lives.’”
“Nice mouth.”
“So Tice is on to me, right? He has to be. Just to make sure I ask him what the call was and he says, wrong number. Then he starts dialling you. Five digits in, I hit him with the best straight right I can manage while driving this beast of a truck. Catch him in the jaw, his head bangs against the window, he’s out. The tractor starts going one way and the trailer the other but I somehow get control and make it onto the 401.”
“Blew right the fuck past us,” Ryan said. “Much to our surprise. You were supposed to come along nice and slow, let us fall in behind.”
“Now I’m barrelling down the 401 with no backup and no way to contact anyone, because the phone fell under Tice’s seat. Then I see the Trenton exit, with the little sign saying there’s an OPP detachment.”
“So that’s why you got off there.”
“You remember that off-ramp?”
“The cloverleaf. You were going round on nine wheels, not eighteen,” Ryan grinned. “We were freaking out, thinking you were gonna roll it over and we’d have to stuff ten million cigarettes into an Escalade.”
“But I made the turn. Then the road finally straightened out, remember, and you guys came tearing up behind me trying to pass.”
“With the back of the truck swinging like a hooker in pumps. Almost drove us off the goddamn road.”
“Sorry. My six lessons didn’t include evasive action. And that’s when the OPP cruiser showed.”
“We almost hit him head-on,” Ryan said. “We swerved out to pass you and boom, there he was. We ducked back in just in time and then we could see him in the rear-view, braking, turning around, coming after us with the siren, the lights, the whole package.”
“And you had to leave empty-handed.”
“Hey, you don’t know how much that hurt.”
“Marco made it pretty clear the other night.”
“Never mind. Get to the part about getting shot.”
“You like that part? Okay. Now I have the cop behind me and it looks safe to pull over. Takes me a couple of football fields to slow the truck down but finally I stop and get out, start walking back to the cruiser with my hands in plain sight. The cop gets out with his holster unsnapped and his hand on his gun butt, asks me what the hell’s going on.”
“What was his name again?”
“Colin MacAdam. I tell him it was an attempted hijack and he should call for backup in case you guys come back. He’s about to call it in when Tice swings open the passenger door with a gun in his hand and opens fire. MacAdam goes down. I’d forgotten about Tice. I should have remembered he wouldn’t stay out that long-I’d only hit him with my fist, not my elbow-but in the heat of the moment, I just forgot.”
“Did you know he had a gun?”
“No. They weren’t standard issue for Ensign security. But I still should have been more aware.”
“Strictly hindsight. So?”
“So MacAdam went down. I scrambled over there, tried to get his gun out of the holster. I almost had it out when Tice shot me in the arm. Then he came walking over with the gun in his hand and a shit-eating grin on his face. He was going to kill us both, the mangy prick. When he was two feet away he pointed the gun at my head. I closed my eyes, kicking myself for calling Camilla. She didn’t care about me anymore. She only wanted me at the party so she wouldn’t be the only one alone. For that one mistake, calling her on his phone, I was going to die, a cop was going to die, and all you fuckers were going to walk. When the gun went off, I didn’t feel a thing. I figured it was the difference between the speeds of light and sound.”
“Like when you see a batter hit the ball, then hear the crack of the bat.”
“Right. I’m waiting for my head to blow apart. Bracing myself for darkness, stars, whatever you see in your last second alive. And nothing happened. I opened my eyes and Tice was down on the ground, spread-eagled on his back with a good-sized hole in his forehead. MacAdam had his gun out. Got it free while Tice was bearing down on me and shot him dead. And that was pretty much that.”
“How’d he make out?” Ryan asked.
“MacAdam? Paraplegic. The bullet hit his armpit where his body armour couldn’t stop it. Ripped his spinal cord on the way out. He’ll be in a chair the rest of his life.”
“That bothers you?”
I took a long look at the man beside me. “Of course it does. If you had been in my place, it wouldn’t bother you?”
“No,” Ryan said.
“Why the hell not?”
“You didn’t shoot him,” Ryan said.
“He wouldn’t have got shot if-”
“If what? If you hadn’t called your girlfriend? If you had hit Tice harder, knocked him out longer? If you’d known he had a gun? If MacAdam had slept in or caught a cold or had a flat or was on the night shift? Had his body armour on right? The man knew the risks when he took the job.”
“I can’t just-”
“It’s behind you, Jonah. Walk away. That’s what I do. And I keep walking.”
“Well, I can’t. Not if I want to stay human.”
“Human, my hard hairy ass. What if someone comes bearing down on you with a piece? Or on me? You gonna have the jam to shoot your way out? Or you gonna be weighed down by all this what if shit? ‘Gee, if I pull the trigger it might do this, it might do that, it might ricochet off Ricky the Clit’s bowling ball head and hit some old lady on the sidewalk.’”
“So if you were in my place, you wouldn’t feel guilty about MacAdam?”
“I didn’t say that. Jews don’t own the market on guilt. I’m Catholic, man, I was guilty before I was born. Sure, I’d help the guy out if I was in a position to. Lay out for a nurse or a wheelchair or whatnot. But I wouldn’t carry it around my neck the rest of my life. Because staying human, as you put it, isn’t my priority.”
“What is?”
“Staying alive.”
When my phone rang again, I was relieved to see it wasn’t Clint calling back. Then not so relieved when I remembered that the 808 exchange in Toronto is reserved for its police service. I answered anyway.
“Hey, Geller,” Katherine Hollinger said.
“Morning, sarge,” I said. Ryan shot me a look. I shrugged.
“I thought maybe you’d like to have coffee.”
“I would,” I said. “Sometime next week?”
“I was thinking more like now. In my office.”
“Is this a social coffee or a business coffee?”
“We’ll discuss that over the coffee. Fifteen minutes?”
“Can’t,” I said. “I’m on the road.”
“All roads lead back to Homicide,” she said.
“Not this one.”
“Why?”
“I’m taking a drive.”
“Turn around.”
“Okay, Kate,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“Ballistics, Jonah,” she said.
She had my full attention.
“The gun that killed your friend Franny?”
“Yes?”
“Same one killed Kenneth Page. The very man you were asking about. So why don’t you stop whatever you’re doing and get down here. Coffee’s on me this time.”
“As soon as I get back.”
“From where?”
