The Ambitious City (27 page)

“Fuck you.”

“Last thing—get out your cellphones.”

Both bikers hesitated.

“Do it now.” Penniman pointed the weapon at the motorcycle’s gas tank.

“Okay, okay—fuck!” They took out their cellphones and held them out to him.

“I don’t want your phones, for Christ’s sake. Throw them into the bush.” He fired at the bike; the shot tore a hole in the black leather seat. Both men threw their phones as far as they could.

“I will personally skin you alive, you fuck,” the second biker said.

“Pathetic. Mount up, boys. Take the hog that’s still standing back to the pigpen.”

Slowly the men backed away from him, then climbed onto the
bike. As they rode off, the one on the back yelled, “We’ll come back for you, fucker!”

Penniman climbed into his truck, backed it off the Harley and pulled away, heading towards the Peace Bridge, and Canada.

“W
HAT DO YOU
think they’ll find?” Billie asked, closing the door behind him.

“Squat. My books—math mostly, some history, stuff on the Knights Templar. They’ll get my prints and probably my DNA, but that would only be a problem if I was trying to get away.”

“What do you think of the Muslim criminologist?”

“She took a chance walking along the forest there. Probably thinks that Glock on her hip will protect her.”

“It would, wouldn’t it?”

“If she had a chance to use it, but she won’t.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. The other guy is a bigwig cop—I’ve read about him. He holds the record for solving homicides, at least around here. It was cool how he kept scanning the forest—slowly, like a predator with a heat-seeking scope. We ducked below the edge just in time.”

“It was cool too, how he got inside.”

“Yeah, cops and crooks—they all use the same tools. But there was something else about him …”

“What?”

“When they were sitting on the rock, didn’t you notice?”

“Well, yeah, they were talkin’ and stuff.”

“But not the way a detective superintendent talks to a detective inspector. He’s her superior officer …”

“I didn’t notice anything.”

“Don’t you think they were very familiar with each other?”

“You mean, like he’s fuckin’ her?”

“I don’t know, but something’s up with them that isn’t cop work.”

“So, do we hit her first or the Indian with the Mercedes?”

“You know, the one thing that makes demographers like Braithwaite grind their teeth at night …” he said, looking at the photo of Narinder Dass on the wall.

“Old beady-eye?”

“BDI, yes. They can’t stand chance—the roll of the dice, the flip of the coin. They hate chance, even if it’s a one percent risk.”

“Why?”

“Just because it’s chance! He measures trends from facts and predicts facts from trends. If you flip a coin—especially when you mix that in with measured choices like Ghosh and Aploon—it royally fucks up the stats. BDI hates that. My guess is Braithwaite tipped them off to go to the house.”

“So should we ride out and do him?”

“No, forget that. I’m into colour. Braithwaite’s lame, but his shit is probably as white as he is. I say we flip a coin—heads we do the Muslim, tails we do the Indian.”

“How fuckin’ cool is that! I love it.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Glad you didn’t ride the Yamaha.”

“I’m many things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”

“She’s good-looking too …”

“This one? Yeah, I guess so, but that doesn’t interest me.”

“I know, sure, but I’d rather be doing beautiful women than fat, ugly ones.”

“For the aesthetics, yes, I agree. But strictly for the aesthetics.”

D
RIVING BACK TO
Division, Aziz sorted the mail she’d picked up from inside the door. It was a mixture of bills and letters from former employees and friends sent to William Junior, offering condolences. There were five from Wes Young Toyota. The leasing department was asking for back payment on the beige 2010 Toyota Camry registered to Dance’s mother. The first had arrived when the payments were in arrears by two months; from there they got increasingly threatening as the months went by with no response from Billie.

MacNeice looked at his watch as they entered the empty cubicle—9:23 p.m. “Do those letters include the ownership and licence plate numbers?”

“Yes, you want them?” She offered the letters.

“Hang on to them and we’ll use the info in tomorrow’s press conference. But get it into the system too, in the unlikely event that he’s driving around town.”

