(The Spaniard in the dining room)
Cinq-Mars left Quinn downtown to help Leonard adjust to his new name. Within two minutes of his return to his poste de quartier, he was wishing he’d stayed behind and hung out with him, too.
‘Do you deserve your pay, Cinq-Mars?’ Thin, of average height, Captain Pierre Delacroix combed his sparse hair straight back. His shoulders fell sharply away from the base of his neck, so that his head possessed a bobblehead quality, a feature that caused him to look perpetually slapped.
‘Sir, I worked half the night,’ Cinq-Mars explained, knowing it was futile.
‘The man says he worked all night. On what?’
‘A murder investigation, sir. Captain Touton brought me in.’
‘Touton’s a clown. What are you, his shill? Do you think I give a shit if some thug is gunned down overnight? Tell me, Cinq-Mars, were you drinking? Admit it.’
‘No, sir. I mean, I was off duty. Maybe I had a beer. After the crime scene.’
‘You admit to boozing it up and still expect a paycheck. If you spent the night in a whorehouse, would you want to be paid for that too? Paid to be inebriated. Paid to have a poke. Never mind that you don’t work for Touton. That clown does not sign your sheet.’
‘Sir, last night’s murder relates to our murder.’
‘Our murder? You’re not working any murder. What precisely is the matter with you, Cinq-Mars? Are you a maladjusted fuck-up? Is that an accurate summation?’
‘No, sir.’
‘No? Was I asking for your opinion?’
‘I thought you were, sir.’
‘I’ll let you know when I’m asking a question. Is that fucking clear?’
He wanted to ask, ‘Is that a question?’ Instead, he said, ‘Yes, sir. Sir, it relates. The murder last night, the murder in the Town here. They both connect to the robbery I’m investigating with Sergeant-Detective Giroux.’
‘You’re not investigating that robbery.’
‘I thought I was, sir.’
‘I thought so, too. Instead you come in whenever you jolly well feel like it, stick your nose into other cops’ beeswax. It’s huge, your nose, but try keeping it out of the way. And stick this between your ears. You work with Giroux, you do not fly solo. Be his bosom buddy. Give him a hand job, if that’s what it takes. Have babies together. Just don’t leave his company. I want work product out of you two, and you will produce work product as I see fit. And stay dead sober. Understood?’
He was standing waiting to be formally dismissed, a command that did not appear imminent. Delacroix went on and on about cops. ‘Do we recruit them out of drunk tanks or what?’
Sensing that he was already out of the room as far as his captain was concerned, Cinq-Mars took a speculative step backward. It went unnoticed. He took another. He said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ turned, and quietly departed the office. Safe, apparently, he rolled his eyes in Giroux’s direction.
‘Still carry a badge, your Glock?’ his partner inquired.
‘Seems so. I need to check if my testicles still function.’
‘No suspension? A week? A day?’
‘Go figure.’
‘Drive with me, Detective.’ Giroux pulled his sports jacket off the back of his chair. ‘Work your way into his good books.’
‘Will we produce work product?’ They were already on the move, heading for the door. ‘Delacroix said we’re supposed to do that.’
‘I don’t know what that is.’
‘Me, neither. What’s the case?’
They were hurrying out the door. ‘My oil painting. Dollarwise, the biggest heist out of this poste in years. Bust it, you can write your own ticket with the boss.’
‘Fat chance. Practically a cold case by now.’
Giroux shrugged in agreement. ‘It’s your only hope. Your nuts are in a vise, Émile. Our captain’s an elephant that never forgets. A way to ease the pressure. I don’t know if it’s “work product”, but you got to find something.’
Sleepless and bedraggled, he had intended to request the afternoon off. Out of the question now. Perhaps talking to an octogenarian burglary victim might be the next best thing to taking a nap.
Quinn and the boy with a new name broke out his merchandise and toked up.
‘I shouldn’t do this here. But what the hell.’
‘Why not?’ Quinn wondered.
He tweaked his nose. ‘A cop follows his sniffer. He not only nails a toker. With my quantity, I’m booked for dealing.’
‘Paranoid much? Cops don’t follow their noses. In the Student Ghetto, they’d be stoned if they did.’
The boy struck a match. ‘You were right about your friend. His honker is huge. He calls it prominent.’
‘He’s not a friend,’ she objected. Then asked, ‘Did you like him?’
‘What’s to like? He’s a cop.’
