by Mike Knowles
“What’s wrong, baby? Bad night?” From my spot below, I could hear that Tatiana’s accented voice was slow and slurred — she was still high from the night before.
“Shut up, junkie.”
“You’re the one who’s yelling. I’m just trying to open the lines of communication like Doctor Davis said.”
“Shut up.”
“You strike out at that lame-ass strip club of yours? One of the girls find out that you are dickless? Is that it?” The doctor’s lessons were apparently over. Tatiana laughed with the humour and courage that only a needle could supply.
“Everything is falling apart, baby.” Igor sounded on the verge of tears.
“Ha. Are you crying, you little bitch? That is such a turnoff, you know? Aw, does Baby Igor need his baby bottle?” Tatiana broke into a case of the giggles that only stopped when Igor spoke again, sounding sad and pathetic.
“Seriously, I need you.”
Tatiana did a slurred impression of Igor. “Seriously, I need you.” She tried to laugh at him again, but only a gurgle came from her throat.
“Stupid, fucking whore!”
Tatiana’s body rolled down the stairs without warning. She landed with her eyes shut. They stayed closed as I backed away into the kitchen. Igor thumped down the stairs and dragged Tatiana’s unconscious body into the kitchen. I stood down the hallway, in the mudroom off the garage, watching the carnage.
“I come to you with my needs. I try to be open. I try to communicate. I do everything Dr. Davis said to do, and you laugh at me. Me! Let’s see you laugh at this.”
Igor turned on the gas burner and shoved Tatiana face first towards the hot element.
“I’ll show you how to cook with the stove since all you know how to do is heat up that junk you shove in your arm.”
Tatiana screamed and came out of her semi-conscious state. She bounced off the burner and came back at Igor like a feral cat. Her hands clawed at his face, and she screamed guttural obscenities at him. Igor screamed as her nails found his cheeks. He flailed at the girl, then shoved her back into the stove again. Tatiana showed she was as hard as the Soviet hammer on the old flag. She picked up a kettle off the stove top and swung it like a haymaker into the side of Igor’s head. The impact of the stainless steel appliance opened the Russian’s stitches and sent water onto the floor along with Igor’s ass. He turned onto his stomach and tried to get up while Tatiana kicked him.
“No more! No more! I am tired of you whining because the whole world knows you are a pussy. And when you can’t get anything done, you realize the world is right, so you come home and beat me. Well, no more. How do you like getting hit, you pussy? You faggot! You motherfucker!”
Igor covered up and staggered to his feet. He silenced Tatiana with a backhand — putting her down hard. He tried to kick her, but he slipped on the water from the kettle and went down beside her.
Tatiana was still yelling. “How many times did I have to make you pull the trigger? How many times did I have to hold your hand so you could do your job? You are not a man. You could not even kill a man chained to a hospital bed. If it weren’t for me the police would have found you crying in those handcuffs. You are a fool, a coward, and I hate you.”
“Shut up!” Igor screamed. He took two handfuls of Tatiana’s hair and used her head to steady himself getting up. She screamed as her head took all of his weight. Igor spread his feet wide and pulled Tatiana up to the stove. He again put her face down on the burner. She screamed and bucked, but Igor never let her go.
“Say something now! Say something! I didn’t need you for anything, you junkie whore.”
Smoke came up from the burner, and the smell of burnt hair and flesh wafted down the hall. Igor kept holding the girl down even though she had gone into shock and stopped struggling. I didn’t move from my spot in the mudroom. Tatiana said it herself; she had to push Igor to pull the trigger. She had to hold his hand. She helped create a monster, and now her creation was returning the favour. She was as ugly as Igor, and, like the rest of us, she deserved worse than she got.
Igor finally let the girl go, and she fell soundlessly to the floor. He picked up the kettle she hit him with and held it over his head with two hands. He let out a scream as he crashed down on Tatiana and beat her to death.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I had Igor cold. He had just murdered an accomplice to countless crimes in the middle of his kitchen. But how easily could Morrison connect Igor to the mob? He said himself that he had little on Igor. There were rumours about his being a drug dealer for the Russians, but no real paper trail existed. Igor wasn’t going to be enough for Morrison, not like this. I needed more.
All I had to go on was the missing money. The money would lead me to someone bigger than Igor. When they dealt with him, I would have something to trade Morrison that would connect all of the pieces.
Igor sobbed, bent over the counter. He went on like that for five minutes. When he was finished, he dried his eyes on his sleeve and looked at Tatiana. “Stupid junkie,” he said. “Look where your mouth got you.”
He walked away from the body, sat at the kitchen table, dialled a number into his cell phone, and waited.
“I need to see you,” he said after a minute. “I don’t care if it’s early, I need to see you.”
Pause.
“No, you listen, pig. You’re on my payroll. That means you work for me. Now get your fat ass out of bed and get over to my house. We have things to discuss.”
