October 1970

by Louis Hamelin

  “If you read this article correctly, you’ll find proof that at least one man among Travers’s kidnappers was a secret agent, and thus that the entire kidnapping was a hoax. Perhaps one of the most elaborate traps in the history of police provocation …”

  Langlais stares at Fred’s hand on the photocopy.

  “And you invented a father with Alzheimer’s,” the director of Deer Park finally says, “to tell me this story?”

  “Yup,” Fred replies.

  “And now, what are you going to do about it?”

  “My father?”

  “No, the story …”

  “Ah. Not much. I’m neither a historian nor a journalist. What I do is closer to hermeneutics than anything else: I interpret texts. From a documentary point of view, I’m not sure my story wouldn’t crumble under pressure …”

  “I understand.”

  “The best thing would be to write a novel. But, you know, I’ve got two kids, a girlfriend, a dog, a cat, and all the rest.”

  “Good luck,” Langlais tells him, offering his hand.

  They’re standing on the balcony-terrace of the residence, flooded in afternoon light and birdsong. On a chaise longue, further off, an old man in a bathrobe is working on a crossword. Frederic shakes the offered hand.

  “If everything I said were true, would you tell me?”

  “No,” the director answers, and smiles.

  At the forest edge, at the bottom of the hilly field, where fresh new grass is growing, Frederic finally sees one.

  A deer.

  He brakes, turns his warning lights on, and backs up, stopping on the shoulder. He looks again, and the animal is there, observing him, against a background of greens and browns, ears alert, aware of every sound, the movement of the breeze. Just as Fred is about to open the door, the animal stomps the ground three times with his hoof as a warning then bounds off, undulating toward the woods. Fugitive elegance, white tail in the wind, deer in flight, regaining the woods, the shadows, the brush. The cover.

  THE DEATH OF COCO

  THE SMALL FARM IS FALLING apart, the fields around it lying fallow, asters and goldenrod growing up to the windowsills. Fat Coco will never be a farmer, any more than he’ll be a global navigator. The writing is on the wall, and in the long line of pure Colombian that he straightens on the table with a Gillette razor blade. Dirty pizza boxes and empty beer bottles jam up the kitchen in the small house bought with a suitcase full of cash. On the table, between the large metal Drum tobacco tin and the bag of Humpty Dumpty chips, is a torn envelope and, next to it, a letter from Commissioner Lavergne, the special investigator assigned by the Parti Québécois government to shed light on the events of October, demanding that he testify. Coco’s line of coke starts around eight centimetres from the bottom of the page and drags on toward the edge of the dirty green melamine table, a good ten centimetres long. Cardinal sniffs it all in one go, with a morbid concentration and a touch of the soft quivering of resigned pleasure. He’s put on some weight, greying at the temples. His face has less character, a dirty T-shirt covers his belly. His heart pounds, his eyes float in old memories of things that once were but are no more.

  If it weren’t for the patchy beard, the double chin would not have looked out of place on a Vatican banker’s face.

  There’s a tractor in the yard, an old Massey Ferguson that hasn’t seen action for a long time. Next to the tractor, a car has been parked, a real boat. A Lincoln Continental Mark II in mint condition, a true collector’s item, looking like it just drove off the assembly line, same as the one of his youth. Except it’s black.

  BERNARD SAINT-LAURENT

  THE MOST FAMOUS GARBAGE COLLECTOR in print media, L. G. Laflèche, was looking at a young man who had introduced himself as Bernard Saint-Laurent. He was intrigued. Officially an activist in the PQ, Saint-Laurent had, before his own eyes, picked up the phone and conversed with Colonel Bob Lapierre, a key player in the Liberal Party. There’d been a question of an assignment, and the Colonel had promised to call him back.

  Looking satisfied, Saint-Laurent, who’d been the one to ask for a meeting with Laflèche, had hung up with a smile. The newsroom was buzzing around them. So Saint-Laurent was one of the Colonel’s agents? Laflèche was wary, sensing a trap.

  The journalist ran a hand through his hair.

