River City

by John Farrow

  “They haven’t figured that out by now?”

  “It’s a human failing. Nobody thinks anything bad will actually happen to them. At one place, they had a ladder going up to the skylight so they could escape. I used it to climb down and say hello.”

  Thrilled to be part of the operation, Cinq-Mars retained some residual confusion. “Is this the case where I’m supposed to be an ambitious swine?”

  “Here’s the plan. Go in. Gamble. Keep an eye peeled for a dirty civil servant who’s on the take. Very corrupt guy. It’ll shock you who. We’ll show you a picture. Then cops bust through the skylight. We’ll make it look realistic, you don’t have to worry about that.”

  “You mean it’s not realistic?”

  “Not exactly. You go out the air vent. Fleury will tell you where it is. But you take our rotten civil servant out with you. There’s an escape chute that only insiders know about—and us. Once you make your escape, the bastard will be in your debt—he’ll trust you. He’ll be grateful. You work that relationship. You tell him you’re in the import-export business. When he asks you what kind of merchandise, you tell him you keep that to yourself until the need arises.”

  Cinq-Mars had another morning date with Anik lined up. He could see where this assignment might make him late for the rendezvous, and he wouldn’t be able to make a phone call, either. Sometimes being a cop disrupted his social life.

  Touton parked on a dark, forlorn street. They’d made so many turns that Cinq-Mars lost track of where they might be, although he could just make out a section of the bridge to the west of them.

  “We wait here.”

  At first, nothing seemed to be happening. No lights were on anywhere—the neighbourhood seemed asleep. Then a car pulled up behind them and immediately went dark. The driver seemed to be looking through a briefcase when Cinq-Mars shot a glance back at him.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Look back.”

  His first job in plain clothes and already he had screwed up. Two minutes later, the new arrival flashed his lights twice and got out of the car. The small man was Detective Gaston Fleury, and he came up to the driver’s side as Touton lowered his window.

  “It’s off,” Fleury said. “He’s not playing tonight.”

  “How come?”

  “He met some girl.”

  “That fucker. All right. It can’t be rushed. We wait. We try another night.” Touton drove off, and Cinq-Mars experienced an odd tidal lull, his adrenaline both subsiding and sloshing around, his nerve endings feeling scrubbed. “Now that you know the plan, don’t speak about it,” Touton warned him. “I won’t breathe a word, sir.”

  “If you do, I’ll have your nuts in a vice. You’ll pardon me if I don’t deal in metaphors. I don’t have your education. I just mean what I say.”

  A call that was coded came over the two-way for Touton, and the captain of the Night Patrol sped up until he spotted a phone booth. He came to a sudden stop and fished around in his pockets, but came up empty. “You have a dime, Cinq-Mars?” The rookie cop came through, and Touton went out and made the call. When he came back, he said, “Looks like you might see a little action tonight. Just keep your mouth shut and your head down.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you ever feel like you want to puke—don’t.”

  They crossed the city rapidly, heading west and passing north of downtown to avoid traffic. Touton slowed for red lights, then dashed through when the way was clear, and along the broad avenue of Côte Ste. Catherine he put his foot to the floor. When a cop started to chase him, Touton got on the two-way and ordered dispatch to get the keen-bean off his tail, and momentarily the other car turned off its cherries and swerved away. They ended up outside Blue Bonnets Raceway. The horses were quiet in their barns. Bettors had long since departed for home. Cops in plain clothes were milling around, though, and in the centre of the small gathering Cinq-Mars could see a half-naked man tied to a hitching post. He didn’t look so good.

  He had his shirt off, but the tail remained tucked into the back of his pants and he’d already suffered a few blows. His lip bled on the right side, and one eye looked puffy, although it blinked as Touton walked closer to him. His forehead appeared lumpy.

  Cinq-Mars stood outside the circle, keeping his head down and his mouth shut, as instructed.

  When Touton walked right up to him and hit him in the gut, the man keeled over as far as his restraints would allow. Cinq-Mars could see the man’s natural arrogance and spunk seep right out of him. He remained slumped over, as though he had no further interest in being upright again.

