JEAN-CLAUDE
GOES TO QUEBEC CITY
(PART II)

I DON’T KNOW WHO YOU are. Really no idea. I’m telling you this because when I’m alone in my car like this, it never fails: I start going over it all in my mind, the events of that autumn, certain details in particular, they all come flooding back to haunt me, and as soon that happens I take out my little tape recorder and put it up to my lips and try to imagine who you are, you out there somewhere in the future, and this whole story, assuming that it even holds any interest for you, must seem unbelievably complicated. So. We were at Monday, a little before six in the morning, October 1973. Somewhere on Highway 20 between Montreal and Quebec City, about to cross the Richelieu River on, you’ll never guess, the Paul-Lavoie Bridge. Rebaptized two years before. An ordinary piece of highway construction; cement is a safe way to preserve a person’s memory. I’d say that that’s the main difference between politics and organized crime: the Mafia buries its victims in cement, the government, only the names of its victims. And now, I need to explain a few small things to you. Again. What I would like . . . Wait a minute. What I would most like you to understand is why Little Albert, after only two years in office, is going to call an unexpected election, perhaps this autumn, and to campaign on the backs of the separatists, instead of against the mob. And why he is going to win.

In the run for the party leadership, you will recall, poor little Paul Lavoie was lambasted by the electoral machine run by Colonel Lapierre, Uncle Bob, who grabbed Albert Vézina by the seat of his pants and set him down on the throne. In the meantime, Lavoie, flat as a pancake, was completely washed up. His coffers were empty. He owed $175,000. And Vézina had no reason to wait until he’d returned to financial health before calling an election. The election took place in April 1970. Lavoie could have bowed out. Everyone would have understood. But he was a determined little scrapper, and he decided to stick it out and carry on the fight within the party. Oh, he’d rally around the newly elected chief, no doubt about that. He’d hasten to assure him publicly of his loyalty. He’d swear on a stack of Bibles that he would place his experience at the disposal of the victor: Dear Albert, let me be your right arm . . . Ah-ha! Lavoie was in no hurry, and he was no fool. He had three-quarters of the delegates on his side and he wasn’t yet fifty years old. Vézina was the outsider, tangled up in his diplomas, dressed to the nines. And Lavoie was still green enough that it was worth his while to wait to see if the tree was going to break or bend. Bend over, Albert . . .

Lavoie ran again in his old riding, but now he knew what he had to do to win it. He had to get rid of any weak-kneed supporters, no more choirboys in his organization, no sir. The leadership struggle had taught him a thing or two, or rather had confirmed in capital letters what he’d always known: in order to hold on to your sword in politics, you need to be willing to have dirty hands. He was a man who had always had debts, the hazardous combination of a spendthrift temperament and the provider of a growing family. He loved ostentatious watches, gold or silver chains, those little signs of material comfort that he could unobtrusively wear in public. He had the mentality of the parvenu, if you like, but in the 1960s all of Quebec was like that. After having passed his bar exams, Lavoie wanted to see some action, but his skill with a pen diverted him from his high ambition and landed him at the Devoir. Where, falling victim to a kind of economic civil war, he was condemned to grab any passing devil by the tail. Financially speaking, being a correspondent with the Devoir placed you somewhere between a Biafran native and a minor colonial civil servant.

