Savage Rage (27 page)

“I mean . . . I was there when you arrested him.”

That caught Jack's attention. “You're the one with the green hair?” She had bolted from the apartment before they could stop her. But they had been a little busy at the time. Why would she be calling?

“That's me.”

“And what can I do for you?” They had Dwyer dead on a slew of weapons and drugs charges and a statement from this woman saying she had been there to buy crack would be the final knot in the noose around his neck.

“I have information for you,” she whispered and Jack could almost picture her checking over her shoulder as she spoke into the phone.

“That's great.” Jack tucked the phone between ear and shoulder and pulled out his memo book. “What can you tell me?”

“No.” She was quiet for a moment. “Not on the phone. I want to meet you somewhere.”

Jack's enthusiasm dwindled.
You mean you want money.
“Okay, where do you want to meet? Where are you now?”

Again a brief pause. “I'm at the Sherbourne subway. Do you know where that is?”

“I think I can find it,” he replied sarcastically, but she didn't react to his tone.

“Good, that's good.” Not an overly bright one. But then what crackhead was? “Meet me at . . .”

Jack thought he heard her talking to someone else. If she didn't get back on the phone soon, he was going to hang up.

“Are you still there?” she asked, sounding worried.

“Yup, waiting with bated breath.”

“What? Oh, I see. Um, meet me at the Glen exit. By the foot bridge? No one will see me talking to you there. And don't bring anyone else.”

This was starting to sound like grade-A crap or a really bad cop movie. “And why should I come alone?”

“Because . . . because you helped me once,” she said quickly.

“I did?” Jack asked.

“Yeah. I used to work at Street City. You came once when someone threw bleach on someone.”

That's why the green hair had seemed familiar. She had been the complainant at the first call he had gone to with Sy.
Guess she ain't working there anymore.

“Okay, I'll meet you. Say, ten minutes?”

“Yeah, that's good. Come alone.” She hung up.

Jack sat looking at the buzzing receiver for a few moments, debating whether to go or not. Chances were it was a pile of crap; no crackhead offered anything for free. He hung up the phone just at Manny breezed into the report room looking absolutely ecstatic. He didn't care if there was documentation down the road; they had finally won a battle in the war with Greene.

Manny plunked himself down at a computer and fired up the outdated machine. Despite the stack of Crown briefs for accident court he had in front of him, he was whistling happily.

“You going to be a while with those?” Jack asked, nodding at the paperwork.

“About an hour. That okay?”

“Yeah, no problem. I've got something to do anyway.” Meeting up with a money-begging crackhead was better than sitting around waiting while Manny typed. Besides, he could do a coffee run on the way back. He gave his partner a condensed version of the phone conversation.

“Sure you don't want me to tag along? Sounds kind of hinky.”

“I'll be careful, Dad. And it won't take long; as soon as she asks for money, I'm outta there.”

“Cool, dude. Have fun.”

“Buckets of it, I'm sure.”

In the car, Jack signed on as a solo unit, letting the dispatcher know he would be picking up his escort later.

“10-4, 5103, escort at the station for paperwork.”

“And could you mark me going to the Sherbourne subway station for a quick follow-up?”

“10-4, Sherbourne station.”

Jack could hear her keyboard clacking as she entered the information.

“Any idea how long you'll be?”

“Can't see it taking too long, dispatch.”

“Sounds good.”
There was a pause, then,
“Nice undies, by the way, 5103.”

Ten minutes later Jack pulled onto Howard Street, the little westbound-only road that marked St. Jamestown's northern border. He passed the high-rises to his left without really seeing them. Was it just two weeks ago he and Brett had come down here in answer to Manny's foot pursuit?

So much can happen in such a short time.
He scratched the scar that was his memento from 53 Division. In two weeks, he had almost lost an eye, changed divisions, been promoted, so to speak, to platoon leader, seen a guy with his head crushed and held towels to a woman's chest after she gave herself a double mastectomy. And paraded in front of his staff sergeant in his underwear.

