The Filthy Few: A Steve Nastos Mystery (6 page)

7

Dave Morrison was running faster than the threshold of pain. With each stride he stretched forward, his mid-foot striking the ground, then the momentum of his body rolled the centre of gravity forward to the ball of his foot then his hamstrings flexed and like a slingshot launched his body forward again for another stride. This was happening with a blinding speed, his legs a blur. It was just a matter of time before the lactic acid weighed his legs down, making the sidewalk feel like wet cement, so he never took his eyes from Terry McLeish, the man who was trying to escape.

Running at that speed for that long had all but silenced the cluttered monologue in his head and everything had become simple for Morrison.
If he gets away, I'll just kill myself.

Off duty, in street clothes, this was another one of Radix's great ideas on how to scrounge money. McLeish was a mid-market pot dealer supplying his co-workers at the nuclear plant where he worked in maintenance. He was a fit, professional drug dealer who didn't smoke his own product. Away from work and the blue overalls, he was the kind of guy with the perfect smile and sweater wrapped around his neck that no one would suspect of doing anything more criminal than wearing white pants after Labour Day.

The traditional behavioural profiling had kept him out of trouble with the police. Getting tipped off to this guy's hobby job was a godsend to Morrison and Radix, considering their financial pressures.

Radix had said this would be an easy one, a quick surprise takedown, then they'd hit a park to count the money.
He could have mentioned that this kid runs like Donovan Bailey and can smell a cop as easily as he can smell bacon sizzling on a campfire.
And ripping off pot dealers wasn't a long-term solution to their problems. It barely bought time until they came up with a better option.

Morrison tripped over his own two feet taking a corner around a building, sprawling to the ground and clambering back up. He was oblivious to the road rash on his hands and knees. Pain could wait until later. Nearly up to full speed again, he hurdled a trash can, landing too heavily and knocking a teen girl flying into a parking meter, her iPod flying into traffic.

He's a legit target. Be solid. Run solid.

Morrison took exaggerated long breaths. Except for McLeish, the entire world disappeared. McLeish led Morrison south on Jarvis Street, under the Gardiner Expressway, deking through traffic. Cars locked up their brakes, drivers hit their horns. McLeish tore through a parking lot crossing over to Queens Quay on an angle. It was here that Morrison detected McLeish's first signs of cracking. His stride had shortened, his arms swung more as if he were trying to pull himself through the air and he was even pushing off of parking signs to try to maintain speed while Morrison closed the gap. With a steady pace, consciously sucking in more air to prepare for the inevitable fight upon capture, Morrison was ready to rip him to pieces.

A horn bleated, stirring Morrison from his tunnel vision. He glanced to see Radix in his truck appear out of nowhere, driving parallel to the chase. At first Radix pulled up alongside Morrison and shook his head like he was ashamed of Morrison's efforts. Morrison was too tired to hate him in that moment.

Radix shouted, “Hurry and catch him, you big fucking vagina.” He beat the truck's baseboard with a hammer fist.

Morrison felt a gush of relief that it would be over soon. They wouldn't have to go to the property lockers for a while and McLeish was about to pay for making him run so hard.

Radix lurched ahead through traffic and pulled alongside McLeish. He shouted something that Morrison couldn't hear from a distance but McLeish slowed considerably. For good measure Radix aggressively turned to the right at the next intersection, bumping into McLeish and knocking him sideways onto his ass.

The chase was over. Morrison slowed to a jog. By the time he stopped at the truck, Radix had McLeish handcuffed and sitting in the back seat of his personal pickup truck. Pedestrians stared sideways at them, not knowing whether to be relieved that undercover cops had arrested someone who likely deserved it or pissed off by the way they had done it. Morrison eyed the thick and heavy backpack McLeish had been carrying and decided he didn't care what they thought.

McLeish was hunched over, sucking air, a defeated, scared expression on his face. Radix unstrapped McLeish's backpack and tossed it into the bed of his truck. Radix said, “Hop in, let's move someplace more private.”

