The Extinction Club

by Jeffrey Moore

  I drove my new employee back to Ste-Madeleine, wondering how he got to the church in the first place. He was vague about this. And how did he know about the sign on the church door? “A little birdie told me,” was all he said.

  For part of the way I followed a big cement truck with its tilted ovoid vat turning slowly. When it made a slow left onto the asylum road I was expecting Mr. Llewellyn to say, “Follow that truck.” But he didn’t. He asked me to drop him off at Les Trois Rennes, a brasserie about two miles on.

  In the empty parking lot I was going to write down the phone number of the rectory, but then realized I didn’t know it.

  “I’ll ring you at the rectory, Mr. Nightingale. Would St. Stephen’s Day suit?”

  This is what the Irish call Boxing Day. “Fine. Here, take this.” I peeled off three twenties. “An advance.”

  He squinted at the bills. He had a tired eyelid that drooped a little over one eye. “You’re the American forest ranger, am I right?”

  How does this sort of thing get around? At bushfire speed, even to the asylum? “Where’d you hear that?”

  “I won’t let the cat out of the bag, don’t worry. We need men like you up here. There’s all kinds of scoundrels and scamps on the loose—and I’m not talking about pot farmers or meth cooks. I’m talking about poaching rings with radios, machine guns, spotter planes. Teenage motorcycle gangsters running animal parts. That’s your modern world for you.”

  “What else did you hear?”

  “That you and your partner are buying the church as a headquarters, a place to store your evidence. Freezers full of illegal wildlife, animal parts, that sort of thing.”

  “My partner?”

  “Céleste Jonquères. A real clever-boots, that one. Smart as a firecracker. There was an article about her in the paper.”

  This gave me a start. “Céleste who? I’m afraid I don’t …”

  “I also heard you’re trying to nab Bazinet and Cude, the worst scoundrels of the lot. A pair of black hearts, those two. They’re cousins, you know.”

  “Yes, I … I’m aware of that.”

  “Well, here’s something you may not be aware of. I’m the one who put Gervais Cude’s army boots on the mat. I found them in a ditch near the old bridge. With rubber gloves inside.”

  Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light.

  He opened the door and stepped out of the van. “You take care of the cousins, I’ll take care of the Dérys.”

  “The dairies? What do you mean?”

  “You’ll find out.” With that he made his way swiftly, spryly, to the entrance of Les Trois Rennes.

  Céleste was unsurprised at the rumours going around, given my run-ins with Gervais. And Earl. And throwing around American twenties left right and centre.

  “What’s that got to do with it?” I asked.

  “Because most of the buyers deal in American twenties. They think you’re trying to set up a cover. For stings.”

  Gervais had already explained this to me. I told her what Myles Llewellyn had said about the army boots.

  “Mr. Llewellyn? He put them there?” Her brain seemed to be turning. “How’d you meet him?”

  “Just … ran into him. You know him?”

  “Yeah, he’s a … senior delinquent. Used to be a hunter. He went a bit nuts after his wife left him and started buying bigger and bigger guns—I’m talking elephant rifles. But instead of using them on animals he used them to scare away poachers. Night hunters with jacklights and spikehorns. He ended up shooting a ranger. Accidentally. Or maybe not, since the ranger was on the poachers’ payroll. Anyway, they put him in the Saint Mad Institute. He escapes from time to time, as you … well, found out. But where’d you meet him?”

  “At the church.”

  “The church? What was he doing there? What were you doing there?”

  “Just, you know, checking it out. Llewellyn seemed to think I was the new owner. He was looking for a job.”

  “Did he tell you he was one of Santa’s elves and five hundred years old?”

  “No, he … forgot to mention that.”

  “Did he have a British accent?”

  “Yeah. Said he ran an antique shop in Wales.”

  “He’s never been out of Quebec. According to my grandmother, at least.”

  I paused to think about this, about the mysterious Mr. Llewellyn. And his promise to “take care of the dairies.” “Oh, I almost forgot, he said something about—”

  “What I don’t understand,” said Céleste, “is why he would think you’re trying to buy the church.”

  I shrugged. “Well, maybe because … I don’t really know. But now that I think of it, that might not be a bad idea. If we went there. You and I. Temporarily. We can’t stay here any longer, that’s for sure.” I hesitated to say the words I’d always dreaded hearing from my father: We’re moving.

