Swap

John Mcfetridge

Description

Detectives Price and McKeon are called to the scene a husband and wife found slumped in their car, parked sideways on a busy downtown on-ramp, a bullet in each of their heads. That's what's in the papers, and that's all the public sees. Toronto the Good, with occasional specks of random badness. But behind that disposable headline, Toronto's shadow city sprawls outwards, a grasping and vicious economy of drugs, guns, sex, and gold bullion. And that shadow city feels just like home for Get a Detroit boy, project-raised, ex-army, Iraq and Afghanistan, only signed up for the

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781554908684
• Langue: English

Extrait

SWAP
a mystery
JOHN McFETRIDGE


For Laurie, Always

CHAPTER
ONE
COMING OFF THE AMBASSADOR BRIDGE into Canada, Vernard pulled up to the customs booth, the sign saying it was the longest international suspension bridge in the world. The tunnel would’ve been faster, but there was no way he was going underground, under water , gave him the willies, worse than all those caves in Afghanistan.
The Canadian customs guy looked at him and Vernard nodded, serious, seeing the guy’s Glock, thinking, shit, these guys just started carrying guns a couple months ago, probably couldn’t get it out of his holster. Fucking Canada.
The guy asked him all the questions, how long he was staying, was he an American citizen, carrying any firearms? Vernard showed him his driver’s licence and his Armed Forces ID, blue for retired — honourable discharge, Sergeant Vernard McGetty. Said, “Not any more.”
“What’s the purpose of your trip?”
Get said it was a vacation. “I’m going to the film festival.”
The guy said, oh yeah, and it’s not business?
Vernard said, yeah, “I’m Jamie Foxx.”
The guy actually laughed and said have a nice trip, waving him through, twenty-eight-year-old black guy from Detroit driving a brand-new Mercedes ML370 SUV, leather interior and twelve-speaker surround on his way to Toronto to meet with some bikers, sell them a truckload of Uncle Sam’s guns and set up a pipeline for their coke and weed back to Detroit, stepping up to the big leagues.
Fucking Canada.
Looking back he saw the U.S. customs guys just waving people through, too; cars and vans and campers and trucks. Fucking trucks, must be thousands a day, going back and forth, couldn’t check them all. Couldn’t check two per cent of them.
Shit, Vernard was thinking, turning up his system loud, Little Walter finding his Key to the Highway, it’s easier to cross this border into another country than it is to cross Mack Ave into Grosse Pointe.
Through Windsor it was all Taco Bells and KFC and Burger King, didn’t seem like another country at all except for the place selling Cuban coffee, Vernard thinking, right, that’s not the only thing from Cuba in there.
Outside of Windsor this part of Canada was flat and bleak, farms, gas stations, fast-food places, and lots of traffic. Vernard was surprised there could be this much open space so close to Detroit, a foreign goddamn country, and you’d never know it was there.
Four-hour drive, Detroit to Toronto, six lanes of steady traffic going in both directions.
An hour in Vernard pulled into a gas station. Filled up and parked in the back behind the Wendy’s with all the trucks, shit, looked like hundreds of them all lined up. He went inside and saw the guy he wanted sitting there eating a cheeseburger and drinking a shake.
“You keep this up, you might get fat.”
The guy, three hundred pounds at least, his whole face smiled, shaking his big bald black head, standing up and saying, “Fucking Get, man, they let you in this motherfucking country?” They hugged, backslapping, and sat down across from each other in the little plastic seats.
“Saw your cousin on the news, man.”
The big guy, once Corporal Duane Thomkins, now just Tommy K, looked off into the distance. “She so fine, all the reporters want to talk to her, all dressed up in her fatigues.”
Vernard, sliding easy now back to being just Get, said, “They knew what she was sending home, man, blow they muthafucking minds.”
“You know it.” Tommy laughed out loud. Then he said, “Eat up, man, next stop is all Mickey Dees.”
“I’ll wait till I get there.”
They walked out back to the truck lot behind the restaurant, stopping to look at Get’s new car, Tommy saying, “Motherfucking German-ass piece of shit, man. Drive American.”
“What do you drive?”
“Fucking Peterbilt, man, 370, air ride, MP3, DVD, got a satellite map, goddamn double bed. Look at these sorry-ass motherfuckers; Volvos, Swedish fucking bullshit, Hino, what the fuck kind of rice paddy piece of shit is Hino?”
Get said, “You’re loyal, Tommy, patriotic. That’s cool.”
They got to Tommy’s red Peterbilt hooked to a fifty-three-foot trailer and he opened the door, saying, “Fucking right I’m patriotic, man. Where’d we be without Uncle Sam?” Climbed into the sleeper and came out with a dark green duffle bag.
Get didn’t even look in the bag, he just hucked it over his shoulder feeling the weight, nodding, yeah. “We’d be some sorry-ass niggers.”
Tommy said, “No hassle at the border?”
“Guy was happy to see me,” Get said. “But you never know, next time they could tear my car apart.”
“Shine that fucking Maglite up your ass.”
Get said, oh man, don’t even joke.
Tommy smiled again, that full of life-is-good enthusiasm, and said, “Don’t sweat it, a million trucks a day, they can’t look at every one. You got somebody crosses here every week,” and winked. Then he said, “There’s only one can.”
“Yeah?” Anybody else Get would have given a hard time, matter of respect, but not Tommy. Get was the boss, but Tommy would never really be an employee. “Guess I just have to shoot the motherfuckers one at a time.”
Tommy said, yeah, make every shot count.
Get said, “You going to Toronto?”
“The Big Smoke?”
“What?”
Tommy laughed. “Assholes call it that, looking for a name, be cool, play with the big boys.”
Get hefted the bag, said, they playing with the big boys now.
“They don’t even know it. Naw, man, I’m going to Montreal. Some fine French chicks there. And the food, shit, food alone’s worth the drive. You should come.”
“Maybe next time.”
“You say that, man, but you all business, never take a break. You still that skinny-ass nigger on the bike.”
“Yeah, but the Army made a man out of me.”
Tommy laughed and gave him a hug, saying, “You fucking funny, you know it. Shit. Your mama be proud.”
“Thanks man.”
“Don’t have to thank me,” Tommy said. “You paying me.”
Get said, yeah, but you’re worth it.
Tommy got into his rig and started it up, saying, “Every penny.” He blew the air horn on his way out, and Get walked back to his car, his German-ass SUV.
Three hours to Toronto, see what it’s like, this Big Smoke, wants to play with the big boys. Meet with these bikers think they’re running the show, sell them this weaponry, see if they really can deliver the meth and X and coke and the tons of weed they say they can.
Get felt good, ready to really step up, make some changes in the Motor City, make his mama proud.

