Montreal Noir

by John McFetridge

  “I’ll think on it.”

  III.

  A Solution, Perhaps

  I spent a fruitless day at the office catching up on paperwork from my last case—a missing dog, a hundred-dollar fee; does anyone dream of this for a living? But really I was turning over my grandfather’s puzzle. It’s a joke; it’s for real; he was losing it. All of these seemed equally plausible, and I felt dumb with the weight of it all.

  That evening I sat through a stiff dinner with my father and grandmother, both of them drinking their meal while I pushed lasagna noodles around on my plate. I felt like a failure, like my grandfather had finally asked something of me after a lifetime of giving, and I’d come up short.

  When we were done eating, I cleaned the dishes as my father escaped out the back door. Then my phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s Dr. Wheelbarrow.”

  “Oh, hello. Can you give me a second?”

  I ran up the stairs to my grandfather’s bedroom and closed the door behind me. Even though my grandmother was nearly deaf, some instinct told me she shouldn’t overhear whatever it was the good doctor had chosen to call me about.

  “I’m back,” I said.

  “I really shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Telling you this. He’s entitled to his privacy.”

  “But he wanted me to know.”

  “That’s the conclusion I’ve come to as well.”

  “So, there was something?”

  “Yes, though not what you think.”

  “What was it?”

  “He had some tests a couple months back. He had a blood clot in his lung. It wasn’t operable. It was only a matter of time before he died.”

  My stomach fell away. Is this what my grandfather meant? How could it be?

  “I’m sure I’m not the first person to say this to you, my dear,” the doctor continued, “but I think your grandfather was having a laugh, sending you that card. You see, he did know he was dying, and you know how he liked his little jokes.”

  “Yes, I see. Thank you.”

  I ended the call and threw the phone down next to me on the bed. I pulled the card out again. Looked at the misshapen 6 that kept it from being delivered to me on my birthday, two weeks before he died. What would I have thought if I’d received it on my actual birthday, as planned? I’d have laughed it off, called him, and told him that he only wished his life was so interesting.

  I looked at the books again on my grandfather’s bedside table. All that detective fiction, including one by his favorite, Agatha Christie, about Poirot’s last case. If memory served, Poirot murdered someone and then killed himself because he knew he was dying, and couldn’t think of another way of stopping the killer. I remembered how one of the first books my grandfather had given me as a teenager was another Christie classic, A Murder Is Announced, where an upcoming murder was advertised in the local paper.

  My grandfather was dying. As the doctor had said, he liked his little jokes.

  I picked up my phone and dialed a number.

  “Hey, Jane?” I said to my neighbor when she answered. “That card you gave me the other day, the one whose address was misdirected—you sure someone didn’t give that to you?”

  She hesitated, then laughed. “He said you’d figure it out!”

  “Who said?”

  “Your grandfather. What a sweet old man. He came to me about a month ago and asked me to hold onto that until I’d heard he died. Then to give it to you, and pretend it had been sitting in my mail for a few weeks. Said how much he liked puzzling out mysteries with you and he wanted to leave you one last one. Did I do something wrong? He said you’d find it fun.”

  I closed my eyes. “No, it’s fine. Fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  “He left you something else too.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah, hold on.” I heard the phone click down, followed by rustling. “Here it is. You want me to open it?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  An envelope ripped. “It says: Dearest girl, bravo. You’ll forgive your old granddad, now, won’t you? Love always, Grandpa.”

  I thanked her as the tears started to roll.

  Maybe now, I thought. Maybe now I can move on.

  IV.

  Motive

  “You actually thought someone killed Grandpa?” my brother said the next night huddled under one of the funeral umbrellas, sharing a cigarette. We were outside Grumman #78, an upscale taco place in a downscale location on Rue de Courcelle just below Westmount. My mouth tasted like margarita salt and stale tobacco. I passed my brother the butt.

  “You don’t think it could happen?”

  “Not really. I mean, why?”

  “Money, obviously,” I said. “Grandpa’s loaded.”

  My brother looked amused. He’d suggested we get dinner in order to escape from the hotel room, which was bad code for escaping from his wife and kids. Perhaps this attitude explained why I remained childless myself.

  “So who were you thinking had done it?” he asked. “Couldn’t be Grandma. She inherits everything either way, and it’s not like she didn’t already have everything she wanted.”

  “What about Dad?” I asked. I hadn’t let myself get this far in my thinking, not before I knew it was all a joke. I’d wanted to make sure he was actually murdered first. Because if he was, the list of suspects was nasty, brutish, and short.

  “But he’s going to inherit too, isn’t he?” my brother said. “When Grandma dies?”

  “Knowing her, that might take awhile. Besides, Dad has debts.” I passed on my turn at the cigarette. “I think he might owe a lot of money, in fact.”

  “To who?”

  “He’s been gambling again, and maybe doing drugs.”

  “Please. Our dad?”

