10-33 Assist PC

by Desmond P. Ryan

  “What? That idiot let her get that close?”

  “Yeah, well, we ended up debriefing her at the office and now,” Sal looked at his watch, “she’s probably having dinner with her folks back in Port Hope.”

  “No,” Ron said, shaking his head emphatically as he took a loud sip of his coffee, “not my thing at all. Waste of time and resources, if you ask me. She’ll be back on a bus to Toronto before morning, I bet. Girls like that are just, well… like that.”

  “Good thing you’re in Traffic,” Sal chortled.

  “Yes, it is. Which is why I called you.”

  “You called me away from a hot dinner to tell me how glad you are to be pronging the public at traffic stops?” Sal laughed.

  “You see? Therein lies the difference between you people and the real backbone of this organization. While you are dining in some upscale restaurant on the taxpayer’s dollar, we Traffic men are out patrolling the streets, keeping motorists and pedestrians safe. Did you know that more people die in traffic fatalities every year than are murdered?”

  “Do they pay you to say shit like that?”

  “Seriously. Traffic investigation—”

  “Tick tock.” Sal gave an exaggerated yawn.

  “I was just getting to my point when you so rudely interrupted me.” Ron paused for a moment, glaring at Sal, albeit with a slight twinkle in his eye. As Sal’s former training officer, he knew he tended to give the younger man a bit of leeway; otherwise, there definitely would have been no twinkle. “After I left the two of you, I drove around the corner to write up my notes. I saw some kids piling into a white extended van in the alleyway. I thought that was unusual, so I stopped and watched.”

  Ron paused again and took a slow sip of coffee.

  “Go on.”

  “I saw five, maybe six, girls and a big guy hustle into the back of this van. One guy got into the driver’s seat while another one got into the seat beside him. It’s at this point that I’m thinking this may have something to do with your little project, so I back my car up a bit, hoping that they will drive past me and I can get the plate.”

  “And…?” Sal prompted, glancing at the clock in the car’s dashboard as Ron paused again. Maybe he could make it back to Mary Margaret’s while there was still some dessert left.

  “Well, they did. And,” Ron nodded in self-satisfaction, “I wrote down a description of the two guys in the front. The windows were blacked out in the back, so I couldn’t see anyone there. And I got the plate number.”

  “Great!”

  “Or not,” Ron cautioned. “I ran the plate. It’s a rental. I didn’t know how far I should go with this, so I just stopped there.”

  “Oh.”

  “Now if you want, I can give you the name of a woman I know quite well from past dealings at this particular rental place. She might be able to help.”

  “That would be great,” Sal replied, wondering if and how he and Mike could fit yet another task into this evening’s shift.

  “I called there today, and she’s working until eight, which gives you,” Ron looked at his Citizen watch, “about ninety minutes to talk to her if you want to talk tonight.”

  “Okay. What else can you tell me about the occs?” Sal said, not wanting to sound ungrateful for the information, but anxious to get a sense of who was in that van.

  “Well, like I said, I couldn’t really get a good look at the girls, except to say that they all looked really young. And the guy in the back with them looked big—as in steroids-big—but maybe that was just compared to them. Anyhoo, the driver was a nondescript white guy, maybe twenty years old, average height, weight. The passenger was a white guy as well, maybe a bit older than the driver, but he had this scar up the right side of his face. Really prominent. Saw it clearly when they pulled out of the alley.”

  “Malcolm,” Sal muttered.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And I believe this same guy was carrying a large knife.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw something shine when he was getting into the van. Thought it might be a belt buckle or something.”

  “And?”

  “When the van pulled out onto the street, I saw a big knife on the dashboard.”

  “And you didn’t pull the van over because…?”

  “I was just about to when I got dispatched to a tractor-trailer rollover by a church around the corner. Livestock on its way to slaughter. ‘Holy cow’, I said, ‘I have to go'.’” Ron chuckled at his own witticism.