Morrison nodded, too tired to speak. McLeish pulled his legs into the truck and Morrison closed the door behind him. Radix went back over to the driver's side and drove a few car-lengths down a side street then jerked the truck to a stop. Large maple trees loomed overhead providing shade and a sense of seclusion.

Surveillance on McLeish had been an all-day effort. They watched him complete transactions with a few men in Moss Park. These weren't high-school dime-bag sales. This guy was bigger, selling a few ounces at a time to monthly buyers.

Morrison and Radix had caught it all on video. Radix had relished taking note of these men's licence plates for future reference, suggesting that they could start their own blackmail scam.

Morrison could practically smell the money sitting just waiting to be counted in that plump backpack.
Let's get rid of this asshole and get on with it.
He waited to catch his breath before he spoke. Radix turned to the prisoner in the back seat but before he could say anything a police car pulled up alongside him.

Morrison felt a knot of anxiety ball up in his stomach. His eyes bugged out and his mouth dropped open in abject fear. He recognized the cop as Brad Sweeney, a young blond kid with spiky hair and a permanent smile. Sweeney would know both of them and their work assignments and that they weren't supposed to be out doing plainclothes jobs.

Radix dropped his window down. He had a calm demeanour, like this kind of thing was all in a days' work. “Hey, man.” He flipped open his wallet so the cop could see the tin. “We're doing some work for Intel. We were following this guy but can't say much more. It's all good in the 'hood, bro.”

Sweeney exited his car and came around. “Yeah, I recognize you guys from the station. Didn't know you were doing shit for Intel.” Sweeney was skeptical, he wasn't buying it.

Radix said, “I hope you didn't run my plate. If we get too many hits on the Intel plates we have to trade them out.”

The cop eyed Morrison then the guy in the back. “No. I was just driving the other way when I noticed the commotion.” He pointed to McLeish. “Who's your friend?”

Morrison sighed.
Sweeney didn't run the plate so he may not know this is Radix's truck. But if he gets any more suspicious this could be the end of it.
An image came into his mind, the face of betrayed shock on Rob Walker's face when he had panicked and shot him, the image of cops coming to his door to arrest him for murder.

Radix lied glibly, “We were in the Lawrence Market. Buddy here picked the wrong time to try a purse snatch.”

McLeish protested, “What the hell are you talking about?”

Morrison said, “Shut up, kid, no one asked you.”

McLeish was only louder. “What kind of corrupt assholes — fucking cops in this town man, I'm telling you . . .”

Radix shrugged at Sweeney with an easy smile. “You know when they call you corrupt that you're doing your job right.”

Sweeney didn't smile. He eyed McLeish then the back of the truck. “What did he take, the backpack?”

“That's mine, you fucking thieves.” McLeish's mouth hung open. He said to Sweeney, “This is total bullshit man.” He craned his neck trying to get Sweeney's attention, “Call your supervisor, would ya?”

Radix turned to McLeish. “Oh yeah, we'll call a supervisor. And after he sees the pound of weed in your bag I'm sure he'll agree that this is just one big misunderstanding.”

Sweeney eyed the bag and pursed his lips. Morrison sprang from the truck jabbing a finger at McLeish, “Don't you fucking move.” He slammed the door and joined Sweeney near the back of the truck. Radix came out to meet with them.

Sweeney took a breath and said, “You two fucking guys, in your own truck, off duty, doing this kind of stuff? Have fun writing up this shit-show.”

Radix smiled. “It's not like that, it's —”

“It's about wanting to get promoted. Everyone at the station knows what you guys are up to, trying to make names for yourselves. I've heard the stories, but holy shit, I can't believe it.”

“Sweeney, come on . . .”

The radio clipped to Sweeney's chest squawked. He grimaced and turned it down. “The problems with guys who want to get promoted is that some of them want it so bad they'll fuck the other guys to get it. Makes it hard to trust guys like that, that's all I'm saying. You two have your own agenda.”