  “That’s what I think of you,” Touton told him. “Now you know.”

  The man had nothing to say.

  “Now that that part’s out of the way, Marcel—that’s your name, right?

  Marcel?”

  Although he’d been punched low, his head lolled around.

  “Pay attention to me when I’m talking to you, Marcel. If you don’t, I’ll find a way to get your attention. I asked a question, and if there’s one thing I won’t do with you, it’s repeat myself.” In a vague, unfocused way, the man’s head came up a notch. Touton took the gesture as an affirmation. “Good. We see eye to eye. I appreciate that. Now, you’re going to be moving, Marcel. We’ve told you this before, but you weren’t listening. So we’re telling you again, once and for all. Do you see how bad things get when I have to repeat myself?”

  Again, that vague nod, as if the man was viewing his own ordeal from a distance. Cinq-Mars noted that he was muscled, and guessed that he pumped iron, probably whenever he was behind bars, yet the punch had disoriented him.

  “Where are you moving to, Marcel? That’s the question for this happy hour. Do you have any suggestions? Give me your first choice—we’ll start with that.”

  The man said nothing that anyone could hear, and Touton leaned in closer.

  “Drummondville. He’s moving to Drummondville.” For some reason, the other cops found this amusing. Cinq-Mars knew the place, a working-class town on a flat agricultural plain, and wondered why the answer struck the other cops as amusing. “What’s that, sixty miles away? I’m sorry, Marcel, but you still don’t understand the concept here. Drummondville is way too close. I mean, it’s not even off the map. I think you can do better for yourself than relocate there.”

  Aware now of how the game was played, the captive offered to move to Quebec City.

  “You’re catching on. Trouble is, I have friends in Quebec City. I won’t inflict you on them. They might not forgive me.”

  The man continued to imagine a life for himself farther down the St. Lawrence River. “Rivière du Loup?” he suggested.

  “That’s a decent offer,” Touton conceded. “I can respect that offer. I mean, since we’re shipping you downriver, as the saying goes, I could send you all the way to the Gaspé, where only birds live. They’d shit on you all day long, and frankly, I like that idea, the image of it. But there are a few decent families along the coast, too—you might be a disturbance to them. I expect you’re a disturbance wherever you go. So Rivière du Loup is a fair suggestion.”

  The culprit nodded, as though to indicate that the destination was okay with him, to seal the deal.

  “But I’ll suggest you get a little farther away from here than that. I will call the chief of police in Rimouski, because that’s where you’re going. Rimouski. So far down the river you’re just about at sea, more than what you deserve. If you don’t report to the chief of police and stay in Rimouski under his care and guidance, you will be hunted down, Marcel, I’m sorry to say. We don’t have the patience to arrest you or put you back in jail. Anyway, that hasn’t reformed you up till now, has it? No, sir. You’ll be hunted down, and when we’re done hunting you down, we’ll make you pay for putting us to the trouble. Now, Marcel, confirm to me that you understand everything I’m talking about, because neither of us wants any further misunderstandings between us.”r />
  Marcel managed to stagger up a little higher and nod. “I’ll go,” he said.

  “To Rimouski. Right away. And asshole, listen to me—you get to take no one with you. Hear what I’m saying?”

  He nodded to accept that final condition, and Touton walked away from him as the other officers cut him off the hitching post. As the last knot was sliced through, the man slumped heavily to his knees.

  “What’d he do?” Cinq-Mars asked his boss as he joined him on the walk back to the car.

  “The worst kind of pimp. We got pimps of all kinds around here, but he’s an out-of-towner who’s too quick to injure his girls. He also has a tendency to pick them too young.” Touton got in behind the wheel of his car. Cinq-Mars crawled in on the other side. “A sad state of affairs,” he lamented.

  “Yeah?”

  “We used to have bawdy houses and madams. They ruled the roost. We closed them all down when Drapeau came to power. It seemed like a good thing.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. It was a good thing. But we still have prostitution, and now we have pimps. We can change the landscape, but we can’t change the world.”

  “I guess that’s true,” Cinq-Mars said.

