Ogrodnik

by Gary Coffin

  Elliot moved over to check on Rivka and examine her wounds. He heard the sirens of approaching police and hoped that it was Yves Renault. With two dead bodies and a wounded PI littering the hangar there’d be questions that he didn’t want to deal with at the moment. He pulled out his phone and dialed 911 to report a gunfight and the need for an ambulance.

  “How you holding up?” he asked as he inspected the damage to her leg. She just nodded, in too much pain to respond properly.

  “This may hurt, but I’ve got to stop the blood flow on this calf injury,” he said looking at her. She nodded in consent and looked away.

  Rivka’s back arched, and she groaned audibly when the makeshift tourniquet tightened on her calf. Satisfied that the flow of blood had been slowed sufficiently, Elliot left her to direct the arriving police.

  Elliot waved his arms for the incoming squad cars and silently wondered where Banik was. The first cruiser stopped a dozen feet in front of him, and the passenger side officer stepped out of the car and pulled his gun staying behind the open door.

  “Sur le sol, maintenant!” he ordered.

  Elliot complied without putting up an argument. There was a process that officers had to follow during violent episodes such as this. They would control the situation first and ask questions later.

  “Ça va. Je le connais. Stand down. I know this man,” came Renault’s voice from the second cruiser. The first officer looked over to his partner and, with a nodded affirmation, holstered his gun.

  “Elliot Forsman. You can get up. What’s the situation?” Renault asked as he moved toward him.

  “You’ll find two bodies in the hangar. They’re Banik’s soldiers. They attacked my partner and me, and they lost. My partner Rivka is in there also. She’s been wounded. I’ve already called 911 for an ambulance.”

  “Yes, we heard the 911 call. Where is Banik?”

  “I don’t know. He could be in the building, or he may not have arrived yet.”

  “Gaston, can you see to the comfort of the lady in the hangar? The ambulance should be here shortly,” Renault directed his partner.

  “Francois and Pierre, come with me to search the building. Consider the fugitive extremely dangerous. I’ve already called for backup. Elliot, you stay here till we’ve cleared the building.”

  Elliot could hear multiple sirens in the distance getting closer. The ambulance and at least two more cruisers, he thought. He waited by the cruisers until two of the officers came out. “There’s nobody in there,” Renaud said and then, on cue, received a call on his walkie-talkie.

  “Dans l'avion!” he called to the other officer. They ran around to the back of the hangar. Elliot followed.

  By the time he turned the corner, Renault and two other officers had their guns drawn and were yelling at the plane.

  “This is the Montreal Police. Come out of the plane with your hands where we can see them.”

  A moment later, the door opened from the top down revealing a set of stairs on the inside of the door. Alex Banik stood at the top of the open doorway with his hands in the air. He walked down the stairs with little apparent concern and allowed himself to be cuffed by an officer. Yves Renault proceeded to read him his rights. Banik's eyes fixed on Elliot before moving on to the officers.

  “Please, please, officers. This is all a mistake. You won’t need your guns. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Bullshit, Banik,” said Elliot. “I know everything. The people you murdered, the pharmaceuticals that you lied about and the police you bribed.”

  “I guess you have evidence of those claims. Do you? I can’t be sure what my chief of security has done, but I assure you I will not be implicated. After all, am I my brother’s keeper?”

  Elliot looked over at the commotion behind him and saw the emergency team rushing into the hanger to attend to Rivka and additional officers gathering behind them.

  “I’ve already made a call to my law firm. I’m quite sure I’ll be out of jail and relaxing at home by noon. Whatever it is you claim I’ve done will have to be proven in a court of law, and my pack of lawyers is very good at what they do. You may even find yourselves on the receiving end of some expensive counter suits,” he said speaking to anyone within hearing range.

  Elliot watched the smugness of the man as he allowed himself to be guided to the waiting cruiser. He’s probably right, he thought.

  “Banik, I know all about the failed memory tests on the first generation mice. Health Canada is shutting you down, and the FDA will follow. Biovonix is finished,” Elliot lied as Banik was being led to the cruiser.

  For the first time, Banik lost his composure. He turned to face Elliot.

  “Don’t interfere in matters you cannot comprehend,” he screamed. “Sacrifices need to be made for the greater good. This is bigger than you or me.”

  “He’s got a gun!” yelled an officer from somewhere in the back, immediately followed by the flash and crack of a discharged handgun close to Banik.

  Elliot saw Banik drop to the ground, and the nearby officers scatter and pull their guns. At the back of the turmoil stood Duval, gun already on the ground and hands rising in the air.

  “Cuff that man!” yelled Renault.

  “Medic! Medic!” yelled one of the officers calling to the emergency crew that was in the hangar attending to Rivka.

  Elliot watched as Banik writhed on the ground with a serious chest wound. He was having difficulty breathing and, based on the facial contortions, was in extreme pain.

  “Aide moi,” the officer shouted at Elliot, indicating for him to put pressure on the hemorrhaging wound.

  Elliot stared blankly at the officer and then at Banik, who glanced up in an appeal for aid.

  Elliot said nothing as he turned away and walked to Rivka.

