by Warren Court
“Fine,” she said. “Just get him out here before he wakes up.”
“Oh, yeah. He’s a handful.” I moved to the rear door. Enzo was still out cold. I could see a line of spittle hanging from his mouth. I opened the door, grabbed a meaty arm and started pulling on it.
“Come on, Enzo. Wake up.” His hands were tied with the jumper cables, so I figured he was tame. He started to come around.
“What?” he said. “Who’s that?”
“Come on, man. Just handing you in.”
He opened his eyes. “You killed my brother.” He had his hands free: he had been playing possum. Those jiggling arms and fat sausage hands moved remarkably fast, and I felt them around my neck.
I brought the barrel of the gun up in an uppercut right on his chin, and he fell back. I stumbled backwards, my gun on him. I was ready to pop him, then got a hold of myself. He sat back up. “Give me an excuse, fat boy,” I told him. “I’ll smash your brains in all over this car for what you did to Don.”
“That punk. He squealed like a pig.”
“So will you when you’re getting fucked in the ass in prison. Now move it, lard-ass.”
He got out of the car. The jumper cables tumbled in a pile on to the ground. He looked around. “Where are we?”
I ignored him. “Here he is,” I said to Imelda. She had not moved closer.
Enzo was still a little dazed. “Who’s that?” he said.
“Your handler.”
He squinted at Imelda. Then realization came over him.
“Crouch, you asshole.”
“Take him,” Imelda said softly, to no one.
“Crouch!” Enzo screamed.
“Take him,” she said again, louder.
There was a whip-crack and Enzo’s head turned into a ripe tomato. Blood splashed up and over the roof of the car. He suddenly became three hundred pounds of dead weight and slipped out of my grasp. Another whip-crack and I felt the supersonic round whiz by my head and click off some bricks on the side of the motel.
I dropped to the ground, retrieving my gun on pure instinct. Imelda was bringing her own weapon to bear on me. I fired. Saw her go down. I climbed over Enzo’s body as another round came in. It went through Enzo and took my back tire out with a hiss.
There was rapid firing from the front of Imelda’s car. She was on her side and firing blindly at me. I put two rounds into her, saw her face cave in. Then I fired blindly where I thought the sniper was. I hadn’t yet seen a flash.
I got up, firing more rounds. Another supersonic round crashed through the rear windows of the car, spraying me with glass. I rolled behind the car and got to a crouching position, safe with four thousand pounds of metal shielding me but stuck with nowhere to go. The motel. I was facing a set of boarded-up doors. I checked the clip: three rounds left. All this shooting—maybe the cops would show up? The sky was beginning to lighten with the approaching dawn. Then I realized it was the cops who were doing the shooting. Macintyre or one of his new guys was on the other end of that rifle.
Then I heard an automatic weapon open up. Maybe it was the same gun and the guy had just switched from single shot to full auto. A line of bullets dug into the car, slapped against the metal. I let another burst come my way, then I launched myself at the plywood-covered doors.
The wood was weak and warped from years of being soaked by rain and snow, and gave in when my two hundred pounds hit it. I rolled into the dark hallway just as the last burst of machine gun fire hit the gas tank and the car exploded, hurtling me into the dark hallway with a blast of hot air.
Chapter 48
I sat and watched my boat from some bushes up on a hill overlooking the Harbour Club. I sat there for a long time, over an hour. I had no binoculars and the boat was partially obscured by a large motor cruiser. I wasn’t the only one who was lazy about getting his boat out of the water for the winter.
I scanned the parking lot, watched every car that came and went. I studied the surrounding bushes, too, trying to spot movement, police snipers. I didn’t see a cop car or a uniform anywhere. But I knew if I waited long enough, they’d eventually make their way down here. I had been lucky enough to get away from that motel, but whoever was shooting at me would know this was the only place I could go.
I hit the jetty with a purpose, just a man going to see about his boat.
“Hey, Jack,” someone said. I spun around. It was Marty the bartender.
“Hey Marty,” I said.
“You still got your boat in the water?”
“Yup.”
“You’re not sailing south?”
“I don’t know. Putting it off. You know. Maybe next spring.”
Marty laughed. “Great. I just made a hundred bucks.”
I cocked my head, feeling as conspicuous and exposed as hell standing on that rocking dock.
“The pool we had going in the bar. I put down next year for departure. Everyone had you down for leaving this year, but I said no way. No way you were going to do it.”
“You know something, Marty?” I said.
“What?” The way he said it, he had no clue how I felt about him, how I wanted to throttle him and every other snobby little boater in that bar.
“Forget it, pal. Enjoy your hundred. Have a drink for me.”
“I will. You better get your boat out. The crane will be packed up on Sunday.”
