(Bug speed)
Quinn took the Number 80 bus over the mountain and through the ethnically diverse neighborhoods bordering Park Avenue. Weariness perspired on the visage of every passenger. She offered her seat to an older woman with a babushka who wore a sweater despite the warm temperature. They exchanged a smile.
In a way she couldn’t explain, the woman influenced her thinking. Quinn decided to spring cash from the food jar when she got home, head to the small grocer on Howard Avenue, then make something special for her dad. They’d been through a rough patch. Time to give him a break and a treat.
Cheer herself up, too. Dietmar’s burial remained with her. Spending time with Noel helped, but an uneasy sorrow held sway. More than anything, she wanted her dad to complete his shift and come home. She’d cook up one of his favorites. Like scallops.
Yeah. If the fish market had sea scallops, she’d prepare a creamy linguine. He’d like that. He’d like it so much he’d have a bird!
Perhaps it was her weed buzz, or subliminal intuition. As she turned the key in the lock on the front door of her home something did not feel right. As if the door was already unlocked. She’d definitely secured it when she left. She never forgot, and after the firebombing had taken extra care. Entering, Quinn relaxed. Everything seemed normal. She made a beeline for the kitchen and the food-money jar.
A swift electric jolt shot through her.
A man standing there – cleaning his nails? – shocked her. She managed only a gasp before a hand covered her mouth. More hands on her. Her head forced back. She gasped again and half-hollered when the paw came off her mouth, instantly replaced by a gag. Someone – a man – knotted it tightly at the back of her neck. Her wrists were bound behind her. Her ankles. She was flung to the kitchen floor. Quinn flounced there, a fish out of water.
She squiggled around. Tried to look up. To see. To free herself. The man standing there had barely twitched a muscle.
He was cleaning his nails with the nails of his opposite fingers.
She squirmed around on the floor.
The man squatted down beside her.
He said, ‘Shh. Shh. Relax.’
At first, she was seeing his hands. Deeply veined, alabaster skin. As though they rarely saw the sun. She twisted her neck to see his face better. A foliage of chest hair at his neckline. He was half-shaven. An eyebrow split by scar tissue. Buzz cut, salt and peppery.
He had a hard look.
‘Shh. Shh.’
She tried to kick and flail.
He removed a penknife from his hip pocket. Nothing too large.
Opened the modest blade slowly.
‘Settle down yourself. Or bleed out. A choice for you.’ His voice almost gentle.
She looked up at him sideways. He had this grin on his face. As though she should never believe he was not serious. Her rampant fear seized her in place.
‘They call me the Rabbit,’ he said. ‘Never just “Rabbit”. Don’t call me that. Always “the”. You’re Quinn? That’s you?’
Too afraid to deny it. She’d been warned about this man.
‘Come with me. Better for you, go willing. Get me?’
She could not oppose the edict. Raised in Park Ex, she had no difficulty understanding his heavily accented English.
Other men in the room prepped her for transport. One went through her purse and found Leonard’s parting gift. Passed the weed to the Rabbit. He tossed it into a corner on the kitchen floor.
The other man flung her purse across the floor. Items scattered loose.
The Rabbit grunted.
‘Some fucking reason, a person don’t want you dead, not yet. Later, maybe. Means I got to treat you nice somehow. Come peaceful, sweetie Quinn. Make no trouble. Get me?’
She nodded as though she did.
Jim Tanner took his usual lift home. He called out as he came through the door. No answer. For Quinn not to be home was common, but why was the door unlocked? He turned the corner into the kitchen, which included a small dining table. On it were three half-eaten meals. Fried chicken and French fries. Not his daughter’s favorite, and why so much of it and only half-eaten? She may have had friends over, but usually they had voracious appetites. And Quinn never left a mess behind.
Her purse lay on the floor.
Panic overwhelmed him then. His brain fired up. His body jumped.
He noticed a marijuana baggie. He wasn’t naive. Kids did stuff. Quinn was never careless about that sort of thing, and never left anything lying around. He turned. The screen in the back window was missing. The window open. He poked his head out. The screen lay flat on the ground.
His heart was roaring now. A terror lanced straight through him.
Jim Tanner went to the phone book. He wanted to reach the guy who’d been around lately. He got lucky. Quinn had left the card for the man’s partner right on top. He dialed. A switchboard operator patched him through to Sergeant-Detective Giroux’s phone, but no one answered. When the operator came back on, he requested Detective Cinq-Mars. She said he wasn’t in. He clicked off, picked up the phone book again, found a number and called police headquarters. He asked for the head of the Night Patrol. A big department. And a fierce one. He was passed along and put on hold and then an intermediary answered.
‘I need to speak to Captain Armand Touton.’
‘Who is calling, please, and what is the nature of your call?’ A pleasant, youthful, female voice. The sound of it redoubled his fear.
‘My daughter’s been taken.’
