River City
Page 79
“You have a criminal record,” the new bishop had stated, spreading his hands apart and smiling broadly. Apparently, that explained everything. In time, those eyes, those hands, were saying, you’ll steal candlesticks.
Vimont merely nodded and bugged out.
After three days in a funk, he called Roger Clément.
“You’re a big man,” Roger observed. “Have you done much bouncing?”
“I held my own in prison.”
“I know somebody. We’ll start you out. Then, when a big shot needs a driver, we’ll get you doing that again. It shouldn’t be so hard. You were the bishop’s chauffeur. That’s practically like being a priest yourself.”
“I know how to keep a secret,” Vimont admitted.
“That’s what I’m saying. You got all the right credentials.”
He did some bouncing, and Roger proved true to his word. Michel Mendelssohn Vimont had the proper attributes to be a chauffeur, and he began driving for a club owner and racketeer named Harry S. Montford. His new boss checked his driver’s licence before giving him the keys to his Caddy.
“Mendelssohn?” he asked.
Vimont appeared glum.
To cheer him up, his new boss showed him his own licence. The S stood for Sylvester.
“Tell nobody mine, and I won’t tell a soul yours. If somebody starts calling me Sylvester, I’ll know it started with you, that you can’t be trusted. After that, I’ll tell everybody who comes into my place your middle name. I’ll paint it in bright letters above the bar.”
They shook on a pledge to keep each other’s secrets.
“You drove a car for an angel, a man of God,” Montford cracked one day. “Now you’re driving the devil around. I guess you’re on a bit of a downhill plunge, huh?”
Everybody presumed that the job was a great relief for him, not to be driving a bishop around, when he watched his tongue and hid any hint of whiskey on his breath. He never told people that he preferred driving the monsignor. The man of the cloth was more fun, related more interesting stories and confided in him at a trusting level. Vimont also never told anyone that, between the monsignor’s appointments, he and Father Joe would often share a nip. Driving the bishop, he felt that he was making something of his life, whereas the job with Montford paid better but offered no satisfaction. He was a big boy, though, and took what life dished out. He soldiered on. That he kept to himself made a few people wary, but he preferred his solitude. Then again, whenever Roger Clément brought him over to his house to spend an evening with his family, he always enjoyed that, too.
When the phone rang, Vimont was cooking bacon and eggs.
“Mendelssohn,” his employer said. They kept up their tease in private.
“Sylvester,” Vimont answered back.
“What we discussed, that thing is tonight.”
That thing. “All right.”
“You’ll get a call later. You’ll be told where to pick this guy up.” “What’s his name again?” Vimont knew the man’s name. But in his best interests, he chose to feign a lack of knowledge. “Count Jacques Dugé de Bernonville.” “Right. I’ll wait here for a call from the count.”
“What he asks for, where he wants you to drive him, take care of that.”
“I throw stuff, right? Nothing more. Nobody gets hurt?”
“A little stink. A little smoke. Nobody gets hurt. During the panic, take a hike. Then drive the man where he wants to go. In the meantime, look at it this way, Mendelssohn: you get to enjoy the game.”
“A part of the game.”
“It’ll be the whole game, if things go right. Because the game will be short.” “Okay. I’ll wait here by the phone.”
He was turning his eggs over as he talked, the receiver cradled between the crook in his neck and his raised shoulder. Then he hung it up and served his breakfast, eating it standing by the kitchen counter. When he finished he put the plate and cutlery in the sink with yesterday’s supper dishes and soaked them, then flicked his hands together to slap off the droplets of water, cleared his throat and picked up the telephone receiver once more. He was feeling lethargic and worried. As though he might die. He dialled.
“Hello?”
“Roger,” Vimont said, “it’s me, Michel.” “How’s it going?”
“Good. So I got the word. It’s on. Tonight.”
“Son of a bitch, hey? What do you know? Yeah. It figures. Had to be tonight. But it’s on, nobody’s chickening out. Goddamn that Richard, eh? While God’s at it, he should damn Campbell, too, eh? That’s what I say, anyways. Okay, thanks, Michel. You take care now.”
“You, too.”
Vimont washed his dishes and set them out to dry on a dishtowel spread across the counter. When he was done, he dried his hands and from the adjoining room collected his personal phone book. He found the number he was searching for, returned to the wall phone in the kitchen, and dialled again.
The man at the other end of the line picked up on the third ring.
“Hello?” A high, chirpy voice.
“Father François?”
“Yes, that’s me.” “It’s Michel Vimont.”
“Michel, how are you, my son?”
“Fine, thanks. Father, I’m calling to let you know that—” He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t want to say, as though this action could only work against him.
“Tell me, my son,” Father François quietly insisted. “We know how important this is.”
“It’s going down,” Vimont informed him. “Tonight?” the cleric double-checked.
“Yes, Father.”
“That makes sense. Thank you, my son. By the way, I’ve been talking to Father Joe. We had a long chat on the phone. As always, he sends his best regards.”