‘Harsh.’ Her comment felt harsh, as well, as the two of them were meant to be united in their disdain for authority. She attempted to moderate her reaction. ‘How do you like it when people size you up? Oh, he’s a petty drug dealer …’
‘If it gets me girls, I’m fine with it. Who’re you calling petty?’
‘You two are alike. Neither of you is getting any.’
He bent forward with laughter, and that seemed to resolve the tension between them. They smoked in peace.
Then he said, ‘Noel Graham. Who calls their kid Noel Graham?’
Quinn exhaled at length. ‘Your mother did.’
‘The Smith part I don’t believe.’
‘Some people are Smiths. The most common name for a reason.’
‘Probably hiding her identity,’ the young man speculated.
‘She’s like a spy now?’
‘She’s a single mom-to-be with a ton of baggage. She calls herself Smith to hide her identity from the nuns. Didn’t want her bastard son looking her up someday.’
‘Not buying it. If she was that way, she’d let you be baptized. “Feel free, girls. Sprinkle water on his head. Or drown the poor boy, whatever …” You’d have your real name from the get-go. Your mom had spirit. She was feisty. That’s how I see her.’
‘I dunno.’
‘I do. She never imagined the consequences, you not being baptized. That part was never advertised, you know.’
She had a point.
‘Her real name was Smith,’ Quinn continued between tokes. ‘To call you Noel Graham proves it. Names like that, they’re part of her kin. Do you know why she called you Noel Graham?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Because she loved you. Accept it.’
‘Get off the pot. So to speak.’
‘She wanted you to grow up with dignity. Noel Graham. Strong name. She was trying to tell you how much she loved you. Yeah. That’s what I think.’
‘You’re a snowflake.’
Her eyelids were reduced to thin slits. ‘You’re not the first to make that observation.’
The young man also was enjoying the dope’s effects. ‘I’ll still be Leonard on the street,’ he stated. ‘If Cinq-Mars comes to arrest me, or whoever, I’ll give my real name. Then stand before a judge and take my punishment like a man. Not like some throwaway alley cat.’
‘I like you as a throwaway alley cat.’
‘Yeah? You like me? Cool. The thing is, I can get papers now.’
‘Like a driver’s license?’
‘A passport, even.’
‘Shit, man, don’t get carried away.’ She started to giggle.
‘Why can’t I have a passport?’
‘You off somewhere, big boy?’
‘It’s the principle of the thing.’
‘Fine. Get a passport. Enjoy paying your taxes, too.’
‘Why not? You think I won’t declare my illicit earnings? If they let me be a real citizen, I will. Hey, Quinn, do you know why I want the name the most?’
‘Girls. You want girls. Oh! You think that when you’re doing it, they’ll call out your real name. “Oh! Noel Graham! Don’t stop! Oh please, Noel!” At least, now you’ll know who they mean.’
She bent over double this time.
‘Stop laughing. Not funny. When they say my name now – Leonard – which is not that often, I wonder who they have in mind.’
She recovered slowly. ‘Tell me. What do you want the most?’
‘Two things. Now it’s two. One, a birth certificate to carry in my wallet.’
‘We’re in Quebec. You need a baptismal certificate, and you weren’t baptized.’
‘I believe that’s changed. We’ve gone modern. And two, someday, my name on a tombstone. I want that the most. I’ll have it chiseled in advance. To make sure it’s done right.’
‘You’re thinking about your tombstone? This far ahead?’ She gazed across the apartment’s muddle. He had shelves stuffed with books. He lived within a university milieu, albeit as a soft-drug dealer. ‘Know what? You can enroll as a mature student. Now that you have a real name.’
‘Get off the pot,’ he said, rather quietly she thought. ‘Literally.’
‘You could. You should.’
‘Get the hell out of here.’
‘You don’t mean that, Leonard.’
He lifted his head. It seemed heavy to him.
‘Noel,’ he corrected her. ‘In here, at home, my new name is Noel.’
‘Sure thing,’ she confirmed. ‘Noel, dude, enroll!’
Émile Cinq-Mars assumed he’d be no help regarding the art heist. Someone stole a painting. Unless it showed up at auction in Singapore or Abu Dhabi there’d be no new news.
After being in the apartment for three minutes, he changed his mind.
He enjoyed meeting the grand lady of the house. The pleasure of her company prevented him from dragging Yves Giroux into the street and scolding him for being an idiot. The case was solved. All he had to do was put a few pieces together.