‘“Taken”, sir? How do you mean?’
‘Abducted.’
She patched him through.
He was surprised when Touton answered. Growled at him, ‘Touton. Yeah?’
‘My name is Jim Tanner. My daughter’s name is Quinn. She’s been abducted. She’s been in trouble lately. One of your guys – one of your former guys is what I heard – was looking into her situation.’
‘You mean Cinq-Mars.’
‘Him, yeah. I need him here at my place. Now.’
‘Give me your address. If I can’t find him, I’ll be there myself.’
Jim Tanner recited the address, hung up, and waited. He sat in a kitchen chair. He got up and ditched the marijuana in a cupboard. If cops thought this was drug-related they might lose interest. He sat again and waited. He had learned to fear the police. Now he wanted them in his house, pronto.
When he answered the doorbell, only a few minutes had gone by. Almost five o’clock. Émile Cinq-Mars stood before him.
Men ripped her panties off and strapped her to a toilet. One arm was spread out, lashed to the base of the sink. The other was stretched opposite, tied to a radiator. A woman came in after she’d been alone for a while and had peed. Hearing the flow of urine, the woman came in to flush. Quinn thought she’d been abandoned. She had not been aware of anyone out in the hall.
‘Why am I here?’
‘Fucking shut it, bitch. Like yesterday. Like a week ago. Do I look like I want a fucking conversation with you?’
The woman delivered her declaration then vacated the room.
Abandoned. Although this time she knew that someone was nearby.
Her guard.
Who had carried no weapon. Remember that. It might matter.
Quinn tried to think what else she could say about her.
Tattooed. Druggie eyes. Attitude. Long dark hair, did nothing with it. A pained look to her. She’d been abused. Don’t tell her that. She looked controlled. Probably as mean as shit and not the brightest bulb. Don’t say that. Don’t tell her she’s a moron.
In Quinn’s estimation, in any fight between the two of them, the matter would immediately escalate from hair pulling or cat scratching. Bad enough, as the woman had wicked nails. She might die in the battle, that level of carnage, that degree of weaponry. In a fair fight she could outlast her, being younger and healthier, physically and mentally. She could outwit her. Just because she could. Remember that. Endure. And think. Keep thinking. If it comes down to stamina, Quinn, you win. You got her. In mind over matter, you win.
You can throw things. Remember that. You’ve got an arm.
They might kill me. Don’t let it happen. Don’t let it. Stay alive, Quinn. Oh shit, I can’t let it happen! Breathe. Come on. Panic won’t help. I’m breathing. Stay alive. Oh God, why am I on the toilet? Breathe now. Breathe. That’s it. Keep breathing. Why did they put me on the toilet? OK! Start over. Think. Breathe. Breathing. OK.
Instinct and training told Émile Cinq-Mars he had to act fast. An abduction required speed and luck if it was to be interrupted at the outset. Once the culprits sheltered in place, they gained control. A problem: he had no idea how long she’d been gone.
Cinq-Mars called back Touton to alert the Night Patrol. He reached Giroux, who alerted Detective Caron and Sergeant-Detective Frigault. Every hand on deck.
They’d canvas the neighborhood for leads. If nothing else, they might establish a timeline. Jim Tanner returned home shortly before six. Quinn was last seen in the early afternoon, downtown, with the boy known as Leonard. How did Cinq-Mars know that? they asked. He was with her. What kind of time are you spending with this girl? They were detectives, they had a right to be suspicious. They were men, like him. ‘Forget it,’ Cinq-Mars warned them. ‘I’m working her through this.’
‘Until now,’ Caron intimated.
‘Yeah. Until now.’
Caron and Frigault agreed to find the boy. Cinq-Mars didn’t have an address, but Leonard – Cinq-Mars gave them the only name useful to their cause – was an everyday peddler of soft dope. Somewhere in the system they’d know where to find a boy with a fixed address, though no identity.
‘Student Ghetto,’ Cinq-Mars decreed. Somewhere to start.
‘On it,’ Frigault vowed.
Giroux took charge of the house-to-house canvas, calling in foot soldiers. He coordinated with Captain Honoré of the night shift from his own station but made a point not to surrender authority. Cinq-Mars gave Jim Tanner his phone number and told him to man the fort. If he ever left the house, he was to leave a message giving details of his whereabouts.
‘Sort of like Quinn’s goodwill list.’
‘Excuse me?’
Cinq-Mars had scrutinized Quinn’s list. It indicated that she was going to the funeral. No update after her presumed arrival home. Her abductor had been lying in wait.
‘Keep me informed as to your whereabouts, Mr Tanner. Like Quinn was doing for you. In case I need to get in touch.’
‘I have a better idea,’ Tanner said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Let me come with you.’
‘No can do, sir. Sorry.’
‘Give me one good reason why not.’
‘Because I plan to pull out all the stops on this. I can’t have a civilian around. That would impede me. I also don’t want a witness. You know, in case I dodge a few rules.’
