The Devil and the Detective (11 page)

23

S
itting handcuffed to a chair, I thought,
I spend an inordinate amount of time handcuffed to chairs
. They left me in the interrogation room alone for at least twenty minutes, which is pretty much sop. Sometimes they make you wait much longer but O'Meara had a rendezvous with the Devil, I thought, or
Devils
, plural, or at least with some real bad assholes, so he couldn't waste too much time. Still, he wasn't there to attempt to intimidate me right away and left me sitting there restrained, still rattled from the 50,000 volts. On the car ride to the station one of the officers asked me if I'd ever had a taste of an
X26
before and I said, ‘Why would I have?' He told me that in the academy he'd volunteered to be shot up with electricity and had been
OC
-sprayed, too. ‘Like pepper-sprayed?' I said, and he said yes and said that
OC
was an abbreviation for
Oleoresin Capsicum
. I asked him which was worse, the
X26
or the spray, and he said they were both bad but before both they took away his service weapon and that if he'd had it after the Taser he would've shot the cadet who'd Tased him and if he'd had it after the pepper spray, he would've shot himself. ‘The academy sounds like a gas,' I said, and we stopped talking for the duration of the ride.

O'Meara entered the room carrying a phonebook and we both knew what that was about. He kicked the door shut behind him and walked swiftly over to me and whacked me across the face with the book. It hurt so badly that I instantly tasted blood and felt sick.

‘Okay, okay,' I said, ‘I'll do whatever you want. Just don't hit me with that again. What the fuck's your problem?'

‘Rick, you know damn well what's my problem.'

‘Me?'

‘Bingo.'

‘Well, sorry I guess, but his wife hired me.'

‘Yes, I know. You fell for Clytemnestra.'

‘Impressive reference for a flatfoot.' O'Meara swung the phonebook back, ready to deliver another blow, but I said, ‘Seriously, please don't do that again. I'm not here to fight.'

‘You're here because you can't follow orders and have no respect for authority,' he said. ‘But authority will simply knock you down when you get out of line. And, Rick, you're out of line.' Then, of course, he hit me across the face with the phonebook and for a second I blacked out.

‘Man!' I said, sniffling, nose bloody. ‘We've known each other for a long time and I get it – you're a cop and I'm a private dick and we don't like each other – but I was hired by the wife of a murdered man and now you're beating me up for doing my job.'

‘Rick, you're horrible at your so-called job.'

‘So be it, so you think. But you don't need to beat me like a fascist.'

‘Rick, the world is fascist, first off, and secondly, you're lucky you're not dead.'

‘Doesn't feel like it right now.'

‘I want you to leave town.'

‘Can I have till sunup since sundown's past?'

‘If you don't leave town you're dead.'

‘You're going to kill me?'

‘Someone will. I'm doing you a favour.'

‘What have you got yourself involved in?'

‘Don't ask questions.'

‘What the fuck's going on? Who are these people?'

‘Leave town.'

‘Where's Elaine?'

‘I have no idea but I suspect she's far, far from here.'

‘Where's Elaine?'

‘I'm not lying, Rick. I have no idea.'

‘What were you paid for?'

‘What are you implying?'

‘I'm not implying anything, O'Meara. I'm asking you straight: What did they pay you for?'

‘No one's paid me for anything, Rick. I have no idea what you're talking about.'

‘Cut the crap. It's time to stop playing games. I know Bouvert and Adamson have paid you for something.'

Not surprisingly, he whacked me with the phonebook again.

‘Listen to me, motherfucker!' he said, dropping the phonebook and pulling my hair back and spitting on my face. ‘You better shut the fuck up right now and stop asking questions or I'll kill you myself. And next time no phonebook, instead a pistol-whipping,' and he let go of my hair and pulled out his Glock from his shoulder holster, waving it in my face like a tough guy. ‘I don't give a shit what you think, Rick – you don't have a clue. I'm warning you that you need to leave town before you get yourself killed by asking too many questions.'

‘So if you think someone might kill me why don't you do something about it? You're the police.'

‘I am doing something about it, asshole, so don't get in my goddamn way.'

‘I don't believe you.'

‘I don't care. Get on a plane or bus or train and get out of town.'

‘If I don't … ?'

‘Leave town?'

‘Yeah.'

