High Chicago

by Howard Shrier

  “That could have been your knee,” I said. “You’d be looking at total reconstruction.”

  “Oh my God,” he moaned. “You fucking asshole, you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “Now please go away and let me and the lady talk.”

  He looked at Nina, who shook her head and grabbed a towel that was hanging on the handlebars of the treadmill and threw it at him. “Go on, Perry,” she said. “Dry your eyes and beat it.”

  He pulled himself up and gave me his best death stare. Not quite Dave Stewart in his Oakland prime, but not half bad.

  “Wait here,” she said to me.

  She helped Perry gather up his things and escorted him out the French doors. I heard him say something to her; I heard her laugh at him in response. I guess she had no salt to rub in his wounds.

  “So you’re an investigator?” Nina said. “Got a gun?”

  “We don’t carry guns,” I said. I still had a Beretta Cougar hidden in my apartment—a present from Dante Ryan—but hadn’t so much as looked at it since last summer’s crisis had ended.

  “And what exactly are you investigating?”

  “Why Maya Cantor died.”

  “Isn’t it kind of obvious? She threw herself off a twelfth-storey balcony.”

  “Why she did it, then.”

  “And you’re asking me? What, did you run out of other people?”

  “Kind of.”

  “I barely knew the girl,” Nina said. “She didn’t come around much. I got the feeling she didn’t approve of me. Go figure.”

  “She was here the night she died.”

  “Yeah, Rob invited her and Andrew for dinner. Not exactly Brad and Angelina as company goes, but they were his kids so I went along.”

  “I heard there was a disagreement.”

  “From who, Marilyn?”

  “Yes.”

  “The first Mrs. Cantor,” she said, twirling a permed blonde curl around her index finger. “You can see why he got tired of her. I mean, besides her age. Rob might be older than me but he’s young at heart. She’s, like, fifty at least and looks it.”

  Personally, I had found Marilyn to be an engaging, naturally attractive woman. Nina was admirable in the way thoroughbreds are, with a glossy mane and highly toned muscles, but she had all the class of a hyena tearing at a carcass.

  “About that night …”

  “Look,” she said. “Maya could be very—what’s the word I’m looking for—judgmental. She had a way of letting you know what you were doing was all wrong. Me, for instance. I threw a wine bottle into the trash instead of the recycling bin and she goes over and takes it out of the trash and puts it in the bin. Okay, so maybe I should be more conscientious about that stuff, but really, in the end, it’s one fucking bottle. Who gives a shit, right? No, she has to put on the big show. Never says a word to me even, just plucks it out of here and puts it into there. Disapproval all the way.”

  “Why was she mad at Rob? Was it something to do with the Harbourview project?”

  “Why would she be mad about that?” “Because of its impact on the environment.” Nina rolled her eyes and drained her sparkling water. “It is so easy for some people to get all worked up about their causes. Their big issues. It makes me laugh, I swear. Where did she think she’d be without Rob’s money? You think Maya paid for her apartment or her car or her trips down south with her friends at March Break? If it wasn’t for Rob’s new building, or his other buildings for that matter, she’d have been living at home and getting around on the TTC. Buying clothes at Honest Ed’s.”

  “But that is what they argued about?” “I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t in the room at the time.” “Andrew said you were. In the den, I believe.” “What is this, Clue? Nina in the den with a candlestick? Yeah, we had a few words. I told you, she didn’t like me. She was still pissed off that Rob left Marilyn. Christ, you’d think she’d have gotten over it already. She wasn’t a little girl, you know. She was a grown-up woman, barely ten years difference between her and me. As for what she and Rob fought about, I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t there.”

  “Where were you?”

  “In the kitchen,” she said with a lazy smirk. “Taking the wine bottle out of the recycling and putting it back in the trash.”

  CHAPTER 14

  What is it about men that causes them to lose their minds at mid-life? How could Rob Cantor ditch an intelligent, down-to-earth woman—not to mention the mother of his children—for someone like Nina, who had all the depth of a pie plate? Why hadn’t he simply gone out and bought a Porsche or a vintage Stratocaster or gotten a tattoo?

  Mind you, my uncle Phil—my late father’s youngest brother—bought a Miata convertible for his fiftieth birthday and had it all of three weeks before he drove it into the back of a dump truck on Major Mackenzie Boulevard. Three surgeries and nearly a dozen skin grafts later, he was back behind the wheel of a sedan, where he belonged.

  I was thinking about this as I walked up the path beside the house—how a man must feel when he realizes the lines on his face are only going to get deeper, that his muscle tone, sex drive and hairline are only going to diminish—when I heard footsteps coming up fast behind me. I turned just in time to duck the swipe of a garden spade swung at my head by Nina’s trainer. The sharp edge of the spade struck the wall of the house, sending bits of mortar flying.

  “Think you can push me around?” Perry snarled. His cheeks were still red from the slaps I’d dealt him. He hefted the spade and advanced on me. “Think you can fucking embarrass me?”

  “I already did, Perry.”

  “Fucking smartass. Let’s see how smart you talk without any teeth in your head.”

