The Filthy Few: A Steve Nastos Mystery (20 page)

26

Nastos and Carscadden left to get an early start with Morrison and Radix. Nastos helped Carscadden load the truck with the equipment that Viktor had provided, and then they came back into the house.

Nastos found Josie upstairs in a spare room that Viktor had fashioned for her covered in pink pillows and stuffed animals. He must have grabbed a few armloads of her favourite things from the house before bringing her over. Nastos watched her through the open crack of her bedroom door. She was getting ready for bedtime. She had brushed her teeth and hair and was going to spend some time reading. She leaned back on the bed, her feet up on the wall with a stack of books next to her on one side and a forest of assorted stuffed animals on the other side.

Part of him wanted to leave her like that. To have his potentially last memory of her to be of her at peace. But he owed it to her to give her a chance to say goodbye, even if she didn't know that it could be for the last time. Gently he pushed the door open.

“Hey, baby.”

“Hey, Dad, do you have time for a story?”

“No, sorry, I don't. I have to get going. I just wanted to say bye.”

She did an awkward sideways flop to turn around. “Okay, see you tomorrow. Viktor's going to read me stories.”

“Yeah, and after, Tara's going to give you a tuck-in tonight.”

At her age, the reaction to such things could range from anything from a shrug to a nuclear meltdown. This time she was in an agreeable mood. “Okay, girl time.”

He smiled. “Exactly, girl time.” He felt a deep sense of melancholy well up inside him but tried to suppress it.

“What is it, Daddy?”

“Nothing, babe.”

She reached out and gave him a hug. “I miss Mom too, Daddy. It's okay.”

“Yeah, baby, it's okay. I guess we just get sad sometimes.”

“We're going to be okay.”

“Yeah, we are.” He envisioned her wearing black at his funeral then abruptly stopped himself. He hugged her tight and instead forced himself to think positive and avoid letting fear get the best of him. He envisioned walking her down the aisle, watching her graduate from college, any random thought he could think of that marked his being with her much later in life. He had to be as strong for her as she was being for him, as she had always been for him. He reflected back on how many times she had consoled him and realized that he couldn't count them all.

Nastos left her and went back outside. He saw Carscadden and Hopkins forehead to forehead holding hands. He overheard her saying, “I love you, Kevin, but at times like these you don't make it very much fun.”

He eased past them saying, “See ya later tonight, Hopkins,” and took a seat in the car.

A moment later he watched them kiss goodbye then Carscadden joined him, taking the driver's seat. “Ready?”

“Yeah, let's do this.”

Backed into an alleyway, Vince watched from the driver's seat of the rental car as traffic passed both east- and westbound on College Street. It was a muggy night. Ten p.m. on College Street in Toronto was busier than most main streets in the rest of Canada during the five p.m. rush. In the alley he saw large grey metal dumpsters. The cracked and potholed black asphalt was wet with damp that glistened thanks to the lighting overhead that flickered and hummed. The backs of the buildings were a charcoal grey. The only colour came from the red Gerry can that Christian was using to prepare the Molotov cocktails.

Vince pressed the button to drop his window, relieved that kitchen smells of roasted meats and spices overwhelmed the odours of urine and the rotting compost from the nearby green bins and grease box that sat nearby.

They had had dinner here just a few nights ago. An Italian place run by a Russian who used to be in “the lifestyle” until he decided he didn't have the gonads for it anymore. Vince found himself wondering if he would be remembered the same way. Was he losing his nerve or was this about being passed over? Was it brave to leave or the coward's way out?

Christian was enthusiastic, splashing the gas around, using a lot more than necessary. When lit, this place would be seen from orbit. Christian waved him out and Vince reluctantly joined him, leaving the keys in the ignition and the car running. The driver's window was intentionally left all the way down so there would be no chance he could get locked out — another in the catalog of Vince's Rules.

Christian held out the tire iron that he had taken from the car's trunk. “Here.” Vince took it. He glanced at the back of the building then up to the night sky. Only the brightest of the stars were perceptible. Examining the buildings in both directions, he noted that many of the businesses had apartments overhead. Most windows were covered with heavy, dark curtains. Vince could see the flickering light from televisions vainly trying to break through the darkness. He shrugged.
If they are smart they have smoke alarms.

