Montreal Noir

by John McFetridge

  “I thought he was pulling a gun,” a constable said. He looked almost as pale as Whelan and his forehead was shiny with sweat.

  “You shot him?” Max asked.

  “Yes sir.”

  Max took a closer look at the object in Whelan’s hand. A syringe. He kneeled down by the body and slipped his hand into Whelan’s right pants pocket. Found a couple of singles and a book of matches. In the left was a folded square of paper. Max opened it and saw fine white powder nestled at the bottom.

  Forget tea. Whelan was a junkie, not a smoke hound.

  Old Vaillancourt had wanted whoever had killed the girl to taste some pain when Max caught him. If Whelan was the one, he hadn’t tasted enough.

  * * *

  Even in the best of times, Max struggled to sleep. Too often he’d lie awake missing Naomi and David, his dead wife and child. When he did fall asleep he dreamed of smoke and fire, of burning woods, of charred meat left on a forgotten stove.

  At dawn he was walking the lane behind the house where Irene’s body had been found. No one else was out except an old woman tending to tomato plants staked in a small patch of earth. When she saw Max, she clutched her robe and moved quickly back into her kitchen.

  He didn’t know why he was there. The crime scene had been processed. Irene’s autopsy was complete. Reports were waiting on his desk. He just didn’t want to be at the office yet. He wanted—needed—to be here where Irene had been dumped. Whelan’s miserable room on Rue Craig had been searched, but no trace of Irene had been found. She clearly hadn’t been killed there.

  And who was to say Whelan was guilty of anything other than standing across the street from Irene’s house? Since when did junkies abduct and kill little girls? Max had known plenty of them when he worked for vice before the war. Most were only interested in finding heroin or finding money to buy heroin or finding a safe place to shoot up their heroin and ride out the nod.

  Up and down the lane he walked, to the south end at Duluth, then past the crime scene up to Rachel. He walked two blocks to Saint-Christophe, where a girl who looked like Irene had been seen walking with a boy in a checked cap. Irene’s age or younger, according to the witness. But no boy could have had the strength to do this. Or the hatred of women, which was what usually fueled these crimes.

  He walked back east along Rachel. One more time down the lane, he thought, and then he’d go to the office and start looking through the results of Marois’s canvass.

  Then he stopped to stare at a three-story gray stone building on the north side of the street. It had double doors with etching in the glass. A worm started to crawl through his gut, one he had felt many times before. He stood motionless, hands at his sides, breathing deeply, the way he breathed when he needed to snatch a fleeting thought, hold it, force it into words. When the words came to him, words about the curly haired boy walking Irene through the neighborhood, he ran to his car, shot through the alley, and drove eleven blocks west without touching the brakes.

  * * *

  Jan Albrecht opened the door after three rings, wearing a long gray robe. His eyes were red and his long feet were bare and he was massaging his neck; it seemed more crooked than the day before.

  “Sergeant, what’s wrong? It’s not even seven o’clock.”

  “Something I need to ask you, Jan. Fast. When Billy goes out, does he ever wear a cap?”

  “We all do,” Albrecht said—he pointed to a row of hooks behind him where a couple of fedoras hung at eye level.

  “Not a hat,” Max said. “A cap.”

  “I think he has one. Yes. A cap with a brim that snaps in the front.”

  “What color?”

  “I’m not sure. Brown, I think.”

  “All brown? Or brown and white.”

  “Brown and white, now that you mention it. In a checkered pattern.”

  Max took out his Cobra and held it at his side. He looked Albrecht in the eye and said quietly, “Tell me you didn’t know.”

  “Know what? I don’t—”

  “About the girl. About Billy.”

  “What are you saying? That Billy had something to do with that . . . that horrible thing?”

  Max raised the gun and pointed it at Albrecht’s chest. It only had a two-inch barrel so if he was going to use it, he had to be close. “Say you didn’t know, Jan.”

  “Of course I didn’t. I don’t. Billy wouldn’t—”

  “He would, Jan. He did. Where is he?”

  “Asleep.”

  “Which room?”

  “All the way at the back, behind the kitchen.”

  Max lowered the gun and said, “All right. Take off.”

