, but it wasn’t soundproof.
“Jack, you got me into this. They think I’m the rat.”
“You are a rat, Robert.”
“But that thing tonight with the Russians, that dope out in the country. I didn’t know anything about that. You came to me.”
“Just try and relax. Be quiet.”
“You came to me with it. I just asked around.” Then, despite how beat up and scared he was, I saw him put it together.
“Jesus, Jack. You set me up.”
“Pipe down.”
“You set me up. You bastard. You’re the fucking rat.”
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“Bruno. Enzo. Get out here!” he screamed.
“Shut up. They’ll kill us both.”
“Instead of just me? Bruno, Enzo! Help!”
I pulled out the Browning Hi-Power and put it to Garigue’s forehead. Before he had a chance to say anything, I pulled the trigger.
The top of his head exploded and scattered across the transom. I whirled and levelled the gun at Enzo and Bruno, who plunged out the cabin door. Only Bruno had a gun and he staggered against the rim of the door.
“Easy, fellas. Easy,” I said, and stood up, my legs riding the swells just fine. I could see the helm whirling madly, and instead of pointing his gun at me, Bruno hung on for dear life.
I should shoot, I knew. I should finish it and waste these two. But that would be it for me. Someone on their crew knew where they were, what they were doing. If they didn’t come back, that would be an instant and nonnegotiable contract on me forever. There still might be a way out of this.
“Why’d you do it?” Enzo screamed over the sound of the engines and the wind. First time I’d heard him raise his voice, ever.
“Drop the gun,” I said to Br
uno. He let it slip from his fingers and it hit the deck.
“Go back inside. Go on. We have to man the wheel. Back inside.” I gestured with my gun.
They backed up slowly into the cabin. I picked up Bruno’s gun and tossed it overboard.
“Enzo, take the wheel. Bruno, sit down.” I motioned at the side bench. “Move!”
I closed the cabin doors and leaned back against them, my pistol weaving between the two brothers. When they’d done what I asked and the boat came under relative control again, I started to speak.
“I took him out. He was scared. You can’t do that to a guy, throw him over alive.”
“That’s our call to make, Jack,” Enzo said, under control again.
“Maybe. But this is my boat. We dump a body, we do it my way. It’s been ten minutes. Here’s as good a spot as any.”
Enzo said, “Bruno, help Jack here bundle that rat up and get him over the side. I don’t want to spend any more time here than I have to.”
Back on the rear deck, we laid Garigue’s body out. Most of the blood had poured over the transom, but some still came down the scuppers and we were sloshing around in a pink froth. I held the gun in one hand, ever mindful of how close Bruno was. He was too seasick to do anything overt, though, so I tucked it back in my belt.
We worked fast and sloppy, wrapping the chain around his torso in a crisscross fashion and getting it good and tight and then looping it under itself. You can’t really tie a knot with chain, and if we used rope it would eventually break.
I watched as Bruno tried to reconnect the chain to the anchor; it was easier to manipulate without it attached at first. But he couldn’t make a go of it; he started dry heaving and staggered over to the port side of the back deck. I finished it off for him and when he was done puking, he came back to help.
He grabbed Garigue’s feet, leaving me with the messy end, and in one quick motion we had him up and over the side and he was gone. Gases in his belly and remaining air pockets from his lungs flowed out and hissed on the inky black surface, and then nothing.
Chapter 44
No one said anything on the ride back to the Harbour Club. I took the wheel and both Scallas stayed down in the cutty cabin. Every once in a while, I could hear Bruno dry heaving. He should have been up in the cabin or, better still, on the back deck looking at the horizon, as dim as it was, but it was safer for me having them down there.
I didn’t even ask for their help tying the boat up. I reattached the bow line to the proper cleat. When Wave Dancer was secured to the dock, the Scallas emerged from below. They said nothing as they departed. Bruno hung his head and made quickly for the shore. Enzo stepped onto the dock; it heaved under his weight, and he turned to me and nodded. I took that as a good sign, that we were square. Still, the Browning Hi-Power was going to be my close friend for the next little while. Maybe the rest of my life.
After they were gone, I inspected the stern. The rain and wave action had washed the remains of Robert Garigue’s blood off the transom and even the back deck lacked signs of blood, but I knew that there could still be some DNA residue. I’d have to hose the boat down. The best thing to do would be to take Wave Dancer out into the lake, open the scuppers, punch a hole in her hull and let her sink. But I couldn’t do that to my baby. Even though she was going to my wife, I couldn’t do it. A good scrubbing with stiff brushes and Clorox bleach would have to suffice.