Christian was convinced that a message sent at the right time would pay dividends. A gentle reminder, if you will, to send the message to the
PI
s that it was in their best interest to come up with some money. The one guy, Nastos, had phoned this place a couple times a day. This was close enough to home to provide some inspiration.

Vince himself couldn't care less. Christian would be dead soon and the façade of blackmail wasn't necessary anymore. Vince had enough cash coming from the Hells Angels to finance his escape, but if this kept Christian amused and off guard, it was worth it.

Vince appraised the layout.
With all the gas Junior is dumping, maybe the car is a little too close to ground zero.
He put the tire iron on the ground. “One sec, I'm just going to move the car a bit further down.”

Christian rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath.

Vince imagined strangling Christian to death then shook the image away, telling himself that the moment would come soon enough. He sat in the car and moved it two car-lengths down.

He would later recall distinctly that he had not heard a thing from the restaurant. From Frankie's, the name he finally recalled.
Fantastic linguini with clam sauce. The cockles had the perfect amount of garlic and must have been simmering in a white wine reduction because they were ever so sweet.

When he stood and turned he saw that someone had Christian in a jiu-jitsu move called a blood choke. Christian was sitting on the ground with both hands desperately trying to pull the assailant's forearm away from his neck. The man stood behind him, legs wide for a sturdy stance and hunched forward with all of his weight. At first Vince judged that if Christian had any skill at all he could have broken the hold then he reconsidered. The man choking him could probably sense that he was fighting a chump and put himself in a compromised position just to finish the choke quicker.

Vince picked up the tire iron from the ground and swung it at the man. Instead of flinching the man opted to twist and take the flat strike on his back and finish the choke on Christian. The older man grunted in pain after the dull thud. When Christian fell limp, only then did the man straighten up into a fighting position.

Vince recognized him as Viktor, the Russian restaurateur. He paused briefly, noting that the tire iron had only caused muscular damage and not broken any bones, then attacked. Seeing that that the man had some ability, Vince quickly used this against him. He played stupid, throwing an easy punch, a right haymaker. When Viktor stepped in to tie him up, Vince grabbed his shirt and jumped in the air, wrapping his legs around Vince's neck and pulling them both down to the ground. Vince was on his back in the guard position. He kept Viktor in close, pulling him in with his arms and repeatedly barraged Viktor with heel strikes on his back and kidneys.

Vince was surprised to see how much pain Viktor, a man fifteen years older than he was, was willing to tolerate to gain a position of advantage. Strike after strike landed on his back with no reaction until in a single powerful movement the Russian was able to twist his body, trapping Vince's leg and breaking two fingers on Vince's left hand. The pain was excruciating. Vince recoiled, forgetting about anything but regaining control but Viktor kept his advantage. Vince failed at an arm bar, which Viktor blocked and countered with two solid elbow strikes to his face nearly breaking Vince's nose. Viktor swung again, narrowly missing.

Vince's advantage had become a stalemate where the best they could do was trade injuries, and he began to see that Viktor was not playing to win. He was sacrificing apparent opportunities to prolong the fight, likely more confident in his endurance than brute strength. Continuing to fight was therefore not worth the cost since Viktor had more help nearby then he did with Christian still unconscious and drooling on the asphalt.

He thrust his hips and arms forward, tossing Viktor back and to the side and quickly threw a hard knee strike that firmly launched Viktor back against the wall. Vince heard a dull thump sound and noticed that Viktor's head had careened into the cast-iron grease bin. He was rendered dazed momentarily then slowly staggered to his feet. Only then did he call for help from inside.

Vince stood and cautiously approached Christian, whose eyes were open but probably weren't seeing much. Viktor appeared content with the stalemate, wiping blood from his mouth. He said, “You better hope I don't see you again, my friend.”

Vince shrugged. “Next time you won't see it coming, old man.”

He began dragging Christian, who was slowly coming around, to the car. Vince stole a glance at Viktor, noticing that he had unclipped something from his belt buckle, possibly a knife. Vince considered giving him another run then dismissed it. He had no dog in the fight and had grown out of fighting to prove a point years ago. He could have shot him but that would mean turning his back on Viktor and retrieving his gun from the front seat of the car. Besides, he felt no offence for the older man who was only trying to protect his business.

