The line went silent for a moment.
“Are you there?” she asked sharply.
“Yes.”
“Look — I’m sorry, but you have to trust me. It didn’t come from us.” She waited for this to sink in. “Do you want us to put some protection on your client?”
“I don’t know,” Dan said. “I’ll have to ask him. He’s still willing to co-operate with the investigation. He wants Malevski’s killer caught. That’s his bottom line. My bottom line is that nobody gets hurt on my turf.”
“Understood, Dan. I want you to know we are in complete agreement on that. So, will you let me know when you hear whether or not he wants protection?”
“I will,” Dan said. “I’m meeting him this afternoon.”
“Then I will wait to hear back on that.”
Despite her assurances, Dan hung up feeling angry and dazed.
The rise above the track at Riverdale Park was one of Dan’s favourite views. It kept the high towers of the city’s economic engine at a distance, making them look decorative and less self-important. Far below, tiny stick figures jogged, threw balls, walked dogs. Somewhere down in those trees lining the river, Dan knew, a small community of the homeless lived in tents from summer through winter. There were still outcasts in the land of plenty.
Dan felt the wind on his cheeks, watched clouds scudding along the horizon. Instinctively, he longed to be in motion, knowing how his blood would quicken with each stride of his legs. He turned to his left, where Lionel was straightening from a round of stretching, his face flushed with anticipation.
“I thought this was a good idea,” Dan said. “I mean, since you’re a long-distance runner.”
Lionel gave him a shy grin. “Somewhat of an exaggeration, I’m afraid, unless you put it in the past tense. I’m just getting back into it after a couple of years. I had to stop because of an extended bout of tendonitis.”
“How far do you like to go?”
“I was up to twenty kilometres at one point. Lately, I find ten to twelve is comfortable, though it’s not difficult to stretch it out a bit more.”
“It’s about fourteen klicks from here to Edwards Gardens. The elevation gain is around sixty meters overall. We can stop at any point you choose. Don’t be afraid to tell me if you’re in pain.”
“Right-o, chief!”
They set off at an easy pace, across the track and over the bridge spanning the Don, passing dog walkers and couples pushing strollers. Rain had swollen the river, leaving the water unusually high and threatening the banks with erosion.
“Sorry for getting flustered on the phone earlier,” Lionel told him. “I can’t tell you how shocked I was. It really caught me by surprise.”
“I don’t blame you,” Dan said. “I made a phone call to the police after we spoke. My contact, who happens to be investigating police corruption, swears your name wasn’t mentioned to anyone except the chief of police himself.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It is if it’s true.”
“Are you saying you don’t believe it?”
Dan considered. “I don’t have an answer for that. At present I have no reason to contradict it, but I still question it. It doesn’t make me happy to know you were threatened.”
“Nor me.”
They were running effortlessly now. A GO train scuttled by on a rise above them.
“Anyway, we’re safe talking here,” Dan said, as the greenery buzzed past.
“I trust you, Dan.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve been looking through some of the bar records over the past few days and I may have come up with something. It’s a file with a record of payments and a series of numbers. No names, just initials. The letter T was prominent.”
Dan glanced over. “You think it’s Trposki? Could these be the police payments?”
“I don’t really know. It’s a bit confusing, because I can’t tell what the numbers refer to. They may be codes or possibly dates. I think the payments correspond to the weekend income counts and some of the amounts I handed over to the guys who paid the police for protection, but there’s something else I can’t figure out.”
Dan gave him a quick look as they bounded over a tree branch lying in their path.
“Anything I should know about?”
“Just some irregularity. I’ll let you know if I figure it out.”
“Okay, you’re the accountant. I’m curious — what does Trposki look like?”
“Last time I saw him? Short hair buzzed close to the skull. Dark eyes with very thick lashes. Almost as though he wears mascara, though I doubt he does. Thick shadows on the face and jaw, too. If you like hairy men, he’d definitely fit the bill. A wiry build, but very muscular from what I recall.”
