by Peter Kirby
Vanier said nothing. They both knew it was true.
“Take a look out the window, Inspector.”
Vanier went over to the window and looked across the street to the station. If it wasn’t for the venetian blinds, he’d be able to see what was in the sandwiches they were having for lunch.
“See anything interesting?”
Vanier continued staring out the windows.
“Station 23.”
“No. On this side. On the lawn.”
There was a flagpole in the middle of the lawn in front of the building. On top, was a camera. “Cameras?”
“Fucking genius. I can see why you made Inspector.” Garguet was still pumping the barbells. “Station 23 has cameras pointing at us, and we have the same pointing at them. They went in years ago. I suppose you’ve checked the videos at the station.”
“There’s nothing useful on them.”
“Bullshit, nothing useful. There’s nothing. I know the system was down at the time of your little incident. Or it was made to go down.”
Vanier wondered how he knew.
“Either way, there’s no video to help you.”
Vanier was thinking about the DVD in this gym bag.
“So guess what, Inspector?”
“Your cameras didn’t go down. You’ve got the riot on film?”
“We got it all. Everyone. See the condos back of the station?”
Vanier saw a brick building on the corner that overlooked the back of the station. “And?”
“We’ve got a camera in one of those, looking at the back door.” Garguet put the barbells down. “So look at the DVD. If you’re smart, you’ll learn something.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Except for the brochure. Ask Chantal at reception on the way out.”
Vanier picked up the bag and turned to walk away.
“One more thing, Inspector.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t forget this. I’m doing you a big favour.”
“Yeah. Thanks. I’ll send you a Christmas card.”
“I’ll be in touch when I need something.”
Vanier didn’t respond.
Outside the gym, he kept his head down, wondering if someone from Station 23 would notice him leaving. He had dumped the clothes but kept the gym bag, so he at least looked the part. He was tempted to go straight home and watch the DVD, but there was something else. He put the bag in the trunk and drove the car three blocks down the street and parked, away from the station. Then he started walking. At a good pace, it still took him thirty minutes to reach the alley where Barbeau was found.
It was narrow, only half as wide again as a car, and stinking from food scraps spilling from the slit belly of a garbage bag, a feast for the rats. Someone had written POLICE = CHIENS on the wall. There was a pile of cheap bouquets beneath the sign, the flowers already faded. It was easy to see where Barbeau had fallen, a long dark stain traced a rivulet from the spot where blood spilled from his head to where it pooled in the middle of the alley.
He thought about the blood and walked back out of the alley and half way up the street. He couldn’t see any blood spots. True, it had rained since the kid had been discovered, but not that much, and it takes a lot to wash bloodstains away. He walked back to the car, scouring the pavement for signs of blood. He had retraced the last steps of enough victims to recognize the trail of someone leaking blood along the street, but there was nothing.
She picked up the phone on the third ring. “Saint-Jacques.”
“There’s a couple of things.”
“Oh, it’s you.”
Vanier sensed the tension in her voice. “Yes, Sylvie. It’s me. I’m not the enemy.”
“Sorry, I’m not taking this well. You know this is going to stay with me forever. The outcome doesn’t matter. It’s the accusation that counts.”
“That’s why we have to nail this. We can’t sit around waiting for someone else to do it. We need to prove it’s a pack of lies. That’s what it’s going to take to make those assholes from Internal cave in and close the file.”
“It doesn’t matter what we do. It will always be hanging over me.”
“Sylvie, we’ll beat this. Believe me. But we’ve got to keep at it. If we do nothing, we’re sunk. Did you hear back from your friends about what went wrong with the cameras? They all shut down at just the right time? How does that happen? If they had been working, they’d show the kid walking out the back door without a scratch on him.”
“I called him,” she said. “He said he’d get back to me.” She didn’t sound excited, and Vanier noticed that there was nothing in the background. Usually when he called there was pop music playing in the background. Most of the time he had no idea what it was, gym-music he called it.
“Maybe someone played with the cameras. But we need to find out. There’s something else.”
“What?”
“I went to the alley today. Where he was found. I walked there from the station and it took thirty minutes. I was moving, but it took thirty minutes.”
“And?”
“The call came in to the ambulance twenty minutes after he left.”
“That’s it?”
“I know it’s not much. But it’s a piece of the puzzle. The kid says he walked to the alley and collapsed. In the shape he was supposed to be in, he couldn’t have walked there in time.”
“Maybe he ran. He’s younger than you. And adrenaline can do strange things.”
“Yeah. Maybe he ran.” Vanier knew it was a pretty weak straw to be clutching onto. “But he didn’t run home. His mother lives in the opposite direction.”
“That’s it?” she asked for the second time.
“There were no bloodstains leading to the alley. If he was bleeding in the alley, there should be some spots that dripped on the way.”
“Did you have a crime scene guy look?”
“Not yet. But I got someone going out in the morning. Personal favour. Shit Sylvie, I’m trying. I know it’s weak, but everything helps.”
“And you didn’t beat him?”