Parachuted into the position of parliamentary correspondent in the Old Capital, our friend discovered he had a certain genius for augmenting his income. On one hand, he denounced the weakest of the scandalistas (the “assholierthanthous,” as he famously neologized) that rose from the practice of power, and he learned how to operate this marvellous machine for making money that is to any politician what mud is to a pig. He perfected the art of situating himself as a go-between between the politicians with whom he rubbed shoulders on a daily basis in the corridors of the Assembly and around the high tables on the Grande-Allée, and the businessmen of his acquaintance. Understand me well: the commissions he received for his good offices, he needed them! Suits to buy, mouths to feed, the whole nine yards. Everyone knew the Liberal Party existed only to stay in power and allow the greatest possible number of friends of the regime to fill their pockets and their bellies up to their eyeballs. So when people gave him the sign, their boy Lavoie didn’t hesitate for a second. Renounced his quasi Maurrasian nationalism, gave up his Basque beret and leapt on the train of the Quiet Revolution. The train of progress and big money, of elevated ideas and under-the-table payoffs. And I’m going to be very clear on one point: if you think Albert Vézina, with his first-class airs, was, from this point of view, more proper (or cleaner) than his future rival for the party leadership, you’re sticking your finger so far into your eye you’ll be able to scratch between your shoulder blades. When you join the Liberal Party, you become what the Liberal Party tells you to become, and when the last trumpet hath sounded, money hath no smell, not even if it comes from a baron of tainted meat who wants to increase your chances for the leadership.

Speaking of the daily paper on the rue Saint-Sacrifice, I’d like to read you something that was in it this morning. Yes, you who are sleeping in the future, who perhaps are driving down this very Highway 20 and crossing the Paul-Lavoie Bridge to overlook, in its happily amnesiac way, the Richelieu River and its Chemin des Patriotes. Perhaps you are on your way, on this marvellous October day, the sky pure and cold, to hunt woodcocks in the farm woods around Saint-Glinglin. There, I’ve slowed down, I’m pulling onto the service lane, I’ve put on my four-ways for extra safety, and now I’m getting my good old Devoir from my briefcase. The guy who signed the article is a first-class shit-shoveller and we love him for it — except when the shit’s on the tips of our own shoes from stepping in it, obviously. And if, way off in the future, you’ve never heard of the second Lavoie Affair, well, open your barn doors wide, that’s my friendly advice to you.

RCMP REPORTS INCRIMINATE PAUL LAVOIE

That’s the title of one of them. Now, I’m going to read you an excerpt from the police report that is quoted extensively in all four articles, no less, that have to do with this affair: this one appeared under the byline of the (admittedly) courageous Louis-Georges Laflèche:

On April 2, 1970, we were informed that a meeting was going to take place that day at 6 o’clock in the evening in the apartment of Jean-Claude Marcel, secretary to Paul Lavoie, between Lavoie and Giuseppe Scarpino F.P.S. 354448 and Luigi Temperio F.P.S. 348015. A certain Louis-Gilles Gauthier would also be present at this meeting.

According to information received, the apartment was situated in a building on boulevard Saint-Joseph East, in Montreal. Apartment number 4.

A check was made of the building at 5145 boulevard Saint-Joseph East, and no name appeared on the list of apartments for number 4. It was later established that the apartment in question was situated on the top floor of the building.

That same day, at 5:40 p.m., in the presence of Corporal Maurice Vachon, regimental number 3347, we observed a v.a. 1970 Oldsmobile, colour grey, Quebec licence plate 5P-2024, registered under the name of Paul Lavoie, park across the boulevard from 5145 boulevard Saint-Joseph East, in Montreal. The v.a. was driven by an unidentified man. Mr. Lavoie got out and went inside the building situated at 5145 boulevard Saint-Joseph East.

At 6:00 p.m. we observed Louis-Gilles Gauthier enter the building at 5145 boulevard Saint-Joseph East. Photographs of the subject were taken.

At 6:10 p.m., we observed a v.a. Cadillac, colour dark blue, roof black vinyl, Quebec licence plate 2M-9898, registered in the name of Giuseppe Scarpino. The latter, accompanied by Luigi Temperio, interred [sic] the building situated at 5145 boulevard Saint-Joseph East. Photos of the subjects were taken.

At 6:50 p.m., we observed Paul Lavoie leaving the building at 5145 boulevard Saint-Joseph East. He was alone. He got into the Oldsmobile and drove away.

Surveillance was terminated at 7:00 p.m.

Factual note: It has been verified that a telephone was installed in apartment number 4 on 30-03-70 and was terminated on 30-04-70.

