AUGUST 1992
Véronique slows the boat down, easily maneuvering it around a small island—purely by instinct, she can’t see a thing—and then speeds up again, heading straight for the marina. The boat roars and jerks nose up into the air, and then they’re slapping against the water at forty-five miles an hour again. There are islands and swamps all over the lake, but at night they’re almost invisible.
Pierre is at the back of the boat, crouched down with his shotgun between his legs, keeping a lookout for other boats. The lake is a dark void, indistinguishable from the sky, but it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t need daylight to see where she’s going. She knows the precise route from habit and intuition. She’s done it every night for the past four months.
The sky is matte black, the stars and moon obscured by a low-hanging fog. The lake is swarming with other boats, motorized cockroaches scurrying in all directions. Her hearing is on high alert, hyper-attuned to the noise. Out here on the lake, Véronique is blind. So much could go wrong—cops, thieves, crashes. It’s a miracle they survive night after night.
She pulls up to Billy’s Marina and turns off the boat. The marina is right near the Canada–US border, on an Indian reservation they call the Triangle that covers part of Ontario, Quebec, and New York State. Tug is already there, standing on the dock. His cap is pulled down low over his eyes, and his long black hair is loose, falling to the middle of his back. Normally it’s tied back in a braid. It looks freshly washed in the thin light of the dock lamp. Tug is tall and thick, intimidating. He barely looks up from under the rim of his cap as he helps them load twenty-four cases of cigarettes from his pickup truck onto their boat. No one speaks. Out of habit, Véronique keeps looking out to the lake, checking for other boats that may be lurking in the dark, waiting for them.
When they’re finished, Tug jumps on his speedboat and chaperones them out of the reservation, back into Quebec waters. Exactly seven minutes in, he holds up his arm, turns his boat around, and heads back to the marina. This is the scariest part, the moment her heart starts to hammer in her chest, pulsating through her life vest and camouflage jacket. She speeds the boat up to fifty-five miles an hour, knowing that any of the dark masses she can see idling on the water out of the corner of her eyes could be cops or potential thieves. She guns it all the way back to Ste. Barbe, holding her breath the entire way. They’ve got tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of contraband in their possession now, and they’re extremely vulnerable. Even Pierre—when she turns around to make sure he hasn’t fallen overboard—is serious and still, the gun gripped solidly between his prayer hands.
When they approach Camil’s dock and she can finally see his aluminum-sided house at the edge of the water, her breathing slowly starts to return to normal. Her heart rate settles down; her muscles unclench. They’ve made it through another night.
Camil starts unloading the cases, moving quickly in the dark. They’re used to working in the middle of the night; they’re comfortable in silence. They move with purpose and precision, a well-tuned machine.
It all started last summer when she was at their place for a barbecue and her cousin Pierre took her around back to the boathouse. He opened the door, and it was filled to the ceiling with cases of Du Maurier, Export, and Player’s. There was no room for the boat. The septic tank was in there, too, so the cigarettes had a foul smell.
“Holy shit!” she gasped, stepping inside.
“This is it, cousin. A new life.”
“What are you talking about? You’re selling cigarettes?”
“How would you like to make an easy twenty grand this summer, Véro?”
She eyed him suspiciously. She had no problem doing something illegal, but this sounded too good to be true. “How?” she asked him.
“I need help running the cigarettes from the reservation.”
“Why me? Why not your dad?”
“You speak English,” he said. “I don’t. Problem is the Indians don’t speak French. We’re having trouble communicating with them. It’s been hard to build up trust.”
She almost laughed out loud. The first opportunity of her life to make some real money, and it was entirely contingent on her being able to speak the very language she despised.
“I’m talking about thousands of dollars a week for all of us,” Pierre went on. “Just for a short ride on the boat. And in the winter, we can use snowmobiles. We could be millionaires.”
Uncle Camil’s house was on the Quebec side of the lake, just outside the reservation, perfectly situated to run a smuggling operation. Cigarettes had gone up to eight bucks a pack by then, and the Triangle was becoming a mecca for smuggling tobacco from the reservation into Quebec, tax-free.
“All we have to do is load up our boat at Billy’s Marina on the reservation and bring the cases back into Quebec,” Pierre explained. “It’s only a fifteen-minute ride out there, another fifteen back. It’s the easiest cash you’ll ever make.”
