“You put me in the spot and I didn’t want to be rude.”
“Standing me up wasn’t rude?”
“I had no choice.”
“Did anyone tell you not to talk to me?”
“You have no right to bother me like this. Now please excuse me,” she said. “I must leave for work.”
It was exactly what I was hoping she’d say, because we were just pulling up in front of her brownstone. We only had to wait three or four minutes before the second-floor door opened and a woman in a tan raincoat came down the wrought-iron stairs, holding onto the railing. I got out and said, “Good morning,” while she still had her head down.
She jumped back, clutching her purse to her body, then recognized my voice and said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake, it’s you. Why don’t you leave me alone?”
“It’s not my nature.”
“I will call the police if you keep on harassing me.”
“This isn’t harassment, trust me.”
“Are you threatening me, then?”
“I’m asking you to keep your word. You said you would help. Just tell me what Sam Adler wanted.”
“If I do …”
“What?”
“You will leave me alone?”
“I promise.”
“And you won’t tell anyone?”
“No,” I said. “Including Laurent Lortie.”
Her jaw fell. “But if—”
“If what? If I already know he’s involved?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Now look,” she said. “I never mentioned his name. Or any names. It would be against the law for me to do that. All I am going to tell you is this: Sam Adler asked for my help in a retrouvaille—a reunification. He wanted to connect a birth mother with a child who had been adopted and needed help to approach this person.”
“What kind of help?”
“You can’t just walk up to someone in this province and say, ‘I know you are adopted, do you want to meet your first mother?’ That is against the law. You have to go through an agency like ours, that has the experience to handle it without causing trauma to the adopted person.”
“Sam knew the birth parents?”
“Apparently. I contacted the adopted person in question and as far as I was concerned, the matter was concluded. I did not hear from him again or from anyone connected with it. And that is all I have to say to you, now or at any other time. If you call me again, or wait outside my home like this, I will call the police, I promise.”
When I got back in the car, Ryan said, “Get anything out of her?”
“A couple of things. One, I’m sure it was Laurent Lortie who pressured her into missing yesterday’s meeting. Which leads to two: Sammy knew something about Lortie’s family that Lortie didn’t want made public.”
“The question being what.”
“Yes.”
“What next?”
“You won’t come.”
“Cops?” he said. “Mounties.”
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police local headquarters was in Westmount, far enough west that Boulevard René-Lévesque reverted to its original name, Dorchester Boulevard. Ryan went for coffee around the corner on Ste-Catherine and said he’d wait for my call.
Bobby’s contact was an officer named Aubrey Hamilton. Tall, slender, near but not past forty, with fine blond hair in a cut that made me think of a British civil servant. His office had a good-size window facing south; it was so brightly lit from the outside that he needed no lamps or overhead fixture.
“So,” he said, “what’s your interest in the Haddads?”
“It’s more like they took an interest in me.”
“Do tell.”
I did. I told Hamilton about being followed by Mohammed al-Haddad from Les Tapis Kabul and our subsequent bloody encounter at Marché Jean-Talon. He listened without taking any notes of any kind, which led me to wonder whether we were being recorded.
When I was done, Hamilton grinned and said, “You knocked him out?”
“Cold. Along with someone named Faisal, same last name.”
“One of his brothers.”
“How many does he have?”
“There’s four of them. Mohammed, Faisal, Omar and Sayeed. And knocking two out? That’s not going to go unanswered.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“You want to know who you’re up against.”
“Always.”
“Okay. Before I get to Mohammed, let me go back a generation or two.” He stretched his back with his hands pressing in on his spine, then exhaled and sat back again, using the heel of his shoe to open a lower desk drawer so he could rest his foot on it. “Fucking back. I spend way too much time on my butt. Okay. You ever see Lawrence of Arabia?”
“Sure.”
“Remember the tribal Arabs? The British would bribe them to blow up Ottoman train tracks. They were basically brigands and thieves. Hostage takers. Saboteurs. Badass warlord types who looted what they could and killed when they wanted to. Did very well for themselves as those things went.”
“But?”
“They’re Sunnis, not Alawites. Even though Sunnis make up three-quarters of the population in what’s now Syria, the regime that took power in 1970 is Alawite. Within a year of that, the Haddads took their cue to seek greener pastures elsewhere.”
“Why Montreal?”
“They needed an Arab community to exploit and Montreal’s was growing. It was mostly Lebanese here at the time, because of the French, but Salah figured he could lean on them.”
“Salah?”
“That’s the grandfather. Tough bastard. When he passed, his oldest son, Tariq, took over. And Mohammed is the oldest of Tariq’s four boys—he also has two daughters but they don’t count when it comes to business—so Mohammed’s being groomed for the corner office. He’s actually not bad for third-generation. No softie, that’s for sure. More the bull-in-a-china-shop type. Very built, likes to show it off.”
“I still knocked him out.”
“Good quote for your tombstone.”
I couldn’t help liking the guy. “So they’re extortionists? That’s it?”
