We get back to the city around suppertime, well ahead of whoever’s tailing us. When we’d met up again, Amberlea told me she’d taken the chair to the top of the highest run and made sure Black Mustache got off too before she started down. A while later, after we’d changed back into our own clothes and I’d discovered she’d split my jeans, we saw the ski patrol bringing down someone who could have been our guy. I almost felt sorry about the bumper. The bullets, I’d flushed down the toilet.
I did more thinking on the way home, and I know what I need to do. Thinking had been hard, too, because it seemed as if AmberLea was leaning a little closer to me than she needed to. I’d tried leaning her way, but the shoulder belt messed me up.
At the hotel, AmberLea gets the dairy calendar with the music in it from the front-desk safe. “Want me to go with you?” she asks.
“Nah, I can handle it,” I say. Really, I do want her to come with me, but it would be wussy to say so.
“I think you’re doing the right thing. Sorry about your jeans.”
“No problem,” I say, even though they were my favorites.
“Call me when you’re done.”
The duty officer at the police station doesn’t bat an eye when I tell him I want to report a kidnapping. It’s only when I start trying to explain the whole thing with Bunny and the SPCA and the movie, and I pull out the calendar, that he tells me to hold on. He makes a call, then gets another cop to take me upstairs to see someone else.
The second cop shows me into a room that has a table with a telephone, a couple of chairs and the classic mirror on the wall—two-way, I’m guessing, based on every cop movie I’ve ever seen. A video camera stares at me from a bracket near the ceiling. I unzip the shell and fleece, because I’m starting to get hot, and sit down, which at least hides the split in my pants. Then I do my best “innocent” act all over again. It’s that kind of place.
The cop who comes in could be right out of a movie: big, with a bullet head and buzz-cut hair, tie loose, collar unbuttoned, five-o’clock shadow so dark that his gum-chomping chin is blue. Good, I think. Right now a take-charge pro is what I need. His eyes flick to the Muskoka Dairy calendar on the table, then back to me. “Let’s take it from the top.”
I’m barely started when the cop cuts in. “Bunny? That a nickname?”
I nod. “For Bernard. Bernard O’Toole.”
He stops chewing. “Bernard O’Toole.” He hammers at a laptop he’s brought in. “Two Tecumseth Street?”
“That’s it.”
He rolls his eyes. “Not again. Your brother is a known affiliate of the Fifteenth Street Posse, a street gang in Mimico. He’s also currently serving a year less a day in Creekside Juvenile Detention Centre. I put him there. So why don’t you tell me how a punk in prison is being kidnapped at city hall? What kind of put-on is this?”
“It’s not,” I say. “He’s out.”
“He’s out?”
“Well, just for Christmas, under this new CRAP program. You know: Constructive Rebound something something. His supervisor is Roz Inbow.”
The cop swears a streak bluer than his chin and jabs at the laptop again. Then he looks at me. Now his smile reminds me of an alligator I met recently. I also know exactly why the guy looks familiar: he was at Bunny’s court hearing. “Well, so he is,” he says. “Supervisor Inbow. And I see there’s a warrant out for his arrest for violating the terms of his release.
So why don’t you tell me where he is?”
“That’s what I’m trying to do. I don’t know where he is; he’s been kidnapped.”
“It runs in the family, huh? You’re all smart guys? Quit covering for him before you get yourself in trouble too. He put you up to this? Where is he? With the Posse?” Saliva sprays. It wouldn’t surprise me if a few teeth came out too.
“No, with the SPCA.” He rolls his eyes. I feel sweat trickling under my arms. “Not the SPCA SPCA, but the Save Pianvia Counterrevolutionary Army SPCA. They’ve got guns, snipers. I found bullets this afternoon in a car at that Brimacombe ski place.”
That gets his attention. “Ammunition? You found bullets?”
“Hollow point, the box said.”
“Describe the car.”
“An old gray Civic with a sagging back bumper.”
“License?”
Oh. “Uh, I forgot to get it,” I say. “But I got the bullets.”
“Where are they?”
“Well, I flushed them down the toilet at the ski place.”
“Naturally.” The cop puts both football-sized hands flat on the table and leans toward me, leading with his Smurf-blue chin. “You know what the penalty is for making a false statement to police?”
“It’s not false! They’ve grabbed Bunny because they want this!” I show him the calendar.
“I’ll bet they do—1965 dairy calendars are really valuable.”
“Not that. This!” I pull out the anthem.