“What day is it today?”
“You serious? It’s Friday.”
“Oh, right. See ya.”
The sky was dark blue and the wind strong. The waves on the harbour were at a brisk two feet and moving fast in from the bridge. Hurricane Ernesto was coming. In the cab I’d hailed on the mountain to get down here, I’d had the driver put on the radio. Over the constant announcements by the dispatcher I managed to get some sort of weather forecast. Ernesto, now downgraded to a tropical depression, was surging up New York State and coming across the lake, where it would drain itself to death over southern Ontario.
I checked the fuel in the motor; it was full, but I knew from experience that at some point I was going to have to raise sail. I didn’t know where I was going. Flight had never really been in my vocabulary until I’d hooked up with Macintyre, and even then, high on all the coke, I’d felt I was invulnerable. Now sober for two years except for booze, I felt an overwhelming urge to run and hide under my mommy’s skirts.
I checked my hiding place for my passport. I could make it across the lake or I could head east down to Kingston; that would probably be the smarter move. They would be expecting me to get out of the country. By now, the police must have been going wild hunting for Imelda’s killer. I wondered if they would even find the pile of shell casings the guy with the assault rifle had left. I doubted it.
“Goddamn it.” I swore out loud, standing in the cabin of the Purpoise. Imelda. She had been in on it. Somehow Macintyre had gotten to her. She had set me up. He’d probably sent her after me to see if I would spill the beans on him. Then, brilliantly, she’d had me bring Enzo Scalla to them.
Now she was dead, by Rico’s gun. His ballistics would be on file. I shook my head. That would mean nothing.
“Keep going,” I shouted out loud. I went on deck and started the motor, slipped Purpoise’s lines and shoved off.
The harbour was rough. I approached the lift bridge. It was in the down position. I was the only idiot out here on the lake, what with a tropical depression raging. I turned on my radio to get a more accurate forecast and struggled into my brand-new survival suit.
Winds gusting to eighty kilometres. Waves topping out in the middle of Lake Ontario at twenty feet.
Good god. That was amazing.
Coast Guard is advising that all water traffic not proceed into Lake Ontario for a period of twelve hours.
“Sorry, Coast Guard,” I said.
I radioed the bridge and recognized the voice of the operator who responded.
What do you mean, you need me to raise the bridge? she said.
The normally automatic and robotic operator broke decorum.
Are you some kind of idiot? she said. There’s a hurricane coming, you know!
I didn’t bother correcting her as to the status of the storm. “Please raise it,” I said. “Or I’m going to crash into it.”
“I can’t even see you.”
I switched on my running lights; until now I had wanted to stay stealthy.
You are a fool, she said. And over the radio I heard the mechanism for raising the bridge engage. I saw it go up, inch by inch, it seemed. I gunned the throttle.
If I thought the sea state in the harbour was bad, the lake was ten times worse. I set my course east towards Oakville. Visibility was cut to a mile. Great big combers were coming at me and, out of fear of being swamped, I had to turn the boat in to meet each one of them.
I was offshore of Oakville, the little motor on my boat hardly making any headway. Half the time the prop was breaking free of the big waves and spinning in air. I had been working on installing an automatic roller reefer so I could raise the foresail automatically. I was never going to motor down to Kingston anyway; a full tank would have only gotten me to Toronto. A storm jib would help settle my boat down.
I was being battered by the waves now. They were swamping the cockpit and the drain holes were having a hard time keeping up. I had to get a sail up or I’d be bashed on the rocky shore. “Don’t panic,” I said to myself. “Get a storm jib up and ride this along for a couple of hours. The winds can’t last forever.”
I went below and swapped out my normal-sized jib for the small storm jib, then went topside again. I switched on the roller reefer. The jib went up about six inches and froze, and I could hear the whine of the motor, just barely, over the howl of the storm. “Son of a bitch!” I screamed.
I did my best to position my boat so it was head-on into the wind, and then engaged the locking mechanism on my tiller. I unclipped my lifeline and started to crawl to the front of the boat. I reached the pulpit and tugged on the jib. The motor was whining. I could smell it burning. Damn, I had to get this sail up or I would be in real trouble. Then suddenly the jib was free and running up. I turned to head back to the cockpit and my boat exploded all around me.
Chapter 49
I was roused when my head slammed up against a smooth, wet rock on the shore. I sputtered and rolled over. My survival suit had done just what it was supposed to. I had been thrown clear of the boat by the blast, and the suit had rolled me over onto my back and kept my head out of the water while Ernesto’s fury pushed me to the Oakville shore.