Imelda and her crew didn’t even bother knocking when they came for me the next morning. There was just the crash of the door from the battering ram. I was half asleep and then awake. Two SWAT team members pointed their MP5s at my face while a third went to work on me, patting me down and clicking on the cuffs.
I was hauled out to the kitchen in my boxers and the bracelets, and was pushed into a chair at my kitchen table. Imelda was there and so was her boss, Larson. Other cops were going through my things.
“Did you think we were going to forget about you?” Imelda said.
“Meant to call you.”
“I’ve been calling you. Here’s your phone. We used the phone company to help us track it down.” It was in a plastic evidence bag. She didn’t give it to me, just waved it in front of my face. “Stupid move, Jack.”
“They spotted you in the bushes,” I said.
“Uh huh,” she said and nodded, and the uniforms picked me up. A cop came out with a pair of my pants and they put them on me and pulled a sweater over my head. I looked ridiculous with my arms still bound behind me, but they weren’t taking the cuffs off. They bundled me outside and into a police car.
It was all surreal. They didn’t take me downtown, to HPD headquarters. Instead, they took me to Halton Police headquarters, the next major force over from Hamilton. It wasn’t that they wanted to keep my arrest a secret—it would be all through the Hamilton police department by now. They wanted me out of my element. Away from potential co-conspirators who could give me a wink or a grin and communicate something to me, mostly that I’d better keep my mouth shut.
They stuffed me into an interrogation room and kept me in there for hours. I was used to the routine; I’d become an expert at breaking down a suspect myself. Imelda and Larson eventually came in and uncuffed me and let me put my sweater on properly. Then Imelda locked one wrist to the metal table and set a Styrofoam cup of coffee in front of me. She also put a pack of smokes and a Bic lighter in front of me, despite the no-smoking sign in the room. I hadn’t smoked in six months but sparked one up.
“What are you going to do with yourself?” she said, after letting me have two drags on the smoke and a sip of coffee.
“When?” I said.
“After you get out of jail.”
I smiled. “Going to run for chief of police,” I said.
Imelda laughed. Larson stood behind her, back up against the wall, not smiling.
“You’ll have some good company in there. Lot of the guys you put away will be your neighbours.”
“You think they’ll hold a grudge?”
“Do I need to say it?” Imelda said.
I smoked.
“You’d be stupid to go in his place,” she said.
“So you haven’t arrested anybody else?” I said.
“He’s smarter than you.”
I knew she meant Macintyre but she was waiting for me to use the name. “You’re the smart one,” I said.
“We’ve got you on possession. Videotaped. We found residue in your apartment. Nice place. We’re going through your house—excuse me. Your wife’s house. Your boat will get done, your car.”
“I’ve got a substance abuse problem. I admit it. I need help. The force has a program. Put me in it.”
“If that’s all it was, sure. But we want your crew. Give us him and that’s what it will be, a nice cozy twelve-step program. You might even keep your pension.”
I smirked. Underneath, I was sweating. The boat—that’s what I was most afraid of. But if they didn’t already have me in here for Garigue’s murder, then they probably didn’t know about it. There would be no need for them to do a blood swab test on it. They were just looking for drugs. Evidence to tie me in with Macintyre and the rest.
“I’d like a lawyer,” I said. “For the drug possession charge, that is.” Imelda nodded slowly. “And I want to speak to my police association rep.”
“So that’s how it’s going to be?”
“Disappointed?” I asked.
“Not really.” She got up and left.
I didn’t exactly make it out by lunchtime. It was closer to supper. After I was allowed a phone call and talked to my police association rep, I was assigned a lawyer free of charge and bailed out.
Things took off like a rocket after that. I was suspended without pay, stripped of my gun and badge. I had stored the Browning Hi-Power down in Wave Dancer’s engine bay, suspecting that my fall was coming.
My trial was expedited. The force pulled some strings to get the Crown attorney to push it through in the hopes that I
would roll on Macintyre. I didn’t. Like my friend Don all those years ago, I would do my time quietly. As quietly as any ex-cop can.
And much like Don’s case, it was all tossed. Every charge. My attorney was aggressive and all they had on me was the drug use, which I readily admitted. I was hooked on coke with a nice sauté of alcohol addiction thrown in. My lawyer threw around buzz words like post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety. If the force knew of my addiction, they should have helped me. I should have been put in a program.
