Seven Days

by Patrick Senécal

  “I’m waiting for somebody.”

  “This parking lot is for employees of the courthouse only, sir. Visitors have to go to the other side.”

  “I told you, I’m waiting for somebody. I’m waiting for the lawyer . . . Jean-Claude Bourassa.”

  It was the name of a lawyer Bruno knew very slightly.

  “He asked me to wait here. He should be coming out any minute now.”

  The cop exhaled: if Mr. Bourassa wasn’t there in ten minutes, Bruno would have to move. Bruno said he understood and thanked him, and the policeman left.

  Ten minutes. The monster would surely come out by then.

  Ten minutes was so short. It was nothing compared to the days that had passed.

  Long, quiet waiting.

  ALL SUNDAY EVENING, BRUNO SAT in the living room doing nothing. He just let the darkness ripple through him.

  The telephone rang twice, but he didn’t even answer. No more strength to pretend.

  Sylvie did not call.

  Bruno sat there for more than three hours. He felt nothing, except the weight on his shoulders, the weight that had never left him since the darkness came.

  At nine o’clock, he told himself that the time might pass faster if he was in bed. He went upstairs and, like the night before, lay down in Jasmine’s bed.

  For the first time, he dreamed of his daughter. He was sitting in a field on a chair, and he was waiting. In front of him on the ground, there was a closed coffin. He knew it was his daughter’s. Little dull sounds came from inside, like someone insistently knocking on a door, and a muffled child’s voice kept repeating, “Daddy! . . . Daddy!” There was no fear or suffering in the voice, but impatience, urgency. Bruno, sitting still in his chair, answered the voice from the coffin: “Patience, honey! It won’t be long now, not long at all.”

  And in the distance, at the far end of the field, a dog was running silently toward him.

  The sun was blazing bright when Bruno woke up at eight in the morning. He ate breakfast, but without appetite.

  What could he do until the next day? Nothing. Nothing at all. So he went and sat down in the living room and started waiting again. Soon he was barely aware that he was in his house.

  The hours passed, slowly.

  When no thoughts had crossed Bruno’s mind for quite a while, a word lit up in his head like an alarm, as if it had been waiting crouched in the shadows for that precise moment to burst through the fog.

  Morin.

  Bruno jumped up, making every bone in his body creak, and looked at the time: two ten. He left the house, got in his car, and drove to a phone booth.

  When Morin recognized Bruno’s voice, he got very excited:

  “The money was exactly where you said it would be!”

  “Of course.”

  “Yeah, I know, it’s just that . . .”

  Morin stopped, embarrassed. Obviously, he was still having trouble believing what was happening.

  Bruno checked his notebook again and told Morin the exact place where he could find the second bundle of money.

  “That one too, it’s not too far from . . .”

  Bruno hung up.

  Three minutes later, he was back home. The violent emergence from his cocoon had made him a bit dizzy. He returned to the living room and went back to waiting.

  When the telephone rang at about four, he answered it, barely realizing what he was doing.

  It was Sylvie. They greeted each other uncomfortably, especially Bruno, who still felt disoriented.

  “You sound tired. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  Silence, then Sylvie asked in a desperate voice, “Do you think we should see each other? To talk?”

  “No.”

  There was no anger in his voice.

  Sylvie smothered a sob and pleaded, “What’s happening to you, Bruno? I don’t recognize you anymore. Something awful is happening inside you and I don’t know what it is! Talk to me! Tell me what’s going on!”

  Bruno closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with his free hand, grimacing. He didn’t want his waiting to be disturbed, he didn’t want anyone to come and stir up the darkness inside him. Why was he being hassled with these trivial questions? He shouldn’t have answered the phone. So he interrupted Sylvie, saying quickly, “Listen, Sylvie, don’t call me anymore. There’s no point. I’ll call you. And then you’ll understand.”

  “Stop this! You told me the same thing the other evening! What are you talking about? What . . .”

  He hung up. He sat down again in the living room and didn’t move any more. The telephone rang a few more times, and then there was silence.

