by Peter Kirby
“Or, maybe someone wants to stop you.”
“Legault’s murder? Is this meant to distract me?”
“There may be a connection, sir.”
“Who knows. Who’s picking up the Legault case?”
“Laurent. And he promised to keep in touch.”
“It’s still a live case. It’s not gone cold.”
“But the Patriotes?”
“Who knows. We’ve got two of their guys from the Patriotes persuading Panagopoulos to sign over Legault’s apartment, and Legault is kidnapped and killed a few days later. If they hadn’t dropped Legault’s body from the truck, everything would be fine. Life would go on, with the Patriotes running the apartment. Laurent’s got lots of leads to track down.”
“What about the two guys that visited Panagopoulos?”
“Still no word. They don’t answer their phones and they’re never at home.”
“The Colonel must have sent them on vacation.”
“The easy thing would be to put it down to a drug deal gone bad and move on.”
“Yeah, but luckily Laurent doesn’t like easy any more than I do.”
Saint-Jacques was feeling better. She didn’t have to stand back and let her life be decided by other people. She could at least do something.
“There’s a lot of stuff to look at,” said Vanier. “We just need to do the legwork.”
“So we have a plan?”
“I don’t know if it’s a plan. But it’s better than sitting at home doing nothing. I’m not going down, Sylvie. Not for this.”
“Then we’ve got work to do, sir.”
The inside windows of the black SUV were steamed up with the breath of the two men. They were parked under a leafless tree that did nothing to slow the rain sheeting down the windscreen. It was as though they were sitting in a cave behind a waterfall. They were both wearing leather jackets and blue jeans, but they couldn’t have been more unalike. Eddie Pickton was in the passenger seat, a full patch Hells Angel in uniform. The driver could have been a GQ model.
Pickton said, “Louis is pissed. He wants his container back.”
The driver said, “He’s crazy. We didn’t even know he had a container coming through the Port. But he should have told us.”
“He doesn’t trust you.”
“Fuck him. What we did with Legault, it was a group thing. It brought the gangs together. By participating, everyone put something on the line. We organized that to build trust, to show that we can work together.”
“Didn’t work. He figures nobody’s going to risk going to the police with Legault’s murder, so it doesn’t mean anything.”
“He’s wrong, there. What happened with Legault was supposed to show we could work together. But if he steps out of line, we’ve got insurance.”
“How so?”
“We got some great pictures of Louis beating the shit out of Mr. Legault. A couple of them show just the two of them, and Louis holding a hammer. He seemed to be having a good time.”
“It means nothing. If he’s fingered for Legault’s murder, first thing he’ll do is cut a deal with the cops. He would sell you guys out in a second. Shit, he’d sell me out too if it comes to that. Then we’d all be in shit. We all took turns on Legault.”
“Maybe he won’t get a chance to cut a deal.”
Pickton looked at the driver, waiting for more. The driver said nothing. Pickton said, “So what about the container?”
The driver looked out at the rain. Pickton continued, “I know you’ve got it. You guys are making it impossible to work in the Port.”
“I told Louis. If he has anything moving through the Port, he should tell us. Then we’ll make sure nothing happens to it.”
“Tell you and pay, you mean.”
“No, we’ll look after his shipments for free. What the fuck do you think? Things have changed. Louis has to understand. We control the Port, and he needs to get used to that.”
“So how much for the container?”
“That’s assuming we have it. How much is it worth?”
“If you’ve got it, you know. If you don’t, it doesn’t matter. Does it?”
“So tell him to come see me himself.”
“He won’t. I told you. He doesn’t trust you guys. That’s why he sent me.”
“And you trust us?”
“I do what Louis tells me to do.”
Pickton lit a cigarette, and the driver turned on the engine and opened all the windows.
“Fuck,” said Pickton, “Do you have to do that? The rain’s coming in.”
“Do you have to smoke in the car? Why can’t you wait?”
“I smoke. What’s the big deal?”
“It stinks. I’m going to have to change my clothes when I get home.”
Pickton was trying to blow the smoke out the window, but it kept drifting back. He threw the half-finished cigarette out into the rain. “You can close the windows now. I’m getting soaked.”
“Give it a minute for the smoke to clear.”
“Next time I’ll bring an umbrella.”
“Listen, Eddie. I like you. Sure, you’ve got some dirty fucking habits, but I think we can do business together. If Louis doesn’t understand that times have changed, maybe it’s time he stepped down.”
“Louis? Step down? You can’t be serious. If he’s not in charge, he’s dead. There’s too many people with a grudge against him. If he lets go for a second, he’s finished.”
“You got a grudge against him?”
“It’s not about me.”
“But if he stepped down, somebody would take his place.”
“Yeah. There would be a bit of scuffle to see who’s in charge. But things would settle down.”
“And what if we helped you to be in charge?”
This time it was Pickton’s turn to stare out the window. The driver continued. “Let’s say we took Louis out of the picture. Nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with us. Just an accident. Then we help you keep control, run interference for you. You know, block the defence and let you run up the field and score. We could work together, Eddie. You know that.”
