River City

by John Farrow

  The woman repeated the news for him, in case he hadn’t heard the television distinctly through the walls. “The scumbag is dead, gotten rid of. They killed him. Strangled him, they say. With wire, they say. Stuffed him in the trunk of a car. What’s the word in England? Merry old England? In the boot. They stuffed him in the boot of a Chevrolet.”

  “Leave him alone,” a man’s voice intervened.

  “He thinks we’ll drop him into a Rolls-Royce, or a Jaguar, this guy.”

  “Stop it, I said. Enough.”

  “He thinks we’ll do him a favour. Hey, it’ll be a Chevrolet. An old wreck.” “Shut up. I’m not going to tell you again.”

  “I just want to know if he’s expecting a limousine. Maybe we can find him an old hearse from the scrapyard.”

  “Okay. Out. Now.”

  That was a change. A development. Someone was standing up to the woman. The killing of Laporte had altered the landscape, violated the rules of engagement.

  Pierre Laporte. Oh, that poor man. His poor, suffering family.

  Instigated by anxiety, or perhaps not, the pain that stemmed from his heart was visceral and real, compressing his chest and suturing his windpipe closed. He coughed and gasped. That poor man.

  In idle mind, removing himself from the sordid reality of his captivity, he had fantasized about meeting Laporte. He had wanted to sit down and have a drink with him and exchange notes. He had imagined the conversation, the menu, the décor of the restaurant, its cozy fireplace and old stone walls. No man knew what they had gone through, except the other. They were brothers, that way. And now that dinner would not occur, and he felt diminished, reduced to lesser aspirations.

  Laporte. And he was named Cross. Were they unaware of the symbolism, these folks? How could they not get it? At a time when the entire population was abandoning the Church, a new wave of political alarmists chose to kidnap a man called “the Door” and another called Cross. Blindfolded, he would run these matters through his head, over and over again. Longing to rant, This isn’t a fight against the political power in the land, as you believe. It’s a subversive, scurrilous attack directed against the ancient regimes of Church and cultural upbringing. He wanted to bring that up with them. Shout it from a podium, give them a lecture. He fantasized about addressing college students, putting things straight. If his captors placed a pistol against his temple, which he imagined repeatedly, he’d say, Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. Surely, they’d recall the reference. They’d been brought up in the old Church. How could they shoot a man whose name was Cross? Others, others had strangled the man called Laporte. He had to keep that detail in mind. Trust in it. Hope. Others had killed. Not these few.

  He rehearsed what might become his final plea.

  Remember, I’m Irish.

  An anxiety attack. Don’t let it get that far again. He felt so miserable and woozy going through it. He had to be stronger of mind, less prone to despair and desperation. Be an unemotional diplomat to the end. If only they’d remove his blindfold. If only they’d relax his restraints. If only they’d let him piss and defecate in private, have a bath on his own, revel in the water, recover. If only he could argue with these people. If only they’d let him get inside their heads. If only he weren’t so damned anxious, then perhaps he could think straight. React. Do something. If only he were a free man again.

  They killed Laporte—their friends did. Now they think about killing me. They prepare. It’s not right. Hey! It’s not right, what you want to do. Scriptures prevail against you. You were Catholics one time. You learned about right and wrong. This is wrong.

  He rocked in the chair to which he was strapped. He didn’t want another attack, but it was so hard, so difficult, to remain steadfast and calm. To remain a diplomat.

  Killing poor Monsieur Laporte, that also was wrong. Don’t you know that? Don’t you know anything anymore? Have you lost your minds?

  In the midst of the various furies that spun around him in his august office, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau bore in mind that the FLQ had killed a friend. Perhaps the man had died precisely because he had been his friend—he had that to consider, also. Other considerations were prevalent. The attention grabbers and wild radicals were willing to kill, and while their politics were now less serious than ever, their determination to do evil could no longer be dismissed.

  They were killers now.

  That changed everything.

  Amid the demands upon him as the country’s leader, he took a few moments to remember his friend, Pierre Laporte. A good man, a family man, a journalist of integrity, a government minister, but particularly, someone he’d gotten along with, a pal. Murdered. Strangled first, then shot. Stuffed in a trunk. The bastards.

  He repeated the thought under his breath, aloud. “Bastards.”

  He had to watch himself. His office demanded much of him at this time, and he could not step away from his duties to cosset grievances or personal pronouncements. He could also not take the death too deeply upon himself. He was obliged to govern, not indulge an inner fury. The country would be second-guessing him right now. Pundits would suggest that his hands had been around Laporte’s throat, although the polls indicated that the use of military force and the suspension of rights were supported by the population, equally among English and French. A comfort, to have the people behind him. Yet a man was dead, and his policy had initially been devised to save his life. Initially, then, the policy had failed, and tragically. Still, he said it again, whispered aloud in the sanctuary of the prime minister’s office, as though he needed to step away from the trappings of his duty for a moment and just be a man on the street with an opinion. “Bastards.”

  Then he went back to muddle through his agenda, keeping abreast of police and military developments while his staff prepared for the funeral.

