“Mladen,” Lane said.
“Leo’s behind him,” said Keely, still surveying the scene through her binoculars.
The music stopped. Leo, dressed in black, placed an equipment bag over a manhole cover at the centre of the intersection. He reached inside, pulled out three blue balls, and tossed them up one at a time to Mladen, who began to juggle. Leo started to play his trumpet again, moving around in a circle, gradually increasing the circumference, pushing the crowd back. That task complete, he went back to the bag and made a big deal about putting on surgical gloves. Mladen spread his feet, obscenely hung each ball between his legs, and dropped them one at a time. Leo caught them and placed them back in the bag. The crowd roared its approval.
Next, Leo pulled three shafts, each a metre long, from the bag. He attached glass globes on each end and turned the globes on. After all three objects were assembled, he held them up. The globes had minds of their own, randomly changing colour from red to green to white.
Mladen impatiently tapped his foot, and Leo tossed the batons up one at a time. Mladen twirled and flipped each into the air. As the sky darkened, the spinning globes became blurs of colour.
Leo picked up the trumpet and began to play a passionate Latin tune that had Mladen moving to its rhythm, the crowd clapping, and children pushing to the front so they could dance. Mladen tossed the batons to impossible heights, catching them only to throw them higher. Each time a baton flew into the air, it became a miniature fireworks wheel. Then, with a bounce, he launched the batons into the air, threw his arms up, flipped forward, tucked in his knees, rolled, and landed back on his stilts in time to catch the falling batons.
Leo changed tunes. Mladen performed a backflip, not noticing that a child had pushed his way out from the crowd into the performing area. Just as Mladen shifted his weight to his right leg, the toddler tripped, fell forward, and ran into Mladen’s left leg. The child rolled behind him as Mladen’s leg swung up like an empty swing.
The crowd held its breath as Mladen fought to remain upright. He flipped the three batons into the air, regained his balance, avoided the child, and caught the first two batons. The third was out of his grasp and exploded on the pavement.
Leo continued to play as Mladen turned, bent down, and looked at the boy. The crowd moved closer, blocking the detectives’ view.
“What’s he doing?” Lane asked.
“Can’t see,” Keely replied.
The crowd roared its approval and began to clap. They were still clapping as Lane and Keely made their way down to the intersection and waited for the audience to disperse.
Part of the crowd gathered around Leo to drop money into his hat. When they finished, Leo cradled his hat and smiled up at Mladen, who was talking with a woman holding the boy who had tumbled into Mladen’s leg.
Leo moved closer to Mladen, who leaned on the trumpeter’s shoulder and undid one stilt before lifting the other and dropping to his good leg. He sat down and unstrapped the other leg.
“Thank you for being so understanding,” the mother said.
“No problem.” Mladen smiled, until he spotted the detectives.
The mother looked at the detectives. “Did you see that?”
“Only part of it,” Keely said.
The woman shook her head. “You really missed something great! And all he was worried about was if my son was all right.” She dropped a large bill into the hat and left the intersection.
Lane watched Leo and Mladen transfer the money from the overflowing hat into a bag. “A good night?” he asked.
Leo packed their gear, including the ruined baton, into the bag. Then he strapped the stilts to the outside of the bag. Mladen picked up bits of glass and dropped them into the palm of his left hand. “A very good night.”
“We’ve been having trouble tracking you down,” Keely said. “Could we take a minute to talk, please?”
Nice move, Lane thought.
Mladen hefted the bag with his right hand. He walked over to a nearby garbage can and dropped the bits of glass into it. Leo hung the trumpet from his neck and tucked his crutch under his armpit. Mladen looked at Lane and then at Keely. “I’m hungry.”
They followed him to a nearby deli. They sat outside at a picnic table. Mladen and Leo ordered Montreal smoked beef sandwiches.
“Coffee?” Lane turned to his partner.
“Water.” Keely gave Lane an apologetic look. “I can’t sleep if I drink coffee this late.”
“They have the best Montreal smoked beef in the city.” Mladen wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his black T-shirt.
“How do you guys get around?” Lane asked.
“Bus, C-train, bike. Tonight we might splurge and take a taxi,” Leo said.
“My neighbour said you talked to him,” Mladen said.
“That’s correct,” Lane said.
“Ask your questions,” Mladen said.
“When was the last time you saw Andelko Branimir or Borislav Goran?” Keely asked.
Mladen looked up as the waiter brought their drinks. The malabarista took a long pull on his soft drink. Leo opened his bottled water and tipped it back.
“I don’t know this Andelko,” Mladen said, “but when I was a boy, Goran came to my town with his militia. They called themselves Tarantulas.”
“Did you know Borislav Goran before that?” Keely asked.
“He was a policeman before the war.”
“When did you see Goran in Canada?”
Mladen shrugged. “Never.”
“Did you see his wife, Safina Goran?”
“No.” Mladen looked to his left. The waiter brought two plates with sandwiches, pickles, and coleslaw. Mladen picked up half of a sandwich and seemed to inhale it. In less than thirty seconds, he was licking his fingers and starting to work on the other half.
Lane sipped his coffee. He appears to be telling the truth. Let him finish eating, then ask the question.
Keely looked at Lane. He gave her a barely perceptible shake of his head, then turned sideways and watched the crowd thinning as the darkness deepened. He waited until he heard the sound of a straw sucking the bottom of an empty cup, then turned to face Mladen. “Why didn’t you join?”
Mladen lifted his mouth from the straw. “Join?”
“The fighting.”
Leo glared at Lane. Keely’s eyes narrowed.
“Why didn’t I become a murderer, you mean?”
Lane nodded. “That’s correct. Why didn’t you become a murderer?”
Mladen looked toward the dispersing crowd without seeing it. He set the cup down. Lane tucked his feet under his body and held onto the edge of the table, bracing himself in case Mladen reacted as he had last time.
Mladen focused on Lane. “Before she died, my mother told me…” He took a breath. “‘Take care of your sister.’ Then she grabbed my hand. I thought she was going to break my fingers. ‘Promise me you won’t become a monster like those men, like that Goran,’ she said. After she died, we buried our mother. Then my sister and I left our town and went to the city.”
If he’s lying, he’s very good at it. “How can we get in touch with you if we need to?”
Mladen gave them his phone number at work. “I get home late every night,” he said. “In the summer, Leo and I make our money at the Stampede and festivals like this one. This is our busy time.”
Ten minutes later, Lane and Keely were driving down Fourteenth Street hill to where it bottomed out and crossed Seventeenth Avenue. “I’d like to talk with Jelena again,” Keely said. “And this time, could we talk to the daughter too?”
Lane thought for a moment. “Sunday might be the best time. Her business is open every other day. You want to set it up?”
Keely nodded. “Okay. And…”