There was never a question of conscience for Véronique. She considered the danger, but not the criminal aspect. That was of no concern. Pulling one over on the government—the greedy bastards who had hiked the taxes in the first place—would please her dad. They had it coming, he’d say. And money was money. It would benefit them all, especially her parents.
That night, Camil and Pierre explained to her how the whole operation worked. The Indians bought the cigarettes directly from the tobacco companies; they were at the top of the pyramid, making the most money without taking any risks. As long as they were on the reservation, everything was legal. Below them were guys like Billy, who sold directly to the smugglers from his marina. They were small-time operators compared to the Indians at the very top, but they weren’t taking any risks either. Then you had the smugglers who ran operations like Uncle Camil and Pierre. They made good money but risked heavy fines and possible jail time. They were mostly the French people who lived on the lake, had boats, and weren’t afraid of breaking the law or endangering their lives—none of which was a problem for Camil. He’d already been to jail twice for aggravated assault, and whisperings about his connection to the Hells Angels still persisted. While he consistently refuted those claims, he did admit to having some close friends in the outlaw biker gang.
Next there were the transporters, who loaded a few cases into the trunks of their cars and took them out to sell in various cities. Finally, at the very bottom of the pyramid, were the small-time salespeople who sold cartons to friends and neighbors out of their own homes or college dorms. As Pierre promised, it was easy money for everyone involved, no matter how low on the pyramid. Véronique would be multilevel, Pierre explained; she would smuggle, transport, and sell.
A few nights later, she smuggled cigarettes for the first time. Pierre took her out to the garage just as it was getting dark. “Here,” he said, tossing her a pair of army fatigues and a life jacket.
“Are you kidding?”
“Put it on,” he said. “And the boots and face mask, too.”
“Seriously?”
“This isn’t a joke, Véro.”
She put on the gear without saying a word. He pulled a shotgun out of the gun safe, the kind her uncle used for duck hunting.
“Sacrément,” she breathed. “I don’t know how—”
“Don’t worry,” he said as they headed to the boat. “You’re driving.”
Pierre’s job was to crouch down at the back of the boat and aim the gun behind them. If he saw or heard anyone suspicious, he was to shoot.
“Who’s considered suspicious?” she asked him, starting to feel a little nervous.
“Other smugglers out to steal our cigarettes. Don’t worry about it. That’s my problem.”
They climbed into the boat. Pierre went to the back and stretched his legs. He lit a cigarette. He was calm and relaxed. Véronique was shaking as she turned the key in the ignition.
She was an experienced boat driver, but not in the dark, not with someone holding a shotgun behind her. The lake was crawling with other smugglers, and none of them could turn on their lights; the point was not to be seen. She wanted to ask Pierre if he was afraid of dying like that, but it was the kind of question a girl would ask and she didn’t want to be that girl.
By the time she eased the boat up to Billy’s Marina, she was soaking wet. Pierre left his gun on the floor and got out of the boat first. He stood on the dock, waiting. Lit another cigarette from a pack of Export A green. “We’re meeting Tug here,” he said.
“Who’s Tug?”
“Billy’s brother.”
Pierre explained that payment for the cigarettes was made during the day. Pierre would ride out to the reservation in the afternoon and pay Billy in advance. He never carried cash on the night runs. It was too dangerous. Besides, Billy didn’t trust them enough to front them the product. It had to be paid for in advance, in broad daylight. “You’ll come with me in the afternoons from now on,” Pierre said. “It’ll be easier with someone who speaks English.”
Véronique was trying to take it all in, at the same time keeping an eye out for this Tug guy.
After about fifteen minutes, someone pulled up to the marina in a pickup truck and backed it right up to the edge of the dock.
“Who’s this?” the guy mumbled, getting out of his truck and jerking his chin at Véronique.
“I’m Pierre’s cousin Véronique,” she said in English. “I’ll be riding with him from now on.” Her English was a bit rusty, but Tug understood her.
He thrust out his arm, and they shook hands. They loaded the cases onto the boat that night without uttering a word. When they were done, Pierre and Véronique got back in their boat and she started the engine. Tug got into the speedboat that was tied to the dock, and together they pulled out of the marina. “Is he coming with us?” she asked Pierre.
“He escorts us out of the reservation. No one fucks with Tug.”
