Текст книги "The Survivor"

Автор книги: Sean Slater

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Twenty-Eight

When the phone rang, waking Striker at four-thirty in the morning, he was grateful for the interruption. He sat up with a jolt and snatched up the cell. ‘Detective Striker.’

The deep baritone response was as rough and smooth as sandpaper dipped in maple syrup. ‘Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.’

‘Rothschild?’

‘Get your ass out of bed.’

Striker blinked, surprised at hearing his old Sergeant’s voice. He looked across the room. Found the wall clock. Saw the time.

‘Jesus Christ, Mike, it’s not even five yet – what the hell’s going on?’

‘Just get your ass down here. And be quick about it. I’m on the Fraser. Right on the docks, south of Marine, behind the Superstore. At the C and D Plant.’

Striker scrabbled for a pen and paper, wrote down the address. Said, ‘Give me twenty minutes.’

‘Make it ten, the white-shirts are coming.’

Striker cursed. ‘Tell me it’s not Laroche.’

‘Just hurry the hell up, Shipwreck. And trust me on this one – you’re gonna wanna see this.’

Fifteen minutes later, Striker crossed into South Vancouver – District 3 – and neared the Fraser River. He sped the unmarked police cruiser down the slippery stretch of Marine Drive, then turned south on the old gravel road that twisted and turned, outlining the Fraser River. The road was half-frozen, and the car skidded at every turn.

If the road conditions were bad, the lighting was worse. The heavy blackness of night showed no hint of fading, and the relentless winds whipped the river into six-foot-high swells. Just ten feet away, the retaining wall gave way to the strong currents of the Fraser River. The water looked alive, angry. Striker eased his foot off the gas pedal.

No point in killing himself.

Just yet.

All along the shoreline, massive concrete smokestacks rose up like giant cannons, blasting steam into the night. Where the charcoal cloud ended and the billowing smoke began was impossible to tell. It was all one entity now, roaming slowly across the river. This was the industrial area, built up of pulp mills and gravel lots and concrete plants and import/export transfer stations.

No one but plant workers came down here.

At the next curve, Striker caught his first glimpse of the blue and red gleam. Three patrol cars were parked in the fog, in between a concrete plant and the shoreline.

Striker spotted Rothschild straight away. The Sergeant was loitering nearby, smoking a cigarillo and drinking what must be stale, cold coffee. Knowing Rothschild, the coffee would be his fifth of the night. Minimum.

Striker jumped out of the car and marched across the gravel roadway. The cold winds blew in from the water, numbing his face and stinging his ears. He zipped up the heavy wool of his long jacket, but it did little good.

‘Mike,’ he called. ‘Hey, Mike! Rothschild!’

Sergeant Mike Rothschild turned around, the heavy winds sending what little hair he had left into a frenzy of thin waves. He stood squarely, like a wall on legs, his shoulders turned inwards, his hands balled into fists.

‘Holy shit, man, ’bout fuckin’ time you got here. My balls are freezing, and I mean goddam freezing! Like little sperm-sickles.’

Striker grinned. ‘Tell me how you really feel, Mike, don’t hold back.’

Rothschild flashed his trademark smile – wry, almost dark, with his handlebar moustache rising higher on the left side. He slurped back his coffee, grimaced, then took off the lid and poured it out on the road.

‘Already friggin’ cold,’ he said. ‘Gas-station shit anyway. But hey, the cost is right.’ He laughed.

‘Why am I here?’ Striker asked.

‘Why you think? You’re Homicide, right?’

‘Take a look at my badge number. I’m not exactly first on the call-out list.’

Rothschild gave him a creepy smile. ‘Don’t need to be for this one.’

The way he said it made Striker nervous. ‘What exactly you got here?’

The smile left Rothschild’s lips and he pointed his cigarillo towards the river.

‘Came in as a floater. It wasn’t. The body was dumped here, but didn’t land properly in the water. Got hung up below the docks, half in, half out. Feet got a little eaten, but hey, what the fuck. I got here first and found a bullet wound to the back of the guy’s head.’ He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the white unmarked patrol car tucked away from the crime scene, in the darkness next to the concrete plant. ‘Car Ten beat you here. He’s sitting there all toasty in his White Whale. Probably reading What’s-Up-My-Ass Weekly.’

Striker looked at the car, saw nothing but a dark windshield. ‘Which Inspector?’

‘Oakley.’

‘That’s good. He’s okay.’

‘He is. But he’s already called the Deputy Chief.’

‘Laroche?’

‘None other. And he’s on the way down.’

Striker found the notion disturbing. Homicides happened all the time in Vancouver, especially with the growing bouts of gang violence, and the Deputy Chief was never called – not unless the deceased was a person of some significance: an ambassador, or a dignitary. Maybe a celebrity. Or, God forbid, a cop.