‘I thought I made that clear. You'll be killed. The only thing I could do to protect you is to lock you up. Or, you could leave town. Two choices.'

‘What are you going to arrest me for?'

‘I don't know. I'll stuff a bag of heroin in your shirt pocket. Whatever it takes. It's not hard.'

‘I need twelve hours to solve this case.'

‘All right, seriously, stop it. Enough jokes.' He put his gun away, back in its holster. ‘You're deluded. You're a delusional man. Leave or I'll put you away for a long time, not just for the duration of this case. If I lock you up because you're sniffing around this case, it'll be for the rest of your life,
capisce?
'

‘O'Meara – '

‘Do you understand?'

‘Yes. Yes, I understand.'

He uncuffed me and offered me a handkerchief for my bloodied nose.

‘You'll wait here and an officer's going to escort you home, you're going to pack a bag, and then he'll see you to the train station or the airport or the bus depot, your choice – '

‘Thanks.'

‘ – and you're going to get on your chosen mode of transportation and you're going to travel to your chosen destination and you're not going to show your face around here for a long, long time.'

‘Deal.'

‘I'm not really giving you a choice. Well, this or prison or death, I guess, so I am giving you a choice.'

‘I'll get on a train and disappear for a while.'

‘Rick, that's the first thing you've ever said I've liked.' He opened the door to the interrogation room.

‘O'Meara,' I said, holding the handkerchief to my nose.

‘Yeah … '

‘See you in the funny pages.'

‘See you in the funny pages, Rick.'

24

T
he same officer who shot me up with electricity drove me back to my apartment, where I was supposed to pack and then hop on a train, not to return for some time. Of course, however, I'd made my plan of escape on the car ride home. It'd stopped raining and the temperature had dropped. Officer McLaughlin was short but muscular, top heavy, with a broad chest and broad shoulders. He clearly plays rugby on weekends, I thought, and when I asked him, he was astonished, and he responded in the affirmative.

‘How'd you know?' he said.

‘Because I'm a detective,' I said, and unlike O'Meara he didn't make any derogatory remarks; he just seemed impressed.

I was growing to like Officer McLaughlin, despite the fact that he tased me, and I was feeling a little guilty that I was about to skip out on him, which would no doubt get him in a world of trouble and affect his career; for this, truly, I felt bad, but I had a case to solve and I wasn't about to get on a train and leave town, not yet.

When we arrived at my place, I offered Officer McLaughlin a cup of tea or coffee, having nothing else to offer, and he accepted a cup of tea, and I started to pack a bag, with some clothes and my camera, et cetera. I wanted to pack some weaponry but didn't want to look too suspicious. I told him I had to use the washroom to get cleaned up – wash away the blood – and pack my toiletry kit and he said that was fine but to be fast. I said thanks.

I ran the shower and the washroom began to fill up with steam. I washed my face quickly at the sink. I opened the small window above the shower and tried to figure out a way of hoisting myself up and out of it to the fire escape, while steam billowed and rolled out the window. The window was small, indeed, high up. I'd leave my bag behind, I decided. If I pulled myself up, I thought, I could balance on the shower-curtain bar, which was metal and very sturdy and screwed into the wall, and roll out the window. And that was exactly what I did, leaving the shower running and the washroom filling up with steam. As quietly as I could, I took the stairs down the fire escape to the street. I took back alleys to Chez Marine.

Getting to the flower shop's back entrance wasn't difficult, though I heard a police siren on the way and of course suspected it was Officer McLaughlin frantically searching for me. I slipped in the back door and didn't make a sound. I looked around at all the flowers and tools and saw a cluttered desk with, amongst other things, a glow-in-the-dark Hasbro Ouija Board with a planchette on it. It must be Julie's, I instantly thought, and then she came in to the back of the store and put her hand on her small chest, startled.

‘You frightened me!' she said. ‘Are you all right?'

‘I'm sorry,' I said, ‘but the police are after me.'

‘Oh wow.'

‘Is Darren around?'

‘No, but I'll call his cell. I haven't seen him since you two left earlier.'

‘I was with him but then I got taken away by the cops. He doesn't know. He was sitting waiting for me in the car, while I was going to grab some supplies from my place.'

‘I'll call,' she said, and picked up a phone on the desk with the Ouija board. While Julie dialed, I thought I should contact Gerald Andrews with the board and ask him who stabbed him to death.