I was shivering uncontrollably, and it seemed to take forever to crawl further up onto the pebbly beach. I looked out to the lake and could see the stern of my sailboat upright in the water, still on fire. It lit the darkened midday sky for a mile around, and I could see the silhouette of the rescue boat motoring around it. I could see two silhouetted shapes on the bowsprit; maybe it was Mike and Conrad. They were looking at my boat, looking for me. They knew my boat, and the name on the stern was visible.
I crawled further inland, stripped off the survival suit and stuffed it under a log. I sat on a rock and watched the fire ebb out on my boat as it sank. Other Coast Guard vessels had now joined the search, and they were fanning out, probably looking for my body.
I looked behind me and saw a towering mansion filled with light. I hopped over the short chain-link fence and headed to Lakeshore Road.
I went east one block until I came to a cross street and got my bearings. Macintyre was down half a mile. Correction: Macintyre and my wife—my ex-wife—were down half a mile. I plodded along, hands in my pockets, trying to control my shivering. An ambulance came racing by, headed in the direction of the Oakville docks, in anticipation of finding my half-frozen body.
I could see only Gloria’s car in the circular driveway of Macintyre’s house. I peeked in the front window and caught a glimpse of Gloria walking out of the kitchen. I rang the doorbell, then rang it again, and finally she came to the door.
“Jack. What the hell? You look like—”
“Like I’m dead? I think I am.” I started to come in.
“What are you doing?” She put her hand on my chest and I felt a pang of longing for her.
“I’m coming in,” I said.
She nodded and moved aside. “Mike is out.”
“I know,” I said. I didn’t kick off my shoes, didn’t take my soaking-wet jacket off.
“You’re soaking wet,” she said.
I went into the kitchen and said, “Drink, please.” Gloria paused. Then she made me a stiff straight rum and I shot it back. A bit of warmth started to seep back into my bones. I collapsed on a maple kitchen chair.
“Nice place,” I said.
“What do you want, Jack?”
“I want you…” I said, and sputtered. I don’t know if it was the recent ordeal with my boat or the gunman at the motel or the straight rum, but I couldn’t get the words out.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Too much has happened.”
“Let me finish. I want you to tell me you don’t know what’s going on. Try and sell it to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your husband. This whole thing—what do you think pays for it?”
“He’s chief of police. He makes a good living. So do I.”
“Yeah, but he makes just a little too good of a living. Gloria, who do you think I was really working for? All those years when I was running around. You know—the late nights, the disappearances. The coke.”
“You destroyed our lives. Mike gave me mine back.”
“How convenient. He destroys me, takes you from me.”
“You destroyed yourself.”
I banged the glass on the table and she stormed into the other room and came back with the bottle. I poured another two ounces.
“Macintyre,” I said slowly. “Your husband. Is the dirtiest of them all. He was running the whole thing. And now he’s going to go to jail,” I said, not even half believing it myself. I had killed Imelda. Was Macintyre there now, controlling the scene? It was at the edge of his jurisdiction. Had that been planned—keep the killings inside the Hamilton area so he could work the case, steer it where he wanted it to go? I knew that Larson had retired, but maybe he was capable of backing my story up. At least about Macintyre being at the head of it all.
“Jack, finish your drink and go.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Not until I get some answers.”
“Then ask your questions,” Macintyre said. He was standing in the doorway, his gun down by his side. I could see Rico behind him. His face was a mix of joy and anger at seeing me. He would get his revenge. Macintyre’s stare was as icy cold as the lake.
I pushed my chair back and stood up quick. Rico’s gun was still stuck in my belt.
“Uh-uh,” Macintyre said, and raised his gun until it was pointed at my kneecaps. “Easy, fella.”
“Mike, don’t,” Gloria said, and I detected a note of sincerity in her voice.
“Gloria, get out of here,” he said softly. She didn’t move. “Now!”
“You’re not going to kill him. Not in my house.”
“No, I’m not. I’m going to arrest him. Take the gun out slowly, Jack. Put it down and step away from the table.”
“Arrest me?” I said.
“Yeah. You killed a police officer tonight, and a government witness.”
“No, Rico did. It’s his gun.”
“You son of a bitch,” Rico said, and he tried to push past Macintyre, but the stronger man put his arm up and blocked him. I saw my chance. I pulled Rico’s gun loose and pointed it at the struggling pair.
“Mike, drop it,” I said. “Drop it! I’m taking you in. And him.”
Rico laughed.
“You’re not a cop anymore, Jack,” Macintyre said.
“Yes, I am. You never could
take that away from me. Even after you got your hooks in me, I was still a cop.”
“Hooks in you? You were begging to join guys like me,” Macintyre said. “You couldn’t wait to get hold of all that money. I had you pegged from the start. The day you let that drug mule Don go, I saw something in you. Something you couldn’t even recognize in yourself.”