Dan was thinking it sounded like the cop Hank had described.
“Was the file on a computer?”
“No. It’s handwritten. I found it in Yuri’s office. It’s his writing, for sure. It screamed out at me. It’s sloppy and imprecise. Definitely not my style of accounting. I’m a dot the i’s and cross the t’s kind of guy. Perfectionist tendencies. If it’s not right, I toss it out and start again. Unhealthy obsessions.”
“I hope you were being careful wherever you were looking. Is it possible your search prompted the warning call?”
Lionel’s eyes darted.
“Wow! I never thought of that. You’re right. It could have, though I can’t think just how at the moment. Maybe someone noticed the file had been moved. I don’t know how many people would have known what it was, but it’s possible someone did.”
“Do me a favour,” Dan said. “Don’t do any more investigating on your own. If there’s a file you want to look into, bring it to me.”
“All right.” Lionel paused. “I was a little surprised to find these records. It means Yuri was keeping a separate set for his own purposes. He must not have wanted me to see them, though of course I’m probably the only one who might guess what they are.”
“I’d like to see them for myself.”
“All right. I can do that.”
Dan looked over. “If there’s anything unusual, I’ll probably have to take them to the officer in charge. You know that, don’t you?
Lionel nodded. “I know.”
“Which means I’m going to have to tell her it came from you.”
“Her?”
Lionel looked surprised by this news.
“Inspector Lydia Johnston. She’s the chief liaison in this investigation.”
Their legs were pumping harder now, flying beneath the Bloor Viaduct and the subway trestle where it spanned the river.
Lionel grinned. “I don’t know why it struck me as odd that it should be a woman.”
“Best choice for breaking the old boys’ network, if that’s what it is. By the way, she told me to ask if you wanted protection.”
“That occurred to me, but I can’t decide.”
“I would strongly advise you to accept, if only for your peace of mind.”
They passed a couple of slower runners and pounded along in silence for a while.
“I’m really enjoying this. We should try trail-running some time,” Lionel said. “Maybe somewhere on the Niagara escarpment.”
“I’d be up for it,” Dan said. “If Charles won’t accuse you of abandoning him.”
Lionel came to an abrupt stop. Dan shot past him then jogged back.
“Did I say something wrong?”
Lionel was bent over, hands on his knees, breathing hard. He looked up, a dark expression haunting his face.
“It’s just that Charles keeps getting angry with me. He says I should stay out of it and let things settle themselves. To be honest, I’m a little afraid of him these days.”
Donny’s description of the pair as the “perfect couple” came back to Dan. Inside every dream home, he knew, there was always a shiver of discontent, a stifled scream. In fact, his work often depended on the dissatisfactio
n that split homes apart, but he didn’t want to make Lionel more anxious than he already was.
“He’s probably worried for you. He’s seen these things from the other side, from the viewpoint of the courts and the police.”
Lionel nodded. “That’s what he keeps saying. He wants me to let the police pin everything on Santiago, but I’m not convinced Santiago is to blame. Until I know for sure, my conscience won’t let me do that.”
“Why does he want Santiago blamed?”
“An easy scapegoat, maybe. I’d hate to see him framed just to put this all in the past.”
“Do you think that would be blaming the wrong person?”
Lionel hesitated. “Let’s just say I’m not convinced he’s behind it.”
“Would Charles have any special reason for believing Santiago is the guilty party? Is it possible he knows something he’s not sharing with you?”
Lionel stared at him. “That never occurred to me. But I think Charles is just unusually suspicious by nature.”
“He’s a lawyer, so he would be, but surely he wouldn’t risk framing someone.”
Lionel sighed. “Some days I don’t know what Charles might do.”
Dan heard the concern. “Even lawyers can get a little panicky when their partners are threatened.”