As both men tried desperately to rouse themselves, Vincent picked up the Gerry can and the tire iron. He smashed out a portion of the window and splashed the gas inside. Viktor stood back with a small knife in his hand, shouting again for help from the restaurant but no one in the noisy kitchen was hearing anything. Vince stamped over to Christian, more angry at him than anyone, and took the lighter from his pocket and returned to the window. He lit a Molotov cocktail and flung it against the wall.

Flames burst in all directions. Long, quick tongues of flame licked up the walls, dripping saliva-like lava that spread out on the earth below. Orange light and a cast of heat washed over them. Viktor stopped trying to shake the cobwebs out of his head long enough to utter some kind of sad grunt. Vince watched him dispassionately, shrugged, then dragged Christian to the car. “Get in.”

He pushed Christian into the passenger side of the car and went around the driver's side. He glanced at Viktor through the side-view mirror, thinking he could have easily put the car in Reverse and run him over, but he was gone, retreated into the burning building to save what he could. So instead Vince put the vehicle in Drive and calmly eased it out of the alley.

The ache to his left hand had become piercing. It felt as if burning acid were pulsing through his body. He appraised his hand. The two smaller fingers were dislocated, the pain jabbing up to his elbow.
Well, it's not like I'll be making it worse.
He pulled on the fingers one at a time, providing subtle traction, and let them slip back into place. The relief was like an orgasm. His entire body relaxed and he sighed involuntarily.

Christian asked, “Who the hell was that guy?”

“Looked like Viktor Kalmakov. He owns the place.”

Christian rubbed his neck. “Yeah, well, he's one tough dude.”

“He's in his sixties, Christian. You —” He had more to say but it was useless. “Never mind.”

Christian cranked his body around, “Say it!”

Vince felt his “give a shit” meter drop to zero. “Christian, you're vying for your Filthy Few patch and you got your ass kicked by a sixty-year-old fucking busboy.”

“Go to hell, Vince.”

“I'm sure that day will come soon enough.”

Christian pursed his lips and shook his head. He was seething in impotent frustration. Despite the electric pain pulsing up his arm, Vince smiled.

27

Guildwood Park at night was a haunting, melancholy place with unlit barren fields bordered by gothic sculptures, displaced remnants of long-demolished buildings and a death drop to Lake Ontario. Waves struck the rocky shore over a hundred feet below in endless repetition. The sculpture, in this case the Greek amphitheatre, was pale in the night, the colour of sun-bleached bone carved into grotesque masks and pillars bridged by Roman keys.

Nastos watched as Morrison nervously racked and dry-fired his pistol, aiming at prominent features. The night sky was a pinkish haze, so only the most predominant stars were able to shine through the pollution. Although billions of years old, those ancient furnaces provided Nastos no wisdom, no way out of the dark place he was in, other than releasing the basest of human instincts, violent self-preservation. The instincts would look after themselves. Now he found himself hoping that his intellect would not be overwhelmed by fear. As a police officer he had begrudgingly been forced into life-or-death scenarios before. That was the nature of the profession. Most challengers were emotionally disturbed people untreatable by the mental health services. They generally wanted to die and would force confrontations to provoke a “death by cop” ending to a life that they lacked the final courage to take care of themselves. Next were the career criminals, the sociopaths who saw killing a cop as a necessary and trivial element for their own survival as they lived out their lives as heroes in their own perverted myths. Nastos had spent a career dealing with souls on the ragged fringes of humanity and felt lucky to have only legitimately feared that his death was imminent a handful of times.

This time, however, was separated from those by a chasm as great as the distance between the stars above and the rocky shore below. This was the first time that he had gone into the breach of war. The first time Nastos had been forced into a suicide charge, where he would have to kill or be killed. Again he looked to the stars that had shone down on countless tribal and clan wars, continental invasions and simple acts of murder. They remained impartial, unmoved by the spectacle of man at his most primitive.

Nastos turned his attention to Radix, who sat with his back leaning against a tombstone. He was grimacing as he had some argument with himself. Nastos had known many cops like Radix, the kind who instead of collecting something benign like stamps or rare books, seemed programmed to instead collect injustices.

Carscadden was exploring headstones, reading engravings, noting the years people were born and died, doing the math to determine their lifespans, the whole while rubbing the hand he had injured fighting the men in the hotel room.

Nastos sent a text to Karen.
At the Boom Boom Room. Meeting with cops and bikers. Bring your gun.
A wave of mixed emotion rushed over him. He wished that he had called her sooner. She could walk right into the place without getting searched. She would be an asset.

