Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle (56 page)

Fries With That

Dan got into his car and watched as Pfeiffer's taillights disappeared around a corner, leaving two red streaks on the wet pavement. He checked the time. He'd been gone more than an hour and a half.

He sat and waited another five minutes then drove slowly around the block, circling the warehouse twice till he was sure he was alone. He turned into an abandoned garage and shut off the engine. From there, he had a full view of the street. Not a single car went by. The rain had stopped. A silvery moon hung in the sky, obscured by a wisp of cloud that made it glow with a jazzy veil.

Finally, convinced no one was watching, he stepped out of the car and walked back to the warehouse where he'd met Germ earlier. The camera whirred overhead, focusing on his face.

A speakerphone crackled. “Of all the gin joints in all the world, and he walks into mine.”

Dan smiled. “All clear. Sorry it took a while.”

“So we caught the rat in our little trap?”

“We did. It was the one I thought it would be.”

“Cool. What did you tell him?”

“Exactly as we agreed. The police think this is your little hideout. No doubt they'll be back to talk shop soon.”

Germ laughed.

“Well, let them. I won't be there. I'll lose this camera after tonight. We'll have to devise another method of contact in future.”

There was a pause and the speaker crackled again.

“Do you think they'll be angry with you?” Germ asked.

“No doubt, once they realize I fooled them. I'll deal with that when the time comes.”

“Very good. I'll be in touch.”

“Until we meet again, Agent Germ.”

“
Auf wiedersehen
, dude.”

The line went dead. The camera's movements stopped. Dan was left standing alone in the middle of a desolate neighbourhood.

The excitement had left him hungry. He headed over to the burger place on Lansdowne. No one was following. He went in and ordered a killer meal — double cheeseburger, fries with gravy — but forwent the shake. He was nearing forty, after all. One day it would all catch up. Until then, he still had a thirty-three-inch waist and there were a few more indulgences to be had.

Making his way to a free booth, he skirted the rowdy teenagers looking for a place to belong. Most of them were underage. It was an unlicensed establishment. The ones who were alone chatted on cellphones; the ones with friends chatted with each other between cellphone conversations. Dan found them all annoying, but not unbearable. He'd had worse company in his day.

It seemed like a night to get comfy with the phone, but first he set his tray on the table and popped a gravy-covered fry in his mouth. They were the wide-cut fries, chunky and fresh, never frozen. He could practically hear the advertising jingle. His taste buds were geared for ecstasy. He quickly unwrapped his burger and bit into it, devouring a quarter of it in a single bite. The lettuce stayed firm under the bun, rather than spilling out the sides the way it did at fast food places. This was a good burger. He sighed and chewed contentedly. Life had its gratifying little moments.

He licked his fingers clean then pulled out his cell. It was his own this time, not Ked's. He didn't care who intercepted this particular call. In fact, he'd be glad if the news got around about what had happened to him that evening.

“Ed Burch.”

“Hi, Ed. Dan Sharp here.”

He could imagine his ex-boss's inquisitive mind digging for the reason for his call.
Whenever someone calls it's always for a reason, even if they just say “hi.” Remember that, Daniel
, Ed used to say. A stater of the obvious Ed was, but sometimes the obvious was precisely what got overlooked.

“Hey, Daniel. Good to hear from you. A little late for a social call, isn't it?”

“Apologies. This is something I'd rather not leave till tomorrow.”

“Not a problem. Hit me.”

“I'm calling about your friends at the police.”

“Oh?”

“They're getting a bit invasive for my liking.”

There was an uncomfortable silence on the other end. Dan managed to get two more fries into his mouth before Ed spoke.

“How so?”

“They've been tapping my phone line.”

Dan heard a breath drawn between clenched teeth.

“I'm sorry …”

“I got picked up tonight by one of the officers on the Bélanger case. It was an unofficial visit in an unmarked car as I was leaving one of my sources.”

“Good God! Any trouble?”

“Depends how you define ‘trouble.'”

He reached for the ketchup bottle. The fries were just begging to be turned into poutine. He aimed and squirted. The ketchup cut a bright red swath across his tray, barely missing his sleeve. Sometimes he suspected he just bought the hamburgers as an excuse to eat the fries. All right, admit it — he
did
buy the burgers as an excuse to eat the fries.

“I was parked legally, but when I came out my car had been towed. Next thing I knew, Constable Pfeiffer pulled up beside me and invited me for a ride. All very Mafia-like, except the ride didn't end with me being outfitted in a pair of cement shoes.”

Ed groaned. “Danny, I'm sorry. If I'd known they were going to do this, I'd never have brought up your name.”

Dan believed him. His former boss wouldn't have set him up.