Pickton said nothing.
“Louis’s out of touch. It takes more than muscle to keep on top. Some things you can fight, and some things, well you just have to go along. We’re here to stay, and Louis has to work with us or he doesn’t work. No choice.”
Pickton said, “So I tell Louis you know nothing about the container?”
“Tell Louis he can have the container for $500,000 cash. I figure that’s about 25% of what he was expecting to make. It’s through the Port and ready to go.”
“He’s not going to like that.”
“And maybe his time is over. A war’s bad for business, and we both know he can’t win.” The driver put his hand on Pickton’s arm. “Eddie, listen to me. I think you’d be a good man to run things when he’s gone.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
Pickton got out of the car, and Corporal Brasso moved out of the shadows to replace him in the passenger seat. They nodded at each other, and Brasso climbed into the car and closed the door.
“So how’d it go?” asked Brasso, as he watched Pickton walk away, trying to light a cigarette in the rain.
“As I thought,” said the driver. “We either get paid or Louis’s out of the picture.”
Eight
Vanier wasn’t used to being unemployed. He woke up early, showered, and shaved. He put on his least crumpled suit, a shirt that wasn’t too wrinkled, and a tie that didn’t look too much like it came from a vintage clothing store. And there he was, sitting on the couch, all dressed up, with nowhere to go.
Alex had come in late and wouldn’t stir before the afternoon.
His suspension orders were clear: nothing to do
with the investigation, nowhere near Station 23 or any of its officers, and nowhere near Barbeau or his family. He was supposed to wait, quietly and out of sight, while others decided his fate.
He hadn’t heard back from Saint-Jacques, who was following up with her IT contact to see what happened with Station 23’s video system. He was waiting for Laurent to give him any news on the Legault investigation. And he hadn’t quite figured out how to continue looking into the Patriotes without violating the suspension rules. He figured he should let at least one day elapse before he did that.
He decided meditation would help, even if he could only manage five minutes. Five minutes today, maybe ten tomorrow. Maybe he could get back to a regular twenty minutes a day. It wasn’t easy. He hadn’t meditated in weeks, not since Alex came back. He sat down on the couch, loosened his tie, and focussed on his breathing. At first, he could only manage two or three breaths before his attention was pulled away, meandering off like a beagle finding a new scent every three feet. He only got to stillness for seconds at a time. Even so, when he gave up the battle and opened his eyes, he had managed fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes that had passed like five, and he felt better.
He put on his coat, left the apartment with no direction in mind. Following Dr. Penfield east to the top of McTavish, he went down the steps into the McGill campus. It was crowded with students, faculty, and staff arriving for another day, worlds away from where he was. Trees were budding, and shoots of new growth were breaking through the surface of bare ground. It was a landscape of greys, all the shades of brown, and tiny green spots of new life. He left the campus through the Roddick Gates and continued south, manoeuvering through the tide of commuters released from métro stations, buses, and parking lots, flooding the city with nine-to-five effort. He felt detached, like he was watching them from a bubble, the only person without a destination.
The glass doors of Place Ville Marie were disgorging people onto the street, and Vanier struggled through them. He declined the offers of the free newspaper. He’d looked at them before and decided they made him angry, another example of the relentless effort to stop people thinking. They consisted of a few cut-and-paste extracts from newsfeeds giving the stripped-down version of the same news that was broadcast on every newscast, a syndicated Hollywood gossip column, horoscopes, lottery results, the absolute minimum of content on which to hang advertising for cars, televisions, and drugs to relieve the commuter’s despair of knowing that the youthful dreams were dead and this was as good as it was going to get.
In Central Station, he ordered a coffee and a croissant from Première Moisson and sat down at an empty table where he could watch the shoulder-to-shoulder parade of commuters in the narrow passageway leading out from the concourse. The crowd had a pattern, surging to unmanageable numbers with each arriving train from the suburbs, then slowing to flow like treacle through passageways towards escalators that would take them to buildings and the street. Some people would stop and line up ten deep to buy coffee and a muffin at Tim Hortons.
Vanier had never been part of the daily movement of the herd. Policemen stood apart. But now he felt he wasn’t part of anything.
The croissant was good, a crunchy, multi-layered pastry of butter, with sugar and salt hiding in the background. He went back for another. By 8:20, most of the herd had passed, and by 9 a.m., the passageway was back to strolling pedestrians.
It was the first time in years when he was forced to fill an empty space in his day rather than wondering how to fit everything in. He began formulating a plan to go shopping, buy a shirt, or even a new suit, shit, anything new would be an improvement. Then his phone rang. An unknown number. He answered. “Vanier.”
“Garguet here.”
“Louis Garguet?”
Louis Garguet was the leader of the Hells Angels in Montreal. Vanier knew he’d risen to the top by being a murderous bastard and was staying there by adding diplomacy to his skills. The rumour was he had been responsible for ending the biker wars and getting the Hells back to business in the shadows. The wars had outraged the public. Nobody much cared about bikers killing themselves, but people drew the line at bombs in the streets and civilian casualties. After Garguet, the killing was done in private, and the public stopped caring.
