Grinder (5 page)

The motel alarm clock woke me before the sun and told me my eyes had been closed for four hours. The sleep felt longer; it felt like the kind of sleep you wake from to find the day half over. I showered and changed my clothes. I dug lightweight olive pants with deep pockets and a grey T-shirt from my bag. I also pulled out a thin blue shirt to go over my T-shirt. The shirt was not necessary in the early September heat, but it buttoned down the front and hung loose, making it perfect for concealing a stolen gun. I left the keys on the night table and was on the road before the water I had splashed on my face dried in my hair.

The road through Quebec was straight for hundreds of kilometres. I drove beside Johnny's powered-down cell phone thinking about home. PEI had always been the island. The rental house was just that, a house. Neither could take the place of where I had grown up invisible to everyone.

Hours after I left the motel, I found myself fighting my way through Montreal traffic. The barrage of cars felt like a scene from
Star Wars
— the one where the kid makes a run at the death star through a sky full of spaceships and laser beams. Vehicles came at me from all angles, most a high-speed blur. I was grateful when a break in the tension came in the form of a small traffic jam. As I sat in the still car, watching six construction workers watch two others work, I decided to power up the phone. It chimed to life and showed it still had half of the battery left. I dialled the number Paolo left me and was left speechless when he himself answered. Any other time I dealt with him, I had to work my way through layers of intermediaries before I could even leave a message.

“You around tomorrow?” I asked, looking at the time on the dashboard clock in the early afternoon sunlight.

“I got some things to do, but I can move them around.”

“You want to see me then I name the time and the place.”

“And the time is tomorrow. So where is the place,
figlio?”

I hung up the phone without answering and powered it down. I thought back to all of the dinner-table conversations I had with my uncle. He taught me to read between the lines of books, to use the language to decode what was underneath. It wasn't long before I could do it with people. Using what they said and sometimes what they didn't to decipher what was going on under the surface. Paolo answered the phone himself and he was willing to meet whenever I wanted; he was even willing to adjust his schedule to accommodate me. This was unlike any interaction we ever had before. Paolo was the top of the food chain; he had people answering his calls so he didn't have to get his hands dirty dealing with the mundane. His people understood what he wanted and showed their capability, and worthiness of advancement, by handling the small day-to-day matters. No one was managing me. I got through on what sounded like a personal cell phone — something I never knew Paolo had. The more telling part of the call was his willingness to meet me. Out of principle, Paolo never accommodated anyone. He loved to think of himself as the king of the jungle; he saw himself elevated above all others. He would never obey someone else's schedule; it didn't fit with the personality of a methodical sociopathic kingpin. If Paolo was out to kill me, he never would have changed his methods; he would have seen that as beneath him. He wouldn't try to fool me in order to kill me; he would have kept things as they were and sent men to make it happen, more men after that if necessary. Paolo was into something deep, something big enough to change him, something he needed to see me about. He needed to influence a situation without being directly involved. Using someone who crossed him and left the city two years ago would do just that.

By four p.m., I was entering the outskirts of Toronto. I avoided the 407 highway and its camera tolls even though the road was newer and empty. I was leaving nothing to chance coming home. I was in the city by 5:30 and at a Mediterranean restaurant on Upper James Street by quarter to six. I chose to stop on the Hamilton mountain because most of the action in the city took place downtown away from the bright lights of chain stores and their younger clientele. The restaurant had a sign up that read “New Management.” I figured it must have once been a lousy dive and someone must have still believed it could make a comeback. I could tell that the owner and I were the only ones who thought so when I walked through the smoke-grey glass doors into the vacant dining room.

The restaurant smelled wonderful, and I wondered what gruesome hidden secrets caused the management turnover. I took a seat in front of the dark-tinted glass so that I could see outside without being observed from the parking lot. I ordered gyros and ate them with water. The owner was pleasant and chatty, but both qualities faded as I ate in silence. The place stayed empty for the twenty minutes I ate; there were no other staff — just the owner and me. He was a short Arab man with a stubbly shaved head whose body shook from time to time with uncontrollable spasms. With each episode, he seemed to grit his teeth in an attempt to will himself to regain stillness. He was washing a plate behind the counter when I yelled out to him.