‘Darren,' she said, ‘I'm with Bob. At the store. He's in trouble … Okay,
bon
…
Ciao
… ' She hung up the phone.

‘What's he saying?'

‘He's on his way, said he just stopped at his apartment.'

‘Great.
Merci, Julie.
'

‘
De rien
.'

Darren was there within minutes. Of course, his first question was
what the hell happened
and I filled him in on everything: the Taser, the interrogation, the phonebook, O'Meara's Glock and splitting out the washroom window on Officer McLaughlin.

‘We've only got a little over an hour till O'Meara meets up with the lawyers, so we'd better get moving,' I said.

‘I'm ready,' said Darren, picking up a nail gun off a table.

‘Is this is a good idea?' said Julie.

‘I don't know,' I said, ‘but we have to do something. I can't just sit on my hands. We have to be there for the payoff – see what this is all about, see what O'Meara's up to.'

‘Do you believe he's working on the case?' said Darren. ‘Like, undercover?'

‘Do you?'

‘No.'

‘Me neither, but I've been fooled so many times that I'm open to the possibility that he's on the up and up.'

‘Right … '

‘We'll see, I suppose.'

‘So what … ?'

‘We go down to the Old Port, find this restaurant, find the pier close by, and then hide and watch. A stakeout.'

‘Do you have a plan to intervene?'

‘No. We'll see what goes down.'

‘You two are crazy! You'll end up in prison or dead.'

‘I really hope not, Julie.'

25

E
n route to the Old Port, I thought about what to do and didn't really have many ideas. Julie said if she didn't hear from Darren and me in a couple of hours she'd call the police.

We explained to her that the police are potentially our main problem at the moment. She seemed to understand but nevertheless said she'd contact the authorities if she hadn't heard from us in a couple of hours. Darren promised to call, at the very least, and told her to hold tight. ‘We'll be okay,' he told her. I was nervous for Darren's safety, however; after all, I thought, he was a student and a flower-delivery driver who'd done me a whole host of favours, not a law enforcement officer or a criminal (when there's a difference) or a private detective – this really wasn't his problem or his case, though his help had been invaluable, I thought, even though I still wasn't sure what was going on or what was about to go down. Still, thanks to Darren, we knew about the payoff, I thought, if the payoff was still going down. Darren had brought the nail gun along and had grabbed a baseball bat and a couple of golf clubs from his apartment. Even with our armament, I thought, we were dead if things got violent, so probably best to stay out of the way, and I told Darren what I'd been thinking, emphasizing that I wanted him to stay out of harm's way, watching but not intervening, no matter what. He just nodded.

‘I'm serious,' I said.

‘I know.'

‘It's not worth you getting hurt or killed over a bunch of rich assholes' bullshit.'

‘I know.'

We drove on in silence. Darren had looked up Diavolo Cucina's address back at the boutique. He said the restaurant was right down by the water, far off from the touristy section, where you can buy fudge and watch jugglers and unicyclists and men making balloon animals, sometimes making them disappear by eating them. It was in the corner of the old city, by the waterway, near an overpass. We pulled up to the old stone building, which looked like a tiny fortress, with black steel fencing, and knew it was the restaurant, even though there wasn't a sign.

‘We should wait near that little park but under the overpass,' I said, pointing to a small grassy strip across from the restaurant but before the wharf, with a few benches and picnic tables.

‘I know just what to do,' said Darren, and he pulled the car up alongside a pillar under the overpass, from which we could see the restaurant's entrance, the small park and the pier. ‘I've got a camera and binoculars in my knapsack.'

I turned around and unzipped the red-and-blue knapsack and took out the binoculars. I held them up to my eyes and looked over at Diavolo Cucina. It'd been a long time since I'd looked through a pair of binoculars, I thought, no longer owning a pair myself. I used to own a pair, a while back, but they got broken on a case: I'd dropped them from the rooftop of an apartment building, on a stakeout.
C'est la vie
, I thought, but it was nice to use binoculars again. I pointed them toward the wharf and the pier, where a couple of container ships were moored. I pointed them toward the park – nobody was in sight. I pointed them toward the restaurant and it seemed like the only place in the area with movement. It was dark but not too dark. The area was pretty lit up, with old-style streetlamps. They looked Victorian, I thought, but I really had no idea.

