River City (101 page)

Crapeau, the reformist moron, was taking his beloved city apart, sending dancing girls to New York and whores to Las Vegas, with the gamblers in tow. One by one, the fun palaces shut down. Corruption, corruption, that’s all Crapeau nattered on about. Didn’t he know how the world turned? Was it such a big deal if somebody made a dollar on the side, as long as the revolving doors twirled in full circles?

In political disgrace, Houde felt blindsided by that dour, stick-up-the-ass reformer. His great run had ended. He’d strut as a bon vivant no more.

Two days after the electoral defeat of the man Houde had handpicked to be his successor, Roger Clément stopped by to cheer him up, and to be paid for busting up polling booths for Houde’s candidate. In vain, as things turned out. “Roger, we’ve been though some tough times together. Bury me, Roger, like Guibord. You remember the story? I used to tell it in the camp. One of your favourites. Now I know how his corpse felt.”

Undoubtedly, he was still giving himself too much credit, an unerring trait even in the midst of his unbridled depression. To compare himself to a famous, dead liberal seemed especially odd for the living, conservative Houde, but in his state of mind, logic was not a strong component. He referred to Joseph Guibord, whose pals had needed six years to bury him, between 1869,
when he died, and 1875, when his casket had finally been sealed, in cement and iron, below ground. So that his remains might never rise again, he was not only buried, but encapsulated.

In his time a free thinker, Guibord had worked as a printer. He joined the Institut Canadien, a club of inquiring minds whose existence had riled the Church, in particular the bishop of Montreal, Father Ignace Bourget. The bishop stood as a staunch proponent of the theory of ultramontanism, which contended that government ought to be subject to the will and wisdom of the Church, whereas Guibord sought to separate Church and state, a heretical thought in Quebec. Guibord published a speech by Horace Greeley, the editor of the
New York Tribune,
who had flaunted ideas similar to those overtaking Europe at the time, including the incredibly radical notion that a man ought to be the principal administrator of his own conscience, rather than, say, his priest or bishop. The text was placed on the Catholic Index as prohibited reading. In Quebec, mere possession of Guibord’s
Annuaire,
which printed such speeches, would cost any Catholic the privilege of ecclesiastical sacraments. A majority of the Institut’s members capitulated. They publicly recanted, if privately they bristled, but Joseph Guibord alone stuck to his guns, and, as the hour of his death approached, the Church denied him last rites.

His corpse was then rejected for burial in consecrated ground.

Armed with pistols, for they had overheard dire rumours, friends escorted the coffin to the cemetery, only to find that the gates were closed. Falling under a tempest of stones, they retreated. The horse-drawn hearse was forced into a ditch. Later that day, the corpse was brought to a Protestant cemetery and the man’s remains temporarily interred in a vault normally used to hold the dead over through winter for spring burial. Friends embarked upon a legal and public harangue that took six years to resolve, when finally they were permitted by the courts to plant the dead man in consecrated ground.

On their second attempt, armed only with a court order, they were again rebuffed by a mob.

On the third try, twelve hundred troops were mustered to escort the body to its final resting place. The mayor of Montreal at the time, who considered himself to be a good Catholic, one Sir William Hingston, rode his horse about
town to determine whether there might be an uprising, eventually concluding that the day would find a peaceful resolution. A thousand persons waited at the gravesite, but they were seeking the curiosity of the moment, having no violence in mind.

Representing the bishop, the
curé
of Notre Dame, Reverend Benjamin-Victor Rousselot, rode up in his carriage. He was accompanied and protected by a notable policeman of the era, Detective Cinquemars, and the two men stepped down. Already, the supporters of the Institut Canadien could feel themselves growing spiky, fearing that the priest had arrived to block the ceremony and thwart any court order. That he might have shown up to administer the sign of the cross and a prayer seemed a remote hope.

They were wrong on both expectations.

The
curé
had come to pose two questions.

“Are you certain that the body in this coffin is that of Joseph Guibord?” he asked, and the printer’s friends replied that they were positive of the deceased’s identity. “Have you dug the grave to the required depth of four feet?” he inquired. Again, the dead man’s colleagues responded in the affirmative.

