'Geez, I don't know. A social worker, maybe. An activist of some sort. Just not a PI. I mean, our firm uses PIs all the time and you just don't fit the mould.'
'The ex-cop mould?'
'Yeah.'
'Truth is, I kind of backed into it. Mostly I met the right man at the right time. He thought I had what it took.'
'And what exactly are you investigating? You were very tight-lipped on the phone.' He checked his side mirror and gunned the Navigator into the passing lane, overtaking a delivery van that was trailing a cloud of burning oil.
'Three murders.'
'Three-Jesus H.' He glanced over at me, then back at the road ahead. 'I thought it was some sort of fraud thing.'
'There's a fraud at the heart of it. But it's murder now.'
'This happened in Toronto?'
'Yes.'
'So what brings you to Chicago?'
'The killings were ordered here.'
'The Outfit?'
'I almost wish it were.'
'You're being very cryptic.'
'Because the man who ordered them is going to be a lot harder to nail than a mobster.'
'Why?'
'Because he's Simon Birk.'
Avi's head whipped around. He gaped at me. 'The Simon Birk?'
'Watch it!' I planted my right foot against the floor as if my side had a brake. He looked back at the road and slammed the brake hard, stopping inches from a beat-up old Mazda with three bodies crammed in the back seat. Nearly three more deaths to add to the tally.
'You're telling me that Simon Birk-the Simon Birk-had three people killed in Toronto?'
'Yes.'
'Then why aren't the police handling it? Or are they?'
'Not so far.'
'Why not?'
'They're not buying my theory.'
'You have proof?'
'Not enough. Not yet.'
'So you're down here on your own.'
'Yes.'
'Going after Simon Birk.'
'Yes.'
'The Simon Birk.'
'Yes.'
'Jonah goddamn Geller,' he said. 'You're even crazier than I remembered.'
'That,' I said, 'may be the only advantage I have.'
'Did you call me because I'm a lawyer?'
'I called because you're a friend. The only person I know in Chicago. I didn't even know you were a lawyer till your mother told me.'
'How long did it take her to tell you?'
'First or second sentence.'
'That's my mom.'
'You might be able to help,' I said. 'If that's something that interests you.'
'Help you investigate Simon Birk.'
'Maybe shed a little light on his business practices.'
'That I could probably do. What else?'
'I don't know. Get me out of jail if need be.'
'Jail-what would you end up in jail for?'
'How should I know?' I said. 'I just got here.'
'But I don't practise criminal law.'
'This could be your chance.'
Avi used his thumb to lower the volume and R.E.M. faded away. 'I think you'd better tell me everything,' he said. 'What the hell happened in Toronto and why you think Birk is involved.'
'I know he is, Avi. He ordered those people killed because they were in his way.'
'Then convince me,' he said. 'Because if your only friend in Chicago doesn't believe you, who else will?'
CHAPTER 1
Of all the hard lessons I learned last June, fighting for my life in the Don River Valley, chief among them was this: the justice system can't always protect those who need it most. I had taken a man's life because I knew if I let him live, he would order my death, and others, from prison. It might have taken days, weeks or months-or more likely hours-and that would have been that. If the system couldn't protect me, with the resources I had, I knew there were other, more vulnerable people out there who needed a different brand of justice, and someone to mete it out on their behalf.
And so I left Beacon Security, the only place I'd ever worked as an investigator. Left the employ of Graham McClintock, who had trained me, believed in me, mentored me like a seasoned horse breaker. I had to leave after the lies I told him, the actions I took, the absences I couldn't explain. I made the most graceful exit I could manage and my friend Jenn Raudsepp opted to join me. I never asked her to: she had a good thing going at Beacon and my departure might even have opened up new opportunities for her. I knew my new agency, as it was forming in my mind, might prove a low-income, high-risk enterprise. But she volunteered to come aboard and I welcomed her. When she told me her parents had offered her $20,000 against the eventual sale of their farm, and she was willing to invest it, I was all over her.
She put up twenty per cent of the start-up costs and I put up eighty from the sale of a house I had owned with my ex-girlfriend. Which meant I got to name the company.
You could say we argued about my choice a little.
'No one will know what we do,' Jenn protested.
'That could prove useful. Help us stay under the radar.'
'Why would we want to?'
'Because of the kinds of cases we'll be taking.'
'We'll get all kinds of bogus calls.'
'We won't answer them.'
'How will we know they're bogus?'
'We're investigators, Jenn. Trained by the best. We'll separate the clients from the chaff.'
'What do you know about chaff, city boy? And why should we make it hard for clients to find a new business no one knows about?'
'If they need our kind of help, they'll find us.'
I held fast and World Repairs is the name of our agency. Clients-especially well-paying ones-have proved somewhat elusive so far, so maybe Jenn had a point. She had suggested T.O. Investigations, T.O. being shorthand for both Toronto and tikkun olam, the Jewish concept of repairing the world, making it a better place wherever you can.
