Promises made were meant to morph into promises fulfilled. Émile Cinq-Mars visited Detective Norville Geoffrion’s daughter. Not wanting the pendulum of obligation to swing over his head for long, he embarked in the shank of the evening.
High above the city, overlooking downtown, ‘The Vic’ – The Royal Victoria Hospital – was a congested conglomeration of ornate structures on a slope of Mount Royal. Nine Scottish baronial pavilions with a multitude of romantic turrets probed the skyline, yet a century of service had taken a toll on the physical plant. Gloom dulled window glass and settled like dust through the complex grid of corridors. Cinq-Mars had visited the Women’s Pavilion before, which was fortunate, as it was not easy to find, tucked away in the rear of the labyrinthine muddle of dark gray buildings. He wound his Beetle up the hillside and parked in an upper lot that offered expansive views to the east.
Over two days, the young woman had given birth and lost her father to violence. How that confluence of joy and grief had affected her he could not imagine.
‘Dad mentioned you,’ the new mom revealed. Her name was Gina, which rolled off the tongue as Gina Geoffrion. Her married name, however, was Gina Malinger, which sounded fine out loud, but read off the nameplate over her bed called her character into question. English names often flummoxed Cinq-Mars. His tongue failed to glide around them easily and he’d muff the proper accent. ‘He was looking forward to working with you. He hated being a cop, so that’s saying something.’
She wept, briefly. And apologized – needlessly – for doing so. Cinq-Mars worked to keep himself stitched together. ‘Sorry for your loss, Gina. Your dad was delighted to welcome your little one into the world.’
‘You should have seen his eyes! He lit up like a candle for wee Marguerite!’
He kept the opinion to himself, but he was pleased whenever a French–English couple chose a French name for their child. For one thing, he could pronounce it properly, whereas he’d butcher ‘Margaret’, and never repeat it the same way twice.
The infant slept peacefully in her father’s arms.
‘I think she misses her granddad already,’ Gina said.
A fallacy Cinq-Mars was willing to accommodate.
Nord’s death cast a pall. Focus naturally shifted to the newborn. Coming away from the visit, Cinq-Mars carried the impression that his former partner – under-appreciated, mocked, divorced, diminished by the nickname Poof-Poof – would be granted short shrift in death.
The funeral – delayed for a few days to give Gina time to recuperate – would command the attention of departments across the continent. Officers killed in the line of duty received royal send-offs. Nord would have that, at least.
Cinq-Mars felt saddened, and something Gina had shared underscored his low spirits. She remarked that her father never wanted to be a policeman, that he signed up only because the force offered steady employment. He persevered for the sake of his family. The job was demanding; to carry on solely for the income made the hassles tougher to endure. Whatever Touton was hoping Cinq-Mars would gain from a visit to his partner’s family never clicked in. He came away from the hospital even more deeply mired in the doldrums and needed to kick his mood. The detective took a walk up the mountainside on trails leading from the parking lot to help himself snap out of it.
He’d been promoted. He should not be acting as though he’d been booted to the curb.
Dark out now. Standing on a trail in the forest. The thrum of the city rose up to him. A vast array of house lights to the eastern horizon flickered like stars; a galaxy sequestered for the night. Amid travail and pleasure, yearning and hardship, among a multitude of children, somebody had to keep folks safe. Cinq-Mars came to a determination. Time to get back on the stick. Nord had not wanted to be a cop, or a detective when the promotion came his way. Cinq-Mars was sorry to hear that, but they were not built of the same material. He regretted the man’s death, his part in it, and hated the ease with which Nord would soon be forgotten. Still, he’d dwell on him no more.
Out with the old. In with the new. Tough as that was. Call it life.
A walk in the woods was not good enough. Time to crack an internal whip. Don’t mope another second. Or grieve. Time to do what he expected of himself.
Hands in his pockets, Cinq-Mars quick-marched back out of the woods.
In the lobby of the Women’s Pavilion, he made a couple of calls to solicit a phone number, then dialed the detective he wanted to have assigned to him. Touton had come through. Detective Henri Casgrain had been notified of his transfer and granted the night off. He started in the morning on his new shift.
‘Good,’ Cinq-Mars affirmed.
‘For you, maybe,’ Casgrain said. ‘I’m not doing the Watusi.’
‘Let’s meet up. We’ll have a drink. Talk about it.’
‘Beer in the fridge. Come on over.’
‘I don’t want to impose on your family,’ Cinq-Mars demurred.
‘I’m babysitting. Impose.’
Casgrain lived on the vast, flat, dense urban table east of the mountain. Into that vale of flickering lights known as the Plateau, Cinq-Mars sped off to meet him.