Garguet said, “You’re quick.”
“You’re famous.”
“I’ve got something for you. I want to see you. Two o’clock this afternoon at the Club Gym. I’ll be waiting.”
“Club Gym? Where’s that?”
“Opposite Station 23. You know where that is, don’t you?”
Vanier recalled looking out over the crowd of protesters from the second floor. There had been a gym directly opposite, almost the same size as the police station. Then it clicked. Years ago, the gym had been owned by the Hells. At the height of their power someone had the idea of sticking it to the police by buying the building opposite the station as a way of showing the police that the Hells didn’t give a shit about them.
“And you’re on your own. Or we don’t talk.”
The line died. Vanier was relieved he didn’t have to go shopping.
Vanier was sitting in the Volvo with new tires outside Club Gym on Hochelaga Street. Station 23 was directly opposite. Most of the damage from the riot had been cleaned up. All that was left was the darkened asphalt where police cars had burned. From what he could see through the plate glass, Club Gym was a serious muscle gym, the kind where you’re in the wrong place if you’re not taking steroids – or selling them. It didn’t look like one of the forgiving temples where out-of-shape citizens could pretend to get back in shape.
The Hells had bought the building in the nineties, in retaliation for the constant police surveillance of their own bunker, back when the biker war was in full swing. It was also a message to the rival banditos. Taking over a building opposite a police station said that the Hells were powerful. It was still a Hells’ property, but it had been flipped through so many shell companies, it was immune to any proceeds-of-crime seizure.
Vanier pushed open the door and walked in. Two girls who looked like they had just finished their shift at a strip bar were lounging behind the reception desk, along with a steroid-chomper in a T-shirt that was a size too small. He was posing, showing his bulging arms to maximum effect. He gave Vanier a look that said he had him for a cop and then turned away. Vanier got a smile from one of the girls and couldn’t help smiling back.
“Help you?”
“I’m looking for Garguet. He’s expecting me.”
“Oh yeah. He said someone might show up. He’s probably in the weight room. You’ll have to get changed.”
“Changed?” Vanier wasn’t thinking about getting into shape. “You’re not serious?”
She was still smiling. “It’s the rules. He said you probably wouldn’t have anything to wear, and to give you this.” She lifted a gym bag onto the counter. “The changing rooms are along the hallway. “There’s a lock and a key for the locker in the bag.”
He looked at her, and she shrugged. There was no choice. He took the bag and went down the hallway to the changing room. The bag had an extra-large pair of running pants, a huge T-shirt, a towel and a pair of red flip-flops. The clothes had a damp, musty smell, like they’d come from the gym’s Lost and Found. Underneath the clothes, he found an unmarked DVD in a plastic case. When he put on the pants and T-shirt he knew he looked ridiculous. He weighed 180 pounds, and was in reasonable shape, a little slack, maybe, but nothing that a month or two of weights wouldn’t cure. The clothes would have been loose on a 250 pound doughnut addict. He decided against putting his street clothes in the locker, not wanting to give Garguet a chance to make them disappear. So he put everything in the bag and left the changing room, one hand clutching the bag, the other holding up his pants.
Garguet was on the second floor, lying on a bench pressing two manhole covers connected by a steel bar
. The Arnold Schwarzenegger guy from reception was behind Garguet, spotting him. Garguet was muscled, but his gut was obvious even when he was lying on his back and straining. Vanier was at a disadvantage, trying to look like he had some authority while holding up his pants. Garguet cradled the weight and nodded to Arnie.
“Take a break for a while. I need to talk to the Inspector.”
Then he raised himself up to a sitting position and motioned for Vanier to sit on a bench opposite, about three feet away. Vanier sat down, and their knees were almost touching.
He looked at Vanier and leaned forward.
“You’re in trouble.”
“What else is new?”
Garguet reached down for two eighty-five pound barbells next to his feet and started curling them while he watched Vanier.
“You don’t seem to be in too good shape, Inspector. You should exercise more.”
“Or get a new tailor.”
“A dangerous occupation, being a cop. You need to be fit.”
“Get a lot of cops in here?”
“Some. We let them in. It’s against the law to discriminate. You know that, Inspector.”
“Yeah. I heard.”
“And besides, we’re just across the road from the station. You could get a membership. We got a special on at the moment.”
“Not like you to be generous.”
“Self-interest, my friend. If I can help myself by helping others… Shit, generosity just comes natural.”
“I’ll take a brochure on the way out,” Vanier said. “So what’s the deal?”
“Deal? No deal. I’m making an unsolicited donation from the goodness of my heart. Let’s say I just signed up for that organization to defend the wrongly convicted.”
“I’m not convicted.”
“You’re being investigated. Just about the same thing for a cop.”
“It’s bullshit, everyone knows it.”
“We’re both professionals, Inspector. Since when did truth matter? You’ve been dressed up like a lamb at an Easter barbecue. And unless you do something about it, you’re finished.”