  Time passed.

  Bruno noticed that his stomach hurt. He realized that it was seven o’clock and he hadn’t eaten since morning. He heated some soup and made himself a salad. He felt like having a beer, and drank two, sitting at the table staring at the wall in front of him.

  That night he dreamed the same dream. But this time, the knocking was so hard that the coffin lid shook, and Jasmine’s voice was impatient and was starting to sound angry and frustrated: “Daddy! . . . Daddy!” And Bruno answered, “Just a few more hours, honey!” In the distance, in the field, the dog was getting closer and closer. It was a huge black Great Dane. It didn’t make any sounds, but its fangs were bared and its eyes sparkled threateningly, and it was now only about twenty meters from Bruno.

  “Daddy!”

  “Okay, honey! I’m coming now!”

  He woke up just when the dog pounced on him, its teeth bared.

  When he opened his eyes, he looked at the alarm clock: eight thirty, exactly the time he’d wanted to get up.

  He washed, dressed, and transferred the contents of his pockets from his pants from the day before to his jeans. For a moment, he held Jasmine’s blue ribbon in his hand. The dried bloodstain was dark and brownish now.

  He ate quickly and went to his office and got the bag he had brought with him the day before. After thinking for a moment, he also took the briefcase containing the remaining thousands of dollars. Walking out of the house, he contemplated it for a brief moment. Then he got into the Saturn and drove off.

  He felt a very slight sense of excitement.

  At precisely nine thirty, he stopped in front of the Box Office, and the young skinhead got into the car, smiling.

  “I was wondering if you were really going to come or if you were putting me on the other day. It looks like you’re serious about this thing.”

  Bruno stared at him blankly and drove off again without a word. Five minutes later, he stopped in the parking lot behind the courthouse and cut the engine.

  “What the hell are we doing here?” asked the kid, who wasn’t enjoying himself so much now.

  “We’re waiting.”

  The kid tried a couple of times to talk to his strange employer, but finally gave up.

  At nine forty-eight, Bruno saw the monster in the flesh for the first time . . . and heard the growling of the dog.

  AT TEN FIFTY-SIX, AN OFFICER came out of the courthouse and got into the police car. Bruno, suddenly alert, started his engine.

  The patrol car went behind the building and parked close to the rear door. The officer got out, went back through the demonstrators, who had been waiting all this time, and entered the building. Obviously, he didn’t discover the patches on the wheel.

  Thirty meters away, Bruno was waiting nervously.

  After two minutes, the door opened again and the monster came out, escorted by the same two police officers. The three men walked to the car with the demonstrators again raining insults on them.

  The monster still had that vaguely arrogant look on his face. They put him in the back seat, and the two officers got in the front . . . and Bruno held his breath. It was the moment of truth. If the car didn’t start in the next ten seconds, it would mean they’d discovered the patches.

  Twenty seconds passed. The demonstrators kept shouting their rage. Half a minu
te. It was all over, the driver had felt the patches, and the whole plan had collapsed! In a sudden panic, Bruno was even starting to open the door, his hand on the revolver under his belt, thinking fast about what to do—anything except give up! Suddenly, the police car backed up and headed toward the parking lot exit.

  His hand shaking, Bruno drove off too.

  At precisely eleven o’clock, the two cars were heading down Saint-Joseph Boulevard toward the detention center. Behind the steering wheel of his car, Bruno never took his eyes off the vehicle some twenty meters ahead.

  He now felt very calm. Heavy, but calm. He was saving his emotions for later, in a couple of hours . . .

  . . . when hate and joy would be joined in a most devastating marriage.

  PART 2

  Day 1

  THROUGHOUT THE PRELIMINARY HEARING, DETECTIVE Sergeant Hervé Mercure never once took his eyes off Lemaire.

  The trial would take place in four months. Lemaire was pleading guilty, but Mercure doubted that it would do him any good. He’d get at least twenty years. That should have satisfied Mercure, but it didn’t. And this wasn’t the first time he had not found an arrest totally satisfying.

