by Alex Markman
“Where are you taking me?” asked Leila with renewed fear.
“To my apartment. I live on the second floor. Usually I use stairs from the rear entrance. Don’t like to see people that late.”
“I’m scared,” complained Leila.
“Stop it. Trust me. Okay?”
“Okay,” agreed Leila, somewhat reassured. She followed Claude up the staircase and watched as he opened the door of his apartment.
He led her inside. The light switch clicked, and the bright glare of a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling on a white cable brought to view the ugly, screaming poverty of the room before her. A shabby sofa bed stood in one corner, dark, dirty stains covering its bumpy surface; a worn-out table was littered with empty bottles, remnants of food, and cigarette butts; the thick odor of never-cleaned ashtrays mingled with the sticky smell of spilled beer; a few stools had been scattered on the floor, some of them upside down, as if they had been shoved about in a battle.
“Sit down.” Claude pointed to the sofa with a wide, generous gesture of his hand. Leila sat and leaned back, her legs crossed.
“Wanna whiskey? Some pot?” Claude asked. He threw a hungry glance at her knees. Leila nodded. Claude pulled a small metal box out of his pants.
“Here you are,” he said, giving her a handmade joint from the box. “Let me find you some whiskey.”
He opened the door of a kitchen cabinet.
“I’ll ask the superintendent to clean up the place,” he said. “Here it is.” He returned with a bottle. “She does this job for me, from time to time,” he lied, while pouring some golden liquid into glasses. “I pay her well.”
Leila took a sip, and then quickly complemented it with a puff of pot. Still holding her breath, she fixed her green eyes on Claude. He half closed his eyelids, as if dazzled by too bright a light, but she was already turning her head around to examine the room.
Claude saw wrinkles of surprise on her forehead. “I won’t live like this forever,” he said, finishing his glass. “I just don’t have time to buy new furniture.”
Leila responded with an indifferent nod.
“You don’t believe me,” Claude pronounced as a statement of fact. “Wait a sec.”
He went to the kitchen cabinet again and came back with a sizable roll of money in his hands.
“You see? Soon there will be more—plenty of dough.” He threw the roll at the table. “Will you help me buy new furniture?”
Leila was visibly impressed and looked him up and down with a fresh interest.
“Yes, I will.”
“Where are you from?” Claude asked.
“Vancouver. I ran away from home ’cause my parents bugged me all the time. They shouted at me for fooling around with guys. They wanted me to study and get a profession and do housework. They wanted me to do everything I hated to do. I don’t want a profession; I don’t want to work. I like pot. I like to drink. I can’t live without a good fuck. I don’t want their boring life.”
Leila stopped. She probably thought she had talked too much, since a renewed fear blinked in her eyes. But Claude smiled encouragingly.
“Keep talking,” he said, helping himself to another glass of whiskey. “It’s rather interesting. Tell me, how did you end up with this shit-box, Jessie? Did he push you to the street?”
“Oh—Jessie.” Leila took another confidence-boosting sip from her glass. “He was the first one who picked me up here. But no, he did not push me. He said he would keep me only for himself. Dancing was the only thing he allowed me to do. He said he would crush anyone who approached me. Until today, no one had dared.”
“Did you like him?” Claude asked, looking down at the bottom of his glass. He did not want the girl to see his face while she answered the question.
“At first, I did,” she admitted. “I thought it sort of interesting. The girls at school always said that the blacks have big cocks and can fuck a lot. He really had a big one, but I didn’t like it, after all. I even wanted to run away from him, but I didn’t have enough money or a place to run to.”
“Was he nice to you?” Claude asked.
“Yes, he was. But I didn’t really like him.” She paused for another sip. “I liked you at once, when I saw you. I thought I saw something very scary in you, though.”
Claude looked up.
“Are you scared of me now?” Claude met the beautiful girl’s eyes.