The man who called himself Willy also took stock of his troubles, ruminating on a different set of choices. He’d not been a violent man, although he was familiar with the milieu. He’d bartered guns to killers. Observed malcontents being pummeled. Chosen the gravesite for a family man delinquent on his payments. Lately, he’d survived an assassin’s trap and terminated the man’s life with a carving knife thrust through his windpipe. He’d had help. Only one person knew that. Foiling the assault was critical, but he remained a marked man, his name inscribed on a gang’s roadkill list.
Suspicious of him, ‘friends’ decided that if he was courting nasty enemies, he must have something serious to hide. The next step in gang logic he anticipated and understood: if he could not be trusted and kept his own secrets, he was better off dead.
Willy welcomed a secret irony. Something he could share with no one. Having survived, he now wanted to live. At last.
A challenge.
So far that day, he had foiled one execution and talked his way out of another.
Still, best to remain on his toes.
Willy returned and stood near to his apartment, behind a pathetic excuse for an ash tree. He wanted to observe the building, confirm that no one lingered in wait for him, that no one was watching before he made his move.
The coast seemed clear. He hunched his shoulders, pulled up the collar on his jacket. Not much of a disguise. He strolled down the opposite side of the street from his building and crossed at the last minute. Not much of a ploy. Inside the front door he listened for trouble. People were indoors, televisions turned on. He headed up. He pressed an ear to his own door on the top floor. Not much of a precaution. He inserted his key and entered.
He was in.
He locked the door behind him.
Strange, to be home, where he was no longer welcome.
He couldn’t stay.
Would pack a few clothes and essentials.
Cops had no reason to return here. No one would notice if anything was missing. No one would know that he’d come back to confiscate extra clothes and a few pairs of shoes.
He turned on a light.
His suits remained in place. Where he’d slaughtered his assassin, his beloved shoes were lined up in rows. People never understood his wardrobe. Why wear identical suits and similar shoes? Back in time, he had once helped himself to the proceeds of a gang heist, a hijacked truck. Six copies of the same suit, same size. After that, his preference was to maintain an appearance as bland as dust, while enjoying the feel of fresh duds. His secret: to look like a man who owned only one suit, except that the suit he wore each day hadn’t been worn in a week, appearances to the contrary. His way to indulge in a luxury that went unnoticed.
His way to pass through the world unnoticed.
Suddenly, a rapping. He switched off the light.
Realized his mistake too late. He had confirmed that someone was inside the apartment.
He moved toward the kitchen door that emptied onto the back balcony.
The rapping persisted. Furtive. As though someone wanted the sound to be heard only by the one inside.
He peeked. Saw a form.
Took a longer look.
He knew who it was.
‘Willy,’ she was whispering at the door. Not loud but urgent. ‘Willy!’
Sooner or later, she’d draw attention to herself.
He went to the door. It wasn’t locked. She had only assumed it was. Opened it a crack.
‘Let me in.’
‘Moira, not a good time.’
‘I know that. Let me in.’
He did. She closed the door quietly behind her, then turned to be very close to him. He took a step back. She took another step forward. Clutched a sleeve of his jacket.
‘Moira.’
‘Jesus, Willy, it’s all right. I didn’t tell them a thing. I was very discreet. Rest assured.’
‘Tell who what? What is there to tell?’
‘I didn’t say I knew you. That we know each other. That you put your hands on me. That I put my hands on you.’
‘That’s good, Moira. Thanks.’
‘I didn’t tell them about the cameras. Let them find that out themselves.’
He was quiet a moment.
‘Moira? What cameras?’
‘You know what cameras. Oh, Willy, you killed a man. Jesus! That was bad. I guess you had to. Is that why you had the cameras? For protection? What now? Are you on the run? You are, aren’t you? You’re on the run. Oh, Willy, I won’t betray you. You can put your hands on me.’
‘Not the time, Moira.’
‘Let me put my hands on you. You’ll feel better.’
‘Moira, what do you know about the cameras?’
‘I didn’t tell! That’s what’s important. Nothing else. Let me put my hands on you.’
He let her. He felt paralyzed. He couldn’t get into a loud fight with her or chase her out. She put her hands on him and unzipped him and he let her do that and he didn’t stop her when she went down on her knees. As if he were a long distance away, he remembered that this could be pleasant.
The moment came. Passed. She stood. She put her arms around him.
She whispered in his ear. ‘Put your hands on me, Willy.’
‘Moira, it’s not the time.’