Radix didn't deny it, he'd rather Sweeney think that than what was really going on. “We would never screw anyone over. We just want the Drug Unit, that's all.”

Sweeney said one last thing before he left that made Morrison consider suicide. “Yeah. Well, I'm going to run this by the Staff Sergeant and see what he thinks of it.”

Sweeney left. He got into his car and drove away, leaving Morrison and Radix to stare at each other.

Radix signed. “Well, we're fucked.”

“Fucked?” Morrison asked. “Yeah, ya think? Jesus Christ, Radix, when the Staff hears about this we'll be lucky if all we get is desk duty. We might get suspended. Then how are we supposed to keep this thing going?”

Radix pondered. “No. Sweeney isn't a rat. He just has no concept of what
the
brotherhood
means. How the hell are we supposed to catch the criminals when half of the cops can't tell the other cops from the robbers?”

Morrison hissed, “We can't keep doing shit like this.” He glanced around, realizing that he looked guilty as hell. “It might be time to consider the truth about —”

Radix raised a hand and stopped him. “Listen, we just need one, maybe two more jobs then we'll have enough money. Let's shut it down for the day.”

“And what if Sweeney goes to the Staff? What if everything comes out? What if that broad who saw us comes into the station one day?”

“The Sikh said she was in Witness Protection. Once we get into Intelligence we can look her up on the Intel system and find where she's hiding. Personally, I think that since she hasn't come forward, maybe she didn't get a good look at us. Maybe we're in the clear.”

Morrison wasn't convinced. “So what? Just hope for the best?”

Radix opened the backpack and started dumping the contents into the bed of the truck. After a red hoodie he poured out bag after bag of marijuana and spread them around. “Unless we get a phone call, I say we forget about her. Look what we have here. This should make them happy.”

Morrison leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “Shooting that guy was an accident, Radix. I don't think I can just pull the trigger on someone.”

“Exactly. We have enough to worry about with Sweeney, so one thing at a time.”

“So we just live with what we did? Like it never happened?”

“Listen Morrison, it's like this.” Radix pondered for a moment, looking at a distant building, the sky and eventually back at Morrison. “There are the mistakes that a postal worker makes, the mistakes a floral designer makes and then there are the mistakes a surgeon or a cop makes. We made a mistake, that's all. Someone died, but it wasn't anyone all that important.”

Morrison tried to speak but Radix cut him off. “We learn from our mistakes and move forward. It's an awful burden to know that we cost someone their life but let's remember that he was in Trinity Park after midnight trying to buy drugs to deal on the streets. He lived in a dead-end hotel and was shacked up with a meth hooker. We made a mistake but this was no scientist trying to cure cancer. This guy
was
cancer.”

Morrison felt himself begin to relax. Radix had a way of keeping things in perspective. “So if a surgeon accidentally loses a few when he's learning, that's no reason to cut his career short and never let him operate again. So we move forward. It's either that or spill our guts with it all and spend every afternoon of the rest of your life in jail impersonating a pincushion. Take your pick.”

8

It was nine thirty in the morning and Nastos sat in Dr. Mills' office. Mills was leaning forward in his chair, head propped up in his hands. “This is the day, Nastos, so let's just get it over with.”

Nastos leaned back. “Did you practise your self-affirmations this morning when you should have been shaving?”

Mills didn't smile. “You like the scruff?”

Nastos deadpanned, “Makes you look rugged. Hell, I could jump you right now.”

Mills didn't blink. “Nice deflection, Nastos, now let's get back to the apology.”

The word apology made Nastos' skin crawl. “The only thing I feel sorry for was not punching him harder.”

“Now we're getting somewhere.” Mills straightened up, sliding his chair forward and putting his hands down on the table. “Come on, spit it out. Take me through the whole thing.”

Nastos checked the time on the clock. He had forty minutes to kill. There was no way he could avoid it this time.
Oh, what the hell.
“Okay, here goes. I'm at the Police Services Board function. They want to give me my settlement from everything that went down at Cherry Beach. And Mr. Bannerman arranged a civilian award ceremony after what Carscadden and I did to help him out with his daughter.”