“Not at all.” Leila giggled. Some sparkles of joy began to flicker in her eyes. “You turned out to be very nice. Nothing to be scared about. It was silly of me.”
“Right you are,” Claude laughed.
“What did you do to Jessie, though?” Leila asked. “The police said he was badly hurt. The ambulance picked him up almost dead.”
“I guess I hit him a couple of times. He must’ve fallen and hit his head against something on the ground. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t give a fuck. I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”
“What would you like to talk about?” Leila asked. She was getting tipsy.
“About you—I want you to be my girl. You won’t be dancing anymore. I’ll give you a good life. I will treat you well. Do you wish to be with me?”
“Yes, I do,” Leila said solemnly, as women do in front of a priest at their marriage ceremony. “I like you.”
This was the first night in Claude’s life that he understood how happy a man could be with a woman. The miracle of love stunned him. After the girl had fallen asleep, tired of his insatiable hunger for her body, he placed his rough palm on her tender breasts, kissed her neck, and fell asleep.
In the morning, he woke up still holding her in his arms. Her right hand was on his shoulder, her head on his chest. Claude lay still until her lashes trembled. He felt a strange burning in his heart when she looked up at him with half-closed, sleepy eyes and a lazy, dreamy smile.
III
In the fall of 1995, the new head of the anti-biker squad had arrived. It was Serge Gorte, a detective with a well-established reputation. Nothing in his unremarkable appearance suggested he was suitable for the task. Yes, he was a homicide detective—and a good one, too—but to strangers, his well-used civilian clothes, his average height, round puffy face, and expressionless blue eyes gave the impression of a homely family man. The fact that he was only thirty-five years old and already had a visible tire around his waist probably did not improve this image.
Being expert in complicated detective’s work, Serge realized that gathering evidence against top-ranking bikers was not going to be an easy task. These men do not commit crimes themselves: They delegate them to subordinates. But Serge also new that they, as all humans, make mistakes and wrong judgments, haunting their criminal careers to the end.
Already, information about them was flowing into police databases from undercover agents, informants, conversation taps, and other sources, seemingly with no connection to these individuals. The task of the investigator, Serge thought, was to assemble these bits and pieces into a clear picture of criminal activity, to define the most important targets, and to concentrate major efforts on them. That is what Serge, obsessed with his work, knew how to do best. Written notes, photographs, copies of documents, and physical artifacts had their proper places in his archives. He collected data not only on the known suspects, but also on their friends, their relatives, their acquaintances, the places they visited, their habits, anything—even if it seemed to not have a relation to their criminal activity. Although he had an excellent memory, he did not rely on it with confidence. He was constantly preparing and updating a matrix of relationships of people, events, evidences, and logically related facts. The job took enormous amounts of time, of course, to the great dislike of his wife and kids. But that is what the success of any activity is about. One either devotes himself entirely to his vocation, or he lingers around mediocre achievements.
His predecessor, a man who was invariably upset and unhappy, drew his attention to a biker named Stanley Mathews, suspect
ed of being one of the key figures among the Iron Ghosts. The police risked their best undercover agent to set him up. The agent was found dead in the basement of a house under construction. A few other deaths of valuable informants among lower bikers’ ranks were grim evidence of corruption in law enforcement agencies.
Serge pulled some photographs and a few documents from the tower of binders and arranged the materials in order of importance. Everything was related to Stanley Mathews. Serge examined his sharp features: the skin, tightly stretched across his bony face, with no flesh in between; hard, examining stare; neat and tidy otherwise, not much different from an ordinary man. A very tough criminal, Serge thought. The first thing to do was to find where he lives and his hiding places, and install listening devices. It would be nice to arrange surveillance around his dwelling, but a staff shortage would likely not afford that.
Serge leaned back and looked at his watch. The funeral of the Iron Ghost drug dealer, killed two days ago and set up for today, must be already over; however, no news about it had arrived yet. The gang, according to scarce police data, was not big yet, although it was quickly gathering strength. Where could Patrick, his help, be? He should have been here at least an hour ago.
