by John Farrow
The meeting was set up for the working-class north end of the city, close to where the physician conducted a private practice. Touton had argued for the odd hour as he was a late-night detective, and the doctor had grudgingly agreed. At the restaurant door, the captain slipped off his hat and checked his watch: 8:46 P.M. Civilized.
Surprisingly, the doctor had ordered a meal, so the hour could not have been disorienting for him, either. His pasta arrived at the same time Touton did, and the policeman asked the waitress for a coffee. Cops on the night shift congenially joked with one another that they bled caffeine, to pour them a cup of joe if they ever got shot—that way, they’d never bleed out. Close in age, the two men sat across from one another in a high-backed, red vinyl booth.
“The famous captain,” Dr. Laurin said, his voice annoyingly quiet, restrained. His handshake felt like holding a fillet of halibut. “I salute your achievements, sir.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’m afraid I don’t know about your work. I can’t—what’s the word?—reciprocate.”
“I maintain a modest practice—nothing fancy. How may I help you?”
Touton didn’t say so, but the question was a particularly good one. In truth, he had no idea.
The doctor had a way of lifting his chin that made him appear to be gazing down his nose. His hair was wavy and black, which emphasized the full height of a broad, impressive forehead. His eyes were unusually small.
“I guess my question is … psychological? Is that the word?”
“Psychological, yes.” Laurin seemed pleased, and reached for his cigarettes. Judging by the ashtray off to the side, already filling up, he was a chain-smoker. Nicotine stains were noticeable on the fingers of his right hand, so this smoke was neither a sudden nor nervous reaction. “Depending on the question, of course. Which is?” His smile was thin, and once the cigarette was lit his face remained implacable behind a veil of smoke.
Shifting around in his seat, as though the discussion had already ascended above his head, Touton suggested, “It’s the psychology I’m wondering about, Doctor—the way the mind works. Why are some people, do you think, left wingers, while others are right wingers? Psychologically speaking, I mean.”
In taverns across the city, drinkers with draft glasses barricaded in front of them might assume he was talking hockey. But Laurin knew what he meant.
“Why do some people live in the real world, while others dwell in a land of fantasy, dreaming utopian dreams? Is that what you really mean by your question? … A big issue, Captain. I’d be interested to learn how it pertains to police work.” He chose to stare high to his right, rather than upon his visitor. “Offhand, the answer is likely to be different in every case. But we can acknowledge that some minds have a predisposition to grasp the potential of the individual, the potential for the race, while other minds, regrettably, prefer to whine about insignificant matters.” His eyes met Touton’s again. “The universe of the left is based upon materialism. It’s a Marxist tenet. The chaos of the imagination, the divine promise of human experience, exquisite achievements of art, man’s cherished divinity … all these matters are lost on the left, which is primarily concerned with wages and with what can be acquired without being earned. The left wants to know what can be picked from the pockets of the enterprising and the visionary—then wasted.”
Touton nodded, as though in agreement. “I see. Do they—the unionists, let’s say—have a differing opinion? What would they say about you?”
“Does somebody care?” The restaurant lighting was bright, harsh. Along the counter, pies and cakes that might tempt a patron were on display, the shiny plates reflecting light repeated in a mirror running along one wall.
“If they know your politics—I have no idea of that myself. But if the unionists discussed your politics, how would they describe you, as a person, as a thinker?”
“As some kind of asshole, no doubt.” The doctor let the cigarette waft while he returned to his meal. Apparently, he was revelling in the conversation. “They see matters in shades of greed. Wealth must be divvied up, split into such tiny morsels that nothing is accomplished but the feeding of church mice for a minute or two while the elites are impoverished. Without compensation, the elites recoil from their enterprises—we have economic ruin, the collapse of social, economic and political structure. Justice is flummoxed. Chaos or tyranny result, and between the two, the masses inevitably choose tyranny. They’d rather be flogged than enlightened.” Laurin sipped his own steaming coffee, looking at his interrogator over the cup. “You smile, you’re amused, but history proves my opinion.”
Touton tempered his smile, regretting that he had given himself away.
“Yet I draw the rebuke of the left,” Dr. Laurin forged on, “who assume that I’m the tyrant for having an opinion, that I’m the one responsible for their measly wages, when all logic suggests that they are the cause of their own situation. You see, sir, I presume to express my opinion. I presume to have one. I do not allow my opinions to be subservient to the mob. I am not interested in public opinion. I am interested in thoughtful, reasoned, informed opinion, while the left, I’m afraid, detests both thought and reason. The left views thoughtful reason, or reasonable thought, as tyrannical, because its own so-called intellectualism cannot measure up alongside. What we saw a while ago, during the Richard riot—that constituted an expression of public opinion, did it not? Was it thoughtful? Reasonable? Of course not. Did it represent the left, the unions, the communists—were they involved? Were they enjoying themselves? Of course they were. You’d have to be an idiot not to agree, and the left, if I may say so, is largely populated by idiots.”
“I don’t know too many intellectuals myself. I don’t run in those circles.”
Laurin shrugged, as though to indicate that that was apparent.