  “But we can’t go there, it’s not mine anymore, I was kicked out. There’s probably a new owner by now.”

  “There is, actually.”

  “Even though I keep ripping down the For Sale signs … There is? Already? I’m going to fight this, Nile, I’m going to get a lawyer, a pro bono lawyer, and take this right to the Supreme Court. It’s not right and it’s not legal, the house belonged to my grandmother—”

  “Did she pay all the taxes?”

  Céleste glared at me as if I were the enemy. “She might’ve been a bit behind near the end when she was running out of money because of repairs and vandalism and because the town kept raising the taxes because they were out to get her when they found out she was an atheist and spotting cougars and tracking poachers. But she did her best, she really did, she even sold her Piper Cub.”

  “What’s a Piper Cub?”

  “To someone she hated! Inspecteur Déry! I’m going to get a lawyer and I’m going to sue … It’s an airplane.”

  “Who’s Inspecteur Déry?”

  “Just … someone.”

  “Who are you going to sue?”

  “Who do you think? Whoever bought it. Illegally.”

  “Do you know who the new owner is?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Who?”

  “Alcide Bazinet. If it’s any of your business.”

  “The guy in jail? The bishop?”

  Her eyes focused sharply on mine, as if she could see into my skull and was surprised at what was there. “Who told you that? Mr. Llewelyn? Earl? Good for you. First you find a little thread. The thread leads you to a string. The string leads you to a rope that …”

  “That what?”

  “That you’ll be hog-tied with and dumped in the bog if you keep poking around. So just … stop asking questions, please, you’re making a fire burn in my head.”

  “Alcide Bazinet doesn’t own the property.”

  “You don’t know a thing about this. You haven’t got a clue. And I’d keep it that way. Stop digging around or you’ll get yourself killed, I’m serious. Maybe you should go back home, back to wherever you came from. The planet Neptune.”

  “I’ll be leaving soon. But you don’t have to sue anybody to get your house back.”

  Céleste put her hand on her forehead and grimaced, as if she had a massive migraine. “And why is that?”

  “Because I bought it.”

  She didn’t speak for several seconds, but her eyes ran over me like a truck. “Good for you. Life must be hard on a trust fund. Hope you enjoy it, like all the other American tourists. Send me a postcard.”

  “And that’s where we’re going to live. Soon. In three days.”

  Céleste continued to stare, but with a different expression, as if she were dealing with one of Llewellyn’s fellow inmates.

  “At least until I figure out what to do with you,” I added. “Until you’re well enough to travel. And go to school.”

  “I’m not going to school, ever. And … and then what happens? You flip it?”

  “Do whatever you want with it.”


  Céleste sat there, not moving, not looking at me. “Am I on glue or did you just say I can do whatever I want with the house?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  Always a trickier question than it looks.

  “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

  I shook my head.

  She took one of the buttons of her top between a finger and thumb and twisted it back and forth like the dial of a safe. “What do you want from me?”

  I didn’t quite know myself, to be honest. An excuse to stay clean, a wagon trail back to sanity? She and the church seemed to quell my vague anger, my flair for violent outbursts. “If you don’t want to live there, if it’s too hard, I’ll understand. Go somewhere else.”

  “No, I want to stay there. For the rest of my life. I don’t want to go anywhere else.”

  “Then stay there.”

  “With you?”

  “For a time.”

  “With my six cats?”

  “Of course.”

  “Off the grid? As anchorite and anchoress?”

  I gave her a complicitous smile. We were both hermits at heart, though with this difference: I stayed away from people to stop them from finding out how little I knew about anything; she stayed away from people to stop them from finding out how much she knew. “If you like.”

  She bit her lip, first the top one then the bottom. “Okay, but I’m warning you, I’m impossible to live with. I’m no saint. I’ve got a wicked temper, you’ll just have to get used to it. I can be quite mutinous. And just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I’m doing your cooking or cleaning. Or anything else, if you know what I mean … And I’m not going to school. I’d rather drown myself in the Pond than go there. And I’ll pay for my room and board. And for all your help. Plus expenses.”

  “You have to pay me back in another way.”

  “I knew there was a catch.”

  “You have to tell me everything. The truth this time. I want to know all about Alcide Bazinet.”

  The name, once again, made her flinch.

  “I want to know if he’s the one who dumped you in the swamp. And put those bears in the bowling alley.”

