I had to do it. The justice system couldn’t help me. Even if there was enough evidence to convict Stefano, he could order my death from behind bars in a minute. He could kill us all. He’d be getting three meals a day while my body broke down in the ground somewhere, and my mother and Cara and Carlo Ryan and the Silvers’ extended family mourned their losses.
I held the gun trained at his chest for what seemed like hours. Then my arm got tired and I lowered the gun. I used Stefano’s shirttail to wipe it clean of prints, then dropped it in the water beside Stefano.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t thank me yet.”
I reached down into the water. The cold felt good on my right wrist. I took hold of the rock that was supporting Stefano’s neck. Pulled. Pulled harder. Pulled till I eased it out from under him. His neck and head sank down under the water. Bubbles streamed from his nose and mouth. The rest of his body was still. His eyes stayed open the whole time.
After a while the bubbles stopped. I waded back through the water and found my shirt where I had left it in the brush. I washed as much mud as I could from my hands and face, then put on my shirt and climbed up the riverbank and went to find Dante Ryan.
EPILOGUE
“ On my count of three,” I said. “One… two…”
On three Jenn Raudsepp and I lifted the desk a few inches off the ground and scuttled sideways toward the one empty wall. We looked like a pair of crabs, if crabs could move an old teacher’s desk the size of a Nimitz-class carrier.
We set it down. “That’s it,” I panted. “That’s the last one.” I flexed my wrist, which still ached from time to time, even though the cast had been off for two weeks.
We were in our new office space on Broadview south of Queen Street, on the third floor of a four-floor loft building. We had an anteroom with space for a receptionist-if ever business grew enough to warrant one-and an inner sanctum with room for three desks and a slew of filing cabinets, all bought at an auction of surplus equipment held by the Toronto District School Board.
It was the last week of August: sunny but dry, pleasant temperatures and a light breeze keeping us cool. A far cry from the heat wave that had ruled the end of June.
We were partners in a new agency, Jenn and I. My money from the sale of the house on Bain Avenue had finally come through and it had been more than enough to rent the space, buy the equipment we needed-the desks, cabinets, computers, cameras-and subscribe to half a dozen top databases and online search services. I had also bought a new car from Joe Avila. A two-year-old Accord, a nice anonymous ride the colour of wet cement.
When Jenn offered to come with me, I was thrilled. When she told me she was willing to invest $20,000 her parents had given her against the eventual sale of their farm, I was all over her like a Venus flytrap.
I didn’t make the move because Clint fired me. He didn’t, though he’d had every right to. I never told him the full story behind my disappearance during the investigation into Franny’s murder, and he was still willing to give me another chance. I was touched by that but resigned all the same. I had learned something about myself that summer: if I was going to make it as an investigator, I had to be free to follow my instincts wherever they took me. I didn’t think I could do that at Beacon. Most of all, I didn’t want to have to lie to Clint anymore, or sneak around or steal time from one case to work another. I came to realize I valued him more as a friend and mentor than as a boss.
So a Jew and a lesbian open a detective agency… it sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. I hoped it wouldn’t turn out that way.
Dante Ryan didn’t lose his eye. The cornea was scratched but he was told it would heal with time and rest. He had to wear an eye patch for a while, which must have made him look more dangerous than ever. I don’t know because I haven’t seen him since the night Ricky and Stefano died. I keep saying they died, when they were killed, because I can’t quite frame Stefano’s death that way. Not yet.
I thought at first I’d hate Ryan. Forever. Then he called one night. He was back home living with Cara. We talked for a long time and I kept waiting for the hate to come. It just didn’t. He told me he’d worked things out with Vinnie Nickels. Dante Ryan was finally out of the game. I told him I was glad for him. He told me he was glad about my new agency. We wished each other well. We almost became good friends on our wild ride, but I doubt we’ll see each other again.
Katherine Hollinger told me the killings of Kenneth Page and Francois Paradis had been attributed to the late Ricky Messina, whose gun matched slugs from their bodies. The killings of Ricky Messina, the Di Pietra brothers, Tommy “TV” Vetere and Phil “Philly Fits” Bernardi were chalked up to a Mob power struggle between “factions unknown.” The irony was that the question of succession to Vinnie’s throne became largely irrelevant, and not just because all the princes of his realm were dead. “Truth is,” Hollinger said, “the Calabrian mob is on its way down. The other gangs smell blood and they’re moving in on all fronts, and there isn’t much Vinnie can do right now to stop them.” She had even heard rumours that TFTOC-the Task Force on Traditional Organized Crime-might be disbanded, its resources folded into other intel squads that were tracking bikers, Asians, Russians, Jamaicans, Tamils and whatever other gangs were proliferating in and around Toronto.
I want to see Hollinger. Buy her a coffee and look into her eyes and see what’s there now that the case is over. Maybe when things have died down a little more. When everything’s farther behind us.
The killing of Amy Farber was attributed to Christine Staples, whose gun matched the slugs in Amy’s chest. No arrests have been made to date in Staples’s death. Given how dirty she had turned out to be, her passing was not widely mourned.
Ed Johnston, my neighbour, is still recovering from the beating he took. He gets headaches a lot. He needs dental work. He can’t use his left hand much, because all the fingers on it were stomped. He’s living with his daughter in Mississauga for now. I hope he comes back to our building. I owe him a lot but there’s nothing I can do for him where he is. His daughter would probably call the police if I strayed over her suburban border.
I tried to avoid seeing my mother until my wrist healed and the scratches on my hands, face and neck where I had been whipped by branches had disappeared. No such luck. The week after the case ended, she invited me again for Shabbas dinner (inviting being a euphemism for insisting). Daniel was there with Marcy and their boys, Jason and Jeffrey. I told Mom I broke my wrist rollerblading and got the scratches when I’d tumbled off the path into the bushes. My standing with my nephews fell somewhat-I think the word spaz escaped their young lips-but Mom seemed to buy it.
My dreams have for the most part been disturbing, grotty little dramas that wake me in the early hours, my stomach as twisted as my sheets. But the other night I had one where Roni Galil and I were trapped in the usual alley as a torrential wave rushed through. I kept my feet but Roni was knocked over onto his back. I offered him my hand to pull him back up onto his feet, but he waved me off and stayed under water. He lit a joint and took a deep, long hit, but when he finally blew it out, no air bubbles rose past the surface: just a thin wisp of smoke. He didn’t even offer to share it with me, the bugger, but I laughed it off. He took another toke, an even longer one this time, and gave me a big wink and a smile while he held his breath.
He looked very much at peace.