He looked down towards the river, past the yellow strips of all-too-familiar police tape. Out there, waves crashed hard against the wooden rails of the docks, sounding angry and powerful. With the emergency lights flashing against the black waters and river mist, the scene looked like a goddam horror show.

‘Who we find in the drink?’

Rothschild grinned. ‘Don’t fall down the rabbit hole, Alice.’ He lit up another cigarillo and the leafy aroma of good tobacco floated through the air. ‘You can thank me later, Shipwreck. Captain Morgan’s the preference. Dark as it comes.’

Striker gave Rothschild a confused nod, then turned away and cut down towards the river.

The gravel-and-sand mixture was nearly frozen; it crunched beneath his boots. He ducked under the police tape and moved onto the walkway. The dock was old and wooden. Rickety. Made up of three separate sections, each one connected by a series of spiralling stairways leading down to the next platform. At the beginning of each section, a yellow lamp hung off a support beam, offering poor illumination to the platform below.

Being careful of his step, Striker hiked down to the lowest platform. Swells of river water slammed hard against the floating dock, rocking the structure back and forth and covering him with cold spray. The wind down here was even stronger, piercing his clothes and biting into his skin. Regardless, he marched on until he came flush with a young constable who stood at the forefront of the platform, shaking.

Striker sized him up. He wore the standard-issue uniform pants, which were about as effective in these wet winds as a pair of ass-less chaps in a snowstorm. His hands were tucked as deep into his pockets as he could get them, and blasts of warm breath steamed from his open mouth when he spoke.

‘Detective Striker,’ he said.

‘Tough break, kid.’ Striker pointed at his pants. ‘Use your e-points to get a pair of Gore-Tex.’ He nodded to the end of the dock where a dirty blue tarp lay spread out across the boards. There was a long lump underneath it. ‘Who found him?’

The Constable shrugged. ‘Some guy, a worker loading up for the cement plant. Dunno, really. Ask Rothschild, he was first on scene.’

‘We got a name for our John Doe?’

The kid shrugged again. ‘I just got stuck with guard duty.’

Striker left the young Constable standing there, fighting off hypothermia, and approached the rustling plastic tarp. Four large cinderblocks held it down – one at each corner, preventing it from blowing away. Striker picked up the nearest cinderblock, moved it to the side, then peeled back the tarp.

The first thing Striker noted was that the runner from the left foot was missing. In the darkness of the dock, the golden dragon design snaking down the sides of the man’s jeans was almost invisible. Striker took note of it. The white designer hoodie the man wore was stuck to his thin but muscular build like a second skin. Soil and slime smeared the stencilled designs.

The body hadn’t been in there for very long, but already the tissue was starting to bloat from water saturation, and tiny pockets of flesh had been pecked away from the face by sea creatures. Even so, with the tissue damage and in the poor illumination of the lower docks, the identity of the boy was irrefutable. Striker had seen this boy’s picture on his own ID cards.

It was Que Wong. The one they had thought to be White Mask.

The discovery made him sick, and yet it invigorated him. They now had an unidentified body back at the morgue. A faceless, handless corpse.

Striker stared at Que Wong with a hundred questions racing through his mind. Things that had made sense a few hours ago made no sense now, but he was so tired he could barely remember what they were. He reached out and gently took hold of the boy’s left hand. All the skin remained intact, connected properly to the muscles and fascia beneath. The hand hadn’t de-gloved, as is so often the case with floaters. And that was good. It meant Que Wong hadn’t been in the drink for overly long.

Striker took out his Maglite and shone a beam on Que’s hand. He looked for ridge detail on the fingers, but it was difficult to tell outside of the lab in the middle of the night.

‘Hey, Shipwreck!’ a voice called out. ‘Don’t fuck with my body!’

Striker didn’t have to turn around to recognise the heavy, out-of-breath yell. It was Jim Banner from Ident. Noodles. Striker spun about, half-irritated.

‘Christ, Noodles, even the undead sleep.’

‘Like you should talk.’ Noodles said this with a laugh, but his pudgy cheeks sagged and his eyes were heavily underscored. ‘And you should see my pay stubs. I get to pay more tax than any other cop in the city.’

‘Congratulations.’ Striker was about to say more when a movement caught his eye. He looked into the murky illumination of the dock entrance and spotted Mike Rothschild leading another man down the first set of stairs. One look at the thick, helmet-like hair, the five-foot-five stature, and Striker knew undoubtedly who it was.

Deputy Chief Laroche.

‘Here comes the circus,’ Noodles said.

‘They normally start with the clown?’ Striker had barely finished speaking when his cell rang. He snagged it, turned away from Noodles, and covered his other ear with his hand to drown out the sounds of the river. ‘Jacob Striker.’