Igor hung up the phone and walked away from the table. While he was in sight, I watched him peer over the counter at the body of Tatiana. He shook his head and then went up the stairs. A few minutes later, I heard the sound of running water. I stayed downstairs with Tatiana while Igor showered and cleaned up. I stayed out of the blood and the mess as I worked my way through each drawer in the kitchen. In the back of the drawer beside the fridge, I found instruction manuals and warranties for all of the major appliances. Underneath the manuals in their ripped plastic sheaths, I found a book. The spine was creased, and the pages were dog-eared and heavily highlighted. Igor had worn out his copy of I’m Okay, You’re Okay. I read the back cover and realized that Igor believed that he had adopted a “position” about himself that determined how he felt about everything. His position was listed as “I’m not okay — you’re okay.” This kind of position was said, by the back of the book, to contaminate rational capabilities and leave people open to inappropriate emotional reactions. I wondered if trying to kill me in the hospital or killing a girlfriend was something Igor considered to be an inappropriate emotional reaction. The book must have been the gateway to the doctor Tatiana was screaming about. For me, the book was just another window into Igor’s broken mind. I wiped the book with my sleeve, put it back, and went on to the next drawer. Inside, I found a spare set of house keys with the second set of dealer keys for the BMW. I pocketed both, went through the rest of the drawers, and got back to the mudroom before Igor came downstairs. He walked right through the mess to make himself breakfast. He was eating toast when there was a knock at the door. I heard Igor get up to open it. Someone was let in, and two men stood in the foyer talking.
“I don’t like meeting you like this — it’s dangerous.”
“Shut up.”
“Seriously, I’m not just talking about cops. Word is Sergei is looking for you.”
“Where did you hear that?” Igor sounded panicked.
“Cops at the station heard it on the street. What the hell did you do?”
“There was a complication.”
“Did that complication scratch up your face like that?”
“No, that was Tatiana.”
“Hunh, I always knew that bitch liked it kinky.”
“Not anymore.”
Igor walked back into the kitchen, sat, and pulled his chair up to the table. There was a long pause while Igor’s guest looked at the body. I moved my head out just enough to see what I already knew was there. The man h
ad his ample back to me as he looked in front of the stove. The huge mass of cop was covered in the same worn shitty suit I had seen when I first opened my eyes in the hospital. Detective Miller was Igor’s rat in the department.
“What the fuck happened? Did you do this?”
“She did it to herself.”
“I can’t be a part of this. You fucking murder a chick, your chick, in your kitchen, then call me over. I’ll go down as an accessory.”
“You can go down as a crooked cop too. I have tapes and witnesses of you taking my money and getting me around police search and seizures. So you can maybe go down for her, or you can for sure go down because of me.”
“Shit. Shit!” Miller said.
“We’re both in the shit, but we can get out. I just need cash.”
“How much?”
“A lot. I need a load of cash to pay Sergei for the loss and the embarrassment. It’s money I do not have.”
“So we’re fucked.”
“No, detective, I just need to know where there is a lot of money so that I can take it.”
“You want me to help you steal money?”
“No wonder you are a detective. You are very smart. I wonder if you are smart enough to tell me who it was that was looking for me in my club tonight.”
“How the fuck would I know?”
“It was a cop.”
“Shit, it must have been Morrison. He came to me the other day and asked me about you. Well, he asked about a man named Igor; he didn’t know any specifics, but I figured he meant you.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“Nothing. I told him there were a lot of Igors. It’s fucking true enough, your mothers weren’t that creative back home. I said I’d look into it and get back to him.”
“Why is he after me?” Igor asked.
“He wouldn’t say.”
“So how did he find me then?”
“Fucking guy is a police beast. He finds whatever he’s looking for. What’s fucked up is why he didn’t talk to me about his lead on the strip club.”
“Maybe you are not trusted,” Igor said.
“Fuck that, Igor. Me and Morrison are tight. He eats at my house twice a week, for Christ’s sake.”
“Does he know about our deals?”
“Hell no!”
“Then you are not all that tight, da?”
“Don’t give me that Russian shit. That accent doesn’t fool me. You grew up here, Igor. You’re about as Russian as that red fucking salad dressing. Let me deal with Morrison. I’ll get him off your back while you get the money,” Miller said.
“Where will I be getting my money?”
“If you need it fast, then we got to hit the chinks.”
“I’m listening.”
“I got word the other day that the Fat Cobra Society are moving a lot of product out of the Secret Garden downtown.”
I knew the gang. The Fat Cobra Society had branched out from San Francisco in the seventies. It found Canadian homes in Vancouver and Toronto, and its tentacles had gripped Hamilton sometime in the last decade. The Fat Cobra Society wasn’t a punk street gang. It was organized and hostile. It ran women, drugs, and black market goods to the Asian community, and business was good. Hamilton was home to a large Asian population, especially after Columbia University opened its doors in West Hamilton. Columbia University was a boarding school for immigrant kids from all over the world who needed time to acclimatize to Canada before attending nearby McMaster University. Most of the students were Asian, and most of them got their illegal shit from someone with a familiar face.
