“How about Joanne Cameron gives us what we need and you go fuck yourself?” She sidearmed the phone across the room. It hit the dining room wall and shattered.
“He’s not going to like that.”
“Turn around and give me your hands,” Hazel said. Cameron did as she was told, and Hazel had one cuff on when the radiophone she’d dropped when drawing her gun began to ring.
“I think that’s for you,” said Cameron.
Hazel snapped the second cuff closed and picked up the phone. Goodman said, “Please hold while I connect you to your caller.” There was an electronic buzz in the background. It repeated. Then she heard her daughter’s voice.
“Hello?” said Martha.
Hazel’s stomach flipped.
“Who is it?” repeated Martha, and then Hazel heard her own voice, replying:
“Hazel Micallef.”
“Never heard of ’er,” Martha laughed. “What are you doing in town, Hazel Micallef?”
Hazel, her limbs tingling with horror, began moving toward the door as the voice said, “I’ve got some work.” She froze in the middle of the living room.
“Well, this is a nice surprise. You going to come up?”
“Yes.”
Hazel began to shout into the radiophone: “MARTHA! DON’T OPEN THE DOOR!”
“Come in then, you weirdo.”
“MARTHA!!!”
But she heard the buzz and clack of the door to Martha’s building opening. Goodman came back on the line. “Let Joanne go. She’ll call me when she’s sure she’s not being followed. I’ll wait in the lobby for two minutes, and then I’m getting into the elevator.” He disconnected and Hazel stared at the phone in her hand in disbelief.
“You don’t have long,” said Cameron. She held out her wrists.
Numb, her mind racing, Hazel got the keys and unlocked Joanne Cameron.
“I’ll call him – it’ll be okay, I promise,” said Cameron. “I don’t want any harm to come to anyone’s child, you can believe that. Just… keep going, okay? He’s serious.”
“I swear to god, I’ll kill you both.” There was a high shrill sound like the engine of a small plane swimming around the inside of her head and her heart was pounding like a fist.
“He’s getting in the elevator. I’m sorry -”
“We’re going to meet again, Joanne…”
“I know.”
Hazel watched her walk out the front door, her fists curling and uncurling as the sweat poured down the back of her collar. And then as soon as she saw her turn left toward Huron Street, Hazel burst from the house and ran as hard as she could out to Spadina Avenue without looking back. It felt like someone was clubbing her on the base of her spine. When she got to the avenue, a light rain had begun to fall and the air smelled like dust. There were no cabs, but she stepped into traffic and flashed her badge, stopping a kid in a white RAV-4. “Whaddi do?” he squeaked when she tore the passenger-side door open.
“Nothing,” she said, getting in. “You’re going to drive me to Broadview and Danforth as fast as you can.”
“What?”
“You heard me, let’s go -”
“Are you a cop?”
“Jesus Christ, has anyone in this town ever seen an OPS?”
“A what?”
“Just floor it, kid, okay? I’ll take full responsibility.”
The kid murmured okay and hit the accelerator. Martha’s apartment building was on the other side of town. She saw the elevator climbing in its shaft like a bullet leaving a gun.
He couldn’t have been older than seventeen and he drove like he was trying to outrun a missile. She instructed him to pause at red lights and then run them and after a couple of kilometres, the kid seemed to get into it, shooting her wry looks of excitement. “Are we tailing someone?”
“Yeah. Go faster.”
“Am I gonna get on the news?” He shot a red, swerving around a left-turning truck, which honked furiously at them.
“Only if you kill us. You know any shortcuts?”
“Um – I don’t really -”
“You don’t have your licence, do you?”
“I have my G2.”
“Aren’t you supposed to have someone in the car with you when you drive?”
“Um, I have you.”
“Right. Excellent.” They were barrelling along Bloor Street, crossing Sherbourne. She raised Wingate on the radio.
“I was wondering when I was going to hear from you. What happened at the house?”
“I can’t talk right now. You need to get to 1840 Broadview.”
“What?”
“Just get in the car!” She disconnected. The kid didn’t wait for her signal to run the light at Parliament and the rear of the RAV-4 fishtailed a little. She gripped the handle above the door.