And let's not forget catching my wife trying to get pregnant behind my back, shall we?

Jack thought about that for a minute.
Would it be so bad if Karen got pregnant?
They wanted kids, were hoping and planning for kids. So what if it happened earlier than they expected? Would it really be that bad?

“Fucking right it would be,” he told himself.

A child was one thing. If Karen was pregnant now, it wouldn't be a baby, it would be a lever. And Karen and her mom would use it to pry him out of 51, out of a job he loved, away from his friends and, eventually, away from policing altogether.

“You don't do that to someone you love,” he muttered.

He and Karen had hardly spoken since he'd found the pregnancy test Sunday morning. The atmosphere at home was tense, to say the least, but what was there to say? She wanted a family and a husband who wasn't a cop. He couldn't think of doing anything else, anywhere else. He was a 51 copper to the core.

“Get your head in the game, Jack; you're here,” he admonished himself.

Glen Road was a little stump that jutted off the north side of Howard. It sloped gently down and was lined with old houses and a squat apartment building on the east side. It was a dead end for cars but not pedestrians: there was an entry to the Sherbourne subway station and a concrete tunnel passing under Bloor Street and leading to a pedestrian bridge that spanned Rosedale Valley. Residents of Rosedale had an almost direct connection to the subway system. Would the people living in the affluent neighbourhood ride public transit? Jack doubted it.

He eased the car to a stop at the end of the street and saw his green-haired would-be snitch step out of the tunnel. A cold wind swirled the air around her and made her huddle deeper into her leather coat. Jack zipped up his coat as he walked toward her. She watched him approach with frightened eyes.

What's she so spooked about? Dwyer's in jail and shouldn't get out this time.
Jack figured he knew exactly where this was headed.
I'm in no mood for a crackhead drama queen expecting to be paid for information.

“You called?” he asked, stopping in front of her.

She nodded, then glanced around, sharp nervous twitches. “I don't want to talk out here. People might see.”

Definitely a drama queen.
“Well,” Jack sighed, “why don't we head down there and you can tell me what you have.” He gestured to the pedestrian tunnel. He could see that the bridge was boarded up but between the mouth of the tunnel and the temporary barricade was a platform, something like an observation deck. They could stand there and have what Jack expected to be a very brief conversation.

“Really?” She seemed surprised by the suggestion but quickly agreed and led the way down the tunnel. “I'm Lisa.”

“When did you stop working at Street City?” he inquired, making conversation.

“What? Oh. Um, in the winter. They fired me for no reason.” She glanced over her shoulder.

Jack was sure she wanted to see if he believed her. He didn't. “That sucks,” he offered.

“Yeah, it does.” Lisa nodded, her head hunched between her shoulders. Jack saw only a patch of spiky green hair sitting on top of her coat. She looked like a Chia Pet.

They reached the deck and Jack squinted as he stepped into the light. Before his eyes could adjust, there was a flash of movement to his right and he was knocked off his feet. He crashed into a metal railing that outlined the deck; Jack clung to it to keep from going down.

There were two men in front of him. One of them — a crackhead by the look of his gaunt face, crooked nose and the way his army coat hung off his wasted body — was keeping his distance and massaging his wrist. Jack figured he was the one who had knocked him down. That one, cringing in the background like some hunchbacked sidekick, wasn't the problem. The problem was front and centre and in Jack's face.

Where the sidekick cringed, this man quivered with intensity. He had one muscular arm wrapped around Lisa's chest and the other held something small and dark against her throat. The hood of his sleeveless sweatshirt was up and the morning sun behind him cast his face in shadows.

“Easy, man. Let's not do anything hasty.” Jack cautiously rose to his feet, his left hand out beseechingly as his right slowly stole toward his gun.

“Uh-uh, copper. Hand away from the gun or I kill the bitch.” The man holding Lisa pressed his hand against her throat and she squealed as a thin trickle of blood slipped out.

Jack still couldn't see what was in his hand.

Not again. Not again!