The priest and the detective, satisfied, went on their way.

Concrete was poured into the grave. Before it hardened, the coffin was lowered down. More concrete was shovelled all around the casket. Scrap metal and tin were then thrown onto it and piled up, and workers busily shovelled more cement over that, to create an impassable barrier between the living and this one corpse. Earth was then tamped down above the concrete, and later a great rock was set upon the earth. That first night, police encircled the tomb as the cement hardened, standing guard. Guibord had been dead six years, but the cops maintained a vigil as the liberal thinker, a man who, in his devotion, had yearned for a dimension to Catholic thinking that included tolerance and an interest in scientific and social experiments, concluded his lengthy journey into the black earth.

Bishop Bourget had a plan. He asked his flock not to interfere with the burial on the third attempt. He directed his parishioners to cause no further violence on hallowed ground. The following day, he deconsecrated the burial plot in which Joseph Guibord slept. That space was segregated from the rest
of the cemetery and would no longer be considered holy by the Church, but profane. All those who slept around him in their eternal rest, and those who would one day join him beneath the soil, could lie peacefully, without fear that their bones might be contaminated by a heathen’s rot. Guibord’s grave, armoured by rock and cement and metal and tin, was declared forever outcast, and the bishop noted in a public letter that the men and women of future generations who passed by the spot would likely shudder.

In political disgrace, Camillien Houde felt similarly about himself. As though cast in cement like Guibord, segregated from the world and the heavens both, declared unworthy to receive anything more than a shudder from those who might inadvertently pass the spot where he sat upon a public bench feeding pigeons. And so, he asked of his old friend, “Bury me like Guibord.”

Roger knew the story. Drinking gin, Houde had told it several times during their days and nights in the camp together.

A year after making the burial suggestion, Houde was entertaining a revival of his spirits. “Soon, you’ll be free to dig me a decent grave,” he told Roger. “Full pomp and ceremony. I insist. Let there be a wake in the Irish style, with whiskey and beer and laughing women in every corner of the room. Bounteous bouncing breasts all around the table. Whether I’m in heaven or hell won’t matter, so long as I hear the gaiety. Let there be speeches! My God, let there be grand talk. I am ready now to receive many fine tributes.”

“You’re in a good mood all of a sudden,” Roger Clément noted.

“Bound to get better. And you know why.”

Yes. On this day, Houde believed, he would possess at least a share of an invaluable and sacred object. How could life become more outstanding than this? Crapeau and his reforming breed could go to hell once his hands gripped that magic, mythic link, for Houde intended to claim possession of the Cartier Dagger in the name of the Order of Jacques Cartier. That one secret and dramatic act restored rhythm to his stride, wit to his wisdom, magic to his legacy—and victory for a new political uprising. Or so he was convinced. Tonight, he would claim the knife, and, having done so, he need not be buried like Guibord.

Possessing the dagger would be no different than being crowned. In rescuing the treasure from out of the hands of the English and their devil, Clarence Campbell, he’d be revered by his people forever. Rumours would travel around the city and through the countryside. He might instigate a few himself—
Houde has saved us! The great Houde! In our plight, when the people of Quebec were being humiliated by the hockey establishment, when the skies were darkest, when our hero, the Rocket, was being subjugated, Houde—what a man!—snatched the sacred symbol from under Campbell’s ruddy English nose—the square-head!—and restored pride to every true Quebec heart!
Grand words like that, he’d hear them spoken again—valiant tributes whispered of him and to him, even to his spirit after he was gone. Despite his condition of disgrace, which he could not undo, he’d earn his greatest triumph yet.

As he waited, bitter winds whipped across the roof of the Sun Life Building. During the day, patches of snow had melted upon the asphalt surface and turned icy, and he walked on these areas, slapping his hands to stay warm. He tromped across the snowy sections as well, to create a haphazard design to foil any subsequent interpretation of his activity. All he was doing, though no one tracing his footprints could imagine it, was waiting.