  Albrecht swallowed hard. “Why don’t I stay? I can help you.”

  “I don’t want help.”

  “You want to kill him?”

  “Get out of here, Jan. Now.”

  “All right. Let me get my shoes.”

  “The hell with your shoes. It’s not cold out.”

  “Please don’t hurt him,” Albrecht said. “He’s so small.”

  * * *

  So small.

  Small like a nine-year-old boy. Small like Irene. Shorter even. His hair had looked almost black the day before when it was wet, but now, asleep in his bed, it was brown and curly.

  Max looked around the small room. Billy’s white robe hung on a hook screwed into the closet door. On another hook hung a brown-and-white newsboy’s cap. He stood at the side of the single bed and pressed the muzzle of the Cobra against Billy’s forehead and cocked the hammer. The sound of the rotating chamber woke the little man and he sat up, eyes wild. Max pushed his head back down with the gun.

  “Ask me,” he said.

  Billy licked his lips. “Ask you what?”

  “Ask me what I’m doing here.”

  “Okay,” Billy said. “What are you—”

  Max drew the gun back and drove his left fist into Billy’s face. Billy’s head snapped back as blood spurted out of his broken nose. “Ask me again,” Max said.

  Billy was gasping and swallowing like a landed fish. “I don’t—”

  Max grabbed his hair and put the gun back against Billy’s head. “I said, ask me.”

  “I’m choking!”

  “Are you going to ask me?”

  “Yes!” he gulped, blood dribbling over his lips and down his chin. “Please. Tell me why you’re here.”

  “For Irene,” Max said. “I’m here for her.”

  “Irene who?”

  Max ground the gun barrel harder against the bony forehead. “Don’t you dare say that,” he whispered. “Don’t you fucking dare deny her fucking name.”

  Billy looked down at his sheets. “The girl across the street?”

  “I know this isn’t where you killed her. But it’s where you first saw her. Isn’t it?”

  “Me? No.”

  “You saying you never saw her? You lie to me, you twisted shit, I’ll kill you.”

  “Don’t I have a right to a phone call?”

  A small body wedged under a crawl space. An autopsy report that ran to two pages. Broken milk teeth.

  “You have the right to get shot in your lying mouth. Now tell me what happened, Billy. You saw her out there on the street?”

  Billy’s eyes tried to focus on Max but kept coming back to the gun. “Okay, sure. I saw her. We were neighbors for three weeks.”

  “You go for a walk with her?”

  “Never!”

  “Someone saw you, Billy. Saw you walking with her in your brown-and-white cap. You know where?”

  “It wasn’t me!”

  “You’re lying again. Like you lied about Eddie Whelan. Spun us a bullshit story about him hanging around to take the heat off yourself. You know he’s dead, don’t you?”

  “Whelan?”

  “We went to bring him in and he tried to dump his needle and his junk and a nervous cop thought he was pulling a gun and put two rounds into him. Know what it sounded like?”

  “No
,” Billy said.

  Max put his gun against Billy’s pillow, inches from his ear, and fired.

  “Jesus!” Billy cried. He tried to get up but Max put his hand on his chest and kept him where he was. Feathers flew up in the air then settled back on the bed and floor.

  “She saw you on Rachel,” Max said, “walking with Irene, heading east past Saint-Christophe. You know what’s there, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “On the north side of Rachel, between Mentana and Boyer. Number 961.”

  “961 Rachel?” Billy said softly. “The Midgets Palace?”

  “Say it again.”

  “The Midgets Palace.”

  “You offered to take her there, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “What kid wouldn’t want to go? All that tiny furniture. Everything cut down to size. What did you say yesterday? They can see how the little-halves live?”

  “I didn’t take her there!”

  “I’m going to show your lying face to this witness,” Max said, “and she’s going to say, Yes, sergeant, that’s him, that’s the one who walked with her in the checkered cap. And I am going to take you into the basement of headquarters—no, into a dark laneway—and beat you to death the way you beat her. I’m going to break every bone and crack every tooth in your head. Slowly, Billy.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I’m six feet tall and almost two hundred pounds. Tell me again that I can’t.”

