When the Killing Starts Read online

  "Abduction will do," I said, and he smirked again.

  "Really, against three of us? I can see you're not wearing a gun, unless you have one in your sock, and even that doesn't look possible to me," he said, and threw himself at me.

  I kicked out, automatically, catching him high on the thigh, not slowing him; then he was on me, clawing for my eyes. "Get him!" he snapped, and Wallace was on his feet in a moment, moving fast, coming at me. I had time to shout, "Fight!" and to see Wallace laughing, thinking I was trying to get the crowd on my side, knowing from experience that they would watch, not help. And then Sam was with me, snarling, grabbing Wallace by the arm.

  I didn't have time to watch whether he was pulling a knife. Sam could take care of that, anyway. I was fighting for my eyes. Dunphy's thumb was squirming at my temple, his face just inches from mine, his body pressed so close I couldn't knee him or punch. Instead, I spat in his face, and he recoiled far enough that I got an arm free and smashed him across the nose with my elbow. He grunted and let go, and I kicked him in the knee, hard. He yowled and folded but straightened up at once and grabbed for me again.

  Then Baks came out of his dream and joined in, grabbing me from behind. I used him as a brace to swing both feet off the ground and smash them into Dunphy's chest. He rolled backward but was up again instantly as I scraped my heel down Baks's shin, making him yell and let go. I turned for a moment and smashed him square in the nose. Not scientific but a good reflex. He staggered away, covering his face, and I turned back, but Dunphy had gone. He was sprinting for the car parked at the curb.

  Before I could reach it, he was inside, jumping away from the curb and pulling away. His lights were off, so I couldn't get the license. I swore, then turned back. I still had Wallace.

  By now I also had a crowd to deal with, patrons from the bar, spilling out onto the sidewalk for the free show. They were a rough bunch, even the women, and I was alone except for Sam. One of the men was bending to pick up a knife. I roared at him. "Don't touch that, it's evidence."

  He stopped, still bent over, glancing over his shoulder at me. I dipped past him and grabbed the knife. "Police matter," I told him. It didn't win me any friends.

  "This guy's a narc," he shouted, and suddenly I was the bad guy. But Sam could take care of that. I checked him He was covering Wallace, who had realized he was beaten and was sitting against the wall, rubbing his bruised wrists. Sam was crouching in front of him, barking, slavering. Good. That was one problem taken care of.

  But the crowd was getting angry. It happens everywhere, even in Toronto, once you get out of office hours. A bunch of truckers with a gutful of beer and something to prove. If they decided I was the enemy, I had trouble. I watched them. They were shouting and shoving through to the front to get a look at me, but so far none of them had taken the first move, suggesting they rescue the downtrodden. I hoped the police would hurry.

  Baks was up the street about three doorways, sponging the blood from his face with a sodden red handkerchief. I hoped he stayed there. Bleeders raise more sympathy than unmarked people like Wallace.

  The Toronto police were quick. Someone must have phoned in, and they were there in another minute, two neat young guys with look-alike mustaches. They pulled up in the roadway and piled out, carrying their big sticks. I judged they'd been called to fights at the Chuckwagon before this.

  One of them came right up to me while the other one cooled out the crowd. I liked the way he worked. "Okay, folks, show's over. Go have another beer."

  My guy said, "What's going on?"

  "I'm a visiting police chief. The guy on the deck came at me with this, and my dog disarmed him."

  He took the knife from me and looked at it. It was one of those narrow-bladed jobs that they used to call Tennessee toothpicks. "Not friendly," he said. "Can you call your dog off?"

  "Sure. Easy, Sam."

  Sam relaxed and fell back a step, alongside me. I patted his head. It did more than the policemen had done to cool out the crowd. They slapped one another on the back and pointed at him. Controlled force like his impresses the hell out of people with dull life-styles.

  "I want to charge this man with assault with a deadly weapon and weapon dangerous to the public peace. Also, he's involved in an abduction."