Tanner appreciated Cinq-Mars’s enthusiasm. Still, he wasn’t going to be blown off easily, and what Cinq-Mars said next didn’t help.
‘Sergeant-Detective Giroux will stay here. We need you with him in case they call. We don’t think there’ll be a ransom, but you never know.’
‘Giroux?’ queried Tanner. Then explained. ‘That day when the kid lost his legs. Giroux went behind a fence for half an hour. Vomiting. He was a total washout.’
Cinq-Mars eyed him closely. Took note of the ramifications. Tanner had been left on his own to look after the boy until an ambulance arrived. He could have used some help. ‘Different circumstances, no?’ Cinq-Mars pointed out. ‘Look, he’s on this – no stone unturned, that mode. Maybe he wants to make it up to you.’
Cinq-Mars could tell that in the upheaval of the moment more was coming. Would it be now or later?
Jim Tanner chose to make it now.
‘Whenever I’m out at night, or at the bar or maybe at the bowling alley, Quinn always thinks I’m at a ball park, either the local kids or the Expos.’
‘You go elsewhere,’ Cinq-Mars concluded.
‘The track.’
‘You play the horses.’
‘It’s not like that. Two kinds of people are admitted to the paddocks. Horse people and wise guys, guys who are mobbed up.’
Where was this going? And why now? ‘You’ve seen Giroux there?’
‘A lot. He isn’t tight with horse people. This is my daughter’s life we’re talking about here. I don’t know whose side he’s on.’
‘That’s fair. Look, I can vouch for him in this situation. He’s on your side.’
Tanner kept staring back at him. His gaze as assertive as a blade.
‘Maybe you’ve seen me in the paddocks, too,’ Cinq-Mars said. He was catching on to where the man was coming from. ‘Never with him, though. I never noticed him there myself. I just met the guy.’
‘You’re hard to miss.’
‘I’m tall. All right, OK, my nose gives me away.’
‘What were you doing there?’ Tanner asked. ‘Whose side are you on?’
‘I’m whistle-clean. But why were you there?’
‘I got friends inside. Still my friends, even though I’m on the outside now.’
‘They’re all right, for mob guys, you’re saying?’
‘My excuse. What’s yours?’
‘Same difference. Except I’m a horse guy. My dad raised horses. Still does. I’m in the paddocks on his behalf now and then, to buy and sell. Not drugs. Not contraband. Horses. If you think hard, you’ll know that you never saw me with the wise guys, only the horse guys. I want your daughter back, Mr Tanner. I’m working for her, not against her.’
‘In my life, it’s hard to know. One reason I hang around with the old boys, I know who they are. Where they stand. Whose side they’re on.’
‘I hear what you’re saying, Mr Tanner. I accept that. But in my experience they’re not as faithful as you think.’
The conversation provoked a thought. He placed his left hand on Tanner’s near shoulder and tugged him slightly closer to him. He spoke under his breath, confidentially. ‘How are your old skills? You might want to brush up while you’re waiting. Before this is over, I might need them.’
Though not comprehending what was in the air, Tanner nodded.
At that moment, word came in that Quinn had been seen entering the house around four. That meant her kidnappers did not have a massive head start.
‘Rush hour. Hard to get around. If they travel a distance, she might still be on the move. It’s possible—’
‘You got here fast,’ Tanner said.
‘I live in the neighborhood.’
Then word came in from Giroux. Scouring the back yard, he found a muddiness from the earlier rain. Footprints. A slightly smaller, possibly lighter, foot was indicated amid larger ones. Two feet aligned together. As if tied together. Quinn had been taken out the back way. He sent cops to canvas the lane to find out what anyone saw.
Word returned.
‘Three men with this blondie girl got into a blue van,’ an older woman, stuck in her wheelchair on an upper balcony, revealed. ‘Looked something queer to me, the way they rushing around.’ The girl’s hands, the woman speculated, might’ve been tied.
‘You didn’t call the police?’
‘Not my look-out, is it? Whoosh! Like that, they’re gone. They might’ve been the police for all I could tell. They backed up. Most cars go straight. That one backed up.’
A blue van. Helpful. Barely.
‘Put it out there,’ Giroux ordered. ‘Broadcast the info.’
Cinq-Mars headed out.
‘Where to?’ Giroux inquired.
‘Don’t ask.’
‘Come on, work with me on this, Cinq-Mars.’
‘Downtown, OK? But who wants to know? Keep it to yourself.’
‘How do I reach you?’
‘Night Patrol. Leave a message.’
Cinq-Mars told him the essentials. Where he was going and whom he’d contact. Giroux chose not to stand on jurisdiction. Possibly he approved. Night was falling fast. Bringing in the Night Patrol was the right thing to do.
Cinq-Mars piled into his Volkswagen Bug and ripped downtown at speed.