Mills nodded, “On live television.”

“I didn't know that part,” Nastos said. “I saw the cameras, they were everywhere, but I figured they were recording and it wouldn't even make the eleven o'clock news. Oops. So I'm waiting my turn. There's a guy who rescued a girl from the water, there's a taxi driver and a doctor from some Third World county who delivered breach birth twins in the back of a Becks Taxi. There's all kinds of these great stories and then it came time for me. So I get up when they call my name. I shake some strangers' hands, I shake Mr. Bannerman's and his daughter's hands — I barely recognized Lindsay Bannerman. She's up twenty pounds and looks like a movie star. Then I get to the Chief of Police. All I have to do is shake his hand, smile for the photograph and take the stupid plaque.”

“Keep going.”

“So you know what we call Chief Dimech? We call him Dimebag. The best that anyone can tell is that the biggest arrest he had in his policing career was a ten-dollar bag of weed about thirty years ago.”

Mills shrugged and Nastos continued. “So I shake hands with Dimebag, he pulls me in close and says something I found fairly objectionable.”

Mills leaned forward. “No kidding. Tell me, what was it that he said?”

“I wish the cameras had picked it up. The media hired a lip reader but she couldn't get a clear view. I have to tell you, Mills, it felt so insanely good driving my fist in his face. I mean, if I could have let him have it a few more times . . .”

“Nastos, the million-dollar question. What did —”

“He said, ‘I understand that this investigation resulted in a certain amount of personal loss for you.'” Nastos jerked his hands up in a “can you believe it” gesture, while Mills revealed no emotion.

“That was it?” he asked.

“Yeah, can you believe the nerve of the guy?”

Mills nodded. “Because of Madeleine.”

“Yeah, because of Madeleine.
A certain amount of personal loss?
Are you kidding me? My wife of fifteen years? Dead? I blamed myself for it. If it wasn't for Josie I'd have been suicidal. This asshole has the nerve to trivialize her value to me before he gives me a stupid fucking plaque?”

Nastos realized that he was standing up, his fists clenched. Mills was stoic. If he betrayed any feeling it wasn't fear, it was sadness, although he was leaning back a little extra in his chair in case the fists started flying. Nastos froze in place, feeling sick inside. A guy like Mills should never feel uncertain around him. He thought Mills was one of the most solid guys he'd ever met. If he made Mills back off a little, maybe he had to control himself better. Maybe he
did
fly off the handle sometimes. He had told himself that whenever he unleashed the inner rage it had been a conscious decision, that it was justifiable and there were no witnesses around. Maybe that wasn't always the case. “You know, I just freaked out like my dad used to.”

“Yeah, you did, but for good reason.”

Nastos' shoulders slumped.

“I know you and Madeleine were going through a rough patch after the Cherry Beach trial. I thought you two were growing apart.”

Mills had been the police department psychologist for nearly a decade and had been seeing Nastos and his family for the past two years. Their professional relationship began when his daughter, Josie, was assaulted by the family dentist, but soon No Frills was helping Nastos and Maddy deal with the fallout from his arrest and murder trial. No Frills knew all of the secrets.

“We were. She didn't want me doing the investigations, like the one with the Bannerman family. Then near the end everything changed and I finally saw that I was going to be able to keep her. Thinking I might lose her was the worst part. We had been fighting so much over money, then Bannerman fixed things up and the settlement was on the way. We were going to be set financially. I didn't even have a chance to tell her because —” He felt a disorienting mix of emotions begin to swirl through him. “I had this feeling inside that everything was finally going to be put right. I was going to be compensated for everything that happened to me, happened to us. But that was the day she died. Josie was recovering so well from the abuse she suffered, it was like being able to wake up from a nightmare. Then my wife died. And it was my fault.”