  Sal shook his head as he looked down, squinting, at his Swatch watch. Built more for fashion than function, the watch was difficult to read.

  “And then it slipped my mind. Until now.”

  “Any Traffic Unit available for a cyclist struck PI. Victim trapped under the wheels. Any Unit to respond.” Sal could hear the dispatcher’s voice coming over the police radio in Ron’s car.

  “CT65, dispatcher,” Ron responded, casually picking up the mic. “Put me on that.”

  “CT65 responding. Thank you,” the voice confirmed. “Update from another witness: Victim was operating a green bicycle. Appears both bicycle and victim are under the car.”

  “10-4 on that, dispatcher.” Ron looked over at Sal and passed something to him. “Here’s the paper with all the information on it. The lady’s name is Barb. Let me know how it turns out. Or not. Gotta go.”

  Sal had just enough time to pull his arm with the piece of paper he had just been given into his car before Ron was off, lights flashing, siren blaring.

  Chapter Six

  Sunday, October 30th, 2005 - 6:30 p.m.

  The final days of October are not the most beautiful in the city. Most of the magnificent colours of the leaves have already faded and the leaves themselves have blown off the trees, leaving the branches barren and the leaf-covered roads slippery. People have not yet acclimatized themselves to the increasingly cold weather and are often either overdressed or still trying to squeeze another few days out of their late summer clothing. To make matters worse, the sun sets well before six p.m.

  In contrast, however, the restaurant where Julia Vendramini was meeting Amanda Black was bright and full of life, basking in the reputation of having one of the most authentic Italian kitchens in the city that was still reasonably priced.

  “Look at you, girlfriend! On the list to be promoted,” Julia began, setting her Gucci purse on the chair across from her colleague and unbuttoning her black cloth coat. “And two beautiful daughters—”

  “A pending divorce and the possibility of being alone forever,” Amanda completed the thought as she dropped the cell phone she had been scanning into her purse and placed the strap of her bag over the back of her wooden chair. She stood up and gave Julia a hug and kissed her on both cheeks, as they had done since first meeting more than a dozen years before.

  “Oh, please. With your personality?” Julia brushed Amanda’s self-deprecating comments aside. She looked briefly for a place to set her purse and then, resignedly, tucked it under her chair as she gingerly sat down. “No lounge chairs here, huh? Too bad. If my hips get any bigger, I’ll be sitting on a bar stool.”

  “I ordered you a glass of wine.” Amanda said, pointing to the glass of red in front of Julia. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Have you ever met an Italian who would say no to a glass of wine. Saluti.” Julia raised the glass to her friend. “And you’re gorgeous. You won’t be single for long, my dear!”

  “Listen, at my age,” Amanda half-heartedly laughed, raising her glass in turn and taking a sip, “I’ll be lucky to find a guy who can fix my toilet.”

  “Stop it! This wine is very good, by the way. I hope you didn’t just order it vino al bicchiere?”

  “By the glass? Well, yes, I did, but I can change that. Anyway, now that I’m thoroughly depressed, what’s up with you?” Amanda raised her hand to get the attention of the young
male server who was clearly new to both the restaurant and the profession.

  “Same old, same old. Work. Sleep. Work. You know how it is in these squads. Which is actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Both women fell silent for a moment while they glanced at their menus.

  “I’m trying to stay clear of carbs, but honestly, who am I fooling? What’s the zuppa del giorno?” Julia asked the waiter.

  “I’ll have to check with the chef, ma’am,” the young man stumbled.

  “Never mind. I’ll just have the baked goat cheese salad.” She handed the waiter her menu. “And a bottle of whatever it is we’re drinking. My treat.”

  “With hours like that—” Amanda began, then turned to the waiter and handed him her menu. “I’ll have the merluzzo salad, thank you, and don’t ever call any woman under eighty ‘ma’am’.”

  She turned back to Julia. “It’s no wonder you’re not pregnant yet.”