  “I don’t get it, what are you playing at?”

  140 RUE COLLINS

  THE RCMP GUYS TOOK CARE of the logistics. They were the experts. The others, like Bobby, were there to keep an eye out for trouble and avoid unpleasant surprises. They had placed men on each side of the street, as well as on the neighbouring street, Savane, where it intersected with Collins, and even farther down on both sides of the road. They’d joked about dressing up an agent as a cow and placing him in the field. But the small street was quiet, or as Bobby said: “Dead as a doornail.” When he quit yammering for no reason on his walkie-talkie and looked up, he saw, on the other side of the street, through the living-room window, the uninhabited house. In early September, it had been used as a surveillance post by the Combatants, so they could keep an eye out for the scumbags’ meetings. And now they were in the house next door, the same sort of people. If the infection kept spreading, it would take over the entire neighbourhood.

  He looked up, trying to understand what the man across the street was doing, standing on the kitchen table, head toward the ceiling. Maybe he could learn something instead of standing there doing nothing. He saw the man drill a hole in the ceiling, stick his hand in the opening, and place a microphone. Then, he got off the stepladder, moved it a little, and made another hole, passed the wire though the ceiling into another hole in the hall, and continued on this way to the bathroom. Once there, the RCMP man drilled a hole in the skylight and passed the wire right through it to connect to, Bobby guessed, the transmitter. Then he would probably pass the antenna through the skylight, to ensure a good signal to the house next door, but Bobby couldn’t be sure since his line of sight, limited by the bathroom door, only gave him a view of the stepladder, with two feet sticking out. Another man was covering the wires with masking tape before plastering over every hole, leaving no trace of them being there. Bobby had been looking at this work for a while now, thinking the man did his job well. Anything that needs to be done, he thought, needs to be done well. It was like having his father’s voice in his head.

  TEXAS

  AFTER DROPPING JEAN-PAUL OFF AT the edge of town, near the motel where he was to meet with his contact, and then driving Ms. Lafleur and their youngest daughter to the mall, Gode and René drove to Dealey Plaza, where, it was said, time had stopped on a certain day in November 1963. They parked the car a bit farther off and sat on the grass of the most famous knoll in the universe to smoke a cigarette. Elm Street faced them. The Texas School Book Depository was a bit higher up, the pergola at their back, the fence to their right, the viaduct and train tracks below them.

  “He was farther away than I thought,” René said, looking up at the sixth floor of the book depository.

  “He could have shot him straight on, when the limousine was coming down Houston Street and practically stopped as it turned … Why wait until it drove past him?”

  “He was a sharpshooter.”

  “He was not, not for a goddamn second.”

  “Maybe there were other shooters. But we’ll never know.”

  “No, but the proof of the conspiracy isn’t here, it’s at Dealey Plaza. The proof of the conspiracy is Jack Ruby. He’s the guy who tries to make the pigeon disappear. The proof is the cover-up, you see?’

  “Sounds like you’ve thought about this before …”

  “Maybe I have. Is there really a single person on the planet who believes that Ruby shot Oswald for the First Lady’s pretty eyes?”

  “I don’t know, but it gets me thinking: remember what Jean-Paul told us about Jackie?”

  “No, what?”

  “He said that this one summer, Francoeur tried to convi
nce him to kidnap Jackie Kennedy as she was fishing on the Cascapédia, in the Gaspésie.”

  “Really?”

  FREELANCING?

  WHEN MILES MARTINEK, REDUCED BY age, knees blown and needing to hold himself up with crutches, showed him his collection of firearms, a couple of pieces in particular impressed Nihilo: the .30-30 Centenary Winchester, with a lever action mechanism and silver incrustations; and the .410 handgun with sawn-off barrels. And, most of all, the walking stick–carbine, that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a James Bond flick.

  “What calibre?” Samuel asked him.

  “Oh, that … A special calibre. Don’t look for another like it, you won’t find it. Comes from the States. Back when I used to freelance for the CIA …”

  “When you used to what?”

