John Mackie - Hazardous Goods

Edging to the opening, I stared at the wall opposite to see if the light changed. Nothing to suggest anyone was near the window itself.

So I took a chance and peeked.

Before, despite having pulled the boards down, I had not been able to see a thing. Already late at night, no lights on inside and not even a hint of moonlight, I was blind. God forbid I might have a flashlight in the van.

Now though, I could see the space beyond. The building appeared to be divided into four large rooms, each with several lines of manufacturing equipment collecting dust. The boys were set up in the northeast corner of the room closest to me, about half of which I could see from my vantage point. That corner appeared to have been some sort of inspection space — there were four tables with stools in front of them, and in front of each stool was a magnifying glass mounted on a strange box-like device. Looked to me like each worker would take a finished product, mount it under the magnifying glass, and examine it for flaws.

These guys seemed uninterested in the original purpose of the space. They had swept aside the equipment and replaced it with what appeared to be a chemistry lab from high school. Plastic bottles, lab flasks, glass bottles, buckets, plastic feed hoses, two funnels. It reminded me of a still I had once seen in a friend’s basement, but giant-size. One other major difference was that all of them were wearing protective respirators. This was not Bill Nye the Science Guy.

All three were hard at work, measuring ingredients, mixing, or in one case heating some sort of concoction over a Bunsen burner.

Sort of strange conduct for an abandoned warehouse at one in the morning. Maybe they were making the mix for Banana Cranberry muffins.

I fiddled with my phone, hoping desperately that it wouldn’t suddenly emit some random beep that would shatter the silence.

So far so good. Put it in camera mode, zoomed in to the max, adjusted as best I could for lighting. One, two, three, four pictures. I ran back through them quickly. Yup — the lab and faces of two of the three men were clearly visible. Gotta love technology.

Tucking the phone back in my pant pocket, I was just getting ready to return to the van when I heard a voice call out, way louder than the whispers these men had been using until now.

All of them turned to the door, nodded briefly, then returned to their work. Then, from the edge of my field of vision, Niki appeared. He was wearing a toque, the edge of a bandage sticking out where I had smacked him with the bat. His face was covered with bruises, and he was limping badly.

I hunched back further, trying to keep my big noggin out of sight while still watching what was going on.

Niki clumped over to the last table, where several plastic bags rested. He opened the nearest one, licked a finger, stuck it in and stirred it around. Put the finger to his mouth, licked it clean then sagged onto a nearby stool.

“Good stuff, eh?” That was dreadlock boy, speaking with a Slavic accent. Incongruous, to say the least. It was like a Yakuza gangster speaking in Spanish.

“Dah.” Niki’s eyes were closed, and he went quiet.

I slid the phone out of my pocket one more time, and managed to squeeze out two good shots of Niki in profile, sampling the wares.

Time to call in the cavalry.

I moved back ten yards, keeping the four of them in sight, then punched out a text message to Amy.

Babe — Chk ths out. My frnd Niki wrkng a drg lb. 1710 Greylawn. Gd time fr a bst? SMEM ASAP. D

I read it through quickly and said a prayer that my textspeak was intelligible. SMEM I knew — send me an e-mail. The rest was just English minus the vowels. Nglsh. My biggest issue was the goddamned mini keyboard on my phone. I spent half of my time trying not to press three buttons at once. I attached the six photos, and hit send.

If I didn’t hear from her in five minutes, I would need to fall back to the van and call her. But I prayed that wouldn’t be the case. I didn’t want to take my eye off Mr. Kuzmenko.

As it turned out, Amy must be the lightest sleeper on the planet. Either that, or she had her phone on top volume. Not more than four minutes later I got her reply.

D: WTF? R u nuts? Units on way — shd arrve n 5 mins max. GET OUT! A

I couldn’t decide if she was pissed at me, or worried. Figuring if it was the former I was up the creek anyways, I took the optimistic view. Glanced to make sure my four pharmaceutical friends had not gone anywhere, then texted her a quick one back.

ABT2 go. GL D

All the shit I was dumping on her could prove to be fantastic for her career, or it could bring a premature end to it. Figured wishing her good luck was a wise idea. She was back to me in seconds.

D DLTM. GET OUT NOW. A

Lie to her? I wasn’t lying to her. I was leaving! Talk about not having any faith in a guy…

TM SYS D

Trust me. See you soon.

And I did leave. I debated staying until the cops arrived on site, just in case Niki decided to take a flyer, but the reality was I had already been way lucky. No point asking for it. So I headed home.

Despite the hour, and the exhaustion that settled in as I looked back on the day, I was still awake when Amy called two hours later.

“We’ve got him!”

“Thank God.”

“All four of them, busted. If anything, I think he was relieved. What happened to him, anyway?”

“Were you there?”

“Of course! You think I’m going to let everyone else take the glory? No way.”

That was disturbing. Up until now, I had assumed Amy would be safe, funneling tips to the various resources in the department. But to know she was out there with the wackos…

I felt like I should have stayed.

“It’s my job, Donnie. I catch bad guys.”

“I know. I just didn’t think it through.” In other words, I didn’t consider that by opening my big mouth, I was putting her in the line of fire.

“Well don’t worry about it. I carry a gun, I’m a black belt in karate, and we go in as a team. You’re more likely to get hurt than I am.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, am I threatening your macho worldview?”

“As a matter of fact, yes you are.” And she was. “But I’ll get over it.”

“Good. Cause this is a great day. The whole Drug Squad’s in there right now, ripping the place apart. It’s the first Rev lab we’ve ever seen.”

“You getting pushed on your source?”

“Not yet. That’ll happen later. Right now they’re all happier than pigs in shit. But I’ve got to believe they’ll grill me over the next few days, might even catch IA’s interest.”

“Listen, if you have to give me up-.”

“I’m not saying a thing. I’m not an idiot, Donnie. I know you’re not telling me stuff. But you’re on the right side, which is what matters to me. They’ll press, but when push comes to shove they’ll back off. This is a clean bust. The lab was visible from the next lot.”

“And Niki?”

“He’s facing long time for sure. Not sure whether he’ll be out on the street — they may give him bail again. He’s got one of the best lawyers in town. But eventually, he’s going away.”

“Great. Listen, one other thing.”

“OK.”

“You should look into who owns the building. I suspect you may find the owner is linked into Legenko, or Ruscan.”

“We’re already on it. I don’t think we’ll get all the way to Ruscan, but it sounds like we may have something on Legenko there.”

“Listen, I’ve got to get some sleep. Call me if anything weird comes up.”

“Will do. Sweet dreams. And thanks, Donnie.”

“My pleasure, babe.”

Two days later, the headline of the Daily Times was a beauty.