I figured that this situation was temporary. Soon this developer—or another with more money—was going to tear this old slum down and build a towering, shining condo.
I also figured that the police had not closed off this site because PIC wasn’t interested in it or else had finished whatever investigation they intended to do there.
I knew from my years in court, but also my years on the street, that despite the avowed vigilance of the force, it was almost impossible to convict a policeman of anything. As to convicting a police woman—well—you can forget that, too. In fact, you can forget it first!
As I checked out the site, seeing nothing that gave me the least clue about the Juicer, I ran into a couple of current inhabitants of the building. I tried to get away before they saw me, but I’m an old man and I’ve never been much of a runner. Besides, I was tripping and sliding on the uneven pavement in front of the building. When one of the miscreants grabbed my jacket and twisted it in his huge hand until the collar choked me, I was almost grateful. If he hadn’t been hanging on to me, I would have fallen flat on my face.
“Looking for something, buddy?”
“No, I—”
“Hey, Danny,” he called to another raggedy young man. “Check out the old dude!”
My captor was dark and big and truly mean-looking. I knew the next thing that was going to happen was that I was going to be frisked. It almost made me laugh. All I had in my pocket were two two-dollar coins and four senior TTC tickets.
“Okay, where is it?” he demanded. “Where’s your damn wallet?”
To my surprise, I reached up and punched him. The second I did so, I realized just how stupid that was. I actually closed my eyes, hoping to protect them from the blows to my face that were sure to follow.
I waited for a second in the darkness.
“Hey,” the other man said, “lay off. You know who this guy is? He’s Queenie’s old man.”
“Queenie? The Juicer’s Queenie?”
“Yeah. He paused. “She passed a few weeks ago.”
“Is that so? My attacker turned, grabbed me again and spun me around until I was facing him, his fat hand pulling together the two sides of my jacket and holding them in his fist at my chin. “Sorry about your loss…”
If he was being sarcastic, I wasn’t appreciating it. I tore loose and raised my own fist.
“Easy, old timer,” the other man said. “Come over here and sit down. Sorry to give you trouble, but we got to be careful around here.”
As if it were a fine couch in an elegant living room, the man gestured toward a collapsing front porch step and actually gave me his hand as I stooped to take the seat he offered. Then he sat beside me.
I caught my breath. “Why?” I finally managed to ask. “Why do you have to be careful?”
The other man stared at me and sneered, as if my question were pretty stupid.
“Cops,” he said. “They’re crawling around here like cockroaches.” He shook his head and I tried to move away a little. He had long, matted hair and I didn’t want him to shake anything onto me. My days of living comfortably among the insects of our city were long over.
“Yes,” I said, beginning to understand that these shabby outcasts could probably be brought over to my side if I were diplomatic. "You see, you’re right about the Juicer being Queenie’s man.”
“You said it,” the other man offered. Unlike his pal, he had no hair at all. No real hair that is. On his shaved head was a ridiculous tattoo made to look like hair. “I heard the last thing she said was that he was murdered and somebody had to find the killer.”
I didn’t bother asking him how he could possibly have known the last words that my beloved had said to me. The street had its own system of communication.
“Right again,” I said, trying to keep my voice emotionless. “And I’m the one who’s supposed to do it.”
“You? Because you were a judge or something like that?” He made a fist and swung his hand toward my face. I flinched and drew back. “You’re not a cop, are you?”
“No. Not a cop. Not a judge anymore. I’m Queenie’s widower. I’m her husband. She used to help me in my work because she knew so much about the street, and I used to help her in her work because I knew about the law.”
Both men nodded, which I almost found touching. I was sure respect for the law was not among their skill sets.
“So I have to help Queenie now, even though she’s gone. I have to find out what really happened to a man that she cared about.”
“Even though she was the only one in the world who could stand the bastard?” one of the men said, and the other chuckled.
“Right yet again. Because I promised. I promised Queenie I’d find out what really happened.”
“There were four of them bastards,” the bald man said. “Guess you know that much?”
“Yes. But I’m having a hard time finding anything much about them. Let alone actually talking to them.”
“You’re not going to get much info talking to a cop,” he said. “And you better make sure they don’t get much talking to you.” He smiled at his own joke. “But, yeah, I think we could tell you a thing or two about a couple of those cops anyway. What do you want to know?”
I decided to start slowly and build my way up. “The female—I think her name is Feeance or something like that. Know anything about her?”
Both men shook their heads. “Bitch. A perfect black bitch. Stay away from her and she’ll stay away from you. That’s all you need to know about that piece of cop garbage.”
“No love lost, eh?” I said with a weak smile.
They both stared at me like they didn’t know what I was talking about. I cleared my throat and proceeded. “Ted Downs. What do you know about him?”
The bald man looked down. The other answered right away with a litany of what sounded like familiar phrases, as if he’d known Downs for a long time and the cop had never changed. “Old guy. Tough-looking but basically okay. Wouldn’t bother to get on your back if he didn’t need to. Wouldn’t bring you in for nothing unless you were waving a gun or something.”
