River City (61 page)

“Yes, sir. For me, it’s more than just a job. This is what I want to do.”

Touton nodded. He didn’t mind the romantic overture, the sense of vocation, as long as the young man knew which side of the world was up. “This is a tough town. The rackets, they’re getting worse. We used to crack down on gambling and prostitution. Now we worry about heroin. We get lots of murders here—two a week, about. More banks get robbed in this town than anywhere else in the world. Rough boys with no criminal record are now robbing banks on a whim. There’s no defence against that. I had one of those last week. ‘Why’d you rob that bank?’ I asked the punk. I told him, ‘You’ve got a
good job, a family.’ What does he say? He was bored. I used to catch criminals. Now I have to hunt down the bored as well. It’s difficult.”

They walked on, smoking, into a darker portion of the street, so that only the flare of the cigarettes distinguished them. Cinq-Mars knew the older man was exaggerating, but he wasn’t going to call him on it.

“Your father was pretty adamant that you get an education—those were the words you used.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve never heard a cop use that phrase before—'pretty adamant.’ It’s a common phrase, just not how a cop talks. Is your father totally pissed with you now?”

“Sir? Ah … dismayed, sir, I think is the word. I’m sorry if that’s not a cop’s word, either.”

“Never mind. I understand it. Just like I understand ‘pretty adamant.’ Which I’m not going to be with you, Cinq-Mars, in this situation. Do you realize the harm you might cause that child if you arrest her like this? Not to mention the loss of a grand opportunity. Do you comprehend—that’s not too big a word for you, is it?—do you comprehend the difficult situation you’re putting her in?”

Cinq-Mars shrugged. “Didn’t she put herself in the situation, sir?”

“Maybe so, if you’d arrested her on the scene. Or arrested her and seen to it that she’d stayed put. That’s one thing. The problem is, this is something else. Now you’re arresting her after the fact.”

“I don’t see why that’s an issue, sir. What’s the difference?”

Touton bobbed his head, as though slipping a punch. “After the jails are full, and the rioters have had their overnight séance with lawyers, and their parents wait for the banks to open to arrange bail—after everybody’s had a quick tantrum with the officer-on-duty about bringing us up on charges for false arrest—you’ll cart her onto the scene. After the fact. You’ll be granting her special status, that’s what I’m saying. Anik will be noticed. Conspicuous. She’ll be under suspicion from other prisoners. Do you know how this works?”

His moral footing was less secure than he’d thought. When in doubt with a superior, he tried to find the high ground, then do his best to cling
to it. Here, he was discovering the high ground to be already submerged. “I guess I don’t, sir.”

“Cinq-Mars.” Touton stopped walking and rested a hand gently on the younger man’s forearm a moment. “Big riot. The hotheads are rounded up and incarcerated. Miraculously, hours later, one last rioter is apprehended, one out of tens of thousands who are allowed to walk free.” Touton shrugged and flicked his cigarette, only half-smoked, out onto the street. “The more experienced thugs will think she’s a snitch. The lawyers will think so, too. Other cops will think that way. The judge, when he hears the story, will think the same way—he’ll probably give her extra jail time because he assumes he’s making us happy. The judge will accommodate burying our snitch among the other rioters for a longer period of time merely on a hunch created by your actions. Everyone will believe that we arranged to have a stool pigeon dropped into the far end of the cage. That poor girl will then be ruined for life. Not to mention that someone in a situation to assist the police one day will be compromised, under suspicion forever.”

“Do you mean that—”

“I mean no such thing, Cinq-Mars. Did you hear me say any such thing?”

“No, sir.” He was flummoxed. If Touton didn’t want him to think she might already be a police informant, why did he guide him into thinking so? If he didn’t want her compromised, why compromise her himself?

“You see, Cinq-Mars, I’m only asking that you consider the possibilities. The opportunities.”

The officer looked down the vacant street. If nothing else, this was an education.

“May I suggest a course of action?” Touton asked.

Cinq-Mars nodded. He admitted, “I could use the help.” He dropped his smoke and extinguished the butt under the sole of his shoe.