  Coming up, the minister of foreign affairs was on tap for a recital, prelude to a duet with the British ambassador. Then the secretary of state would command centre stage for his dull solo, followed by a barbershop quartet of army generals, a choir of police directors, the off-pitch harmony supplied by the leader of the opposition, a deep-based response from the labour secretary, then Marc Lalonde, his finance minister, had been begging time to rehearse an encore. During the concert, he could expect to be interrupted endlessly by stage managers and their production assistants—Bourassa, for one, would call in desperate need of assurance, and probably the mayor of Montreal would plead for another audition. As well, a chorus of walk-ons—presidents, prime ministers and kings—were telephoning to express their regrets that Canada had fallen into the sinkhole of an alternative universe where provincial cabinet ministers were snatched off their front lawns and executed. Life had become an opera, dramatic and large, chaotic, vibrant and ultimately tragic.

  He had no time to grieve, he knew, yet grief lodged inside him. Somehow he had to make it through this travail. He had to lead.

  Life itself these days—the erotic silk of life, time’s living tissue—had become next to impossible to fathom. Once upon a time, she knew a few things. In the United States, an underground radical group, the Weathermen, had taken its name from a line in a Bob Dylan song. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. From the first time she’d heard the lyric, she had assumed that that was true, actually and metaphorically. Lately, she’d grown less certain. She might need a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing. She couldn’t cross a street without being buffeted by gusts from every sundry direction. Soldiers held their rifles so lovingly in their arms, no differently than young fathers would their newborns. Of friends she had known and trusted for years, some were bitter, others fearful. They didn’t want to go to jail for their radical politics, as they were no longer convinced that their politics were radical. They didn’t like the idea of French killing French to make a point to French politicians about the English. How did that make sense? And for a few, a notion that the blood stained their hands and clothin
g also, for past actions, troubled them. Would it wash off? A few, even quite a few, exulted in the tumult and the violence. Yet for most others, the issues were less tidy. Arguing the future of Quebec in a bar or a classroom had been intoxicating, an elixir of life. But declaring with one’s being that the proper future of Quebec lay only in following Mao’s dictum that power exists in the barrel of a gun was less fascinating than had been surmised. Always confusing, now the idea felt reactionary: against life.

  Catching hold of the winds of change proved ephemeral, for she heard an argument for one position one night, countervailing reasoning the next, then grasped that the same person had pontificated both points of view. The guy had changed his mind during the day as fresh news had come in and events had been debated. He wasn’t the only one. A man she knew had long scoffed at her political interests, and suddenly he was not only keen on current events, but had been radicalized. He suggested while inebriated that they form their own terrorist cell. “Hey, buddy, have you talked this over with your wife yet?” Many radicals gleefully dug in their heels, and the socialists and separatists happily Krazy-Glued themselves to one position or another, yet the man in the street, the woman in the office tower, the young person on his way to school, the mother with her stroller, the grandparent fretting over the safety of a society—among these, few felt secure or stable or firmly decided on what anyone should do next, if anything at all.

  Everyone watched the news though, and followed each rumour and talked it into the ground.

  Anik herself felt run to ground.

  She had called her friends together, ostensibly to connect, but really to access what they were feeling. These were the four she’d run into in the midst of the Jean-Baptiste Day riot two and a half years earlier. That time seemed different now, only because they had changed. Their dreams for the nation had shone with brilliance, yet now so much seemed tawdry. Recently, she was in touch with each of them, yet they were not coming together as a group. A boy pointed out that they had not come together as a group since Anik had taken up with Lévesque, but she was largely oblivious to that cantankerous opinion. She was floating ideas that she considered to be more immediately vital than any strains on their friendship.

  By the time she arrived at their usual subterranean watering hole on St. Denis Street, the two literature students, Vincent and Pierre, had secured a corner nook. The boys had been served their beers, and Anik kissed them on both cheeks and held a finger up to the waiter to indicate that she’d have the same.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, waving a hand in the air. “Hey. Let’s make a deal. For two whole minutes, we won’t talk about Laporte.”

  Vincent had decided to return to school for a master’s. In the context of the times—amid the chaos and the uncertainty—his choice struck Anik as political. Pierre had dropped out with no intention of going back, or of doing anything that might seem vaguely adult. His friends felt that he suffered from an odd pride—he accepted life only on his own terms, but Anik believed that he was fundamentally too lazy to make that work.

  They asked what she’d been up to lately.

  “Hiding,” she told them.

  “Anik,” Vincent parried, wanting to gloat, “you were the one who’d never join anything. No petitions. Your name would never show up on a list that way. Remember? Are you telling me you’re on a list?”

  “My mom is. I’m hiding out with her to keep her company.”

  Her experience and background always seemed more stimulating than theirs.

  Jean-Luc arrived next. Anik could tell immediately that he was suffering from the airborne virus of the time—paranoia. She’d have to stay clear, or at least be constant in her friendliness while making no demands on him. He entered the bar talking, and hardly a sentence passed without him saying “soldier” or “sell-out” or “pigs” or “Trudeau the fuck” or “Bourassa the little shit.” He was wired to the vocabulary of the times—a surprise, for he’d always been the one with his head in books and his ideas had seemed two steps removed from reality. Now he seemed overwhelmed by reality, as though his cerebral world had imploded. The revolution, or at least that bit of it now known as the October Crisis, had buried him alive.