“Or looking like you’re waving a couple of knives?”
“Yeah, yeah, I guess so.”
His companion nodded at this remark and my friend went on, “Downs is what we used to call a body-and-fender man. Which means that you cross him and you learn that he’s as tough as he looks and he don’t hesitate to rough you up some to get what he’s after. He ain’t bald but he’s got lots of muscles—must work out, I guess. The word on the street is that no living person has ever seen him smile. Smart people steer clear of him because he isn’t afraid to use his baton.”
“And his Taser….” the other man added.
But my friend hastened to correct him. “No. That’s a rumor. Only supervisors have Tasers….”
“Sometimes they sign out somebody else’s,” his companion insisted. “I seen it myself.”
“You saw someone Tasered by a police officer?”
“Yeah,” the man answered with jumpy enthusiasm. “It was actually some old lady. She was screamin’ and swinging a couple of them things with yarn or whatever you call it…”
“Knitting needles?” I suggested.
“Yeah. That’s right! I seen a cop Taser her and pull her down and take her away. A fucking ancient old lady!”
The other man added calmly, “I’m not sure what he really saw, but I can tell you I heard more than one guy say he was Tasered by somebody who looked and acted like Downs only it was real dark, so there weren’t going to be any witnesses or anything.”
I let that sink in. Then I said, “What about a guy, a cop, named Al Brownette?”
They both snickered at mention of the name. “Yeah,” the bald man said, “Al Brown Nose. We know him, alright. Where the big guy goes the little guy follows.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“Look,” the hirsute informer offered, “we’re only telling you how we see
things.”
“Sure,” I answered. “So--?”
“So this Al Brown Nose cop, he follows Ted Downs around like a sick puppy. I don’t know nothing about how the police assign duties or anything like that, but I do wonder how Al and Ted always get stuck together like peanut butter and bread or something.”
“Why do you think that might be the case?” I asked.
“Because he’s a brown nose pure and simple. Why else?” Baldy offered.
The other man shot him a look. “The reason is,” he said with exaggerated slowness, “Al’s always trying to impress the old guy—show him he’s brave or whatever. He tries to act so tough that nothing can touch him. Even old Ted isn’t as tough as that all the time.”
“What do you mean?”
My cooperative informant sighed. “I don’t know. I only know what I heard.”
“You mean about the kid?” his pal piped up.
“Yeah.”
“What kid?” I had to be careful. I was getting somewhere here. I couldn’t blow it by being too eager.
Both men shook their heads. It was touching, really, such sympathy among the downtrodden. I knew that whatever they were about to offer me now was going to be the tidbit that made the whole trip worthwhile—and also the cash item—the bit that would make me cough up all I had. Two twonies. Four tickets. Sorry, guys. But they didn’t know that yet.
“Ted had a kid,” the bald one began.
“Yeah. The only time he ever sounds human is when he talks about his son. The kid killed himself about a year ago and the rumor was that Ted took it real hard. People even said that Al helped him out, like gave him comfort or something like that. Other people said it was a deal. Al helps Ted get over his son’s death and Ted helps Al get out of some kind of trouble with the police force—“
“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”
They both shrugged. “Who knows?”
I took a chance and asked the big question. “Did either of you personally see anybody using force on The Juicer?”
The two scruffy men looked at each other and I saw a nearly-imperceptible signal pass between them, as though they were giving each other permission to answer.
“You mean guns or something anything like that?”
“Guns, fists, Tasers…”
Again a look passed from one man to the other.
“Look,” the hairy man said, “we don’t know any more than anybody else about this stuff. The Juicer was a problem. A lot of people on the street think he got what was coming to him. Queenie was an angel. Anybody who could help her, helped her. All I can say is the Juicer wasn’t one of them. Wasn’t one of the people who made Queenie’s life easier. She used to say if you only help good people, what good are you?”
I had to smile and it didn’t even hurt this time. “Yeah,” I said, “that sounds like Queenie all right!”
The man beside me stood up and I knew that was it. That was all I was going to get here. I gave it one last shot. “What about Mark Hopequist? What did he do during the takedown?”
The men look at each other, their faces screwed up in puzzlement.
“Who?” they ask. “Who the hell is he?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
That night, I got a phone call from Aliana, not a message, but an actual call. To my surprise, I was glad to hear from her.
“I’ve made progress,” I told her with a little too much enthusiasm for an old judge, “I found a couple of reprobates who made me right at home and told me a number of things about three of the four cops!”
I filled her in, eager to share the details of my “interviews”.
When I stopped for a breath, I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line, as if she were hanging on my every word.
“But nothing about Hopequist,” I said at last. “Not a word about him…”
“That’s why I called, Ellis,” she answered, finally able to get a word in. “I’ve got a lead.”
“On Hopequist?”
“Right.”
“Through your police contacts?”
“No. I got to him through our mutual acquaintances at Child Services.”