“Slow night?”

“No sir, it's off to a very good start.”

I figured I was the beginning of a dinner rush in his mind. “How many do you get for dinner?”

There was a spasm then an answer. “Very many, sir.”

It was clear the owner was an optimistic, glass-is-half-full sort of guy. “How many people are working with you tonight?” Optimistic owner or not, on his budget he had to be a realist.

He paused and looked away from me then down at the plate he was washing. His answer was sad, “Just me, sir.”

I didn't feel bad for cracking his optimism; what he told me was good. “What's your name, pal?”

“I am Yousif, sir.”

“Yousif, I think I'm going to get someone else to come down and sample some of your wonderful gyros,” I said as I powered up Johnny's phone.

Yousif's optimism seemed to return; he spasmed then smiled. “Very good, sir,” he said.

“Meet me on the mountain in twenty minutes.”

“You said tomorrow.”

“And you said your schedule was busy. You want to see me, get up to the Mandarin on Upper James. Wait outside the doors with your phone on. I'll call you when I get there.”

Paolo started to reply, but it was no use. I closed the phone and powered it down. I looked out the grey windows at the Mandarin restaurant twenty-five metres across the parking lot. It was a Chinese buffet juggernaut that filled up nightly and probably managed to have a chokehold on Yousif's business. The old owner probably took his lumps from the buffet place and sold the failing business to a naïve person who thought there were many people out there who would choose straight Mediterranean cuisine over a buffet that covered each continent. Yousif was wrong, and he probably had many nights alone in his money pit to mull over his mistake. From where I sat in the empty dining room, I could watch Paolo arrive and decide whether or not I actually wanted to meet him. I ordered a lentil soup and another water, and watched the crowds of hungry families pass me by on their way to the Mandarin.

It took longer than twenty minutes for Paolo to show up; it was more like thirty. He walked briskly up to the entrance and stood there scanning the parking lot and the inside of the restaurant through the glass. He wore black leather loafers — the kind that had tassels instead of laces. His pleated grey slacks hung at the appropriate length over the shoes, and his black golf shirt was tucked into his pants. From my vantage point I couldn't see a little Polo emblem, but I bet it was there. He wore no hat, allowing me to see that it was him from any part of the parking lot. His hair was a little bit thinner and a bit more grey. The only real difference was his posture; his shoulders were up as though tension had wound them tight. As he turned to scan the crowds of people entering and waiting inside, his whole body moved rather than just his head. Something was wrong with the old man. Something was pulling every muscle and tendon tight from the inside out.

I powered up the phone as I finished my last mouthful of soup. I ordered a plate of gyros for Paolo, sending Yousif out of the dining room to the kitchen. The phone chirped its ring in my ear, and I watched Paolo grope at his pockets through the shaded window.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Walk down along the side of the Mandarin. Turn the corner and open the gate. Inside there's a dumpster. Walk in and close the door behind you.”

“You want me to meet you in a dumpster?”

“Not in, Paolo, beside. Leave the phone on while you walk.”

“You're pushing it,
figlio
. I have my limits, and you are on the edge.”

“Keep walking,” I said as I watched Paolo walk away from the restaurant. I listened to him grumble on the phone as his body disappeared. Soon I heard the creak of a wooden door behind Paolo's complaining. I waited.

“You motherfucker. Where are you, you shit? You think this is funny? You —”

“Shut up and stand there. I'm watching you right now. I want to know who else is too.”

“I came alone. Don't you get it? I'm alone. I just want to talk to you.”

“Johnny didn't just want to talk,” I said between sips from the glass of water on the table. That gave Paolo pause. “I told that kid exactly what I wanted him to do. I had no idea he would be so . . . overzealous.”

“You send shit help and look where it gets you.”