Thoughts brought him back to a disgusting crime scene in a shish-kebob restaurant two days ago.
“Two people broke in,” said the waitress telling the story, shivering violently as if she had malaria. “They wore masks. One of them covered only the lower part of his face. The one in the half-mask hit the poor guy on the head, it was with something heavy, I guess—I didn’t notice exactly what it was. The man started to collapse, but the other one picked him up by his armpits. They twisted his arms behind his back, yanked him to the kitchen, and pushed his head—his face—down, onto the grill where shish kebobs were cooking. His cry . . . Oh, God—I have never heard such a scream. He was shaking and twisting, but those guys held him, his face on that red-hot grill—it was terrifying, and that awful smell of burning human flesh . . .
“One of the killers, I think the one with only half a mask, was laughing. His sadistic laugh . . . there was nothing human about it. Then . . . I don’t know how he picked it up, or where he got it . . . I just saw that he was suddenly swinging a cleaver. And still holding an arm of the poor man …
“He chopped off his head—and left it on the grill . . .
“The body fell to the floor, of course . . .
“Blood shot out of the neck; it suddenly shrunk, got thinner—you know? It was . . . unreal. I don’t know why I noticed it. Anyway, I think it was an act of mercy, as I could imagine the suffering of that poor guy.
“Excuse me . . . , ” she sobbed.
Serge had seen many gruesome scenes during his intense years in various special police units: disfigured corpses in morgues; exhumed remains from graves; assault victims dying in hospitals or at crime scenes. Nothing was as nauseating as this cooked human head. There was no moustache, no blue eyes, or any other features mentioned by the waitress that could help identify it, if not for the IDs in his wallet.
The door to his small office opened with a metallic screeching of hinges, and Patrick, a young detective who had recently been assigned as help, stepped in. Tall, blond, and always in good humour, he was good looking and nice to work with. Today, though, he had no self-confident countenance or merry smile. He pulled up a chair, dropped onto it, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“You’d have to see it to believe it,” he said with a frown. “About 200 Iron Ghosts attended the funeral. It was quite a motorcade! They were all on good Harley Davidsons, with their insignia on their backs. Can you believe that they are already such a big gang? It was a show of strength, that’s what it was.”
“Did you take pictures of them?”
“No. It was impossible, Serge, trust me. They took control of the streets. They blocked some of them with pickup trucks to ensure a smooth procession to the cemetery. They didn’t care about traffic lights: They stopped traffic, as cops do, where they wanted. There were only a few of us. We expected 20 to 30 people, not more, you know, but that many . . . Gosh, it’s scary what these guys can do. . . .”
“What do you mean?” asked Serge.
“I mean, how they will respond. For sure, they have already figured out that the Devil’s Knights are involved. We don’t have enough cops to prevent a war between them.”
Serge rubbed his chin. Patrick was right. The fight for a $1 billion Quebec drug market could be horrific. If the Iron Ghosts gang was that big, how big were Devil’s Knights?
IV
They met in the park, after dark, far away from the eyes and ears of police. Machete was smoking pot; Marcel was pulling a cigarette out of a pack. Tension was high, as it was well known in the club that in the past Marcel had killed those who disobeyed his orders.
“What’s the fuss, man?” Machete asked.
“The fuss?” Marcel echoed Machete in a menacing, questioning voice as he settled himself onto one of the fallen trees.
“Do I need to get news of your hits from the TV?”
“I meant to talk to you about that,” Machete said. “I was busy, kinda. What’s the fucking difference?”
“Shit!” Marcel hissed emphatically, clicking a cigarette lighter. In its feeble flame his narrowed eyes glowed in rage. “Don’t you remember our decision not to clash with the Ghosts, yet? We have to wait until Jason is locked. They’ll put him in the cooler for good soon—after all, seven tons of coke is not easy to shake off.”