  “I’ll tell you everything, I will, I promise. But you can’t … you know, leave me after I tell you. They’ll make me a ward of the province, for God’s sake.”

  “Don’t worry, I—”

  “Don’t leave me alone, Nile, please. I won’t last long on my own. I’m still pretty young, you know.”

  With the back of my hand, I brushed one of her cheeks. Affectionately, not checking for tears.

  “If you’re checking for tears, there aren’t any. I never cry. Or almost never. And I don’t want you to do that again.”

  “Okay.”

  “And get that gooey look off your face.”

  I tried to.

  “All right, I’m going to cry now,” she said, “and I don’t want to hear a word from you. Not one goddamn word, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “And don’t you dare put your arms around me or stroke my hair and tell me everything’s going to be all right because you’re not a fortune teller and you’re not a crisis goalie. And don’t give me any of that wise fatherly crap like a guidance counsellor because you’re not my father and you’re not a guidance counsellor.”

  Again I agreed, but I don’t think she heard me. She began to gasp and cough and choke, unstoppably, her teeth chattering, her eyes blinded by tears, like a young girl who’d lost her only parent, like a young girl who’d been attacked by grown-ups and left for dead, like a young girl who’d just got her home back.

  XII

  “OVER 90% OF MURDERERS ARE MALE, AND THE NUMBER ONE MOTIVE GIVEN FOR KILLING IS ‘LOVE.’ OVER 90% OF HUNTERS ARE MALE, AND THE NUMBER ONE MOTIVE GIVEN FOR KILLING IS ‘LOVE’: LOVE OF ANIMALS, OF THE WILDERNESS, OF CONSERVATION, OF GOD.”

  — DR. DOROTHÉE JONQUÈRES

  Nile asked me today about Alcide Bazinet & I told him. Told him that he’s like a rabid pit bull running down the road & nobody knows but you because he looks so dozy & harmless. Told him that he’s the scariest, loosest cannon in the Laurentians, in the province, maybe the whole country. That he’s a one-man forest fire, a one-man flood, a one-man plague. Worse than Jim Roszko, the pot farmer out west who killed four Mounties. His eyes have seen things I hope mine never do.

  Young boys, as everybody knows, like to torture & kill things. Maybe some young girls too. But they usually outgrow it. Bazinet never did. He was filled with hate then & now & nobody knows why. He started with insects, pulling off their legs & wings & burning holes in them with a magnifying glass. He kept frogs in a jar, closed, to see them open their mouths wider & wider as if they were singing. But they weren’t singing, they were suffocating. When he was 6 or 7, according to Earl, he trapped a robin, tried to electrocute it on a cattle fence, then cut off its head with pinking shears. When his father told him to get rid of a litter of puppies, he buried them in little holes in the backyard up to their necks. Then ran a lawn mower over them, decapitating them.

  It seemed that every animal Bazinet saw lived under a death sentence. I don’t know what he has against them, or why he thinks they’re his ticket. Because they’re vulnerable, because he can outsmart them, because they’ll cower, grovel & cry? Which gives him a feeling of power, makes up for all his deficiencies & weaknesses? Like bikers, really, or little runts with guns, like Phil Spector, Robert Blake, Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin, the Safari Club …

  He told my grandmother that when he was young he’d look at himself in the mirror and tell himself he’d become the most powerful and dangerous man in the Laurentian forests. “Lord of the wild beasts.” After an “illegitimate” daughter got him kicked out of the seminary, Baz set up a puppy mill in the old red-brick bungalow next to Lavigueur’s video store. The idea was to breed dogs & train them to sniff out dope & explosives at airports. The way to get rich, he said, was on government contracts. But that didn’t work out because the dogs were sickly & starving & he didn’t know how to train them. So he got rid of them, no one knows how. Then he decided to breed golden retrievers. Not for pet shops but for Chinese businessmen who come to Mont Tremblant to ski or hunt — obviously a cover — & leave with crates of dogs. Air Canada, Montreal-Shanghai. A friend of my grandmother’s, who everyone thinks is a vet but is really something else, lent us a video shot by the Humane Society, which shows what happens when these dogs arrive. They’re tied down while being skinned alive, whimpering for mercy, actually licking the hand of the skinner! Like an apology. Their fur is then made into expensive coats and the dead dogs are sold to restaurants. The video also shows cats stuffed into tiny cages, huddling in terror as one after the other is strangled to death — noosed and hung inside the cage so they don’t bleed on their fur.