He shrugged. “When Salah stepped off the boat here, drugs, prostitution, gambling—they were all spoken for by the Italians. He did better sticking to his own thing, among his own people. Same with Tariq and now Mohammed. He and his brothers work up and down L’Acadie Boulevard, Côte-Vertu, Grande Allée in Brossard, leaning on the small businesses. Shaking down new immigrants. We think he’s also pulled a few kidnappings for ransom, usually an Arab businessman liquid with cash, someone he can scare with a hot iron.”
“So why is he on my ass?”
Hamilton shrugged. “No idea.”
“And what’s your interest in him? If all he’s doing is shaking down local businesses, the Montreal police would be handling it, not the RCMP.”
“You an expert on jurisdiction? Let’s just say we run our own gang investigations. Part of our mandate.”
“Bobby told me you’re Counterterrorism.”
“He spoke loosely. I’m just an intelligence officer.”
I thought of the crude flyer the Lorties had showed me and asked, “Ever heard of something called the Quebec Muslim Liberation Front?”
“Nope. Who are they?”
“Laurent Lortie—the head of Québec aux Québécois—received a threat from them.”
Again, he made no note of it, not on paper. “What kind of threat?”
“Death to racists.”
“Hmm. The platform he’s putting out there, I’m surprised he hasn’t had more. I’ll check it out. We done now?”
“One more question. Has Mohammed al-Haddad ever been investigated for murder?”
Hamilton sat forward at his desk and put his elbows on the surface. “Not to my knowledge. Should he?”
“A journalist named Sammy Adler was killed a few weeks ago.”
&nbs
p; “Slammin’ Sammy? The columnist? Hell, I loved his stuff. What would Mohammed want with him?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“The way things work here,” Hamilton said, “is we gather intelligence. From dispensers just like you.”
“I told you what I know.”
“Not much that was new. Unless you have something that links Haddad to this murder.”
“Sammy was writing a story about the owners of the carpet store. It was supposed to be a fairly sympathetic profile, showing not all Afghans in Montreal are like that lunatic who burned his daughters. If Haddad is linked to them somehow, maybe Sammy found out something he shouldn’t have.”
“It could also mean nothing. They could be bringing in goods together.”
“What kind of goods?”
“Carpets,” he said. “What else would someone want from Afghanistan?”
“Heroin,” Ryan said. “You make it from poppies and Afghanistan is covered with them.”
“Did Mehrdad strike you as a heroin smuggler?”
“He’s already bringing in carpets from there. How hard can it be to throw in a few bricks of smack? And it’s not like the door ain’t open.”
“Which door?”
“Look, I’m not in my old life anymore, you know that. But I stay informed. Have you followed what’s been happening to the Rizzuto family?”
“Not really.”
“They were running the smack trade here. Basically owned it. Only the last few years, almost every last one of them was shot to pieces or grabbed off the street, fate unknown. Nicolo, Nick Junior, Agostino Cuntrera, Paolo Renda. All gone. So if someone was looking to muscle in on that business, like I said, that door’s been opened.”
“Only one way to find out,” I said. “Back to the carpet store.”
Ryan checked his GPS, then headed west to the Décarie Expressway, which would take us north to Ville St-Laurent. The clouds were heavy again, promising more rain. I didn’t like the big outdoor festival’s chances of getting through Friday unscathed.
I’d had my phone turned off while I met with Aubrey Hamilton. I checked it to see if there were any messages: nothing from Jenn yet. Or anyone else. No one called to confess to Sammy’s murder, finger the culprits or reveal a previously unknown dark side of his character.
We were on Sherbrooke Street, a bastion of English-speaking shoppers, most of them old enough to count their remaining sunsets, when blue lights flashed behind us. I looked in the side mirror and saw an unmarked car, the lights flashing in the grille. Ryan pulled over and turned off the engine.
“Look who it is,” I said.
“Who?”
“René Chênevert. Paquette’s partner.”
“The asshole?”
“Yup. All the way here in Westmount, making traffic stops.”
Chênevert took his time coming up to the driver’s side, showing us his swagger. When he got there, Ryan took his time powering down the window.
“Permis de conduire et les enregistrements du véhicule,” Chênevert said, holding out his hand.
Ryan answered him in the fastest, most guttural Italian I’d ever heard.
Chênevert said, “Quoi?”
Ryan said, “Ma che dice ’sta paparella?”
“Votre permis. Vos papiers. Maintenant.”
Ryan shrugged. “Non parlo francese. Sugno un turista di Ontario, mangiacake.”
Chênevert’s complexion began to redden. He breathed out loudly through his nostrils—letting us know he was put upon—and said to me, “Dites-lui de me donner son permis et les enregistrements.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t speak Italian.”
He brushed back the vents of his sport jacket so we could see the pistol holstered butt first on his left hip. “Tu penses que c’est une blague, là? Que je suis comédien?”
Ryan looked at me, all innocence, and said, “Boh?”
“I think he said he’s just joking with us.” Then I leaned across to look at Chênevert and said, “Don’t suppose you know how to say that in Italian?”
“I am not joking wit’ you,” he hissed. “Tell him to give me the fuckin’ licence now or I’m gonna have your car towed to the farthest lot I can find.”