  "You got it." The cop brightened. Three good arrest charges on a night when he would have been telling drunks to take a cab instead of driving home. He went over to Wallace, standing to one side of him, where he wouldn't get kicked. "Okay, sir. If you'd stand up, please, I'd like to talk to you."

  Wallace stood up, not looking at the cop, staring at me through eyes that promised trouble if we ever met again. The cop said, "If you'd come with me to the car, sir."

  "What for?" I guessed he'd been in jackpots before this. He knew his rights, or at least the American version.

  "This gentleman has made certain allegations," the cop said. "He's a police officer, and you're under arrest. If you'll come over to the car where it's quieter, I'll tell you your rights."

  Wallace didn't argue. He went quietly to the side of the cruiser and stood there while the young cop read him all his rights. Then he got into the cage. I guessed he was expecting Dunphy to ride to his rescue. From the way Dunphy had gone, it didn't seem likely. If Wallace was expendable, he would stay in jail, if the charges stuck. They probably wouldn't. Not in the cold light of court in the morning. I didn't care about that; people have attacked me before. It goes with the job. And the abduction charge was a phony. I just hoped that Wallace would get bitter about his boss and open up about where they had taken young Michaels. This investigation was starting to get to me.

  The other cop joined his partner, who waved me to follow, so I called Sam and trailed behind them to the station. It was the new one, next to the Art Gallery of Ontario in the heart of Chinatown. The usual Saturday night uproar was in full swing. Not many drunks, but quite a few citizens clamoring for information, phones ringing, uniformed men and detectives coming and going.

  The two cops sat Wallace in a corner. One of them stood with him, while the other one left. "I'll get the brains," he said. The detectives. I hoped it would be someone I knew. I'd never worked out of this division, but you make plenty of contacts in detective work. I might get lucky.

  While I waited for him, I called Broadhurst's detective agency. He was in, and he said he would be down right away. Mrs. Michaels had asked him to collaborate with me in any way he could. He wasn't happy, but he knew who was paying his bills.

  The duty detective in the station was young, young enough to be wearing his jacket despite the heat, which felt as if the air conditioning had given up a couple of days earlier. By the time he reached us, the uniformed man had filled him in. He came over, frowning, and spoke to me. "Could I have a word with you, sir?"

  "Sure." I told Sam to stay and walked over to the corner of the counter, out of earshot of Wallace, who was sitting rubbing his wrists.

  "You're a police officer?"

  "Reid Bennett. I'm the chief up at Murphy's Harbour, in Toronto on vacation."

  "You have some ID?"

  I showed him, and he glanced at it. "Good. Tell me, what were you doing down at the Chuckwagon. You always hang out around those kinda places?" Young cops are very judgmental.

  "No. Look, it's going to save your time if I tell you what's going down. The assault doesn't matter. It happens. Shall we do it my way, or you want to ask all the questions?"

  He looked up at me sharply. I was throwing him. He was the detective, I was the victim. I should be answering questions. Only that would take us down some unnecessary byways.

  He didn't answer, so I started. "This guy works for a mercenary outfit called Freedom for Hire. I checked them with the Intelligence Service, talked to an exToronto detective there. He runs with a man called Dunphy, who signs up volunteers and ships them out to places like Nicaragua, wherever."

  "That's not illegal," he said. He knew his law, anyway.

  "Not quite.
But anyway, I was approached by the mother of a kid who just joined them. My job is to get him back. All I want to know from this guy is where they've got the kid. After that I'll drop the charges and we can all go home."

  "That's not a police matter," he said.

  "No, it's not." I was patient. "But trying to fillet me with that goddamn knife of his is a police matter. What I'm suggesting is that you talk to him, see if you can get him to talk. Then he can walk, as far as I'm concerned, and save you all that paperwork."

  "So you want us to do your job for you?"

  "I want help in keeping the peace. That's why I was glad to see the blue suits turn up. These Freedom people are bad news. The kid could get blown away. He's a citizen, I'm a citizen. This guy here isn't. He's a Georgia cracker looking to kick anybody's ass he can reach."

  "I'll give him five minutes," he said. A sawoff.

  "Should be enough. Want me along?"

  "No. What's this kid's name who's missing?"