“Uh-huh, and the flowers are by Picasso.” He shoves back, hawks and spits on the floor. Suddenly a monster finger is right between my eyes. “Look, bleep-for-brains. Don’t cover for your deadbeat brother. I should book you for misleading, but I won’t. This time. Because instead, I’m gonna have the bleeping pleasure of watching you tell this load of horse bleep to the one who should really hear it.”
You can fill in the bleeps yourself. He grabs the phone and punches in a number. “You’re still here? Good. Come on down to number twenty-four…I know it’s late…No, but I got someone named O’Toole here wants to see you. Yeah. Yeah, I thought you’d want to.” He hangs up and gives me another alligator-Smurf smile. “There’s still time to talk to the nice guy,” he says. I keep my mouth shut, and we wait. The chair is hard. I can feel the split in my pants. I’m melting in my fleece. And all I can think is, Wrong again, Spencer.
The door opens and in buzzes a tiny Asian lady with short hair and glasses like mine except oversized. She has a puffy overcoat on and a laptop case over one shoulder. She stops dead when she sees me. “You’re not Bernard.” I know the voice. It’s twice as big as she is, and it belongs to Roz Inbow. Even if she looks nothing like I’d imagined, and at least two centuries younger, I know I’m doomed.
Before I can say anything, Smurf Cop says, “Nah, this is a future client. His brother—or so he says. He’s got such a horse-bleep story about your guy Bernard, I thought you should hear it before I toss him—or charge him.”
I think of Harry, the Ipcress File guy, jabbing his hand with the wire as they torture him, and I feel an angry little surge. “It’s not horse bleep,” I say. “Bunny’s been kidnapped and—”
“Whoa.” Roz Inbow raises a hand. “I don’t need to hear this. I don’t want to hear this. It’s already been a day.”
“But my brother’s been—”
“I said, whoa.” Roz Inbow turns to Smurf Cop. The top of her head is level with his, and he’s sitting down. And she’s wearing boots with heels. “Harv, FYI, this is now filed orange anyway.”
“Whaaat? It’s not flagged.”
“Just came down. Cut it loose. Now I’m out of here. I’ve got a headache.” With that, she’s out the door.
“BLEEP,” says Smurf Cop/Harv. He glares at me and jerks his blue chin. “Out.”
Outside, the cold air feels good, although maybe a little too cold at the tear in my pants. That’s about all that feels good. Bun’s in danger, and except for AmberLea and Toby, who may be busy having a romance, I’m on my own. I tuck the calendar inside my coat and look around for the gray Civic, just in case. All at once I feel very exposed.
“Mr. O’Toole!”
I register Roz Inbow’s voice right away, but I don’t exactly get called “mister” a lot, so it takes a second to realize she’s calling me. She’s waving from a car across the street. I wait for traffic to clear, then scoot over. The car’s engine is running; the lights are on. “Listen,” she says from the driver’s seat. “Spencer, right? I just want to tell you officially that the warrant for your brother’s arrest has been rescinded.”
“Uh, great. Thanks,” I say. “That’s maybe not his biggest problem right now.”
“I understand. I just wanted you to know. With an orange file, it’s usually complicated. This is one less worry anyway.”
“What’s an orange file?” I ask. A gust from a passing car flaps the rip in my pants.
“I can’t tell you. Sorry. But,” Roz Inbow says, “I can tell you that I’ve had time to read Bernard’s file. He’s an unusual kid. There’s more going on there than meets the eye. So”—she hesitates—“if I can do anything, unofficially, to help, I’d be willing to try. Here’s my number.” She passes me a business card like the one we already have at home.
“Thanks.” This time I mean it. Because there is something she can do. If the SPCA knows about AmberLea and Toby, the music may not be safe with them. I check over my shoulder. “Listen, could you keep this safe till I need it? Like, tomorrow maybe?” I pull the calendar out from under the fleece. “There’s a piece of paper inside. Don’t show it to anyone. Don’t even look at it.”
Roz Inbow looks at me for a moment, then nods. She slips the calendar into her laptop bag on the passenger seat and zips the bag shut. “Don’t tell me any more.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll call you when I need it. Probably soon.”
“I’m always around.” She puts the car in gear and flicks the turn indicator on. “And, hey, don’t let Harv get to you. All that bluster’s just an act. He’s a good guy.”
“Right,” I say. “How do you know?”
“I’m married to him,” Roz Inbow says. Then she drives off.