River City (88 page)

He stepped across to his private and concealed safe. At knee level, it looked like any other cabinet. He opened the wooden doors, then the double combination lock on the steel door, and pulled out three thick black binders and placed them on the floor. He looked in. Then looked up. Trudeau crossed to the wall switch by the door to his office and dimmed the lights. Only the lamp on his desk shone now. The room was eerily quiet, save for the distant thrum of the building’s complex components. Then he clicked the lock on his door, and returned to the safe. He reached inside. The prime minister pulled out the Cartier Dagger and held it in both hands, gazing down upon the knife. Before the relic had come into his possession, the tip had been broken off, but since then only a few moose hairs had unravelled. If the dagger possessed special power, he wanted to receive it now. Winning elections was all very well, but the real test of a life in public service pertained to those irrevocable choices that
defined a person’s stewardship, which in some way helped define your country and your time.

He stood still. Breathing. Waiting.

Pierre Trudeau held the knife as a man might hold a prayer in the core of his solitary heart.

Cross feared the worst—not merely death, but a lonely, shabby one. His captors possessed what he considered to be a naïve expectation of negotiation. They’d cheered the newspaper ads placed and signed by community leaders, demanding that the government negotiate. Perhaps this crazy place called Quebec behaved differently than the world he’d known. Where else on earth would union leaders and journalists, politicians and business executives exhort the prevailing power to cave in to terrorists? Only in Quebec, apparently. Individuals, even segments of the society, might choose surrender, but surely not leadership from the intelligentsia, business and labour. But he was wrong.

He thought he heard trucks rumbling on the streets below, but they were on television. The military had been granted the authority to act. Which would probably cost him his life. The army had arrived, and his next deadline approached.

“You see?” carped the woman. She was pacing around his room. He could smell her cigarette and hear her deeply inhale. He despised her. “What is it I see?” Blindfolded, he saw nothing.

“When the poor of Quebec lie sick and dying, do they send in the troops? When the workers have their skulls cracked by the bosses’ goons, do they send the army to defend them? When we sit in our shit, prisoners of misery, do they send soldiers? Never. Not for the nigger French.”

She stood behind his back and spoke into his ear, her spit touching him, making him flinch and lean his head away.

“But if one man is taken away from his home high up on the mountain, and if that man is a British trade commissioner, they send in the army. They
want to destroy our cause, but their idiot fascist response will make us stronger. It’ll bring on the revolution. Before it does, Jasper Cross, we will shoot you through the mouth. Count on that.”

The men gave him water when he wanted, and let him urinate and defecate without delay whenever he made the request. The woman made him wait until the pain in his bladder was excruciating. Then she’d pull him up by the hair and shove him towards the bathroom door.

He was hoping that one of the men would bring him his lunch today, and escort him to the loo. He hoped it would not be that dreadful woman.

Few enjoyed the task they were given. Émile Cinq-Mars departed headquarters each night with a team of six in three squad cars. They were handed a short list of names and addresses. If they made an arrest, they took the suspect in, and if they did well they received a new set of names.

Cinq-Mars brought in a guy, an artist, who seemed relaxed about the matter, as he had expected any police crackdown to include him. He admitted to being an anarchist. “I kidnapped nobody,” he maintained. “I could never handle the extra mouth to feed. I have enough trouble scraping up food for my pets.” Apparently, he thought he would be questioned and released. When he learned that he was to be incarcerated for an indeterminate time, he panicked. “My budgies!” he cried out. “My cats, my goldfish. God,” he shouted, “you’ll kill them. Who’ll feed my animals?”

Cinq-Mars, who for a time had expected to become a veterinarian, wanted to help. He accepted the prisoner’s house key and agreed to find someone to care for the menagerie. Shortly after that conversation, still down at Sûreté du Québec headquarters, he encountered Father François hulking along the corridor.

“Father. What brings you here?”

“I haven’t been arrested yet, if that’s what you’re asking. Probably that’s imminent, or will you do it right now, mmm? What are
you
doing here, Émile?”

Cinq-Mars was surprised by the priest’s curt retort. “Working,” he answered.