“I didn’t tell him about the phone call today. I don’t want him to know. Please keep it to yourself for now.”
“All right, if you think that’s wise. But if there’s any reason to be worried, then it might be best to let him know.”
“I’ve thought of that. I … I won’t let him be put in jeopardy. I just need to find the right time to tell him what’s going on. He keeps asking me things. About what you and I talk about, for instance, or what the police have been asking me. If anything, he’s the one who’s stirring things up. He’s worried about this corruption probe, but I’m not sure why.”
Dan put a hand on Lionel’s shoulder. “He’s prob-ably concerned most about how it will affect the two of you. You’re a couple, so what hurts one will hurt both. As far as I can tell, we can trust the officers looking into the corruption issues. Try to reassure him about that, at any rate.”
Lionel gave Dan a rueful smile. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”
They took off again at a brisk pace. Ahead, a riding academy crowned the hills over a track where students practised mounting and dismounting in crisp white jodhpurs, black jackets, and riding caps. An instructor demonstrated posting techniques to a group of young riders in the distance.
Lionel pointed to the stables.
“We keep a couple of horses there. Charles spends most afternoons here when he isn’t working. In fact, he’s probably there now.” He turned to Dan. “Does your partner worry about you?”
Dan’s mind did a little flip. Was Lionel asking about his availability? He pushed the thought from his mind.
“I don’t have a partner. But when I did, my work drove him crazy. It was the major factor in our split.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“He wasn’t able to ignore the risk he felt my job put me in. He had a nervous temperament to begin with, and the thought of the danger I faced was too much for him. We had to end things for his sake.”
“What happened? Where is he now?”
“He’s happy on a little island in B.C.”
The wind whipped past as the stables disappeared behind them.
“What will you do now?” Lionel asked. “To find Santiago, I mean.”
“I want to go back to Yuri’s house and have another look. In the meantime, I’ll keep asking around until I find him.”
“I certainly appreciate all the work you’re doing for us. Don’t get me wrong about Charles — he appreciates it, too. We’ll have you over for drinks some time. We’ve got a great view from our balcony.”
“Something to look forward to,” Dan said, wondering how wise it would be to get close to the pair as long as they were his clients.
The trail veered around a corner. They raced along like a pair of adventurers flying off into the unknown.
Fifteen
Menthol or Unleaded
Dan had barely spoken to Donny since the initial meeting with Charles. Once his most reliable go-to source for consolation and commiseration over life’s inanities, Donny’s current relationship with an attractive man named Prabin meant that he and Dan now spent far less time together than at any point in their friendship. The absence was significant.
If truth be told, Dan missed the sound of cigarette smoke being inhaled on the other end of the phone. It had come to seem as comforting as the click of knitting needles to children under Grandma’s care, knowing all the vigilance and devotion it signified.
Donny had been there for Dan from the time Ked was a small boy. He was one of the few people with whom Dan had shared his history, who knew of his mother’s tragic early death, and of his father’s brutality. He was always first to caution Dan away from the edge of the abyss. “What’s done is done,” he would say. “Mourn the loss and move on.”
Donny the Practical. Donny the Wise. Dan felt in need of a little good common sense right now. It was confession time.
They stared at one another across coffee cups filled to the brim. Donny had discovered yet another dark and dingy café to satisfy his low-life urges. Dan never failed to find them dreary, though the advantage of speaking without fear of being overheard, or even understood, in a roomful of immigrants was not to be underestimated.
Dan looked disconsolately at the saucer where he’d slopped a small tide of brown liquid. The napkin sopped it up like a chemical spill on the banks of some Eastern European river. If he looked, he might find wildlife flapping out the last of its life under the silverware.
“Do you even think there’s caffeine in here?”
Donny picked up a menu and pointed to the word “coffee” then to its equivalent in Korean characters.