  “I know what’s on your mind,” Touton said, as he turned the ignition over. “What’s on my mind?” He had a lot to think about, actually. “I’m too rough. I’m old school. You can’t beat people up anymore. It’s against the law. That’s what you believe.”

  “Yeah,” Cinq-Mars concurred. “That’s pretty much what was on my mind.”

  “I told you so. Well, kid, you’re right to think that way.” The opinion came as a surprise. “Why do you beat people up if I’m right to think that way?”

  “This is my town. I don’t own it, but I keep it secure.”

  “That justifies beating up pimps?”

  “Suits me fine. Leaves a few scrapes on the knuckles, that’s all. Nothing I can’t live with. You don’t like the rough stuff so much?”

  Cinq-Mars had no choice. He had to state his position. “No, sir. I believe in the law. I believe it applies to cops the same as it does civilians.”

  “Good,” Touton stated as they drove off. “You have problems with me. Concerns. They’re printed on your brow. I haven’t lived up to your high ideals for the law, but I’m not apologizing. I was the right cop for my time. I did good work, Cinq-Mars. I kept the citizens safe and the bad guys nervous. That’s better than the other way around. Let’s see if you do any better. You’ll be judged by that standard only—will you be the right cop for your time? Do the citizens feel safe and the bad guys nervous? We’ll find out, won’t we? Over time.”

  At headquarters, Cinq-Mars still didn’t know whether he should put on his uniform again and return to the streets or call it a night and go home. Touton proposed a third option.

  “Find yourself a paper cup, Cinq-Mars, and come to my office.”

  “What’s the cup for?” the younger man asked.

  “Don’t piss in it,” Touton advised him.

  When he entered the cramped, untidy office, a clear plastic glass in hand, he showed it to the captain and the man grunted, as if to indicate that it would do. Touton opened a tall green locker stuck between a filing cabinet and a coat rack, and from its base and a congestion of footwear pulled out a bottle of whiskey, half-full.

  “Your vice, you said. It’s Irish, not Scotch, but a similar effect.”

  The young man nodded, but he looked more nervous than pleased.

  “Relax, kid. We won’t get you fired. I want to go over my big case with you. Our sting got postponed—we have time to spare. Besides, since when has someone with more rank than me walked into this office after midnight? Hmmm, what do you know? It hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looked unconvinced as the captain poured to the lip of the glass. “See how that goes down.”

  Cinq-Mars sipped, then sat, and waited while Touton pulled off his shoes. The captain showed him the cuts on his knuckles under the desk lamp, and smiled. “Everybody has to find respect. Detective Fleury, if he ever hit anybody, his hand would crack. But he has my respect up there in Policy. I’m not saying everybody has to do things the same way. How will you find your way, Cinq-Mars?”

  He shrugged. “By doing the best job I can, I guess.”

  “I have a hunch about you. In wartime, people live at close quarters. I learned from the other soldiers.” He sat with one hand on the mug in which he’d poured his Jameson’s. The other hand, in which he still clutched the bottle, had fallen by his side. “You’re a smart one. The education, that’s not the whole of it. You’re a smart guy. Admit it.”

  “Around here, sir? That would be like admitting to leprosy.”

  Touton laughed, stopped, then laughed again.

  “Smart as you are, I’ve already taught you a few things, haven’t I?”

  “No question about that, sir.”

  “Ever notice? A lot of smart guys are too dumb to learn a damn thing.”

  Now that he thought about it, Émile realized that he had come across the phenomenon quite often. “I know what you mean, sir.”

  “You can be smarter than the next guy, but still show humility. That’s rare.”

  Cinq-Mars was not certain, but something in the captain’s tone seemed melancholy, as though unhappy events moved through his life these days. They drank awhile, with the younger man waiting for his senior to dredge up what was on his mind. In the meantime, he did not want to interrupt his evident preoccupations.

  “I want you to revisit the bastards,” Touton blurted out.

  “Sir?”

