The Filthy Few: A Steve Nastos Mystery

by Richard Cain

  “Carscadden Law?”

  “Hopkins, call display. It’s me, Nastos.”

  “Hey, did you get the message?”

  “Yeah. The message from Karen. Karen who?”

  Nastos heard the sound of shuffling papers. “She said she’s your ex-partner. I thought you’d know the name. Sorry.”

  Here we go. Karen Grant. Nastos thought back to one of the last times he spoke with Karen, the morning after the night before. He had been pretty clear that it was a gigantic mistake and that he’d never leave Madeleine for her. When he was a detective, he had trained her. That was before “the incident,” and since then she’d quit to become a journalist with the Toronto Tribune.

  Even alone he felt the negative mood he was in. Hopkins was talking to him like she had to be careful of setting him off and he knew she was right.

  Still, it made him angry. “Can you call her back? Tell her I don’t do any investigation work anymore. I’m fine at the restaurant.”

  “You’ve told us a thousand times you want to be busy, Nastos. Too late now. Sorry, but it sounded personal anyways.”

  He moved the phone to the other ear so he could downshift to climb the on ramp. “Okay, I know. I’ll call Karen and see what she wants.”

  Hopkins sounded like she was trying to talk him out of jumping from a bridge. “It might be that she just wants to take you out for a drink.”

  He felt his stomach tighten. That’s all I need. Karen the stalker to cheer me up. To swoop in while I’m vulnerable. He responded by saying, “Only a woman with a death wish would want to be near me.”

  “I know you’re going through a bad time.”

  “Yeah, but I should be happy for you and Carscadden getting married instead of being like this. Maddy and I had some problems and you were trying to help. I’m not the jealous type, but I just see how happy you two are and —”

  Hopkins interrupted. “Steve, we love you, so just shut up and don’t ever feel you need to apologize for being grumpy. It’s highly entertaining when you direct it at the right people. Kisses to Josie.”

  The phone clicked and the screen went blank. The background image appeared, a frozen image of Josie smothering Maddy with a hug. He scrolled back to the text while merging on the highway, already up to the speed limit.

  A woman answered, “Hello?”

  “Karen? This is Nastos.”

  “Nastos, yes, it’s me. How are things?”

  How are things? Are you serious? “Fine. What can I help you with?”

  “I’m in a bit of trouble. Can you get to the Vietnamese place, near Fifty-Two, where we used to go?”

  It wasn’t out of the way, and the soups weren’t bad. But seeing Karen again, ever, felt too soon. “Well . . . really? Are you sure? I kinda thought that we left it —”

  “Steve, I’m in trouble and I need your help. You owe me. I don’t have a secret agenda. I’m over that, I swear.”

  Karen Grant sat at the table at the back of the restaurant nearest the emergency exit and facing the door, the place a cop would sit. She smiled when — as per instructions — Nastos walked toward the back of the long, narrow restaurant glancing for any signs of suspicious people. If he saw something he didn’t like, he was supposed to order something to go and split without acknowledging her. She said the rules were for his own good, something he hated ever being told. Karen had made it easy on him with this place. Here, suspicious meant white and English speaking. Everyone in the restaurant was Korean except for him and Karen. She smiled as he took a seat across from her. She extended her hand and he reluctantly took it, saying, “Karen Grant, journalist.”

  “Steve Nastos, bartender.”

  “Bartender? How’d you know about that?”

  He had this expression on his face that she liked, a curious smile. She replied, “I’m a journalist, I can keep tabs on a person. Ever since the Saint Anthony story came out — what did they call it, Dark Matter? Then of course there was the televised Police Services Board meeting where you —”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Stupid question.”

  There was a silence between them. Nastos glanced around the restaurant. She inhaled the sweet spice carried on the air by the steam tables and open woks. Nastos instead noticed an oil-on-canvas picture on the wall, featuring a Vietnamese bride strolling through a garden, holding flowers. “And by the way I’m a manager there too,” he corrected Karen, like the promotion had put him in the big leagues.