“Actually,” Ed continued, “I'm not surprised to hear it was Pfeiffer. I don't think anyone else would have the nerve to do something like that.”

“Not Danes?”

“Danes is mostly a bubble-head in my books. The chief likes him because he's stupid and loyal. I doubt he could be that devious unless prompted.”

“So you think that this was likely unsanctioned by the force?”

“Hard to say what's unsanctioned and what's unofficially sanctioned but just overlooked, if you catch my meaning. This case is number one on the chief's agenda since the
Star
article appeared. That made him squirm a bit, as I'm sure you can imagine.”

“No doubt,” Dan said. “And I wouldn't be surprised if Pfeiffer had something to do with that piece of journalism.”

“Really?”

“He was hinting at it, though he didn't come out and say anything directly.”

Ed paused. “The word on the street is that Pfeiffer gets his best results from being a rogue cop. Even though he's a junior, nobody wants to stop him from doing his thing as long as he gets results. That way, it's not on the chief's head and no one complains publicly.”

“Where does he get his balls? Actually, never mind. I met his mother tonight, so I think I know.”

Ed guffawed. “You what?”

“In the middle of our little talk, his cellphone rang and he had to go deliver cigarettes to Cabbagetown.”

“Unbelievable.”

“I'll say.”

There was a pause.

“Be careful with him, Dan.”

“You know me, Ed. I'm naturally wary.”

Ed was silent again. “No, I mean be especially careful. He's got a reputation for being a troublemaker. He's a hard-nose. He was involved in a brutality lawsuit, but it didn't stick. Rumour has it his last promotion came about because of some evidence he got from a suspect that no one else could crack. Officially, the chief didn't know about it. Unofficially, who's to say? Pfeiffer was left alone with the guy for fifteen minutes and came out of the room with what he needed to know. My guess is he's not above resorting to threats or even violence to get what he wants.”

Dan thought of Pfeiffer's prying questions about his family. “I'm not surprised,” he said.

“For what it's worth, I can let it slip that I heard about this from you and see if he gets his knuckles rapped.”

Dan thought this over. “Leave it for now. Thanks for the warning. I'll talk to you soon though.”

“Be good.”

Dan closed his phone and hunkered down on his fries.

Early Retirement

There were no further breaks in the case. The furor seemed to have died down a little. The Ex ended and school started, marking an official end to summer. There were no further garage fires reported. The city seemed unnaturally calm for once.

It was another week before Dan heard from Germ. It took a moment before his subconscious registered the ring and another before he could tell which of his cellphones it came from. The room was as dark as the inside of a coffin. His fingers groped till they found the new one. Dan rolled out of bed, clutching the phone and trying not to wake Trevor.

Germ's calls often came in the middle of the night, so it was no surprise to know the intrepid mole was still up and doing his thing at 6:00 a.m.

“Late night?” Dan asked with a yawn, expecting to hear something about an all-night rave.

“No, dude.” He surprised Dan by saying he was just getting up and about to have breakfast.

“Hang on. I'm just checking the line … okay, we're good.” He heard a laugh. “This cheap technology, man, I love how it outsmarts the fucking System every time.”

“Gotta love those corner store cellphones.”

“Fucking Taiwan, eh?” Germ was practically gloating. “Hey, got something I need you to see.”

“What is it?”

“Think we caught something on tape. Come over. The real place this time. Just make sure you're not followed.”

He hung up before Dan could ask what they'd caught.

He made it across town in less than half an hour. If he'd had Pfeiffer's flashers he might have shaved off a bit of time, but he still made the lights all the way from Rosedale Valley and along Dupont to Casa Loma, that misplaced bit of Scottish royalty on the hill. Sunday morning traffic wasn't formidable. Dan's car fairly flew along. He kept one eye on the mirror, but nothing seemed to be following him. By the time he passed the old slaughterhouse, he was sure no one was on his tail.

Germ buzzed him in. He jumped on the elevator and braced himself as it bumped and jerked its way down.

Below, the space was in its usual state of chaos-in-transition. Someone — probably Velvet Blue — had added to the interior mural. A fiery-eyed Amazon with a bow and arrow stared down wrathfully from the middle of the ceiling like some biblical angel hell bent on retribution. A Sistine ceiling for the new revolution. Dan was pretty sure he wouldn't want to wake up lying on the floor beneath it stoned and hung over. Still, it was impressive.

Germ directed him to a chair. Dan sat across from the console and watched as he exercised his technological genius.

“We covered every major derelict building in the neighbourhood — well, except the ones where we got friends living. They can be our eyes for us. Tell us if anybody new comes on the scene. I emailed copies of the kid's photo to all of them.”

He passed over a printed copy of the photograph. Dan picked it up, studied it silently, then tucked it into his shirt pocket.

