by Warren Court
There were taped outlines where the three gang members had fallen. An X marked out in tape with a G written in chalk next to it marked the spot where the Beretta had been. The blood had been mopped up.
Behind the counter were two more tape outlines. The blood splatter seemed a lighter shade of red in the day than when Temple had first seen it. He frowned. So the owner was shot first? Pretty callous. If the shooters had let the owner and his assistant live, it was doubtful they would have told the police anything.
Temple and Mendoza sat down on the other side of the restaurant. Temple sipped his coffee; Mendoza was swiping at his phone. Temple looked at the blood stain and bullet hole behind the counter.
“Well, I’ll be,” he said.
“What’s that?” Mendoza said without looking up from his phone.
Temple went over to the counter and looked down at the blood pooled on the floor behind the register.
“Our shooters come in and both of them head to the counter, like they’re going to order. We know all the shots were fired from here,” Temple said. “Get up,” he told Mendoza.
Mendoza came over.
“Put your goddamn phone away for five minutes, would you?”
“Sure, John.”
“Now stand here, beside me. I pull out my hand cannon, my .357. More than enough to do the job. I pop this guy standing behind the cash register, blam, while you’re pulling out a nine-millimetre.”
“Or I pull mine out first.”
Mendoza feigned pulling a weapon out from inside his coat. The TEC-9 was a big gun, not like a rifle but bigger than their Glocks.
“No, you don’t pull yours first. I get my shot off first.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because the guy behind the counter took the bullet point-blank. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t see any TEC-nine being pulled. Just blam, and he falls back against the wall and slides down. He’s got flash burn marks on the entry wound; it was up close. He never made a move to duck away. Not like his assistant, who tried to get back into the kitchen. They do this guy first.” Temple motioned to the blood stain. “And then the other shooter pulls out his TEC-nine and goes to work.”
“Pop, pop, pop,” Mendoza said. He mimed spraying the booth where the members of Lucky Eights had bought it.
“I shoot the assistant cook, who was trying to get out the back way. You finish spraying and we leave.” Temple walked to the door. Mendoza followed. “And as we make it here, there are two shots and one of us gets hit.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying the Lucky Eight Society probably wasn’t even the main target. The owner of the restaurant was.”
“Far out,” Mendoza said.
Two men in suits walked up to Temple and Mendoza as they left the Beautiful City restaurant. Temple recognized one, though he looked more alert today; it was Nallartnam, the city councillor.
“Officers, we’re hoping you can give us an update on the state of this building,” Nallartnam said.
A grin came over Temple’s face; Nallartnam did not recognize him from the night before.
“This whole block is being redeveloped. I’m Councillor Nallartnam, Ward Ten”
“You don’t say.”
“You’re Inspector Munshin?” Nallartnam asked.
“No, I’m Detective Temple. I’m assigned to this case.”
“Oh, I see,” the councillor said.
“Who are you?” Temple said to the other man.
“This is Mr. Taylor,” Nallartnam said, answering for him. “He’s the developer for this property.”
Temple nodded. Taylor said nothing, did nothing.
“We’re still conducting an investigation,” Temple said.
“And?” the councillor said.
“When it’s gotten to a point where we no longer need to secure the scene, we will release it. The tape will come down.”
“And when can we expect that?” Nallartnam pressed on. “This is holding a lot of things up.”
“I don’t know. Things are evolving. And we have a heavy caseload on top of it.”
“This is very inconvenient…” Nallartnam said.
“It’s costing me money,” Taylor interjected.
“You’ll have to take it up with Munshin or our PR person.”
“Or the chief,” Taylor said.
“Yeah, sure. Give him a call,” Temple said.
“Won’t have to. We’re having dinner tonight.”
“Well, enjoy,” Temple said.
He and Mendoza walked over to the Buick and got in. Temple started the engine but waited to make sure Taylor and Nallartnam didn’t coerce the uniform guarding the restaurant into letting them into the crime scene. When they had left, Temple drove away.
The Beautiful City restaurant was one of just a dozen shops and restaurants that made up the block. In the middle of the block, posted to a telephone pole, was a large white city notice. Temple braked in the middle of the street.
“What?” Mendoza said.
“Get out and take a gander at that sign for me, would ya?”
Mendoza sighed. He usually bristled when Temple treated him like his gopher, but that was all part of the detective constable gig. He was back in the car in twenty seconds.
“Standard notice. Like the guy said, this block is up for redevelopment. Consultations with the public were held; the dates are all in the past. The time for anyone to bitch about it has come and gone.”
“I wonder if someone did.”
“Did what?”
“Bitch.”
“They usually do. Change sucks.”
“Yes, it does,” Temple said. “The daughter of the restaurant owner—I want to pay her a visit.”
17
Mendoza called Dalupan at 40 College and had him pull up the address of the restaurant owner, Kiet Du, on the computer. It was only a couple of blocks from the Beautiful City.
“Du had one daughter,” Mendoza told Temple after he’d hung up with Dalupan. “Check this out. Her name is Sue Du.”
“How do you do, Sue?” Temple said.