  She smiled, noting that his hair hadn’t greyed as much as other men his age. However, he showed signs of wear in the lines around his clear blue eyes and the tension in his thick shoulders.

  She said, “I’m sorry about Maddy,” and gauged the reaction. Coming from her of all people it was a hell of a thing to bring up, but what could she do, she was sorry.

  “Thanks, Karen, I know.” He nodded sincerely before looking away then back to the bar, as if wanting to call the waitress over to get things over with faster.

  She did a mental inventory. She had worn her curly red hair back in a ponytail like he’d said he liked it when they were closer. She had chosen her white gold earrings to bring subtle attention to her neckline. And if there was any consolation in the stress she was going through, it was that she had lost ten pounds in the past month.

  The waitress emerged from behind the swinging kitchen doors and arrived at their table. She splayed out the menus, which were nearly the same size as the restaurant, and stood there smiling. Considering she never said a word, Karen figured that she couldn’t speak any English, so she pointed to a picture of a teacup and then the soup special. Nastos ordered tea and spring rolls the same way. The woman nodded and left with the menus then shouted something through the slit in the back wall.

  Karen could see Nastos was upset and clearly had his own problems weighing him down. Maybe he doesn’t need me anymore. Maybe it’s that I used Maddy, his pet name for Madeleine, and we weren’t exactly friends. I don’t think this is going to work, I should just —. She wiped the tears from her eyes and turned away from him. Seeing him there, something about it hurt too much.

  “Karen, what’s going on here?” He reached a hand out and she reflexively took it in hers, maybe too eagerly. “Come on,” he said, “just tell me.”

  She pulled out a napkin from under the paper-wrapped chopsticks and dabbed at her eyes. “I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately,” she apologized. “I can’t sleep, and when I do it’s in my closet with a gun under my pillow.”

  His eyes shot open wide. “Are you kidding me? What the hell is it?”

  “I’ve been working on a story. It’s blowing up in my face.” It would be a balancing act to get him committed to helping. If she said everything she knew, it might scare him off.

  She remembered when she had first been hired by the police service. Nastos spent three months as her coach officer. He showed her the basics: how to tell the good people from the bad, the difference between justice and street justice and when you use each and, most important, how to not get hurt out there. That dependable, tough part of him could never change. Maybe that was what attracted her to him most. But the person she was looking at now was different. He looked as broken as she felt.

  Nastos let go of her hand. “I still do minor investigation work with Carscadden. I can see what we can do. If you need someone scared off we’ll look after it and get you back out there writing your stories.”

  She slumped down in the chair. “Quick and efficient. Well, I’m not just some other client, and this isn’t just some regular stalker case. Don’t compartmentalize me.”

  Nastos straightened up. She realized that she had come on too strong right away. “That’s the deal, Karen, take it or leave it. I have Josie, she’s a handful. I’m busy with Carscadden and the restaurant, the owner, Viktor, wants me helping out on weekends. Do you want me to look after this
or don’t you?”

  He hadn’t gotten up and stormed out, but it was hard to feel relieved. She was betraying him. Knowing it was unfair didn’t stop her. It just made it harder. He wouldn’t take the case if he knew the extent of the danger.

  Now it was Nastos’ turn to slump in the chair. “Sorry, that came out wrong.” He picked up the bottle of soya sauce on the table and rocked it in his hands, back and forth like he was trying to determine which way he felt himself.

  “Nastos, I want to say I’m sorry for complicating things. Seeing me, I must make you feel conflicted especially because of what happened to your wife. I was younger back then and, yes, I kind of became infatuated with you. Sorry that I thought you were smart and attractive. Listen, you really don’t owe me a thing. It’s me who owes you the apology for crossing a line. Now you’re right, this is a light case, and maybe I could use someone else, but the fact is that I trust you. And maybe in some way we can at least get to the point where it doesn’t hurt to think about each other. We had a lot of good times, life’s short and I’d like to be able to count you as a friend again.”