“I told you —”

“Shut up and wait there. If someone like Johnny couldn't follow your instructions there are probably others who won't too.”

“That is the last time you talk to me with that disrespect. I will walk out of here and make it so you beg to see me. I'll carve an invitation into the ass of that bartender's wife. You got that? Now where the fuck are you?”

I had pushed it with Paolo, and it had shown me nothing. He didn't give up any more information. All I did was piss him off. “Give me a minute. Once I'm sure you're clean I'll pick you up.”

“Once you know I'm clean?”

“It's dumpster humour, Paolo.”

“You motherfucker —”

I put the phone down and watched the lot while Paolo swore. He had been out of sight for two minutes, and no one had followed after him. No one would give him that much rope if they were tailing him. They would want to know what Paolo Donati was doing beside a dumpster.

I picked the phone up again. Paolo was no longer yelling. I could only hear his heavy seething breaths. “Walk back out front and go into the Mediterranean restaurant on your right.”

“You said you were picking me up. I'm not jumping through any more hoops. If you're not there, I will find a place I know you'll run to.”

I didn't answer him because through the window I saw him walk back into view still yelling into his phone. I closed Johnny's phone and watched Paolo's eyes open wider in disbelief. He stopped walking and stared at the phone then at the restaurant. I waved to him from behind the glass. He glowered at me — the type of glare that had gotten other people killed. Paolo marched through the doors and sat down in front of me with his back to the glass.

“You got some nerve making me stand next to —” He was interrupted by a plate of gyros being placed in front of him. “What the fuck is this?” he asked in a tone that seemed to force a tremor through Yousif's body.

“G-g-gyros sir. Your dining companion ordered them for you, sir.”

“It's cool, Yousif. He just gets grumpy when he's hungry. Don't ya, Dad?”

Paolo grumbled a response and forced a smile at our waiter. Yousif winked at me, his optimism returned. “You won't be hungry for long, sir. Enjoy.”

We both watched him walk to the kitchen. It was the brisk walk of a busy man. I turned back to Paolo, who was busy himself staring at his plate.

“Try it, it's good.”

Paolo sniffed the steamy food and pushed the plate away. He stared at me, and I stared back. Neither of our eyes moved, but under the table my right hand tightened around Johnny's gun in my waistband. Paolo spoke before I decided to shoot him.

“You look like shit. You know that? You smell too.”

I felt my face; my beard was long and my hair was scraggly. When I pulled my hand away I saw the dirt caked under the fingernails of my tanned hand. I didn't look like I belonged in the city, but just a day ago I had fit right in on the island. I didn't say a word — I just stared into Paolo's dark, mirthless eyes.

“You know why you never went anywhere with me?”

“I'm not a people person.”

“You're not family, Wilson. Family is what's important. What we do is with family, for family. You, you were good, better than most, but you weren't family, so where could it lead?”

“Did it ever occur to you that it led me where I wanted it too? It lead me to a paycheque.”

“Bullshit,
figlio
. You like to fancy yourself the invisible man, and it's true you were hard to find, but you always turned up. You worked for me because you needed something, something concrete. You needed a family and we . . . we wouldn't let you in. So what did you do? You sold us out for a bartender.”

I hated sitting across from a man who was trying to read me as though I were an animal on display. “That was always your problem, Paolo. You thought you were so fucking high and mighty that everyone wanted in with you. But you're half right, I did work for you because you were exactly what I needed. You and your organization had plenty of money, work, and paranoia. I worked for you for so long
because
I could never get close. Your whole set-up was perfect because I was an outsider to everyone and everything. I survived longer than most of your men and I made a hell of a lot more money because I played it my way, not yours or your family's. I never sold you out for the bartender because there was nothing to sell. I was never with you.”

Paolo laughed at me then looked away. “Maybe I'm wrong,
figlio
. Maybe I can't see people like I thought, but that doesn't change what's important.”

“And that's family,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, still looking away. “Family.”

“What do you want, Paolo?”

He sighed and then he told me.