“Jesus Christ. How many times do I have to tell you? No, I didn’t beat the shithead.” Vanier clicked disconnect on his phone.
She called back in seconds.
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do about the cameras. I’ll call you.”
“Thanks.”
This time it was Saint-Jacques who disconnected.
Vanier thought about what she was going through. Saint-Jacques carried the burden of being beautiful and smart, very smart. She had spent too much time fending off the advances of the preening class who wanted to own the beauty but had only a vague sense of the person. She was a cop for the right reasons, the straightest of straight arrows. And being a cop was her life. She had become Detective Sergeant because she was good, she didn’t play politics, and didn’t cultivate friends higher up. If she was to go any further on the force, it would have to be on merit alone, and being associated with Vanier’s misdeeds wouldn’t help. With most people, she had a tropical wood hardness about her, and Vanier felt the defences being lowered into place for him too. He wondered if he was just the latest in a long line of men who had disappointed her.
He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t told Saint-Jacques about the DVD. He’d looked at it, and it wasn’t good enough. It could be helpful, but not much more, like the lack of bloodstains, the distance to the alley, and the kid not going home. Helpful, but not enough by a long shot.
Garguet’s DVD had grainy images of the riot spilling around the building, and you could barely make out the kid emerging from the back door. He wasn’t limping and didn’t look in pain. The kid high-fived a guy in a raincoat and they walked off together. Problem was, you could only see the back of the raincoat. It wasn’t enough.
Vanier knew that reasonable doubt wasn’t going to cut it. He was going to have to prove that the kid walked out of the station unharmed. And that meant finding the guy he high-fived in the parking lot.
Vanier was at sitting in front of the computer screen researching the Patriotes. Alex was wearing a headset and was lost in a video game. Vanier clicked on a YouTube video of Montpetit and listened to the Colonel explain his movement. He started with a litany of the complaints that the disaffected could identify with: politicians who lusted for money and power, lording it over the citizens; governments that took the hard-earned wages of the people and gave nothing back; public services that were strangled with budget cuts; and corporations that bought elections to install compliant hacks in power. The system was breaking down, and the people needed to defend themselves against the excesses of their overlords.
It was all about self-defence, and the potential enemies were legion. Montpetit talked about his pride in the ancestors of the Quebec people. Betrayed by the French and handed over like farm animals to the English, they had still managed to keep their identity as a proud people. The Patriotes were going to reawaken that pride, and Quebecers would become masters in their own home. His message was that Quebecers could look after themselves, and the Patriotes were going to lead the way.
Halfway through, the audio continued, but the screen switched away from Montpetit behind a desk to show him visiting the Patriotes’ daycare centres, food banks, and shelters, always surrounded by laughing children or grateful people.
Then the screen images switched to the Patriotes playing war games, with real guns and mismatched uniforms, and men and women with berets and green fatigues marching in the annual Saint-Jean-Baptiste parade. There was one five-second clip that showed about twenty green uniformed men marching behind the Patriotes flag in a parade. Six men stepped out of the crowd and fell in just behind the flag and then, as if on command, each of them lifted the hems of their green T-shirts and tucked the shirts behind pistols that were shoved into the top of their pants. They walked for two blocks, then covered the guns and left the parade.
Vanier hadn’t noticed, but Alex was standing behind him watching the screen.
“Assholes.”
“What?” asked Vanier, turning around.
“Those guys. They’re all over the place.”
“The Patriotes?”
“No. Militias. Militias are all over the place.” Alex sat down on the couch. “In the US, the rest of Canada. They’re guys who can’t let go. Maybe they have a point, you know. But most of them just miss the status. Overseas, these guys were more important than they’d ever been in their lives. They carried guns and got respect. Yeah, it was only because people were scared of them, but they loved it. And then they come home and they’re nothing. Worse than nothing. Regular people are embarrassed by veterans, and the military brass thinks we’re just a burden.”
Vanier knew it was true. He’d seen it himself. We can send kids off to get themselves killed, but we treat them like crap when they get home. Shit, most employers won’t hire veterans because they think they are unstable.
“We came home broken or mad, mad-angry, that is. There aren’t many come home normal. The angry ones join the militias. The broken ones… they just get more broken.” His voice trailed off. Then, “So why are you looking at this stuff?”
Vanier explained how he thought the Patriotes might have something to do with Legault’s murder.
“Good luck to them,” said Alex.
“What?”
“You heard. You said it yourself. This Legault was a scumbag, a drug dealer.”
“Whatever he was, it’s not right. Nobody deserves that. That’s why we have laws.”
“And we all must obey the law, right? Canadian values, right?”
“Don’t mock it.”
“Canadian values are a myth, Dad. Why was I in Afghanistan?”
“To help liberate the country from a bunch of barbarians. Build a better place for the people.”
As soon as he said it, he realized how ridiculous it sounded. They were sent to Afghanistan to get rid of an unfriendly government and replace it with a friendly one. And if the only friends you could find were a corrupt gang of thieves and killers who would support whoever paid them enough, well, so be it.