She spoke harshly to him under her breath. ‘Put your hands on me! Or I’ll tell the police. I’ll tell everybody about the cameras. People will know who you are, Willy! You’re a killer. Everybody knows that now. Put your hands.’
He put his hands on her. He didn’t know what else to do. This was a mistake, coming back here. He should have waited, or never returned and purchased new clothes. He touched her intimately. She was moaning in his arms, standing up, and then it was over. Moira was always sudden that way.
‘Don’t be a stranger,’ she said. Vaguely, a warning. She kissed him on the lips, a peck, really, then left the way she arrived, as a wraith in the night, a wisp.
He washed up. The man referred to by a few as Coalface finished packing a bag and stole away from his home. This time, he was thinking, for good. Moira was only half-right when she inferred that he was on the run. He was also on the hunt. Half a block down on Jarry Street he hailed a cab to drive him to his car.
He murmured to the driver, ‘I might need to kill that woman.’
The driver laughed, assumed he was joking. Willy lightly chuckled along with him, not really knowing how serious he might be. Summer was coming on. He knew that much. He feared a bloodbath, generally.
When Cinq-Mars was formally introduced to Henri Casgrain’s two youngest, they shook hands. Buoyant, happy kids, six and eleven. His sixteen-year old was hanging out with friends after being relieved of the babysitting chore when his father’s schedule changed. Henri’s wife, whom Cinq-Mars had yet to meet, was attending choir practice.
‘One night of the week totally her own. That ends soon, for the summer. Usually, I sleep days. Evenings, my turn to look after the kids, then work at midnight. I do my coaching in the evenings, too. We think we can adjust to the new regime. Émile— By the way, do I still call you “Émile”, or do I call you “boss”?’
‘Your Royal Highness will do.’
‘Your Royal Ass it is. What you have to accept, because it’s non-negotiable: my family gets my time at night. Used to be, overtime ate into my days, into my sleep. Fine. No big deal. Overtime with you? That takes away from family hours. Won’t happen. Take it or leave it.’
‘Anything else I need to take or leave?’
‘That’s it, that’s all.’
‘Then we have a deal. Put in for extra hours, I’ll boot your rump.’
Casgrain was content to secure their arrangement, although he remained skeptical. ‘Once the clock strikes five, your Royal Ass, my golden carriage arrives. Doesn’t matter whose shit hits what fan at what velocity.’
‘I prefer working solo anyway. Especially when shit hits a fan.’
‘Heard that about you. You’re a pain. Beer?’
‘Why I’m here.’
The kids glued a plastic battleship together as the men took their bottles onto the back porch. The night was cool, comfortable. Quiet voices. Neighboring families were cleaning up barbecues or taking their ease with a nightcap. Casgrain’s flat was the second floor of a duplex. The porch overlooked the lane’s backyards. Patchwork flower gardens amid struggling grass. A few cement parking spots. An assortment of fences: planks, wire, latticework. Older boys sat on their bicycles and in the dark chatted over fences to the girls who’d been on their minds.
The detectives compared notes on the Park Ex robberies, on the crazies in the building, on the murder, on recent gangland slayings. Casgrain saw no interconnections. Cinq-Mars advised him to stick around, that he might. They talked briefly about Norville Geoffrion. Casgrain knew him from years ago and declined to say a negative word, which Cinq-Mars appreciated, although he detected the usual reticence to praise the man.
Casgrain cut to the chase. ‘Why did you abduct me to be your partner, Émile?’
‘Abduct?’ Cinq-Mars repeated.
‘What else can you call it? No one I know can make that happen.’
‘Old connections, let’s say.’
‘That part I get. What I want to understand is: why?’
‘We’ve never worked together, Henri. Only crossed paths. Yet I trust you. Right now, it’s critical for me to be with someone I trust.’
‘Why? What’s special?’
‘The apartment robberies. What you passed off to me.’
‘Homicide took it over. The whole nine yards. They know you’re working it?’
‘Maybe I forget to mention that.’
‘I bet.’ Casgrain savored another swallow of beer. Swilled the liquid in his bottle around. ‘Look. You have the horses to get me onto the dayshift. You probably have the horses to keep our necks free of the guillotine. I’m not going to sweat this. But why, Émile? What’s the big deal about toasters? Why go at this?’
‘My partner was shot and killed.’
‘We know who did it. He’s dead, too.’
‘Yeah. And before Johnny Bondar shot up a nightclub and killed my partner, he was visited by two homicide detectives. Pretty good, don’t you think? Visited by homicide before killing people. Why were they talking to a car thief anyway? I mean, those guys deserve a commendation. That’s some kind of super police work, predicting the future like that.’
