Live Bait Page 3
The easy connection to make is to talk about The Mob, and it exists in Toronto, just like any other city, but most of the Italians in town are good people. They work like dogs and went crazy the day Italy won the Soccer World Cup, but aside from that they spend all their time at home making wine and turning their tiny gardens into showplaces. Maybe Tony was an import from Buffalo, that's where most of the heavies in this region hang out.
After a while the guard changed in the room. The workies went home and were replaced by gray-faced older men who had been back to their rented rooms and washed and changed and eaten TV dinners and were looking for beer and company while they watched whatever crud came in over the big TV at the end of the bar. As the tables filled, one of them came and sat opposite me, going through the same ritual I'd performed then sitting staring dead ahead, smoking Export cigarettes. He looked as if he was replaying his day, giving himself all the zingers he hadn't delivered when the foreman chewed him out for being too long in the john.
It was quarter to eight before Tony arrived. There was no mistaking him. He was the way Hudson had described him, thirtyish, five-ten, running to pudge, wearing a pale summer suit. His crucifix had company tonight, a gold shark's tooth and a medallion on a gold chain that could have held an anchor.
He sauntered in, cracked a joke with the waiter who laughed fit to bust, then turned away stone-faced to serve his next table. Tony went to a corner table. A couple of guys were already there but they took their beers and moved, leaving him the space. He sat down with his back to the wall and cocked one leg over a vacant chair. The waiter hurried over with a Perrier and twist. That surprised me. You can get anything in a beer parlor these days but Perrier in this end of town is a rarity. It seemed Tony was a big wheel in the Millrace.
He threw a blue five dollar bill on the table and waved the waiter away. The guy bowed and disappeared the bill into his tips pocket. Tony lit himself a cigarette from a soft pack, an American brand, and sat surveying his empire. Half a minute later another man came in, heavy-set and surly. He sat halfway down the room where he could watch Tony, ordered a single beer but didn't touch it. I assumed he did the collecting on Tony's delinquent debts and spent the rest of his time making sure some disenchanted borrower didn't try to take an empty beer bottle up alongside his boss's head.
I watched for a while, over my paper. Men came to Tony, stood and talked and were waved away to the other guy who did tricks with a wallet. Then they left, confident that some horse was going to save them the problem of repaying six bucks for five on payday. After about twenty minutes Tony took a token sip from his drink and stood up. So did his partner. I made my move, dropping my paper on the table and scooping up my change. As Tony lounged towards the door I cut him off. I didn't have any formal plan. You can't accost citizens of any stripe and ask them how come they're setting up bashings. So I dropped into my most comfortable undercover role, the inarticulate French Canadian. I do it well. My mother was a Dupuis before she became a Bennett and I speak farm-country French like a native and can do a good "haccent" when I have to disguise my background.
"I guess you mus' be Tony," I said, leaning on the second syllable of his name.
He stopped to study me as if I were a noxious insect. Up close he was not handsome. His face was getting fleshy and his skin was cratered with ancient acne. "What's it to ya?"
"Yeah, well a frien' of me, he say Tony a good man to know."
"What friend?" His muscle had moved in behind me, not close enough for concern but only two steps away. I grinned vacantly. "Kennie. Little guy, dis big." I held one hand out, about five feet from the floor.
"I don' know no Kennie," he said and moved by. I fell in beside him. This was what I wanted, a chance to walk him outside. Muscles stayed two steps behind us as we left and walked up the stairs towards the street.
"Lissen, I don' wan' bodder you. This Kennie, 'e say 'Tony, 'e give me work some times.'"
He didn't look at me, just mounted the stairs as slowly as if they led to a throne. "What kinda work you in, Frenchie?"
"Right now, no kin'. I bin away a while."
"Yeah, well when you ain' in the bucket, waddya do?"
"Drive a truck, work in d'bush. I strong like 'ell."
He paused at the top of the stairs, a little out of breath. "Yeah, well I ain' in the delivery business an' there ain' no bush around here." He paused to grin at his shadow. "Hey, George, you see any bush round here?"
