by Ron Corbett
. . .
Cambino pulled into the next rest area and went to use a pay phone. He turned his back to the steady stream of motorists entering and leaving the washrooms and placed his call. He would have appeared to the passing crowd as a slight man, wearing an old man’s light-tan windbreaker and unfashionable running shoes, a Texas A&M cap pulled low on his face. The change was in his pocket, and his call was answered on the first ring.
“I was not expecting to hear from you today.”
“I need a situation report,” said Cambino, and he leaned his body forward, cupping the receiver so close to his chin it was nearly in his jacket. He listened for more than a minute, not moving, keeping track of the sounds on the phone, the sounds behind him.
When the man on the phone stopped talking, Cambino said, “It is not enough. You will need to do more.”
The other man did not speak right away. When he did, he said, “I am not sure why. Everything is going as we planned. The police, they are working on nothing else.”
“You have three more days. There’s a chance that won’t last. Even if it does, you should not risk it. There is a way to guarantee everything happens the way it must. Here is what you need to do.”
Cambino’s voice was so low it was not even a whisper that might be dimly heard amidst the shouts and chatter of the visitors’ centre, the words more rhythm than pitched sound, the end of his instructions coming when he said, almost rhetorically, “You can do this?”
“Yes, of course. I’m just not sure it needs to be done.”
“It is good insurance. None is better. It will also be a test for him.”
“A test? What difference will a test make? He’s dead either way.”
“It will make a difference to me,” Cambino said.
“You are sure of this?”
“I am. And he must know. He must agree to it.”
“All right. Consider it done.”
Cambino didn’t say anything more. He hung up the phone and went back to his campervan.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Silver Dollar had a sign on the front door saying it was closed for the day and would reopen tomorrow. Eddie O’Malley stood in front of the door with his arms crossed, in case there was any misunderstanding about the sign.
“We’re closed today,” he said, when Yakabuski was standing in front of him.
“I’m not planning on staying long, Eddie. Is he in his office?”
“He probably is. But he’s not taking visitors, Mr. Yakabuski. Did you not know it was his father’s funeral today?”
“I know that, Eddie. I still need to see him.”
The bouncer didn’t speak for several seconds. Tilted his head, as though visualizing it, playing it out in his mind, how the fight would go once it started. He looked at the sign behind him, the police detective in front of him, and finally he said, “You sure about this? The place is full.”
“I’m sure.”
“All right. I’ll walk you back.”
Yakabuski followed Eddie’s back as it weaved between the tables. The room was filled with men, and there was not an empty table. The women must have been taken someplace else after the funeral. The music was loud, some sort of Cuban music, the DJ in the booth a man Yakabuski had never seen before. They were almost to the hallway that led to Morrissey’s office when Peter O’Reilly put out his leg and blocked their way.
He was sitting down, two other men seated with him at the round tavern table. If O’Reilly had been standing, he would have stood six-foot-four, although he always seemed a couple inches shorter than that because of an insolent junkyard slouch he had been walking around with since he was a teenager. He had a tuft of carrot-coloured hair, meaty lips that seemed out of place with the rest of his body’s litheness, and Celtic crosses tattooed on the wrists of both hands.
When O’Malley stopped walking, O’Reilly looked up at the bouncer and said, “And what might you be doin’, Eddie?”
“I’m taking Detective Yakabuski to see Sean.”
“Are you now? And why, on such a sad and mournful day as this, might this bohunk dick need to see Sean?”
There were snickers from the two men seated with O’Reilly. And from some of the men sitting at nearby tables. O’Malley turned around and looked at Yakabuski. The expression on his face said: “That question was for you.”
Yakabuski stepped around the bouncer to stand directly in front of O’Reilly. “This bohunk dick needs to see Sean about the riot on the North Shore last night. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Mr. O’Reilly?”
“The North Shore? I went there once to have a dump. Never went back,” said O’Reilly, and after he said it he took a toothpick from the pocket of his sport coat and began working on his teeth. After a few seconds he took a napkin off the table, wiped the toothpick and put it back in his pocket. “On the day Sean buries his father, you come in here to roust him. You really are a prick, aren’t you?”
“Don’t know if that matters much. Are you going to let us pass?”
“No.”
“You’re going to stop me?”
“Not just me. Every man in here.”
Some of the men at the nearby tables had started to stand. The two men sitting with O’Reilly leaned forward but remained sitting. Yakabuski wondered if they would stay that way. George McAllister and an out-of-towner with a French manicure. Yakabuski looked at them and figured they were going to stay that way.
“Just how quickly do you think they can get here, Mr. O’Reilly? Fast enough to stop me from breaking that leg you’ve got sticking out?”
“Talking tough, are we? I’ve got two good lads sitting here with me right now. No one has to come. It’s already three to one. So why don’t you piss off, and I’ll tell Sean you came a-visiting.”
“I don’t see it.”
O’Reilly put his hands in his pockets and stretched his body. Took the toothpick back out and said, “What don’t you see?”
“The three to one.”
