Buffalo jump

CHAPTER 21

Toronto: Wednesday, June 28

The pain in my side woke me before any bad dreams could. I was up before six, drinking coffee and waiting for a fresh round of Percocet to take effect. I checked the wound for signs of infection. None so far. Good to know Marco kept a clean blade. If my luck held, he’d scrub every bullet before he and his boys loaded their guns.

At six-thirty I opened my front door and looked up and down the hall. No werewolves, vampires or gunmen. I reminded myself to call a locksmith and get something sturdy installed, then took the stairs down to 16 and summoned an elevator from there.

The underground parking garage was cool and quiet at that hour. I walked softly toward the spot where my car was parked and waited a moment behind a bright yellow concrete pillar. Still quiet. I moved out to my car and looked at the hood. There were handprints on the dusty front end that showed the hood had been lifted and my heart started to pick up speed. Then I remembered Joe Avila had worked on it the other night; the prints were probably his. I unlocked the car and released the hood. I wasn’t sure what to look for. Stray wires? Sticks marked TNT? A round black bomb bearing the trusted Acme label? Nothing seemed out of place. I eased the hood closed, then knelt down and peered under the chassis. A sharp pain shot through my side and I drew breath through clenched teeth. I got up slowly and leaned on the driver’s door, trying to control the pain through measured breathing. Four in. Four out. Four in. Four out.

When the pain subsided I drove to a diner on the corner of Broadview and Danforth, where the breakfast special was three eggs, a ham steak (sorry, Ma), a whack of home fries, toast and all the coffee my kidneys could float. There weren’t many other customers: just a taxi driver whose cab was parked at a stand outside, and a Goth couple who looked like they were ending their night rather than beginning their day. I dawdled over a second cup of coffee, reading a Clarion the cab driver left behind. The Blue Jays had lost in Kansas City- Kansas City! — when one of their serial arsonists trotted in from the bullpen, blew a couple of sharp bubbles with his gum, then laid a fat pitch in over the plate that was last seen heading over the fountain in centre field.

After breakfast, I drove back to my building and parked on the street, where it would be harder for marauding mobsters to sabotage my car. I rode up to 17, climbed one flight of stairs and listened at the hall doorway. A quick peek through the window showed no one in the corridor. I slipped into the hall and knocked on Ed Johnston’s door. Ed was an early riser. His unit faced east and he often said he never missed a sunrise. But he didn’t answer the first knock or the second. My first thought was that he was still sleeping; the second that Marco had sent someone to get the film from Ed’s camera. I knocked louder. A moment later, I heard steps coming to the door and was relieved when Ed opened the door. He was dressed and had a mug of coffee in his hand.

“Jonah! You all right? Glad to see you up and around. You scared the hell out of me last night.”

“I’m fine.”

“You sure? That bastard cut you something awful.”

“It looked worse than it was. A few stitches is all.” I felt vulnerable standing out in the hallway, as if any moment the elevator doors would slide open and men with guns would barge out. “Can I come in?”

“Of course, of course. Get you a coffee?”

“One more can’t hurt.” If Percocet was going to constipate me, coffee might prove a valuable ally.

He handed me a mug and led me out to his balcony. The eastern view wasn’t as dramatic as mine: no valley, no downtown skyline, just miles and miles of houses and trees, punctuated by the odd high-rise. But the early sun bathed it all in a golden light, the promise of another day. Another chance to get things right.

“Who were those guys?” Ed asked.

“The less you know, Ed, the better. Trust me. You don’t want to get involved.”

“They don’t scare me.”

“They should. They scare the shit out of me.”

“Are you in trouble, Jonah?”

“No, just picking some up by association.”

“Anything I can do?”

“There is, Mr. Mayor.”

“Shoot.”

“Is there somewhere you can develop that film yourself? Where you’re the only one who sees it?”

“Sure. I belong to an Artscape co-op on King Street. I use a darkroom there in exchange for volunteering.”

“Okay. Develop it today and make one set of prints. But don’t show them to anyone. I mean anyone.”

“Got it.”

“When you’re done, put the negs and the prints in an envelope with this address on it.” I wrote the name and address of my brother’s law firm. “Mark it to his attention: urgent, personal and confidential. If anything happens to me, I want you to send it to him.”

“If anything happens-”

“It’s just a precaution. More than likely, I’ll come by your place for them tonight.”

“More than-Jesus, kid, what did you get yourself into?”

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you, Ed, and I’m not going to.”

“Who the hell is after you?”

I said, “Do this for me and you’ll be giving me all the help I need.”

If only that were true.

I checked under the hood of my car again, then crouched to check under the chassis, getting the same shooting pain in my side for my trouble. There didn’t seem to be a bomb and as it turned out, there didn’t have to be, because as soon as I headed south on Broadview toward the office, a dark green SUV fell into line behind me. Didn’t mean it was following me. Didn’t mean it wasn’t. I started making a series of turns no one with an actual destination would make. East, then north, then east again, then south, then west back to Broadview. The SUV followed.

I waited for a break in traffic and went north again, past the Broadview subway and streetcar terminus. Trying to lose the more powerful SUV on a straight road was a mug’s game, but the Camry would handle quick turns better. I stayed in the left lane as we approached Mortimer so he’d think I was taking Pottery Road down to the Bayview Extension. But as we approached the intersection I checked my side mirrors, saw no one coming up inside, then yanked the wheel to the right and gunned it east on Mortimer. The SUV made the turn too, though not as nimbly, and was half a block behind when I took the first left. I drove through East York as quickly as I dared, taking every turn I could, trying to put a full block between us. At Sammon Avenue, I rolled through the stop sign and turned right-getting a horn blast and extended middle finger from a woman in a LeSabre who had the right of way. With her between me and the SUV, I floored the Camry, imploring its six cylinders to give it their all. As I approached Pape, the traffic light turned yellow. Then red. I hit my horn and blew through the light, swerving to avoid a van starting through the intersection. Another horn, another finger; another day in the life of Toronto drivers.

When the LeSabre stopped behind me at the light, the SUV had to do the same. I took my first left, then another, doubling back west just as the SUV would be starting to roll east. I took another quick left the wrong way down a curving one-way street and shot down a long mutual drive that led to a garage at the rear of a house in the curve of the crescent. I turned off the engine and sat there breathing hard, my side throbbing from tension, from wrenching the steering wheel side to side. I stared straight ahead at the garage door. Whoever had painted it hadn’t used the right primer. Paint was coming away in curling strips like birchbark.

Then a shadow appeared at my window. Someone knocked on the glass and my gut clenched like a fist. I was belted in, trapped, and in pain. I pictured a pair of thugs standing outside with guns drawn, ready to fire as soon as I rolled my window down. But there was no bulk looming there. Another knock: the sharp rap of a knuckle rather than the pounding of a fist. I powered down the window. A thin sparrow of a woman stood there, wearing a broad-brimmed hat tied around her chin with a flowery kerchief. She wore the kind of wraparound sunglasses older people wear to keep out the glare. She was at least seventy. Okay, Geller, I thought, you can take her.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded. “This is private property, not some parking lot.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was-”

“You came the wrong way down a one-way street at high speed. There are children on this street, you know. Elderly people,” she said, clearly not counting herself among them. “The way you people drive, you treat the whole city like your personal racetrack. Killing drivers, pedestrians, bystanders, cyclists, anyone in your way.”

“I was being chased,” I said.

“By who? The police?”

“More of a road rage thing.”

“The way you drive, you probably deserved it.” She held up a gardening trowel in one thin hand. “Now get off my property before I strip your paint job down to the metal.”

I shifted into reverse. I wasn’t so sure I could take her after all.