I said to Ryan, “Ah. Licencia di conduira.” Having no clue if that was even close.
“Patente di guida?” Ryan said. “E perchè non l’ha detto a prima vota, chista faccia di minchia?”
He got out his wallet and handed Chênevert his licence—someone’s licence, at any rate. Chênevert snatched it and stomped back to his car.
“What was the last thing you said?” I asked.
“Something along the lines of, ‘Why didn’t he ask for it in the first place, the prick?’ ”
“Good thing he didn’t understand.”
“Like I give a shit.”
“What’s going to happen when he runs that licence?” I asked.
“You underestimating me?”
“Never.”
“The same thing’s gonna happen that always happens. It’s gonna come up clean and a perfect match for the registration.”
“You are Al Spezza and Al Spezza is you.”
“Certamente.”
Chênevert made us wait a good ten minutes while he ran the licence. When he returned, he came curbside to my window and tossed Ryan’s papers in my lap. “You think you are funny guys,” he said. “You want to make me look stupid.”
The obvious line there was to say he needed no help in this regard. But I swallowed it. No point in making him so mad he’d do something we’d all regret.
“You’re a long way from Homicide,” I said.
“My work takes me everywhere.”
“Your boss said I wasn’t important enough to follow.”
“My partner doesn’t tell me what to do, okay?”
“Qualcuno dovrebbe,” Ryan said. Which meant, he later told me, “Somebody should.”
“Your friend Bobby was right about him,” Ryan said. “A trou de cul. An asshole. A stronzo.”
“But what’s he up to? Why follow us around?”
“See what we know.”
“Why? Can they be that hard up they need to latch onto us?”
“He could be in someone’s pocket,” Ryan said. “When I was in the game, we had a dozen like him on the payroll. Hamilton cops, Toronto cops, OPP officers. Didn’t matter. They all get paid shit and most of them want to live beyond it.”
“The question is, whose pocket? The Lorties?”
“The best possibility. It seems like the old man reached out to the adoption worker, told her not to talk to you. He could also have friends on the force.”
“He could. What about the Syrians?”
He shrugged. “I have a harder time picturing them and the stronzo together.”
“Me too.”
“But they did both follow us.”
We went through the Décarie Circle and headed north on Marcel-Laurin, past a modest mosque with a brown brick minaret. A knot of men stood outside talking, most wearing traditional dress: skullcaps, white trousers, long white blouses.
“How do you want to handle Mehrdad this time?” Ryan asked. “We gonna make nice or bust in and put a gun on him?”
“Let me ask nicely first.”
“We know this Syrian is into some kind of shit with him. Heroin or not, he was on us the minute we left there.”
“And again when we met Mehri.”
“Maybe your friend Sammy saw something there he shouldn’t have. Or heard something. Maybe some pillow talk with the sister.”
“Could be. So he finds out something, asks the wrong question and Mohammed muscles him out of his apartment and kills him.”
“But not right away. If all he wanted was to kill him, he could have put a bullet in him. A lot less sweat and risk than abducting, transporting and beating him to death.”
“Maybe Mohammed was trying to find out if he’d told anyone else.”
&
nbsp; “That makes more sense. Then he either goes too far, or decides to finish it the way he started.”
As we pulled up at the strip mall that housed Les Tapis Kabul, I said, “I’ll go in the front. You come in the back.”
“You want a gun?”
“No. You have enough for two.”
“That I do,” he said. “And unresolved marital issues eating my insides. People better listen to me good.”
CHAPTER 14
Why aren’t more people happy to see me? I’m a nice enough guy, my wit is sharp, my knowledge of world events adequate. My breath unburdened by halitosis.
Even so, Mehrdad Aziz’s face turned sour when he saw me come into the store, like someone had mixed lemonade in his toothpaste. He was alone at the counter, not a customer to be seen.
“You have the nerve to come back here?” he said.
“We never finished our talk.”
“We certainly did.”
“Then let’s start a new one,” I said. I locked the front door and flipped the Open sign to the side that said Closed.
“You can’t do that,” he said.
“I just did.”
He came around the counter, heading toward the door. I moved into his path and held out my palm. “Unless you want to wake up in a dental chair, I suggest we have a very quiet talk.”
“I am calling the police.”
“Make it the RCMP. They’re already interested in Mohammed al-Haddad.”
The mention of Mohammed’s name didn’t cause him to fall into paroxysms of fear, but it also didn’t go over his head. He called something over his shoulder, then he said to me, “You come here alone, you are one against three now. We’ll see what kind of talk we have.”
He was expecting his two associates to come out of the back, as they had yesterday. The door remained closed.
He called out again. No one came out of the stock area.
“Keep calling,” I said, moving closer. Now he backed away from me and got behind the counter, looking behind him, seeing no one coming to his aid.
“You put your hands on me again,” he said, “I will kill you.”
“I’m tougher than Sammy Adler. Much harder to kill.”
“I did not kill him.”
“Why not? He was trying to sleep with your unmarried sister. She might have dishonoured your family.”
Miss Montreal Page 14