“That’s bullshit, Dad, and you know it. We lost 160 Canadians. The Americans lost over two thousand. Why? To put that gangster Karzai in power and keep him there.”
Vanier didn’t have an answer. It wasn’t his job to justify Canada’s foreign policy. That policy was brewed in the same filthy cauldron that had allowed Canadian governments to decide which corrupt gang could brutalize its people and which would be condemned as outlaw states. You can’t have domestic values and foreign values.
“So don’t ask me to feel sorry for a drug dealer when I know people who’ve lost limbs to keep drug dealers in power in Afghanistan. There are too many good people to worry about. Drug dealers get killed. It goes with the territory.”
Alex walked off to his bedroom, and Vanier returned to the screen and continued to dig into the Patriotes. Montpetit was a baby warlord trying to manoeuvre into a position where the authorities would have to treat him like just another player in society. If the Patriotes could get strong enough, the politicians would embrace Montpetit with the usual, compromising flexibility that allows politicians to forgive the past atrocities of the newly powerful.
Vanier understood the strategy, and how the hungry, homeless, or simply poor could ignore the military trappings to receive a handout. The Patriotes were digging themselves deeply into the fabric of Hochelaga, becoming as normal and indispensable as garbage pick-up.
He clicked through a series of photos of a Patriotes’ summer camp. The caption said that each summer the group organized four one-week camps for underprivileged kids. The photos showed kids having fun outdoors, canoeing, swimming, rushing over obstacle courses, and doing target practice with hunting rifles. It was like the Boy Scouts on steroids, and the Colonel was everywhere, surrounded by smiling children.
Midnight’s not late when you’ve nothing to do and nowhere to go in the morning. Vanier was driving east on Sainte-Catherine near Moreau Street, the edge of what Wallach had called the zone of tolerance. Clutches of girls stood every half block watching the traffic for customers. He found a parking spot, got out, and started walking. The only places open were massage parlours, strip clubs, and the occasional dépanneur. The gaps in between were boarded-up storefronts. It was the kind of seedy dissipation you might expect in a third-world port.
The massage parlours were all alike, with a small reception area in front, and a door leading to the business cubicles in back. They could have been chiropodists except for the signage; one was running a special: No Frills Rub and Tug – $35. Only the strip bars made an effort, with neon signs and high-definition pictures of women who had never been to Canada, never mind Hochelaga. He pulled open the door to a bar called The Gentleman’s Club, pushed past heavy velvet curtains, and blinked in the darkness.
A waitress in a skimpy French Maid costume approached, smiling. “Table?”
Vanier looked around. “I’ll sit at the bar.”
It was a quiet night. There was only one other guy at the bar. He had his back to the stage, but was staring into the giant mirror against the wall to see what he was missing. Vanier sat at the far end, back against the wall, where he could see the whole club. He ordered a Jameson.
The DJ station was against the side wall behind a circular stage that jutted out into the center of the room. The woman on stage was coming to the end of her set piece. Vanier knew the drill, all clothes on for the first song, top off for the second, and naked for the third. She was on the third song, riding a white rug, not even trying to look interested.
On one of the tables near the stage, a bunch of young American students were sh
aring beer from a pitcher, trying their best to look nonchalant with a naked stripper at eye level grinding to “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” At the other table, an old guy in his seventies was nursing a beer, staring hard at the stage, making an effort to commit the image to memory.
As Vanier’s eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he could pick out the other patrons scattered around the room in shadows, some paying for waitresses to gyrate on portable pedestals and lean their breasts over them.
The barman was leaning on the bar reading a newspaper. When he finally looked up, Vanier gestured for another. The barman reached for Vanier’s glass.
“Don’t bother. The Inspector’s leaving.”
Vanier turned to see Paul Brasso standing beside him with a bouncer.
“Where’s your boss, Corporal? It is Corporal, isn’t it? Corporal Brasso.”
“You’re leaving.”
“The Patriotes running strip clubs, now? Or are you just here to do some of that charitable work your boss was talking about?”
“I said you’re leaving.”
The bouncer grinned.
“He looks like he’s drunk. Drunk and looking for a fight.”
“So what’s it to be, Inspector? I would really like it if you refused to leave so we could help you out.”
The bouncer laughed.
“Yeah. Me too.”
Vanier was on his feet.
“One day, Brasso. One day.”
Nine
When he got the call from the Colonel to sue the city, Pierre Dufrene started thinking about another press conference. He liked the idea of appearing as the crusading lawyer protecting the weak against the oppressor. All Barbeau would have to do would be to tell his story of police brutality; another citizen subjected to arbitrary abuse by an out-of-control police force. But when he remembered Barbeau’s previous outing, he realized he wasn’t press conference material. After the first interview, Dufrene had serious doubts about even taking him on as a client. He did it for the Colonel, not Barbeau. Trouble was, the kid thought he was giving the orders, and he expected Dufrene to do what he was told.
