River City (50 page)

“You buy it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the only man I know who can afford it.”

“In your dreams, Father. It’ll cost millions. I’m not frivolous with money.”

“If it’s not sold to an honest Quebecer, like yourself, where does it go from here? London again? Paris? It can’t appear in the Louvre—it’s a murder weapon. To California, perhaps, or to some oil man in Dallas? If so, Quebec loses a measure of its heritage forever. Cartier! Champlain! Maisonneuve! Brulé! Radisson! This is
our
history. No different than if Egypt shipped a pyramid to New York City. Or if the Taj Mahal were reconstructed in Missouri.”

“Not quite the same thing,” Trudeau said.

“Pierre, if you acquire the dagger—unofficially, of course—the time may come in some future epoch when it can be restored to the populace, no? Enjoyed by a museum, let’s say. Or placed in a glass case, let’s say, in Notre Dame. Hey, now there’s an idea.”

“Don’t pretend you’re entertaining that thought for the first time,” Trudeau scoffed.

“Bad enough it should be in the hands of Sun Life or the National Hockey League,” the priest went on, ignoring him. “At least in those instances, it’s still here, within our borders. Pierre, it belongs to the whole of our family, not to the least worthy of our elements, never to the Order of Jacques Cartier. If they must sell, the people of Quebec must buy. But the people cannot acquire the dagger except
—except
—through secret philanthropy. That’s where you come in.”

“But how can we do this?” he argued against the priest’s spirited ardour.

“That’s also where you come in.”

Trudeau was flummoxed. “How do you mean?”

“You’re smart. I’m not as bright. I’m a priest. You’re not. This transaction is beneath my station in life, but you’re not even employed. A rich man’s folly, we’ll call it. Why not? Do it, Pierre. Think of something.”

“What rubbish.”

The challenge attracted him, he had to concede. Trudeau was also drawn to the project by the priest’s desire. How wonderful to do something unique for the people of Quebec, yet in secret, so that no one would find out for decades. As for the moral issues, which stood apparent to both of them, neither man was a stickler for the rules. Leaving the knife in the hands of killers and thieves—as some believed, in the hands of neo-fascists, the Order of Jacques Cartier—did not seem a wholly moral choice either. Father François had another astonishing reason to acquire the murder weapon.

“It’s said to hold properties. Those who have possessed it have known great adventures. Imagine, Pierre, someone such as yourself, in possession of the Jacques Cartier Dagger. What a formidable power that union might create.”

“You want me to be powerful?”

“The Church can offer the dagger safekeeping. Perhaps you’ll bequeath it to us in time. If spiritual properties are at play, perhaps the work of God will benefit.”

Magic, then. That, too. Though it belied his logic, and the faith of the Church, it did possess, as an enchanting fragrance of this night, its own seductive allure.

“You’re spiritual when it suits your purposes, Father,” Trudeau told his friend. “I’ve noticed that about you.”

“I’ve also noticed something, Pierre. Your Jesuit strain runs deep. You may keep your religion in your hip pocket, yet it’s there. It’s important to you.”

How deep did it run? He had canoed the routes of Radisson, who had carried the knife with him. The spirit of the man seeped into his being during those long hours under the sun, paddle in hand. Those beautiful, endless rivers north. That peace. Radisson had been brutalized by history, working
for the British, the French, the Americans—whoever might favour him with a stake. He had allowed the dagger to pass through his hands, sometimes merely to please his wife. With it, his wife’s family had prospered. Not the fur trader. That history ran as deeply within Trudeau as did his Jesuit influences. The desire to possess the dagger, to hold the knife once held by Radisson, burned within him. If ever he found it, he would not let go.

He returned to the priest with a calculated scheme. “You heard of the sale from someone—an individual.”

Father François buried his hands in his cassock and placed them over his expansive tummy. “I attended a gathering. A lot of ears. Quite a few voices, too.”

Trudeau issued an expressive shrug. “Yet, you heard the story from one person in particular. It’s not a story that people announce to all and sundry.”

“One person, sure. I reiterate, Pierre, he only picked up the rumour from someone else.”