A black Mercedes pulled up to the restaurant – ‘It's him,' said Darren and grabbed the camera – and lo and behold, Bouvert got out and was greeted by a valet, who took his keys and parked his car. Darren snapped photos nonstop, since his camera was digital.

He's not carrying anything
, I thought.

‘Okay, on schedule. What time is it?' I said.

‘Twenty to ten.'

‘So Bouvert probably doesn't have time to eat first.'

‘Probably not, or not a whole meal. He'll probably have a drink or two first, a vodka martini, maybe.'

‘Probably,' I said.

Perhaps he has the money in an envelope, I thought, tucked into a pocket of his long black overcoat. Sixty grand, however, is a lot of dough to tuck away in your coat pocket.

‘Did you notice he wasn't carrying anything?' said Darren.

‘I did. I was thinking maybe the money's in his coat pocket, in an envelope.'

‘That's a lot of bread to keep in your pocket.'

‘I agree.'

‘Or maybe the money's already at the restaurant.'

‘Sound thinking, Darren.'

I aimed the binoculars at the wharf, looking at the benches by the pier, looking for Michael O'Meara, but I didn't see a soul. I pointed them toward the park and thought I saw a homeless man staggering in the distance.

‘No sign of Adamson,' said Darren.

‘No sign of Adamson.'

‘Maybe he's at the restaurant.'

‘Could be. Or possibly he's sitting this one out.'

‘I highly doubt that.'

‘Me too.'

‘Look,' said Darren, looking through the viewfinder of his camera, pointing it toward a bench on the wharf, extending the lens, zooming in on it, and applying pressure to the shutter release. On foot, O'Meara approached the bench – he looked to be alone.

‘It's definitely O'Meara,' I said, pointing my binoculars in the same direction. ‘Do you spot backup anywhere?'

‘I don't,' said Darren, looking around.

‘I think I saw a homeless guy way in the distance staggering around but I doubt he's backup.'

‘So you think O'Meara's solo?'

‘Hard to tell,' I said, looking around.

O'Meara sat down on the bench near the pier and lit a cigarette. Looking out on the waterway, he had his back to the restaurant. He wasn't checking his phone or making sure his gun was loaded; rather, he simply smoked his cigarette and stared out at the placid harbour water.

Despite the flower smell in the car, the area smelled of horse shit, I thought, from the tours they give of the port in horse-drawn carriages, the horses with their double bridles and blinders, and tourists in their carriages. Although I didn't see any horses or hear the clopping of their hooves on the cobblestone streets, I did smell their shit, I thought, despite the lingering smell of flowers.

There appeared to be movement. Bouvert was exiting the restaurant and I shot my binoculars over to O'Meara as his head swung around, as if he could hear Bouvert exiting the restaurant, despite the distance between them. I shot the binoculars back to Bouvert, who stood in the open doorway, which glowed softly red behind him. His frame was large, though, and blocked and absorbed most of the light.

‘It's happening,' said Darren.

‘Yes. Be on the lookout for any surprises.'

‘I'm getting prepared right now,' said Darren, securing the nail gun beside him.

‘He's got something in his hands,' I said, focusing in on Bouvert.

‘What?'

‘A small gym bag, it looks like … '

‘So he's got the money, it's going down.'

‘Looks like it.'

Bouvert crossed the street and the small park and continued toward the wharf. He was alone, I thought, by the looks of it.

‘It's too bad we won't be able to hear them,' I said.

‘I know. I was just thinking that, too. What can we do?'

‘Not much. They'll spot us if we try and get any closer. This is a good vantage point. We just don't have any sound.'

Bouvert crossed the park and was large and probably doesn't walk much, I thought. O'Meara spotted him right away and made his way over to him. They talked. Darren took photos. They seemed to be getting along amicably, I thought, and it looked like O'Meara had made Bouvert laugh, the hearty laugh of a corpulent man. But it was hard to tell. O'Meara took the small gym bag and they shook hands. They talked a little more and then Bouvert turned toward the restaurant and O'Meara turned back toward the wharf.

‘That went smoothly,' said Darren.

‘Yeah. Something's up.'

‘Clearly,' said Darren.