There was a click to his right and Nastos saw the door opening. A woman peeked in, the woman he had run into while leaving yesterday. Her lipstick was more obvious this time. She had an awkward smile. “Heard the commotion. You guys all right?”

Mills stretched an arm under his desk and opened a drawer. “Yeah, we're good.” He stood up with a Miller Genuine Draft in hand.

“Steve Nastos, my colleague, Dr. Monika Styles.”

She came into the room, extending her hand. “We bumped into each other yesterday.”

Nastos took her hand “I figured you for a crazy, like me.”

“I have that air about me. I hope it will make me a more successful psychologist.”

Mills had come around his desk. He sat on the couch across from his desk, pointed for Nastos to join him. “We're good, Monika, thanks for checking.”

“Sure thing.” She waved a hand and left.

Nastos asked, “Your new woman?”

Mills smiled and took a large slug of beer. “No way, man. She's a good friend of my sister, just finished her training. She's helping me out here for a few months then she's going to start up her own freak show business up north in god's country.”

Nastos smiled. “Is that how you guys talk about us? The freak shows? You're drinking beer at, what is it now, nine forty-five in the a.m. and we're the freak shows?”

Mills reclined on the sofa and put his feet up on his desk, ignoring the comment about the time.

“Nastos, I've had Dimebag in this office. The fucker deserved the punch in the face. The problems is, that if you punched everyone who deserved it, whenever they deserved it —” He left Nastos to finish the thought.

“Yeah, I know. I overreacted. And he didn't deserve it. He's an insensitive asshole and I have a hair trigger. I tell myself that it's a rational decision to snap because sometimes I delay it until I know I can get away with it. I hold grudges, I make people suffer if I feel they slighted me or if they cross the line of morality.”

Mills drank more beer.

Nastos asked, “A little thirsty?”

He put the bottle down. “We've made more progress in the last half hour than in all of the time I've known you.”

“So you're getting drunk. I'm flattered.”

Mills stood up and put the beer down on his desk.

“Monika's covering for me for the rest of the day. A buddy of mine from the station is coming over, you know a guy named Detective Thomas, out of Thirty-One?”

“No, must be after my time.”

“He's coming over soon. Bringing his girlfriend and her sister. We're having a barbecue lunch on the roof then finding a patio for drinks. You should join us.” It was the first time that Mills had revealed so much of his personal life to Nastos. He smiled like he was looking forward to a good time.

“Well, I'd love to be the fifth wheel and all but unfortunately, Carscadden and I have a case to work on.”

Mills became serious. “You sure you're up for it?”

“Sure, I'm not crazy or anything. You said it yourself, the guy deserved it. Carscadden and I are going to solve a homicide. So screw you, Chief Dimech. You can keep the badge that you jackasses took from me.”

Mills sat down, exasperated. He closed his eyes, nodded to himself and slowly grabbed for another beer. “I think you need a break from this kind of work and I have the perfect idea.”

“What's that?”

“Listen, we're almost done the business we have between us. You've been through a lot of crap lately and I don't mean to push anything on you . . .”

“What?” Nastos had no idea where this was going.

“Monika. She's from Ottawa. She doesn't know Toronto so well. She's a real foodie, she loves Italian.”

“If you're suggesting a date —”

“Nothing of the kind. But you work at the best Italian place in the city. Maybe you could show her around the kitchen, introduce her to the owner, that sort of thing. Give her the star treatment. You know how he likes to try new recipes on people. She might even sing a song or two at the piano.”

“She sings?”

“Like an angel. I'm telling you, get her into a place like Frankie's, get a few drinks and some appetizers into her then point to the piano. And I want to be there when it happens.”

Nastos thought about how Monika, Dr. Styles, would look wearing a black evening dress singing at the baby grand at the back of the restaurant. “It'll take the two of us to keep Viktor at a safe distance.”

“Invite Carscadden and Hopkins. I'll bring my date from today.”

“Isn't it some ethical violation for us to be friends?”

“I think we crossed that line a while ago. We may as well make the most of it.”