  "Jason Michaels. He's twenty but kind of backward, dumb. Not fit to be looking after himself." That wasn't true, but it gave the detective something to believe in. Everybody needs a cause.

  "Go and sit down," he said. I went to a chair, well away from Wallace, and shrilled a low whistle at Sam. He came over and sat, and I patted his head and watched the detective work.

  I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I could tell from the look on Wallace's face that he wasn't buying. He just sat and listened, not moving a muscle. He was angry, scared enough of the law that he wouldn't make a fuss, but he sure wasn't going to do any favors. He probably knew he would be let out on bail. A law-abiding citizen wouldn't, but a professional rebel would. He knew he could sit tight and wait for a bail hearing; then he would vanish.

  After a while he spoke, opening and shutting his mouth without moving anything else. The sure sign he wasn't giving us anything. The detective spoke again, then called me. I told Sam to stay and walked over, moving easily so Wallace would know I was a policeman, not an embarrassed visitor to the station.

  The detective said, "Your friend here says he never heard of Jason Michaels."

  I nodded and spoke to Wallace. "When did you get here?"

  He thought about it, wondering how far to go obstructing me.

  "Yesterday," he said at last. He was going to play the "I'd like to help, but" game.

  "With Dunphy?"

  "No." He'd been trained well. Number, rank, and name was all he would give up. Only he didn't have a number anymore.

  "Where did you meet up with him?"

  "How'd ya mean?"

  "You're his instructor. I heard you say so. You're in this with him. I want to know where you met him yesterday."

  "Just bumped into him in a bar someplace. He offered me a job. I said, 'Sure.'" He shrugged.

  "Where did you come from?"

  The detective was getting restless. This wasn't his case. If it had been, he might have been asking the same questions. Right now he wanted Wallace out of his life so he could get back to working through the cases on his desk. I ignored him. So did Wallace.

  "New York," he said easily. "Yeah, New York. I heard this was a nice friendly town, so I came up here to kick back for a spell. Then I met Dunphy and hung out with him."

  "You met him when?"

  "This evening, 'bout an hour before we came into that bar where you an' that kid was hangin' out."

  "What kid?" the detective asked me. I turned and gave him a "hold it" look.

  Wallace answered the question for him. "Some buddy o' his. Suckin' around this guy on account'f this guy's been in the Younited States Marines." He chuckled. "Kids."

  The detective was buying it, starting to see me as some kind of cowboy who worked on impressing civilians. I could tell by the way his stance changed. He leaned back on the counter as if to say, Go ahead, smart guy, let's see you do better.

  I cut the losses. "Okay, Wallace, if that's your name. You've been charged with assault with a deadly weapon, weapon dangerous to the public peace. Let's see you laugh yourself out of court in the morning." He chuckled again. Bravado. He didn't want to go inside, but he'd be damned if he'd let it show.

  I turned to the detective. "I'll give you a statement. Lock him up, please. And then I want to speak to your inspector."

  "Help yourself." The detective waved me toward the desk officer.

  I nodded and walked over to the uniformed man who was tapping something into a computer terminal. He looked up, and I took out my ID. He stood up and took it, then said, "Yes, Chief, what can I do for you?"

  "I'd like to talk to the duty inspector, please."

  He went into the inspector's office, and a minute later I was in there. And once again it was a man I didn't know.

  He didn't shake hands. He was sitting at his desk, working on some paper or other. He looked up. "You're Chief Bennett."

  "Yes, thank you for seeing me, Inspector."

  He closed his file folder and frowned at me. "You used to be with the department here, didn't you?"

  "Yeah, until two years ago. I was a detective in Fifty-two Division."

  He nodded. "Rings a bell. You offed a couple of bikers, or something like that, got arrested, right."

  "Right. For manslaughter. Was acquitted but left the job when the papers wouldn't let go of it."

  Now he stood up and stuck out his hand. "Crawford."

  We shook. "Reid Bennett. I've just handled a case up in my patch that involved some more bikers. I'm in town on vacation, and a woman asked me to look into a mercenary outfit that's signed up her son."