  My brother always saw the bright side of things. He moved away when he was nineteen, before he’d ever taken the time to figure out where our dad disappeared to at night or why our school fees were never paid on time. My brother had also not walked into a seedy bar and seen our dad hunched over his stool, yet still in full command of every regular’s name in the place. My brother hadn’t had the embarrassing experience of his new partner already knowing his father, because he’d been cleaning up dad’s puke for years in the after-hours place where he ended his evenings.

  “You don’t live here. You don’t know,” I told him. “And with Grandpa out of the way, he could control the money through Grandma. She doesn’t have a head for that sort of stuff, always left it to Grandpa.”

  “This is all just theoretical, right?”

  “Of course. Don’t worry about it.”

  My brother threw the cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out with his toe. “Business has been slow recently, hasn’t it? Grandpa wanted to give you one last project. That’s all.”

  “He did.”

  “One last project,” my brother repeated as he opened the door. “That sounds like him.”

  I followed him inside and my nostrils filled with the smell of fresh fish tacos. I could already taste my next margarita.

  V.

  A Deep Corner of a Dark Bar

  After dinner, my brother walked me up de Courcelle. We stopped outside the Bar de Courcelle, our hands shoved in our pockets, warming them against the night. It was about five minutes from raining, and the air felt wet.

  “You going in?” he asked.

  “Probably.”

  “You think that’s a good idea?”

  “Probably not.”

  “All righty then. You need me to come with?”

  “Better off alone.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Say hi to Sam for me.”

  I faked a laugh and pulled the door open.

  The Bar de Courcelle was home to twenty-something hipsters and music I couldn’t identify. But my ex, Sam, worked behind the bar, and tonight I couldn’t resist my desire for company.

  I squeezed
between two burly guys with beards and knit beanies, and placed my hands on the smoothed-down bar top. I still felt the absence of my wedding ring; I’d taken it off nine months ago, but the skin underneath remained stubbornly puckered and pale. My heart felt that way too.

  “And what can I serve you, young lady?” Sam asked in a two-beer voice, without looking me directly in the eye.

  “You still working that line?” I said.

  A smile flashed when he realized who was speaking. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Just what every girl wants to hear. Whiskey back.”

  He grabbed the bottle and poured the shot. “Sorry to hear about your grandfather.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I always liked him. I should’ve called.”

  “Probably.”

  I took the drink and tossed it down. Sam had the bottle ready to pour me another as I set the glass back down. I resisted the temptation to place my hand on his forearm, feel the warmth of his body travel through me.

  He watched me for a moment, a look of concern crossing his face.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Did you know your father’s been in here?”

  My heart sank, barreling past the effects of the whiskey.

  “He has? When?”

  Sam was leaning on the bar now, focusing only on me, which was always dangerous. “The man just lost his father, jujube. Cut him some slack.”

  “The man didn’t give a shit about his father. What is it? Cards? Numbers?”

  Sam wiped the bar with the towel he usually kept across his shoulder. “I hooked him up with a card game a few nights back.”

  I set my mouth in a grim line. “Which game?”

  VI.

  Walk of Shame

  In the early glow of morning, I found a left-behind pair of panties in the back of Sam’s underwear drawer. He lay flat on his back, his arms flung over his eyes to keep out the light slanting through his bare windows.

  In my younger days, I would’ve slammed the drawer loudly, made sure I did something to wake him up, provoke some kind of reaction. But I knew how that scene went. He’d be distant and wanting me out of there, or he’d be affectionate, tell me to move back in. Either way, it ended the same. Too much drink, too much bed; nothing that could survive outside these four walls in the full, bright glare of life.

  And I was so tired of the dark.

  I got dressed in the living room and twisted my index finger and thumb once around the puckered skin on my left hand and left soundlessly.

  Outside, I stood on Sherbrooke, staring at the mountain. Some of the maples near the top were already starting to change color. I knew from experience that the trail of red, orange, and yellow would make its way down the hill until it was a beautiful riot of color.

  My grandfather loved the fall. When I was small, he used to rake huge piles of leaves for my brother and me to jump in. I can still remember the smell of wet earth and slightly rotten grass. The way the leaves were wet and slippery. The snap of the enormous orange garbage bags as he opened them, threatening to scoop us up with the rake.

  I swiped my tears away and turned north.

  I wasn’t sure what was driving me. Perhaps I felt like I owed my grandfather, who always took my father’s behavior badly. If his death had caused my father to teeter off the wagon, I owed it to Grandpa to hoist him back up.

  My first stop was the poker game Sam had set him up with. I was fairly sure my dad had left it only moments before he’d shown up at the graveside, and promptly beetled back there as soon as he could. These games were mobile, and went on for days. The janitor who swept the floors at the McAuslan Brewery—and played bouncer for the game that took place in the basement, among the brass vats and empty bottles—was open to the twenty I pressed into his hand.

  And so I followed my father’s trail across the city.

  He wasn’t in the flour-dust room above St-Viateur Bagel. As I chewed my still-hot poppy seed bagel, the man who ran the poker game there said it had been awhile since he’d seen my father, which could mean anything from several months to several hours. Time was money, piled up or torn down. Everything else paled in comparison.

