Buffalo Jump (38 page)

“Is Vito dead too?” I asked.

He nodded. “We took care of him just before we came to see you. Made it look like a robbery at a club he owns. Dad’s going to be awfully upset when he hears about it, the old vegetable. I might have to water him extra to help him get over the shock.”

I stood shivering in the rain, looking at this cold little bastard in his trim suit and polished shoes. The sound of the train grew louder. Then behind Stefano I saw Dante Ryan steal across the road, near the embankment that led up to the Parkway. What was he doing? Bailing on me?

The train blew a long loud whistle as it approached the level crossing. I heard bells ringing: the barrier lowering across Pottery Road. Ryan was behind the abandoned shopping cart, pushing it out of the weeds onto the road.

“Was Christine Staples in on it from the beginning?”

“Not quite,” Stefano said. “She actually did her job at first, tried to stop us from bringing goods across. But she turned out to be a most impressive woman. She saw things the way I saw them. She understood what the future could hold.”

Ryan was closing the gap between him and Stefano as the train drew closer, the sound of it getting louder, the light on Stefano’s face growing brighter. When Ryan was ten or twelve feet behind Stefano, he broke into a run. Whatever noise the cart wheels made was drowned out by the sounds of the approaching train, the river and the Parkway. Stefano never heard it coming. The cart slammed into his back at full speed. The gun flew out of his hand. As his slight body lurched forward toward me, I stepped forward and kicked him hard in the chest. He staggered backward. I kicked him again and he sailed
off the road and landed on his back in the river with a splash and a groan.

Ryan leaned on the cart. I asked if he was okay and he nodded.

“And the Clip?”

“Dead. Drowned. Busted his head with a rock and held him under.”

“Saving my life is becoming a habit with you,” I said. “Don’t feel any need to kick it.”

“We’re not done,” Ryan said. “We can’t leave this one alive.”

I swallowed hard. Killing someone in a fight was one thing. Doing it while he lay helpless was another.

Ryan picked up Stefano’s gun.

“Just make it quick,” I said.

“I’m not going to shoot him,” Ryan said.

“No?”

“No,” he said, extending the gun-butt to me. “You are.”

F
or the second time that day, I found myself questioning Ryan’s sanity. The words
fucking
and
crazy
featured prominently in my remarks.

“I can’t shoot an unarmed man,” I hissed.

“But I can?”

“It’s what you do.”

“Nice, Geller. Real nice.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“The fuck you didn’t.”

“Come on.”

“I should have let Staples shoot you. Or Stefano. Or Marco. How many times do I have to save your ass before you wake the fuck up?”

“But why?” I asked. “Why do I have to?”

“Because sooner or later, I’m going to have to face the old man, Vinnie Nickels. I’m going to have to look him in the eye and tell him I didn’t do his boys, and it’d be easier if it was true. But the real reason is if I do it, you’ll have witnessed three killings. Staples, Ricky and Stefano. You’ll have that on me the rest of my life. I like you, Jonah, and I trust you, much as I do anyone. But how do I know what you’d say if the cops bring you in? How do I know you won’t flip? You finish Stefano, at
least we have something on each other.”

“I would never say a word against you.”

“You say it now and I believe you. Or at least I believe that you believe it. But it’s different when the cops start sweating you, laying charges on you.”

“So if I do it, I’m a co-conspirator. If I don’t, I’m a witness. Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t leave witnesses.”

“Don’t go there, Jonah. Please.”

I looked down toward the river. I thought I could make out the dark shape of Ricky Messina’s body in the water, partially obscured by fallen cedar boughs. Stefano Di Pietra was lying on the stepping stones that led from one side to the other. He wasn’t moving. Maybe he was already dead and talk of killing him could stop. Then I heard him call out faintly for help. There would be no easy way out.

I looked at Dante Ryan. His left eye was horribly swollen. Blood was drying on his cheek. He had to tilt up his chin to look at me.

“I’m making my break,” he said. “I’m going home to my wife and my son. I’m going to clean myself up and hope I don’t lose my eye. I’m going to play with my boy, lie down with my wife and sleep for a week. Or until Vinnie Nickels calls me.”

I said nothing.

