When the Killing Starts (19 page)

"Thanks, Brian, let's go." Jason shook his hand briefly and went with him, not looking back until he reached the outer door. Then he checked himself and turned to lift a hand to George and me. "See ya," he said, and was gone.

The reporters were crowding into the building, and they ran to follow Jason, but an elderly Corps de Commissionaires man with Second World War medal ribbons stopped them at the door. Some of them argued, but the others turned back and followed us. "Sir, excuse me, who was that?" one of them asked, and then they were all clamoring questions at us. There wasn't going to be any peace, so I bought them off with a quick piece of fiction. "Didn't get his name. My buddy and I were up in the area where the fire started, and we met him. Then the water bomber took us out. I guess he's some kind of wheel. That's all I know."

They wanted our names, but George fielded that one.

"Lookit, we've been off work two days with this fire. We gotta get home while we still got jobs."

After that we were free to ignore their questions as we retrieved our rifles and George's pack from the trunk of the OPP car. "Were you hunting?" one of them shouted. "It's not hunting season."

"We're Indians," George said.

They dropped away then, running to the side of the airfield fence to take long shots of the company jet that was taxiing downwind to the end of the runway.

"Alone at last," I said, and George laughed.
 

"I don't need publicity," he said. "Wouldn't sit too good with my professors. They figure students should be seen but not heard."

"Okay, let's get home." I whistled Sam into the car and we drove back down Highway 11 toward the Harbour.

As we drove, I asked, "What will the rental place charge you for the lost canoe? Any idea?" George shrugged.

"Whatever the traffic'll bear, I guess. Maybe you can call them from the Harbour, tell them to claim it on insurance and I'll pay whatever's necessary."

"Fine. Shouldn't be much, and I'll split the blood money with you, twenty-five grand between us."

"Big bucks, but we earned it." George grinned. "Now I know what it's like to be in a war."

"Not like television. You can't switch off and go to bed," I said. "Anyway, first thing I'll do at the Harbour is cash the check this woman gave me in advance, then clean up the guns, then sack out."

"God, you palefaces sure love your sleep," George said. "You sacked out in the airplane, then in the car.

"So what're you gonna do after that? You've still got three weeks before you have to make your mind up about coming back full-time." George's conversation pleased me. Normally he was like most Indians, not talking much about anything. Now we were chatting like any couple of guys in a bar. And another thing, he wasn't reliving the escape, polishing up the story, making the most of his exploits the way most guys his age would have done. I was proud to know him.

"Well, Fred's off on the prairies playing schoolmarm in some movie, so I figure I'll come back up here and fish. If the weather gets a little cooler, the pickerel will start running below the dam. Could stick a few of them in the freezer."

He nodded. "Yeah. My uncle tells me he's gotta new black-and-yellow jig, works like a charm. I'll get him to make you up a couple."

"Great." I grinned and drove in silence until we came to a highway diner. "Hungry?" I asked.

"Thought you'd never ask."

We went in and had a couple of burgers each, and I brought out some beef patties for Sam. Then we drove the rest of the way to the Harbour, and I dropped George at his mother's neat little house on the reserve and went into town, to the bank.

We're a very small community, and our bank is a converted frame house on Main Street, opposite the Lakeside Tavern and the Marina. I parked and went in and presented the check. Millie van Kirk, the teller, made a little moue of surprise at the amount. "Won the sweep, Chief?"

I knew from previous investigations that she liked to gossip, but I had to tell her something. Policemen who come into big windfalls are always suspect. "Payment for services rendered," I said cheerfully. "I found somebody's missing kid."

"Good," she said, beaming. She loved happy endings. "I'll have to clear it before I can credit it to your account. Tomorrow be okay?"

"Fine, take your time," I said, and went back to the car and home. My house seemed extra quiet now that it had known Fred's laughter, and my voice seemed loud when I called Sam in and settled him in the kitchen. Then I had myself a good long shower and cracked a beer while I got the gun-cleaning kit out and worked on the rifle, then my .38. It was mindless, cheerful work, and I was whistling to myself when the phone rang.