“Hope you don't mind?” Germ asked.

“No, good idea.”

“Anyway, I was just fast-forwarding through the tapes at one of the sites we put up last week when I found this …”

He stopped and pointed to something blurry. Dan could barely make out a human shape in a darkened interior.

“It was Velvet Blue's idea, actually. I was just going to cover the main entrances.” He shrugged. “People gotta come and go, right? Anyway, I hadn't thought of using a camera in the stairwell. Makes sense, though. You can get into a building a million ways, but of course once you're inside you're going to use the stairs when you need to go up and down.”

Dan looked over Germ's shoulder at the monitor.

“It was a stroke of genius,” Germ enthused.

“What are we looking at?”

“It's an old retirement home. But it's not exactly empty.” Germ tapped in a command and the image came into focus: a boy's shoulders and the back of his cap-covered head. He wore the same blazer and flannel trousers he'd had on in Germ's earlier shots.

“Is this the same kid you saw at the slaughterhouse?” Dan asked.

“That's him.”

He tapped the console again. The same figure appeared in profile. Dan tried to superimpose the image he had in his mind of Gaetan Bélanger over this face. There were similarities, but nothing conclusive.

“What do you think?” Germ asked.

“Could be,” Dan said. “I'm not convinced. The hair looks different, but with the cap on it's hard to say.”

“Whether it's your guy or not, I can't say. But I can tell you he didn't come through the yard and up to the front door, like you'd expect. He arrived from the far side, over a fence, and got in some other way I can't figure out. I think maybe he climbed through a second-floor window.” He turned to Dan. “Why? Why would you do that?”

Dan shrugged.

Germ held up a professorial finger:
Listen and learn, my friend
.

“Because he was expecting cameras. Or at least avoiding any obvious placement of them. CCTV is easy to avoid apart from the counters in 7-Elevens and whatnot so long as you stay away from main entrances. No one expects you to come in through the bathroom window, to borrow a phrase.”

Germ turned back to the console. He hit another key and the figure began to dance in jerky little movements up the stairs.

“So here we have him going up to the second floor and into a room at the far end. What does he do there? Can't say. If it's not him, then maybe that's where this Gaetan guy is holed up.”

Dan looked at the camera feed. A thought occurred to him. “Unless that is Gaetan Bélanger in disguise. Did we get a shot of anyone else?”

“No, really sorry, man.” Germ looked chagrined. “The camera's just out of range for where he's heading.”

After all the work it had taken Dan to convince Germ to help, now he was reacting with genuine enthusiasm as much as disappointment at the challenges they faced in getting results.

“Don't worry, this is good work,” Dan told him.

“Oh, by the way!” Germ looked excited again. “I found something else. Let me show you. I've been researching your boy.”

He turned back to the console, fiddling with the keys, his fingers flying faster than Dan could think. He snapped the
ENTER
key and a website swirled onscreen. It was Gaetan Bélanger's blog, recently updated. Dan wondered where he kept his computer. How could a teenager on the run have access to the Internet? He wouldn't get that in an abandoned building unless he had a wireless account.

“WiFi hotspots,” Germ explained. “Lotta people use other people's accounts when they're not password protected. I do it all the time. That way, no one can tell where it comes from, because you don't pay any bills. No addresses, no names.”

Dan focused on the blog entry. French dominated the text, except for the occasional curse word. English seemed to be the universal language when it came to swearing.

“My French isn't so good,” Dan lamented.

“Mine either. Hey, Velvet Blue?” he called out.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Could you come here a minute?”

A diminutive figure stole into the room. She nodded at Dan then trained her eyes on the screen.

Germ smiled at her. “Could we ask you to avail yourself of your translating skills?”

“Sure, baby.”

Germ looked over at Dan. “Vietnam, eh? The French were there once upon a time.”

Velvet Blue frowned at the screen. “Something about a rocker,” she said at last.

Dan's ears were on fire. She looked over at him.

“You know that old-style music from the sixties?”

“Yes.” He nodded. She could call it what she wanted. He wasn't about to give her a lecture on music history. His eyes went down the screen, searching for a name. “There.” He pointed. “What does it say about Jags Rohmer?”

She looked at his finger on the screen then back at Dan.

“You need to move your hand.”

“Sorry.”

They waited while she read in silence, a bibliophile sphinx. She looked up at him. “The guy says he knows things about Jags Rohmer. Something about how he corrupts people.”

“In what way?”

She read down. “It says he corrupts people's minds.”

She turned and gave Dan an appraising look. “What do they want from him? Aren't rockers supposed to corrupt people's minds?”

“That's exactly what Jags would say,” Dan told her. “Thanks for this and for the footage of the other place. It's great work.”