  MAÎTRE MARIO BRIEN (1942–2008)

  SAM EXPECTED TO MEET A bunch of greying FLQers at the lawyer’s funeral, but he certainly didn’t think he’d end up, once the ceremonies had ended, nursing a beer with Gilbert Massicotte, the former member of the antiterrorist squad. What was he doing there?

  “You know, you meet in court. Shoot the shit a bit.”

  “Are you telling me that Brien was a CATS source?”

  Massicotte’s smile brought out the wrinkles on his face, which had been carved all the deeper during his recent battle with cancer.

  “Shoot the shit, that’s all I said …”

  “Sure. But when you think about it, Brien, may the Devil keep his soul, clearly knew the shifty role your cousin Rénald played, the supposed chicken delivery man. In reality, he hid an infiltration mission. Wasn’t for nothing that you told me to call him …”

  “Rénald was an actual chicken delivery man who got caught up in the story by chance.”

  “Sure. Of course he was.”

  “I’m telling you.”

  “Have you ever,” Samuel asked, “heard of unemployed people setting forest fires up north?”

  “Yes, no, maybe. Why?”

  “Because I’ve been trying for the longest time to understand how the money that was seized at Saint-Colomban, you know, from the holdup at the university, how that money ended up in the pockets of kidnappers in the summer of 1970. As if the cops had placed it back in circulation …”

  “And why would we have done that?”

  “Because you need criminals. Without them you’re nothing. You’d never have the opportunity to show your worth. And when you know about them already, it makes it easier to know exactly who you’re supposed to arrest. So, from your point of view, known criminals should be encouraged, no?”

  “Well, goddamn, aren’t you a clever little monkey …”

  ON THE GROUND

  ROLAND LANDRY, THIRTY-NINE YEARS OLD, and young Lessard, both active agents of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, backed up a step as the trunk popped open. The moment before, Landry had taken the key out of the Chevrolet’s ignition, and he’d just used it to open the trunk.

  They examined its contents in silence.

  “Poor guy,” Roland murmured.

  “Is he …”

  “Without a doubt. Is he your first?”

  “Yes …”

  They both heard the sound of the military jeep coming from the base behind them, and turned to meet it.

  “What are we going to do with this?” Lessard asked, meaning the trunk.

  “Let’s not close it just yet, these guys are going to want to see what’s inside …”

  Landry slipped the Chevrolet’s key in his pocket and reached in for his badge. He was going to show it to the two soldiers before shaking their hands.

  A BEAUTIFUL DAY

  A BREEZE BLEW THROUGH THE mosquito net. Samuel looked up from the Fabio Martinez novel he was reading on the bunk bed, far from the reach of the cucarachas, army ants, and scorpions. At the window stood the ghost, like an emanation from the iridescent saline spatter that rose from the unending ocean. Lavoie was wearing a small sky-blue cotton hat and an open Hawaiian shirt. Around his neck, a flower collar had replaced the ichorous furrow the religious chain had left in his flesh. He carried a golf bag over one shoulder.

  Sam pushed the mosquito net out of the way.

  “Would you please tell me …”

  “I thought I’d stop by to say hello.”

  “And where are you going, exactly?”

  “I heard there’s a twenty-seven-hole course that isn’t too bad at Barra de Navidad, near Manzanillo in the Colima. I’ll start there. After that … I might try Brazil. I hear that even Amazonia has a few courses now. I met some golfers who’d been bitten by venomous snakes while looking for their ball on the woods. Jaguars are another hazard …”

  “You’re pulling my leg …”

  “How have you been?” Lavoie asked, after a pause, pointing to Sam’s arm in a sling.

  “Except for the fact that I’ve got to hold the book and turn the pages with the same hand, not too bad. You? How are your hands?”

  “Good as new, more or less,” the ghost replied, showing his scars. “I just need to find my putting form.”

  Steps sounded on the wooden ladder that led to the room, and the ghost was startled.

  “Well, then. I’ll let you get back to it … You know what we should do? Toss the old pigskin around one of these days. When your arm is better, I mean.”