It was Millie. She sounded apologetic. "I'm sorry to trouble you at home, Chief," she said.

"That's okay, Millie. What's on your mind?"
 

"Well, it's your check." She hesitated and then blurted it all out. "Looks like whoever wrote it has stopped payment."

"Oh." I felt my anger starting to boil, but it wasn't Millie's fault, so I kept it in. "Thanks for the phone call, Millie. I might have started using it to pay bills with."

"Sorry, Chief. I've got it here for you if you'd like to pick it up."

"Thank you. And if you could find out when the stop-payment order went through, I'd appreciate it. Like the time as well as the date."

"No problem," she said cheerfully. Sure she was cheerful. She had two pieces of gossip now for the price of one. First the big check, then the turndown. What would the rumor mill make of that one? I wondered.

The more I thought about it, the madder I got. A deal's a deal. I don't make many of them, not about money, anyway, but when I do, I keep my end of it, and I expect the other party to keep his. Maybe if you're rich enough, the rules don't apply. Or maybe there had been some kind of screwup and a fresh check and an apology were on their way to me right now. Maybe.

It was already five o'clock. I'd missed the Michaels empire for this working day. Maybe I should wait until the morning and present myself at his office. I dismissed that one. They would kick me out without a kind word. No, the best idea was to go and call on him. Which left only one question. Where did he live?

I solved that one before going any further. I called Irv Goldman in Toronto. He's a former partner of mine, a detective in 52 Division, which is in the heart of the city, down where the slums give way to pink-painted renovations. Part of his beat is the financial district. He would know where to find Michaels.

He had come on duty at three and was in the office tidying up the paperwork on some stockbroker with sticky fingers. He stopped his running to answer me. "Michaels? It was his kid involved with those mercenaries, right? Saw it on the update when I started."

"Right. That's my connection with him. I got the kid out, with some help from George Horn from the Harbour."

We chewed that one over until he had enough news to take home to Dianne at the end of his shift. Then he got back to the problem at hand. "Yeah, while we were chatting here, I had my partner check out Michaels's home address for you. Rosedale, as you'd expect. Got a pencil?"

I wrote down the address and thanked him. "I'm going to play this one by ear. He owes me the money, and George and I got shot at earning it, so I want it. But I won't do anything physical."

"Please don't." Irv laughed. "You've used up all the goodwill there is in town, stirring up those mercenaries. I was listening to the superintendent when the news came in. He called you a goddamn cowboy. Said it was a good job you'd left the department when you did."

"He's right there, anyway," I said. "Thanks for the information, Irv. Say hi to Dianne for me."

"Yeah. Same to Fred. When's she getting back, anyway?" I told him, and he groaned. "Take plenny o' cold showers," he advised, and hung up.

The doctor at Fayette had given us each a tube of salve, and I put a little on my burns, then dressed in a better pair of slacks, city clothes, pulled a light jacket out of the closet, and set out for Toronto with Sam in the rear seat.

Now that I had no timetable, I kept my speed down to the limit, checking the changes in the city as I eased into it through its thickening waistline. It seems there are apartments out for thirty miles these days, big filing cabinets for all the human material that keeps the money pumping out of the stone-and-glass towers downtown. At seven in the evening the roads were still filled with homebound cars, most of them with a tired yuppy and a briefcase full of problems to be checked out after supper and the mandatory half hour's quality time with the kids.

It made me think. No matter what kind of decision I came to about my job at the Harbour, there was no way I could ever be an executive. Being tied to a desk eight or ten hours a day would be worse than a prison sentence. I guess my options are narrower than some people's.
 

The Michaels house was in Rosedale, the old-money section of Toronto. Most of the old houses have been split up into the kind of apartment it takes two solid incomes to afford. More reason for sweating in an office, if that was your idea of a great life.

Sam lifted his head when I got out of the car. I wound the window down and told him, "Keep." It wasn't likely that any of the neighbors would try to rip anything off, but old habits die hard, and Sam was the only antitheft insurance I needed.