  That Paul came in last was another surprise, until he explained himself. Traditionally the most social among them, he was constantly pulling people together for a beer, then coaxing them to stay out as long as possible. By Anik’s count, he’d never been late for a get-together ever. Yet Paul was finding his element. He studied photography, and dreamed of creating artistic work through a camera’s lens. The kidnappings and the army’s advance had changed his approach. Now he wanted his camera to record life as it was being experienced in the moment. He wanted his snapshots in the news.

  “One way or another, we’ll get through this,” Anik suggested. “Then you won’t have any more big moments.”

  “Send me to the next crisis, then. War, earthquake, famine, plague, I don’t care. I want excitement, you understand? I’ve acquired a taste for it. I’m hooked.”

  They believed him. He had discovered his true vocation and glowed with a new enchantment. Anik assessed, at that moment, that among them she’d trust only him, only Paul.

  Touton contacted his young protégé through his squad car’s two-way radio. The message was to go at full speed to an address in the industrial north end, adjacent to an expressway.

  “Full speed?” he inquired back to the switchboard operator. He meant the question to be rhetorical. He was unaccustomed to personal messages being sent over the air to him and replied somewhat dumbly. The woman took his question seriously and got back to him with Touton’s response.

  “Lights flashing.”

  He zoomed.

  He arrived at a dreary ten-storey warehouse and rag-trade building within seconds of his boss, their front bumpers nearly colliding as they braked severely. Other officers had already arrived and were just lounging around, but when Touton extracted his pistol and dashed into the building, they suddenly did the same. Through the melee, Cinq-Mars caught up to him inside.

  “You two,” the captain barked. “Guard the elevator. More guys are coming. When they arrive, tell them to start evacuating everybody out of the building. The rest of you, we’re taking the stairs.”

  The old man was puffing by the fifth floor, but he didn’t relent. On the sixth, they went into the corridor where two RCMP detectives tried to block their progress.

  “Captain,” one said, “there’s no way around this. It’s not legal.”

  “Ask yourself two questions. You guys are already here. The RCMP does not call in the Montreal police to help them with an illegal task. So. Who called me here? When you answer that question, then ask yourself why.”

  The Mountie thought it over a second, then stood aside as Touton and his ten men went down the corridor. They stormed through broad doors and Cinq-Mars raised his pistol.

  “Police! Don’t anybody fucking move!”

  The six guys inside had been expecting trouble. They carried semi-automatic weapons leisurely at their sides. The man who answered had a thick Spanish accent, but his French was good.

  “We already told those Mounties. This warehouse is under the control of the Cuban Embassy. This is Cuban soil. You must leave. You have no right here. You are in violation of international law.”

  The man was small, with a snide look on his face, and watching him, Cinq-Mars deduced that he was treacherous and experienced. A soldier.

  Touton looked around the room. He saw what he’d been told he would find. His fellow officers were clueless as to the meaning of this raid, and one man visibly went pale as he checked things out. Cinq-Mars took it in at a glance, then knew that this fight was serious. He could easily die here.

  “Who are you?” Touton demanded.

  The man shrugged, made a gesture as though he was inventing a name, and said, “Miguel.”

  “Miguel, there’s one thing you have to understand. Those other officers le
ft. But we will not leave. The guns you have here, the dynamite, the explosives, the grenades, have no business being on Canadian soil—”

  “This is officially Cuban soil—”

  “I don’t give a shit!” he yelled, and suddenly the Cuban was less arrogant. He understood that he faced a problem now where the rules of diplomacy might not protect him. “You brought explosives and bomb-making material into a country that is combating an insurrection. I was a soldier once. I am speaking to you at this moment as a soldier, not as a cop. You are not going to be permitted to blow up my city and the citizens in my city and I don’t give a sweet fuck about your goddamned diplomatic immunity or international-fucking-law. Is that clear to you?”

  “My guys are better armed than yours.”

  “Then some of us will die and some of you will die, but you, Miguel, will be the first. You’ll have your international incident then. But no Cuban or terrorist will have access to this material.”

  The standoff was secure. No one had a next move. Cinq-Mars heard the door open behind him and looked back. Half a dozen Mounties entered, including the two they’d spoken to in the corridor. They now carried semiautomatic rifles, too.

  “I told you men before,” the Cuban said to them. “You have no right here.

  This is Cuba!”

  “We were cops then,” the ranking officer told him. “We’ve resigned our commissions. Maybe that’s temporary—we don’t know yet. Now we’re just a bunch of hard-assed boys with stolen guns. You got to leave now, or we will help this man blow your heads off.”

  Miguel didn’t budge. His eyes surveyed the officers. Occasionally, he glanced at his own men. He was getting no help here, and seemed to be waiting.

  A phone rang and everybody jumped.

  One of the Cubans answered. He indicated that it was for Miguel.

  “Excuse me,” the man said, and went to the phone. He said, “Si,” and then only listened. After he hung up, Miguel returned to his position facing the policemen.

  “What does Castro say?” Touton asked.