  “Let them know we haven’t forgotten about them. Re-interview. Form your own take on things, establish your own perspective. Mine’s old, anyway. We need a new look. The bastards think they’ve gotten away with it. The motherfuckers. They don’t lose much sleep anymore. If they still worry about me, they remind themselves that I’ll be out of the picture soon. Pensioned off. Out to fucking pasture. Just for my satisfaction, Cinq-Mars, if nothing else, visit them again, show them it’s not over. Show them we will never let them off the hook. Show them they’ve got a smarter man than me after them now—one who’ll pursue them to their motherfucking graves. Maybe not tougher, but a man with brains in his head is after them now. From one generation to the next we will pursue—that’s the lesson to impart. We will run them down. Make that point, Cinq-Mars, quietly, discreetly, just by asking the same old questions. Stick a shiv between their ribs. That’s not too tough a detail for you?”

  As long as the shiv was a metaphor, he liked the idea. “No, sir.”

  “No different than punching a man in the gut.”

  “It’s different, sir. You know that.”

  “I want you to hound them, Cinq-Mars. Do you get me?”

  “I do. I will.”

  “Good man.”

  They drank awhile. The office windows looked across at matching windows on the opposite side of an alley, the frames shrunken by stacks of boxes and cardboard files and sundry debris. At night, the opposing building empty, Touton rarely drew his curtains for privacy, and every evening he’d wave to the office cleaner next door, a ritual carried on for years now. Sadly, he felt that they had been getting older together. The black man appeared to be frail to him that night, and in exchanging their greetings the thin, grey-haired man stretched his sore back, grimacing, indicating his lumbar complaints. Touton put both hands on his left thigh and closed his eyes, communicating the throb his war wounds periodically delivered. The two had never exchanged a single word out loud.

  “My daughter’s come home to live with me and my wife again. That’s good,” Touton said, and Cinq-Mars felt an emotional wave cross the desk towards him.

  “Where has she been?” the younger man asked quietly. Touton only blew air out from his mouth and waved the whiskey bottle around to indicate everywhere and nowhere. Cinq-Mars tried again. “How old is she?�
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  “Sixteen.” Touton sipped his drink. “Pregnant, of course. We’ll have a little tyke underfoot.”

  Cinq-Mars tried to be cheery about what he presumed were difficult matters. “It’s been a while, I suppose. You’re due.”

  Touton looked at him as though he might consider delivering a punch to his stomach, just to see how much he’d enjoy it. “I’ve never had a baby at home. My daughter, we adopted when she was ten. My wife and me, we only had her five years. She ran away. Now she’s back—ready to stay, I think. Can’t be sure, though. We can give them both a home, mother and child. See how that goes.”

  The young cop now guessed that there was very little that was cheerful about the captain’s home life. “I hope it all works out,” he said. That seemed to be safe ground. But he couldn’t leave well enough alone—he was prone to asking these sorts of questions. “The father, I suppose, he’s out of the picture?”

  “He is now,” Touton managed to say. He topped up his glass. “Tonight, we sent him downriver to Rimouski.”

  Cinq-Mars felt the wind get sucked out of him.

  Touton gestured to him to pass his glass. The young cop finished off his drink and stretched out his arm and the captain generously filled his cup again.

  They sat awhile without speaking, then Touton said, “Men were there tonight, who, if I put that bastard in the river, would have helped me tie chains to his feet. If I decided to break every bone in his face, they would have looked the other way, and they would have made you turn around if you didn’t have the good sense to do so on your own. Most men there would not have held me back from anything I chose to do tonight, and whatever I did, they would not have held it against me.”

  “Except me,” Cinq-Mars said.

  “Maybe that’s why I let you come along. I figured we’d catch up to that guy soon enough. I’ve been a good cop, Cinq-Mars. A tough cop, I know that. I’ll smash a man’s face if I think it’s required to keep the peace. These days, people have a problem with that. They never used to. Now, if a cop spits on the sidewalk some reporter thinks it’s news. City Hall calls for a fucking Royal Commission on Cop Spitting. If a cop takes a punch, then smashes the guy’s hand who hit him, guess who’s digging himself out of a whole pile of shit? But I only ever do what I believe is right. I never do what I know is wrong.”