“Go home. Sleep on it. When you come into work in the afternoon, if you still feel that Anik should be jailed, have an arrest warrant issued. Phone her, or her mother. Let them know. At that point, if you’ve gone forward with the arrest warrant, Anik will come in under her own recognizance, which I can personally guarantee. She’ll have a lawyer in tow. He’ll do what lawyers do, bail will be set,
Anik will be home in an hour and nobody will think that we tried to drop her into a situation. She won’t be noticed. Don’t you think that that’s fair all around?”

Cinq-Mars nodded. “I do, sir. Thank you. That’s how I’ll proceed.”

“Let’s start back.” But Touton abruptly placed a restraining hand on his forearm again to impede his progress. “Slowly. There’s something else I want to talk to you about along the way. My case.”

“Your case, sir?”

“My murder investigation.”

Cinq-Mars was again perturbed. “You were saying. When did you say it occurred?”

“I didn’t, actually. I deflected the discussion away from that point.”

“Sir?” Cinq-Mars liked this old guy, but dealing with him was hard duty.

“You should notice these things for yourself if you want to be a detective. You asked a question. ‘When did the crime take place?’ That’s what you asked me. I didn’t answer. We’ve been all over the map since then, and I’m the one who’s reminding you that we were talking about a murder. If you want to become a detective one day, officer, you’ll have to learn to never lose the thread of a conversation.”

An education, indeed. “I’ll remember that, sir. You mentioned that this situation, with Anik, affected your investigation. How so, may I ask?”

Walking on, Touton gently stroked a finger in the air. “The victim, Cinq-Mars, was the girl’s father. Carole’s husband, you see. He was a petty criminal. Involved in strong-arm tactics, theft, that sort of thing. He spent the war in an internment camp for his politics.”

“A communist.”

“Good assumption, but it’s wrong. Not a fascist, either. He loved his wife, and that got him into trouble with the law. Does that seem right to you? It still doesn’t seem right to me.”

Hoping to demonstrate that he could keep the threads from unravelling, Cinq-Mars asked, “And when, sir, did this murder take place?”

“Ah. Do you remember the Richard riot? That night.”

Cinq-Mars remembered the event—he’d listened to the radio reports. Offhand, he guessed he’d been eleven back then. That imagined world, a big
city burning, the fans stampeding and overturning police cars, the images that had been created by the radio voice, stayed with him throughout his adolescence and had probably, in some subliminal way, influenced him to move to the city and forge a career in law enforcement. Some boyhood notion that he was needed here still resided in him.

“I was only a kid. I didn’t live in Montreal. But I remember it well.”

“That night, Anik’s father was killed.”

This news came as a shock. “Sir—that was a dozen years ago or more.” “Thirteen, yeah. What are you saying? If someone gets away with a murder for a few years, we should forget about it? Let the killers walk? Is that your attitude?”

“I don’t mean that. But … I’m just … As you said, there’s a hundred murders a year in the city. You’re still working this one case?”

“Trying to, yeah. May I share a concern with you?”

Although he’d been through different turns on the subject, Cinq-Mars was now glad that he’d found his way out to Anik’s house on his time off. “Yes, sir.”

“The investigation of this crime may outlive my usefulness on the force. I may, in fact, have to pass it off to someone coming along, to a younger officer. I might pass it on to you, Cinq-Mars.”

“Why me? With respect, sir, you don’t know me.”

“You have a university education. You talk in an odd manner. You are passionate about your job. Apparently, you’re willing to work during an off-shift.”

“That’s all true, I suppose.” They had reached the front gate to the Clément home, and they stopped there. “Thank you, I guess. But I get the feeling you’re having some fun with me.”

“You gotta have fun, Cinq-Mars. Remember that. Now, what are you saying? You don’t want the case?” Touton inquired.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m not a detective. Not yet.”

“You will be. Don’t tell me you didn’t join the force to become a detective.”

“I did, sir, yes. But there are no guarantees.”

Touton raised that discriminating finger again, as if it represented the launch of a new idea. “Perhaps you think the case is beneath you, not worthy of your time and effort. Let me give you the gist of what I’m talking about.
A hoodlum was killed. The same night, a coroner, a public servant, was also murdered. The first murder weapon had just been stolen from the offices of the National Hockey—”

“The Cartier Dagger,” Cinq-Mars interrupted, suddenly keenly interested in being involved.

