‘You see my dilemma,’ Cinq-Mars told the young man. ‘How this looks.’
The youth didn’t. Cinq-Mars expected that.
They sat on the bottom steps of the spiral staircase that ascended to the apartments, the eighteen-year-old two steps higher than the policeman.
‘How does it look?’ Mick asked.
He had recited a credible story. At Jarry Park, which lay beyond the tracks on the east side of Park Ex, a baseball game let out. Fans dispersed, heading for buses, their cars, or the walk home. Mick was there but had not attended the game. He hung with a few guys, chatting up girls who hailed from the neighborhood further east, on the other side of the large park. The girls were Italian, the boys a mix of Russians and Poles. They were getting along, flirting, when four Italian guys, who knew the girls, drew them toward their home district. Mick’s group objected. They were seven strong. A fight seemed imminent and the two sides discussed how it could go down. Three among Mick’s crew could sit it out, to keep the battle fair. The Italians, probably for good reason, didn’t go for that. ‘They didn’t trust us. Probably smart. I mean, our guys sitting out wouldn’t watch us get beat up, right? The Italians wanted more guys.’
‘More guys,’ Cinq-Mars repeated.
‘I told them we weren’t waiting around to find out if they had any friends. A lot of talk.’
‘Seven on four,’ Cinq-Mars acknowledged. ‘A nice advantage.’
‘They said they’d come to our lane later. Midnight. How did they know our lane? A girl told them, turns out. I guess we mentioned it to her. What could we do? We agreed to fight. I added a few bodies. Not enough it turned out. Like they say, the rest is history. No big deal.’
‘You see my dilemma,’ Cinq-Mars repeated. ‘This doesn’t look good for you.’
Mick didn’t get it. The detective explained his point.
‘A gang broke into these apartments, and you have demonstrated to me that you can pull together a gang of young men on short notice. The uniform on duty told me that you organized your side into a U-shape or a V-shape to defend yourselves. Neighbors reported that, also. So, you can pull a gang together, Mick, then direct the gang to defend itself. We didn’t only have burglaries here. We had a murder. You haven’t implicated yourself in that, but let’s face it, you’ve climbed up the ladder to being a suspect.’
‘A suspect?’ The boy took that in. The suggestion hadn’t occurred to him. ‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously,’ Cinq-Mars assured him. ‘Anything you want to say? I appreciate a man who wants to be a man and come clean.’
‘I got nothing to come clean about. I came clean already about the fight.’
‘The robberies?’
‘Nothing to do with me.’
‘Can you prove where you were? Who you were with?’
‘I told you. I was dropping acid. Guys won’t want to say they were dropping with me.’
‘They’d rather see you in jail. Good friends, huh?’
The boy shrugged. ‘If I had to, I guess I could prove it.’
‘That’s probably true,’ Cinq-Mars concurred. ‘You could’ve been nowhere near the building when the robberies went down. Let me show you something. Follow me.’
The detective lumbered up and crossed the yard to the edge of the lane. Mick came along. Earlier, Cinq-Mars had spied an effect of moonlight. In the narrow range of sky afforded by the laneway, the moon itself was not visible.
‘Turn around.’
They faced the building.
‘What do you see?’
‘What do you think? An apartment building. Where I live.’
‘Go on. What else?’
The boy took a longer look, then didn’t want to say.
‘Tell me,’ Cinq-Mars encouraged him.
Still no reply.
‘Can you or can you not see the chalk marks?’
‘Those? Yeah.’
‘Kind of glow in the dark, don’t they? I noticed that before. When it’s dark, they pick up the lights in the lane, or from the moon. They glow.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I see that.’
‘Then you see my dilemma.’
‘What’ – he wanted to throw in an expletive but didn’t – ‘dilemma?’
‘You can call a gang together. You can instruct a gang on a combat formation and they do what you say. You could very easily have marked these apartments – you have easy access. After that, you could have dropped acid while everything else was going down. Stayed clear. High and dry. Not necessarily innocent. That’s my dilemma.’
The boy crossed his arms. ‘Wasn’t me,’ he said.
‘We’ll see, Mick. I hope if anything comes up that can help me, you’ll let me know. That’s the only way I’ll be able to help you, whether you’re innocent or not. For now, go on back to bed. That’s where I’m going. Goodnight, Mick.’
The boy didn’t say goodnight, or anything else. Cinq-Mars remained standing where he was, and observed the boy return to his basement apartment. The door was opened by his father and shut behind him. Cinq-Mars headed back down the lane where he’d parked his Volkswagen.
‘Copper!’ roared a voice from on high. As though God, or an illustrious devil, wanted a word.
Cinq-Mars hadn’t gone far. He turned and looked up, spotting the Bombardier on his balcony. Moira Ellibee was fastened to his side. ‘Lady wants to talk to you.’
The lady had an effective method of gaining his attention.
Cinq-Mars took a breath, calculated the possible pros and cons of this solicitation, and chose not to resist. He returned and climbed the exterior stairs.
The Bombardier had departed by the time Cinq-Mars reached the top floor. He was to be alone with Moira, who insisted he enter her apartment. An angel on one shoulder counseled, ‘Run!’ The angel on the opposite side: ‘You’re armed. Go in.’ He wasn’t certain who was the good angel, who the bad. Either way, he went inside.
He was immediately glad to have done so.
‘Willy was here,’ Moira told him. ‘He came for clothes, I think. Belongings. He was here.’
‘Here?’ Cinq-Mars remained skeptical at first. ‘In this apartment.’
‘Don’t be silly. In his own apartment. He doesn’t keep his clothes in mine.’
‘How do you know he was here?’
‘I saw him. I talked to him. He seems good. A little agitated. I calmed him down. Don’t ask me how.’
‘Where was he going?’
‘Didn’t say. He wouldn’t, would he? Mum’s the word with our Willy.’
‘So he came by for his clothes.’
‘What he could carry away, yes. I don’t think he took a lot. I guess he’s a man on the run now. Travels light.’
‘What did you talk about? You said you spoke?’
‘I wanted to know if he was planning to take his cameras with him. He seemed upset by the question. I don’t think he remembered that I know about the cameras. I helped install them. I played a small part, anyway. It bothers me that he didn’t remember that.’
‘Moira,’ Cinq-Mars said, ‘what cameras?’
‘The ones,’ she said, ‘in the roof.’
He remained mute a moment. Then asked, ‘In the roof. Not on?’
‘In,’ Moira Ellibee confirmed.