He wished he could look down from his aerie as any city-dwelling pigeon might do, view the specks of people below. He could not risk being spotted. He awaited a signal. One that would arise from the people of Montreal. When they rioted in the streets, he’d begin his formidable chore.

The game against the Red Wings had begun. Keeping the volume low, he turned on the fancy-dancy transistor radio supplied by a confederate. Imagine. Listening to a radio without electricity. The announcer mentioned that Clarence Campbell had not yet arrived at the rink—that, so far, his seat remained vacant.

“Come on now, Clarence,” Roger whispered to his marvellous little unit. “Don’t be shy. Don’t be a sucker. Show up.”

Vimont burst into the car. “Holy shit!”

“What happened?” Count Jacques Dugé de Bernonville demanded. “They started before me. They threw tomatoes at him!” “Rotten tomatoes?”

“How should I know? I didn’t taste any.”

“Who threw them?” Dr. Camille Laurin occupied the rear seat with the count.

“People!”

“At whom?” Laurin needed everything to be explained.

“At Campbell! He got hit with a tomato. Smack in the chest. I was close enough to see. Then I threw my stink bombs and got the hell out of there. People panicked. Everybody’s gone bananas.”

“That was the idea,” de Bernonville posited. “Start the car. Let’s go.”

“No, I mean they’ve gone insane. It’s gonna be a fucking riot!”

“That’s the point,” de Bernonville replied. “Now drive.”

“You heard him. Drive this thing!” Laurin commanded.

Michel Vimont steered the limo towards the vicinity of the Sun Life Building.

Up on the roof, Roger listened to the excited announcers’ voices as Campbell was pelted by tomatoes, and their dismay and budding panic when the stink and smoke bombs went off inside the Forum. He could hear the excited roar of the crowd, the angry taunts, the bedlam rising, the screams of women and the raised pitch of the radio commentary. The game was soon cancelled, not least of all for the safety of the visiting team. The crowd, the radio was saying, was spilling out onto the streets and causing a ruckus. His cue to get busy.

He possessed mountaineering rope for the job, and now spun two opposing loops over a cement outcropping. What appeared to him to be a line of
tombstones stood along the roof’s edge, although they were really meant to emulate the shields of medieval warriors defending a castle wall. One served well to anchor his line, strong enough to support a man. He gave it a good tug to make sure. Satisfied, he lowered the rope gently, so as not to attract any interest, two flights down to the first landing, twenty-some feet. Taking up the coils of two more ropes, slipping one over each shoulder, he put on his gloves and slid safely down.

A four-second drop. Then a nice, soft landing.

On a balcony, a double railing connected concrete pillars shaped to resemble urns. He tied his next rope to one of these and let it fall slowly. This was a greater descent—one he hoped was less than forty feet, the length of his rope. Under the night shadows and the variegated city lighting, the rope covertly snaked down the side of the Sun Life to conclude its run near the spot he desired, on a broader ledge. The length seemed a bit shy. He would have to come back up this way, so he would need to be able to reach the bitter end of the rope from below. He gave it a good strong tug and, satisfied with the attachment, descended.

He could land a helicopter on the next ledge, or hold a party for four hundred. Again, he was offered good posts for hitching his rope, and he lowered a long one down the face of the building. The next landing looked a long way down to him, and he hated heights. Happily, he had no intention of going farther. Never a second-storey man, he was way above that level now, nineteen flights up. Forget it.

Instead, he used his great strength to climb. Hand over hand, also clutching the rope between his thighs, shins and ankles to take his weight, he ascended to the ledge above him, then pulled himself up the other rope as well to the roof. There he crossed to the rooftop exit, took a glance around to make sure that he had not forgotten anything, opened the door and stepped through to the stairwell. Once inside, he nudged the sliding bolt back into place—he loved working with insiders—and snapped the padlock to seal it shut. Then proceeded down the stairs. At the first corridor, he looked around, listened, then, confident that the building remained vacant, stepped quickly to the stairwell that would take him farther down.

Alone here, he moved as quietly as he could manage without going too slowly, and wound his way down to the twelfth floor, where the offices of the National Hockey League were located. There he listened again, poked his head into the corridor, and, seeing no one, moved to the NHL’s door.