River City (51 page)

“How come?” Trudeau asked him.

“I heard the story twice, two weeks apart, from two different people. And after each time, I told a different colleague. And now, first one, then the other, has gotten back to me. So the story’s making the rounds. You’re not on the chain yourself?”

“Afraid not,” Trudeau said. He had been telling a number of lies during this excursion, and saw no reason to quit fibbing now.

He worried that the faddishness of the situation might ruin everything, and told the priest so. “More people are talking about it than should be talking about it.”

And yet, word trickled back through the serpentine chain.
Let’s make a deal. How?

He sent a message in return, pretending that he was merely a relay.
Everyone on the chain must maintain discipline and stop talking about this in public.

The message travelled more quietly, though not with pristine discretion.

A new and difficult query was returned.
Now what?

A good question. People had puzzled over how the ends of the chain might meet without every link being aware of the encounter, and without the most curious among them, or all of them, discovering a way to listen in. The priest had the same question, and when the query came back to him through the human pipeline, he put it to his point man. “Well? Now what?”

“There’s a way,” Trudeau said.

He shipped a cryptic message through the pipeline.
Select middleman. Known to you or unknown.

Whoever purported to be the opposite terminal sent back the news that he’d chosen a former head of the morality squad of the Montreal Police
Department to be the middleman. The title sounded impressive, except that the man had held the position during an era when the job was sacrificial. His responsibility had been to posture as morality’s knight one day, then be blamed for police corruption a few months later, thereby taking the heat off the chief of police and the mayor.

“Do you think he’s known to the other party?” the priest wondered.

“Of course he’s known. Who would choose an impartial third party?”

The idea was both simple and tricky. Each of the men at the ends of the human chain would contact this third party, a man with the imposing name of Réal Guevremont, who would then establish a liaison between them without necessarily knowing to whom he was speaking. When Trudeau called him, from a phone booth on a street nowhere near his home, he told the man to refer to him as
le Noir,
the Black. Sure enough, hearing this, the other entity chose to be known as
le Blanc,
the White.

The chess match had begun.

They had reached their endgame, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau was driving to meet
le Blanc
‘s representative. Elsewhere in the city, his friend Gérard Pelletier sat in a café, waiting to be picked up by another envoy from that team. Pierre would drive the man he picked up to a cache of money. Gérard would be taken to the knife. Phone calls would be exchanged, cash viewed and counted, the knife handed over. Gérard would be returned to his café. Safely there, the cash would be removed from its safe and the transaction concluded. Each side would be in control of one environment, and security of that environment remained each side’s particular responsibility. That was the idea they had agreed upon, although Trudeau intended to introduce a wrinkle. If all went well, the Cartier Dagger would soon know a different proprietor.

Le Blanc
had chosen the Ritz-Carlton as the pickup point for his man, and Trudeau drove his borrowed Jaguar sports convertible, a former lover’s wheels, up to the front door. The car was sufficiently unique that his arrival would not be confused with that of any casual visitor, and the man from
le Blanc
was supposed to climb right in. No one did. Trudeau stepped out of the car to speak to the doorman, who wanted him to move along—speak to him cordially and slip him a ten-dollar bill. He continued to wait. Finally, a man emerged from
the hotel and nodded. He paused while the doorman opened the door to the Jag, then crouched down and got in.

“What took you so long?” Trudeau asked. “You were supposed to be waiting.”

“I wasn’t expecting some guy I knew.”

Trudeau was merging with traffic. He stepped on the brakes. “We know each other?”

“You’re Trudeau. That union fuck.”

“So who are you?”

“You don’t need to know that.”

Cars were honking. Trudeau stayed put. “Maybe I do now.” “Come on, drive. I’ll explain.”

Reluctantly, Trudeau slipped the car back into gear and escaped the curb. He darted into a faster lane, then cut across traffic and headed up the mountainside on Peel Street. “Fill me in,” he said.

“I seen you on TV. In the papers. In person one time. We were on different sides of the line.”

“A strike?”