• • •
They walked into McVeigh’s, Andre Price the only black guy in the place, thinking every black guy who ever came in was carrying a badge and gun.
At least a gun.
He said to McKeon, “Good thing I have my Irish escort.”
She sat down with her back to the wall under two rows of black-and-white pictures of men’s faces, looked like blown-up mug shots to Price, and said, “I’m the wrong kind of Irish.”
He said, shit, it was just too complicated.
A young guy maybe twenty-five, tattoos on both forearms, came over to the table and asked them if they wanted to see menus and Price said, no, just something to drink. “Guinness, I guess, that’s the one, right?”
McKeon asked for a cup of coffee and when the young guy left Price said, wouldn’t that keep her up all night, and McKeon said, “It’s not even midnight yet, you think we’ll be going home anytime soon?”
“If we don’t catch something, we’ll punch out.” Price looked around the bar, first time he’d ever been in and that surprised him, here it was right downtown, corner of Richmond and Church, but it was real Irish, not tourist, not a Ye Olde pub. The walls were covered with those pictures that looked like mug shots and a framed newspaper page that said “Provisional Government of the Irish Republic to the People of Ireland” across the top and was filled with text.
McKeon said, “Here she is,” and Price turned to see an East Indian woman in her twenties wearing jeans and a grey hoodie coming towards them. She got to the table at the same time as the waiter and they smiled at each other. She ordered a half of Smithwicks and sat down.
She said, “Thanks for meeting me here, detective,” looking at McKeon and then at Price, saying, “detective,” again.
“Call me Maureen, okay? Muneera, right?”
“Yes.”
Price watched the two women, wondering how this would work, all these relationships. He and McKeon were partners, but McKeon and this Constable Muneera Anjilvel were both women cops; he and Anjilvel were both black, or at least brown, faces in the very Irish bar, but McKeon said she was the wrong kind of Irish.
The waiter came back with Anjilvel’s half pint, a lot lighter colour than Price’s Guinness, he didn’t know if Smithwicks was Irish beer or not, and the look between the waiter and Anjilvel, both in their twenties, seemed like the start of a connection.
Shit, it was too complicated. Price figured he’d just sit back and watch.
Anjilvel was looking around, nervous, so McKeon skipped the small talk and got right to it, asking her why the secret meeting.
“All the shit that’s happened,” Anjilvel said. “Crazy.”
Price watched her looking nervous, conflicted, but he didn’t think she really was. The Toronto police were in the middle of a huge internal investigation, eight of their own guys arrested by the Mounties and everybody else under suspicion. But still, his read was that Anjilvel wasn’t sneaking around because she didn’t know what to do. He thought she was really sure about something. A lot of things.
She said, “I really appreciate this,” and McKeon nodded, looking right at her.
“Okay. Here’s the thing. Remember last week, that guy died at the hotel?”
“Dealer from Buffalo, got shot five times?”
“No, the other one.”
McKeon said, “Guy his girlfr