‘Where the hell are you?’ The voice was tired and agitated.

‘Felicia?’

‘No, it’s Fergie, the Princess of Pop – who do you think it is? Where are you, Jacob?’

‘Down at the docks. On Marine. Look, they just found the body of Que Wong.’

‘Wong? But we already—’

‘Our headless corpse ain’t him, Feleesh. And if Que Wong was a set-up, then it’s pretty damn likely Raymond Leung is, too.’

‘Red Mask? Are you sure?’

‘Don’t kid yourself, he’s still out there somewhere. I know it. And we’ve got to find him.’

Felicia made an exasperated sound. ‘What are you talking about? Jesus, why didn’t you wake me?’

He shrugged as if she could see him. ‘You needed the sleep. And I didn’t know it was connected. Not till now. Look, I’ll explain when I get back. Just get up and get dressed. I won’t be long.’ He hung up his cell phone, turned around and stared at Noodles. ‘Keep me up to date,’ he said.

‘Not with your sense of style.’

‘I’m serious, Noodles. This changes everything.’

‘I’ll call. God, just get out of here, will you?’

Striker nodded. He started to leave, then spotted Laroche sauntering down the last set of stairs. He looked back at Noodles, saw the big black Ident marker sticking out of his jacket pocket, and smiled. He snatched it up, ignoring Noodles’ protest, and marched down the dock till he came face to face with the Deputy Chief.

‘What are you doing here?’ Laroche said, his voice resonating with unease.

Striker said nothing, he just handed him the black felt marker.

‘What’s this for?’

Striker jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, back towards the dock. ‘You might want to paint some stripes on that body back there – looks like I just found you your zebra.’

Twenty-Nine

Twenty minutes later, Striker picked up Felicia and headed to the police garage. He needed to check the forensics on the stolen Honda Civic. Something was bothering him about it, and he always followed his instincts. While en route, he pulled out his cell and dialled Noodles. On the fourth ring a gruff voice answered.

‘Christ almighty, Shipwreck, I got three hours’ sleep and work to do.’

‘I need your help.’

‘Why? What now?’

‘Raymond Leung’s DNA – I need it compared to the blood in the Honda Civic.’

‘You called me for that? I’ve already got the samples done. They just need to be submitted to the lab.’

‘I need it now.’

Noodles cursed. ‘You’re like a high-maintenance girlfriend.’

‘Noodles—’

‘The lab doesn’t even open for another two hours. And even if I get the samples in first thing, and even if I get a priority one rush put on it, it’s still gonna take three to four days to get any results – and that’s without a full report. It’s DNA. You know how it is.’

‘The DNA can come later,’ Striker explained. ‘All I need at this point is blood type. Find out if Raymond Leung’s blood type matches the blood in the stolen Civic. You can get those results for me fast if you stop dragging your ass.’

‘So I should just get up and leave our floater here.’

‘Noodles, I need this.’

‘I thought Red Mask was found.’

‘He’s not Raymond Leung. I know it, Noodles. I just need your help proving it.’

Noodles let out a frustrated sound, but finally relented. ‘I’ll get to it as soon as I got the bases covered here, then I’ll come back and finish the Wong body later. But you owe me huge for this, Shipwreck. Two bottles of Crown Royal. Ten-year.’

‘You got it. Just call me the second you know.’

The police garage is located in the worst part of town, the Skids. Also known as the Downtown East Side – that unpredictable area occupied by only criminals, addicts and the mentally ill.

In short, it was ten square blocks of bedlam.

Striker looked around. To the west was a series of community buildings offering housing for the down-and-outs. To the east were four straight blocks of slum apartments, housing dealers, enforcers, mules, and every other type of drug-related offender who haunted the area. Homeless people – the ones who had either refused help from the nearby community programmes or had been banned from them – roamed the block, setting up makeshift camps all along the sidewalk and rear alleyways. Their numbers had grown over the past few years, causing overpopulation of the street and sidewalks. And as a result, the City had set up sprinkler systems, timed for midnight activation, in order to keep the police bays clear.

It was a sad statement of the times.

Striker checked his watch. It was almost six a.m. He parked the Crown Vic out front and told Felicia to wait. She didn’t seem to mind; she looked half-dead in the passenger seat, and she made a soft uh-huh sound as he got out.

It was cold. The sky was still dark, and the fall winds bit into him, sent his short brown hair blowing back over his head. He looked east and west at the cardboard tents set up all along the drive and frowned. The street was one giant paper city. A few blocks down, a marked patrol car turned east, away from him, and continued driving along Alexander Street until it disappeared in the heavy murk.

Alpha shift. Had to be. God knows, no one else was out yet.