Ryan laid the gun on the ground. “You do whatever you want with Stefano. Kill him or don’t. If his life means that much to you, let him live. As long as you understand we’ll both be dead in twenty-four hours.”

Ryan started walking down the road toward the gate.

I picked up the gun and made my way down the river-bank, hoping Stefano would expire on his own or slip into an irreversible coma.

He was lying spread-eagled in the river, water lapping at
his sides. There were large granite rocks under him, one with a sharp edge, as if it had cleaved off a larger boulder. The edge was right under Stefano’s neck. The tungsten lights brought out the pink of the granite. The water around him had a pink tinge too.

“I can’t move,” he said. “I can’t feel anything.”

I waded into the river and sat down on a rock beside him. The water level was halfway up his face, covering his ears. His eyes were glassy, unfocused. His hands bobbed in the water, palms up. Blood seeped out of a large gash in the back of his head, mixing in the water. Another pollutant fouling the Don.

“You should know Staples is dead.”

He moved his eyes to where I was. Strained to bring me into focus. “No …”

“Ryan killed her. She was about to shoot me and he shot first. Once in the chest, once in the throat.”

He groaned softly.

“I want you to know exactly how many people died because of you.”

“I can’t … feel my …”

“Can you feel this?” I tapped his chest with the barrel of his gun.

“Please …”

“Please what? Kill you or get you out of here?”

“Out?”

“You killed Kenneth Page.”

“Ricky did—”

“You ordered it done, yes?”

His eyes moved to the gun against his chest and then back to mine. “Yes.”

“And François Paradis.”

“Yes.”

“And Amy Farber.”

“Who?”

“Barry’s wife. Staples killed her before she took a shot at me.”

“Not Barry?”

“No.”

“She was supposed to get Barry too.”

I stood up with the gun in my hand and looked down at Stefano. His injuries mirrored his worst qualities: a cold man shivering in cold river water; a twisted man whose limbs were broken and askew; an unfeeling man whose extremities were numb.

In all my time in the Israeli army, I rarely saw my enemies’ faces. Stones would come flying out of a crowd. Masked men would open fire. Rockets would rain down from behind walls and orchards. Now I was looking an enemy in the face. The man responsible for so many deaths. Who would have killed me had he had the chance. Who’d still have me killed if I let him live.

The Book of Jonah says even your most intractable enemies are worthy of salvation. But what happens when you need saving more than they do?

I pointed the gun at Stefano Di Pietra. It felt much heavier than its one and three-quarter pounds. He closed his eyes.

I had to do it. The justice system couldn’t help me. Even if there was enough evidence to convict Stefano, he could order my death from behind bars in a minute. He could kill us all. He’d be getting three meals a day while my body broke down in the ground somewhere, and my mother and Cara and Carlo Ryan and the Silvers’ extended family mourned their losses.

I held the gun trained at his chest for what seemed like hours. Then my arm got tired and I lowered the gun. I used Stefano’s shirttail to wipe it clean of prints, then dropped it in the water beside Stefano.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t thank me yet.”

I reached down into the water. The cold felt good on my right wrist. I took hold of the rock that was supporting Stefano’s neck. Pulled. Pulled harder. Pulled till I eased it out from under him. His neck and head sank down under the water. Bubbles streamed from his nose and mouth. The rest of his body was still. His eyes stayed open the whole time.

After a while the bubbles stopped. I waded back through the water and found my shirt where I had left it in the brush. I washed as much mud as I could from my hands and face, then put on my shirt and climbed up the riverbank and went to find Dante Ryan.

“
O
n my count of three,” I said. “One … two …”

On three Jenn Raudsepp and I lifted the desk a few inches off the ground and scuttled sideways toward the one empty wall. We looked like a pair of crabs, if crabs could move an old teacher’s desk the size of a Nimitz-class carrier.

We set it down. “That’s it,” I panted. “That’s the last one.” I flexed my wrist, which still ached from time to time, even though the cast had been off for two weeks.

We were in our new office space on Broadview south of Queen Street, on the third floor of a four-floor loft building. We had an anteroom with space for a receptionist—if ever business grew enough to warrant one—and an inner sanctum with room for three desks and a slew of filing cabinets, all bought at an auction of surplus equipment held by the Toronto District School Board.