They parked at the entrance of the Du’s apartment building. The father and his daughter lived in apartment 812 but instead of buzzing it, Temple rang the superintendent. The super popped his head out of the ground-floor office on the other side of the glass. Temple palmed his tin and the man came over and let them in.
“Which apartment?” he asked.
“Just never you mind,” Temple said, and he and Mendoza went over to the elevator. They wanted to get up there unannounced. Standard procedure.
Temple rapped on the door of 812 and stood to the side. Mendoza did likewise. Both cops had their hands on their guns. There was a rattling of a deadbolt, then another, and the door opened a crack with a chain across it. Temple had his badge out and showed it to the young girl on the other side.
“Miss Du? Toronto Police. We’d like a word.”
She let them in. Mendoza sniggered at the word “Du.”
“Knock it off,” Temple hissed.
She was cute. Long black hair, about five-foot-two. The room smelled pretty much like the Beautiful City restaurant and Temple found his stomach growling. Maybe he’d go back to Asian food quicker than he thought.
“We want to speak to you about your father’s death,” Temple said. “Is your mother here?”
“She’s dead,” the girl said with no trace of an accent. So she had been born and raised here. There was a family portrait on one wall: father, mother and daughter. A second photo of the same woman was next to it, wreathed in black. Temple suspected Sue would put one up for her father now, too.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Died of cancer when I was three,” the girl said. “I don’t really remember. Please.” She motioned for them to sit down. Mendoza stood by the door, but Temple obliged her. He leaned forward and interlocked his fingers.
“It’s such a tragedy,” Temple said. “Your dad, an innocen
t bystander. Killed in his own restaurant.”
“He slaved over that restaurant; it was everything to him.”
“You’re in school?”
“Yes, for marketing. Dad saved every penny. Plus, I have loans.”
Temple smiled, then was serious again.
“Did your father ever mention anyone putting pressure on him? To pay for protection?”
““No,” she said, and looked to the ceiling and back down again quickly. So she was lying. Good, Temple thought. Dig yourself in, honey.
While Temple was looking at her, he was listening for any sounds of movement in the apartment. He feigned deep thought. “What about Kim Luck? You ever come in contact with him? Maybe in a club or a karaoke bar?”
“I helped out in the restaurant when I wasn’t in school. I think they came in on a regular basis.”
“You know this guy?” Temple showed her a photo of Kim Luck on his phone.
“Maybe. Yeah, I think he was in there a bunch of times.”
“What about these two?” Temple swiped his screen and showed her pictures of the brothers Leung.
“I’ve seen them. In the clubs, here and there. Maybe school.”
“These boys ever get in an altercation with anybody in your father’s restaurant?”
She shook her head.
“Your dad worked hard to get all this.” Temple looked around. He didn’t mean it as an insult, the small apartment. He knew how hard it was.
The girl said nothing.
“He’s from Vietnam?”
“Yes.”
“What age was he when he came here?”
“Twenty-nine,” the girl said. “He met my mother on the boat.”
“So he lived through the war? Must have thought he’d gone to heaven when he came to Canada.”
“Heaven is easy. Coming here was hard. Living here is hard,” she said.
“Fair enough. I used to eat at his restaurant from time to time. All of us on the job know the Beautiful City,” Temple said. He looked at Mendoza, who nodded.
“Yeah, sure,” Mendoza said, and rocked on his feet.
“We’d like to find the people who killed your father.”
“I don’t know what help I could be to you.”
Temple nodded and stood up. He left his card on the coffee table; it was black lacquered wood with a dragon scroll on it. On it was a notice from City Hall, but it was written in Vietnamese. Temple knew they had a service that could provide anybody with their documentation in any number of languages; it was a major part of the city’s diversity program. Though he couldn’t read the majority of the document, he did see a mention in English of an event at City Hall dated six days ago.
Something was nagging at Temple on the way back to 40 College, but he did not vocalize it to Mendoza. The way she had said, “My mom is dead.” It was cold. Even if she had been only six. Maybe now losing both parents would have her shook up.
Then he remembered what Wozniak had said, how the girl just wanted the whole thing wrapped up, over and done with. They were still holding Kiet Du’s body, but the family was asking for it to be released.
Temple chuckled again.
“What?” Mendoza said.
“She doesn’t know what help she could be to us. I tell her we want to find her father’s killer and she says she can’t help. Natural thing to say is, ‘Yes, I want that too.’ That was very telling.”
When he was back at his desk, Temple checked who exactly had been asking for Kiet Du’s body to be released. It wasn’t the daughter. A woman named Lucy Nguyen, listed as an aunt of the deceased, was making the request. She lived out in the west end and was likely the executor of the will.
“Get a production order on the restaurant,” Temple said.
“Why?” Mendoza asked.
“Just for shits,” he said. “And their apartment.”
“Okay, will do. Won’t take long.”
“You’re a whiz with the keyboard, my boy,” Temple said.
Temple ran across to the food court while Mendoza punched out the production order. When he came back, true to his word, Mendoza had finished it.