“Thanks, Father. I appreciate it. I’ll see you.” “Thanks again. Have a good day, Michel.”
Vimont hung up. Have a good day? A good day? With his lonely Catholic soul imperilled, how was he supposed to have a good day?
Captain Armand Touton woke up earlier than usual, having booked off at a decent hour the night before. Still, he was not particularly well rested as he stepped into his meeting with Mayor Jean Drapeau and Pacifique Plante, the director of the police department. He was grumpy and motoring on caffeine when he caught sight of his two bosses. They’d obviously had less sleep than him.
Fair enough, Touton thought, and he closed the door behind him to receive his marching orders.
“The main thing about a riot is, it’s a riot,” Touton explained to the men, for they didn’t have much experience with the circumstances, either. “Nobody can predict what will happen.”
“Something will happen, do you think?” Drapeau asked. Everyone recognized that emotions were running high. They wouldn’t be having this meeting if the entire city did not expect trouble. The question, then, was either too naïve or too dumb to be believed, but the mayor had a propensity to do that sometimes—seek a comforting opinion the way a man with a headache reaches for a bottle of Aspirin.
“I’m no fortune-teller, but is the city a powder keg? Is that what you’re asking me? Yes, sir. It is.”
Plante was the more realistic of the two leaders. “I’ve put Captain Réal LeClerc in charge of the uniforms. We expect him to contain any outbreaks of violence. What we expect from you, Armand, as captain of the Night Patrol—” He paused, as though to confirm his own assessment first. “—is to protect property. Anticipate the targets that a mob might choose to go after, and keep them safe.”
Touton would accept his orders, but first he had to make certain that the proper bases were being covered. He wasn’t going to leave that up to the mayor or to the director, and he certainly wouldn’t leave it up to LeClerc.
“Sir,” Touton began, and briefly coughed, making a fist to cover his mouth, “please, make certain that LeClerc lines his forces up in such a way—”
“It’s really his job to make that determination,” Plante interrupted, mindful of police protocol.
His superiors nodded gravely, for they hadn’t really considered that before. They knew that Touton had his problems with LeClerc, which could be an undercurrent, but what he said made sense. If a mob formed, what direction it took would be a major concern.
“Also, I wouldn’t undertake any display of force before the fact. Mobs don’t know how to get started—they don’t know how to form. But if you give them an obvious enemy, that’ll bring them together. Keep the uniforms out of sight, and don’t go through the day as if you’re planning for a fight. A fight might be inevitable, but if it isn’t, you can avoid it by showing that you don’t actually expect it to happen. Pretend that you’re not busy preparing for the worst.”
The men nodded, accepting his analysis.
Touton had more to say, and his advice went beyond the bounds of his rank, but these two were listening. “I wouldn’t bring extra men on shift, either. Keep reinforcements at home. Otherwise, reporters will get wind and it’ll be all over the airwaves. That’ll provoke more men to get interested in rioting.”
Now feeling that his wisdom had been both imparted and received, Touton returned to Pax Plante’s earlier command. “Look, of course I’ll protect property as best I can, sir. Frankly, I don’t care about store windows, but I’ll make sure that the fire department is ready to move in the blink of an eye. I’ll put fire trucks on side streets during the game, park a few by Eaton’s and Morgan’s. They’re the stores in the most jeopardy. I’m going to shut down the Sun Life Building—nobody goes in, nobody comes out. That’ll protect Sun Life Assurance, because who represents the English more than them? But it’ll also protect the National Hockey League offices, because they’re in the building. Other than that, I’ve got to keep a few men back to respond to emergencies and track down criminals who, I can promise you, are planning a few heists under cover of any riot. Those are my resources, stretched to the limit.”
Plante and Drapeau had not been in office for long. In the past, their foes had been gangsters or corrupt officials. On this occasion, they had no identifiable enemy, unless it was the very people they were sworn to protect.
“Perhaps we’ll have a peaceful night,” was Drapeau’s wish.
“As Captain Touton explained,” Plante concurred, “mobs don’t know how to form or what to do once they come together. With luck, it might blow over.”
“Sir?” Touton asked, addressing himself to Plante, his immediate superior between the two.
“Yes, Armand?” the director answered.
“Is Clarence Campbell going to the game?”
The mayor answered for him. “So far, yes.”
“If you can’t stop him from going, at least make sure you have cops inside the building with one job to do and one job only—to get him out in a hurry should something go wrong.”
Plante made a note of that.
“Thanks, Armand,” Plante told him.
“Thanks,” the mayor said. “And good luck tonight.”
He shook their hands. He could tell that neither man wanted to be in his shoes.
Touton headed down to the Sun Life Building to personally supervise its evacuation, set for 3 p.m., and attend to its ultimate defence. Commonly described as a wedding cake, with its great Doric columns ascending in interrupted stages to the top floors as the higher sections shrunk proportionally in size, the grey-white cement-and-marble edifice seemed impenetrable and stalwart, secure for an eternity. Touton had yet another meeting planned with the executives of Sun Life, all of whom had been remarkably cooperative, and wisely fearful.