“My guys talked to this jerk three times before.” Machete lit up again, his handmade cigarette dying and the tart smell of marijuana spreading over the area. “The last time, when he was told to beat it, he told ’em, ‘fuck yah.’ You think, Marcel, that I’ll let any chickenshit talk this way in my backyard?”
“How’d yah set it up?” asked Stash from the darkness. “Who did it?”
“One of the kitchen help in the Greek Delight tipped us off that the shithead was there. At first I wanna dispatch my hit brigade, but then Trasher, the man whose territory it is, you know him, tells me that he has a good guy, just out of the slammer, who wants to join our club. Trasher said to him, ‘Do something to prove your worth.’”
“What’s the name of the guy?” Marcel asked.
“Claude. Claude Pichette.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Trasher called me and asked to let him do the job. I said ‘yes.’ I said, scare the shit out of those who even think of working in our territory. Trasher said, ‘Don’t you worry; Claude will do a good job.’ He did, actually.”
“I wanna talk to him,” Marcel said.
“These bloody Ghosts are on my heels,” Machete said. “What are we waiting for, Marcel?”
Marcel was quick to respond.
“You are a piece of shit, Machete. Piece of shit. We either have to wait for their blow, or do it first. There is no other option, thanks to you.”
Next day, Marcel set up a very important meeting at a restaurant in Submarine Plaza. The busy food court was crowded at lunchtime, and he could easily disappear among the massive influx of noon diners. He arrived early so he could choose a table with a good observation angle, from which he could capture any unusual detail that might provoke his suspicion. He was about to meet an insurance agent—“the Golden Boy,” as the head of the Mafia family had dubbed him.
The place he had chosen was the most expensive one among the eating establishments. It had only a single entry point where guests had to wait to be seated. The spacious booths had soft benches and comfortable chairs, and hid everyone inside. No sooner had he taken a seat in the far corner than a tall, lean figure appeared across the table. Having never seen the man before, Marcel easily recognized Raymond Jacques by his description.
This rascal had rather respectable looks. At twenty-eight years of age, he gave the impression of a much older and more mature man, a serious and responsible professional. His balding head helped—his hai
rline was retreating from his temples like soldiers in a disciplined army, which in turn made his forehead appear much larger than it was. But, it was his manner that made him seem like a trusted lawyer or a family physician with a successful practice. He had been in business 6 years and had learned all the tricks of the trade. Large round glasses enhanced the image of a learned person, though Marcel had been told that they were a sheer decoration—the lenses were made with clear glass, as his vision was quite normal. This was the face of a thinker, observant and attentive to tiny details. What could be better for a financial advisor?
Marcel’s connection, who was close to the Italian Mafia, had privately revealed a few details of Raymond’s biography and career that would never be recorded in his professional resume. After graduating from a secondary school with good credits, he had been admitted to the most prestigious university in the city. He had wanted to become a criminal lawyer, but found that 6 years of study and hard work would be a fairly boring proposition. The third year finally broke his patience. He left the university and chose, to the great surprise of all who knew him (if only anyone knew him well), the career of an insurance agent.
The decision appeared to be a stupid choice for such a good and promising student. But Raymond new what he wanted. With a clear understanding of his goals and how to achieve them, a good memory, an analytical mind, and an aptitude for all adventures in life—no matter how risky they might be—he rolled up his sleeves and took the matter into his own hands.
As an insurance agent, he gathered information about businesses and individuals, missing no detail pertinent to financial matters. Soon, he became a jack-of-all-trades: insurance agent, financial advisor, income tax specialist, and so on. He knew exactly where a client’s money was, which businesses were heavily involved in cash transactions, what transactions were of a questionable nature, and where rich people held their fortunes (as well as how they got them in the first place). With this information at his disposal, he found his way to the Italian Mafia. Although the price for his services was extremely high, so was the return.