Suddenly, it was Sy held hostage in front of him. Gone was the morning sun and the sprawling valley. He was back in that laneway, that damned laneway, and Sy's blood was fountaining through the air, vivid red across a sea of black.

No, no,
NO
!

“What's wrong with him?”

“I thought you said he was some kind of badass motherfucker. He looks like shit to me.”

Voices. Voices in the dark. And just as suddenly Jack was back in the light and it was Lisa, a crackhead named Lisa, who was in danger, not Sy. Sy was dead. Dead and gone. Lisa was not.

“Hey, copper. You fucking pig, wake up.”

Jack banished the memories, the guilt and focused on the man in front of him. Sy's ghost faded away once again.

“If you don't want this bitch bleeding out, you'd better do the fuck as I say.”

“Whatever you want, man. Let's just take it easy.” Jack was in deep shit and sinking fast. He'd walked right into a trap that was hidden from sight. He hadn't told the dispatcher exactly where he would be. If he called for help, the subway station would instantly be swarming with cops, but how long would it take them to find him?

“Easy, my ass.” The man in the hoodie whipped his head back and the hood fell free.

And Jack's gut sank. In shit? Fuck that, he was drowning in it. The man staring at him over Lisa's shoulder was Randall Kayne. What had Mason said about him?
Don't try to arrest him on your own. He's a badass and will hurt you.
The eyes beneath the Mohawk burned with an insane bloodlust and Jack remembered Mason saying Kayne might want to cement his reputation by carving up a cop.

I'm fucked.

“You're gonna follow me, pig. If you don't, she dies. If you try anything, she fucking dies. You get the fucking picture?”

“Loud and clear.”

Kayne snapped at his sidekick. “Move the fucking board. Now.”

The sidekick hurried to the barricade and shoved aside a loose board, opening the way onto the pedestrian bridge. He ducked through and out of sight.

Oh, no. Fuck, no.

“C'mon, piggy.” Kayne carefully backed up to the wood fencing.

Sunlight fell on his hand and Jack could see that Kayne held a piece of slate to Lisa's throat. Some might doubt the effectiveness of a stone blade, but there were people out there who had run into Kayne and would bear testimony to the stone's edge for the rest of their lives.

Kayne stepped backward through the gap in the barricade and pulled Lisa in after him.

Jack knew going onto the bridge was wrong, and every nerve in his body screamed it. If he had his gun out, he could have chanced a shot; Kayne was close enough and his whole head was exposed. But to draw, sight and fire before he slashed open Lisa's throat? Jack was good with the Glock but not that good. He had no choice. He had to play along and hope Kayne made a mistake. Either that or let a crackhead die.

Jack knew he couldn't do that; his hands were already stained with Sy's blood.

He stepped through the barricade.

Kayne walked backward along the bridge until they were over Rosedale Valley Road. Would a driver look up and see them? Unlikely. A section of the railing on the east side of the bridge was boarded up, hiding them from westbound drivers and the rising sun would be in the eyes of those driving the other way. Had Kayne planned it that way? Did it matter?

When Jack had got out of the patrol car, the wind had carried a chill with it. On the bridge, with nothing around them, the wind's icy teeth tore at him.

“Now, copper, it's just you and me.” Kayne flung Lisa away.

She slammed into the boards and screamed as they bent with her weight.

“Get lost, bitch,” Kayne snarled.

Lisa leapt to her feet. As she ran past Jack, she uttered a pitiful “I'm sorry” and fled from the bridge.

“Fuck me,” Jack whispered angrily. The whole fucking thing had been a set-up. If he hadn't been so fucking obsessed with the shit at home, he might have seen it coming. Anger boiled inside him.

“You gonna shoot me, copper?”

“I'm thinking about it,” Jack admitted, his hand resting on his Glock.

Kayne tucked his stone knife inside his belly pocket and spread his empty hands wide. “You gonna shoot an unarmed man?” He spat and the wind whipped his spit away. “Hey, Jesse,” he called over his shoulder, never taking his eyes off Jack. “I thought you said he was some fucking badass motherfucker. Toughest fucking guy on the streets.”