By the time MacNeice had tracked Maybank down, it was 10:12

p.m. Vertesi and Williams had come and gone, Williams agreeing to take Aziz to the hotel and pick her up in the morning. The mayor was on edge. The unions were upset because they’d heard rumours about links between the concrete suppliers and biker gangs, after Maybank had gone on record to say there was no connection between the bodies in the bay and the contractors on the project. The media had been sniffing around trying to make a story out of it, and if they did, the unions would shut down the project, and the deadlines he’d guaranteed to the city’s provincial and federal partners would be blown.

He didn’t mince words, loudly telling MacNeice that this was exactly the situation he had brought him in to avoid. When he finally ran out of steam, he asked why MacNeice was calling so late.

MacNeice explained that Aziz was leading the press conference the next day and that they had identified three more potential victims—there was no telling which, if any, of the women Dance would go after. But he would likely attack someone in the next day or so.

“You think he’s got a fucking list? Does she realize the danger?”

“Of course she does. For all these women, including Aziz, I need cover.” MacNeice waited for the mayor to respond but heard only heavy breathing. “Bob, I can’t promise this will flush him out, but I want him to either try for Aziz so we can stop him, or feel so pressured he gives himself up.”

“What’s the likelihood he’d do that?” Maybank sounded hopeful.

“Low to very low.”

“So you’re really just screwing with his head and using Aziz for bait.”

“Basically, yes.”

“You’re a colder fucker than I ever realized.”

“Perhaps. Okay the units, Bob, and if this works, I promise you
I’ll stand beside you and face the music on everything. You can dump it all on me if you need to.”

“Oh, trust me, that’s a given! We go back a long way and I’ve never asked you for anything, ever—but I need this project to go ahead. You’ve got your units, but don’t let me down.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Better than best, Mac. Way better. For your colleague’s sake, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

The mayor’s comment stayed with him on the drive home, throughout dinner and even as he sat looking out to the garden with a grappa, watching the bats zip through the light from the window. MacNeice didn’t know what he was doing. He was, at best, improvising. At worst he was relying on someone who only days before had been a university lecturer, who claimed she hadn’t lost her touch with a Glock 17. Worst of all, he knew Aziz assumed she’d have time to use it. He wasn’t convinced.

He turned away from the bat races as Art Pepper’s heartbreaking solo in “Loverman” came on the stereo. That’s when he noticed the light bouncing off the wall in the hallway—a car was speeding up towards the cottage. He set the grappa glass on the windowsill and stood up. He heard the car stop and idle outside, its door opening and shoes moving quickly across the gravel. Something about the gait suggested Vertesi. He opened the front door just as the young detective was about to knock.

“It’s Mark Penniman, sir. We gotta go. I’ll tell you on the way.” Vertesi ran back to the car, turned it around and opened the passenger door, waiting for MacNeice.

“Sir, did you bring your piece?” he asked as MacNeice climbed in.

“I did. Start talking.”

Vertesi tore down the hill. Putting his red grille flashers on, he sped along Mountain Road to the Queen Elizabeth, heading for
Niagara. He told him about Penniman and Wenzel, the confrontation on the service road, the run to the border, and Penniman flashing his army ID to the American customs agents, many of whom were vets. If anyone had asked him to wake up his passenger it would have been over right there, because the kid was covered in blood, his eyes blackened and his nose broken.

“Where are they now?”

“The honeymoon suite of the Niagara Paramount.” Penniman had told the desk that his wife was coming in by train and he wanted to get ready for her. The suite was the only room left in the hotel. He retrieved Wenzel from the underground garage and took him up fourteen flights of stairs.

MacNeice looked off to the distant escarpment, a ridge of black against the blue-black night. “Has it occurred to you, Michael, that we’re living a miniature War of 1812?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Troops crossing the border and fighting it out for territory over here—where troops crossed the border and fought it out two hundred years ago.”

“Happy anniversary, you mean?”

“More or less. My best guess: things got out of hand. Bikers were hired as muscle in case something happened, without anyone knowing that the other side had done the same. After that, it spun out of control.”

I
T WAS
1:49 a.m. when Mark Penniman opened the door to room 1421—the Shangri-La Suite—for them. They shook hands and stepped in. Penniman remained in the doorway to see if anyone had followed them.