“We’ll rely on that. Everyone who has repeated the rumour picked it up from someone else. No one speaks too boldly, but confides what he’s heard to a few trusted ears. No one knows who initiated the remarks, therefore no one will be afraid to return comments back to their source.”

“Perhaps,” the priest acknowledged.

They were seated in the quiet of Trudeau’s father’s library. The house had always been a place for conversation, wine and great debates. From boyhood, when his father had suddenly become wealthy, Pierre Elliott had listened to the best minds of his city argue politics and war, the social contract, the future of the nation. Big ideas had surrounded him during his formative years, and the large canvas of those notions would be tackled in spirited, often inebriated discussion. This room, on the other hand, where mahogany bookcases rose to the ceiling, had been a place for quiet reflection. Trudeau had rarely spoken to his father within this room, and only of matters most solemn. At the age of fifteen he had lost him, a sudden, unexpected death. The pain of absorbing the news had never been extinguished. He now knew why the priest had invited himself over, rather than undertaking this conversation inside a rectory, for theirs was dangerous, subversive talk.

Elbows on his thighs, Trudeau leaned in more closely to his guest. “You must recall who spoke to you, who recited the rumour about the knife going on the black market. Go back. Say to that individual that you repeated the story to a friend, that he repeated it to a friend of his, and so on and so on, you don’t know how many times. Say this: that the last person contacted on that chain, an unknown, would like to bid for the Cartier Dagger. He is prepared to pay fair market value.”

“What on earth would be its fair market value?” the podgy man in the black cassock inquired.

“Less than its true value, I suppose. Ownership of the relic is dangerous. The market’s compressed. If someone is selling, it’s either because they need to get rid of it to save their skins, or they require funds. Which also serves to depress its value.”

The Dominican-trained priest nodded. For a man who could not hold down a regular job, his friend Trudeau showed business acumen. “Go on.”

“Tell the person who had spoken to you to do exactly as you have done. Go back to whoever told
him
the story initially. Pass the message that a buyer has surfaced.”

“Ask that everyone ask the next in line to pass along the message?”

“Exactly. No one will know where the chain ended, any more than anyone will discover where it began. If we’re lucky, someone will whisper in the ear of the man who possesses the dagger, or the man who started the rumour. That man will only nod and agree to pass along the message, knowing it will be to himself alone.”

The scheme seemed plausible, especially if they did not have to travel through too many links. Yet an obstacle remained. “How does the man with the knife, if he’s located, communicate back again to the other end of the chain?”

“The same way,” Trudeau postulated.

“It might be five people. It might be twenty … forty.”

“It might become a rumour mill. But communication is still possible. When the time comes to link opposite ends of a rumour mill … if and when we get there, we’ll figure it out. The point is, we have a chance.”

Captain Armand Touton preferred to visit Carole Clément in her home, although his presence could compromise her work as an informant. Yet meeting her outside the home was often difficult as she worked long hours at her sewing machine, and if they were spotted, the rendezvous would be even more awkward to explain. His going to her house gave her the option of saying he’d dropped by to update her on the investigation into her husband’s murder. Not that he had anything to update. More than three years had passed without tangible results. In any case, Touton took the preferred risk and used personal time to see her during the day.

“You’re getting too close to these people,” he told her.

She slaved away at her machine, pins between her lips with which she’d tack a pant cuff. “Is that a fact?” she asked, her mouth closed, voice muffled.

“You spend considerable time with them. Anik, too. You’re friends now.”

Carole removed the pins from her mouth. “That’s the idea, no? I get close. They learn to trust me.”

“What happens with all this trust? I haven’t heard any great information lately. You’re still on the payroll, remember?”

“I’m not in it for the money.” She kept her head down, her eyes on her work.

“Maybe. But you take the money and I’m in it for the results.”

“Feel free to shove the money up your ass, Captain. If you need help with that, let me know. Maybe your results will fit up there, too.”

“There’s no need to be vulgar,” he said, straightening.

“Who’s being vulgar here?” she wanted to know.

