A Little More Free

by John McFetridge

  There was one chair beside the bed and Dougherty helped his mother into it. His father opened his eyes and said something but it just came out as a mumble and then his eyes closed.

  A few minutes later a doctor came into the room and spoke to Dougherty in French, saying he’d spoken to his father’s doctor at the Royal Victoria and they’d be transferring him later in the day. Dougherty said, “Quel médecin au Royal Vic?”

  “Dr. MacIsaac.”

  Dougherty had completely forgotten. “Oh right, the high blood-pressure pills.”

  The doctor said he’d be back later and left.

  Dougherty said, “Dr. MacIsaac is the specialist, right?”

  “Oui, le spécialiste du cœur.”

  “I forgot about the last time.”

  “La dernière fois était pas un arrêt cardiaque.”

  Dougherty watched his mother close her eyes and then he said, “No, what was it?”

  “Au travail, l’année dernière …” She waved her hands a little. “Il avait, une constriction. Des douleurs à la poitrine.”

  “Shortness of breath, that’s all?”

  His mother didn’t say anything and Dougherty said, “How many … incidents have there been?”

  She shook her head a little and said, “Quelques.”

  “How many is some? Never mind.” Dougherty had nothing else to say. He was mad now, angry that this was going on and he didn’t even know. But then he realized he was angry because he hadn’t remembered about the high blood pressure and the previous visits to the heart specialist and he hadn’t taken it seriously enough.

  His mother said, “He will need surgery.”

  “Heart surgery?”

  She nodded.

  Now Dougherty just wanted to get out of the room, out of the hospital. He said, “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “What about Tommy?”

  “What about him?”

  “He can’t go home by himself.”

  Dougherty thought, Sure he can — the hospital was next to the Dairy Queen he went to by himself all the time — but then he realized what his mother meant, and he said, “Where’s Cheryl?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dougherty looked at his watch, nearly noon, and said, “Okay, I’ll take Tommy to lunch and I’ll find Cheryl. You’re going to go with Dad to the Royal Vic?”

  She nodded and Dougherty walked to the door and stopped and looked back and all the anger drained away. His parents, both of them, looked so old and weak and it seemed to him it had happened overnight.

  In the waiting room Dougherty said, “Okay, he’s going to be fine, he’s just going to get some sleep. You want to get some lunch?”

  “Can I see him?”

  “Let’s get some lunch first. He’ll be awake when we get back. You can talk to him then.”

  Dougherty drove a few blocks on Taschereau until they came to the A&W drive-in and he pulled into one of the angled parking spaces and rolled down the window. “You want a teen burger?”

  Tommy said, “Sure,” the first thing he’d said since they left the hospital.

  Dougherty pushed the button on the box and ordered a couple of teen burgers and fries and a root beer and a coffee.

  Tommy said, “Is he really going to be okay?”

  “Yeah, he’s going to be fine.”

  “He’s going to come home today, is he?”

  Dougherty looked at his little brother and wanted to tell him everything would be fine. He said, “Everything will be back to normal soon,” and Tommy said, “Yeah, normal,” and Dougherty figured the kid knew a lot more about what was going on than anybody realized.

  “He’s going to be transferred to the Royal Vic.”

  “For heart surgery,” Tommy said. “I knew it.”

  Dougherty didn’t say anything.

  “He was on the kitchen floor,” Tommy said. “When I came home from delivering my Gazettes, he was on the floor. Mom … she was just sitting on a chair at the table. They’re usually gone to work when I get back.”

  Dougherty waited a moment and then Tommy said, “I said we have to call an ambulance, we have to call, and she was just staring.”

  “In shock, I see it at work.”

  Tommy looked like he didn’t believe it was shock. “I called them.”

  “You called?”

  “The police. 671-1931. The number’s on the back of every stop sign, I stare at it waiting for the bus.”

  “It’s good you knew it.”

  “They came to the front door, and I told them to come around the back. The ambulance guys, they couldn’t get the stretcher into the kitchen so they left it on the balcony and carried Dad out.” Tommy paused. “I knew about the last one, that time at work. Mom came home by herself and he didn’t come home till the next day and they didn’t want to tell me. They never want to tell me anything.”

  “I know how you feel.”

  Tommy didn’t say anything, and Dougherty said, “They don’t want you to worry.”

  “They think that’s better?”

  It was quiet for a minute and then the waitress came up to the car, and Dougherty rolled the window down so she could set the tray on it.

  She said, “Out for lunch, Officer?”

  “Yeah.” He gave her a five and she gave him his change and he said, “Thanks.” He handed Tommy his burger and fries and said, “Don’t spill anything in my car.”

  “You should have brought a police car.”

  “I thought about it. You can spill anything in that —” he put the glass mug on the dashboard and said, “but not in here.”

  “I heard you, jeez.”

  They ate their burgers and didn’t say anything for a while and then Dougherty said, “You think we’ll win all four games in Moscow?”

  “You think we’ll win one?”

  “We better.”

  They finished their burgers, and Dougherty said, “That was okay. Too bad the Burger Ranch closed.”

  “Scott MacKenzie has about ten gallons of cherry milkshake stuff at his house.”