“Are you a fuckin’ idiot?”
Yakabuski figured that was as good a cue as any. His right hand flew across the table and smashed into the face of George McAllister. The man with the French manicure jumped up when the blow landed, but Yakabuski had anticipated that, already adjusted for the change in height and distance, and his left fist landed square on the man’s jaw. He pulled both hands back at the same time, like an elastic band snapping back, and the two men wobbled for a second before falling forward, their heads hitting the tavern table with loud thumps, only a second apart. Like some sort of back beat.
No one moved. O’Reilly didn’t move. O’Malley didn’t move. The two men collapsed on the table didn’t move. With everyone in the tavern looking at him, Yakabuski grabbed the bouncer and slid him into a half nelson. He planned to use O’Malley as a shield while making his way either to Morrissey’s office or back to the front door of the Silver Dollar. He hadn’t decided his direction. His eyes darted around the room, sizing up the men, calculating where the fighting would be toughest, and just then the silence in the room was broken by Sean Morrissey’s yelling. “All right, Yak, you’ve made your point. You can come back to the office.”
Morrissey was standing beside the bar, still dressed in his funeral suit of English twill cashmere, and after glancing around the tavern to make sure he had been heard, that no one was moving and about to damage his club, he added, “Eddie, you and Peter clean up that mess.”
Yakabuski released his grip on O’Malley and let him go. As he passed the bouncer he whispered, “Sorry, Eddie. It was O’Reilly that screwed up the math.”
. . .
Morrissey took off his coat and hung it on the back of his desk chair. Sat down, took the cufflinks from his shirt, and rolled up both sleeves. Yakabuski was surprised to see his arms were covered in tattoos, full sleeves, bright
etchings of Celtic crosses and buxom angels and twisting serpents. He was starting to look less and less like the Jim Morrison jewel thief of his youth.
“So what can I help you with, Yak?”
“Why don’t we start with the riot on the North Shore last night?”
“I hear it was quite the event. I wasn’t there, of course. But you already know that. Otherwise I’d be sitting in a holding cell right now.”
“Maybe you know something about it. Because it’s the strangest thing, the people that started the riot all came from your nightclub.”
“Did they now?”
“Yes. And it gets stranger. The men we arrested, every last one of them lives in Cork’s Town. They all have criminal records, and most of them have you listed as a known associate.”
“That is strange. You must think I had something to do with it.”
“I must.”
Morrissey leaned back in his chair, raised both arms, and knitted his fingers behind his head, his biceps stretching the linen fabric of his shirt. “And you have proof of this?”
“Not at the moment. A great many of your friends are still being interviewed.”
“Well, as soon as one of them mentions my name, you come back here and tell me all about it.”
He was smiling at Yakabuski, rocking in his chair with his bulging arms and his fou-hundred-dollar linen shirt, thoroughly enjoying himself.
Eventually he unknitted his hands, leaned over his desk, and said, “Here’s something for you to consider, Yak. My father was much beloved in this town. I saw you at the funeral; you heard the service. Maybe those men you’re detaining were doing nothing more than blowing off a little steam on the North Shore last night. It was my father’s wake yesterday, as you know. Maybe things got a little out of hand and this has nothing to do with me.”
“Nice speech, Sean. Problem is the cars.”
“The cars?”
“The cars all left your nightclub at the same time. It was well coordinated. I don’t think a military supply convoy could have done it any better.”
“And you are telling me this because?”
“Because it was planned. Those men were following your orders.”
“You can prove this?”
Yakabuski didn’t bother answering.
“Ahh, I see. The same old problem.”
“Do you know a man named Tete Fontaine?”
“Sounds like someone who would live on the North Shore.”
“He did.”
“Then no.”
“That’s strange too, because Tete Fontaine is a Traveller, and not three days ago I was sitting in this office, and you asked me if your dad had been killed by the North Shore Travellers.”
“I don’t recall saying that.”
“You asked about your dad’s eyes. Asked if I knew what that meant. Tete Fontaine was a cousin of Gabriel Dumont, and last night he was found murdered and hanging from the same fence where your dad was found murdered and hanging. Those are some mighty big coincidences, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would. Some mighty big coincidences.” He turned up his hands and shrugged his shoulders, didn’t bother asking this time if Yakabuski had any proof, having gone beyond that, being dismissive now, giving the cop nothing more than an “and-your-point-is?” gesture.
Yakabuski chuckled and looked around the office, thinking again it was strange, and a little off-putting, to be sitting in an office in Springfield that had not a scrap of wood in it, only metal and chrome and Japanese prints of flowers you’d have to travel five thousand miles to see.
He thought for a moment of asking right then. Where’s your mother, Sean? Or even, who is your mother? But if she were indeed the key to this investigation, it would be like showing Morrissey his hole card. Griffin would find her.
