The Fourth Betrayal

by Bruce Burrows

  “You could be next, Swanson. Or your family. You better get back to the wife and kids and stop trying to play with the big boys.” Whoever it was hung up.

  I felt like I was underwater. There were no sounds, and everything was slightly blurry. And my motions were slow and clumsy, as if I were trying to escape from the monster in a nightmare. The sound of a siren brought me to my senses. It was close. I stuffed Phil’s phone in my pocket and ran out the back door.

  As I ran down the alley, a police cruiser screeched to a stop at Phil’s front door. In a minute I was on the bike and going quickly away from that place. When I’d first come to Ottawa, I’d followed an instinct that told me events might lead to me having to hide out somewhere, and I’d established a hidey-hole in the Little Italy district. This seemed to be an appropriate time to use it.

  In fifteen minutes I arrived at 953 Adele Avenue. I approached by the back alley, parked the bike in the yard and let myself into the basement suite I’d rented almost two weeks before. I couldn’t remember where the light switch was and I fumbled around in the dark for maybe five minutes before I managed to find it. I switched the light on and stood with my head back, trying to think. I always thought with my head tilted back, and I needed the lights on because I couldn’t think properly in the dark.

  Unfortunately, my brain was locked into the sort of endless feedback loop that never goes anywhere, so I checked my watch. It was nine. I realized I needed to phone Stala. This time he answered, and I barely stopped myself from screaming at him. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get you!”

  “Sorry. My phone went dead. I had to charge it.”

  “I had a call from Phil Trimmer. He’s the private dick that stole those tapes from me. In the last week or so we came to sort of an arrangement, and he switched sides, from Ernhardt’s to mine. When my cover got blown, it also blew Phil’s, because he didn’t tell Ernhardt that Jimmie Johnson was really Ollie Swanson. So they leaned on him. He told me I had to go over to his place so we could meet these guys and sort things out. I couldn’t get a hold of you, so I went. When I got there, Trimmer was dead, I’m pretty sure. Then a call came in on his cell. Somebody said I could be next and they also threatened my family. Then I heard a siren so I took off. Now I’m hiding out.”

  “Fuck! I totally fucked things up. Where are you? You need protection. And your family.”

  “I’m safe for now. And my next call is going to be to the Richmond RCMP to watch my house. But I think you should get someone to watch my hotel room. They might try to take a run at me there.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that right now. But I still want to see you tomorrow. I set up a meeting with my boss at nine in the morning. Now we’ll have even more stuff on the agenda.”

  “I’ll be there. But right now I’d like to confirm that Trimmer is really dead. And you should brief whoever gets assigned to that case.”

  “I’ll phone you back.”

  I paced around for ten minutes before Stala called back. “You were right. He’s dead, cause of death unknown at this point. The detective who took the call is a friend of mine. Good cop. He’ll be at the meeting tomorrow. You’re absolutely sure you’re okay?”

  “I rented a place two weeks ago, phony name. That’s where I am now. When I left Phil’s place I was riding a dirt bike. No car could have followed me here.”

  “Sounds good. But don’t go anywhere. Stay put until our meeting tomorrow.”

  “You got it.” After I hung up I left for Ernhardt’s house. The door was opened by his maid, who appeared to recognize me, and because of that she reluctantly granted me admission.

  “Mr. Ernhardt is with someone,” she said in slightly accented English. “I’ll see if he can see you. Please wait here.”

  I was still admiring the well-furnished foyer when Ernhardt came striding in. “What the hell are you doing here? Get the hell out! Now! Before I call the police.”

  I punched him in the mouth just as hard as I possibly could. I felt several of his teeth rip out of his gums as his head snapped back. By the time he landed on his back on the floor, blood was gushing from his upper and lower lips as well as his gums. I stepped forward and kicked him in the groin. His eyes opened wide and he gurgled in pain as he rolled over into a fetal position. I kicked him again, but it didn’t have the same effect. That was disappointing. “You mendacious little turd burglar. You threatened my family. This is what happens to people who threaten my family.”