“You see that lettering here? I happen to be an expert in Korean. I should have translated it for you before you ordered. The exact translation for coffee is not, as one might imagine, ‘coffee,’ but rather ‘brown drink.’ So no, I suspect it does not in fact have caffeine of any sort. And if you look over here under flavours, it says ‘menthol’ and ‘unleaded.’”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“Probably not. Anyway, it’s the atmosphere I come for.”
Dan glanced around at the handwritten pages of menu items Scotch-taped to the wood panelling. “Yes, some serious decorating for sure.”
“Never mind all that. Sorry to hear Hank was a bust. What a jerk. I didn’t think people did such childish things outside of high school, where it’s practically de rigueur that you do terrible things to the other kids as a rite of passage.”
“Did you do terrible things to the other kids?”
“No. I was the kid they were doing terrible things to. Children are horrid. They can tell when you’re different. Someone once hung a sanitary napkin dipped in ketchup on the outside of my locker. They were calling me a ‘bloodcloth.’ That’s not an expletive to be taken lightly in Jamaica. I got the distinct impression they didn’t like me.”
“Nasty. Though I think anything would be preferable to what Hank did to me.”
Donny gave him a knowing look. “Well, look at it this way: at least you found out early on that he’s a waste of time. He didn’t make you wait till after the wedding.”
Dan rolled his eyes. “All the same, I’m beginning to think marriage isn’t in the cards for me in this town. Not now, not ever. People are here for their careers, not to find a partner.”
“You know what the French say about marriage. It’s like a besieged fortress. The people on the outside want in, and the people on the inside want out.”
“There’s consolation for you.”
“You know me — I’m just trying to make you feel better.”
“Keep trying. How is Prabin, by the way?”
“Divine,
as always. He sends his love. The stock market keeps him busy. When it doesn’t, we do silly things like go to Ripley’s Aquarium and find that we’re vastly entertained by the wildlife. All those jellyfish going up and down in slow motion in glowing colours. It’s exciting. We spent three hours there last weekend, in fact.”
“Sounds reassuringly mundane.”
“It is, but don’t worry — I’m not going to try to sell you on the benefits of Grindr. That little app has probably put an end to long-term relationships forever. But there must be something you could do to improve your love life.” Donny smiled. “You know, I just read an interesting article. They’ve discovered that house mice court their mates with ultrasonic sounds.”
“Very creative. Is that a dating suggestion?”
“In your case, it couldn’t hurt.” Donny’s eyes flickered around the room. “Funny how you’re the one who wants a relationship, but I’m the one who’s in one.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better, too?”
“No, but I would like to go on the record and really put my neck out by saying that dating a bartender is not a good idea for someone with a disreputable past when it comes to alcohol issues.”
“I’d already considered that.”
“Then consider it a lesson well learned.” He paused. “What’s going on with Charles and Lionel? Have you solved their problems yet?”
“Not yet, but I visited Yuri Malevski’s house. It’s quite a museum piece. Huge, filled with tasteful antiques rather than the junky kind. You’d be impressed.”
“I’ve heard the lore. It’s a legend on the party circuit.”
“Ever been there?”
“No. I never really made it with the country-and-western set. Not to say I’m a snob, but horses just aren’t my thing. I knew Yuri, of course — who didn’t? — but I never made a closer acquaintance with him. Too many drugs in that crowd to interest me.”
A rough-looking character came in the door, big, cumbersome and on the “tetchy” side, as Dan’s Aunt Marge might have said. Dan caught sight of the man’s dark glances and scowling face, thinking it fortunate they were in a public place. If this bruiser was a gay basher looking for trouble, he could certainly give a few people a run for their money. The miscreant looked over, caught their table on the fly and headed directly down the aisle toward them. As he passed, he tapped Donny on the shoulder. Dan’s muscles were tensed and at the ready, set to lurch to his friend’s defence. The colossus leaned down and whispered in Donny’s ear. “Hi, sweetheart,” came the gravelly voice. “Haven’t seen you around for a while.”
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