  “Anne.”

  “Elliot, so nice of you to call.”

  “Can you come up for a minute? There’s something we need to talk about.”

  “How mysterious. Gimme a sec.”

  He heard Anne’s footsteps coming up the stairs and the lock slide open. With an economy of feeling, Elliot greeted her when she stepped into the room.

  “Anne, there’s someone in here I’d like you to meet,” as the man in the adjacent room stepped forward into her view.

  “Anne, Jory Jablanski. Mr. Jablanski, Anne Simmons. But I think you know each other already.”

  Anne’s face blanched at the sight of Jablanski.

  “Anne? Or should I say, Nikki? So good to see you again,” said Jablanski with a sneer of contempt. Jory Jablanski was nasty looking man. His dyed black hair was greased straight back exposing a widow’s peak on his forehead that pointed down to a misshapen nose that twisted to left. His arms and shoulders were well muscled, and his gut hung freely over a large Jack Daniels belt buckle. The scar on the corner of his mouth made Elliot think that this was a man who fought hard to get what he had and fought harder to keep it.

  Anne reeled back as if punched in the gut. Her eyes darted from Jablanski to Elliot and back again, trying unsuccessfully to process the situation.

  “Get away from me! How could you? You don’t know what you’re doing,“ she finally blurted. Elliot didn’t know if she was talking to him or Jablanski.

  Jablanski stepped forward and grabbed Anne by the hair in the back of her head in a swift, practiced motion. He gripped her face by the jaw with his other hand and twisted her face so he could examine her.

  “You’ve changed, my dear. Now stop struggling, so I don’t have to mess up your pretty new smile.”

  In a flash of anger, Elliot grabbed Jablanski’s wrist, their eyes locking on each other. They matched stares for a moment before he let the moment pass, and he backed away from a possible confrontation. “Mr. Jablanski. I think I’ve fulfilled my end of the bargain,“ he finally said.

  “You have, Mr. Forsman,“ and with that, he handed Elliot a thick envelope. “Cash, as per our agreement.”

  “I do
n’t want to be a poor host, but whatever business you two have to discuss needs to be discussed elsewhere,” he said as he opened the front door.

  Jablanski, with hair in one hand and her arm in the other, pushed Anne toward and through the open front door.

  “Where’s my daughter?“ he hissed into her ear.

  “Get away from me. Elliot, please. He will use her!” Anne shrilled somewhere between a scream and a sob trying to appeal to Elliot as she was forced out the door.

  Elliot closed the door and stood by the couch at the front window. He heard Anne’s hostilities and cries. He didn’t enjoy what he just did, and he wouldn’t enjoy what he was about to do next, but it had to be done. The sound of a car door closing drifted through the open window, and then he heard Rayce’s raspy voice. “Hey, asshole, leave my friend alone.”

  Elliot couldn’t make out the response as it was blown away on the breeze, but he understood the intent of the terse expletive. The sound of feet shuffling on pavement was accompanied by another vague curse and followed quickly by the sharp cracking sound of fist striking flesh and bone. A momentary silence hung in the wind, and then came a blistering string of East European expressions whose exact translation was unknown, but the meaning was quite clear. These were answered swiftly by another smacking sound and then by a yelp and the rattle of something metallic skidding across a road. A knife, thought Elliot. He looked out the window when he heard Anne’s footsteps running up the walkway toward the front door. He saw Rayce and Jablanski on the street. Jablanski was down on one knee, face bent over and a stream of syrupy blood flowing from his face. His right arm hung uselessly by his side at an unnatural angle, and a switchblade lay on the street a dozen steps away. Rayce held Jablanski by the back of the neck with one hand, and the other clamped on his limp shoulder and was speaking into Jablanski’s ear. Jablanski’s head nodded up and down as if in prayer.

  The door burst open, and Anne came running in, fighting back tears and wrapped her arms around Elliot.

  “I don’t understand. Why? You have no idea what that man is capable of. What’s happening here, Elliot!“ she cried.

  Elliot said nothing. Anne slowly pulled away and looked at him, in part to see what he had to say and in part because he was not returning her embrace.

  “Elliot?”

  “I know who you are. I know everything, Anne,” he said, not trying to hide the contempt in his voice.

  “I wanted to tell you about him but couldn’t. I’ve been trying to forget about that part of my life,. He is a monster. He will take my daughter and use her, just like he uses all women.”

  “I’m not concerned with Jablanski. I’m concerned about you and your step-brother, Alex Banik. I’m concerned because you were planted in this house to spy on my father and you were complicit in his murder.”

  “I didn’t kill your father! He was a beautiful man. All I did was look to see who was sending him mail. That was all.”

  “Banik hired you to spy. My guess is that he paid for the surgical procedures you needed to hide from Jablanski in return for information on my father. You knew what they would do if he posed a threat and stood by and didn’t lift a finger. You are as guilty as the men who bludgeoned him to death up on that mountain.” He spat out the words like sour milk.

  Anne buried her face in her hands.

  “If I thought I could get you on a conviction in court I’d do it. As is, I want you out of this house. I’m going away for a couple of weeks, and when I get back, you will not be here.”

