The Years of Fire (24 page)

“But listen up, Charlie boy,” warned the drug dealer, whose easygoing manner and air of buffoonery had suddenly changed to a chilly and commanding gravity. “If our little team effort is going to work out, you have to be able to use your head. Always keep your cool, take it very easy, capiche? Never take a chance, even if it looks tempting.”

The adolescent, taken aback by this abrupt change of tone and feeling as though he were talking to a complete stranger, nodded a bit fearfully, already regretting that he had agreed to go along with such a proposition.

“One other thing: I depend on you, and you depend on me. If one of us trips up somewhere, the other goes down too. You got that? So we always have to think for two. If you start just thinking about yourself, some day you might get the idea that you can pull something over on me, you know what I’m saying? But just remember this, Charlie boy: I’m always gonna find out in the end – and the end will come a lot sooner than you might think, because I’ve got the nose of a bloodhound for that kind of stuff, believe me. And if that ever happens, Charlie, well, what can I say …?”

He raised his hands and shrugged his shoulders as though to say that things would take their natural course and there wasn’t much he could do about that.

Then he let loose a burst of laughter.

“So, good luck!” he said, slapping Charles on the shoulder. “We’ll meet again next Wednesday at the Orleans. Eight o’clock sharp. Okay?”

Charles had no specific plan in mind regarding his father. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was going to need money, and lots of it. Was he going to try to buy his father off? Or would he pay someone to remove Thibodeau from the scene? This last option seemed horrifying to him, but he hadn’t rejected it outright. He would put off making a decision until later. The haze that surrounded him was preventing him from thinking straight. He simply didn’t have the strength to look down to the end of the road on which he had just embarked.

He had often seen Monsieur Lalancette scooping pills from the amber-coloured glass jars that contained the medication that so many turned to for the comfort they were unable to find by usual means. The pills had to be taken in moderation and with caution, the pharmacist had said, because their repeated use could lead to a strong dependency. And he had mentioned the amount of trafficking that took place, the nightmare it represented for all pharmacists, and the trap it had been for more than a few of them. Luckily, so far he himself had been shielded against such hooliganism, except for once, several years ago, when he had caught one of his delivery boys in the act of pocketing a prescription.

“I sent him packing. Oh, he cried, telling me it was the first time, he’d never do it again. But I told him to save his breath. I have no use for people like that, Charles, and I make sure they keep their distance from me. They make me sick.”

A grimace of disgust crossed his face, which ordinarily was as expressionless as a block of wood.

This time the delivery boy was named Charles, but unlike his predecessor’s, his descent into a life of crime was not motivated by personal gain, rather by generosity and gratitude. The result, however, was the same. From that day on he was a member of the ignoble fraternity of thieves, and knowing that made his hatred of his father even more intense.

It turned out to be a fruitful week: in three days he made a dozen deliveries of tranquilizers, which found their way into his backpack to be replaced by the blanks supplied by De Bané. Only twice did he not have the heart to make the substitutions.

The first time was when he made a delivery to Amélie Michaud, who had just been given a prescription for Valium. How could he bring himself to play such a low trick on that strange and fragile woman, who had always shown him such affection? He rang her doorbell and handed her the package, avoiding her eyes.

“Why are you blushing like that?” she asked him, surprised. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing at all,” he stammered, pocketing his tip. He said goodbye and hurried off, saying he was swamped with work.

The second time was three days later, and had an even greater effect on him.

The customer lived in Frontenac Towers, and Charles was delivering to him for the first time. The man must have been hard of hearing, or perhaps asleep, because after three rings there was still no answer. Charles was about to leave when he heard the patter of footsteps and the door opened. An old man stood before him, looking so decrepit, his eyes filled with such anguish, that Charles was struck dumb.

“At last,” the man croaked. “Not a minute too soon. How much do I owe you?”

Charles showed him the bill stapled to the bag, and reaching into his pocket the old man painfully withdrew an old, cracked, leather wallet with a brass clasp and tried to open it. But his hand trembled so much he couldn’t manage it. He finally asked Charles to open the wallet for him and take the money.

“Take fifty cents for yourself,” he said. “Yes, yes, take it, take it, you’ve earned it. Thank you, thank you so much.”

He closed the door and Charles stood in the corridor without moving. He could hear the man’s lightly flapping footsteps retreating into the apartment. Then he turned and made his way slowly to the elevator, deeply disturbed. The old man was clearly in a bad way. How would he manage without his medication? How long would his torment last? Who knew? Maybe without it he would become suicidal? It wasn’t unusual with old people, Monsieur Lalancette had told him. Riddled with sickness and a dozen infirmities, very often alone in the world, one day they decide to end it all with a single stroke, and
Wham!
Just like that. Well, in this case the pills wouldn’t do it, but he could slit his wrists, or throw himself from a window.

He mulled over these dark thoughts all the way to the lobby, then stopped, unable to take another step. The idea of leaving the man at the mercy of his illness drained the strength from his legs and made his stomach heave. He knew it would haunt him for days to come, and
might even force him to give up his little fiddle. And he didn’t want that!

A few minutes later he was ringing the old man’s doorbell again.

“A mistake?” said the man, in alarm. “But I’ve already taken two pills!”