“Then you have some background already.”

“You have suspects?”

“Hundreds. Names that have merited our consideration include the late premier of Quebec, the late mayor of Montreal, the current prime minister of Canada—”

“Trudeau?”

“He was out for a walk in the vicinity that night. We’ve had no reason to eliminate him, put it that way. Church bishops. Lowly priests. Persons of high standing in the business community. Doctors. A secret political sect known as the Order of Jacques Cartier, distinguished by their fascist sympathies. We have a roster of interested parties, of possible culprits. We have also had an officer’s car bombed, my own home vandalized, the murder of a chauffeur who, on occasion, drove the former mayor around—that’s a crime that may or may not be connected. In short, Cinq-Mars, if an officer is going to be involved in an investigation that takes him through most of his career, this is the kind of case it ought to be. In addition to all that, the first victim—the hoodlum, Anik’s dad—was my friend, who was working for me that night to secure the Sun Life Building. Now, do you still think the case is beneath you?”

“I never thought that, sir. I don’t think it now. I admit, I’m flabbergasted.”

“Your language, Cinq-Mars. What kind of a cop are you, anyway?”

“I’m also intrigued. May I use that word?”

“You may. I’ve been looking for a bright junior officer to do a little undercover work for me. White-collar crime. A short spell. Someone who can talk like an intelligent man. Are you interested?”

He couldn’t contain his smile. “Sir. I’m your man.”

Touton tapped him on the elbow. “Good. Before we go back in, be clear. We did not trade anything here tonight. What you do with respect to Anik is up to you.”

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. I’ll sleep on it, then decide.”

“Then sleep well, Cinq-Mars. Report to me tomorrow night.” With that, the captain whistled softly, and Ranger raced to his side.

When he woke up that afternoon, Cinq-Mars felt his senses alert, his nerve endings tingling. In his excitement, he almost forgot to consider the issue of Anik’s arrest. He chose not to proceed, and according to plan phoned her to tell her so.

“Oh, God,” she said over the phone. “I got dressed up and everything.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“So, are you admitting to it yet?”

“Sorry?”

“Your crush on me. Why not admit it?”

Good question. “I, ah, have to go to work now, Anik.”

“Yeah. Well. You
will
let me know, though, right? I mean, you’re not going to just keep it to yourself, right?”

Cinq-Mars got off the phone, wondering. Had Touton put a bug in his ear? Did the captain perhaps want him to be friends with Anik because she had the potential to become a well-placed police informant? The notion confused him. What about friendship? Dating? If he asked her out, would he date out of an obvious attraction, or because she might help him as a cop? Or, the more difficult consideration, could he possibly proceed to do both—be romantic, and recruit?

Later that afternoon, after having voted in the federal election and put in a few hours on his beat, he returned to headquarters and reported to the captain of the Night Patrol.

“Do you own a suit?” Armand Touton demanded to know.

“Yes, sir.”

“Go home. Put it on. Report back to me.” Cinq-Mars failed to budge.

“Well, go on.”

The junior officer took a deep breath. “I’ll look like a farmer, sir.” Touton shot a glance at the young man and nodded. When he had returned from the war, not having proper clothes or footwear had often depressed him.
He suspected that this young man wore his uniform as he had done—proudly, and with élan—because as soon as he changed back into his street clothes he looked ridiculous. He suspected that the fellow had probably improved his wardrobe with his first paycheques, at least with respect to casual clothes, but he hadn’t had a chance to extend that to more formal attire.

“I get you, son. That won’t work. All right, can you buy yourself a suit with your own money tomorrow? I know a tailor I can send you to. You won’t come away looking like a farmer, the price will be reasonable, and I’ll ask him to offer monthly terms. Does that seem fair?”

“Sure. Tomorrow is supposed to be my day off, though.”

“Forget about it.”

Cinq-Mars took the rest of the night off instead. He was too excited to walk his beat. He booked off and strolled uptown from headquarters and visited a small bar, not too crowded, not too bare, and ordered a whiskey. He wasn’t supposed to do that in uniform, but who was going to arrest him? This was his first hard liquor since coming to the big city, but he finally had something to celebrate, so he did.