“Too fast?”
“No, but watch the traffic coming off the Don Valley Parkway.”
“Man, are we going on the parkway? That’s awesome!”
“We’re not.”
“Oh, so, like you’re drawing the line at the frikking parkway?”
“Watch your mouth. Stay straight.” He honked going through the light at Castle Frank and a gaggle of teenagers crossing the road from Rosedale Heights Secondary School flew apart.
“I hope one of them filmed that,” the kid said.
“Keep your eyes forward,” she said as they crossed the Bloor Street Viaduct. She’d flagged this car seven minutes ago. The kid could drive. “Turn right at Broadview.”
He did and she directed him to Martha’s apartment building, shouting to him to stop when he got there. When she threw the door open, he said, “Hey, you want me to wait?”
“No, I want you to go home. Slowly. And don’t break the law again.”
“Don’t forget your damn sweater,” the kid said, holding the evidence bag out to her. She took it and slammed the door and ran toward the building. The drops of May rain still held a hint of shivery cold in them, or maybe it was the anxiety driving all the blood to her extremities as she traced her finger on the callboard down to the Ps. She buzzed Martha’s apartment and then waited with her heart slamming itself against her ribs. There was no answer and she buzzed again, her breath shallow in her chest, the knuckle of her index finger turning bright yellow against the button, and she unsnapped her holster. She was going to have to blow the electro-maglock open. “Damn it, answer your door, Baby, just answer it!”
She stepped back, levelled the gun at the door, and took the safety off. “Christ,” she muttered as she began to squeeze the trigger. Behind the door, in the dim light of the lobby, she saw one of the elevators open and she raised the muzzle to the widening space. Then she saw it was Martha. Alone. Hazel hurriedly put the weapon back and tried to put a smile on her face. Martha opened the door with a bemused expression, an expression that told Hazel nothing untoward had happened. “Where the hell did you go?” she asked.
“I’m an idiot,” her mother said breathlessly. “I forgot which apartment was yours.”
“I’ve been up and down twice. God, you’re white as a sheet.”
“I ran down the stairs.”
“What? Why?”
“The elevator -” she said, but she couldn’t complete the sentence and had to lean forward and grip the steel frame of the door.
“Well, don’t stand there in the drizzle, then, come in. I’ll put on some coffee.”
Hazel caught her breath and straightened up. “No,” she said.
“No? After all this?”
“I want you to wait here.”
Martha jerked her head back, her mouth creased in perfect confusion. “What?”
“No, you’re right. Come up with me.”
She led her daughter to the elevators, Martha behind her saying, “What the hell is going on?” but she didn’t answer her, just waited for the doors to open again, ready to tear the gun out of its holster. The elevator was empty and she ushered Martha in.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I think someone might be stalking you.”
“What? Nobody is remotely that interested in me.”
The doors opened on the fourth floor and Hazel stepped out. “Wait in the hallway,” she said, but Martha strode around her mother, huffing, and unlocked her apartment door before Hazel could stop her. She had no choice: she rushed forward with the gun drawn and shoved past Martha in the doorway into the living room, spinning with her head tilted and the gun in front of her. She tossed the bag onto the coffee table and stood still, facing the hallway that connected the bedroom and the bathroom. The drawn gun had silenced Martha, and Hazel gestured her into the apartment and down onto the couch. She crept into the hallway and tried to sense movement in her periphery, but both ends of the hall seemed to be empty. She held a palm out behind her to warn Martha to stay where she was and then she moved silently toward the bedroom. It was a mess – anyone casing the apartment would think it had already been tossed – and Hazel could see there was no one in view in the room. She knew Martha’s closet was so packed with crap that no one could hide in it, but she went to check it anyway. She could hear banker’s boxes groaning against the door and she only opened it halfway before closing it again. The bedroom was clear. She retreated down the hallway and heard “There’s no one in the bathroom either,” and she spun, her breath catching, and Martha was walking toward her. She put her index finger lightly on the gun barrel and pushed it down. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on here?”