“Don’t ask me which one. I’ve done a bunch.” “I’ve done a few myself.”

He was a big man, this fellow in the passenger seat, legs cramped by the narrow enclosure. Thuggish, in a well-dressed way, with a bull neck, big fists and a diamond ring. Considerable pudginess to the face, as though swollen. Crew cut. Scars around the eyes and a misshapen ear indicated that he’d been a boxer when he was younger. If the two ever had a set-to, Trudeau, who was lean, yet athletic and had done a little street boxing in his youth, would be ridiculously overmatched. He’d expected as much. He and
le Noir
had to manage their way through this transaction with acumen, while the other side could rely upon brawn.

“So I called it in,” the man said.

“You called
what
in?”

“When you showed, I phoned my boss. Said I know this guy. I told him it was you. He told me to hang on. When he got back on the line, he said it made sense.”

“Why wouldn’t it make sense?”

“A union guy? Where do union guys get money?”

“I see your point. I’m not a regular union guy.”

“That’s what he said—my boss. You got money. Your old man made it for you. You’re an
intellectual.”

The disdain apparent in his pronunciation of the word was unmistakable. “I think, therefore I am.”

“Huh?”

“Right now, I’m thinking the deal’s off. It’s not good that you recognized me. I knew I was taking that risk, but—this is not a development I desire.”

He had turned before reaching the top of the hill, going east. Farther along, he’d head north and cross the mountain along Park Avenue.

“Aw, it don’t matter. So we know you. Big deal. You hide the dagger, nobody proves nothing, you know what I mean?”

Trudeau shrugged. “I don’t like rumours flying around.”

“‘The union’s got romantic ideas’—that’s what my boss said. That’s why you want the dagger.”

“For the union.” This was an interesting diversion. If one institution, a union, and not another, the Church, was considered the culprit, the plan might work.

“That’s right?”

“Not if you’re telling the whole world about it.” “I’ll keep my mouth shut.” “Sure you will.”

“You think I can’t keep quiet? My boss trusts me with this job for a reason.” “You’re a stranger to me.” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Tell me who your boss is. I need to know who’s selling the knife.”

“I won’t tell you that.”

“You know who
I
am. It’s only fair.” “I’m not authorized.”

“You’re not—all right. Make a phone call. Get authorization. While you’re at it, tell them to send somebody in your place, somebody who doesn’t have to ask permission to take a leak.”

“Hey—it’s not that way!”

Going over the mountain, Trudeau sped up, seeing what the car could do. His passenger put one hand on the roof and the other on the door handle to steady himself as his jockey zipped from one lane to another and back again, scaring him.

“Come on, slow down,” the man said sheepishly.

“Tell me who you work for.”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“You’re not authorized, you’re not at liberty. You’re not good for much more than nothing, are you? Who owns the knife? Tell me. Go on. I won’t tell anyone. Just like you. Who am I going to tell anyway?”

“I don’t have permission.”

“Are you in Grade Two? That’s what I want to know. Who’s your teacher?” “Slow down! Jesus!” “What’s your problem?”

“God, this puny car. You could get squashed in it. Like a bug. Give me a Caddy. Weight. Steel!”

Trudeau slowed, then stopped, for a red light.

“You know who I am. I should know who you’re working for.”

“No way.”

“Then tell me
your
name.” “No fucking way.”

As a young man, Pierre Elliott Trudeau had travelled the world. He had begun by retracing the canoe trips of Radisson and Groseilliers. At the start of World War II, when German submarines were reported in Quebec waters, he had walked around the Gaspé and been hassled by the police for potentially being a spy. After studying economics in England after the war, he departed Europe for home, but took the long way around, travelling east, hitchhiking and grabbing trains. He learned tricks in eastern Europe as the Iron Curtain was being lowered, moving through Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia, forging documents so that he could slip across borders. Every day meant encounters with soldiers and men out of uniform carrying weapons.

