Elena stared at Maxim. He shied from her attention, but stood his ground. Elena’s focus then turned to Niki the Bull, who had taken a seat at one of the work stations, one hand to his forehead with blood still trickling between the fingers. Niki was staring at me as though he might be able to stop my heart with his eyes. Lastly, Elena turned to me.
“You and I must talk, Mr. Elder.”
I debated whether to respond. But at that point, it didn’t seem to make much difference.
“I’ve said everything I had to say. Stay away from us.”
I wasn’t sure whether she intended to do so, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t hanging around to chat. I turned and began moving to the door again. Behind me I heard the squeak of an office chair as Niki lurched to his feet and bulled towards me, intent on ensuring that I did not make it down the stairs, at least not intact.
“I SAID ENOUGH!”
This time I didn’t even see it coming. One second Niki was rushing towards me, a three hundred pound bull determined to trample me in his path. The next he was hurtling sideways through the air, his feet clipping yet another cubicle and causing him to spin head over heels before slamming into a structural concrete post in the north east corner of the floor. I glanced back at Elena and sure enough, her hands were raised before her, as though she was manipulating the very air.
That was enough for me. I turned and reached out for the door to the stairwell, only to flinch as a crimson streak passed over my shoulder and enveloped the door and its frame. It was a subtle light — not flame, but energy — and radiated just a few inches from the surface of the door. But I saw it with my own two eyes, dead sober and with all my faculties intact.
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.
CHAPTER 29
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.