A housemaid answered the door, and I asked to speak to Mr. Michaels. I guess he didn't get many guys with burned faces knocking on his door, so she asked snootily who she might say was calling.

"Colonel Dunphy," I said on a hunch, and she left me standing in the hall while she tritch-tratched over a parquet floor the length of a tennis court to a front room. I heard her murmuring, and then a woman's voice answered, and the maid came back.

"Come in, please," she said. I'd have bet most of the male guests were called Sir in that house, but what the hell. I followed her and came into a big room lined with books. A woman in her late forties was sitting on a spindly-legged couch that had been bought for its looks, not its comfort. She had a silver coffeepot and one cup in front of her. She gave the maid an automatic smile and asked her to bring another cup. Then she waved me to a seat across from her. "Sit down, please. My husband is out, but perhaps I can help."

I sat and waited. If she was going to lead the conversation, I could learn something. She sat and looked at me and said nothing until the maid came back with another cup and saucer. She took it and asked, "Coffee?"

"Please." I got up and accepted the cup, then sat again.

"I assume you've come about Jason," she said.
 

"Yes. I was hoping to see your husband about a financial arrangement we had made."

"And what kind of arrangement was that, Mr. Dunphy?" Her voice was under tight control, and I could tell she had rehearsed this scene a number of times, and I wondered why. She had obviously never met Dunphy. She didn't like him, or she would have addressed me by his rank. What was going on. I decided it was time to change her line of thought.

"To begin with, Mrs. Michaels, I'm not Dunphy. I used the name because I thought your husband would see me if I did and would refuse to if I used my own name."

She cocked her head to one side quickly; it was almost coquettish, and I realized that she was still a very attractive woman and that staying that way took up most of her energy.

"Why would you assume that?"
 

"Because your husband has just reneged on a deal I made with his representative. I was to receive a sum of money for getting your son back from the outfit he had joined. I did that, at considerable risk and discomfort. Now I find he's stopped payment on the check I was given. I'm here to ask why and to get my money."

"What did this representative look like?" Her voice was icy. She knew what was going on, but she was getting some kind of masochistic kick out of having me draw pictures for her. Complex lives these rich people live.
 

"Is that relevant, Mrs. Michaels? I spoke to your husband this morning when I'd brought Jason out as far as a police station close to North Bay. He assured me then that our contract stood. Now I find the check has bounced, and I wonder what's going on."

"Was it a woman?" she persisted.

"Yes. And even if it makes you angry, I should tell you that she represented herself to be Jason's mother."

She put her coffee cup down and clenched her fists in her lap. "Of all the unmitigated gall," she hissed.

"Look, I'm sorry. In fact, I'm sorry I ever got involved in this whole episode. I could have put in the last couple of days far more enjoyably at the dentist. I got the boy away, under fire. I delivered him to North Bay, where your company jet was waiting, and then found I've been stiffed for my pay. I'm angry."

She cocked her head again, defiantly this time. "Welcome to the club," she said. "There is a great deal of anger under this roof."

"When do you expect your husband home?" The hell with her problems. She could sit here in splendor being mad. I needed the money to get George through his next year of law school and to give me a start on whatever new career I chose.

She countered with another question. The obvious one. "If your name isn't Dunphy, what is it, please?"

"Reid Bennett. I'm the police chief of a small town in Muskoka, currently on vacation."

"Thank you, Mr. Bennett. And how much money are you owed?"

She had stood up and gone over to a writing table. Good. She was about to write the check, and I was going to smile and leave. I thought.

"Twenty-five thousand dollars. I have the returned check here if you would like to see it."

She whirled around. "Twenty-five thousand dollars? You expect me to write a check of that magnitude? On your say-so?"

"I expect somebody to write it. My deal was to save your son from almost certain death in this cockamamy mercenary outfit. In doing so, I've been shot at and had people trying to burn me alive. I don't think there's a regular pay scale for that kind of task, but I wouldn't have attempted it for any less."