He began to shake so violently that he had to lean against the doorpost.

“That’s all right, sir,” Charles assured him, trying to hide his confusion. “It was the right drug, but a weaker prescription. I just got the bills mixed up. I’m very sorry. I’ll take back the ones I gave you, and I’ll bring you the right pills right away. It won’t take me ten minutes, I promise. Trust me.”

The old man looked at him as though in a daze, his arms hanging down, his face twitching; he seemed on the verge of breaking down.

“Please, sir,” Charles said, growing impatient. “Make up your mind, for heaven’s sake. Do you want the right pills or don’t you?”

“Yes, yes, I want them,” the man babbled, and hurried back into the apartment. There came the sound of a heavy object falling, and then a deep groan, and then the man reappeared. The front of his trousers was wet.

“But … how did you … realize …?”he asked, handing Charles the half-torn bag.

“I just did, that’s all,” Charles replied briskly, turning on his heels.

Now he wished he hadn’t gone back. What would he tell Monsieur Lalancette if the old fool phoned the drugstore? You feel pity for someone you don’t even know, and sure as hell you end up landing in trouble. Idiot!

He switched the pills in the washroom of a nearby restaurant and returned to the old man’s apartment. This time the man took the bag without thanking him, muttering something about being sorry he’d given Charles such a large tip. But he didn’t call the pharmacy, and the affair ended there. Charles, however, promised himself never again to give in to feelings of compassion – and he kept his promise.

Sometimes even scumbags keep their word. De Bané kept his. He paid Charles upon delivery of the merchandise, every cent he owed him. He didn’t ask too many questions, seemed to be in an excellent frame of mind,
but no longer invited Charles to eat with him in restaurants, saying that it wasn’t a good idea for them to be seen together too often. Charles knew that there was another, simpler reason: Why keep hustling someone when you’ve already got what you wanted from him? In any case, he would have refused the invitation, since keeping company with the drug dealer had become repulsive to him and he tried to avoid it whenever possible. He had come to hate the sight of De Bané.

One day he asked himself who, among all the people he had known, had inspired the most hatred in him: Conrad Saint-Amour, the diddler? Gino Guilbault, who exploited young children in other ways? Robert-Aimé Doyon, the sadistic school principal? Or De Bané? De Bané came close to bumping Saint-Amour into second place. But he had an advantage over the pederast: thanks to De Bané, Charles’s bank account was growing swiftly. By the beginning of July, he had already saved the handsome sum of six hundred dollars.

But there was another presence that weighed on him more and more, and it was one he was forced to endure: his own. Charles now had to consider himself as much a criminal as De Bané. Small-time, maybe, but a criminal nonetheless. Down there with pickpockets, counterfeiters, bootleggers, and people who hustled magic potions that guaranteed long life. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he was probably worse than those other figures of the underworld. Because of him, sick people were being deprived of their medications, and at the same time a lot of other people were becoming more and more addicted to tranquilizers. Monsieur Lalancette had often criticized the easy way such drugs were handed out; for several years doctors had been prescribing them for just about everything. It was a handy way for them to get rid of patients quickly, so they could see more in the course of a day and thereby increase their income. But for many people the sedatives were extremely necessary. And dear little Charles was depriving them of it. That his intentions were honorable had nothing to do with it; by doing what he was doing, he was dirtying his hands. As an old customer at Chez Robert had once told him, you can’t walk in butter without getting grease on your feet.

One day, while returning from a delivery, he bumped into Jean-René Dupras, his old French teacher from Jean-Baptiste-Meilleur. Charles had always liked this man, who had helped him on the rocky road of his high school career. Dupras had married and already had two children. His face was a bit puffy, and there were crow’s feet around his eyes, but he still looked young. He shook Charles’s hand effusively, as though he were an adult, and even invited him to join him for a coffee in a nearby restaurant. They talked for twenty minutes, and Charles came within an ace of telling him about his problems, but his courage failed him. He didn’t want to lower himself in his former teacher’s eyes.

The very sight of pills, any pills, disgusted him. In the pharmacy he averted his eyes from the jars and tubes, which to him held nothing but reproaches. For some time now, Fernand had been taking sleeping tablets and multivitamins, in the hope of regaining some of his energy. Lucie kept them in one of the kitchen cupboards, next to the glasses and plates, a cupboard that was constantly being opened. Charles moved them to the spice drawer so that he wouldn’t have to see them so often.

Lucie had been keeping an anxious eye on Charles. His natural and easy happiness were gone, buried under a heavy sadness. He barely spoke at the dinner table, sitting there with a sullen and closed expression on his face, and getting up with his plate barely touched, only to stuff himself with sweets later on. “I’ll bet his father is back in the picture,” she told herself one day. But she could not get him to talk about what was bothering him. He completely shut her out.

During the night he kept waking up with a jerk, seized by an inexpressible anguish. His stomach churned, his feet felt frozen, his heart pounded. He tossed in his bed feeling as though his room were just a thin shell spinning far out into interstellar space, beyond the possibility of return. He even thought about taking one of the pills that he’d been stealing from patients. Once, at the very edge of panic, he took a Librium. A delicious feeling of indifference spread through him, but in the morning he woke up in such a state of mental confusion that he promised himself he’d never touch another drug.