  "How can we help?" He waved to the chair in front of his desk, and I sat.

  "Thanks. Well, I found the guy in charge. Limey, name of Dunphy. According to a guy I know in the Intelligence Service, he runs an outfit called Freedom for Hire. I went looking for him, found him, and then the guy outside, who works for him, came after me with a knife. So, he's charged with weapon dangerous, but Dunphy took off in the scuffle. I want to try and track him."

  "What's your plan?"

  "According to my source, he doesn't hole up anywhere permanent, keeps moving every night. So I won't find him through a hotel registration, but he had a car, an '87 Chev. Beretta. There's a chance I could track him through the hire-car companies. I'd like to use an office, or a phone, anyway, for a while, see if I can get a handle on him."

  "That's no problem. You can use the detective office." He leaned back in his chair. "Of course, it may not help. If he thinks he's blown, he'll dump the car, or he may have used a phony ID."

  "Yeah, I know, but it's all I've got to go on. I've been trying to shake something out of Wallace; that's the guy with the knife. Only he's playing dumb."

  "He would." Crawford nodded. "I'll get one of the other guys to talk to him. Looked to me as if Hennessey was out there. He's still kinda green. Maybe we'll get somewhere with an experienced man." He frowned at me. "I can't promise anything. You know that."

  "Appreciate the courtesy, Inspector Crawford. If there's anything I can do for you up at Murphy's Harbour, like maybe show you where the pickerel are. Something unofficial."

  He grinned. "Thanks, anyway, I'm a golfer. Tell the duty officer to take you up to the detective office."

  "Thanks, Inspector."

  I went back out, and the young PC pointed up the stairs to the left. I called Sam and went up there. It was the typical detective office. Tables shoved together in the middle of a big room, a couple of old manual typewriters, phones, file cabinets, departmental memos on the walls. It brought back memories of nights like this two years ago when I'd worked a mile from this place, twelve—fourteen-hour days tidying up the mess that passes for life in the fast lane even in a law-abiding city like Toronto.

  I found the phone book, dug out the hire-car section of the yellow pages, and started calling. Between them they had seventeen dark-colored Berettas on lease. None of them was on loan to anybody called Dunphy or Wallace. Three of them were out to women dri
vers. In the other cases, the clerk who answered had not been on duty when the car was released. They had no idea who had taken them out, but none of the records showed a Dunphy or a Wallace.

  I was still working when a short middle-aged man came into the office. He was wearing a dark gray suit and a fine sheen of perspiration. He mopped his face with a handkerchief and waited for me to finish the call I was making.

  "You're Reid Bennett?"

  I stood up. "Right, you're the private detective?" He put his handkerchief away and stuck out his hand, smiling ingratiatingly. "Sam Broadhurst. Yes."

  "Okay. Mrs. Michaels asked me to help you look for her kid. I've found the people who signed him up. One of them is downstairs under arrest. When I'm through here, I'm going to latch on to him when he's released on bail, try to track down the boy."

  "You may be too late," Broadhurst said nervously. "As I was coming in, I saw the justice of the peace leaving. I think the bail hearing's over. And the door of the hearing room was open. It's empty. I'd say he was gone."

  FOUR

  Broadhurst was right. The hearing had happened, and my man was gone. I swore. Hennessey should have called me when the hearing occurred. I wasn't sure whether his failure to do so was an oversight or deliberate punishment for doing police work on his turf. It made no difference either way. Wallace had slipped through the cracks. My work had been for nothing. Only now the mercenaries knew me and would avoid me even more carefully.

  I did the only thing possible. I reclaimed Wallace's knife and gave it to Sam to sniff. He led me out onto the street and along a half block before coming to a dead end at the edge of the roadway. Wallace had gone off in a car, a cab probably.

  Broadhurst suggested that he contact all the cab companies to see if any of the drivers had picked Wallace up. There wasn't anything better to do, so I turned him loose. I didn't hold out any hope. A man like Wallace would change cabs at least once before reaching his destination. Most likely he would switch to the subway for the last lap. I'd lost him.