  “Where will I go, Elliot? I have nothing!” she shrieked.

  Elliot handed Anne the Jablanski envelope. “I don’t care where you go. Take this money, and start a new life for yourself and your daughter. Jablanski won’t bother you again. It’s more than you deserve.

  “I’m going to visit a friend in the hospital. Now, get out of my house.”

  On his way to the hospital, Elliot took a detour over to Queen Mary Avenue and stopped at an Internet café; the type that rented computer time. The explosion of mobile devices and smartphones was forcing most of the old Internet cafes out of business, but there were still a few that he knew about and used.

  The steam from his latte rose up in front of the screen as he logged into one of his accounts. He couldn’t afford to have this account traced back to him and thus never logged into it from one of his own devices.

  As he hoped, there was a message back from Santiago. He knew that wasn’t her real name but also knew why she was being careful, for the same reasons he was. He had never met Santiago, but he assumed she was a female. Back when he started lurking in chat rooms for gang information, she was the first he decided to recruit. His original intent was not to recruit informants; he merely wanted to get a pulse on gang activity. After reading some of Santiago’s seething commentary on all that was wrong with gang life, he had the brainstorm to recruit her. Elliot sensed the venom in her words, and the way she condemned one gang-related death in particular convinced him that she had lost someone close to her. Her knowledge of West Island gangs also told him she was on the periphery of gang life; someone close enough to be in-the-know but far enough away that she wasn’t directly involved. He lured her into a private chat room one evening and made his pitch; she would feed Elliot information about gangs, and in return, he would do something about it. It worked out well for both parties. In retrospect, Elliot thought he probably saved her life. The way she was raging on the local gangs would have surely caught up with her before long. She didn’t ask for money, but Elliot set up a drop anyway; she didn’t protest.

  He read the terse summary:

  “Pepita, the 53ers are responsible for the Estoban girl. The shooter was Simon Feragas. He’s just a boy, sixteen years old. As part of his initiation, they planned a drive-by on a known BSJ hang out. The girl was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  He committed the information to memory. Responded with “OK” and deleted the message. His reply told Santiago that he received the message and that payment was on its way. He walked from the café to a public mailbox half a block down the street. The envelope he pulled from inside his jacket would have no trace evidence on it. He only handled it, and the money inside, with latex gloves, and he used tap water to seal the envelope. He had to be careful. He’d never know if a recruit on the other end was compromised but he had to assume at some point one of them would be. If the gangs ever caught him, he’d be a dead man; if the authorities ever caught him, it would likely end up the same way. Gang snitches don’t last long in prison.

  Elliot walked down the hospital hallway toward Rivka’s room thinking about the days past when he saw a familiar face walking out of her room.

  “Angela! How’s our friend doing this morning?”

  “She seems to be in good spirits. The doctors tell her that her surgery was a success, and she should be going home in a few days.”

  “Excellent. Do you think she’s up to a visit from me?”

  “She’s already bored and itching to get out of here, so the answer is yes. I think she’d love a visit from her boss.”

  “In that case, I’ll barge in and fill her with shop talk. It’s good to see you, Ang,” he said as he moved past her toward the room.

  “Knock knock,” Elliot announced as he walked into her room.

  “Elliot! Come on in.”

  “How are you?”

  “Not bad considering I now have more metal in my leg than the Terminator. It’ll be hell going through airport security from now on.“

  “You’re looking pretty chipper for someone who’s been kidnapped and shot.”

  “I’m just thankful it’s all over,” said Rivka as the smile on her face seemed to fade for a moment.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d stop in and see how my best employee is feeling.”

  “I’m your only employee. At least you could have brought me a poutine. You know what I had for breakfa
st this morning?”

  “No, what?”

  “I don’t know either, but it was served in a bowl, it was pasty, and it was grey. And it tasted worse than it looked.”

  “It was probably healthy, though.”

  “I asked the orderly if they were trying to get my solder content up, so the steel in my leg would heal faster. “

  “Ha-ha. You must be feeling better because you’re starting to whine again.”

  “Actually I’m feeling 100% better today; of course, it could be the morphine drip.”

  “Riv, I know there are gaps in the story for you. Are you up to hearing the unabridged version?”

  “Well, now that you mention it. You explained a lot to me in the truck, but there are still some points that don’t line up for me.”

  “Fire when ready. That’s why I’m here.”

  “You told me about Biovonix and that they were trying to cover up some failed Isotin tests, but did you ever learn what they were trying to cover up?”

  “Yes. Jennifer emailed me the last piece of the puzzle when we were driving over to the airport to meet Banik. I will never be able to prove everything because the people involved are no longer with us, but I have a theory that everything fits nicely into.”

  “Speak, oh wise one.”

  “It all started eight years ago with a failed pre-clinical test while the university was executing the in-vivo tests for Isotin. An intern noticed that some mice started failing memory tests, so she filed a failed test report and verbally informed the clinical trials manager. Two days after talking to the manager, the intern, Carrie Leblanc, died in a boating accident. That same night, the entire test facility at McGill was burned to the ground. Testing was then moved to another ARO so testing could continue, which it did.