John Mackie - Hazardous Goods

This was going to be interesting. Without so much as a glance back at Elena, I reached out to the door handle. As my hand neared the door, the crimson glow dissipated, first from around the handle, then in a growing circle around my hand. By the time I was touching the handle, the glow was gone.

I turned the handle, opened the door, and ran like hell.

I jogged out of the building, trying to remain innocuous while keeping in motion. The van was a block and a half away, but no one tried to stop me. I did a quick sortie around the vehicle to make sure all was in order, then hopped in and sped out into traffic.

I needed to find a computer, fast.

With a PC at home, several in the office, and internet access on my phone, I don’t think I had ever needed to use an internet cafe in my life. Now with WiFi in every coffee shop, I couldn’t imagine that such places had a long life span. But if I ever needed one, now was the time. It was simple. My memory was a sieve, and stuff was leaking through already.

I figured my best bet was to stay on St. Clair, and it turned out I was right for once. Just past Bathurst I spotted a place called Cyber ‘Spresso, the window advertising “stations, wifi, smoothies and snacks”. I squealed into a lot on Raglan and sprinted back to the shop.

Nothing too complicated. Four stations along one wall, two occupied. Three tables in the middle, and a counter on the opposite side. Standard coffee shop. I went straight to one of the stations and pulled up the browser. Google Maps.

I was just drilling down into satellite maps of Toronto when a man’s voice interrupted.

“Excuse me, sir?”

I did not need an interruption right now.

“Yup?”

“The stations are $4 per hour.”

Oh. Right.

I glanced over my shoulder at the man. Smallish, East Indian. “Sorry about that.” Dug in my pockets, and managed to find nothing smaller than a twenty dollar bill. Goddamned ATMs.

“Uh.” I glanced at the counter. “Can you grab me a bottle of Coke and a muffin, if you’ve got it?”

“We have Cranberry Pineapple, Blueberry Raisin, Banana Cinnamon, Chocolate Caramel and Oatmeal.”

WTF? Was that five muffins, nine muffins or one? “Uh — Oatmeal. Thanks.” As he moved away, I cringed. Oatmeal always made me think of construction paste.

So what was I…?

Map.

I turned back to the map, and the last remaining neurons still firing with memories of what I had seen on the boardroom windows managed to give me a final snapshot. Six or seven buildings, lower east side, all of them hashmarked.

I drilled down in the satellite images, until I began to spot familiar intersections and street grids. Shuter. Sumach. South Regent Park.

OK. I sagged back in my chair.

Why the hell would they have any interest in Regent Park?

To say that Regent Park was an unsuccessful social housing experiment was an understatement. Built in the 1940s, the Regent Park projects rose from the ashes of Cabbagetown, then one of the worst slums in Canada. Apparently, once a slum, always a slum, as the area was still home to a very low income population. Some say as many as 75 % are below the poverty line, many recent immigrants. For years, it was known as a violent, crime ridden community where drugs and prostitution reigned.

In recent years, there had been signs of improvement, but Regent Park was still not high on my list of places to visit after dark. Keep in mind, I’m a big guy who can protect himself, all recent evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, I’m a Canadian. So it’s a rough place, but it ain’t Beirut. Or Detroit. But it was still not a nice place to walk at night.

Which begs the question. Why on earth would Ruscan Industries be interested in that area?

The first thing that came to mind was revitalization. Torontonians loved revitalization projects. You’d think there had been a city in this area for thousands of years, based on the number of times that neighborhoods were designated for “revitalization”. Current favorites were the Distillery District and the Waterfront Lands, both just to the South. And Regent Park was perpetually on the list. Was Ruscan looking to get in on the game?

I spent twenty minutes scanning the web and looking at satellite maps while mawing down a dry oatmeal brick. Finally, with a handful of printed maps in my hand, all marked with my scrawled notes, I headed back out to the van.

Then I made a few phone calls.

Started with my mother. Ted was continuing to improve, and Clay was awake and reading. Then to Amy.

“Your guys had any luck in checking out Niki’s tracks?”

“Not yet, but the guy moves all over town. Ten minutes here, ten minutes there. Thousands in tickets. We’d impound the thing, but we want to see if we can catch him on something worthwhile first.”

“Any chance he’s been visiting Cabbagetown, or say Regent Park?”

Amy’s silence told me two things — yes, and I was pushing it.

“See, I think I might be able to dig up something on our boy if it turns out he has.”

“Donnie, you’re going to get yourself in deep shit here.”

“No kidding. Problem is, I think I’m already in deep shit. I’m trying to dig my way out .”

More silence. I had a way of rendering women speechless.

“C’mon, babe. I swear I’ll be careful.”

And for once, the sweet-talking worked.

Niki had been sighted entering two buildings in the area I had in mind, and it turned out both were marked with Xs on my printed maps. Ruscan buildings.

Was he doing some sort of security walk around, or something more than that?

I decided I would check in on Ted in person, then maybe spend the night fending off crack whores in Regent Park.

Thankfully, it was dark. I would have stood out like a sore thumb in the daylight. As it was, I just looked like any other mugging victim wandering the streets of Regent Park at ten to midnight.

What the hell was I thinking?

I was seated on a birdshit-covered bench in front of the van, which was parked illegally in a visitor parking space for one of the project apartments. I had managed to avoid the scrutiny of any passers-by, so far, because I was tucked in under an overhanging maple and behind the van. But the spot gave me a good view of the warehouse across the way, despite the lack of street lights out front.

So I sat quietly, flinching at every sound that suggested the snick of a knife.

My mind was a twisting dervish, worries about Ted and Clay, anger at Legenko and Kuzmenko, confusion about Amy and Kara, a deep concern that I might end up destroying Clay’s business, and the list went on. There were so many permutations and combinations that I felt I couldn’t anticipate any of them. The result was that I was itching to do something, to act. To somehow deal with this feeling of helplessness that had overcome me.

As it was, I didn’t have to wait all that long. Not more than twenty minutes after I sat down, I spotted activity. A dread-locked white dude on a mountain bike rolled up, keyed open the side door, and entered the building, bike and all. I could see faint light inside, suggesting one or more rooms in the back of the building were alight. Shortly after him, two more guys arrived in an old Nissan — boxy frame and rusted wheel wells. More lights were on now, and I could see from the faint changes in lighting that they were moving around inside. But there were no sounds that I could hear.

I glanced around, then jogged across the street. A quick walk-around earlier had confirmed that there were windows on the north wall that had been boarded up, so I had tugged two out of position to give me a view.

When I rounded the corner, the boards were still where I had left them, lying right below the window. I could see light shining from the window, much brighter than out the front.