We watched Bouvert make his way back into the restaurant and O'Meara walk eastward along the wharf, away from us. O'Meara walked and strung the gym bag around his chest and seemed carefree, from where I was sitting, with Darren in the delivery car, watching through binoculars. Everything seemed wrong, I thought. I felt a sense of anticipatory dread and its attendant nausea. Bouvert and O'Meara were too friendly and it all seemed too easy, I thought. I could tell Darren was thinking the same things. I saw movement in the bushes ahead of O'Meara. A thin man in a long black overcoat came out of the copse.

‘What's going on?' said Darren.

‘Someone's coming out of the park.'

Someone who looked like Adamson emerged from the park and walked toward O'Meara. They were talking, at a distance. The person I thought was Adamson slowly and calmly produced a handgun from his overcoat pocket – a 9mm semi-automatic, I thought, but it was impossible to tell from the distance – drawing a bead on O'Meara.

‘Holy shit,' I said.

‘Let's go!' said Darren, grabbing his nail gun and stuffing his camera into his coat pocket.

‘You stay here. Give me the gun. Take photos,' I said.

‘But, Bob – '

‘Don't argue. There's no time.'

I took the nail gun from Darren and got out of the hatchback and started running toward O'Meara and who I thought was Adamson. I was yelling. Darren was honking his car horn, ­holding down on it. They were too far away. O'Meara drew his gun, but by the time he had it out he had three bullets in him. I kept running, nail gun in hand, but the person I thought was Adamson ran off. In vain, I fired off a few nails in his direction. But I had to see if O'Meara was all right, if he was alive.

O'Meara lay bleeding on the ground with his hands covered in blood resting on his bleeding chest and stomach and the small gym bag strapped across his torso. I got down beside him, propping up his head.

‘Where's your phone? I'll call an ambulance.'

He didn't say a word so I searched his coat pockets and dug it out myself. ‘What the fuck just happened?' I said, dialing 911. O'Meara raised his hand and smacked the phone out of mine. ‘What? You want to die?'

O'Meara gave me a look and its meaning was clear. He attempted to prop himself up and began to take off the small gym bag but needed help.

‘You want that off?' I said and helped him out of it. It was clear he was going to die, as he bled in my arms. His breathing was strained because he had holes in his chest and he was gut-shot. He looked me in the eye, then at the small gym bag, then looked me in the eye again, motioning with his forehead.

‘You want me to take the money,' I said.

He nodded.

‘Were you working for them? Were you working for the lawyers?'

He nodded.

‘Doing what?'

He just looked at me, unconcerned, moribund. He motioned at the money and then his eyes went out. I shook him, repeating his name, but nothing: O'Meara was dead. I looked around and grabbed the nail gun and grabbed the gym bag and left O'Meara's Glock and wiped my fingerprints off his cell and ran toward the hatchback. When I got close enough, I motioned for Darren to stop honking the damn horn. He did. I ran up to the car and got in.

‘That's amazing,' I said. ‘No one seems to have heard a thing, looks like … '

‘There's no one around, except for in the restaurant, and no way they could hear gunshots from there.'

‘O'Meara's dead, as I'm sure you could tell. He gave me the money, though.' I held up the gym bag, unzipping it. ‘He couldn't speak but he motioned for me to take it.'

‘Probably didn't want to be found dead with sixty grand.'

‘That's what I figured, too, but this isn't sixty,' I said, looking at the money in the gym bag. ‘It's more like twenty grand or so but mainly in twenty-dollar bills.'

‘So they shortchanged him and killed him.'

‘Looks like it.'

‘What the fuck do we do?'

‘Well, we either take the money and split or we try and take these fuckers down. They just killed a cop.'

‘Bob, if they killed a cop, it's because they can.'

‘So what do you propose we do?'

There was a tapping at Darren's window and I looked up and it was a 9mm doing the tapping. ‘Get down,' I said, and Darren ducked and I fired off several rounds from the nail gun and the driver-side window shattered and I wasn't sure what had happened. ‘Start the car but keep down.'

Darren complied. Keeping down, I looked out the shattered window and saw the man I thought was Adamson drawing a bead on us. I fired off several more rounds and heard his 9mm fall to the ground. (I think I hit him, I thought.) I got out of the car and Darren followed, brandishing a baseball bat, and I ran toward the man I thought was Adamson, who was running off. I ran up to the 9mm and picked it up with my shirtsleeve, even though I doubted there was a single usable fingerprint on the gun.