A Little More Free

by John McFetridge

  “Trouble. Whatever they’re doing it’s way above our pay grade — we’ll find out about it when they want us to find out about it.”

  “I’d like to know now.”

  “Oh, that’s right, you’re ambitious.”

  “I just want to know what’s going on.”

  “Soviets are favourites today,” Rozovsky said. “Bookies are giving 6–7 odds.”

  “That’s the best you can get?”

  “Bet five bucks on Canada, you win six.”

  “If we win.”

  * * *

  Dougherty got his Mustang out of the parking lot by city hall and drove up the hill, thinking Rozovsky was right, he didn’t need the tsuris, he wasn’t a detective, maybe he never would be, so what. He was a good constable, he liked the job and someday he could take over the desk from Delisle.

  He drove slow past Station Ten, looking at the squat concrete building, almost out of place with all the old brownstones but a couple high-rises had gone in on de Maisonneuve and Sir George Williams was taking over more old houses, so nothing was out of place anymore. Or everything was.

  Dougherty was thinking that his father was still an installer — he’d never moved up into management. Then he had an image of him in the hospital bed hooked up to the ventilator, shit, Dougherty’d almost forgotten. He thought about going to the hospital right now but he couldn’t.

  He just drove, no destination in mind, just feeling the road passing under his wheels. He drove right past his apartment — his temporary room as he’d told Judy, and that’s what it was, as temporary as everything else in his life — and then he was thinking about Judy and her causes and her fights and her workboots.

  He pulled a U.

  * * *

  Dougherty said, “Sorry, I’ve been working all night — I didn’t have a chance to go undercover,” and Judy looked at him standing in her doorway in his uniform and said, “That’s okay, it looks kinda good on you.”

  “I was just going to grab a bite, you hungry?”

  “You’re not going to watch the big game?”

  “I don’t think we can avoid it no matter where we go.”

  They went to the Hollywood Deli, just outside the student zone, a little farther into the east end, and there was a TV mounted on the wall behind the cash and a crowd starting to gather in front of it.

  On the way over, Judy had told Dougherty that the new batch of freshman who’d moved into the house at the beginning of the month probably wouldn’t care about his uniform anyway, and he’d said, “Not activists?”

  Now she was saying, “Not really, they talk the talk but I don’t think they can walk the walk.”

  “It’s not easy.”

  Judy said, “No.”

  “And how do they pick a cause?”

  “It’s as hard as picking a major.” She was smiling.

  A man said, “Tabarnak,” and Dougherty turned to see it was a bus driver standing and looking up at the TV, a brown paper bag in his hand.

  “Yakushev.”

  Looking through the glass door of the diner, Dougherty could see the bus idling on the street but it appeared to be empty.

  Judy said, “Every September I think about going back to school. It’s in the air, you know.”

  “You mean do a master’s degree?”

  She smiled like he was cute and said, “No, finish my bachelor’s. I turned on, tuned out and dropped out.”

  “That must have gone over well with your folks.”

  “After my father’s heart attack?”

  She drank coffee and then held the mug in both hands, looking over the top of it at Dougherty. He looked back and didn’t say anything for minute. He didn’t feel like he needed to say anything and that felt good.

  The crowd by the cash watching the TV was getting restless, feet shuffling and hands tapping on the counter.

  Dougherty said, “How far are you from graduating?”

  Judy shrugged. “Depends what I pick as a major.”

  “You didn’t pick one?”

  “I picked a few,” Judy said, “I just haven’t settled on one yet.”

  A cheer from the crowd.

  Dougherty looked up at the TV and said, “Esposito.”

  “He’s one of ours?”

  “I don’t think they have Italians in Russia,” Dougherty said. He put a glob of mayonnaise on one of the triangles of his club sandwich, took a bite and then said, “What’s your major now?”

  “Political science.”

  “Politics isn’t an art anymore, now it’s a science?”

  “Everything wants to be a science now.”

  The waitress came to the table and asked if they wanted anything else, and Dougherty looked past her to the TV, trying to see how much time was left in the game. He said, “Just some coffee,” and looked at Judy.

  “That’s fine, thanks.”

  Then Judy said, “I’ll be right back,” and Dougherty watched her walk into the back of the restaurant to the washrooms.

  Outside Dougherty could see the bus still idling and the street still empty.

  After a couple of minutes, Judy came and sat down saying, “It’s like the city has stopped.”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah,” and then there was another groan from the crowd, another Russian goal, and Dougherty said, “This could be a long night.”

  “How long will the game last?”

  “After the game,” Dougherty said. “Bars are full now, and it’ll only get worse. People will either be drowning their sorrows or celebrating.”

  “So?”

  “There’ll be fights, there’ll be car accidents, all kinds of stuff. We’ll be busy.”

  “I guess,” Judy said. “I never thought of that.”

  “I never did, either,” Dougherty said. “Not really. I mean, I didn’t think there’d be so much of it; I didn’t think that’s what this job was.”

  “What did you think it was?”

  “I don’t know, the poster just said, Fascists Wanted, I thought we’d wear black shirts and get free beer.”