“Arresting the innocent? You call that work? You cops should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“Father—you’re in an ornery mood. Look, it’s my job, and if you can’t understand that—”

“That’s what Nazi war criminals maintained, didn’t they? Following orders.” “It’s not the same thing, Father.”

“Isn’t it?” The priest was not about to let him off the hook, but nor was Cinq-Mars going to cower from the man’s heckling. He didn’t like his duty, but that didn’t mean he’d knuckle under to someone’s ridicule. “How’s it different?”

“If I have to explain that to you, Father, then you’re not the political thinker I took you to be.”

Father François took a breath and calmed himself. “I’ve heard a few desperate stories tonight, Émile. I’m a little worked up.”

“I understand, Father. That’s what you’re doing? Visiting prisoners?”

“Somebody has to. They’re not allowed to see lawyers.”

“Frankly, I’m surprised they’re allowed to see you.”

“They’re not.” He spoke quietly for the first time. “I made people feel guilty enough that they let me in.”

“Good for you. You must be unhappy with your old friend right now.”

Father François was momentarily at a disadvantage. “Trudeau, you mean? No, I’m not happy with him.” He buttoned up his overcoat. “You’ll have to excuse me, Émile. I have people to see.”

“A moment, Father. I have a man inside. He has a number of pets and no one to care for them while he’s being held. He’s given me his house key, but—”

The cleric sighed. “Hand it over. I’ll talk to him, get his address. It won’t be me, but volunteers are being organized for this sort of thing.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“Any other such issues, Émile, get in touch. Maybe it’s a good thing that I know a cop. It’s good of you to be concerned.”

After the older man visited the prisoner, Cinq-Mars checked in with headquarters. He waited on the line for over ten minutes before Captain Touton could clear a moment to speak to him. “Kid, what’s up?”

“I’m at the SQ jail. Father François was in ahead of me. He has full access.” “That’s not right. But does it matter? We don’t have to stick to every rule. Most of our arrests are arbitrary, God knows.” “That’s not what I was thinking, sir.”

“Go on.”

“He knows every radical in town. He always has. He could easily be a courier between those locked up and those on the outside. You might want to tail him.”

Cinq-Mars listened to silence awhile.

“I suppose you want to be the one to tail him,” Touton said, his tone gruff. “I know it’s a rough job you guys are doing right now, but it has to be done.”

He was taken aback. Did Touton really think that this was a ploy to get himself onto another detail? “I thought it could be a lead, sir. You once told me yourself that you didn’t trust Father François.”

“Why should I?” Touton asked. “Look, like everybody else, I’m short of manpower, but when I get someone free, I’ll try to follow up your lead. It has merit.”

“Thank you, sir.” He hung up the phone in a rage. Everyone was working with a short fuse these days—he had to bear that in mind. The old man was probably going around the clock and he probably had to deal with officers jockeying for better duty. Success in a crisis stood out, so officers were looking to get the best roles for themselves, but he hadn’t been one of them and he was angry that Touton had thought that way.

Still, he said he might follow up on the idea. Maybe, by the end of his call, Touton was already reconsidering. That man could be annoying.

Outside, his squad had acquired a new list of names. Cinq-Mars glanced down it, then told them he still had another call to make. The men were holding hot coffees, so they were in no rush.

He fished another dime from his pocket and dialled.

The phone rang three times before being picked up. “Hello?”

“Anik. It’s me. Émile.”

“What a surprise.”

“It shouldn’t be,” he told her.

She was quiet a few moments, then said, “I’m on a list.”

“Not on mine, but your mother is. She’s on my arrest docket.”

“Shit.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“Hang on.”

He didn’t have to wait long.

“Émile! Good to hear from you after all this time.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Clément. I have bad news tonight though.”

“Anik tells me I’ve been listed. I’m impressed. You’d think that the authorities would have forgotten me by now.”

“Afraid not.”

“Anik’s disappointed. She wanted it to be her.”

“I can’t say that she’s not on someone else’s list. She’s just not on mine.”

“That probably disappoints her the most, Émile. What do you think we should do? Run like frightened rabbits? I’m not a good sprinter. I have nowhere to hide. Will you at least be gentle when you arrest me?”