  “That’s right,” Dougherty said, “his father owned it, didn’t he?”

  “Him and that guy on the Alouettes.”

  “Mr. MacKenzie is friends with Dad, isn’t he?”

  Tommy said, “I don’t know.”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, I think he is.”

  The waitress came then and took away the tray, and Dougherty drove back to the hospital. A couple hours later, Dougherty’s father was put into a St. John’s Ambulance and taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital. At first the driver said Dougherty’s mother couldn’t travel in the ambulance, but Dougherty asked for a personal favour. The guy looked at his uniform and said, “I don’t work on the island,” and Dougherty said, “You never know, I’m at Station Ten, you might go to the Forum,” and the guy nodded okay.

  Dougherty drove Tommy home to Patricia Street and went inside with him. Tommy went down to the basement to watch TV and Dougherty got on the phone looking for Cheryl. He called a couple of her friends and found out that Frannie Massey had an apartment downtown and that’s where he found Cheryl. He said, “Dad’s in the hospital,” and she said, “Again?” and Dougherty thought everyone else knew but him. Or everyone else remembered.

  “Can you come home and stay with Tommy?”

  “How bad is it?”

  “They’re taking him to the Royal Vic — they’re talking about surgery.”

  “Shit.”

  “Can you come home now?”

  “No, I have a class tonight and an early class tomorrow, I’m staying here tonight.”

  “A class tonight?”

  “Sir George has a lot of night classes.”

  Dougherty said, “Sure,” trying for sarcastic but then he was
thinking about the fights he’d had with his father when Dougherty finished high school and didn’t want to go to university, his father talking up McGill until Dougherty joined the police force and then talking up Sir George and the night classes. Now Dougherty was thinking it had been a while since his father had mentioned university.

  He said, “I’m going to go get Mom and bring her home tonight, but I don’t know how late it’ll be.” And then, to try and make his case better he said, “She’s having a really hard time with this, she’s in shock.”

  “She’s not in shock,” Cheryl said, “she’s suffering from depression.”

  “Jesus, Cheryl, you take one psychology class and you know everything,” Dougherty said before he could catch himself.

  “I didn’t even need the class,” Cheryl said. “I can’t believe you don’t see it.” Then she said, “Yes, I do, you don’t see anything — how can you be a cop?”

  “How long will it take you to get here?”

  “I told you, I can’t.”

  “Can you go to the Royal Vic and pick up Mom?”

  “Why did she even go, what can she do?”

  “Look, just come home. I have to get back to work and then I’ll go get Mom.”

  There was a pause and then Cheryl said, “How’s Tommy?”

  “He’s okay.”

  “All right, I’m coming home.”

  “Thanks.”

  He hung up and sat in the kitchen for a few minutes. He looked at the ashtray full of butts and saw his father sitting at the table with a smoke and a rum and Coke after everyone else had gone to bed, reading every page of the newspaper.

  Then he saw Tommy’s canvas newspaper bag on the floor by the stove and he picked it up and called down to the basement, “I’m going to go see Mom and Dad at the hospital. Cheryl’s coming home, she’ll make dinner.” Then he got a few bucks out of his wallet and said, “She’ll order a pizza from Miss Italia.”

  For a moment the only sound from the basement was Gilligan’s Island and then Tommy said, “Okay.”

  Dougherty felt shitty leaving the house. He felt shitty all the way to the hospital and when he got there the first thing his mother said was, “C’est tout en anglais, ici,” and Dougherty said, “Yeah, Ma, it’s the Royal Vic.” He was thinking that she didn’t have any problem understanding English so what was she talking about now, but he looked at her and she took his hand and looked helpless.

  Dougherty looked at the doctor, figuring he must be MacIsaac, and then back to his mother and translated, “C’est une procédure simple, c’est commun,” he said. “Ils vont prendre un bout de la veine de sa jambe et l’utiliser pour contourner les artères endommagées.”

  MacIsaac clearly didn’t understand any French but nodded in agreement and said, “That’s right, Mrs. Dougherty, bypass surgery is a very common procedure.”

  “But this is emergency bypass,” Dougherty said. “That’s different, isn’t it?”

  “Not really,” MacIsaac said. “It’s exactly the same procedure.” He shrugged. “I’ve spoken to your father about this. We’ve been monitoring him, as you know,” and he looked accusingly at Dougherty who said, “Right, yeah,” and then the doctor said, “And with his smoking and drinking and stress levels we knew this would be a possibility.”

  “Heart surgery?”

  “Bypass surgery, yes.”

  “So, you’re going to do it now?”

  “He’s being prepped now, yes.”

  Dougherty said, “Okay, thanks.”

  MacIsaac looked at Dougherty’s mother and said, “You might as well have your son take you home and you can get some sleep. Your husband will be in surgery most of the night and in recovery most of the day tomorrow.”

  Then he nodded quickly at Dougherty and turned and walked away.

  “Dormir? Comment je peut dormir?”

  “Come on,” Dougherty said. “He’s right, there’s no point in staying here.”

  Dougherty felt shitty all the way back home with his mother and even though he knew he should have felt better when Cheryl met them at the door and talked gently and reassuringly and had things in order in the house and was clearly handling it better than anyone else he still felt shitty.