Tug followed them until they were about halfway home. Véronique was timing the ride with her Indiglo stopwatch. At the seven-minute mark, he held up his arm and turned back. Pierre waved.
Uncle Camil was waiting on the dock when they got back. His arms were folded across his bare chest, resting on the shelf of his beer belly. His expression was stern, menacing.
He seemed so different from the uncle of her childhood that night. When she was little, he used to let her put on his yellow hard hat, and he would knock on it with his fist and tell her knock-knock jokes until she keeled over laughing. He was the one who dressed up as Santa Claus every Christmas—except for that one year he got really drunk and threw the Christmas tree onto the frozen lake and disappeared. That was the only side of him she knew, and she wasn’t afraid of him. But that night on the dock, she could see the man who got into bar fights and hung out with Hells Angels.
They unloaded the cases into the boathouse, and then Véronique pulled off her camouflage gear and life jacket. She was sweating. Pierre made a joke about Véronique driving like a girl, and Camil laughed. Véronique laughed with them, out of nervousness. She was relieved, giddy. They ran down to the lake, and Pierre pushed her into the water and then dove in after her. They splashed around; the water was warm and glorious. It was a clear night.
Camil went inside the house while they were swimming, and then he came back outside with a handful of cash. It was a thick wad, all twenties. She’d never forget the first time she saw that much cash. Her eyes bulged. Her heart was racing from the adrenaline. Playing the system and getting away with it was a rush. People like her weren’t used to that kind of money, certainly not for a half hour of work.
Véronique jumped out of the water, and Camil counted out $240 into her wet hand. “You get ten dollars a case,” he said.
She did the math, calculating up to December, when the lake would freeze and they wouldn’t be able to continue by boat. If she were to go out four or five times a week over the course of the summer, she could make as much as thirty grand.
Next, Camil doled out $360 to Pierre. Pierre got fifteen bucks a case. Véronique didn’t complain about that until about a month later, when she threatened to quit if Camil didn’t pay her the same as Pierre. She’d only been bluffing, but Camil agreed. What did he care? He was making hundreds of thousands by then. He’d already added an extension to the house—a living room with glass walls so you could look out onto the lake if you were eating supper or relaxing on the couch. He’d also put in a Jacuzzi and renovated the kitchen with shiny white appliances. He’d bought a sound system, a big-screen TV, a Jet Ski, a new speedboat, and a shiny black Harley-Davidson.
Their market expanded quickly. In the pharmacies and dépanneurs, cigarette cartons were up to forty bucks. If customers bought contraband, they only paid twenty-five. Véronique felt like she was doing her people a favor. They all smoked. Why not help them out a bit?
She put her first thousand bucks in an envelope and gave it to her uncle to keep in his safe. She’s been doing that for exactly a year now. After a while, she lost track of how many envelopes were in the safe, but Camil keeps track. Right down to the last dollar.
She’s just trying to make as much cash as she can before the whole thing blows up. And it will. The government will eventually catch on and slash taxes, rendering their business obsolete, or they’ll have the RCMP bust the entire Triangle and put them all in jail.
For now, it’s a windfall. She’s twenty-two years old and rolling in cash. What a part-time job! Her mother thinks she’s always in Ste. Barbe because she’s painting houses with Pierre. It’s the same routine every day. She drives up in the afternoons, music cranked, hair blowing out the window. There’s no stress during the day, just fun and relaxation by the lake. Sometimes they bike over to the butcher in town and splurge on expensive cuts of meat and slabs of cheese. After, they feast; they swim and jet-ski and play cards on the dock while Uncle Camil takes cigarette orders, writing names down in the customer book, totaling up exactly how many cases they’ll need. At some point in the afternoon, Pierre and Véronique will go out to Billy’s Marina with about twenty grand in a money belt.
Billy is always there, sitting on his dock with his feet dangling over the edge. He’ll fill their boat with gas, without a smile or any kind of acknowledgment. His face is wide and coarse, his features smudged into deeply tanned, pockmarked skin. His black hair is short, not like his brother’s, and he always wears tinted shades and a blue-and-white trucker cap that says BILLY’S MARINA. They’ll hand over the cash—twenty grand for a tank of gas—but no one is ever there to question them. Véronique has to make small talk—that’s her job. She’s always polite, thanks Billy, tells him to have a good day. It’s important that he likes her. She’s trying to establish a relationship, build trust—that’s what she’s there for.