“You should leave, ma’am.”

“Easier said than done, Émile. At a friend’s house I’d be endangering the friend. Anyway, most of my buddies are probably on a list, too. I’ve been through this before. I don’t think there’s much point—”

“Ma’am, you can go to my apartment. You’re welcome to stay there. You and Anik, both.”

She paused, then said, “That’s generous. Do you have room? We’ll be with Ranger, too.”

“Ranger, too. I’m just figuring this out as I talk, but I could move into your house, ma’am. Nobody gets arrested that way. You really don’t need to spend three or four weeks or months in jail right now. You won’t enjoy the experience, trust me.”

“Hang on a sec, Émile, okay?”

He could hear her discussing matters with Anik, who was next to come back on the line.

“Listen, Émile, it’s a good idea. Thanks. I don’t want Mom in jail. But if you walk in and out of this house all day wearing your uniform,” she continued, “you could cause us more trouble than this is worth.”

“Anik—” Cinq-Mars started to protest, but she already possessed the solution.

“So all four of us have to stay at your place. You included. We’ll just squeeze in and make the best of it.” That suited him just fine.

“That’s what we’ll do,” he said, then let a bitterness slip. “As long as the fourth is Ranger and not René. I don’t want him sleeping over.” Silence.

Finally, she said, “How the hell did you know that?” “You’re a watched woman. He’s a watched man.”

Neither of them understood why she said what she said next, but Anik apologized. “I’m sorry, Émile.” The words struck them both as odd. They remained mute awhile.

He broke the tension. He knew that he should apologize, but instead he said, “I’m not sure how to get my keys to you. You’ve got to pack and go now.”

“I still have a key,” she told him. “I remember where I left it, too.”

That surprised him.

“You two take the bed.”

Cinq-Mars still wasn’t ready to go back to work, although his cohorts were antsy now. He possessed prestige among their group, so he was able to coax them into waiting a while longer. Going back inside, he talked to the sergeant on duty.

“That priest who comes in here,” he said. The sergeant looked sleepy, done in, but he carried more rank than Cinq-Mars and put up a brave front. “What about him?” the sergeant asked.

Cinq-Mars was interested in learning if his hunch was right, that Father François might be working the jail for reasons beyond the bounds of the purely pastoral.

Fewer men guarded him, he knew. One had been sent away. Perhaps two. The one who’d spoken kindly to him was gone. Punishment for letting him get free,
when he’d flung himself at the window, cutting himself up. Or banishment for no longer having the stomach for this action. Whatever the cause, Pierre Laporte now had fewer captors, yet he believed that reduced his chances.

Those who were left behind were the more difficult individuals.

After the window, he’d pleaded for a doctor, a hospital.

They denied him.

Now two men, as far as he was able to discern, entered his room. They were quiet. Saying nothing to one another. Nothing to him.

“What?” he said.

They did not reply.

“Water, please,” he said. Still they did not reply.

Then he pleaded, saying only,
“S’il vous plait. Messieurs. Messieurs! S’il vous plait.”

And he felt the cord around his neck like a hangman’s noose around his soul as his whole body rebelled and fought to live. Great, horrendous bellows bore out of him as the cord squeezed tighter and his limbs, constrained and depleted, flailed as if set upon by an electric charge. He roared in his anguish and heard his attacker yell out also—once, twice, goading himself on, and before he called out a third time, the cord suddenly relaxed and was unwound and the feet of the two men rapidly retreated from the room. He was still alive, he believed.
I’m alive!

His heart was smashing through his ribcage like a locomotive screaming through a night forest.

They had tried, and failed, to kill him.

Pierre Laporte felt alive and dead at the same time, all his body roaring, each atom, nerve ending, corpuscle, droplet of blood in his veins, roaring, all his bones and tendons a single collapsed scream as he listened with the power of ten wild animals for the footsteps to return or to stay gone.

He was still alive, but he could not breathe or think and dared not imagine anything. Dared not even hope, for hope was too painful for him now, too infested with the torment of this hour. He was still alive, yet he felt now the first inkling of a contagious despair.