“The police are watching the place?”
“No, I just found out from a CI. No one knows but me.”
“Why haven’t you told anyone?”
“I wanted to see how I could spin it. I like Chinese food, Chinese women, I figure I’ll like their money too. But money’s worth as much as rice if my ass is in jail. Word is the place is full of cash — full of it. Product and guns too. So you and your guys hit the Secret Garden tonight, take the slants by surprise, and you get your payday. With your crew, there will be enough manpower to get the job done fast and quiet.”
“No crew, just us.”
“Us? Fuck us. I can’t have no part in this. This is your problem, your show. Why can’t you use your guys?”
“If Sergei is after me, as you say, then they will be after me as well. They will be looking to kill me so that they can have my spot. It is common practice.”
“I can’t rob the triads outright. They’ll kill me, if I don’t get arrested first.”
“I will do the robbing; you will just help me get inside by thinning the ranks. Don’t worry, all will appear legal.”
The two men spent an hour hashing out a plan to hit the Secret Garden. If they cared about the dead body lying in front of the stove, it never came up. I waited, listening, until Miller left and Igor went back upstairs. I slipped out back and got to the Volvo unseen. I left Igor at his house and drove back to the motel. On the way I thought about what Miller had said. Morrison left him in the dark about the reasons behind his search for Igor. That meant whatever bond they had was being stretched. He still hadn’t found Igor, so he had no way of knowing how corrupt Miller was, but a few more days of off-the-clock hunting would be enough time for him to find Igor’s house. Luckily for me, Igor didn’t have a few days. I got back to the motel and dove straight onto the lumpy bed. I needed sleep if I was going to be having Chinese for dinner.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I slept for four hours, put on my clothes, and went for a late lunch at the Secret Garden. It was a hole-in-the-wall place on Main Street, just down from a few really good Chinese food restaurants. I walked the streets and noticed the same three faces outside the restaurant each time I was nearby. They never noticed me because on each pass I was farther and farther away. The first pass was in front of the building. The second, ten minutes later, was from across the street. The third pass was done in a cab. We rode by twice, the first time watching the men I saw, the second eyeing the area for what I would need.
The three Chinese men were in their forties with tall bushy hair and tight leather motorcycle jackets. Two of the men stood near the entrance of the restaurant — one in front of the door, the other fifteen metres away in the mouth of an alley. Both had black hair that they had let grow long in the back. They accentuated the mullet with wisps of hair combed over one of their eyes. The men were similar in height, weight, and style. The only difference was the tattoo that showed on the neck of the man in front of the alley. The third guard was on the opposite side of the building. His hair was bleached and sculpted high on his head. The hair was very white, and I saw no roots, meaning the job had been done recently. The heavy leather made it impossible to tell if the men were carrying — I figured it was a safe bet that they were.
“Never guess anything that will make your life easier. The world has a way of making sure things stay as shitty as possible, remember that.” My uncle’s voice was still as loud now as it was when he was alive.
The three men were a constant; customers were not. On every pass, I never saw anyone getting any food from the Secret Garden. There was an old woman behind the counter wearing an apron, but it was white — too white to belong to a cook. Miller’s intel had been good. He knew about the three men out front, making me think what he had said about inside was probably true too.
On my fifth pass, again on foot, I walked inside the Secret Dragon. The old woman behind the counter looked at me, then into the back, then at me again.
“I help you?”
“An order of rice and sweet and sour chicken.”
“We no have sweet and sour chicken.”
“Just the rice then.”
“No rice.”
I blew out a bit of air and put my smile on. “Okay, just get me a plate of whatever you have.”
“Food cost a lot of money.”
“That’s cool.”
“Food take a lot of time.”
“I’ll wait.”
The woman disappeared into the back and was gone for five minutes. I used the time, and the small spaces between the lettering on the window, to look out at the men out front. They were tense because of my arrival, but they never left their posts; they stayed on duty outside the restaurant. The woman came back with a small Styrofoam container that cost ten dollars. The container was cold to the touch, and when I opened it across the street, and around the corner, I saw that it was some kind of meat in brown sauce. They had added a live cockroach for flavour too. I chuckled at the move and left the container open on the concrete. Birds descended on the open container, eager for a free meal. They got close enough to the container to see what it was, then left it alone.
The front served expensive, shitty food with service that paralleled the worst orphanage cafeteria line. People got the message to stay away in rude stereo. Miller had explained that the men out front were the primary security force. The men inside were mostly money counters. There were only three other armed guards behind the counter. The men outside watched who came in and out; if you tried a stick-up, they would be behind you waiting in the streets. If you took a run at any of the three men out front first, the money would be run out back by one of the armed guards, and the other two gunmen would back up the men in the street. The Secret Garden was a good front with satisfactory protection and not a lot of overhead. The main deterrent was not the men but the triad’s reputation.