The rain had stopped, but it had failed to clean the streets of all the used rigs and dirty condoms. Striker looked away from the filth. He used his police key to enter the barred-off entrance to the garage, then let himself in and turned off the beeping alarm. Far above, the industrial fan rattled loudly. The Department had fixed the thing ten times over the past year, and here it was on the fritz again.

He stood inside the doorway of the police garage and took in a deep breath. The place smelled of dust and dampness, oil and kitty litter. A flick of the light switch bathed the huge space in a bleak fluorescent illumination, revealing a fully-stacked bay: rows and rows of vehicles awaiting processing. Fingerprints, DNA, Hidden Compartment Searches, Paint Comparisons – all needed something.

Two Escalades with shaded windows and big chrome mags – gangbanger rides – occupied stalls one and two. A bright cherry-red sports car occupied stall three. It was heavily customised, decorated with an oversized chrome muffler, spinning gold mags, and a tail fin larger than any humpback could hope for. Gang style. Probably belonged to the White Lotus – Canada’s version of the Lotus gang, made up solely of Canadian Chinese.

Striker’s eyes moved on until they found the vehicle he was looking for. The stolen Civic.

Red Mask’s ride.

Striker moved to the bay door and took hold of the handle. The rollers were rigid and in desperate need of oiling. The metal made a sharp, grating noise as Striker reefed down hard on the chain and rolled the steel door open. It was barely three-quarters up when Felicia drove the cruiser inside the bay. She climbed out, shivered from the cold, zipped up her suede jacket.

‘Coffee after this,’ she said. ‘Immediately.’

Striker agreed. He closed the garage door and turned towards the Civic. The yellow copy of the Ident Form was trapped beneath the driver’s side windshield-wiper. Before he could read it, Felicia snatched it up. She held it in her long, thin fingers, her clear nails digging into the paper. She finished reading, made a face, deflated.

‘Not a single goddam print in the car.’

‘You didn’t really expect any, did you?’ Striker looked inside the vehicle. One clear bag sat on the front passenger seat, tagged after processing for fingerprints and DNA analysis. It held the key-ring and keys, complete with fob and happy face. Someone had written No Prints in thick black felt on the bag. The member’s badge number and the incident number were included.

Striker looked at the badge number, saw it wasn’t Noodles, and it pissed him off. He liked Noodles. Noodles was the best. Then he looked over the paperwork and saw that the cigarettes had also been processed:

Prints positive. Subject: Quenton Wong.

Striker stared at this for a long time, then showed it to Felicia.

‘It puts him in the car,’ she said.

‘No. It connects him to the car, the shooter, or anyone connected to either one. But how, we don’t know.’

Striker removed his long coat and draped it over the work bench. He put on a fresh pair of latex gloves, then moved over to the metallic whiteboard on the west wall, where numerous yellow forms were hanging by clip-magnets. He shifted them all to the left side, exposing a large patch of white steel, then returned to the Civic.

Felicia joined him. ‘So Que’s prints are on the cigarettes, and now he’s dead. Great. So aside from knowing he’s somehow connected, all we got is another dead end on our hands.’

Striker corrected her. ‘This has been anything but a dead end.’

She furrowed her brow.

‘It’s not just about the prints,’ he explained. ‘It’s about why they stole the car a whole week before the shootings.’

‘And you got an answer for that?’

‘I think so.’ He pulled Courtney’s happy face magnet from his pocket and handed it to Felicia. ‘What do you see?’

She flipped it over. ‘A happy face. Where did you get this?’

‘Courtney had it on the fridge, next to her Britney magnets,’ Stiker said. ‘Put it on something metal. Like the whiteboard over there.’

She did, and the happy face stuck. She pulled it off the board and looked back at Striker. ‘It’s magnetic. So?’

Striker returned to the Civic. According to the notes on the Ident bag, there were no prints on the key-ring and the items had already been swabbed for DNA. So there was no fear of cross-contamination. However, taking no chances, he gloved up with fresh latex. He took the key-ring complete with key, fob, and happy face out of the bag and held it up for Felicia to see.

‘This happy face is magnetic, too.’ He gave the key-ring an underhand toss across the room. When it hit the metallic whiteboard, the key-ring and fob fell down towards the ground, but the happy face stuck hard, holding everything up.

He looked at Felicia and smiled. ‘That tells us everything.’

Felicia played with Courtney’s happy face and shook her head. ‘It tells me nothing.’

Striker tried to explain it from a different angle. ‘How many keys do you see on that key-ring?’

‘One.’

‘Wrong,’ he said. ‘There’s two. The Honda key, and the happy face – which is a key in its own right. Magnetically-speaking.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that’s why they stole the car a whole week before the shootings: they were modifying it somehow.’ He lowered his voice. ‘There’s something hidden in that car.’