I was surprised at this information. Over the years, I’d often worked with them, and I couldn’t think of an organization more dedicated to keeping information secret than the workers at the agency in charge of the welfare of young people.
“How can we get anything from them, Aliana? They’re tighter than…
“I identified you and me as volunteers on the Kezia file. Apparently they checked our credentials.”
“And I passed? That’s good to know.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ellis. Of course you ‘passed’. Anyway, they gave me some background on the case. Nothing we don’t already know…”
“Of course.” I imagined that it was a pretty regular occurrence for Aliana to be handed information she already knew—ace investigator that she clearly was.
“The upshot is this: we can make an appointment with Mark to talk to him directly. I had to swear on my mother’s blood that we would not mention one word—not a single syllable--to Mark about any actual police work. We have to stick to matters immediately concerning Kezia’s welfare.”
“Aliana, that’s wonderful! When did you have in mind for us to meet Mark?”
“Whoa! Not so fast. Before we meet with him, we have to thoroughly familiarize ourselves with the girl and her circumstances, which will necessitate at least one home visit, possibly more than one.”
I knew better than to bother asking whether this meant that Aliana and I would soon be working more closely together.
***
Two days later, I found myself sitting behind the wheel of my BMW reluctant to leave the car—I almost thought abandon the car--anywhere near Kezia’s building, not that her building looked very different from my own. In fact, Kezia’s home was only a few miles east on Eglinton beyond my apartment building. I was totally familiar with Kezia’s neighborhood and I knew that a few blocks in either direction in Scarborough could make a big difference in the quality of the so-called “community”.
As Aliana approached, I couldn’t help but notice that she was all business today. She wore a slim black wool coat and boots with higher heels than I would have previously imagined on a woman her age. Her long hair was loose but very tidy and its blackness was set off by the fine streaks of gray near her animated face.
“Ellis! A bit early. That’s great. I’ve got a few notes here…”
She took off her black leather gloves, flipped a few pages in a small notebook and pretty much shoved it in my face, too close for me to read what she’d written there without my other glasses.
“Fine, Aliana. I’ll just follow your lead.”
She nodded and turned smartly toward the front door
Through the window, I could see that the lobby was completely empty. Nothing. No furniture. No curtains. No rugs. No pictures on the wall, not even the ubiquitous cheaply framed prints of long-ago rural scenes that graced the lobby walls of many an apartment building lobby in this town.
“Doesn’t look bad from the outside,” Aliana observed. “But I don’t like this sterile lobby. It can only mean one thing!”
“No furniture is safe here,” I said with a smile. “Mailboxes aren’t doing so well either.”
Just visible against the back wall, stood rows of steel cubbyholes, some clearly suffering from having been broken into. In one corner a vending machine covered with graffiti leaned toward the elevators. Even through the plate-glass lobby door I could see that one of the elevator doors had an out-of-service sign that was singed on the bottom edge and browned from age.
Aliana reached toward a metal panel displaying apartment numbers. I tried to suppress my skepticism as to whether anyone would answer any of those buzzers—that is assuming that they worked.
Before Kezia—or anyone else in her apartment—had a chance to answer, the door swung open and two people sauntered out. One was a tall
, lean young black man in full street regalia: falling-down jeans, big bright running shoes, gigantic mass of dreads.
The other was an old Muslim woman. Her hijab covered only a part of what I could tell had once been a very pretty face. She reminded me so strongly of my beloved long-gone Italian grandmother that I got that pang of grief again, a pang I realized was beginning to lessen.
As we got closer to the bank of elevators, it became quite obvious that people were getting into and coming out of only one—and it was the one with the old out-of-service notice on it.
As if she could read my mind, Aliana leaned close to me and whispered. “Bite the bullet.”
I slid into the elevator beside her, trying to convince myself that whatever shape it was in, it was safer than trying our luck on the stairs….
As we ascended to the tenth floor, various people got on and off. Every time the door opened, the cooking smells of a different cuisine seem to rush in: curry, cabbage, barbecue, odd indescribable, undecipherable mixtures that instantly turned my always overly-sensitive stomach.
I soon realized that the presence of Aliana and me was no more reassuring to the other inhabitants of the elevator than theirs was to us. They shot us glances of distrust, nicely peppered with disgust.
We slowly negotiated the dark hallway and searched for the right number on the apartment doors we passed. Several bore spray-painted inscriptions in a script that I couldn’t read. I was not exactly reassured about our safety when I noticed two bullet holes in the door of the unit we were looking for.
Distracted by the sight, I wasn’t paying attention when Aliana knocked on Kezia’s door. I was unprepared to see it swing open immediately and to find myself face-to-face with a dark, snarling young man in leather, chains, tattoos, dreads, complexly knotted scarves, rings—the lot.
Despite all my years’ experience, or maybe because of them, my first reaction was the intense desire to turn on my heels and run. Or at least to expect to have the door slammed in my face. I glanced at Aliana. She wore a look I had seen many times before. The look of a reporter who has sniffed a good story.
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