  “You promise this isn’t a job for the cops?”

  She repressed her fear poorly. “I can’t go to the police.” She guiltily eyed the customers, knowing that she had spoken too loud.

  Nastos glanced around then smiled reassuringly. “No one here speaks English, Karen.”

  She didn’t smile back. Instead, she lifted a file from the seat next to her and slid it across to Nastos. He flipped open the first page. Karen had chosen the picture carefully. It was a picture of a young woman and man together. The woman was pretty enough but tired looking. It looked like a self-snap from a cellphone, the two of them mugging for the camera while walking down Yonge Street. The page opposite was the front page of the Toronto Tribune dated a few days ago. The headline read “Body Found at Trinity Bellwoods Park.”

  Nastos read a bit of the article that had been clipped next to the cut-out. “Rob Walker, who’s he?”

  “Good question.”

  Nastos eyed her suspiciously. “Okay, who’s Ann Falconer?”

  “She’s working on a story with me.”

  “What about?”

  “The death of the man she’s with in that picture.”

  “Rob Walker, then.”

  “But that’s not his real name.”

  “Okay, so what is?”

  “That’s what I want you to find out. What’s his real name, why was he murdered?”

  He grunted noncommittally and read more of the article. “Solving murders, sounds kinda like something a cop would do.”

  “Yeah, well, that might be part of the problem.” Karen began to feel guilty for holding back and let slip some more information. “We, uhh, think it might have been an organized thing.”

  “It says here he was shot, probably during a drug deal.”

  She gave him a hard stare.

  “Right. Don’t believe everything I read in a newspaper article. So whoever killed him, this Mr. Rob Walker, knew his real name, whatever that is.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I must have missed your answer. Why don’t you just go to the police?”

  She rubbed her eyes and looked at the table before answering. “It’s complicated.” She bit her lip.

  “Karen, does whoever did this know about you?”

  “Maybe.” She thought longer and made herself say it. “Yeah, I think they do.”

  3

  Radix and Morrison approached BMO Field, slowed the truck, and parked in the south lot. The stadium and lot could hold 20,000 thrill-seeking football fans if Canada could find them. The place was seldom used and a good place for this kind of transaction. Morrison reached into the back of the truck and grabbed a small black duffle bag he had bought at Mountain Equipment Co-op for this express purpose. He stuffed the money in it.

  Morrison said, “Stay here, I’ll do it this time.”

  “I was planning on it.” Radix replied without looking. He turned the keys in the ignition so he could listen to the radio then grabbed a Bud Light from the back seat.

  Morrison noted with some annoyance that Radix had put it on station 104.5, that dance shit he listened to when he had to fight falling asleep on a slow night shift. He snarled, “I hate your fucking guts,” then slammed the passenger door shut and stormed off toward BMO Field.

  Prince’s Boulevard was dead but he trotted across the asphalt anyways, finding himself adjusting his stride to step on the white dashes, knowing full well that he had crossed much more important lines what seemed like a lifetime ago. As he grew closer to the stadium the anger he felt for Radix dissipated, replaced by a sobering worry. He was teetering between getting arrested and taken to jail for the rest of his life or successfully buying time until, by some miracle, a solution appeared.

  He felt a buzz in his front pocket and pulled out his BlackBerry. A text message read East side.

  He wanted to look around to see who was watching but fought the urge, not wanting to appear anything less than cool under pressure, though it was probably obvious to anyone that he was ready to shit his pants. As he marched up to the east side of the building he received another text. First washroom.

  He saw the sign for it and turned in. No one was inside. There was a bank of urinals on the right, four stalls on the left surrounded by brown particleboard walls. The doors, except for one, sagged half-open, their silver slide locks rusted and tilted at useless angles. Morrison saw the triple-sink counter and placed the bag on it. The last text read Drop it. Now fuck off.

  “Yeah, no shit,” he said out loud.