  * * *

  Carpentier said, “That’s funny, he was in court yesterday. He won.”

  “Cotroni?”

  “That’s right.”

  Dougherty said, “I thought that wasn’t till tomorrow?”

  “That’s the other one, Frank,” Detective Robert Ste. Marie said. “The extortion on the restaurant.”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, the Greek.”

  Ste. Marie drained his coffee and said, “You making sure he gets to court?”

  “Someone is.”

  “This was Vincenzo. That thing with the magazine.” Carpentier picked up his smoked meat sandwich. “He asked for a million dollars in damages.”

  Ste. Marie said, “Un million deux cent cinquante.”

  “He won a million and a quarter?” Dougherty said but saw Carpentier smiling already.

  “He won the case, the judge lowered the claim a little.”

  Ste. Marie was laughing. “Deux dollars.”

  “Two dollars?”

  “That’s right. It was St. Germain,” Carpentier said. “He said one dollar for the English article and one for the French. He was feeling generous, I guess.”

  “It was ten years ago, the article,” Ste. Marie said. “Called Cotroni the most powerful mafioso in Canada.”

  Dougherty said, “Is he?”

  The waitress was at the table then with the coffee pot but Ste. Marie said, “Non, merci.” She held up the pot for Carpentier and Dougherty but they both waved her off and she walked away.

  “Comme ton stooler dit,” Ste. Marie said, “il y a une fight, maintenant.”

  “Between him and this Rizutto guy?”

  Ste. Marie shook his head and looked at Carpentier, making a “this guy” motion towards Dougherty. Then Ste. Marie spoke English, saying, “At this libel trial with Maclean’s magazine, that went on for a fucking year, Cotroni’s lawyers were trying to get us to show them everything we have on him. The judge wanted us to show everything. I testified ten fucking times, I told them these investigations are ongoing, we can’t tell them anything now.”

  “But it is possible he’s right,” Dougherty said, “that the paintings really were stolen to give to this Rizutto guy?”

  “It’s not so crazy,” Ste. Marie agreed. “Paintings are easy to get out of the country and the value will only go up.”

  “And they can make him feel sophisticated,” Carpentier said. “Like a big shot. There were other robberies?”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, in Italy and in the USA and England, I think.”

  “And this woman from the museum, she said they could make a collection?”

  “Yeah, she said people don’t have just a bunch of paintings on the walls,” Dougherty said, “they have collections. I don’t really get it.”

  Ste. Marie shrugged and said, “Who knows. But it’s true, there were guys here from New York staying at expensive hotels. They had meetings.”

  “I didn’t see anything about that in the papers,” Dougherty said, and Carpentier shook his head a little at the sarcasm.

  “They don’t want the Italians going to war with each other — they have to watch these bikers getting stronger all the time.”

  “And killing each other,” Carpentier said. “But they’re getting better at it. This body dumped on Atwater,” he looked at Dougherty and said, “we’ve got nothing.”

  “And the English,” Ste. Marie said, “coming out of the Point now, working the whole west end.”

  Dougherty said, “Irish,” but he knew the French cops wouldn’t see any difference.

  Carpe
ntier said to Ste. Marie, “You talking to Boisjoli?”

  “Oui.” Ste. Marie was standing up then and he said, “We’ll see if this is true, with the paintings,” and Dougherty said, “How?”

  Ste. Marie said, “If Rizutto leaves town,” and walked out of the restaurant.

  Carpentier lit a cigarette and said to Dougherty, “You’re not still on the museum surveillance?”

  “We’re rotating guys,” Dougherty said, “so it’s not the same faces all the time.” And then he said, “And I missed a shift, my father’s in the hospital.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “Looks like heart surgery.”

  Carpentier nodded. “The Royal Vic?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s good.”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah.”

  Carpentier waited a moment and then said, “The coroner’s inquest starts tomorrow. Did they call you as a witness?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe they will. It’s going to be bad, câlisse.”

  Dougherty said yeah. The final count was thirty-seven people killed in the fire, what everyone was calling the Blue Bird fire even though the club upstairs where all the people died was called the Wagon Wheel. “It would be good if we had the other two.”

  “We’ll get them,” Carpentier said.

  Dougherty lit a cigarette himself and leaned back in his chair. He was in his uniform, on lunch and he was thinking he should get back to Station Ten but he stayed in his seat.

  Then Carpentier said, “This stooler, he knew David Murray?”

  “He did. He said he did. I don’t know, what he gave me sounds useless, he said Murray was hanging out with Richard Burnside.”

  “It’s possible, why not? Like the lawyer said, lots of people with money are helping the Americans, giving them jobs, places to stay.”

  “I guess.”

  “Isn’t Burnside in the rock ’n’ roll business?”

  “Oh,” Dougherty said, “you mean the son.”

  “Not the old man.” Carpentier shrugged and took a drag on his smoke. “But I would like to look into him, too, someday.”

  “Maybe he’ll kill someone and you’ll get your chance.”

  “I don’t think he’d ever do it himself,” Carpentier said. “He has people for that.”