Pit bull terriers are snarling from behind the steel-clad doors of the midtown Toronto booze can where Maysam Sharifi spent the final two hours of his 24 years. Out in the windowless hallway that cuts through the graffiti-scarred industrial brick building sit bags of trash and puddles of water from a flood.
It was in this bleak corridor more than three weeks ago that Mr. Sharifi was killed, execution-style, by a single bullet to the head. Long gone is the horde of rowdy patrons who packed the after-hours club that night, and a knock on the door of the booze can -- one of dozens of rental units owned by their absentee landlord -- yields no sign of its proprietor.
"He's probably at the police station or in the morgue," says a tenant two doors up, who, like a dozen other nervous denizens of the old, maze-like Cutler building on Geary Street, is reluctant to be identified.
Gone, too, is the pool of congealed blood that smeared the hallway floor for days after Mr. Sharifi was slain. But what's chiefly missing for detectives investigating the city's fourth homicide of the year are any leads as to who killed Mr. Sharifi, or why. The son of well-to-do Iranian immigrants had no known gang connections or enemies and no history of violence.
Was it a robbery? A drug deal gone sour? Did Mr. Sharifi flirt with one of the young women mingling in the corridor as he and his three friends departed the building shortly before dawn? Or did he simply look at somebody the wrong way?
Amid the surge of gun violence at Toronto after-hours clubs -- shootings where there are often scores of see-nothing, hear-nothing witnesses -- the questions are familiar. Of the city's 65 homicides last year, almost half remain mired in what police call "the wall of silence." That's because, as with this murder, no one who could help crack the case is willing to step forward.
The booze can where Mr.Sharifi drank beer and listened to deafening hip-hop music on Jan. 25 was one of three operating on the second floor that night. All were within metres of each other, and as they all rapidly emptied -- the exodus spurred by a ferocious but apparently unrelated gun battle outside the main entrance -- dozens of patrons walked or ran past Mr. Sharifi's lifeless body.
The proprietor of the unit even told police later that he looked out of the door and saw someone stretched out on the floor; he could see the man's feet. It was none of his business, he decided. He closed up shop and went to bed.
Not for almost eight hours did the police learn about the mayhem. And when they did finally discover Mr. Sharifi's body it was not because someone called 911.
One of the building's tenants simply pulled the fire alarm.
An hour's drive away in suburban Richmond Hill, it's another world.
In their spotless new four-bedroom home, with its Persian rugs, large fireplace and elegant kitchen, Mr. Sharifi's parents are consumed by their loss. Two days earlier Maysam was buried at York Cemetery, his grave visited by hundreds of mourners.
Shahram and Lida Sharifi's grief is laced with bewilderment. In 1992 the couple fled Iran and reunited in Canada together with Maysam and his younger brother Toumaj, 22, who studies aerospace engineering at Ryerson University. It was worry over downtown violence that chiefly prompted the parents to move to the suburbs two years ago; both their sons stayed behind.
The family have no idea what led to Maysam's death. But why, they ask, are unlicensed booze cans allowed to stay in business? And why aren't police doing more to solve the slaying? And they have questions for their son's three companions that night, who included his best friend.
"I think they know a lot more than they are saying but they're too scared to speak," Toumaj said.
"I brought Maysam to Canada to give him a good life, an education and to give service to this country," said Shahram, owner of a string of submarine-sandwich shops. His face is heavy with sorrow, his shirt smeared with soil from his son's grave, in accordance with Islamic tradition.
"Instead we have this, and I cannot tell you how much we are suffering. When we first came here gun violence was rare. Now I see a story in the newspaper every day about someone being shot."
Maysam's lifestyle may have shortened the odds.
Like many 24-year-olds, he appears to have been in limbo. Gregarious and popular, he completed high school at Jarvis Collegiate and wanted to pursue a career in business, or perhaps electrical engineering, his family said.
In the meantime, living alone on downtown Mutual Street with his two dogs, he turned to other sources of income. For a while he worked at one of his father's submarine outlets and sold computers on commission. But in September he was charged with possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, in what police believe was a small, independent operation dealing in ounces rather than pounds.
"But no one has said he was a hothead," said Detective-Sergeant Terry Wark, who is leading the homicide probe, and doubts that the charge had any bearing on Mr. Sharifi's horrific death.
Home to an array of commercial enterprises, including rehearsal studios, the Cutler building has seen trouble before. There was another slaying there last year, and before the unit in question was turned into a booze can in December it housed an LSD factory, one tenant said.
Mr. Sharifi and his friends arrived some time before 3 a.m. The crowd at the club was a mix -- mostly black, with a sprinkling of whites and Asians. Like the other visitors, none of whom they apparently knew, they paid their $5 entrance fee and were patted down for weapons. By the time they headed out in search of breakfast a couple of hours later, Mr. Sharifi had drunk perhaps five beers.
Seconds after the foursome made its way out into the crowded corridor, a shot was fired. Panic erupted. There was a mass run for the exit.
"Everybody was scrambling to get away," said one of Mr. Sharifi's three companions, a close friend, who asked that his name be withheld. "I didn't look back, I grabbed my fiancée and we got the hell out."
Only at the exit did the three realize Mr. Sharif was no longer with them. One of the trio went back to find him.
But as he did so, more gunfire erupted, this time near the loading dock outside. Together with almost everyone else, Mr. Sharifi's friends vanished, assuming that he too had escaped.
The nine shell casings found outside came from different guns than the one used to kill Mr. Sharifi, suggesting the two incidents were unconnected. Investigators didn't even learn of the gun battle until hours after Mr. Sharifi's body, minus his cellphone and wallet, was found shortly after noon, in an alcove just up the hall.
The friend says he is "clueless" as to why Mr.Sharifi was slain. It seems there was a struggle, because one of the victim's shoes was off and the hood of his black sweatshirt was ripped.
"This shooting was up close and personal," said Det.-Sgt. Wark, who thinks it's likely the shooter had killed before. "This could have been about something as simple as disrespect. Within this [sub]ulture a word or a look can get you killed."
The difficulty of laying a charge in Mr. Sharifi's death -- or even identifying a suspect -- is all too familiar to Toronto's 32-member homicide squad. Witnesses to a homicide may speak up if they are known to have been at the scene and have little choice.
But it's a different story when the killing occurs in a crowded public place filled with people who want nothing to do with police.
"There's a variety of reasons why people don't want to come forward," said Det.-Sgt. Mark Mendelson, who has seen this pattern many times. "One, it's easier not to get involved. Two, there's the fear of retaliation. Plus there's the stigma of being labelled a fink or a rat, which is a label that sticks forever."
What would really make a difference, said Staff-Inspector Ellis, would be a shift toward the U.S. grand-jury system whereby witnesses are compelled to give evidence.
A broader application of witness-protection programs -- used with considerable success by British police investigating gangland slayings -- might also help. Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney-General won't disclose how often its Witness and Relocation Program is deployed, but the program is complex, sometimes costly and its use appears rare.
In Mr. Sharifi's case, there is no doubt that many of the partygoers saw him lying dead in the pool of blood. One of the handful of people police have been able to question recounted hearing another woman say, "Is he really dead?"
So how to explain the wholesale reluctance to pick up a phone and call 911?
The victim's grieving brother Toumaj has no explanation.
"These people are more than cowards," he said. "There's just no word for this."