They both laughed. I poured some desperation into my voice. "Yeah, well, it don' 'ave to be like dat. I do mos' t'ings." George had overtaken me and was standing a pace back, the ideal distance from which to sucker me. I moved ahead, opening the door for Tony. He stepped out and I waved at the other guy but he stayed put, a dumb half-grin on his face.
Tony had stopped on the sidewalk, still smirking at his last wisecrack. I followed him, then pushed the door shut behind me and stuck my heel against it, unobtrusively. As I expected, his bodyguard pushed it, then shoved, then backed off a moment to hurl himself against it. I timed it perfectly, jerking the door open so he rushed through and collided with Tony. They both swore, then Muscles turned and charged me. I ducked under his slow swing, caught his arm and twisted it up his back, pushing him face first against the wall. He swore but his arm was locked and he was powerless.
I turned to Tony, grinning at him, the big dumb ox of a bushworker. "I do dis kin' work pretty good, huh?"
Tony wasn't laughing any more. He narrowed his eyes and said "Leggo o' him" in a bored voice. I pulled the man off the wall and gave him a little shove so he staggered over the sidewalk and lurched against the side of the car parked there illegally. It was a Cadillac, of course, Tony's car.
The guy turned to rush me but Tony told him, "In the car, George," in a voice that said there would be no performance bonuses that week. George swore and muttered but he got into the driver's seat.
Tony looked at me with more interest. "Why was you inside?"
I shrugged. "Two guys come at me in a bar. I fix dem good.
Den dis cop come in, pull out his gun. He say 'come' I come."
"Two guys." Tony nodded approval. "How'd I get in touch with you if there was a job needed doin'?"
I shrugged, the gesture everybody recognizes as French Canadian since Trudeau became Prime Minister. "I come 'ere hevery night." I thumbed behind me, at the hotel.
Tony nodded. "See ya around," he said, flicked a finger at me and got into the rear seat of his car.
I stood and watched while he said something to his bodyguard and the car moved out into traffic and away down the street. It wasn't clear how much I'd accomplished. At best I'd made Tony consider me a possible recruit for his next leg breaking. But he wasn't about to take me into his confidence. My best bet was to stick around for a few days and see if he came back to me. At the same time I would try to get some help from my old buddies in the Toronto police department. I still had a lot of friends there. I'd been away in Murphy's Harbour for twelve months but the old connections were still in place, at Headquarters and in the detective office at Fifty-two division. Somebody would give me the scoop on Tony—whether he had a sheet, who his bosses were. Now I knew who he was, it could be productive.
I had parked my car about five blocks away. Ex-cons don't usually own a car for a while after getting out. I had wanted to look authentic so I'd hidden the car, leaving Sam in the rear with the window down. Five blocks is a long way but I knew he'd respond if he heard me whistle. And I knew, dealing with people like Tony, that I might need reinforcements.
I did. It happened about halfway to my car. Most of the area is residential, old homes with short lawns without fences or hedges. There's no parking on the street, not on race nights, anyway, when the traffic boys are out with their tickets and tow trucks. I was slouching along the right hand side of Queen, staying in character, when I heard a car squeal to a stop against the curb. I turned and saw the Cadillac at an angle, six feet from me. There were two men in the
front seat. The one nearest me was Kennie.
He burst the door open explosively, but I beat him to it, taking a long vaulting kick at the door that slammed it across his nose as he leaned out. It slowed him but he was tough and he kept coming. I didn't wait. I grabbed his arm and flipped him eight feet, upside down on the edge of the nearest lawn. At the same time I whistled Sam, high and shrill.
The driver was the same bodyguard, only this time he had a tire iron with him and he roared as he came at me, full of anger from his first humiliation. I took two strides to meet him on his wrong foot, ducked under the iron and sank stiff fingers into his stomach, not hard enough to kill him. He dropped without a sound and I turned to Kennie who was on his feet, pulling a "For Sale" sign out of the lawn. Then Sam arrived and I told him, "Fight."