That’s the kind of thing that happens when you’re in power and you try to stick bats in the spokes of investigators of good faith (there are some). Somewhere in town, a journalist wakes up with an anonymous manilla envelope shoved through his mail slot. And now I’m going to start the car and merge with the traffic, otherwise I might draw attention to myself. Standing between the ditch and my car, both feet on the shoulder, one door open like the door of a shitter as if I were taking a piss in the open air, it might look like a normal thing, but it’s not normal for me. I mean, for me to whip it out on the side of the road? My wife would say it lacks class. There, I’m back on the highway, left signal light flashing, exiting the service lane — get it? La voie de service?

I hope you know that what you just heard, you out there in the future, that piece from the Devoir I read at the steering wheel of my stopped car is a bomb. You do? No? But perhaps by the time you’re hearing this it is all common knowledge. If so, so much the better for you, but now, in 1973, in Quebec, not Sicily, it’s hot shit! An apartment that has a phone installed one month before the elections and then has it removed the day after the votes are counted, okay, so far no big deal. They were in an election campaign and soliciting funds. That two big names from the Scarpino family and a Liberal member and ex-candidate for the party leadership were there at the same time, what can I say? It isn’t exactly the kind of thing you’d want to become public knowledge. Scarpino controls the entire North American distribution of heroin, and his organization serves as the link between the Corsican clan in Marseille and the big New York families. The only problem for Paul Lavoie, and it wasn’t his fault, was that he was dealing with two gentlemen who were at the centre of a wiretap operation set up by the RCMP as part of their Operation Plain, a huge international investigation into the trafficking of heroin. The contact between us and the Scarpinos was through Gauthier, a supporter who owned a tavern in Saint-Léonard and a good friend of mine, who was chief treasurer for the Lavoie campaign.

The day after the psychological triumph of the wallet that was the Liberal victory, when Little Albert was busy constructing his cabinet, he was told of the dubious connections of his new right arm. Either he received a visit from some higher-ups in the civil service or else he was put in the picture by his special adviser, Uncle Bob himself, who knew everyone from the head of state to the lowest echelons of the public service. Uncle Bob, who wagging tongues were saying had access to the collection of tapes gathered by the intelligence services of the Quebec Provincial Police, and who had only to snap his fingers to have at his disposal any relevant hardware belonging to military intelligence. Papa Boss and Big Brother all rolled up into one person, imagine it . . . The result? Paul Lavoie, whose secret financial backers expected to be made Minister of Justice, found himself relegated to the sidelines once again, given the portfolio of Public Works as a kind of consolation prize. What was worse, now Uncle Bob had him by the short and curlies. So why wasn’t he simply kicked out of the cabinet altogether? Because Lavoie would have taken half the party with him. He still had too much support to be confronted head-on. The scandal would have blown the whole party to smithereens, and most of the shit would have fallen on the premier’s well-coifed head.

But behind the scenes, the confrontation went on. I know that at one point Lavoie went to Vézina and told him, regarding the special counsellor: “It’s him or me . . .” Ha! Vézina gave him the usual runaround, and before my unfortunate patron could cut a path through the bullshit, Uncle Bob, the Shakespearian character hiding behind the arras, had once again consolidated his power.

And once Paul Lavoie was no longer around to defend himself, people began opening the floodgates and covering him with all the crud that rose to the surface. And we, his friends, stood there without saying a word while he was stabbed in the back again, forced to watch the shit-spraying in silence, because if we didn’t, the whole apple cart would have tipped over. In politics, there’s nothing better than a scapegoat with his mouth full of dirt. And just between you and me, it wasn’t the Mafia who pulled off this coup. At bottom, the business between Lavoie and Uncle Bob Lapierre was a war of succession. And if, boys and girls from the distant future, you wonder how I’m doing, I’d say that J.-C. Marcel isn’t doing too badly, thank you for asking. I was elected in a supplementary by-election at the beginning of autumn. I’m the new member of the National Assembly for the riding of Vautrin, and the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Revenue. It’s not exactly the red carpet, but with a bit of luck that will follow. All is well. I don’t regret my choices. I’ve sworn allegiance to Uncle Bob.