  He drew the spade back and swung it at my head like a right-handed batter. The backswing gave me time to move in on him, my head down, my right hand up to protect my face. The wooden shaft of the shovel hit the meaty part of my left arm, up along the bicep. On impact, I wrapped my right arm around his, trapping the spade, spun backwards and delivered a left elbow strike to his chin. As his head snapped back, I spun again and followed up with a knee to his gut, doubling him over. I slammed my elbow down onto his neck and he dropped to the ground.

  “I think I just embarrassed you again,” I said. He didn’t answer, apart from a moan and a dribble of spit from his lips. I pitched the spade into a bed of ground cover and walked to my car, rubbing my upper arm. I’d have a whale of a bruise there, but it beat getting my head stove in. That would have been embarrassing.

  I had picked up a Clarion on the way back to the office and was reading it while pressing an ice pack on my arm. The only tabloid in town, the Clarion generally had the best coverage of murders and other crimes. According to the story, Martin Glenn had not been killed in the alley where his body had been found. Lead investigator Katherine Hollinger was quoted as saying the killing had taken place “at a crime scene yet to be determined” and his body dumped in the alley post-mortem. Also quoted was the local city councillor, who said the real crime was that gay men were still targeted by homophobes.

  Only the last quote in the story was of real interest to me: Martin Glenn’s long-time companion, who told the Clarion he was in a “state of absolute shock that someone would harm Martin … I don’t know how I’m going to make it without him.”

  His name was Eric Fisk.

  I was looking up Fisk’s number when my phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID and debated whether to answer it or not. I lost the debate around the third ring.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” my brother yelled.

  Daniel is almost three years older than me and has the Pope beat six ways to Sunday when it comes to infallibility. Or so he thinks.

  I said, “I’m fine, thanks for asking. And you?”

  “I’m not kidding, Jonah. I passed along a simple job because I felt sorry for you and you turn it into a goddamn mess.”

  “Why would you feel sorry for me?”

  “Because you�
��re getting nowhere in life.”

  “According to you.”

  “And Mom.”

  “She said that to you?”

  “Never mind what she said. This isn’t about her.”

  “You brought her up.”

  “Will you just listen for once? Rob Cantor just called and he is furious—furious, Jonah. What the hell were you doing at his house?”

  “Talking to his wife.”

  “And beating the hell out of their personal trainer.”

  “I was defending myself, Daniel.”

  “Whatever. I can’t believe you’re screwing up the one case I sent you—”

  “Who says I’m screwing it up?”

  “Rob does.”

  “I’m not working for Rob.”

  “Rob, Marilyn, it’s the same thing.”

  “Not since he dumped her.”

  “Look, I referred Marilyn to you because I felt sorry for her.”

  “I thought you felt sorry for me.”

  “Cut it out! Her daughter killed herself and she needed some kind of closure. That’s it.”

  “She didn’t kill herself, Daniel.”

  “What!”

  “Maya Cantor did not kill herself.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me.”

  “Her parents say she did. The police say she did. The goddamn coroner says she did.”

  “I don’t care what anyone says. She did not jump off her balcony.”

  “This is so typical of you, Jonah. You take something straightforward and twist it around until it’s totally out of whack. No wonder your boss fired you.”

  “He didn’t fire me.”

  “Well, I am.”

  “You are what?”

  “Firing you. You’re done with this.”

  “You can’t fire me, Daniel. I’m working for Marilyn Cantor.”

  “On my recommendation, which I greatly regret.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She hired us. She wrote us the cheque.”

  “Tear it up.”

  “Piss off, Daniel.”

  “What did you say?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Jonah, I am warning you. Call Marilyn and tell her you are done.”

  “Or what? You going to call Mom and tell on me?”

  He sighed loudly into my ear. “You are such a baby sometimes. You have no idea how the real world works.”

  “But you do.”

  “Of course I do.”

  It occurred to me then that there might be another reason behind Daniel’s call. “Are you involved in the Birkshire Harbourview project?” I asked.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You are, aren’t you?”

  “My clients are none of your business.”

  “Yeah? What if Maya died because she knew something about the building site that she wasn’t supposed to know?”

  “That is totally irresponsible of you to say. Unless you have concrete evidence—”

  “But what if she did, Daniel?”

  “What the hell are you implying? That Rob Cantor would kill his own daughter to protect his investment?”

  “It’s a big investment.”

  “Only someone without children could come up with something like that. You’re losing it, little brother. You are completely and totally losing your mind.”

  “So maybe he didn’t do it,” I conceded. “It doesn’t mean that someone else didn’t.”

  “Like who?” he scoffed.

  “When I find out, you’ll be the first to know.” I hung up before he could say anything more.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Wow,” Jenn said, looking at the bruise on my arm.

  “You live with a nurse and ‘wow’ is the best you can do?”

  “She’s a nurse practitioner, boss, and I’m pretty sure ‘wow’ would be her reaction too. I trust this Perry looks worse than you do.”

  “Much.”

  “Good. You want a painkiller?”

  “I’d rather hear something new about Martin Glenn.”

