River City (65 page)
When she heard what the workmen had done, an aging, frail Mother McMullen asked to be taken down to view the Irish Stone for herself. There she knelt in prayer, and in time, despite her resources of will and devotion to God, in apparent indifference to her firm faith in the afterlife, she wept, remembering what she had tried so stubbornly to forget. There, she welcomed to mind the return of the faces of those who had perished in such anguish and incomprehension, and recalled the lives of so many good friends who had died in their faithful service.
The souls of the dead had passed on, yet she felt the spirit of the bones stretching forth to address her. Upon that hallowed ground, Mother McMullen experienced what she would later describe to a friend as “an inestimable grace.” Through her tears, although she could not understand it, she felt a joy abide within her that she would call, in her search for a satisfactory language,
“a resilient elation. Almost as though,” she told the friend, a sister in her convent too young to know of those days, “not that we deserved it, for we were there in God’s service, but almost as though we were all, each one of us, being summoned by name and being thanked. I find the measure of that affection and of that grace, Sister, the depth of that bond between the living and the dead, fully all that I can bear, and speak of it now only to gain a corresponding measure of human relief.”
C
APTAIN ARMAND TOUTON STUDIED THE YOUNG MAN, FROM HIS
well-clipped hair down to his shiny black shoes. He cleaned up well. “This could work,” he said.
Émile Cinq-Mars was standing for inspection in his brand new suit, having opted for grey, thinking blue too closely allied to the police. He still didn’t know what duty the captain of the Night Patrol had in mind for him, but his fellow officers were envious that he’d arrived in civvies. A few had whistled.
“You look like a man with an education, someone who’s prepared to do business,” Touton told him. Cinq-Mars had strong features, dominated by a protuberant beak that usually garnered a second glance, or a prolonged gaze, from anyone initially meeting him. His eyes were strong also, and might pose a problem, for somehow they bespoke a gentleman of character, of quiet demeanour. “You look like you’ve made a buck without working up a sweat.”
“Thank you, sir. I guess.”
“You also look like a man with secrets. Do you have secrets, Cinq-Mars?” “Sir?”
“Don’t fret. That’s a good thing. You aren’t expected to be Mr. Good Farmboy. I need you to look like a man accustomed to making sleazy deals. Can you do that—act like a young man who’s an ambitious swine?”
Now he was certain that he was being teased, and he sidled up to the occasion. “Anyone who knows me understands that I’m ambitious, and according to the rioters the other night, I’m nothing if not swine.”
Touton smiled. “Then you were right in what you said.”
He’d forgotten. “What’s that, sir?” “You’re my man.”
“Thank you, sir.” Again he wasn’t sure if he was being complimented or insulted.
“Let’s meet the crew.”
“What’s with the suit?” Anik wanted to know.
“Can’t I dress up once in a while?” He was proud of his suit, his first decent one, so he wore it on their second date. He was calling it a date, although meeting for a late breakfast, or early lunch, didn’t seem wholly romantic. Given the late-night shifts he’d been pulling it seemed the best he could propose. The suit, he realized now, had been the wrong choice.
“Look at yourself. Now look at me. What’s wrong with this picture?”
He thought they made a handsome couple, but the question was not difficult to interpret. Anik wore her usual style of duds—patched jeans, a kneecap jutting through a rip, a form-fitting yellow-green top that exposed her navel. Beside her, one elbow on the countertop as they awaited their food, sat her date in a conservative grey suit.
“We clash. We shout out ‘cultural divide,’” she answered, when he failed to.
“Sorry.”
Their first date had gone remarkably well, surprising them both. They had talked about their childhoods, and Cinq-Mars had gotten onto a tangent about his love of horses, which Anik shared, if only from a distance. That he was a cop and she a rebellious youth got lost in the intimacy of their time together, and they had talked and drunk lightly into the wee hours of the morning. For this second rendezvous, for brunch, Cinq-Mars had had little time to change—it would have taken a quick hustle home to his apartment and a rapid return downtown to meet her on time. He was already regretting that he hadn’t incurred the expense of a cab to do so. Secretly, he wanted her to see him in the suit, but now saw himself as the worst stereotypical hayseed the countryside had yet produced.