“Pierre Elliott Trudeau … I’ve met him. Do you call him an idiot?”
The doctor’s smile was quick, although anything but sincere. “The biggest idiot of the lot,” he insisted, but he was also conceding, “who happens to be smart.”
Partially amused by the physician’s spree, Armand Touton also sensed that Dr. Laurin took licence to speak to him so freely from another source. This was not a typical splurge. The policeman suspected that he had been found out. In saying that he knew nothing of Laurin’s politics he had lied, and the doctor had probably caught that. For the moment, the psychiatrist in Dr. Laurin was not doing the talking. The person who usually kept his own counsel while allowing precious little of his thinking to emerge had been displaced by the man who enjoyed competitive discourse. The fellow was doing what he himself had attempted to do as a policeman, which was to bait the other man. This, then, was a game of cat and mouse, and Touton believed that, in Laurin’s mind, he was the mouse.
He wasn’t altogether sure that he wasn’t the mouse in his own mind, either.
The doctor was grinning at him, proud of himself to have turned the tables. The spiel had been intended to irk, to provoke an agitated reaction, and Touton knew that he wasn’t far from a sarcastic reply. He nodded, although he guessed that if he could see himself in a mirror, he’d judge his performance to be an implausible portrayal of thoughtfulness. He dared not look, for there was a mirror to his right. Instead, he chose to change the atmosphere in the room.
“Dr. Laurin, some time ago, you signed a petition asking the government to grant asylum to a reputed fascist criminal. Why did you do that?”
Laurin stopped eating and reached for his smoke, and through that haze squinted, keeping his small, black eyes on Touton.
When the man failed to respond further, the policeman exorcized a few inner rages and asked, “I suppose you were expressing a thoughtful, reasoned opinion.”
The doctor returned to his food. He concentrated on cutting up his lasagna and chewing behind the drifting smoke. He appeared to be waiting for an apology.
“Are you thinking about it, sir? Or are you choosing not to reply?”
“War
,” Laurin declared, “stigmatizes societies with prejudice. These days, we’re asked to hate the Russians. During the war, we were expected to detest Germans, Italians, Japanese. Should I investigate my Italian gardener? See what he was up to while the battles raged?”
“Count Jacques Dugé de Bernonville never fought a day under his country’s flag. He tortured Resistance fighters, slaughtered his own people. A collaborator.”
Dr. Laurin was waving a hand in the air as though to dismiss the discussion as irrelevant. “Understand, many things have come out as time goes by. When I signed that petition, every detail was not known. De Bernonville’s detractors struck many of us as being hysterical. Some of us, I would say, were influenced by the personality of the man, which was quite jovial. We may not have been in possession of every fact. But allow me to add, neither may every fact have been at the disposal of his detractors. Certain aspects may yet remain concealed.”
“Concealed? He was a collaborator.”
“I know you suffered in the war, Captain. You’re not inclined to be sympathetic. But de Bernonville helped save France from the communists. If you had suffered under the Russians, you might be singing a different tune.”
What did Laurin know of war? If he had paid attention to the war at all, it had been from the safe side of the sea. “Would you sign that petition today?” Touton pressed.
“Why? Are you circulating a new one?” Laurin smiled in a way that did not include the other person in his humour.
“No, sir. I am asking you a question.”
Laurin shrugged. “A man has a right to keep his opinions to himself. I don’t see what any of this has to do with police affairs.”
“Do you know the name Roger Clément?”
Another indifferent shrug. “Should I?”
“He was a union buster.”
“Good man,” Laurin speculated. He moved his plate away and returned his attention to his cigarette and intermittently to his coffee.
“Do you know his wife, Carole Clément?”
“How is this related to police work?”
“Do you?”
“Rings a bell. I think I know several. I’ll have to check if she’s a patient, and if so, say no more.”
“This Carole Clément is not a patient.”
“You say, but you don’t know that for a fact, do you? Is she another union buster?”
“An organizer in the rag trade. After the death of her husband, I believe she quit. It’s hard enough eking out a living with her sewing machine.”
“Her husband was a union buster and she was an organizer? There’s a happy couple. I wouldn’t want to be invited to their dinner table.”
“They got along. Do you know Michel Vimont?”
“Who? No.”
Touton felt that this answer had been defensive, too quick, probably a lie. Laurin lit a new smoke off the old one.
“What’s this about, Captain? Do I look like a man who keeps the company of riffraff? Are you going to mention every criminal on file to see if I can help you somehow? What’s the purpose of this?”
“I didn’t say he was a criminal,” Touton pointed out. He lowered his head a little and touched his forehead lightly. This time, the posture of thoughtfulness was sincere, as he was trying to formulate a question in such a way that Dr. Laurin might feel trapped, feel under investigation without that actually being the case.
“Sir,” the detective began, “there’s a matter you can clarify for me. In regards to that petition—”
Laurin turned out the palm of his hand holding the cigarette. “Water under the bridge. No one was in possession of all the facts. The war was a long time ago—”
“Your devotion to Marshal Pétain, you mean? Not that long ago, really.”