  “All right,” she said, flipping her notebook open. “I spoke to a guy named Ian Kinross at the Ministry of the Environment. He worked with Glenn for years, until Glenn left to start his consulting business. He says Glenn was as straight an arrow as you could find. Ran everything by the book. He said, and I quote, ‘If Martin told us a site was clean, that meant it was clean as a whistle.’ He’d never had a Record of Site Condition revoked.”

  “Did Kinross audit the report on the Harbourview site? They’re supposed to do that before approval to build is granted.”

  “Supposed to being the operative words. With the number of new buildings going up, they’re totally swamped.”

  “Do we know if Glenn himself did the tests at Harbourview, or could it have been an employee?”

  “There are no employees. EcoSys is a one-man show.”

  “What? How is that possible?”

  “Glenn subcontracted the work. Tests were done by an independent lab. If soil had to be dug out and treated, he hired a firm that specializes in that. Same with building underground barriers. He was basically a consultant for hire. His biggest advantage was being able to squire his clients through the bureaucracy.”

  “Well, something was bugging him about the project,” I said.

  “Kinross didn’t know about it.”

  “I know someone who might.”

  “Who?”

  I pointed to the last paragraph of the Clarion story. “His long-time companion.”

  The apartment Martin Glenn had shared with Eric Fisk was on the top floor of a pink limestone Victorian townhouse in Cabbagetown, an old east-end working-class neighbourhood that had been revitalized in the eighties. The rooms had been opened up to let in more light; drywall torn away to expose brick walls. The floors were wide oak panels, sanded down and polished until they gleamed. Colourful framed photos of exquisitely prepared food hung on the walls, each illuminated with baby spotlights. There were cut flowers in vases everywhere: gladioli, snapdragons, birds of paradise and others I couldn’t name.

  Fisk was about five-foot-five and weighed little more than a hundred pounds. His head was shaved and his slight body wrapped in a heavy grey wool sweater. His jeans were cinched at the waist so they wouldn’t slide down his hips, held by a belt that had had extra holes punched in it.

  The front room had an electric fireplace whose false coals glowed behind an ornate metal grille. We sat in white upholstered chairs draped with cloths that looked Mexican or Central American, striped with the brightest shades of colour in the spectrum.

  Fisk wiped his red-rimmed eyes and asked if we had any more news about Martin.

  “What have the police told you so far?” Jenn asked.

  “Just that he was beaten, and that it happened somewhere else. The woman who interviewed me, she was very nice, but the man with her … he suggested Martin had been out cruising. Cruising, like it was nineteen-fucking-eighty or something.”

  “McDonough,” I said to Jenn.

  “I got the feeling he thought Martin … that he deserved what he got,” Fisk said. “Who could even think that? Being beaten to death … It’s the worst way to die I can think of. Someone hitting you and hitting you. And until you go unconscious, you’d be thinking, If they just stop now. If this is the last blow. Or this one.” Tears ran down his face and he wiped them with a tissue and then coughed into it: a dry racking cough that shook his body.

  “Excuse me,” he said, when he could catch his breath again.

  “Eric,” I asked. “How much do you know about Martin’s business?”

  “Only how hard he worked.”

  “Did he ever talk about the man he was working for?”

  “Mr. Cantor?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know he was very excited about landing the contract. Working with Mr. Cantor—and a celebrity like Simon Birk—we were both kind of thrilled about that.”

&nb
sp; “Did he stay thrilled?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did it seem like the relationship had soured at all of late?”

  Fisk thought about it for a moment. “Martin did seem tense lately. He didn’t talk about work much. And I didn’t ask. Engineering wasn’t my thing, to be honest. I’m a chef,” he said, waving his hand in the direction of the photos on the wall. “Or was, I should say. I can’t really work anymore. I haven’t for over two years. Once I started to become symptomatic … People I worked with were nice to me and all, very sympathetic, but the bottom line was they didn’t want someone HIV-positive working in the kitchen. Even doing beauty shots for magazines, food no one was ever going to eat. It’s not like I blame them. I probably wouldn’t have wanted me there either. But it was very hard going from two incomes to one. And now without Martin—my God, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ll be just like him, waiting for the next blow to land.”

  I looked at Jenn then back at the man seated across from us, huddled in his sweater.

  “How long since you were diagnosed?” I asked.

  “A little over six years. But it’s only been for the last two years or so that my health has really started to decline.”

  “How bad?” Jenn asked.

  “Pneumonia, thrush, uncontrollable diarrhea, you name it. Once your CD4 count gets below two hundred, you’re a sucker for every opportunistic infection out there. I was taking anti-retroviral therapy, which helped a little, but it was a cocktail of drugs, three of them, all of which kicked the shit out of me. The side effects were so bad, sometimes, that death seemed the least worst option. But then Martin …”

  “What?” I asked.

  “They’ve just come out with a new experimental drug in New York. What’s called a highly active anti-retroviral treatment—only one pill a day, and a lot fewer side effects—but it hasn’t been approved in Ontario yet. Fucking Health Ministry. The Hell Ministry, I call it. So we were arranging to bring it in on the sly through friends in New York. But the cost, my God! Over three thousand dollars a month. I didn’t know how Martin was going to manage it but he promised he would.”

  “Eric, did Martin keep any papers here?”