“This is breakfast for me—an early rising. I can barely keep my eyes open, and look at you. Look. You’re dressed like you want to make a deal with the devil, then hail a limo to take you to the airport.”
He smiled. He’d already guessed that her flume of insults probably substituted for endearments.
“What’re you grinning at?”
If he tried, he could get under her skin. He suspected he could do it to her more effectively than she did it to him. “If you feel underdressed, I could wait here while you go shopping.”
She sat with her jaw slack a moment. “Me? Underdressed? You, Mister. You have the problem. You look like—”
“I know what I look like. Handsome. Dashing, even. Debonair.”
“Who do you think you are? Cary Grant?”
“So you admit that you have a thing for Cary Grant.”
“Hell I do.”
“You’re not so into radicals with shaggy hair. You appreciate well-dressed, well-groomed men.” “Put a cork in it.”
He had not done this before, and the moment did not seem particularly opportune, yet he followed through on the impulse as it popped to mind. Cinq-Mars leaned over and kissed her—emphatically, if briefly—on the lips.
As he retreated, her jaw fell slack again, while her pretty brown eyes opened up saucer-wide.
Their plates arrived, almost tossed down before them in the style of the place. Despite the abrupt service, the fare had a reputation for being exceptional. Cinq-Mars had ordered a mushroom and green pepper omelette, Anik a robust fruit plate with cottage cheese.
“You cocky, belligerent, establishment oink-oink, you suit-and-tie-me-down retrograde, you ignorant lackey of the scurrilous upper classes—”
“Keep it up, Anik, and I’ll kiss you again.”
She went silent a moment, looking at him, then at her food, then looked at him through the mirror beyond the counter where food was prepared. She said, “You’re a worm, a reprobate, a political neophyte, an intellectual aardvark—”
So he kissed her again.
This time, the kiss lasted a while, and she was kissing him back, matching his fervour. They didn’t even stop when the waitress came by with their juice, and cleared her throat, and put the glasses down, and went away. They didn’t stop even when the occupants of a booth close by applauded.
When they did stop, Anik said, “Jacket off. Tie off. Collar unbuttoned.”
“Or what? We don’t kiss again?”
“Or—we don’t eat.”
He removed his jacket and tie, and, smiling, they both ate.
Cinq-Mars remained in the dark about the duty he might be asked to perform. Every night he arrived at headquarters, wearing his suit, to the ever-increasing music of his colleagues’ jibes. They’d whistle and straighten his collar for him. He’d stand around anxiously, all dressed up, waiting to learn whether or not he was to change into his humble blues that night or remain proud in his civvies. On two occasions he was sent out to walk his beat, only to be ordered back downtown when he called to check in. He had to take a bus to get back. In the locker room, he peeled off his blue uniform, put on his new suit, then eagerly ascended in the elevator and waited for a further command that never came. His shift ended and he remained seated, waiting, until someone finally came by and told him to go home.
“The situation is fluid,” Captain Armand Touton advised him.
“I understand, sir,” he said, although he didn’t.
“Can’t predict when we might need you. The best we can do is signal when you should be ready.”
“I understand, sir, but what work am I supposed to be doing exactly?”
“Around here, we don’t divulge our operations prematurely.”
As Émile explained to Anik, he was being impatiently patient.
On his lucky days, he arrived at headquarters and was advised to report to Touton for duty. He’d check the crease in his trousers and slick his hair back using Brylcreem to look marginally thuggish. Then he’d wait around and
twiddle his thumbs for hours, and twice Touton took him for a ride through the streets of Montreal.
“I love this town,” the captain told him one time as they wended their way through the tough eastern section of the city, beneath the tall spans of the Jacques Cartier Bridge. “Especially at night. This is my town at night. I’m not saying I’m the proprietor, I don’t own it, but I
know
this town. And I protect it.”
“Who are we going after?”
“Racketeers. The gambling end.”
“Great.”
“I want you inside as a gambling man. Detective Gaston Fleury—”
“—the cop from Policy?”
“Don’t laugh,” Touton admonished him. “He’s a real cop. He can be useful and effective in his own way.”