  Judy said, “Funny.”

  A cheer from the crowd, banging on the counter.

  Dougherty said, “2–2 now.”

  “You do seem good at it,” Judy said. “Being a cop.”

  “I’m getting kind of tired of wrestling drunks.”

  “What do you want to do?

  “I don’t know,” Dougherty said. “When you join up you tell them you want to help people, that’s what you say and you do mean it. And you do, sometimes, you do help people, but then it’s also a job, you know, so you want to get promoted and get a raise and all that.”

  “They aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  He smiled at her and said, “No, I guess not, but I just didn’t think by now I’d still be doing this.”

  “Who does? Look at me: the first time you arrested me I was with the Workers’ Coalition, and now it’s the Milton Park Defence, and there’ve been some others in between.”

  “The first time I arrested you — that sounds funny.”

  “It’s losing its charm.”

  “So, how do you do it? All these causes, all these fights? You don’t always win.”

  “Almost never,” Judy said.

  The whole restaurant seemed to let out a sigh and relax at the same time, and Dougherty glanced up at the TV and said, “There’s the first period.” He motioned to the waitress and said, “Café, s’il vous plaît.”

  Judy said, “I don’t expect to win every battle. It’s like you — you don’t expect to wipe out all crime.”

  “No, I’d be out of work.”

  “Ha ha, but you want to do some good where you can.”

  “Yeah,” Dougherty said, “I guess that’s it.”

  The w
aitress put a couple of cups of coffee on the table and said, “Trop de pénalités,” and Dougherty said, “Plus le match progresse, meilleurs on est.”

  “Les autres, aussi.”

  “Nous sommes en forme maintenant — ce n’est plus l’été.”

  The waitress said, “Ça c’est tu penses,” and went back to standing in front of the TV with the rest. The bus driver was sitting on a stool at the counter.

  “I guess that’s it,” Dougherty said, “you do some good where you can.”

  “Is this about David Murray?”

  “It looks like we got the guy who killed him,” Dougherty said, “but maybe not enough evidence. He’ll go to jail for something else, and not for long enough.”

  “I know it sounds dumb when I say it,” Judy said, “but it won’t bring him back.”

  “I still want the guy to pay for it.”

  “Hey, lots of criminals go free,” Judy said. “Richard Nixon is going to get re-elected.”

  Dougherty drank coffee and didn’t say anything.

  “At least Richard didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “No,” Dougherty said. “Poor guy, just caught up in it.”

  “In the murder?”

  “Well, the guy who did it, guy named Buckley, he’s trying anything he can: he tried to pull Burnside into it, said someone was blackmailing Richard, threatening to get his father involved.”

  “His father, why?”

  “Just to muddy the waters, I guess. He’s just throwing shit at the walls, hoping something sticks. He’s got a Mafia lawyer now, and that’s their strategy: stall, delay, file motions every day, trivial crap, bring up anything that’ll be a distraction. Imagine what would happen if the papers started talking about Richard Burnside’s gay son being blackmailed?”

  “That might still happen.”

  “Yeah, it probably will.”

  “Someone should tell Richard,” Judy said, “warn him it’s coming.”

  “Someone?”

  Judy said, “Yeah, it might be doing a little good where you can.”

  Dougherty knew she was right. She was right about a lot of things.

  * * *

  They left the Hollywood Deli in the middle of the second period. The teams had traded goals and it was tied 3–3. Judy said she was going to use the time while the city was quiet to put up some posters about the next Milton Park Defence Fund concert at the Yellow Door, and Dougherty asked her if she had a permit.

  She kissed him good-bye and held him for an extra moment, and he liked it. The more time he spent with her the better he felt.

  Another thing in his life he wouldn’t have expected and had to learn to accept.

  Driving across town, he had the game on the radio in his car, and the Russians scored two more, the second period ended with them up 5–3 and Dougherty figured he would be in for a long night, drowning sorrows probably leading to more fighting than celebrating.

  Probably.

  He turned onto Greene thinking Burnside wouldn’t be in his office, he’d be in a bar somewhere watching the game, but Dougherty wanted to try to talk to him, let him know what was coming. Then a man ran across the street.

  Richard Burnside.

  He jumped into a car parked at the curb, pulled a U and raced past Dougherty.

  He had a gun in his hand.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  The gun was a lousy Saturday Night Special, a little ­snub-nose .22 that Dougherty thought probably wouldn’t even fire, but Burnside was standing in the middle of the living room, aiming it at an old man sitting in armchair in front of a TV, so he said, “Richard, over here.”

  Burnside looked over his shoulder but kept aiming at his father. “Go away.”

  Dougherty said, “It wasn’t him.”

  “It was.” He looked back at his father. “You killed him.”

  Dougherty said, “Who told you that, Richard?”

  The old man had turned around in the chair and was looking at Richard. His mouth was open but he wasn’t saying anything.

  Burnside said, “You got one of your thugs to do it, beat him to death.”

  “No,” Dougherty said, “he didn’t.”

  “Shut up!”

  Burnside turned and pointed the gun at Dougherty.

  “You don’t know anything.”