Nastos' phone vibrated. He expected it to be Karen but the display read Viktor Kalmakov. “What is it?”

“Nastos, something has happened. I don't know if I can make it.”

“Viktor? Are you okay?”

Carscadden put his BlackBerry down, his head lifted up.

“I was bringing the trash out to the back of the restaurant. I found two men trying to burn the place down.”

“Were you hurt?”

“A few aches and pains. Listen, they caused some damage here and I've been delayed but I'm on my way.”

Nastos raised a hand to calm Carscadden. “Glad you're okay, Viktor. Just do the best you can. We got the call. It's at the Boom Boom Room, a peeler bar near the airport, in half an hour. You know it?”

“I know it.”

“We need you.”

“I know, I know.”

Radix checked his watch. “Okay, ladies, it's time.”

Nastos hung up his phone. It was an awful time to lose Viktor.
If it keeps him alive, I won't regret it.

The others started for their cars while Nastos held back. He made one more phone call.

“Can I help you?”

Nastos heard the commotion in the background. “Where are you, at a baseball game?”

“No, I'm working.”

“Sounds like you're in the stands with a bunch of hecklers, Chief.”

“You're not far off, Nastos. I'm at a Police Services Board meeting.”

He paused before speaking again. “If I called at a bad time —”

“No, no, this is fine. Fire away.”

Nastos looked around the park long enough to wonder if Dimebag was going to hang up on him.

“What can I help you with, Nastos?”

“I called to apologize.”

“Again?”

“I punched you for no reason. I embarrassed you on live
TV
. You did nothing to me to deserve that. I don't know what I can do to make it up to you, but if you have anything in mind, I want to make amends somehow.”

The Chief didn't answer right away. “You've been through a lot in the last few years, Nastos. The trial, your wife, hell, just doing the job for twenty-five years.”

“Yeah, those are great excuses, but that was never what it was about. It was about anger. I have this anger problem. In that moment I allowed myself to open it up and I shouldn't have. I've always kind of had this problem. I recognize it now and I'm working on it.”

“Well, then, that's the start of it.”

Nastos exhaled. “Okay then. Well, you know how to get ahold of me. If there is anything I can do —”

“Steve,” the Chief interrupted. “You know I made my way up through the Tac Team. I tried to be a detective, they wouldn't take me. I ended up running a detective squad for a while but it wasn't the same. Opportunities for promotion came at me and I guess I always had a good reputation with the right people. I still wish I could have been a good detective. The closest I get now is trying to solve the mystery of where my youth went and who the old man in the mirror is. I wanted the action, to feel like I was helping people, not this.”

Nastos shrugged. “Well, I'm sorry for embarrassing you.”

“You were a great detective, Nastos, one of the best we ever had. It was your passion that was your greatest attribute yet your greatest weakness. If you could only have controlled it better. You just sort yourself out. I'll be the first to support you when you do.”

The Boom Boom Room was near black inside, the scant lighting coming from red LED strips that lined the stage, two overhead white lights that shone when the girls were performing a show and overhead black lighting that made any white clothing glow. The only woman entirely clothed was the bartender. She wore black jeans and a tight fitted black shirt and let her curly dark hair hang loose down her back. Despite being at least ten years older than “the talent,” she was by far the most attractive woman in the place. The manager, some chump, wore a loose white dress shirt with sleeves that were too long. He was a quick-talking scrawny coke-addict type who offered Vincent the preferred seating at the centre of the upper balcony. Vince gratefully took it. Not to have the best view, but to sit somewhere that kept Christian as far away from the women as possible. It didn't work. The women came to him.

The music was some nameless noise with a computer-generated drumbeat and chord progression meant to fill the silence that would otherwise remind people that lives froze still in places like this. Two girls slithered from out of the blackness introducing themselves with fake names, heels too high, faces tired and weathered from years of alcohol and drug abuse. One fake blonde, one brunette. Christian invited them to sit and each recited her spiel with all of the enthusiasm of a door-to-door salesman. These girls wanted to make twenty bucks on a table dance, and in the
VIP
room a well-paying customer could buy a massage, some sex. Here they were limited only by their imaginations, and when it came to Christian, sex was nearly all he thought about. Vince encouraged the girl sitting next to him to snuggle closer to Christian. Then on impulse he took out two twenty-dollar bills, giving each girl one. “Here, why don't you two show my friend here a good time?”