It was the last week of August: sunny but dry, pleasant temperatures and a light breeze keeping us cool. A far cry from the heat wave that had ruled the end of June.

We were partners in a new agency, Jenn and I. My money from the sale of the house on Bain Avenue had finally come through and it had been more than enough to rent the space, buy the equipment we needed—the desks, cabinets, computers,
cameras—and subscribe to half a dozen top databases and online search services. I had also bought a new car from Joe Avila. A two-year-old Accord, a nice anonymous ride the colour of wet cement.

When Jenn offered to come with me, I was thrilled. When she told me she was willing to invest $20,000 her parents had given her against the eventual sale of their farm, I was all over her like a Venus flytrap.

I didn’t make the move because Clint fired me. He didn’t, though he’d had every right to. I never told him the full story behind my disappearance during the investigation into Franny’s murder, and he was still willing to give me another chance. I was touched by that but resigned all the same. I had learned something about myself that summer: if I was going to make it as an investigator, I had to be free to follow my instincts wherever they took me. I didn’t think I could do that at Beacon. Most of all, I didn’t want to have to lie to Clint anymore, or sneak around or steal time from one case to work another. I came to realize I valued him more as a friend and mentor than as a boss.

So a Jew and a lesbian open a detective agency … it sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. I hoped it wouldn’t turn out that way.

Dante Ryan didn’t lose his eye. The cornea was scratched but he was told it would heal with time and rest. He had to wear an eye patch for a while, which must have made him look more dangerous than ever. I don’t know because I haven’t seen him since the night Ricky and Stefano died. I keep saying they died, when they were killed, because I can’t quite frame Stefano’s death that way. Not yet.

I thought at first I’d hate Ryan. Forever. Then he called one night. He was back home living with Cara. We talked for a long time and I kept waiting for the hate to come. It just didn’t. He told me he’d worked things out with Vinnie Nickels. Dante
Ryan was finally out of the game. I told him I was glad for him. He told me he was glad about my new agency. We wished each other well. We almost became good friends on our wild ride, but I doubt we’ll see each other again.

Katherine Hollinger told me the killings of Kenneth Page and François Paradis had been attributed to the late Ricky Messina, whose gun matched slugs from their bodies. The killings of Ricky Messina, the Di Pietra brothers, Tommy “TV” Vetere and Phil “Philly Fits” Bernardi were chalked up to a Mob power struggle between “factions unknown.” The irony was that the question of succession to Vinnie’s throne became largely irrelevant, and not just because all the princes of his realm were dead. “Truth is,” Hollinger said, “the Calabrian mob is on its way down. The other gangs smell blood and they’re moving in on all fronts, and there isn’t much Vinnie can do right now to stop them.” She had even heard rumours that TFTOC—the Task Force on Traditional Organized Crime—might be disbanded, its resources folded into other intel squads that were tracking bikers, Asians, Russians, Jamaicans, Tamils and whatever other gangs were proliferating in and around Toronto.

I want to see Hollinger. Buy her a coffee and look into her eyes and see what’s there now that the case is over. Maybe when things have died down a little more. When everything’s farther behind us.

The killing of Amy Farber was attributed to Christine Staples, whose gun matched the slugs in Amy’s chest. No arrests have been made to date in Staples’s death. Given how dirty she had turned out to be, her passing was not widely mourned.

Ed Johnston, my neighbour, is still recovering from the beating he took. He gets headaches a lot. He needs dental work. He can’t use his left hand much, because all the fingers on it were stomped. He’s living with his daughter in Mississauga for now. I hope he comes back to our building. I owe him a lot but
there’s nothing I can do for him where he is. His daughter would probably call the police if I strayed over her suburban border.

I tried to avoid seeing my mother until my wrist healed and the scratches on my hands, face and neck where I had been whipped by branches had disappeared. No such luck. The week after the case ended, she invited me again for Shabbas dinner (inviting being a euphemism for insisting). Daniel was there with Marcy and their boys, Jason and Jeffrey. I told Mom I broke my wrist rollerblading and got the scratches when I’d tumbled off the path into the bushes. My standing with my nephews fell somewhat—I think the word
spaz
escaped their young lips—but Mom seemed to buy it.