Walter ‘Wombat’ Guthrie lived in the basement flat of a former farmhouse just within the city’s southern border, in other words, several miles from downtown.
‘A biker named Wombat,’ Delorme said in the car. ‘They probably imagine it’s some ferocious predator. Razor-sharp teeth. But I’ve seen wombats at the Toronto Zoo. They’re these cute fuzzy little things. You want to pick them up and take them home.’
‘Walter Guthrie is not little and he’s not cute. He’s got a sheet as long as your arm including assault, armed robbery, and grievous bodily harm. He’s been a member of the Viking Riders practically since kindergarten and if they had such a thing as a pre-natal chapter, he’d have been a founding member of that, too.’
‘How come I haven’t run into him?’
‘Because you worked white-collar crime for six years and Walter Wombat Guthrie can’t even spell white collar.’ Cardinal made a right on to Kennington Road. ‘The only reason we haven’t run up against Wombat and his brethren lately is simple: they moved the clubhouse beyond city limits. Good news for us; headache for the OPP.’
‘I thought all these guys were in their sixties by now – you know, grey ponytails flying in the breeze.’
‘Not all of them. Some of them. But that doesn’t mean they can’t still cause trouble. The only reason Algonquin Bay has a heroin problem is courtesy of the Viking Riders. They basically dumped the stuff – sold it at a loss and as soon as people couldn’t live without it, they jacked up the price.’
‘It’s an effective business model,’ Delorme said. ‘AOL works the same way.’
‘Effective is right. We now have thirty or forty full-time heroin addicts. Maybe more.’
Cardinal drove past a mouldering Sunoco station and turned into the driveway just beyond. He parked beside a wooden house that had once been white. Plastic sheeting flapped at the windows, and an eaves-trough hung from the roof like a disabled limb.
Delorme let out a low whistle.
‘Yeah,’ Cardinal said. ‘Where are the arsonists when you need them?’
‘No bike in the drive, I notice.’
‘Keep that up, Sergeant Delorme, and you’ll make lieutenant in no time.’
They went to a side door, a doorbell labelled Guthrie. Cardinal ignored it and pounded on the door with his fist. They waited a couple of moments, swatting away black flies, then went round to the front door.
‘Landlady,’ was Cardinal’s one-word explanation. This time he used the bell.
It was answered by a bony woman in a bathrobe, black hair streaked with grey and still wet from the shower. Other than that, she was all nose and cigarette.
‘We’re looking for your tenant,’ Cardinal said. ‘Walter Guthrie.’
‘Join the line,’ the woman said. ‘I ain’t seen him in two weeks and he owes me rent.’
‘You have any idea where he is?’
She shrugged and cocked her alarming nose toward the highway. ‘Same place he always is. The clubhouse. Lots of times he don’t come home for a week, but two weeks is a little unusual.’
‘Do us a favour,’ Cardinal said, handing her a business card. ‘Give us a call the minute you see him.’
‘Oh, sure,’ the woman said. ‘And you can take me directly to the morgue after.’
Cardinal started to say something, but the woman closed the door.
‘That was great,’ Delorme said as they headed back to the car. ‘You have such a way with women.’
With certain colourful exceptions, motorcycle gangs in northern Ontario have learned that it doesn’t pay to draw a lot of attention. That’s why the Viking Riders several years ago relocated their clubhouse from Trout Lake Road to a remote site off Highway 11 near Powassan. Nothing about the foursquare, red-brick structure indicates its function as headquarters for travelling pandemonium. In fact, the casual passer-by might judge by the faded sign on the third floor and the persistent odour of burlap that it was still home to the Bronco Bag Factory, which hasn’t been in business since 1987. The building had never had a lot of windows, and most of those that remain have been bricked up to little more than slits, as if the current Dark Age tenants fully intend to fire arrows at any enemy foolish enough to lay siege to the former factory.
When Cardinal banged on the steel door he held his shield up to an armoured security camera. So did Delorme.
The door opened, and the man who answered didn’t look anything like a biker: thirty-five, five-ten, maybe one-seventy. Short hair neatly parted and a pair of round-rimmed designer glasses gave him a collegiate air. This was Steve Lasalle, president of the local chapter of the Viking Riders; he was about twenty years younger than his colleagues, but Cardinal had done business with him before.
‘What can I do for you?’ Lasalle said. ‘I’d invite you in, but the place is a mess.’
‘We’re looking for Walter Guthrie,’ Delorme said. ‘Is he inside?’
‘Sorry. Not here.’
‘He’s not at home, either. His landlady hasn’t seen him for two weeks.’
‘Surprise, surprise. Neither have I.’
‘When exactly was the last time you saw him?’
The door banged all the way open, and Lasalle looked positively frail next to the Visigoth who now loomed beside him: Harlan Calhoun, fifty years old and two hundred and fifty pounds of mayhem in motion, known to his friends and associates as ‘Haystack.’ If he’d had a neck it would have been a size 20, about the size of the snakeskin cowboy boots on his feet.
‘Who the fuck are you assholes?’ His tone lacked warmth.
‘It’s okay, Haystack,’ Lasalle said. ‘I’m dealing with it.’
‘I’m Detective Cardinal, and this is Detective Delorme. Algonquin Bay Police.’
‘News flash,’ Haystack said. ‘This ain’t your jurisdiction. Now get the fuck out of here before I rip your arm off and beat you to death with it.’
‘Who’s your fat friend?’ Cardinal said to Lasalle.
Calhoun stepped out of the doorway so that his chest was an inch from Cardinal’s face.
‘Go back inside, Haystack,’ Lasalle said.
‘Cardinal,’ Calhoun said. ‘That’s an Indian name.’
‘Not today,’ Cardinal said. ‘But thanks for the compliment.’
‘How about I send you back to the tepee? On the end of my boot.’
‘Tell you what, Shitstack – why don’t you go back inside and trim that goat’s ass on your face? Oh sorry – is that meant to be a beard?’
Lasalle blocked the punch an inch from Cardinal’s cheekbone. His knuckles were white where he gripped Calhoun’s wrist. ‘I said, go back inside.’
Cardinal held up a pair of handcuffs and jiggled them at Calhoun. ‘Here, boy! Walkies?’
Calhoun smiled, gold gleaming amid the unwholesome thickets of his beard.
‘Next time, Cardinal. Next time.’
‘Count on it.’
Then Calhoun was gone, and Lasalle gave them a what-can-you-do shrug.
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Delorme said. ‘When