Cold City Streets

by L.H. Thomson

  “And she was stubborn as a mule. It’s easy to write off people’s stubborn behavior as ‘their generation’ or some shit like that. Meanwhile, here in the real world, the rest of us get judged every time we take a step backwards.”

  In the background behind him, Jessie could hear people talking and laughing. Probably the band, already tying one on. “Yeah, I can just imagine how that must have been,” she said as dryly as possible.

  “Hmmph,” mumbled her father. “Don’t you start. Besides, I’m guessing you didn’t call just to complain about your nan’s anniversary.”

  “Yeah… I’m trying to get information on something that might have gone down on One-eighteenth, in the Hundred and Twenty-fourth Street area.”

  “Huh… something on the avenue. Risky business, Little Rabbit?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Hmm… any money in it? Anything going down a guy might want a small piece of?”

  “Yeah, we’re knocking over a Brinks truck and then flying to Italy with the gold.”

  “Smartass.”

  “It’s just another client. You have a contact down there?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well… you know. It’s the avenue. Where the real people live.”

  “Uh huh. Real people.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what do I get back for helping you out? Man has a right to make a living off his ‘areas of expertise,’ as you might say.”

  Jessie shook her head. He couldn’t just play it straight, even with his own daughter.

  “You get my gratitude and a reason for me to defend you when Mom reminds everyone what an immense asshole you can be.”

  He sniffed a little, thinking of a response. “Don’t hold back or anything.”

  “None of us is fooling ourselves, Dad.”

  “At least you still call me ‘Dad.’ Remember that ‘Cliff and Rhonda’ period you had in your late teens…?”

  “Dad…”

  “I miss those days sometimes, you know…”

  “Dad…”

  The line went silent for a moment as he considered the weight of the years, the passage of memories. “There’s a guy who used to be all over the avenue, at least in terms of having inside info on everything going on. That’s if he’s still there. Name’s Warren, but he goes by Rastabone.”

  “Jamaican?”

  Cliff chuckled a little. “His last name is Bazoosky, or something. Let me put it this way: he’s only fooling himself.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?

  “You’ll see.”

  37

  If someone had visited Warren Bzosky’s apartment block in Nineteen Fifty-eight, they’d have considered it one swinging pad, a monument to the style of that cosmopolitan era of early air travel. From the street, the building had the rectangular, utilitarian look found in old primary schools and UN buildings; but the apartments were actually accessed by walking through the covered car port to an inner courtyard, motel style, with a black-metal spiral staircase in one corner that led to the second level doors.

  “You sure you don’t want to wait in the car?” Cobi asked Jess as they crossed the street from where he’d parked. “We don’t know what this place is going to be like.”

  “I’m fine.” It annoyed her that he’d asked three times since leaving the office. “I grew up here, remember?”

  They walked under the tall canopy that led to the courtyard, then took the stairs up to the corner unit. The doors were brown, metal numbers screwed in dead-center. Around Bzosky’s unit reeked of weed. Cobi knocked loudly. He waited for about twenty seconds and was about to knock again, fist poised above the door, when it opened a crack, the chain on.

  “Yeah?” A set of bloodshot eyes peered through the crack.

  “Warren? We’re friends of Cliff Harper. He said to tell you he sent us.”

  “Irie mon,” said the voice in a heavy Caribbean accent. “Jos’ wait a minute.”

  The chain slid back and the door swung open, a haze of smoke drifting past them, trying to get out to the hallway. Bzosky was most definitely not black; fair skinned and thin, the dealer had long ago done his hair in dreadlocks, the unwashed, braided style favored by Rastafarians and reggae musicians. He had a white undervest on with red shorts, the short-legged, sporty types they’d wear back before knee shorts became the rage.

  The studio unit was lit dimly by two floor lamps. There was a small galley kitchen in the upper left corner, across from the door to the bathroom. The rest of the room was made up of two couches, one unfolded into a bed and a coffee table covered in cigarette burns, ashes, baggies and loose weed. A girl lay passed out on the hide-a-bed. “Don’t fret ‘er, she jost ‘ere for the night,” Bzosky dismissed. “Now watcha want? I got some real nice cheeba, some fine ganja – the real Purple Kush.”