“So what are you two fighting about?” he said, once his gaze had come back to Morrissey. “A million-dollar diamond just thrown away to make some sort of point. Whatever this is about, the money that has to be in play, it must be your fantasy scheme.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean you’re a schemer, Sean. You can’t stop scheming. It’s an adrenalin rush for you, no different than meth or coke, and it comes with the same problems, because if you scheme long enough you don’t get better at it; you just start acting more and more like a junkie. Eventually you’ll come up with a scheme so complicated and so outlandish it blows up on you.”
“Is that so?”
“True gen. It’s what some people call hubris. Something tells me it’s coming for you.”
Chapter Thirty
Yakabuski drove his Jeep out of the alley and made his way down Belfast Street. He stopped again at the corner of Belfast and Derry to stare at the cliffs on the North Shore, which were already in shadows, the sun starting to disappear down the backside of the escarpment. The scene was framed like a picture, like some painting you might buy from a street vendor at the Springfield Harbour. Although the artist would have needed to sketch quickly, for the scene didn’t last long. Was already falling apart: the sun about to crush everything atop the bluff and cast the world into darkness.
Yakabuski felt like that harried artist. Trying to capture a true picture before it disappeared on him. He had begun to think nothing about this case was what it seemed. Investigating it was like watching a strip of silent-film celluloid, an old one that you might find in a museum, a twenty-second, black-and-white snippet with no beginning or end, just a mysterious middle with exploding chemical emulsions where there should have been credits and a final scene.
He started the Jeep and continued driving, left Cork’s Town and drove along the shoreline, passing shanty cottages and warehouses that had sat empty for decades, with soot-stained brick and boarded-up windows. Some of the cottages had started to be converted into single homes, and a couple of the less decrepit warehouses had become office buildings, but most of the shoreline between Cork’s Town and downtown Springfield remained what it had been when Yakabuski first saw it as a boy. A thing forgotten. Something left by the shore after everyone with money had moved inland. A strange demilitarized zone that separated the two sections of the city.
As he drove, he made phone calls. He called his dad and updated him on the case. Yakabuski knew this was something his dad enjoyed, the old cop being allowed to come out and play. And he had been a huge help in the Ragged Lake case. Had given his son the final clue that had found the final body. They talked briefly about the riot on the North Shore.
“The media hasn’t released the name of the guy that was killed.”
“It was Tete Fontaine.”
“Holy shit. That would not have been an easy kill.”
“I wouldn’t think so. I’m just coming from the Silver Dollar.”
“You spoke to Sean?”
“I did. He knows nothing about nothing. Come back when I have something. Did you know all the cars headed up there at exactly the same time?”
“So they were following his orders. Not quite the spontaneous, grief-stricken riot I’ve been reading about.”
“Not exactly. Sean Morrissey’s fingerprints are all over this. I just can’t figure out what the game is.”
He hung up and continued driving. He was in Centretown now, passing the Grainger Opera House, which as far as Yakabuski knew had never staged an opera, a music hall with pretentions since the day it opened in 1897. He drove past the courthouse and the turnoff to Kettle Falls.
He called his sister, who answered sounding drunk. “Frankie, we have some people over. Why don’t you drop by?”
He pretended he had another call coming in and clicked off. Kept driving, in the French Quarter now, with the giant statue of Samuel de Champlain sitting on a two-storey marble dais, backlit with blue light. Past the dépanneur on Brulet Street and the Sisters of Charity convent. He star
ed across the river to the North Shore. Phoned O’Toole.
“Where are you, Yak?”
“Driving around. It seems pretty quiet in the city tonight.”
“I’m betting that worries you.”
“It does. We’re waiting for something.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know, but I doubt if setting a few fires and killing Tete Fontaine can even the score with the Shiners for butchering Augustus Morrissey and putting him on public display on the North Shore. It’s always Burke’s Falls for those guys.”
O’Toole understood the reference. In 1841, a miller at Burke’s Falls, thirty miles upriver from Springfield, insisted upon charging his regular toll rate to a gang of Shiners bringing a load of timber downriver. The Shiners didn’t want to pay the toll but needed to use the miller’s log chute. With several other river crews waiting to go downriver, the Shiners paid and continued on their way to Springfield. Three days later, with Peter Aylin leading the way, more than fifty Shiners returned to Burke’s Falls, travelling at night down a corduroy colony road so they would arrive in darkness. Before the sun rose the next morning, the miller, his wife, and six children had been murdered. Their mill set ablaze. Their cattle butchered and left as feed for carrion birds that circled the falls for days.
Before heading back to Springfield, the Shiners also built a gate at the top of the log chute and left four men stationed as sentries, to start charging the tolls the miller and his family once charged. The Shiners doubled the old rate, but no one ever complained.
“It wouldn’t be enough for them,” said O’Toole.
“Not near enough.”
Yakabuski clicked off the phone and kept driving. He was in the suburbs now. Passing single-family homes and modern schools. Big box stores and hockey arenas. Not many people were on the street. Not many cars. Last night’s riot on the North Shore was frightening people even here.
Or maybe it wasn’t fear. Maybe everyone was waiting for the Shiners’ next move, same way he was. Waiting even if they didn’t know they were waiting.