  The young man’s face flushed as he hurriedly scribbled down the orders before retreating to the safety of the noisy kitchen.

  “I know,” Julia acknowledged, taking another sip of the wine, “but, like Keith keeps telling me, if it’s in God’s plan…”

  “I’m sorry,” Amanda fumbled, recalling a little too late how desperately Julia wanted children. “So what can I do for you? If it’s about yesterday, I think we can conclusively say that I will never work with that idiot O’Shea.”

  “He’s a good guy, really. A little…” Julia paused for a moment to find the word, “…intense sometimes, but—”

  “Intense? I thought he was too laid back.” Amanda practically shot out of her chair. “My God, if someone came at me with a gun, I’d shoot them dead, no questions asked.”

  “Yeah, well, Mike’s kind of a deep thinker, you know? They’ve changed the colours here,” she commented brightly, looking around her as the table next to them was cleared and reset. “I like it. I would never have thought—”

  “Deep thinkers are the ones who get themselves killed. Or their partners.”

  “More wine?” The young waiter had returned and was tilting the bottle towards the table, determined to regain control of his customers.

  “Thank you. Just leave it here,” Amanda instructed as she cleared a spot for the bottle in the middle of the table, forgoing the tradition of sampling first, taking the wind out of the already depleted sails of the young man in the process.

  “I hear what you’re saying,” Julia said, at the same time smiling apologetically at the waiter, “but Mike’s not like that. Anyway, I was wondering—hoping, actually—that you could help me out a bit. Since we are both more or less investigating the same people, maybe you can give me something—”

  “I don’t think we’re investigating the same people at all,” Amanda corrected, finishing off her glass of wine with a gulp and refilling it before topping up Julia’s. “We deal with the johns and the hookers. You deal with—”

  “Your hookers before they get to you,” Julia finished, raising her glass to Amanda.

  Amanda stopped for a moment to consider.

  “Point taken. But I still don’t know how—”

  “That house you were in front of yesterday. Why there?” Julia leaned in, idly noting that a young couple was just settling themselves in at the table beside them.

  “Just dumb luck. Our arrest numbers have been low for a few weeks while everyone has been absorbed in the promotional process. Our team figured that we could pump them back up again by doing a sweep, and we all know that that area is popular with the johns. Figured we’d be able to get a few arrests and keep our boss in the good books with his boss.”

  Amanda looked over at the young woman and her boyfriend sitting a mere elbow’s distance away from her and Julia, noting with annoyance how close the tables were to each other.

  “Well, just so you know, that house was a hold house,” Julia said, taking a large sip of wine as the young man looked over at the two thirty-something women seated at the table next to him and his pretty date.

  “I know,” Amanda chortled. “Your buddy, Mike, told me.”

  “I hear you. But since your team picked that location, you kind of burned us, and now they’ve moved the girls.”

  The young woman at the table beside them said something to her boyfriend and got up to go to the washroom, leaving the young man staring hopelessly at the expansive wine menu while trying not to be too obvious about listening in on the conversation taking place beside him.

  “Sorry about that,” Amanda conceded.

  “Yeah, well, our intel has it that they’re moving the girls either to the Falls or across the border in the next day or two, which would totally complicate our investigation. We need to get to them before they leave the city.” She looked over at the young man sitting next to them, shaking her head slightly at him as she noticed him eavesdropping. He blushed and buried his nose in the menu.

  “And you’re thinking they haven’t already gone?” Amanda scoffed.

  “You know how these things go. They planned to move them on the 31st, with likely no plan in place to hold them before that if something went wrong, which means they still have to have the girls holed up somewhere in the city.”

  “It’s amazing how lucrative these kiddie hooker rings are, given how poorly they are run, isn’t it?” Amanda said.

  “I think the really amazing thing is how badly our investigations go, given how many chances we get with them,” Julia replied as she scooped her purse up from under her, then pushed her chair away from the table. “You know, I think I’m going to go to the little girls’ room now before our salad gets here. I assume they’re still at the back. Hold that thought.”