When it’s all done, she’ll typically pack about five cases in her beat-up old Pontiac Acadian to sell to customers in Montreal, Quebec City, and Valleyfield. She tries never to drive more than two hours for a delivery, and she always makes sure she’s got other business wherever she goes—usually politics. She can afford not to work, but she bores easily and doesn’t want to waste her time lazing around and getting high every day like Pierre.
After they’re done stashing the cigarettes in the boathouse, Véronique and Pierre run back to the lake for a swim. She dips her head below the surface of the water and pops up, exhaling deeply. The water is still warm, even without the sun. It envelopes her, calms her nerves. It’s a quiet night on the lake tonight.
Pierre holds her head underwater, and she retaliates by pulling his boxer shorts down to his knees and then teasing him about his shriveled dick.
They’re still close. Twin cousins, Lisette calls them. With Marc being eight years younger, it was always just Pierre and Véronique at the Christmas parties, Easter egg hunts, weddings, First Communions, and confirmations. How many games of hide-and-seek and tag and 500 did they play together? How many shows did they put on for the grown-ups, pranks did they pull, punishments did they incur? Mischief makers, shit disturbers, partners in crime. They were inseparable. Véronique spent a lot of time in Ste. Barbe in the years before her dad got out of prison. Her mother wanted her to have a father figure in her life, and Camil fit the bill—Hells Angels connections notwithstanding. The boys liked the infusion of Véronique and Lisette into their world, with their feminine wisdom and perspectives, of which they were sorely in need. Pierre was always getting into trouble. Véronique was supposed to be the good influence, Lisette the grounding mother figure. What usually ended up happening though was that Pierre would drag Véronique into whatever escapade he had concocted and they both would wind up in trouble.
Pierre hoists himself onto the dock, and Véronique joins him. They lie side by side, shivering.
“How much have you saved?” she asks him.
“What do I have to save for?” he says. “I’m making three grand a week.”
“The future?”
He laughs, pulling a fist-sized chunk of hash from the pocket of his shorts, which are lying next to him in a heap. He rolls a fat joint and lights it. “I’m living my life now,” he says. “As it comes.”
“What about when this ends?”
“Why would I think about that now?” he says, sucking long and hard on the joint. “Things are good. I’m enjoying it.”
Véronique takes a haul. She doesn’t know whether to be pissed off or feel sorry for Pierre. She worries about him. He thinks too small; he’s an underachiever. She wants him to want to be more than what he is. Pierre is lazy and lacks ambition. He grabs whatever is put in front of him, greedily and without forethought. Véronique is different. She’s no less a criminal, but she’s cautious and thoughtful; she has principles. She doesn’t squander the money she makes.
She’s already saved $15,000 by her uncle’s accounting—that’s with paying rent, buying a car, and splurging on a few things she couldn’t resist: a necklace for her mom, a new TV with a built-in VHS player, a pager. Pierre has saved nothing. He’s too busy buying dope and booze and fireworks, which he sets off over the lake every weekend. Camil and Pierre are always throwing wild parties, buying expensive booze—wine and cognac and enough beer to get the whole town loaded—and thick slabs of meat, all of which cost literally hundreds of dollars a day. They’re rich. Why not?
Véronique has a longer vision than drugs and parties and fireworks. She knows there’s a lot more to life than unfettered, instant gratification. She has brains and passion, like her father did at her age. She cares about politics and protecting the French language in Quebec. She cares about her people. She’s just waiting for the right cause. Her father had the FLQ. Hers is on the horizon.
“Don’t you ever worry about anything?” she asks him, handing him back the joint.
“Yeah,” he says, tousling her damp hair. “I worry about keeping you safe, cousin. That’s it.”
The next morning, she sleeps in until eleven. It’s the best part of smuggling—her freedom. She can come and go as she pleases. Most people her age work crappy jobs in factories or retail stores; they have to answer to asshole bosses and have almost no free time, which is particularly miserable in the summer.
She puts on a pot of coffee and pops a slice of bread into the toaster. Adds peanut butter and honey to the toast, milk and cinnamon to the coffee. She takes it outside to eat on the balcony. The sun is already white-hot, and the black iron steps burn her bare thighs when she sits. She’s wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Her hair is matted, starting to form little dreadlocks.