  “We just need some information,” Cobi responded.

  Bzosky sat down on the second, unoccupied couch and leaned over to the coffee table to snatch up some of the pot and a rolling paper. In the time it might take someone to unwrap a piece of gum, he’d finished a joint and lit it. “Don’t got none of that round ‘ere. Bad for me ‘ealth.” He blew out a cloud of smoke, and Jessie watched as wisps of it cascaded around his dirty blonde dreads.

  “Cliff’s my father,” Jessie explained. “He said to remind you that you owe him a favor.”

  “Yeah? Yeah, guess I and I go way back.”

  “Warren…”

  “Rastabone, or just Ras. Nobody call me Warren ‘cept your old man, and I ‘aven’t seen ‘im in six months.”

  “Ras, my father said you keep a good eye on what’s going on in the neighborhood.”

  “Sure. I running a business, ain’t I?”

  “So you’d know who the other players are around here,” Cobi said. “Like at the bar across the way, Thrifty Mike’s?”

  Bzosky nodded, but didn’t elaborate. Then he looked at Cobi and said dryly, “You Cliff’s daughter, too?”

  “This is Mr. Tate,” Jess explained. “He works for me. Ras, do you know anything about a guy dealing out of there, big guy, maybe six foot tall, very muscular…”

  “He may have something tattooed on his hands,” Cobi added.

  “Big black guy?” Bzosky asked.

  “Uh huh.”

  “I know ‘im, sure. Bad mon, name of Ritchie Grant. Him got ‘hate’ tattooed on the fingers of one hand and ‘hate’ tattooed on the other, too. Ya don’t want to go that route. Best leave it alone.”

  “Not an option,” Cobi said. “We need to talk to him, or maybe somebody who knows him.”

  “Like me say, everybody in Mike’s know Grant. You want to stick your neck out, go right ahead. ‘Im come in most evening, real regular.”

  Jessie took out the photo she’d been keeping in her purse for just such occasions. “Ras, do you recognize this man?” It was the glossy of Brian Featherstone.

  Bzosky smirked slightly. “I wonder when someone ask I about ‘im.”

  He saw something, Jess thought. He saw something important. “He was at the bar?” She kept her voice even, being careful not to influence what he told her by showing excitement. She didn’t need the elaborate, stoner version.

  Bzosky nodded. “On the night ‘im shot, I see ‘im with a woman in the parking lot.”

  “And?”

  Bzosky continued, “Business has been slow of late. I could use a hand.”

  Maybe he’s just full of shit, Cobi figured. Maybe he’s just after a paycheck. “Depends what you have to tell us,” he negotiated, getting it in before Jessie could offer a bribe. “You help us, we help you.”

  “And,” Jessie added, “you wouldn’t owe my father a favor.”

  “Cliff a good man,” he said. “Well… ‘im a good bass player, anyhow. Okay, I tell ya what I seen. I crack the windah on the night the businessman shot. I seen ‘im ‘ave words with Ritchie outside the front door, just off to the side, where the people go for a smoke.
”

  “Words?” Jessie clarified. “They were arguing?”

  “Uh huh. Them ‘ave words over a woman. Blonde, taller than the businessmon,” Bzosky said. “Then all three stroll to the alley behind. That’s the last me see.”

  “You hear any gunshots?” Cobi asked. “Anything to indicate what happened, or why they were arguing?”

  “Nah, mon, just like I said: they had some words and then they were gone. Look, you going to help a brother out?”

  Cobi’s eyebrows went up. “Brother?”

  “Just let it be,” Jessie said quietly. She took a twenty out of her purse and handed it to him as they rose to leave. “Stay cool, Ras.”

  “Ya mon,” the wannabe Rastafarian said.

  Outside, the sun had almost gone down and snow began to fall, heavy flakes tumbling earthward as the wind picked up.

  They left the building and crossed the street to the car, but instead of climbing behind the driver’s wheel, Cobi handed the keys to Jessie. “We’ve got two issues now,” he calculated. “We need to know who the blonde woman was, and we need to find a witness to a shooting.”