  “But the law—”

  “You think anyone will care about the law once they find out about you and Irene? They all loved that girl, Billy. The whole city has been following the story, searching for her, praying we’d find her alive. Your only hope is to tell me what happened and do it fast, before I get the urge to pull this trigger again. But not into the pillow. Into your knees. Or maybe that big shlong of yours. Isn’t it big, Billy? You told me yesterday, it’s bigger than other guys.”

  “I was joking.”

  “Only women don’t go for you. Just streetwalkers, that’s what you said. That’s why you hate them all.”

  “I don’t hate anyone.”

  “You wouldn’t have to pay Irene, would you? You could take her for free.”

  Billy didn’t answer.

  “I bet she thought you were cute,” Max said. “A grown man her size? I bet she thought you were harmless. But you’re not, are you?”

  Nothing.

  “I said, you’re not harmless, are you?” Max leaned in so close that his words left bits of spittle on the man’s cheeks.

  “No,” Billy whispered.

  “You’re strong. Strong as hell for a little guy. You can lift your own weight over your head. I’ve seen it. You picked up that wrestler, what’s his name—Tiny Roe?—you picked him up like nothing and spun him around and threw him right out of the ring. Didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So a girl like Irene, you could have done anything you wanted.”

  “But I didn’t want to.”

  “Maybe not at first. You were nice to her at first, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Hear that? He said yes, the little bastard.

  “A pretty little girl like that. I saw her picture in her house. I saw how pretty she was. I bet she smelled good. Did she smell good, Billy? Did she?”

  “I guess.”

  I’ve got you now, you lying piece of shit.

  “You guess? You’d only know if you got real close. How close did you get? This close?” Max put his mouth against Billy’s bloody nose and bared his teeth, breathed out as if trying to fog a mirror.

  “Please,” Billy said.

  “Please what?”

  “Let me up. Let me out of this bed.”

  “Why? Am I too close?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you this close to Irene?”

  “I have to piss.”

  “Tell me first how close you were, then I’ll let you up.”

  “I need to piss.”

  “Piss in your bed, it doesn’t matter. You’re never going to sleep in it again. You’re going to be dead or in jail by lunchtime.”

  “Okay. If I tell you what happened, you gotta understand . . .”

  “Understand what?”

  “I just wanted . . .”

  “What! Spit it out, Billy.”

  “It’s like you said! After I moved in here, I saw her from the window sometimes. Saw her on the street. Once or twice I said hello to her and she said hello back. That’s all, nothing to it. But you could tell she was sweet. Some of the other kids made fun of me, but not her. And I guess she was curious about me. The other day . . .”

  “The day she went missing?”

  “Yeah. That day. She was walking home and I was walking home and we got to talking and she asked me—straight out, not mean—why I was the size I was. So we talked about it. I told her what it was like to be small and she asked me about the Midgets Palace. Got that? She asked me. She’d walked past there on her way to the park and she was curious about it, I didn’t offer to take her there or anywhere else.”

  “But she asked and you said yes.”

  “I had nothing else to do. No fights lined up, no social life to attend to. Jan just sits and reads most of the time. I’m going fucking nuts here. So we’re walking and she asks if everything is the right size for me where I live. I say no, everything at Jan’s is normal size. And she takes my hand and says she’s sorry. Okay? She takes my hand. This is important because I’ve never gone after kids, ever. Never even thought about sex with them, I swear. But there we are, walking together, holding hands, and for the first time in my life, I feel—Christ, I don’t know what I felt. But I wasn’t with a prostie. She wasn’t looking at me like a freak. It was like having a girlfriend. For once in my life, I was walking down the street with a normal girl.”

  “A girl your size.”

  “That’s right. A girl my size. So maybe I started to feel something I shouldn’t have. We stopped at Mentana, waiting to cross, and suddenly I wanted to kiss her. Just kiss her and hold her. I didn’t even want to fuck her, I don’t think. I mean, I had a hard-on, but I don’t think I would have done it to her. I just wanted to stand against her and hold her tight. Maybe just cum in my pants.”

  Max felt his hand tighten around the grip of his .38.

  “I told her we should go down the laneway for a minute. Told her there was a guy who kept rabbits in a hutch in his yard. Told her maybe the guy would let her take one home. And she got this beautiful look on her face, this big smile. Because what kid doesn’t love rabbits?”