  “Danny Buckley told you, didn’t he? He’s lying.”

  Now Burnside was looking over his shoulder at his father and he said, “I paid them off and they went to you anyway.”

  “No, son,” the old man said. “No one came to me.”

  “Liar!”

  The big house was empty, and Burnside’s voice echoed.

  The hockey game was playing on the TV, the sounds of whistles coming from the crowd in Moscow, the way they cheered.

  Dougherty said, “No, Richard, this is bullshit. We caught the guy who killed David. He killed another drug dealer, too, a guy named Herridge, Goose Herridge. He told you he went to your father because he’s desperate.”

  Now Dougherty could see Buckley in Parthenais coming up with this idea, probably had it in mind for a while, saving it in case he thought the cops were getting close to him. Fucking Buckley, too clever for his own good.

  “He’s a criminal,” Dougherty said, “he’s a liar, he’ll say anything, he’ll try and blame everyone else.”

  Burnside was thinking about it, Dougherty could see that, and maybe he wanted to believe it. He hadn’t shot his father, and now he was still pointing the gun at Dougherty, but his hand was shaking and the moment seemed to be passing.

  “We arrested him last night,” Dougherty said. “He’s in Parthenais jail. Did he call you this morning?”

  “I didn’t know who it was,” Burnside said.

  Now Dougherty could see how Buckley thought it would work, if Burnside killed his father, or tried to kill him, it would be a sensational story, headlines and TV news and all the police attention. Lawyers and psychologists and deals, and no one would be interested in a drug dealer from the Point. Buckley probably thought it was his ace in the hole.

  “He had pictures of you and David in Toronto.”

  “Yes.”

  “And David didn’t care, he didn’t care who knew.”

  “He wanted people to know,” Burnside said. He was shaking his head and smiling a little. “He wanted everyone to know.”

  Dougherty took a few steps towards Burnside, saying, “He was tired of fighting the big battles, always for someone else. He wanted a little something for himself.”

  “He wasn’t selfish,” Burnside said. “He just wanted to be … himself, who he really was.”

  Dougherty was close enough to reach out and take the gun from Burnside’s hand. “I know.”

  The old man clicked a remote control in his hand, and the TV shut off. He struggled to his feet and said, “What’s this about, Richard?”

  “A friend of mine was killed, Dad, murdered. I thought, you …”

  “But why?”

  “Because … we were …” His head fell back and he said, “David is dead and I can’t even say it.” He looked at his father, who was standing now, leaning on the chair looking back at him, waiting.

  Burnside said, “I’m a homosexual.”

  The old man nodded a little and said, “Like your uncle Ned.”

  Burnside said, “What? Uncle Ned killed in the war?”

  Dougherty took a few steps back, and the old man said, “Officer, would you be able to dispose of that,” motioning towards the gun in Dougherty’s hand.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Fine. I think we can manage now.”

  Dougherty said, “Right,” and nodded at the old man and at Burnside and walked slowly through the living room, seeing the big fireplace for the
first time, the painting above it, the bookshelves — the whole room looking like something Dougherty’d only ever seen in the movies.

  Outside, the street was quiet. The middle of the afternoon and no one was around. Dougherty wasn’t sure what to do. He leaned against his Mustang and laughed a little, feeling the tension flow out of him. He laughed harder, shaking his head and looking at the gun in his hands and thinking, Holy shit, he could have killed me.

  And in the strangest way he liked it. He liked the feeling that he’d done something, done like Judy said, a little good somewhere.

  He got in his car and drove down the hill, past the big old stone Westmount houses with their ­manicured lawns and hedges and even trees that had been sculpted, the houses getting closer together and then some old apartment buildings as the street levelled off at Sherbrooke. Then he was thinking he could just drive a few more blocks to the Royal Vic and stop in and see his father, but then he thought, no, wait till the end of his shift and have a real visit, sit down and really talk.

  And then Dougherty wanted to call Judy: he wanted to see her and tell her everything, he wanted to share it with her, and that surprised him. Made him feel good.

  He drove past the empty Forum and along de Maisonneuve, lined with office towers and tall apartment buildings. The place was deserted. Not just quiet because people were at work — it was eerie quiet like that National Film Board movie Dougherty’d seen, 23 Skidoo, about the neutron bomb that wiped out all the people but left the buildings intact.

  Pulling into the parking lot behind Station Ten, Dougherty saw the attendant’s booth was empty, and when he got out of his car he’d never heard the city so quiet. He stood there in the parking lot for a minute listening, not hearing anything.

  Crazy.

  And then screaming. Cheering and hooting. Horns.

  A moment later, car horns started blaring.

  Dougherty ran into the station house and it was packed with cops, all of them on their feet cheering.

  Delisle grabbed Dougherty and shouted, “You believe it!? What a goal!”

  “What?”

  “Henderson, unbelievable, he score with thirty-four seconds left, trente-quatre, we win!”

  Dougherty didn’t get it — Henderson had scored the winner, that was the game before — but Delisle was gone then, moving through the room, slapping backs and shaking hands and Dougherty noticed the beer in his hand, every cop in the place had a beer in his hand.