  He was watching Lemaire’s face as he listened to his lawyer in silence. His expression was frightened yet arrogant. As Mercure had also observed during his arrest and interrogation. At one point, when Sergeant Bolduc confronted Lemaire about his muddled answers, Lemaire had even turned toward Mercure and said coldly, “What’s with you, looking at me like that?”

  Mercure had said nothing.

  Lemaire laughed and added, “You ask too many pointless questions!”

  Anthony Lemaire, twenty-eight years old, was born in Joliette, into a poor family of four children, a violent father, and an alcoholic mother. He had done badly at school and dropped out at sixteen to take the first in a series of unskilled jobs. He had tried several times to find a girlfriend, but according to his mother, as tough and arrogant as he was in everyday life, he was awkward and unsure with girls, and they always broke up with him. He ended up withdrawing and going out less and less. When he was twenty-two, his mother moved to Saint-Hyacinthe to get away from her violent husband, and Anthony had gone with her. He had found a job pumping gas, had a falling-out with his mother, and started another string of unsuccessful relationships with the opposite sex. Two years earlier, he had been charged with raping and murdering a little girl. Since they had found no trace of the perpetrator’s blood or sperm or even a single hair, no DNA test was done, and he had been released for lack of evidence. He had then moved to Drummondville, where he had found another job as a gas station attendant. Since no one there knew him, he had tried to make some friends. And he had again tried to find a girlfriend. But once again, his awkwardness had earned him ridicule, and with his arrogant, superior façade, he had again become isolated, only rarely going out with a few losers for a drink or to smoke joints. He had started a few bar brawls, but nothing serious.

  And there it was: the classic, even banal, portrait of your average petty criminal. But that didn’t explain everything. Mercure had frequently come across guys with that profile, and they weren’t all rapists and murderers.

  What was there in the soul of this man?

  The hearing, which had begun late, was finally over. The judge withdrew, and the accused was escorted to the prisoners’ exit by the two officers.

  Until Lemaire disappeared through the door, Mercure never took his eyes off him.

  * * *

  Sergeant Michel Boisvert got into the passenger’s seat of the police car and turned toward Lemaire, who was sitting in the back.

  “You want to know what I think?” he said scornfully. “I hope you get life! And if it was up to me, I’d send you to be tried in the States! There, they’d put you to death, and that would be just fine!”

  Sergeant Bertrand Cabana sat in the driver’s seat, telling his colleague to calm down. The muffled insults of the demonstrators could be heard from outside, a few meters away. Behind the partition separating the front and back seats, Lemaire, handcuffed, had an insolent little smile on his face. Cabana started the engine and notified the station by radio that they were leaving the courthouse. Holding the steering wheel with both hands, he headed toward the exit of the parking lot. There he stopped at a red light and examined his hands curiously.

  “You okay?” Boisvert asked.

  “It’s just that . . . the steering wheel seems . . . I don’t know . . .”

  He touched the steering wheel again, looked at his fingers a second time, puzzled.

  “As if it . . .”

  He shrugged.

  “You can psychoanalyze your steering wheel some other time. The light is green,” Boisvert joked.

  The car headed down Saint-Joseph Boulevard. There wasn’t much traffic. They drove in silence for a few minutes. Boisvert was morose. It was his first encounter with a child murderer and, dammit, he hoped it was the last! He had two kids himself, five and nine years old, and if some bastard ever laid a finger on one of them . . . He was tempted to turn around and insult the scumbag again, but he thought better of it, and just muttered to himself.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cabana take off his cap and rub his forehead, grimacing. Boisvert asked again if he was okay.

  “Headache,” Cabana answered, putting his cap back on.

  Boisvert was bothered more by his stomach: escorting this bastard in the back seat made him want to puke.

  Cabana took off his cap again and groaned, his face suddenly pale. This time, Boisvert repeated his question with real concern. Cabana mumbled that he really didn’t feel well. The detention center wasn’t much farther. Was he all right driving for three minutes, or should Boisvert take his place? The car was starting to weave as Cabana went limp and his eyelids started to flutter. Frightened, Boisvert ordered him to pull over, which Cabana just managed to do. In the back seat, Lemaire was frowning. The car finally stopped.