Casgrain let the news hang in the evening air, like clothes dripping on a backyard line. ‘This isn’t about shit hitting the fan in a windstorm. More like falling out of the sky, a cloudburst.’
‘Why I want you around, Henri. Your way with words.’
‘Finally,’ Casgrain ventured. ‘A good reason.’
They shared a quick grin. As hard as the days ahead might be, they sensed they’d have a good time.
‘OK, tell me why Geoffrion was tailing Bondar.’
‘I ordered him to. Yes, I feel guilty about that. Over it, to a degree.’
‘Bondar wasn’t out for a day. He steals cars. Not toasters. Why follow him?’
Cinq-Mars told him of his talks with Touton, his failure to convince the minister, Geoffrion’s careful notes which made mention of detectives LaFôret and Morin. He concluded, ‘Right out of jail, how did Bondar know where to find a rifle? Did our homicide dicks tell him?’
They dove into silence for a time.
‘OK,’ his new partner said, ‘you’re right to pull me in.’
‘That’s not all.’
‘It’s enough.’
‘It’s not all.’ He then solicited an oath from the man and reminded him that he needed someone he could trust implicitly.
‘What’s going on, Émile?’
He related the story of the man Touton referred to as Coalface. He concluded by saying, ‘We have to find him. Our job? To bring him in.’
Casgrain exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. ‘Sounds like he’s gone under. I don’t expect him to come up for air, not after what he’s put himself through. Try to imagine what he’s done to stay inside. Arrest him on a charge, cut him an inch of slack for his sacrifice. Otherwise, let him be.’
‘I don’t care about the shape he’s in. I want him in now. I want to know what he knows. Besides, he might be in danger. This might be a case of now or never.’
‘Why think that way if you never hear from him?’
‘Touton has a theory. The slash marks I told you about? They relate to Coalface. Touton thinks he’s communicating. Besides, it was Coalface who told him to keep Bondar in jail. That seems like the right call today. That was straight-on communication. Except he used an intermediary. Not slash marks or smoke signals.’
‘He can’t always? That’s his thought? Touton’s?’
Cinq-Mars nodded and sipped. ‘Has to go out of his way, maybe. Not always convenient if he’s in a crowd of bad guys.’ He finished his soldier and Casgrain returned to the kitchen and came back with two more.
They sat quietly and drank, deep in thought.
A balcony light came on across the lane. Casgrain patted down his salt-and-peppery mustache. He was the first to emerge from their stupor.
‘What you said about the thefts being practice. Could be. Or, could be they provide cover for the murder. Exactly how, I don’t know. Also, as I said before, there’s another possibility.’
As much as anything, this was why Cinq-Mars wanted them to partner up. The man was thoughtful and smart. Smug of him, he knew, but he considered Henri Casgrain a peer.
‘The robbery,’ Casgrain continued, ‘implicates the thieves in a murder whether they deserve to be or not. If they are being indoctrinated into a gang, the murder bonds them to the gang. They’re accessories to the bigger crime. Also, different tack, if murder was the motive for the robberies, then, officially, the robberies are out of our hands and in the hands of homicide. That’s true in the normal course of events, failing His Royal Hind-ass Émile Cinq-Mars arriving on the scene. Keep in mind that that might’ve been the plan from the get-go, to keep everyday detectives away from the scene. Not you, specifically. I caught the call, remember. But homicide gets to take it over. You indicated your disdain for LaFôret and Morin. Maybe some people appreciate what they offer. Not for the right reasons.’
‘I don’t know them. Can’t say. Their attitude leaves a bad taste.’
‘Reason enough to work our own case. We neglect to mention it to them, of course.’
Cinq-Mars had had expectations, yet was more impressed than anticipated. ‘You’ve given me stuff to think about, Henri. Were the robberies an initiation into serious crime? Was the murder a way to strike fear into the hearts of young recruits? Was a plot in place to select who investigates?’
‘Your lead. You said, maybe it was practice. Let’s say that’s part of it. If a group of young recruits was practicing a heist, then two questions shake out from that. One, what are they practicing for?’
‘That I get. What’s the second?’
‘Who’s to say they pulled off their practice run without a flaw? Put the murder and that so-called rape on a side burner for a minute. What if we go over the scene again, scrape the toaster robberies with a fine-tooth comb, look for amateur mistakes? If they were only practicing, it follows that they made errors, no? Maybe a bunch.’
Cinq-Mars got it. They clinked glasses.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Oh God,’ Henri Casgrain lamented. ‘I can’t believe I’m working days now.’
‘You’ll survive,’ Cinq-Mars assured him.
‘Maybe not with your track record.’