Free Grinder by Mike Knowles Page A

angrier that he couldn't do a thing about it. Once Paolo was off the line, I dialled another number from memory; it was a number I knew would still work.
    “Sully's Tavern,” Steve's voice said after two rings.
    “Do you ever take the night off?” I asked.
    The reply came immediately. “Some of us can't pick up and leave at a moment's notice.”
    “How you doing, Steve?”
    “Good.” His surprise was over, and he was back to his usual short responses. “You in town?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I have your money and those tools you told me about. I took it all after Sandra and I cleaned the place up.”
    “You took Sandra to clean up the office?” I asked.
    “I told her where I was going, and she said she wanted to come.”
    I marvelled at Steve and his relationship with Sandra. I spent every waking moment trying to stay off the grid, trying to keep every interaction transient, and here was my only friend, a person connected at the hip to his wife. He told her everything and didn't even think about a need for secrets. For a quiet second on the phone, alone in my car, I envied his attachment like a paraplegic envied a sprinter.
    “Any problems?”
    “Nah, wife thinks you need help decorating though. You working?”
    “That's why I called.”
    “Where?” Steve was ready to meet me, to do whatever. In his mind he could never repay the debt he thought he owed me.
    “It's not like that. I got found, and someone we know pulled me back here for a job.”
    “How did you get pulled?” It sounded as though Steve was suddenly speaking through clenched teeth. Steve knew what I was like; he knew there was very little that could force me to do anything. He knew he and Sandra were about the only leverage someone could use on me. He was starting to see red, and I had to derail him before he put down the phone. Steve had the capabilities of a dirty bomb. He could absolutely destroy everything around him, but worse than that, the carnage left from his explosion would be felt for years to come.
    “Steve,” I said to no response. “Steve . . . Christ, Steve, listen to me. I'll tell you how I got pulled back, but you have to hear me out. Are you listening? You can take care of this but you have to hear me out.”
    “Tell me.”
    Steve's quick response fazed me for a second. He was listening more than I thought. Maybe things had changed since I had been gone.
    “I thought you would have been out in the street by now.”
    “Things change,” he said, reading my mind.
    “So you'll cool it and let things play out my way?”
    “Things haven't changed that much. Tell me.”
    “A guy came to see me; he told me to come home. After a long talk, I found out why.”
    “Tell me straight — no one is listening.”
    “You don't know that,” I said, thinking of Paolo.
    “I do, Wilson. Now tell me straight.”
    I figured I owed Steve the truth. “Paolo found me,” I said.
    “You were fishing on film.”
    I pulled over to a chorus of honking horns and punched the dashboard. “That fucking picture,” I said.
    “Ben saw it. He loves fishing and he showed me the fish when he saw it on the front page. Big guy didn't even know who the politician was. I saw the fish and I saw you. The beard looks good.”
    Ben was a giant of a man who grew up on a farm in rural Ontario. He still clung to his roots, often wearing overalls to tend bar. Steve hired him after Sandra was kidnapped. Ben's job was to keep her safe when Steve stepped out. Ben was capable; I had seen him break up brawls alone. The brawlers weren't punks either — they were hard men. Ben blasted through them with giant fists like Thor with two flesh-and-bone hammers.
    “Paolo saw the picture and sent a guy out to see me.”
    “He dead?” Steve asked.
    I didn't answer the question. “I got in touch with Paolo, and he told me he needed me for a job.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Job doesn't matter. What's important is he said he had a man watching you.”
    “Yeah?” Steve's answers