Sam grabbed his arm but this time he knew what to expect and he stopped struggling at once.
"Good boy," I told Sam, but not "Easy" and he kept his hold on Kennie's arm.
"This is getting to be a habit," I said and he swore. And then of all the dumb, impossible things I heard a voice behind me, pitched an octave low, the way young cops always pitch their voices at fights. "Okay. What in hell is going on?"
Chapter 5
I turned to see a young motorcycle cop getting off his bike against the curb. And Tony was getting out of his car, making it look as if he had been driving by. "I saw the whole thing, off'cer," he said smoothly. "The big guy kicked the little guy then set that dog on him."
I knew what was going to happen now. The whole Chinese Theatre of investigation was going to play itself out because a fact is a fact only when the policeman knows it. Hell, I knew. As a cop I believe only a tenth of what I hear, half of what I see.
The motorcycle copper tugged at his cap as if that would smarten him up and came to stand in front of me, pointing at Sam, still sounding like Paul Robeson. "That your dog biting this genn'leman?"
"Yes, and it's his 'For Sale' sign that he was trying to bend over my skull."
"That's a savage dog," Kennie whined. "I was jus' walkin' down the street, mindin' my own bus'ness 'n' it bit me. You oughta shoot it, off'cer."
This was the moment when the driver finally managed to get up on his knees in the roadway. He could move but he still couldn't speak. The cop looked at him and almost swallowed his chewing gum. "Another one. What in hell is going on?"
Kennie sang out a long sad song but I didn't bother interrupting. I've heard too many arguments in my time. Let one guy do the screaming, then tell your end of it, cool and rational, otherwise you look as bad as he does.
I told Sam "Easy, boy," and he let go of Kennie's arm and came to stand beside me. To show him off and give myself some credibility I told him "Sit" then "Lie" and he did. The young copper was impressed.
"Quite a dog," he said, ignoring Kennie's monologue.
"He just saved me from getting my head kicked in by these two," I said humbly. But Tony wasn't letting it go at that.
"Lies. Lies. Don't you believe him, off'cer. He was robbin' the pair of them, using that dog instead of a gun."
The motorcycle man had never heard that story before and he decided he was out of his depth. "The three of you better come in and talk to the detectives," he said. "Stand there, I'll call for a car."
Kennie looked at Tony anxiously, and I saw Tony nod, a change in the length of the shadows under his eyes. So Kennie stayed quiet, and so did I. I kept my ID in my pocket. It wouldn't cut much ice here on the street. I was the chief of police at Murphy's Harbour but at this moment, in this place I was just another John Doe suspect. I stood silently and waited while two police cars came and took us to the station.
And that was where my luck gave out. The detective who was coming down the stairs as we entered was Elmer Svensen. He knew me. Once, half a dozen years before, he had let a couple of rounders get the drop on him. They took his gun and held him hostage and I'd been the guy who dived through a window and shot the one with the gun before he could use it on Elmer. I'd saved Elmer's neck but he had been angry with me ever since. Personally, I'd been bailed out enough times by the artillery or the cavalry in Nam that I just get on with my job, feeling grateful, but to a policeman losing your gun is more embarrassing than losing your pants. Svensen hated everybody who had been involved in the case.
He was wearing a fawn raincoat and a fedora with a little feather. He was the only guy in the department who still wore a hat. It was vanity. He was Scandinavian blond, his hair so thin he looked bald. He saw me and snorted. "Well, if it's not our goddamn hero."
I said nothing. He had venom to spit out before he made sense. The motorcycle man asked him, "You know this guy?"
Svensen walked up to me, looking me in the face, working his Doublemint with an angry thrusting of his lower jaw. "Doesn't everybody. This is Reid Bennett, the hotshot veteran from Viet Nam."
I said nothing and the motorcycle man looked over at me with recognition dawning in his face. "Hey, I remember, couple of years back, you took on three bikers, empty-handed, killed two of them."