Through Turkey to Jordan. Israel had just proclaimed its independence, and Palestinian soldiers were on the roads. Determined, he had carried on from Amman to Jericho, and on to Jerusalem, passing through a crossfire on the city’s limits. Often he moved from the company of one priest to another, and one in Beirut had given him the name of a Dominican in Jerusalem. He was returning from a visit to him when he was arrested by Arab soldiers, initially for violating curfew, then for being an Israeli spy. He’d been imprisoned in the Antonia Tower, where Pontius Pilate had washed his hands of the man known as the Messiah.

The Dominican secured his initial release, but freedom was brief. Soldiers, still convinced of his villainy as a spy, shipped him back to the land known then as Transjordan. Repeatedly, they pointed out the ditches they were tempted to leave him in, sprung with bullet holes. Trudeau had learned to maintain a confident air, to show no fear. In Amman, he called upon the British Embassy to negotiate his release. When they did so, he continued wandering east.

In Iraq, he had crossed the desert of al-Hajar by train and disembarked at Ur, the ancient home of Abraham. He wandered alone amid the ruins, where he picked up tiles with Sumerian inscriptions dating back to the time of the great patriarch, artifacts he would never discard. The day was cool, the sun low on the horizon, the air fresh, welcoming. He walked to the ziggurat of Nanna, the best preserved of such temples from antiquity, and, upon reaching it, began the high, steep climb. Ziggurats had been built to house the gods, and in their time only the high priests of the prevailing cults gained entry. He could feel himself ascending to the heavens.

Abraham’s old dream. The lights of the angels ascending and descending upon a shape such as this. He could imagine the patriarch asleep upon his stone pillow, his vision as clear as desert stars.

At the top, he surveyed the view and felt the grace of time, the ancient world persevering to this moment. Then he noticed he was no longer alone, that he’d been spotted. A pair of desert ruffians had caught sight of the tourist and were climbing up after him, huffing and puffing along the way.

Drawing near, they made their interests known with an English word.

“Mon-ey!” one demanded.

The other man gestured for his watch.

Trudeau was not going to wait for them to catch their breath. He leapt towards the one who was bent over and the hardest pressed from the climb, seized his knife from his belt and jumped back.

They were not dismayed. “Everything … you … got. Give me.”

Trudeau was holding the weapon. With gestures and rudimentary words, he conveyed the suggestion that they at least descend the ziggurat. They could negotiate on the desert floor.

The ruffians complied, and Trudeau let them start off first. As soon as they were below him and he held that advantage, he shouted, “Come up and get me, you assholes!” and waved the knife.

At that moment, upon that ancient temple, he made his stand, deploying his guile. He began to recite the poems he knew by heart, which were considerable in number and often quite long. He began with Cocteau’s rant about antiquity. He rained the poems of the Western world down upon them, gesturing and slobbering at the mouth, and the thieves assumed that this youth was deranged, or at least capable of any vile act. The knife flashed in the setting sun, and the desert boys retreated, climbing down the walls of the temple without him.

Intemperate behaviour had saved him that day, which gave him a thought now. He suddenly burned rubber on Park Avenue. Turning the Jag to face the opposite direction, he stomped his foot to the floor. He raced rapidly through the gears, hitting a hundred and fifty miles an hour with nothing but narrow exits and sharp curves ahead of him.

“What the fuck are you doing!” his passenger cried out.

“This deal is off. You’ll take the blame.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

Ahead, a concrete median split the lanes of Park Avenue into streets that headed in different directions. Normally, cars slowed down to negotiate their way through the maze. Trudeau sped up.

“All right! Fuck! I’ll tell you. Slow down. Fuck!”

Trudeau jammed the brake pedal to the floor, jolting himself and his passenger forward. Before they stopped, he spun the wheel again and they
were pointed north once more, southbound traffic heading right at them. He stepped on the gas again.

“Shit!”

“Will you tell me? Don’t lie.”

“I won’t lie! Shit!”

With no room for error he cut into the northbound traffic ahead of a concrete median, startling the driver of a beer truck who was also cavorting too quickly.

“Jesus!”

“What’s the problem?” Trudeau asked him calmly.