  Baz saw others making money at this sort of thing, lots of it, and he wanted in. “Dogs and cats will never become extinct,” he told me one time, after I accused him of firing at one of my cats. “Why should they be any different than seals or minks? Why shouldn’t they too provide fur? The Asians have the right idea about cats and dogs — food & clothes.”

  After a year or so Bazinet’s kennels were knee-deep in waste & rotting corpses. He got a livestock vet who owed him money to cut out the dogs’ vocal cords to stop them from yapping. He was charged under the Criminal Code with cruelty to animals & skated away with a $500 fine. Not enough, obviously, to stop him from doing it again. Which he did for a while before selling the business to his cousin Gervais, who was just as savage & way stupider. Gervais bred beagles for animal testing, shipped them to Europe, Air Canada Montreal-Paris, as many breeders do. If you fly this route often enough, banker Latulippe told me, you can hear the dogs howling from the hold.

  Gervais was shut down last year & the red-brick bungalow was demolished as a biohazard. He’s now a snowplower. In the off-season he fences more stolen goods than an e-auction.

 
Bazinet, meanwhile, went on to bigger game. He learned that in the woods and villages every hunter is a big shot. Noticed, respected, feared. Which is why he’d come back with bleeding moose or elk or deer strapped to his hood, or bears on a steel platform, usually with their paws cut off. He wanted to be seen. He was sending out a message.

  Baz’s life seems to be divided into 3 basic activities: talking about the last hunt, hunting, and planning the next hunt. He hunts in & out of season, with illegal blinds, bait & traps, almost always over the bag limit. Only once did he get caught — for hunting moose at night. Here’s how he “hunted.” On the back roads after dark he’d go out in his customized truck with raised chassis, reinforced bumper & protective grille. When he saw a moose he’d pull the string on one of those Klieg lights & the animal would freeze, blinking in the brightness. Then he’d ram it, breaking its legs. He hired two native Indians to ride with him in case he got caught. In court, the Indians testified that they were invoking their constitutional right to hunt at night. He walked.

  Bazinet made money, tons of it, enough to buy old man Beauchamp’s bowling alley. And hire a full-time bear farmer from China. I didn’t have to catch him red-handed or videotape what he was up to there. He shot himself, so to speak. He made his own videos, promotional videos, and distributed them to The Cave & buyers around the world, including businessmen from China & Vietnam & both Koreas, the same suits that bought his golden retrievers. And to other twisted toons & bent pennies.

  His worst video, the one that got him sent to jail, was also given to Gran by the “vet” from St-Mad. It wasn’t a promotional video, it was something else entirely. The vet wouldn’t say how she got it. She suggested that we take it, along with my photographs, to the police in Montreal, outside of Baz’s sphere of bribery. She’d do it herself, she said, but she “feared for her daughter.” She’d explain some other time. Make copies, she warned. And hide them.

  “La Soupe,” which is the name of the video, is set in a restaurant north of Mont Tremblant, inside a Vietnamese restaurant named Chez Bao Dai. According to the time on the tape, it’s just after midnight. The restaurant has Christmas decorations here & there & it seems to be empty except for the 2 cousins and their 4 amigos — Darche, Déry & his 2 sons. They’re sitting at a long table, but all on the same side, not across from each other. En banc. On the other side of the table, on the floor, is a large metal basin filled with a yellowish liquid. Underneath the tray you can see blue flames. The camera pans to a saloon door & we see Bao Dai pushing it open. He announces that the moment they’ve all been waiting for has arrived. “Time to prepare special soup,” he says. “One thousand dollars back in my country. For one bowl. For millionaires only!” He smiles & the others laugh. He then claps his hands & there is silence. The lights dim & the camera tilts up toward the ceiling. It’s too dark to see anything at first, but you can hear scraping noises & some laughing & hooting. Then you see it. A crush cage, like the kind I saw in the bowling alley. It’s being lowered, slowly, on ropes. Bit by bit you see black paws on the metal bars, moving, changing position. A live black bear is inside. As the cage descends, the hoots & laughter get louder. It keeps coming down until you hear a sharp sizzling sound, then a high-pitched cry that lasts for minutes & stops all the laughter. The cage is now at ground level & the bear remains in the boiling oil until his feet are cooked. The video ends with a voice-over from Alcide Bazinet, who explains that the therapeutic effects of the flesh are magnified by the bear’s fear.