Kennie and Tony's bodyguard were looking at me with new respect. Now Tony had begged off and left them with nothing but their lies to protect them, they were fearful. They believed that all policemen are a band of brothers. It's nowhere near true, but fables help pass the time in the penitentiary.
"So what was he up to? Kung-fuing some poor bastard?" Svensen asked. I could smell rye on his breath and realized why he was pumping that chewing gum. He stepped over to Kennie and checked his bloody nose. "He do that to you?" he roared, thumbing back over his shoulder to me.
Before Kennie could answer the motorcycle man cut in. "He says he was walking along Queen Street and these two came at him." I had an ally here, he was looking after me with the respect men use on sticks of dynamite.
"And, strictly in self-defense, using only the minimum amount of force required, he pounded them both out, right?" Svensen snorted and turned away, then back, so abruptly that I thought he was going to swing at me and braced myself to counter if I had to.
He swung back, but I could see he was pulling it, not going to hit me, only trying to see if I would flinch. I didn't and he looked down at Sam who was curled obediently at my feet. "And this is Rin-tin-goddamn-tin the wonder dog," he said and laughed.
I said nothing but Kennie thought he could take advantage so he whined "Sonofabitch bit me. Lookit." He pulled up the sleeve of his windbreaker to show the unbroken indentations from Sam's teeth.
"Did he?" Svensen became solicitous. He pretended to examine the marks, then raised his eyes to me. "That dog's savage," he said softly. "He's a menace." He reached one hand back under his coat towards his gun which I guessed he kept detectivefashion, in the middle of his belt at the back.
"Pull that thing and he'll have your arm off," I said evenly.
"Will he now," Svensen sneered, but he didn't draw the gun. "So we can do it by the book. I'll charge you with having a weapon dangerous to the public peace, to wit a savage dog, and the Humane Society can electrocute him. Mission accomplished."
The motorcycle man spoke up, gravely. "Wasn't acting savage that I could see, he was just holding this guy's arm that was holding a board, looked like he was using the board as a weapon."
"Likely rabid," Svensen said. "I hear there's lots of rabies up in the sticks where this guy works." He was running down. He'd been squaring his old debts, now he was losing interest.
"You still working for the department?" I asked him.
He glared at me. "Yeah. Some of us can keep our jobs, you know."
I had quit the department in disgust but this was not the time for semantics. "Well, I want to charge these two with assault. If you'll have them exchange names and addresses with me I'll go swear out a warrant tomorrow. Okay?"
Svensen turned to the motorcycle man. "I know this joker." He pointed at me. "He's a royal pain but he's no criminal. This must be a personal beef. Have them exchange names and send them on their way."
He gave the top of his fedora a gentle little pat to settle it more firmly and walked away with the knees-out swagger that some detectives cultivate after a few self-important years of coming in on crime scenes where people are eager for heroes.
I watched him go, out the door and down to his car, and most likely around the corner to the nearest blind pig for a couple of shots of free rye to put his Humpty Dumpty ego back together again.
The motorcycle man was quick. He made us all dig out our IDs and Kennie's eyes widened when my Murphy's Harbour police chief card came out of the wallet.
I smiled at him, extra friendly for the sake of the shiny-faced policeman. "That's right. I'm a chief of police," I explained. You could see the wheels whizzing around behind his eyes as he tried to work out what I'd been doing in a Bonded Security uniform and how far I was going to press my complaint. But like a smart little ex-con he said nothing. He just listened while the policeman made a note of all our names and addresses, including mine, at my sister's in Toronto, and Kennie's, with his mother. Nobody would have guessed, watching the ritual, that ten minutes earlier the other two had been trying to put me in hospital.
One of the uniformed men from the station drove me back to my car. I debated going home. It was thirty-six hours since I'd slept but my adrenaline was running so I went down to the Bonded Security office to see what Fullwell had.
The answer was, not much, except for a cup of their machinebrewed coffee that tasted like a boiled book. We sat and sipped a cup each while he went over the things he'd done.