“Yes, sir.” He acquiesced to Touton’s point of view, but continued to think,
The man’s an accountant.
“Detective Fleury will supply you with money. We have an identity for you, a name for you to give at the door, which should get you inside. Have you ever gambled, Cinq-Mars?”
“No, sir.”
“Not at all? A little bit? Surely you’ve placed a bet.”
“No, sir.”
The captain looked across at him, ignoring the road momentarily. “What are you—not only a farm boy but an altar boy to boot?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve been an altar boy.”
Touton chuckled. “Yeah, this is Quebec. We’ve all been altar boys. But even they play cards.” “Not me, sir.” “You have no vices?” “I drink Scotch. Beer, too, a little.”
“We’ll teach you how to play roulette. It’s not exactly a skill game. You put your money down on a number or a colour, or both. You’re a smart cookie. You’ll figure it out. Nobody’s asking you to win. We just want you inside the gambling den. Make it look like you belong there before we come through the roof.”
“Ah, the roof, sir?”
The captain nodded. “My favourite. Skylights. Yeah, I’ve never met a skylight I didn’t enjoy busting through. It’s hard to believe so many of these gambling dens have skylights, but I see their problem. They want a place with no windows. They need natural light if the electricity goes out, and they want an extra way out in case cops surround the place. Too bad for them, I never go through the front door if they give me the option of a skylight.”
“They haven’t figured that out by now?”
“It’s a human failing. Nobody thinks anything bad will actually happen to them. At one place, they had a ladder going up to the skylight so they could escape. I used it to climb down and say hello.”
Thrilled to be part of the operation, Cinq-Mars retained some residual confusion. “Is this the case where I’m supposed to be an ambitious swine?”
“Here’s the plan. Go in. Gamble. Keep an eye peeled for a dirty civil servant who’s on the take. Very corrupt guy. It’ll shock you who. We’ll show you a picture. Then cops bust through the skylight. We’ll make it look realistic, you don’t have to worry about that.”
“You mean it’s not realistic?”
“Not exactly. You go out the air vent. Fleury will tell you where it is. But you take our rotten civil servant out with you. There’s an escape chute that only insiders know about—and us. Once you make your escape, the bastard will be in your debt—he’ll trust you. He’ll be grateful. You work that relationship. You tell him you’re in the import-export business. When he asks you what kind of merchandise, you tell him you keep that to yourself until the need arises.”
Cinq-Mars had another morning date with Anik lined up. He could see where this assignment might make him late for the rendezvous, and he wouldn’t be able to make a phone call, either. Sometimes being a cop disrupted his social life.
Touton parked on a dark, forlorn street. They’d made so many turns that Cinq-Mars lost track of where they might be, although he could just make out a section of the bridge to the west of them.
“We wait here.”
At first, nothing seemed to be happening. No lights were on anywhere—the neighbourhood seemed asleep. Then a car pulled up behind them and immediately went dark. The driver seemed to be looking through a briefcase when Cinq-Mars shot a glance back at him.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Look back.”
His first job in plain clothes and already he had screwed up. Two minutes later, the new arrival flashed his lights twice and got out of the car. The small man was Detective Gaston Fleury, and he came up to the driver’s side as Touton lowered his window.
“It’s off,” Fleury said. “He’s not playing tonight.”
“How come?”
“He met some girl.”
“That fucker. All right. It can’t be rushed. We wait. We try another night.” Touton drove off, and Cinq-Mars experienced an odd tidal lull, his adrenaline both subsiding and sloshing around, his nerve endings feeling scrubbed. “Now that you know the plan, don’t speak about it,” Touton warned him. “I won’t breathe a word, sir.”
“If you do, I’ll have your nuts in a vice. You’ll pardon me if I don’t deal in metaphors. I don’t have your education. I just mean what I say.”
A call that was coded came over the two-way for Touton, and the captain of the Night Patrol sped up until he spotted a phone booth. He came to a sudden stop and fished around in his pockets, but came up empty. “You have a dime, Cinq-Mars?” The rookie cop came through, and Touton went out and made the call. When he came back, he said, “Looks like you might see a little action tonight. Just keep your mouth shut and your head down.”