  Amanda took another sip of wine and checked her cell phone while Julia made her way through the increasingly packed room. She glanced over at the man seated beside her and noticed that he was staring at her.

  “Which is it, lover boy?” she cooed with a smile. “Never heard the word prostitution before, or is it seeing a cop drink that’s got you so engrossed?”

  The man’s head snapped around as his girlfriend returned to their table. He smiled at her, Amanda guessed, more out of relief and gratitude than desire and interest.

  “Assholes. All men are assholes,” she muttered as she poured herself another glass of wine and drained it more quickly than she had planned.

  “So,” Julia said as she sat herself down again, maneuvering around the novice waiter who had returned and was struggling to place their salads in front of them. “Give it any thought?”

  “Give what any thought?” Amanda asked, taking a forkful of salad. “This is really good. I am quite surprised.”

  “Giving up some addresses,” Julia gently pushed, taking a sip of wine after a bite of her salad. “You know, a place where these girls might be stashed or…?”

  Both the man and his date were now staring at the two undercover cops.

  “Sure. I’ve got some right here. Oh, wait. Must be in my other purse. Are you kidding me?” Amanda laughed without missing a beat. “If I knew where these shit-rats kept these young girls, don’t you think I’d have told somebody by now?”

  The woman beside them dropped her fork. It clanked off her plate, hit her bare knee, and landed on the floor next to Amanda’s chair.

  “Okay, point taken. I was just thinking that maybe you knew of a couple of addresses where, you know, maybe your team has hit a few times, maybe pulled some really young hookers out, you know…? Anything?”

  “Pffft.” Amanda looked down at the wayward fork, then over at the young woman, and then back at Julia. “I don’t know off the top of my head. I mean, there are some buildings that we hit on a regular rotation. Always pimps in them, but an actual address…?”

  “So give me the addresses for those buildings.”

  The couple beside them leaned over to be able to hear better.

  “Do you mind?” Amanda sai
d, glaring at them.

  “I…uh, we, that is…uh, we were just wondering if we…I mean, she…uh, my girlfriend could have her fork back?” the young man stammered.

  “No, we weren’t. At least, I wasn’t. I’m not eating with that!” the young woman said, looking down with disgust at the fork and then up at her date.

  “Do you kids need me to get you another fork?” Amanda asked.

  “Waiter?” The young man raised his hand, accidentally hitting a patron on her way out of the restaurant. The woman gave him a dirty look and almost hit him in turn as she flung on her coat.

  “Anything I give you that could be of any use to your team is already being used by my team,” Amanda continued, having dismissed the couple beside them.

  “So?” Julia picked up the bottle of wine and, inspecting it, went to pour what was left in Amanda’s glass.

  “No, thanks. I’ve already had too much,” Amanda protested. “Whatever’s left is yours.”

  “I’m on the clock right now. You’re not,” Julia said pouring the remaining wine into Amanda’s glass. “Or you are, too, and just thirstier than I am. Besides, this isn’t the only bottle they have here, is it?”

  “Fair enough,” Amanda replied, taking up her glass. She kicked the wayward fork across to the chair beside her just as the waiter brought the young woman another. “But why would I give your team our arrests?”

  “Maybe because you’re not arresting them? If your team could make them, then why haven’t they?” Julia caught the eye of the waiter before he got away. “We’ll have another bottle of this, and the dessert menu.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Amanda agreed.

  “I mean,” Julia turned her attention back to her colleague, “there’s got to be a reason why your team isn’t hitting those doors, right? Maybe not a part of your mandate?”

  “If there is one word I could erase from the English language beside ‘I do’—but that’s two words, isn’t it, so I’m good—it would be ‘mandate’.” Amanda chuckled, and then, the wine going to her head, asked the young man at the table beside them, “You aren’t thinking about getting married, are you?”