  “Around here, people go more for frisbee … But sure, that’d be fun …”

  “In any case … thanks,” Lavoie said.

  Sam opened his mouth, but the cat seemed to have got his tongue.

  “No, no … It’s me who …”

  As the door opened, Lavoie lifted a friendly hand, thumb up, before flying out right over the coconut trees with a light clacking of woods and irons. The golf bag seemed to be as light as a feather.

  Marie-Québec, in her short cotton dress of whatever colour, came in with a coffee, black, very sweet, in a small white cup. In her other hand, papaya pieces set on a plate.

  “Marie … Am I dreaming?”

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “You’re up and out of bed before me. And you don’t even look as if you’re in a coma!”

  “Must be Mexico. What are you reading?”

  “A Colombian … Marie?”

  “What?”

  “Do Dora for me, please.”

  “Stop it!”

  “Dora Dora Dora.”

  “Okay, okay, fine.”

  Dora

  Perhaps. It’s sublime love, solitary and pure, he’s the one who burns me clean. Sometimes, for a moment, I ask myself if love is something altogether different, if it can cease to be a monologue, and if there isn’t an answer, sometimes. I imagine this, you see: the sun shines, heads bend softly, the heart loses its pride, arms open …

  Climbing down the path toward the sea, she met a young Mexican, dark brown face, very white teeth, holding an orange. His face turned toward her as if she were an apparition.

  “Hola,” she says.

  He offers her the orange without a word, as if this gesture were the only thing that came to his mind, the only possible thing to do. She took the fruit, thanked him with a nod, and continued on her way.

  “This is where I want to live,” she told herself. The orange smiled in her hand.

  She had just removed her sandals and was beginning to walk toward the sea when, from the corner of her eye, she saw the old Indian woman on the edge of the beach, bent under her daily burden, her lower back crushed under the weight of the enormous pile of wood tied to her forehead.

  Marie-Québec walked toward her; she’d been preparing her sentence for a long time.

  “Con permiso, señora … Déjame ayudarla.”

  The woman turned to her, and god only knows what she saw. Marie-Québec dropped the bag filled with her belongings to the sand at her feet. To lessen the friction of the rope, the old woman tied her own sweat-stained scarf around the young woman’s forehead. She then helped her slip under the weight, balancin
g it on her back. And as Marie-Québec began to rumble forward, the old woman bent down behind her and, one hand on her ruined back, held up the multicoloured cotton bag.

  And the weight, on her back, the weight of the wood, the weight, felt good. As Marie-Québec bent forward, sand to her ankles, and walked, it was as if the weight had always been there. Like the heat of the sun, and the cool breeze on her face, coming from the sea to rise against the cliff face and keep rising, keep rising up toward the heavens, where the magnificent frigate birds circled slowly on the thermals, effortlessly, on invisible highways of warm air, where vultures also flew, the carrions eaters, light as air. A beautiful day.

  EPILOGUE

  ÏLE AU FESSES,

  JUNE 24, 1974

  BONNARD AND BRANLEQUEUE, NOW GOOD friends, got there in the crooner’s big Riviera in time to witness the christening. Coco, who’d never been a resentful man, came to greet them near the entrance to the launch site. He was hyperexcited, already high as a kite. He shook Chevalier’s hand.

  “So? Still writing?”

  “Always. And you, from what I hear, you’ve been deep in Mao’s Little Red Book, eh? The Great Helmsman?”

  “Ah, shut up,” Coco answered, smiling.

  The Patriot’s nose was already in the water. Chevalier was impressed despite himself: it’s not every day that you see a schooner sail on its maiden voyage.

  And since the ceremony was held among good Quebec pals, a bottle of beer blessed the ship’s hull instead of champagne. Coco, in water all the way to his bulging stomach, did the honours. Then he gesticulated wildly to the driver, who slowly began backing up toward the water while the two-master slowly slid into the sea. Applause.

  The Patriot was afloat. Almost immediately, it began to heel, and …

  Coco, in the muddy water up to his neck, was floundering near his schooner, which, masts and all, was itself foundering.