St. Urbain Street is quiet this morning. She lives on the Plateau, around the corner from the mountain and just a few blocks north of the bar scene on St. Laurent Boulevard. She’s been living here ever since she moved out at eighteen. It’s a nice place, with high ceilings and hardwood floors and lots of sunlight coming in through the old windows, and the rent is reasonable. Not that money is a concern anymore. The concern now is that it’s not going to last forever. Smuggling contraband is not a career; it’s a gift. She’ll be lucky to get two more years out of it.
“Excuse me?”
Véronique looks down from her second-floor balcony. Balconville, they used to call it. All the wrought iron balconies lined up in rows. There’s a guy standing on the sidewalk, squinting up at her. “Are you Véronique Fortin?” he asks. He’s an older guy, late twenties or early thirties. Dirty-blond hair, slim. Looks good in those jeans.
“Who’s asking?” she says.
“Me.”
“And you are?”
He climbs a few steps, meeting her halfway. “J. G. Phénix.”
“J. G.? That’s your name?”
“James Gabriel,” he says.
“James. That’s English.”
“My grandfather was English,” he says in perfect French. No hint of an English accent.
“And how do you know who I am?” she wants to know.
“I’m doing a story—”
“Ah. A reporter. So this is an ambush.” She’s used to this sort of thing. They always crawl out of the woodwork every time there’s an anniversary or a related death.
“Not at all,” he says. “You’re listed in the white pages, and I live in the neighborhood. You probably know that François Tremblay died last week. I’m doing a piece on the October Crisis—”
“How original. You and every other reporter in the country.”
He laughs. “You’re right. We’re not very original. But people are always interested in the FLQ.”
“Are they?”
“They are. Especially your father.”
It always comes back to her father. Two years ago, on the twentieth anniversary of the October Crisis, the press came beating down her parents’ door. Now they’re coming after her. The daughter of the infamous FLQ terrorist . . .
“I’m a reporter for the Canadian News Association.”
Véronique roars with laughter. “Goodbye,” she says, immediately dismissing him. Too bad, though, she thinks. There’s something a little seductive about him. Not just his looks, but the way he’s looking at her. He’s sexy. She likes a man with charisma, a little brashness. But he’s a traitor to his own people. What kind of Québécois journalist works for the enemy? The Canadian News Association is the biggest English news agency in the country, feeding stories to all the Anglo papers.
“Why not tell your story to an English journalist?” he says.
“No thank you,” she responds. “And it’s not my story.”
“Do you stand behind what your father did? Do you support Quebec independence?”
She seethes quietly for a few seconds, annoyed by his arrogance and sense of entitlement. Who the hell does he think he is showing up at her apartment to harass her about her father? And for an English newspaper? “Get lost,” she says. “Let me eat my breakfast in peace.”
“I don’t represent Anglophones,” he tells her. “I’m French. I just happen to write for an English news agency, that’s all. My father was pure laine. He worked at Vickers. He was a nationalist long before October 1970.”
Véronique’s interest is piqued. Vickers was a well-known airplane factory; it became one of the symbols of Québécois oppression back in the sixties.
“He came from a family of farmers,” the reporter goes on, his voice turning emotional. “He drove a cab. He was no better and no worse than your father. You don’t know me at all.”
“So why do you work at CNA? It’s almost worse, given where you come from.”
“I was raised to understand and respect both sides equally.”
Véronique rolls her eyes. “In other words, you were educated in English and you grew up middle or upper class and you’ve had all kinds of opportunities and choices, but you think because your daddy worked at Vickers thirty years ago you can claim to understand us . . . but only as a means to an end.”
“Means to what end?”
“Pretending you’re a separatist to get your story.”
“I never said I’m a separatist,” he says. “I said I’m French. Last I checked those aren’t the same thing.”
“I’m going inside,” she says, standing up. “Don’t come back or I’ll call the police.”
“What could you possibly be so angry about?” he asks her. “You haven’t even lived long enough to be this angry!”
“It’s none of your goddamn business.”
She slams the door behind her, his question still drumming in her head. That same goddamn question her entire life: Do you stand behind what your father did?
As if she could ever begin to answer that, for him or his readers. For herself.