  “Hey, Bert, what’s the matter with you?”

  Cabana started to mumble something, but then he collapsed on the steering wheel and stopped moving. Terrified, Boisvert started shaking. Lemaire was watching the scene, an amused smile on his lips.

  Boisvert was about to radio the station when the passenger door opened and a balding man of about forty leaned inside and said, “Excuse me, Officer, I was driving behind you when I thought I noticed . . . Is there a problem?”

  “You just close that door and mind your own business!” shot back the sergeant.

  “I’m a doctor, maybe I can help your colleague . . .”

  Boisvert finally noticed the bag the man was holding and how calm he looked, and after a fraction of a second’s hesitation, he told him to go around to the driver’s side. The doctor walked around the car, opened the driver’s door, and put his bag on the floor at Cabana’s feet. Meanwhile, Boisvert was asking the station to send an ambulance. The doctor lifted the driver’s head. Cabana’s eyes were closed and he offered no resistance.

  “Maybe it’s a heart attack, huh?” suggested Boisvert awkwardly.

  “Maybe . . .”

  The doctor looked at Cabana’s pupils and said, “He needs air. Help me get him out of the car as quickly as possible.”

  Boisvert didn’t even hesitate. Lemaire was handcuffed and the two back doors only opened from the outside. Three seconds later, they were laying Cabana down on a little patch of grass by the sidewalk a few meters from the car. They were in front of the Celanese factory, and there were few pedestrians. Nevertheless, a handful of curious people gathered around them, in spite of Boisvert’s efforts to keep them back. Lemaire was following all this with interest through the back window of the car.

  The doctor rubbed the unconscious policeman’s forehead for a few seconds and then stood up, saying, “I’m going to get my bag. I left it in your car. Keep rubbing his forehead the way I was.”

  “Christ! I hope he’s not going to die!”

  Boisvert knelt a
nd started frantically rubbing his colleague’s forehead, while the doctor walked quickly toward the police car. Under the watchful gaze of the onlookers, he pleaded with his colleague to wake up.

  Suddenly Cabana opened his eyes and blinked several times. Boisvert couldn’t help giving a little cry of joy. He looked up to tell the doctor . . . and saw the police car speeding away.

  Still on his knees, he watched stunned as the vehicle swerved onto the median and turned onto the other side of the boulevard, setting off a chorus of honking and screeching brakes.

  “Hey! That guy took your car!” an onlooker said stupidly.

  Boisvert jumped to his feet, pulled out his revolver, and pointed it toward the car, shouting, “Stop! Stop!” But of course he couldn’t fire on a busy street! That second of hesitation was enough to allow the car to disappear.

  Boisvert lowered the weapon, dismayed. Behind him, Cabana stood up and, in a hoarse voice, asked, “Hey . . . what’s going on?”

  * * *

  Bruno drove along the boulevard at close to eighty kilometers an hour. At red lights, he would slow down a little to make sure he could get through, then continue at full speed. That was the advantage of being in a police car: no one bothered you. If he’d known how, he would have turned on the siren.

  He had put on gloves before taking the wheel. He didn’t want to get an overdose of nitroglycerine as the policeman had. He took a quick glance at his watch: nine minutes past eleven.

  “Hey, what . . . what the hell are you doing?” the monster behind him asked.

  Bruno didn’t answer him, didn’t even glance at him in the rearview mirror. He stared at the road ahead, his face unperturbed, with a single sentence echoing in his head: It’s going to work. It’s going to work.

  He went past the courthouse again, past Saint-Pierre Street, and then made a sharp right onto Des Châtaigniers. The area was more residential, but he barely slowed down. Two women who were trying to cross at the corner of Des Pins backed away in terror. Finally, he got to Golf Course Road and turned left, his tires screeching. There were no traffic lights and not many stops on this road, with houses on one side and the golf course on the other. He sped up to a hundred.