  * * *

  Later that day, Max sat in the office of his commander, his hands trembling in his lap. He told Bellechasse everything that Billy had told him: how he had walked Irene down the lane and into a shed whose door was unlocked; how he had tried to kiss her and how she had pushed him away and spit on the ground; how he had hit her and kept hitting her long after her body had slumped to the concrete floor, pounding her with his powerful fists and kicking her until his volcanic rage had subsided.

  When he was done, Max took a cigarette from a pack on Bellechasse’s desk. The commander slid a lighter across the surface. Max needed both hands to work it.

  “The pathologist thinks she was probably unconscious after the first blow. I doubt she felt much pain,” Bellechasse said.

  Max thought of Irene walking down the lane to find a rabbit to take home. “Tell me another one.”

  Other People’s Secrets

  by Tess Fragoulis

  Sherbrooke Street

  As Catalina Thwaite stood before the black wooden doors of the stately town house on Sherbrooke Street, she decided her past and future would never meet. She pressed the button on the brass doorbell and ran her finger over Dr. Schmidt’s nameplate, wiping the print she’d left with the sleeve of her jacket. Her name would replace it soon enough. The stone lion’s head looming above the doorway seemed indifferent to such vicissitudes
; it stared at its counterpart across the street—a frowning satyr with curled horns and a face sooted by the elements. The satyr was much more fearsome and discouraging than the empty-eyed lion. Just as well, thought Catalina. People seeking therapy had enough anxieties and neuroses without the added pressure of the devil snarling at them at the gate.

  She rang the bell a second time, irritated that her lawyer’s office had yet to forward her a set of keys. She took a mental note of the first offense committed by Dr. Schmidt’s secretary, Mrs. Dubois, who had been given some time off after her employer’s sudden exit. During this time, Catalina had sorted out the paperwork and prepared for the transition into his practice. She’d left a message on Friday, asking Mrs. Dubois to come in on Monday morning at 9 a.m. sharp to begin sorting and reviving the temporarily dormant files. The old secretary was either late for their meeting—an intolerable quality to Catalina, who was pathologically punctual—or had not shown up at all, perhaps unable to digest the fact that the man she had assisted for thirty years was dead. This would surely have given the secretary intimations of her own mortality, or at least of the unlikelihood of her continued employment. Catalina considered dismissing Mrs. Dubois right away, but she had enough to do in the next few weeks without worrying about hiring a new secretary. No, it was better to keep the old dog around until things were settled and she was no longer of use. Then she could be put gently out of her misery.

  As Catalina searched for her cell phone in her red leather briefcase—purchased the day before at Holt’s for too much money—Mrs. Dubois’s woeful voice crackled through the intercom.

  “Dr. Schmidt’s office,” she said, then cleared her throat and tried again, her words wet, unsure: “I mean doctor’s office. I’m sorry. May I help you?”

  Catalina rolled her eyes at the apathetic lion but swallowed her annoyance and assumed a professional if slightly imperious tone: “It’s Dr. Thwaite. Can you let me in, please?” she said, her t’s sharp as stickpins. She gripped the brass handle, and after a moment of silence, a long, deep buzz unlocked the door.

  The first thing Catalina encountered in the sun-drenched entry hall was a Venetian mirror that framed her reflection with an orgy of gilded cherubs and rosettes. She smiled and smoothed away a strand of her otherwise meticulously styled hair. She had seen a hairdresser that morning for a cut and color, even though he had balked at the seven a.m. request. Catalina was not fond of the word no, and she knew that, for enough money, the hairdresser would have come to her room at the Ritz-Carlton at four a.m. if she’d so desired. She’d been up, after all, planning every detail of the day ahead. The deep chestnut shade suited her better than the various blonds and reds she’d favored for so many years, and along with the classic Vidal Sassoon inverted bob, she looked dignified and slightly untouchable. She cut quite the figure in her black-and-white houndstooth suit—both the trousers and jacket made for her by a London tailor the week before—and the aquamarine silk scarf tied loosely around her neck. The four-inch undulating heels of her Louboutins made her nearly six-three.