  He was shaking his head back and forth and moaning, trying to say something, but his mouth was too damaged to form words. I felt I still hadn’t expressed myself adequately, so I picked up an expensive-looking lamp from an expensive-looking table and smashed it against the wall. Then I did the same with the table. A graceful-looking antique chair was soon reduced to kindling. The noise must have attracted Ernhardt’s guest, because just as I started to destroy a really beautiful armoire, an Asian man appeared at the far end of the foyer. He surveyed the scene with an impressive calm, appearing not the least bit apprehensive, just a bit puzzled.

  “Colonial furniture,” I said. “I detest colonial furniture.” Then I left.

  As I rode through the dark streets back to my hideaway, I realized I was displaying an alarming propensity for violence. Why? I guessed I really didn’t like people like these. They’d been screwing people like me for too long. The Family Compact of today was less close and even more compact than it had been in the nineteenth century.

  As soon as I got back to Adele Avenue, I phoned Danny. “Cousin, the shit has hit the fan. Someone killed Phil Trimmer and then threatened to do the same to me. Here’s the bad part. They also threatened Oshie and the kids.” I had to pause to let Danny swear violently. I continued, “So do you think Louise could organize regular patrols of the house? I’ll have people on the inside if the cops can watch the outside.”

  Danny’s voice was shaking just a little. “Who do these fuckers think they’re dealing with? Of course Louise will organize surveillance of the house. It’ll be done right. Who are you going to put inside the house?”

  “The Barely Brothers.”

  This brought a laugh from Danny. “Yeah, they’ll be good for that. If anyone gets by the cops they’ll wish they hadn’t. But how about you? Do you need reinforcements?”

  “Not right now. The Ottawa cops have got my back. Also I sent a message, via Cliff Ernhardt, that these guys aren’t dealing with some cream-puff bureaucrat.”

  “I’m going to talk to Louise right now. You be careful. And don’t worry about Oshie and the kids. They will be well covered. I mean well covered.”

  He hung up and I placed a call to the leader of the Barely Brothers, who weren’t brothers and weren’t barely anything. They had originally been the Barley Brothers, but their friends weren’t real good spellers and so someone’s error became the new reality.

  Their leader, Wall to Wall McKee, was a Queensborough guy, as was the rest of the gang, and they all had that unique Queensborough edge. They were modern-day hunter-gatherers, but what they hunted and gathered were items that were mostly not organic and items that were mostly—how shall I say it?—not theirs. They’d all deckhanded for me at various times, and I’d pulled them out of various scrapes. Wally was now running his own carpet-laying business, and Half a Day Ray worked for him but only managed to get to work in the afternoons. That was okay because the business was more or less a cover for other, less mainstream activities. The third member was One-Eyed Wayne, so named, I’d explained to Oshie, because of his shock of bright red hair. This earned me a punch on the shoulder and an epithet that, because the kids were there, was pronounced “artsmay-assay.”

  The Barely Brothers did what they needed to do to survive but spent much of their time cheerfully boozing and brawling and extricating themselves with amazing ingenuity from the many “difficulties” they got themselves into.

  When Wall to Wall answered the phone he was delighted to hear from me. “Ollie, long ti
me, long time. What the hell are you doing in Ottawa? I didn’t know you’d gone into politics. Don’t tell your mother. It would break her heart.”

  “Wally, I can’t go into details, but some sleazebags have threatened Oshie and the kids. I can’t be there right now, so I was hoping you and Half a Day and One-Eyed Wayne could move into the basement suite and pretend to be doing renovations, or do some renovations, but mainly keep an eye on everyone.”

  Wall to Wall was suddenly less genial. “Ollie, who are these guys? Do they know who they’re dealing with? I assume they didn’t deliver the threat in person.”

  “No. It was over the phone. But I did manage to catch up to one of them. He was slightly off-key, so I tuned him up a little.”

  I was treated to the familiar hoarse chuckle. “Okay, pal. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll collect the boys and we’ll head over there right now.”