The company’s internal security force, though, had created a fuss. Feeling that city cops were treating them as dumb cousins, they took umbrage at every instruction. Touton needed to hammer matters through without any further ruffling of feathers. The guards’ usual concerns were to protect the premises from typewriter thieves and rid the building of loiterers, so he was not going to trust them to take charge of this assignment.
He wasn’t impressed when they declared, “We know the building.” If the Sun Life was empty and locked down, all that needed to be defended was the perimeter, and that sidewalk space constituted Touton’s turf.
“It’s true,” he told the executives, with the huffy security chief listening in. “We have to go through the building office by office to clear out stragglers.”
“Stragglers?” the security man asked.
“Stowaways. I’m going to bring dogs in.”
“Dogs?”
“Listen, I’ve been assigned responsibility for the security of this building. I will make it airtight. No one can get in, and if somebody slips through our net and hides inside, that person won’t get out. So, yeah, dogs. Nobody’s going to be left in this building. Your men can help us conduct that search, they know the building. We need you for that, no question.”
By the time they were done, the security chief had also won approval to operate a small contingent on the main floor, to man the phones and the fire alarm system, and to be at the disposal of police officers should they require guidance through the maze in an emergency. Touton insisted that they not move around inside without police approval. If they did so they’d be arrested. Grudgingly, the executives upheld his demands over the security chief’s objections.
Touton took possession of a set of master keys. The responsibility was his alone.
“Detective Sloan is downstairs as we speak. I’ll send him up to introduce himself. He’ll be the authority onsite for the remainder of the day.”
While the execs were expressing their appreciation and satisfaction with the captain’s thoroughness, the security chief adjusted his jacket, which had gotten rather tight in recent months. Just a year earlier, he had run for his life from politics. Those damned reformers and their damned crime commission. He resigned. In the proverbial twinkling of a jaundiced eye, he was no longer the mayor of Montreal. A demise that still festered in his bones.
Camillien Houde bowed out to Jean Drapeau, the weak-chinned, bald-headed reformer, a man half his size who possessed a fraction of his personality. Drapeau—“Crapeau,” Houde called him—was such an irritating pipsqueak, to be obliged to step aside for that prude, then to watch him win the election over his own choice for his replacement, tore at his spirit. He might be depressed forever, and guessed that the acidity of his downfall would escort him to the grave. He’d be scuffed up now, derided, exposed, excoriated, debased. Branded for all time as a corrupt politician. In his waning years, to come to grips with that public drubbing seemed beyond his capacity. Had he been a younger man, he could suck it up, forge on. Not now. Not again.
Crapeau, the reformist moron, was taking his beloved city apart, sending dancing girls to New York and whores to Las Vegas, with the gamblers in tow. One by one, the fun palaces shut down. Corruption, corruption, that’s all Crapeau nattered on about. Didn’t he know how the world turned? Was it such a big deal if somebody made a dollar on the side, as long as the revolving doors twirled in full circles?
In political disgrace, Houde felt blindsided by that dour, stick-up-the-ass reformer. His great run had ended. He’d strut as a bon vivant no more.
Two days after the electoral defeat of the man Houde had handpicked to be his successor, Roger Clément stopped by to cheer him up, and to be paid for busting up polling booths for Houde’s candidate. In vain, as things turned out. “Roger, we’ve been though some tough times together. Bury me, Roger, like Guibord. You remember the story? I used to tell it
in the camp. One of your favourites. Now I know how his corpse felt.”
Undoubtedly, he was still giving himself too much credit, an unerring trait even in the midst of his unbridled depression. To compare himself to a famous, dead liberal seemed especially odd for the living, conservative Houde, but in his state of mind, logic was not a strong component. He referred to Joseph Guibord, whose pals had needed six years to bury him, between 1869, when he died, and 1875, when his casket had finally been sealed, in cement and iron, below ground. So that his remains might never rise again, he was not only buried, but encapsulated.
In his time a free thinker, Guibord had worked as a printer. He joined the Institut Canadien, a club of inquiring minds whose existence had riled the Church, in particular the bishop of Montreal, Father Ignace Bourget. The bishop stood as a staunch proponent of the theory of ultramontanism, which contended that government ought to be subject to the will and wisdom of the Church, whereas Guibord sought to separate Church and state, a heretical thought in Quebec. Guibord published a speech by Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, who had flaunted ideas similar to those overtaking Europe at the time, including the incredibly radical notion that a man ought to be the principal administrator of his own conscience, rather than, say, his priest or bishop. The text was placed on the Catholic Index as prohibited reading. In Quebec, mere possession of Guibord’s Annuaire, which printed such speeches, would cost any Catholic the privilege of ecclesiastical sacraments. A majority of the Institut’s members capitulated. They publicly recanted, if privately they bristled, but Joseph Guibord alone stuck to his guns, and, as the hour of his death approached, the Church denied him last rites.