  “What’s the plan?” Jessie asked.

  “You head down to Beaumont and talk to the wife. If she was cheating on Featherstone, maybe it was payback. Maybe she knows something about the other woman.”

  “And what are you doing? I’m hoping the answer isn’t going back to that bar, given the last time…”

  “Someone there knows what happened to Brian Featherstone,” he said. “You heard Bzosky: everyone in there knows Ritchie Grant. I’m betting more than one of them saw or heard what went down in that alley.”

  Jessie couldn’t tell if Cobi was brave or just hotheaded; she hadn’t made up her mind yet. He was so stoic most of the time, it was tough to figure out what he was thinking. The only time he seemed to brighten up – to open up – was when he talked about his son.

  “Maybe we should take what we’ve got at this point to the Crown,” Jessie suggested. “Maybe they can get the police interested again.”

  “Too many maybes.” Cobi shook his head with resignation. “And you think anyone in that place is going to talk to a cop?”

  “Probably someone. Dive bars tend to be full of guys who have outstanding warrants. Cops walk in, they know to grab the first guy who flees at the sight of them.”

  “And if they don’t, we’re stuck with nothing. Look, don’t worry about me, all right? I can take care of myself.”

  “You’re not bulletproof, Mr. Tate,” Jessie reminded. “He fled last time and shot at you. Maybe this time, he’ll get out of the car with a few of his friends.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.” Cobi turned to head up the street.

  Jessie got in the car and started it, then sat there for a minute, waiting for the heater to kick in. She flicked on the wipers and watched as they half-cleaned, half-smeared the falling snow across the glass.

  He’s stubborn, too. Nothing worse than a stubborn man. Well, in the wrong situation, anyway. He could get himself shot; he could get himself beaten half to death. She couldn’t help but think of that cute mugshot of Michael again. Maybe his arrogance was left over from his football days, an inability to see beyond the next play to the long-term consequences. Getting killed and orphaning a child would be doubly tragic, she thought, because of how unfair it would be to his son.

  But the truth was, he’d produced more good information for her in a week than she might have gotten from a regular PI in months. He was motivated, driven – also a consequence of football, or maybe the reason for it. He pretended to be stoic and aloof, but he aimed high to please. Maybe to a fault.

  She knew she had to keep an eye on him, get to know him better before she could figure him out.

  Not our priority right now, she told herself, before flicking on her turn signal and pulling out into traffic.

  Cobi stood outside the bar’s front door with his hand on it, ready to push it open. He’d been planning to walk right in, make a show of looking for someone. If people assumed he was a cop, they assumed he was a cop. But then it occurred to him that Ritchie Grant knew what he looked like. The same wasn’t true in reverse, which made the situation that much more dangerous.

  Not like I have alternatives. He pushed the door open, hit by the waft of stale beer. Despite the lousy weather, the place was busy, mostly young guys, a hostile audience. Sets of eyes in the booths converged on the door and the room noise lowered when he walked in, the clack of the pool balls on the green felt table at the back of the room ringing that much louder.

  The bartender continued to wipe down a pony jug, eyeing him sullenly as he approached. “You remember me?” Cobi questioned.

  A nod. “Heard from the fellas next door you were in there, too, OFFICER.” The last word was intended for the whole bar.

  Good enough, if it keeps my head on my shoulders. “Then you know I’m still looking for somebody…” Cobi turned to face the room and spoke up so the rest could hear. “Someone here has information I need about a businessman who got shot, maybe right around here.” He studied their faces quickly for reactions, looking quickly for any sign of panic or fear, finding only contempt, disgust. “Maybe it’s someone who works for Ritchie Grant.”

  That made a few of them nervous, glances back and forward suggesting he had a few runners and flunkies. But no one spoke up or so much as moved.

  “You satisfied?” the bartender demanded.

  The red men’s room door along the back wall swung open, the patron still zipping up as he walked back into the room. He looked up surprised by the quiet, and saw Cobi. If he’d had a mirror, he’d have realized both men looked just as shocked as the other.

  Get out of town. Cobi stared at the man, momentarily slack-jawed. That’s Tommy Orton.