He had to think that through. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.”

“Are you?” Her machine whirred, a pant leg was completed. She held up the garment for inspection, tossed it aside, then retrieved the next pair off the floor.

“Have you heard anything, to help us out, to justify the budget I spend?” Pins were between her lips again. She waited until she had her hands free to remove them and speak. “Hypothetically,” she said, then put the pins back.

Touton’s concern was genuine. His own surveillance had demonstrated how cozy she’d become with gangsters. Other departments, not knowing of their connection to one another, pencilled her in as a gangster’s moll. “Go on.”

“Let’s say I got wind of a bank robbery,” she said in a garbled voice. This time, when she took the pins from her lips, she put them down. “What would happen?”

“I’d expect to hear about it.”

“I’d expect that if the police intervened, they’d make it look like a fluke, not as though they’d been tipped off.” “You’ve been tipped on a robbery?”

“Several. A few have been carried out. I didn’t tell you about those.”

Touton wrung his hands, then placed them on his thighs. “Why not?”

“Hey, it’s basic. If everything I hear ends up being intercepted by the cops, what does that do to my credibility? I’m doing this to catch my husband’s killers, not to foil every little heist.”

“But you’re willing to tell me about one.”

“One. For now.”

“Why?”

“To keep you happy. I’m not in this for the money, but … I don’t say no to the extra bucks. They keep me going. So I’ll be good. I’ll give you something, Armand.”

Touton nodded. As informants went, Carole Clément was unique. She was in with the mob, yet she was not one of them herself. As such, she was not a stoolie who could be intimidated or threatened with incarceration. She actually had more power over him than he did over her, and he was unaccustomed to that. “All right,” he said. “Give me what you’ve got.”

“You’ll like this.” She stuck pins in a pant leg. “It’s coming down on your watch. The night shift.”

“Do the men involved babysit your daughter?”

“Actually—” she paused to give the machine a whirr. “—they don’t.”

“This is what bothers me.”

“You’re right, Captain. You should be bothered. The men I’m closest to get a free pass from me. If you put them in jail, I wouldn’t be close to the bad
guys anymore, would I? But you’re not thinking about that. You’re just concerned that I’m willing to squeal on the guys I don’t like rather than on the guys I get along with. You think something’s wrong with that. Well, Captain, it’s a take-it-or-leave-it scenario, know what I mean?”

She had a point. Or several. She couldn’t really afford to put away the men who gave her access to the underworld. If she did, she’d lose her value.

“I’ll take it,” Touton confirmed.

She identified the bank in question, a big one downtown, and provided the date and method. The time would be after hours, as the crooks were planning to drill through a basement wall over the course of a weekend from the building next door. Three false alarms would sound in the downtown area just prior to the robbery, to reduce police capability. “You better respond to those alarms, Armand, otherwise they’ll know that you were tipped off. You’d better make it look like you ran into robbers by sheer luck as they were coming out of the building next door with their pockets full of loot.”

“Not to worry. Thanks, Carole.”

“‘Not to worry,’ he says.”

“I’ll take care of everything.”

“We’ll see. Now why don’t you piss off so I can get some real work done here?”

The odd pair put their plan into action. The priest had a drink with a businessman concerning ecclesiastical matters, and in the midst of the conversation revealed the curious, weighty concern on his mind. “The number of people involved so far,” he lied, for he knew that he and his friend Trudeau were the only ones, “is impossible to tell. Quite a few, I get that impression. But you told the story to me, and now I’m asking you to speak to whoever spoke to you about it in the first place. Just don’t mention my name. That’s how this works. No one should know the name of the second person down the line in either direction. Ask him not to mention yours. Then we’ll see what transpires.”

He departed the meeting muttering a prayer to himself, begging forgiveness for his deceit.

A segment of the community, rich men all, were delighted to be included in the gambit. Before long, the men’s clubs were abuzz with the news, and those who were not approached, or not so far, regretted being excluded from a privileged loop. From a friend, Pierre Trudeau learned that word was getting around. His pal had been contacted along the chain not once, but twice.