Shangri-La was red from top to bottom, except where the mirror on the ceiling reflected the bed. The walls were flocked, red on red, in the floral patterns of the
belle époque
; under their shoes was a hot-pink shag carpet.

“You boys are wonderin’ where they get this shit from, aren’t you.” Wenzel stood up from the long burgundy sofa, smiling at the two detectives as they stood there with dropped jaws.

Penniman closed the door. “Wenzel Hausman, this is Detective Michael Vertesi, and his commanding officer, DS MacNeice.”

MacNeice offered his hand to Wenzel and studied his face. The eyes were ringed in black, his nose was swollen, the nostrils still bloody.

“I know, I look like shit, sir. This face’s seen better days.” Vertesi sat down on the sofa, took out a digital recorder, switched it on and
placed it upright on the heart-shaped Plexiglas coffee table. Wenzel sat in front of the recorder and leaned forward as if he was unsure it would pick him up from a distance.

“Before we begin, as a foreign national, you can refuse to speak to us,” MacNeice said. “But should you agree to provide us with information concerning the death of Sergeant Gary Hughes, you will be considered a witness and we’ll do all we can to protect you. You won’t likely be able to return to New York State if the presiding judge determines there’s a risk in your doing so. Is that clear?”

“I told Wenzel that might be the case,” Penniman said, pulling up an upholstered chair, its back also shaped like a heart.

“Yeah, I understand,” Wenzel said. “But shit, I got nothin’ to go home to now. If I did, they’d finish what they started on that road … for sure man, for sure.”

“Sergeant Penniman didn’t bring you across the border against your will?” MacNeice watched the young man for any hesitation in his voice or manner.

“No, man. Shit, if it weren’t for him I’d be suckin’ dirt in a ditch. Those fuckers wouldn’t stop till I was done.”

“Wenzel, what was your former rank and unit and where did you serve?”

“Private Wenzel Hausman, rifleman with the Army’s 2nd Division, stationed in Iraq. Honourably discharged.” He smiled as if he had passed a test; his teeth were still rimmed with blood.

“And the sergeant you served under?” Vertesi asked.

“Sergeant Gary Hughes.” Wenzel took a sip from a miniature bottle of Coke—it was clearly painful to do so.

“I understand you learned that Hughes had left the army and was living in Tonawanda,” Vertesi said.

MacNeice watched the young man’s face. Battered though it was, he still showed an innocence that had likely always made him vulnerable.

“Yes, sir. Like, most of the time I was out of it—I mean, West Virginia’s out of it by definition, and I had no prospects there. I stayed at home a lot. But one of the guys in town, he’d been overseas too, and he told me Sarge was back, and man, I was outta there. I called Sarge when I got to Tonawanda, and he picked me up at the station.”

“What did you think he could do for you?” Vertesi asked.

“I didn’t know. But he took care of us for two years, and I thought I could get a start-over with him.”

“Any idea what that would look like?”

“None.” He laughed, and then had to cough.

“That sounds nasty, Wenzel,” MacNeice said.

“Shit”—he took another swig of Coke—“that’s nothin’, man. I thought that fucker’s second punch tore somethin’ …” He pointed to his stomach just below the ribcage.

“We can bring in a doctor,” MacNeice offered.

“Naw, I’ll be okay.”

“Did Hughes introduce you to the Old Soldiers roadhouse?”

“Other way round. I got a furnished two-room in the basement of a house off the service road, about a half-mile from where Sergeant Penniman found me. Mostly I’d call Sarge like once a week or so, but he was with his family. So’s I got to walkin’ down the road for a little beer ‘n’ bourbon, and before long, like, I’m there most of the time—day, night, weekends. I’d play the machines and shoot the shit with the guys.”

“You knew it was owned by a motorcycle gang?”

“Yeah, oh yeah. But I thought, like, they’re army too. So, no big deal.”

“Why did you introduce Sergeant Hughes to the roadhouse?”

“Once I found out they were doing security jobs, you know, I asked if they wanted a couple guys—you know, thinking I’d score a job too. Well, they laughed at me. So I told them about Sergeant
Hughes an’ how the brass in Iraq kept shoving him forward like he was Rambo or somethin’—shit, way outta the box. So they say, ‘Bring the fucker in here; we wanna meet him.’ ”