He engaged Mrs Amelia Reynolds in conversation, discussing plants, cats, the Queen, her grandson, her travels to the Far East and, of course, her art collection, which was impressive. She patted her coiffed and tinted gray hair to keep the edges at attention and showed how the thief broke in by jimmying the front-door lock. She gave him a summary of her nieces, nephews and grandchild, as she had outlived both her husband and her only son. When Giroux, bored out of his tree, insisted that they make a break for it, Cinq-Mars thanked Mrs Reynolds for her hospitality and assured her that she’d have her painting back soon.
‘Cinq-Mars,’ Giroux lectured him outside on the street, ‘never say you’ll return stolen property. Don’t get their hopes up.’
‘I solved your case,’ the junior detective told him.
‘A needle in a huge haystack gives us a better chance. If the needle’s there, we’ll find it. This case—’
‘I was born on a farm.’
‘What?’
‘But not in a barn. My best friends were horses though.’
‘Did you say something?’
‘You didn’t hear me?’
‘Something about farming?’
‘You’re listening now? Good. I said, I solved your case.’
Giroux stood on the sidewalk as the brunt of his partner’s declaration dawned on him.
‘Sorry?’ he asked.
‘Solved,’ Cinq-Mars said, and turned to face him. ‘I know who committed the robbery.’
Now Giroux was looking at him as though he had a screw loose. ‘I don’t get it. Not an insurance scam, you said …’
‘You can’t pretend a well-known painting is stolen then stick it back on a wall. If you do, you can’t let anyone inside the door ever again. Yves, she’s a collector—’
‘I noticed. So?’
‘Imagine being a thief. You break into a house. The sole purpose is to steal a painting. You steal the Tom Thomson. But if you’re a thief who knows enough about art to know the difference between a Tom Thomson, say, and some doodle that you could do yourself, and you aren’t rushed for time, why would you pass up the Lawren Harris or the Jean-Paul Riopelle?’
‘The who? The what?’
‘They’re painters, Yves. She’s a collector. The A.Y. Jackson is small, but it’s valuable. Those are only the Canadians. There’s a Spanish name I don’t know, but I liked his work. And, then, there’s another Spaniard who you and I both know.’
‘I don’t know any Spaniards.’
‘You’ve heard of Picasso.’
Giroux stood transfixed a moment. ‘Which one?’
‘In the dining room. On the right as you enter.’
‘A fucking Picasso? The lady is loaded. She doesn’t need insurance money.’
‘That’s not the point. The point is, no thief worth his salt would pass up the Picasso, or the others, and settle only for the Thomson. It’s just not possible.’
‘If you say so. Where does that leave us?’
‘The lock wasn’t jimmied. The door was opened with a key. On his way out, our crook scratched the wood to make it look otherwise.’
‘He took a gouge of wood out, Cinq-Mars.’
‘Exactly, and you fell for it. Relatively soon, her grandson will inherit everything. In the meantime, he wanted something on account. He took the Thomson. Probably, he had a sale lined up. He collects a bit of cash to see him through until grandma’s demise, and when she does go he gets a share of the insurance payout as well. No point stealing the works. He can wait to inherit. He took what he needed to tide him over. Lean on the bastard, Yves. Incarcerate his skinny ass and get the painting back. Now, here’s the deal.’
‘Deal? What deal? We don’t know that this case is solved.’
‘It’s annoying, but the case is solved. It’s not rocket science. It’s not even Art Theft 101. It’s been done before, just not to Mrs Reynolds. Clean it up, Yves. Enjoy the glory and leave me alone. That’s our deal. Cover for me when I’m AWOL. I’ve got stuff to look after.’
‘How come,’ Giroux asked, ‘you know about these artists anyhow?’
Cinq-Mars didn’t want to say. The poor guy needed an answer, though, if for no other reason than to make up for his own deficiencies. Cinq-Mars favored him with the truth. ‘I had a girlfriend,’ he admitted. ‘She broke up with me. Recently. Life with a Night Patrol cop was too scary, too disruptive. The excuse she gave anyway. She used to drag me around museums, show me her art books. She studied art history. I just happened to get lucky that way.’
‘That kind of lucky,’ Giroux said.
‘That kind, too. Do we have a deal?’
Giroux gazed at Cinq-Mars, looked back at the old lady’s apartment. He shrugged. ‘Sure,’ he said. On the spot, their agreement was ironclad, as if chiseled in stone.