“Give it a read-through,” Mendoza said.
Temple sat down and ate his burger hunched over his desk. Grease dripped out onto the paper wrapping. He was careful not to get it on the PO. He grabbed for a pen and started underlining things, then handed it back to Mendoza. Mendoza scanned through the revision.
“Grammar and spelling,” Temple said.
“Oh, come on.”
“Seriously, you go to these judges with crap like that too many times and they’ll start rejecting them over grammar and spelling. Then you have to refile it and tell them why you’re refiling. It’s embarrassing.”
Mendoza slumped his shoulders and took the PO back to his cubicle for a second try.
Temple pulled up the Beautiful City file in PowerCase, homicide’s main computer application. There was a driver’s licence photo of Kiet Du in the file. He toggled back and forth between that photo and the crime scene photo of Du lying dead behind the counter. The hole in the man’s face was enormous. Temple couldn’t tell if it was the same man in both photos, but he had no reason to believe it wasn’t. But he kept switching back and forth between the photos while eating his cheeseburger.
Mendoza finally came back. “Okay, it’s done.”
Temple checked it again, not trusting Mendoza’s thoroughness.
“Great. Let’s get a justice of the peace to sign off on it and then get it to technical services.”
The JP on call that night was having a dinner party when Temple and Mendoza arrived at his home on the Bridle Path, the most expensive street in the city. It was a beautiful home. There were several imported cars in the driveway. They knew this particular JP had been a very successful defence lawyer, and he was still a stickler for suspects’ rights. After a curt hello at the doorway, he left Temple and Mendoza on the porch while he took the document inside. He came back quickly with the signed paper and closed the door on them.
“That was good timing on our part,” Temple said. “He wanted to get back to his guests. Probably didn’t even read it.”
“He could have at least invited us in for scampi and pinot grigio,” Mendoza said.
“Maybe next time.”
Technical services ran twenty-four hours a day. They did everything from establishing and monitoring wire taps to retrieving phone records and even breaking into suspects’ computers. They took the form and told Temple they’d have the data within twelve hours. The production order was for phone calls to and from both locations, the restaurant and the apartment. It did not include any cell phones; it would take some digging to find those numbers. If they had included cell phones in the production order, the Justice of the Peace would have given the warrant more thought, scampi or no scampi. But land lines were old-school and standard procedure, so he hadn’t been concerned.
“Tomorrow we’re going to work whatever technical services gives us,” Temple said.
“Yeah, sure. Okay.” Mendoza was getting out of the car.
“Wait,” Temple said.
“Yeah?”
“Taylor, the real estate guy. See what you can find on him.”
“Okay, but why?”
“Because he was rude. I don’t like rude people.”
“I’ll try and remember that.”
When Mendoza was gone, Temple got a text. He didn’t recognize the number. All it said was ‘The Kalinka Restaurant.’ Horowitz had come through. Suddenly he had a hankering for borscht.
18
The Kalinka Restaurant was over on Roncesvalles, a little Russian and Polish community. He was expected at Karen Kindness’s house at midnight; it was close to 11 now.
The restaurant was still open and busy when Temple got over there. A large Eastern European–looking man in a dark suit put up his hand when Temple tried to enter.
“Restaurant closed,” the big man said.
Temple flashed his badge.
“Private party.”
“Either I go in or you get Mr. Kumarin out here to talk to me.” Temple scanned the man’s face; was he one of the shooters? He couldn’t be; the eyewitness had said a little man had helped a big man into the car. That big man was now a hunk of meat on a slab in Brampton. This doorman could have been the driver, though.
The man had a microphone up his sleeve like secret service, and he said something in Russian into it. Temple stepped back and waited on the sidewalk. Then the man stepped to the side and ushered Temple in.
“Spasiba,” Temple said as he passed. The gargantuan said nothing.
The restaurant smelled of borscht and other Eastern European delights; it made his stomach growl despite that food court burger he’d had.
There were a couple hundred people in the restaurant and a bride in the centre of it all with a thin, sickly-looking groom next to her. The guests were handing her envelopes and ignored Temple completely. He went up to the small serving bar and ordered a scotch. The bartender hesitated and then looked past him and started making the drink. There was a mirror behind the bar with a scene of troikas and Moscow’s domed capital covered in white frosting. Temple saw the reflection of Stas Kumarin approaching him. His bald head glimmered in the warm candlelight. Kojak.
“That one is on the house,” Stas said as he stood next to Temple. “I thought policemen don’t drink on duty.”
“We’re always on duty, twenty-four seven, so we’re not allowed one drink?” Temple turned and leaned his back up against the bar. “I was feeling hungry and thought I’d come in.”
“Despite it being a private party.”
Temple sipped his scotch. The bartender gave Kumarin a small glass with an aperitif in it.
“Cheers,” Temple said, and the two men clinked glasses. “Whose wedding?”
“My niece. She marries man from old country so he can get visa to work. Arranged by me. He is good boy.”
“He better be, huh?” Temple said, and Stas chuckled.
“Somewhere quiet we can chit-chat?” Temple said.