Christian didn't hesitate. He gave a wink and a thumbs-up, then the three of them became like shadows in the night disappearing into a black alcove, Vince not garnering a backward glance. That was the thing with strip clubs. Once the money was gone, so were the women. He continued to stare in the direction they had gone, seeing nothing. He turned when he noticed someone sitting down next to him, the bartender. She slid a Corona over to him and was drinking one herself.

“Drinking on the job, Jen. You better hope I don't rat you out to the cops.”

She took another gulp before making eye contact. “How long you been back in town?”

“A few days.”

“A filthy few?”

He smirked. “Not yet, but soon. Soon it's going to get very filthy.”

She recoiled. “I hope not here.”

He leaned forward, not immediately aware of the source of his anger. The way she implied he was preparing to use her or take advantage of their friendship, or more of a kinship as lonely voices of sanity in their respectively insane occupations. “Jen, I was the one who put an end to that. Remember?”

She shrugged, trying to not look terrified. Not scared of him, scared of what he brought with him — blood.

Jen had been the owner-bartender from the beginning, back when this place was called the Scene. When Vince was new to the club, he was the one sent in to negotiate the terms, the extortion rate for the privilege of operating a strip club. The way the racket usually worked was that the gang would require protection money, increasing the rates over the years until the owner had to just sign the bar over to them. Then the owner would become the manager, an employee in their own establishment. When Vince saw that it was a woman that ran the place he didn't have the heart to steal it all from her. Instead he reported back that it was going broke and wasn't going to last. However, a lot of club business was brokered here. There was a maze of hidden rooms, and in the basement was part of the historic Underground Railroad that brought blacks across the border from the States. There was a tunnel system that linked most of the businesses on the street, which the club took advantage of when trafficking drugs in and out of the place.

And amid the rooms and tunnels there was a single twelve-by-twelve concrete box in the basement decorated with only a floor drain. This became the Boom Boom Room. Soundproof under earth and rock, this was where the Devil Dogs brought, tortured and killed the competition. They had killed so many people in the early days that the bikers took to calling the bar the Boom Boom Room. Jen finally relented and changed the name of the place. It
was
a catchier moniker.

She asked him, “Where are you right now?” She had slid her chair over and was now next to him. Before answering he glanced back at the
VIP
room where the girls had taken Christian and saw no signs of his surfacing. “I was back at the beginning. Back when I first started this line of work.”

“Work?” She scoffed. “That's what you think work is? Killing people? That's not work. Work is trying to go to bed with more money than when you woke up, without stealing it or killing for it. In this day and age, that's work.”

Vince finished his beer and pushed the empty away. “Come on Jen, you run a whorehouse that fronts as a strip bar. Availing girls for sex to a bunch of losers?”

She shrugged. “Everyone has to have sex.”

Vince drummed his fingers. “Everyone has to die.” He took a sip of her beer. “I just make sure it happens before they cause too much trouble for the rest of us. You just can't — Forget it.”

“I can't what?”

It was his last night. What the hell.
“You just can't imagine the absolute pleasure you get from killing someone.” He eyed her for a reaction, expecting revulsion. What he saw instead was more like . . . captivation. “Jen, maybe at the time it's tense afterwards with the concern about getting caught. But the dead never chirp back at you, they don't nag or conspire anymore. You put them down and they don't ever come back up.”

“That's the choice you make.”

“And you choose to exploit women with drug problems.”

“Yeah, well, we all end up as whores for someone else if you don't pay attention. You want another one?” She smiled, “A drink, I mean?” She wanted to change the subject.

“No thanks. I have some non-work to do tonight and I have to keep my wits sharp.” He appraised her, seeing how the decades had all but passed her by while everyone else was busy aging. There were only the beginnings of wrinkles around her eyes.

“You know, Vince, I didn't take you for a lifer. I figured you would have gotten away from this by now. I had hope for you.”

She was the first friendly face he had seen in real life since he could remember. He didn't know why but a sudden feeling, a need to dump the truth onto someone, anyone who wouldn't use it against him, was overwhelming. He felt the need to tell her that this was the last night he'd be in the club, that he was going to get out but not before bringing them all down, but he couldn't. The only way to keep a secret was to never tell a living soul, to never utter the words where they could be recorded and used against you. A secret must die with you, because in his line of work, either the secret dies, or you do.