  Next, I had to warn Oshie that the brothers were on their way over and would be staying for a while. And I had to explain why. I downplayed everything as much as I could: I’d upset some people, they’d made the standard generic threat, so I was just taking some precautions. And—bonus!—we could actually get the new carpet we’d been talking about. She pretended to buy all this and finished up with, “Ollie, I know you’re doing what you need to do. But the kids need things too. And one of them is you.”

  “I know, honey. I can see the end of this. I think it’s almost to the point where the police can take over and nail the bad guys and I can come home.” I hung up and felt miserable until sleep knitted up my raveled vest of guilt.

  There was no food in the hideout, so I had to go hungry in the morning. My stomach was growling rebelliously when I left for my meeting with Stala and his boss and the detective who was working the Phil Trimmer murder. Fortunately, I found them still in the coffee-and-muffin phase of their morning and I was able to participate.

  Stala introduced his boss, Inspector Robert Mattingly. He gazed at me with sad eyes set deeply in a lined and saggy face. Detective Ray Flowers, compact and competent-looking in blue blazer and gray slacks, didn’t wait to be introduced but stood up and shook my hand and gave me a brisk nod. Inspector Mattingly began the proceedings. “Staff Sergeant Stala has filled me in on all of the details of this case, including your own, uh, unorthodox involvement, and I have chosen not to know a lot of it. Having said that, we’re a results-oriented group and we appreciate your contributions to the case. But they have to stop. We can’t afford to have a civilian get hurt, much less have a civilian running around ignoring proper procedures.”

  “I’d love to bow out and get back to my family. My only interest is finding the murderer of my friend . . . and Phil Trimmer. I assume they’re the same person, or at least masterminded by the same person. By the way”—I fumbled in my pocket—“here’s Trimmer’s phone. I haven’t tried the last-call button yet.”

  Detective Flowers used a hankie to pick up the phone. “I’ll need your fingerprints so we can eliminate them from any others that might be on here.” He pressed one of the buttons. “The last call to you came from a payphone. But we’ll check the call history and maybe come up with something.”

  “A police car pulled up just as I was leaving his house. Who phoned in the report?” I asked.

  “Anonymous call. We’ve got the 9-1-1 tape, but it doesn’t give us much.”

  “Phil hinted to me that the guys who were leaning on him were Chinese,” I said. “I heard that there was a Chinese guy visiting Ernhardt last night. The maid might know who he was.”

  Stala gave me a hard look. “You heard there was a Chinese guy visiting Ernhardt? And who’d you hear that from? You were stashed away in your safe house.”

  I tried not to look uncomfortable. “Informed sources.”

  Inspector Mattingly sighed deeply. “Mr. Swanson, this is not some American detective potboiler. This is Canada in the twenty-first century, and all police investigations have to follow strict procedures. Otherwise, things get fucked up. We don’t want to fuck this up, do we, Mr. Swanson?”

  I spread my hands and looked innocent. “It’s all good so far.” There was a bit of a pause while looks were exchanged. I continued, “Have you established the cause of death? Was it the beating?”

  Detective Flowers answered. “Apparently not. The heart stopped. Toxicology is looking at it, but those guys take forever.”

  “That doesn’t sound right,” I said. “He was, I dunno, mid-thirties, and he seemed reasonably healthy.”

  Flowers agreed. “I’m with you on that. But we won’t know anything more until toxicology does their thing.” He looked at Mattingly.

  Mattingly seemed deeply saddened by this. “All right, I’ll get after them. Speed things up as much as I can.”

  Flowers said, “There’s one other thing. There were two blood types at the scene: the victim’s and a person unknown. Trimmer maybe went down fighting, maybe nailed the killer in the nose. There was a lot of the unknown blood.”

  “That’s good to know.” Then I asked, “Did anyone try to get into my room at the hotel?”

  Stala answered this one. “No. I had a guy in your room half an hour after I talked to you.”

  We all thought things over for a minute. Finally I said, “Have you talked to any of the Committee or Tap Dickens? They’re all suspects in my mind, at least as far as organizing the murders.”

  Stala replied, “We’re making appointments to talk to them, but they’re playing hard to get. We’ll keep after it.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything else to discuss, so I said, “I’d like to get my stuff from the hotel room and check out. Does one of you want to escort me over there?”