Germ nodded vigorously. “We're going to go back to the retirement home tonight and string up two more cameras. We'll get it right.”

“Actually,” Dan said, “I think there's a more direct way to deal with this. This is really all I need. Well, except for the street address.”

Germ looked crestfallen. “But we can get it right, man. We can cover this place from end to end. You'll be amazed by what we can do.”

Dan squinted at the figure on the first monitor, frozen mid-step. “Cameras can tell us only so much. There's no way of knowing for sure whether this is Gaetan Bélanger or not. I need to go there in person and have a look around.”

Germ looked incredulous. “In person? I thought you said this guy's a killer.”

Dan nodded. “Best way is the direct way.”

Germ sighed. “Yeah, I guess maybe you're right.” He began writing an address on a piece of paper. “This baby's not far from here.”

Dan looked back at the monitor. “I think we need a code word for this kid, in case we have anyone listening in on our conversations in future.”

Germ looked at the image onscreen.

“How about Little Boy Blue?” he said. “On account of that blue blazer he's always wearing.”

“Good one.”

The place looked dismal. Dan always wondered how buildings came to be abandoned. The obvious cause was through the death of the owner, but why was no one motivated enough to sell a piece of property after the owner had died? Of course, there could be any number of reasons — keeping the land in the family, waiting for the right time. Still, it gave him a haunted feeling to see an abandoned house with no explanation why it had been left empty.

The retirement home was a deserted, L-shaped configuration. In the parking lot, the pavement curled and wore away in pieces; weeds grew through it. The welcome sign was grey and weathered, strips of plastic backing falling off. The curtains had been drawn on most of the windows. A few were pulled back here and there as though invisible inhabitants were peeking out without wishing to be seen.

Dan parked a block away. He slipped into the yard during a lull in traffic. No use getting reported as suspicious by some overzealous commuter. One Crime Busters tip on a cellphone and he'd have the police on his back in minutes.

Someone had done him a favour by forcing the front door. A remedial padlock had met a similar fate. Surprisingly, the home's glass was intact. In Dan's youth, windows would have been the first things to go. Sudbury boys were amazingly adept at destruction. A grade school friend, Rex, had taught him first how to aim and throw and then how to break windows. The two went hand in hand. Windows on empty houses were for breaking — that was the rule. Construction sites were for getting into and undoing all the hard work the builders had done by day. A freshly plastered wall just invited a can of pop to be spilled over it, causing the surface to bubble and slide off. Mayhem and madness. Looking back, Dan thought with shame of his own renovation project, hoping Toronto kids had better things to do with their time.

His nostrils caught the tang of urine. Every abandoned building smelled of it. Inside, things were in a desperate state. What the owners hadn't stripped before leaving had been attacked with vigour by trespassers once the home closed. The day room looked like a club for the insane and disreputable. The walls had been tagged and sprayed by a number of hands in a Gallery of the Anonymous. Mauves and golds predominated. Faded Doric columns floated to the ceiling,
while acanthus leaves littered the bases. A legion of naked gladiators tussled in erotic frenzy, dragging the local population of nymphs and cherubs into the X-rated arena. A dominatrix sporting black knickers and a see-through brassiere towered on foot-high stilettos. Madness gleamed in her eyes; lightning bolts blazed from her nipples. An erotic nightmare giving you the come on. It was as though Ilsa the SS officer had swallowed the Roman coliseum and vomited all over the walls.

Paint struggled to free itself from the walls in every room. A bathtub had been ripped from its moorings and set sail in the middle of a hallway. The place was a proto-punk funhouse, an Iggy Pop nightmare. Dan followed the long dark corridor to a door at the far end. Inside, a half-drained swimming pool was filled with detritus, its plastic covering peeled back and pushed under. Chairs and side tables lay drowning in the swampy water. Here, the smell of urine was supplanted by a kingdom of mould.

Emerging from the room, Dan heard voices coming down the stairs. He froze, wondering if he was about to encounter Gaetan Bélanger. He tucked into a darkened alcove. Two youngish looking men were descending:

1st man: “I got fifteen bucks last night just from begging on the corner.”

2nd man: “Really?”

1st man: “Yeah, man. I got to the LCBO by nine thirty, drank till eleven thirty, and passed out by twelve.”

2nd man: “Good night?”

1st man: “Oh, yeah!”

They moved out of sight. Dan heard them leaving by the front door. He kept his ears primed for additional voices. There was no other sound apart from his footsteps as he went from room to room. On the second floor, the rows of doorways beckoned him into the abandoned quarters of former-residents. All open except for one. Whoever was using the place as a hotel probably lived here.

Dan felt absurd knocking on a door in an empty building. He was tempted to claim he was a police officer but doubted whether anyone inside would care. He called out. Nothing stirred within.