  My next stop was above the Portuguese chicken place on Rachel—Rotisserie Romados. As I walked up the stairs, feeling the airborne fat coat my skin, I wondered why so many of these bootleg poker places were linked with some of the better food Montreal had to offer. Must be the ready-cash business, the perfect front for ill-gotten gains.

  A large man in a black T-shirt told me my father had been there overnight while I was wrestling with my past. He wouldn’t tell me if Dad was winning or losing, but I knew my father’s patterns well enough: if he was winning, nothing could get him out of his seat. So, he was losing, and wandering, hoping to find a lucky streak, imbued with that magical thinking that keeps gamblers coming back to the table.

  One more hand, one more card, and I’m made.

  I pulled my grandfather’s coat tight against my body as I stepped back out into the ever-present rain.

  VII.

  A Love Story

  It was coming on five p.m. by the time I made it back to Westmount. I found my grandmother in the living room, sipping a gin and tonic, a bowl of nuts and Chex mix on the chairside table. I noticed that her skin seemed papery under the lamp; she seemed so much older than the last time I’d looked properly.

  She was flipping through the day’s Gazette. I thought I heard her swear under her breath.

  “What’s that, Grandma?”

  “Bullshit,” she said, this time more clearly.

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard my grandmother swear before, and I wondered what the paper could possibly contain that would get her cursing. She hadn’t said a word since my grandfather died, her muteness a testament to her grief.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Nothing ever changes,” she said. “It’s all the same.”

  I sat down in the armchair next to her. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  She squinted in the way she did when she wasn’t sure she’d heard me. She’d been a beauty, my grandmother, in her youth. Even now, in her midnineties, traces of her beauty remained.

  “Where’ve you been?” she asked.

  “Wandering around, really.”

  She sniffed the air around me. “You smell like sin. Your father been gambling again?”

  I looked at the floor. Someone had left their muddy print on the rug. I added it to the mental list I was keeping of all the things we’d have to take over now that Grandpa was gone.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Don’t you lie to me, girl. You always were a terrible liar, even as a little thing.”

  “Did I lie often?”

  “All the damn time.”

  I smiled. This new, swearing version of my grandmother was a hoot. “How awful of me.”

  “Your father was such a sweet little boy.”

  “I know.”

  I’d seen it in the photograph albums and the old reel-to-reel movies they’d made. A happy kid. Earnest. The kind who always put his hand up in class and stayed in at recess to help clean the erasers.

  But something had broken somewhere along the way. When I was younger, I thought the cause of that break was me.

  “I hate to ask this, Grandma, but has my dad been asking you to sign checks or do you keep a lot of money in the house?”

  “What are you getting at? I know better than to write checks to your father. Learned that long before you were born.” She picked up her glass and drained the remainder of its contents. The ice rattled in the bottom as she shook it.

  “Would you like another?”

  “Why not?” she said. “You’ll make it like he did?”

  Her eyes were brimming, nearly spilling over. Seventy years she and my grandfather had been together. Day in and day out. All the rubs of life, its joys too. I couldn’t imagine that level of commitment, strength, sticking power.

  I gav
e her a quick hug, almost knocking the glass out of her hand.

  “I’ll make it with love.”

  VIII.

  Finis

  “I hear you’re looking for me,” my father said, startling me as I made my grandmother’s drink.

  On TV, or in movies, there’s any number of ways to tell that someone has been up all night doing something dissolute. Unshaven, wrinkled, hair askew. But what the screen can’t convey is the sour mix of whiskey, sweat, and greasy food, the bitter taste of coffee that followed him like a cloud, the damp reek of sex he didn’t have time to shower off.

  Those scents told me he’d found his winning game, that it had lasted just long enough for him to pay a one-hour hooker before someone alerted him I was on his trail.

  “You could at least make an effort,” I said.

  He ducked his head behind the fridge door. “An effort to do what?”

  “Hide what you’ve been up to.”

  “Why should I have to hide?” He straightened up, a milk carton in his hand, as if that wholesome drink would dissipate the cloud of deceit that followed him.

  I turned away from him in disgust, and reached up into the cabinet for another glass. I poured gin into it, straight. Right then, I didn’t care what it would taste like. I only cared about the effects.

  “That’s not how she likes her drink,” my father said, his voice slushy.

  “It’s for me.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Why do you care?”

  He slammed the carton down. A splash of milk flew up and onto the counter. “Goddamnit, how could you say something like that?”

  I turned to face him. Despite all the years of estrangement, anger, and suspicion, the little girl inside of me wanted to dive past the cloud of scent and into his arms, capture that safe feeling I hoped was more than a false memory. But my father was a drunk gambler, which meant he was an excellent liar and manipulator. I should know.

  “Forget it, okay? Just forget it.” I picked up the glasses from the counter and tried to move around him. He was standing there like a stone. I wondered for a moment if he’d fallen asleep, but his eyes were still half open. “Dad?”

  “Yeah.”