“Excuse me? Devotion? My politics, which are beyond your comprehension, are none of your business, sir.”
“You supported the French fascists!”
“I will not respond to insinuations, to unfounded rumours. Do you have a question? Because I have to get going.”
“You’re not finished your meal.”
“Then you may leave first if you have no serious question.”
“This is my question, sir.”
Laurin inhaled angrily, as through drawing the smoke down to his toes.
“The petition,” Touton said, “no matter the circumstances or the times … the petition was not present on street corners for anyone to just walk by and sign. Certain people, the authors of that document, knew whom to contact, they knew—in advance—who the willing signatories might be. So my question is this, sir—” and Touton paused, both for effect, to keep his opponent in this discussion off balance and anxious, and also to move the talk to a new phase, “—are you, or are you not, a member of the Order of Jacques Cartier?”
The doctor was partially hidden behind his hands, which he held folded in front of his mouth as he smoked, his elbows on the table. He continued squinting in that irritating, insufferable manner, ostensibly from the smoke but also, Touton believed, because he understood that a line was being invisibly carved on the table between them.
“I know nothing of what you speak,” he said finally.
Perhaps he was being impetuous, but Touton felt agitated by Laurin’s responses. During the war, the man had probably mocked his comrades for fighting the Nazis. He asked the doctor, “Sir, did you murder, or cause to have murdered, Roger Clément?”
“This is a fucking outrage. I once had respect for you.”
“Did you murder, or cause to have murdered, Claude Racine, a coroner?”
“Unspeakable, sir. I’m leaving. Our discussion has concluded. Rest assured, a report to your superiors will be filed.”
“Did you murder, or cause to have murdered, Michel Vimont?”
Dr. Camille Laurin did not bother with a final reply. He marched straight to the cashier, paid his bill and, without looking back again, departed the restaurant. Touton gestured for another coffee, and he sat there awhile, feeling somewhat ashamed of himself. He checked his watch. He was meeting Detective Sloan soon, at Carole Clément’s house. In the meantime, a respite. He needed to pull himself together. Perhaps the events of the night before, the upset at his home, had put him off his oats. Definitely, he needed to calm down. Coffee might not do that for him, but this cup, his second, felt good, and he could not imagine leaving the restaurant without a third.
His activity would now be confirmed and revealed. His specific interest in the Order of Jacques Cartier stood exposed. If graffiti upon his door had been a decoy, meant to detract him from closely examining the death of a chauffeur, then the culprits now knew that the ploy hadn’t worked. His outing with Laurin had confirmed that, and calling out the Order by name would only alert, and probably incense, its members. Then again, if official word went through to his adversaries that his attention had not been deflected, that his visit to Laurin had revealed that he was closer to them than they thought, that he knew the name of the Order and what their business might be, and if they made a mistake and reacted, he would know he had found a conduit into their society. An entry point had been forged, through which water might seep, creating rot, through which fear might wick, creating fright and causing the occasional lapse in judgment. Just as well, perhaps, that he made that gaffe. To his enemies it might come across as confidence, even arrogance, sufficient to unnerve their precious, secret group.
Yet, in his heart he knew he’d made a mistake. He’d been unsteady, agitated by the disrespect shown to his own house.
Carole Clément served strong coffee to men who came around at night talking about nefarious matters, even if the air remained warm. In anticipation of their arrival, a pot was perking. Around the dinner hour, a thunderstorm eased the humidity considerably, and everyone felt more comfortable, although the expectation remained that the heat wave would continue and another storm, probably by the following afternoon, would roll across the city. Standing on her back porch, rapt, she watched the day go bla
ck and the storm excite itself with thunderclaps and lightning bolts and heat lightning over the rooftops as the whole of the western sky flashed. She missed her man. Missed his company at a time like this, when he could hold her and she’d enjoy the safe tuck of his body, feel calm and happy as another great storm tried to frighten her, failing. Now storms scared her. What if a tree fell on her roof? What if the power failed and she lost the contents of her fridge? What if a window blew out? How would she make ends meet then?
She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but the prospect of having two grown men in her house, as opposed to her only daughter or her daughter’s friends, comforted her. They were on their way, the coffee was perking—already she felt less alone and a little excited. Then the doorbell rang. She had to slow herself down to keep herself from scampering to the door.
She opened it to Captain Touton. The other detective, Sloan, was coming up the walk.
“How’ve you been?” Touton asked.
The inherent kindness of the question nudged her to the brink of tears.
“Excuse me,” she said, as though distracted by another matter, and fled to her kitchen to compose herself. She returned with a smile on her face, shoulders back, hips swinging as she walked in with the coffee mugs and fixings. “Sorry about that. I’m fine, Captain, how’ve you been keeping?”
Somehow he knew not to be disinterested. He told her about the affront to his home the night before, that he was doing well except that the heat and humidity were wearing him down. “Thank goodness I work nights, it’s cooler. But try to sleep through noon in this heat. Why do we live here? If we’re not boiling in the summer, we’re freezing our—”
He stopped short, but that made her laugh.
“I was going to say, before I got religion, that in the winter we freeze our butts off.”