  Tommy turned on his heel and bolted for the back door.

  38

  The drive to Beaumont felt treacherous, with wind blowing the snow off the icy black two-lane highway, a blizzard falling as quickly as the BMW’s car heater and wipers could keep it away.

  She kept her speed down, below the eighty-kilometers-per-hour speed limit, conscious that the all-weather tires weren’t really up to a bleak Alberta February, not wanting to lose control on black ice. A convoy of vehicles lined up behind her, most too close to one another, including the truck that hovered off her rear bumper like it was magnetized.

  What was the deal with Alberta drivers? Was it just the sense of immortality only young people possessed? Or was it a sense of privilege, the idea that if you’re financially well-off and dangle a set of chrome bull testicles from the back of your brand new pickup, it might ward off undesirables? I hate driving in winter. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Hate. It.

  She turned the car off the highway and onto the long private road that led to the Featherstone estate. The car wound its way slowly along the poorly lit ribbon of asphalt, high beams on, the woods and fields to either side obscured by shadows. After a minute, a steel gate barred the way. It had pillar posts, the one to the right bearing an intercom. Jessie got out of the car, its headlights brightening the immediate area but accentuating the sudden onset of night.

  The intercom panel was just a green button and a speaker. She pushed the button and could hear a dog begin to bark somewhere up the road. Just beyond the brush and thickets that flanked the way, she could see the lights from the house straining their way through the snow and blackness.

  The speaker popped slightly. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Mrs. Featherstone?”

  “Mrs. Featherstone cannot be disturbed tonight.”

  “Can you tell her it’s Jessica Harper? Paul Sidney’s lawyer? Please? She needs to know about this.”

  A pause. “Just a minute.”

  Jessie expected Deidre Featherstone’s voice; instead, the gate clicked loudly, then swung open with a squeak.

  The alley behind the bar was dimly lit by the backdoor bulbs of a dozen different businesses, emergency lights an
d exit signs casting short, thick shade off the line of employee cars behind most of the buildings.

  Cobi burst through the back door and into the alley, looking both ways and seeing Tommy Orton running east, heading on a parallel to One-eighteenth Avenue. The snow was falling fast, but the flakes were soft and light, obscuring his sight without really slowing him down. Cobi took off after the younger man, hoping nothing had changed since the last time he’d had to run him down. The former athlete pushed hard, legs pumping, ignoring the snow and slush and water, the icy wind blustering. The next block of the alley ran behind a pizzeria, an old cinderblock-and-whitewash building. He got a glimpse of dumpsters, a few cars, a glint from ahead as Tommy pulled the gun from his waist band and fired two shots.

  One of the dumpsters was just a few feet to his left and Cobi ducked behind it, the shots disappearing into the distance somewhere. “Tommy, I just want to talk to you!” he yelled.

  Another shot, the crack of the pistol registering a split second after the bullet pinged off the dumpster.

  “Leave me alone!” Tommy yelled back, trying to be heard through the swirling wind. “Don’t make me shoot you.”

  “Put down the gun, man; I swear I just want to talk!” Cobi yelled. He leaned slowly and carefully around the dumpster. Another bullet pinged off of it. “Come on, Tommy! I’m not going to hurt you!”

  Staying behind the dumpster invited a bullet wound, Cobi knew. He moved to the left side of it, crouched low. Maybe he had time to make it to the nearby pickup before Tommy got a bead on him…

  He looked around the edge of the dumpster just in time to see Tommy turn and start running again down the alley. Cobi pushed himself hard, running as fast as he could without the ice pulling him down, gaining on the younger man quickly. Tommy hit the street between blocks and turned left, then right again so that he was heading directly for a car dealership’s chain-linked fence. He pushed off it and hopped over quickly. Cobi pushed on after him, oblivious to the small white compact car coming down the street from his left. It saw him late, brakes locking up on the slippery road as it slid towards him, stopping just short of plowing into Cobi’s legs. He rested a hand on the hood for the barest second, catching his breath before waving an apologetic hand at the driver, a woman with a bun in her brown hair, her face a mix of surprise and annoyance.