  Morrison peeked under the stalls, seeing no one, eyeing the end one with the shut door more closely. Nothing. He gripped the bag by the handle again, heaved his arm back then slid it toward the closed stall. The plastic corner tabs on the bottom of the bag made a fingernail-on-chalkboard scraping noise as it slid across the tile floor before it slowly rotated and stopped like a curling stone. Saying nothing, he walked back out. Wary of who might be watching — the Police Services Professional Standards Unit, federal cops, whoever — he scanned the parking lots, seeing nothing suspicious in his peripheral vision. Back at the truck, he pried open the vehicle door, dropped into his seat and turned the radio off mid-song.

  Radix bolted up. “That was fast. You didn’t accidentally shoot anyone in there did you?”

  “Go screw yourself, Radix.”

  “Come on, Princess, we’re on evenings tonight and we’ve got a woman to find.”

  Nastos led the way into the office of Carscadden Law. This place had been many things to him over the years: a place of salvation when he was on trial for murder, and a place of rebirth and excitement when he first began doing private investigation work with Carscadden, the last-chance lawyer. Then it all changed and became a place he associated with the loss of his wife, Madeleine. Seeing the excitement of new love between Carscadden and his receptionist, Tara Hopkins, while his wife was torn away from him had smothered any positive feelings he had for the office.

  Stepping inside he noticed Hopkins wasn’t at her desk. He looked into the luncheonette as he took off his coat. “Hello?”

  He hung his coat on the rack and held his hand out for Karen’s. “Here, I’ll get that.”

  She stepped forward to offer her coat, resting her hand on his forearm. “We home alone?” she asked. She wasn’t disappointed. She smiled and moved closer.

  Nastos heard footsteps coming from the office and saw Hopkins’ face, flushed red as she stepped through the door, her hair a mess.

  Nastos said, “I hope we interrupted something?”

  She smiled. “I wish. I’m bagged. I was napping on the couch.”

  Nastos shook his head. “Lies. Carscadden in there?”

  “Actually yes. Yes he’s here, he was —”

  “Nap
ping on you?”

  Hopkins didn’t answer directly, instead she blushed. “He asked me to buy some time. I’m sure you can go in now.” To Karen she extended a hand. “Have we met? Tara Hopkins.”

  “Karen Grant. We spoke on the phone earlier.”

  “Right.” Hopkins glanced from Karen to Nastos and back, hopeful excitement in her eyes.

  Nastos wanted to set Hopkins straight — and for that matter, Karen again too — but it wasn’t the right time. “We might have a case here. We have a video to watch with you and the boss.”

  Hopkins’ face brightened up. “Business, great.”

  “Don’t get too excited. She’s not a paying customer, she’s a friend.”

  Hopkins was unfazed. “You need all the friends you can get, Nasty.”

  Karen made an offer. “My boss might pay a little. We hire PI’s from time to time, but it’s rare.”

  From the office Carscadden shouted, “Okay, I’m good.”

  Nastos turned to Karen. “Hear that? He admits it. As far as lawyers go, he’s only good.”

  Nastos, Carscadden, Hopkins and Grant sat in the office in a semicircle around the TV. Grant opened her wallet and took out the jump drive, plugging it into the DVD player. With the remote she moved around the menu to Chapter Five. “I’ll move past the background interviews that I did with Ann Falconer.” Before pressing Play she said, “Here’s the run-down. She’s from Czechoslovakia. Spoke a little English when she immigrated here. The accent takes time to get used to.

  “She comes here eighteen years old, thinking she’s going to be a nanny. They take her passport, ID and money and force her to strip in clubs to get it back. Stripping becomes massages, becomes a forced drug problem, becomes prostitution.”

  Hopkins remarked, “I can’t believe this still happens.”

  “Yeah, it does.” Grant flipped ahead a few chapters. “You watch her tell the whole story, you know no one can make this stuff up. But she has a heck of an accent. I’m cueing it up to the shooting. Oh, and she met Rob Walker at the motel. He lived there too.”