  Stala said, “I’ll do it. But first, we’ll get your prints.”

  On the way over to the hotel, Stala asked me, “When you first came to Ottawa, you were looking for your friend, who had supposedly disappeared on Canoe Lake. You found his Jeep out there. But he was alive up to July 3, when he was shot at the Château Laurier. Why the fake disappearing act? Any ideas on that?”

  “It’s weird, I know. Maybe the killer was trying to maintain the fiction that Gerry Steadman was a real person, so he had to make Dougie disappear. We probably won’t know until we find the killer and ask him.”

  When we got to my room, we were greeted by a very bored-looking cop who told us there was nothing to report, and Stala sent him on his way. I packed up all my stuff and we went down to the lobby so I could check out of both my room and the one I’d rented for the late and somewhat lamented Jimmie Johnson. Stala drove me to my hideout, taking suitably evasive action in case the bad guys were watching, and after I’d dropped off my stuff, he drove me back to the police station so I could pick up Dougie’s bike.

  Stala said he’d phone me with any new developments. “And Swanson, don’t on any occasion leave your hideout. If you get bored, call me and I’ll send someone to entertain you. But I don’t want you running around loose. Deal?”

  I mumbled what could be construed as an agreement and climbed onto the dirt bike for the run back to my basement hideaway. When I got in, I set about unpacking my stuff and making the place comfortable. And while I was doing that I thought things over. Stala had a point. Somebody had arranged Dougie’s fake disappearance on Canoe Lake, weeks before he was actually shot at the Château Laurier. Had Dougie done that, or the killer, or persons unknown? And why? And the documents the cops had found in Dougie’s hotel room appeared to indicate that my old friend was setting Ernhardt up for something. But what and why? Was that just a way of getting leverage on Ernhardt? If so, what was Dougie’s endgame? My success at formulating questions was not matched by success in answering them.

  Just before noon I phoned Stala. “Did you find anything useful on Trimmer’s phone?”

  “Not yet. We’re running down the stored phone numbers, but they’re mostly his bookies, women friends, and cab companies. He made a few calls to Ernhardt, and we’ll ask him about that this afternoon.�
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  “Who was the Asian guy visiting Ernhardt on the night that Trimmer got killed?”

  “We sent around a uniform to talk to the maid. It was a Mr. Chen. She has no idea where he’s from. We’ll ask Ernhardt. The maid also told us that the house was visited by a large man who punched Ernhardt and smashed up some valuable colonial furniture. You’re Swedish. You a big IKEA fan?”

  “That’s an ethnic slur.” I tried to sound indignant. “But I’ll ignore it if you lend me a laptop. I need to read more of Dougie’s story. Also, there’s no food in this place. You want to take me shopping?”

  “I’ll send someone over.” He hung up. Half an hour later a uniformed constable knocked on my door. She handed me a laptop and said, “Stala wants this back. There’s a supermarket three blocks over on Landsing Road. You want to walk over or ride?”

  I didn’t want to walk back to my place carrying multiple grocery bags, so we went in the patrol car. Walking up and down the aisles of the supermarket, picking out cans of this and that, various unhealthy snacks, and lots of bacon and eggs, I forgot about politics and people killing other people, and I felt almost normal. The policewoman, Karen, helped me carry in the groceries, and then I was alone again. I made two bacon-and-egg sandwiches and turned on the TV. There was a lacrosse game on, and I munched away happily while I watched the most underrated sport in the world and the only one in which Toronto has a decent team. The Toronto Rock played as if they cared and were rewarded with a 22–18 victory over the Buffalo Bandits.

  After all that excitement I needed a nap, so I reclined on the couch while three sports commentators nattered excitedly about something that I couldn’t quite grasp. When I woke up I had a stiff neck and drool on my cheek, and the same three guys were still nattering. After wiping my face with a clean dishcloth, I stood in the living room and stared at the wall. The wall was unimpressed. At 4:00 PM I phoned Stala again. “You talk to Ernhardt yet?”