8 Hours to Die

by JR Carroll

  She was standing beside him now, glass of wine in hand. ‘Not even a bat—out of hell.’

  He grinned at her. ‘Music,’ he said. ‘But not Meatloaf.’ Flicking through their CD collection he came up with Leonard Cohen. Amy was a big Leonard Cohen fan, even though she’d never heard of him before his recent resurgence. She’d interviewed him on her program during one of his recent visits and become his Number One fan.

  ‘Hmm—not exactly the mood we want. Maybe later.’ He picked up Elvis Costello and Anne Sofie von Otter’s For the Stars. Just right for cocktail hour.

  He clicked on shuffle. Soon von Otter’s magical voice, clear and delicate as a bird’s, filled the room with ‘For No One’. Tim relaxed again; twisted the top off another Crownie, refreshed Amy’s glass. He would get to work on the barbecue in a little while. There were marinated fillet steaks and gourmet sausages to grill. And to hell with Dale Markleigh.

  4

  Stefan’s earliest memory was wiping his hand over the condensation on his bedroom window, looking out onto the snow-covered front yard early on a winter’s morning. A snow plow was already at work clearing the road after heavy falls overnight. Cars slithered along on the slippery road; children stopped to throw snowballs at each other. The sky was an icy blue, the aroma of eggs and bacon wafted upstairs to his room, and five-year-old Stefan Dechaineux saw nothing wrong in the world at all.

  At that time, in the mid-seventies, the family lived in Saint-Henri, a working-class suburb in Le Sud-Ouest, a borough, not half-a-dozen kilometres from the city. Stefan’s father, Thaddeus, a pastrycook, ran a small patisserie with his brother at a place called Goose Village, not far from their home. It was mainly an Irish district, although Stefan’s family descended from a combination of Irish, Scottish, Jewish and, for some reason, Norwegian ancestry. Such a mixed heritage was not uncommon in Quebec province, Canada, owing to its history of colonisation and settlement by explorers and immigrants from many parts of the globe.

  Theirs was an ordinary, battling family despite the appearance of middle-class prosperity and the fact that there were always plenty of cakes to eat. Thaddeus—or Tad to his friends—worked long hours, rising at 3am to get to the shop and not returning until seven at night, when he would eat his dinner and go to bed or fall sleep in his armchair while watching TV. Yet money always seemed to be short, which perplexed his wife, Verene.

  Fact was, it was more than simple economics that explained the family’s circumstances. Thaddeus had a secret vice: he was a compulsive and heavy gambler, a fact that he somehow managed to conceal from Verene throughout their marriage. Most days he would duck out from the patisserie to bet on hockey, football, baseball, horses, anything, often using cash from the till.

  Verene was a milliner and seamstress; she was a quiet, stoic woman who took in work to supplement their income. On weekends Stefan would stand in the doorway of the small salon where she worked busily on her sewing machine, surrounded by materials of various types and hues, oblivious to the young pair of eyes intently watching her.

  There was nothing in his childhood to suggest Stefan was headed towards a violent and criminal future. Reports from his école primaire spoke of his disposition agréable; he was socially well adjusted, got on with other students and was competent both academically and at sports. This continued into école secondaire, at least for a time.

  Anyone reading his school reports from those years would not believe this was the same Stefan Dechaineux who grew into a feared, take-no-prisoners bikie gang member; a true one-percenter, multiple murderer, extortionist and muscle for hire in the underworld. That was a different Stefan; another person entirely.

  When he was still in ecole primaire, he and his older sister Agnes would sometimes visit the patisserie after school, making the trip from Saint-Henri to Goose Village by bus. There they would sit while their father sold pastries and chatted to locals taking home a treat for after the evening meal. The display case contained the most delicious array of glazed fruit tarts, macarons, éclairs, cream cakes of every description and beautiful, hand-made chocolate bars filled with delicate liqueurs of orange, cherry or plum.

  Stefan would also spend time at the back of the shop, in the bakery itself, where Uncle Luc showed him how to make macarons and cupcakes. Stefan marvelled at the speed and expertise of his uncle as he assembled a large tray of these delicacies in minutes and slid them into the oven. When they came out, Uncle Luc always wrapped up a few of the finished product for Stefan and Agnes to put in their schoolbags to eat on the way home—always with a grave warning not to tell Papa.

  Macarons—Stefan loved them forever after.

  His father did not own the shop, but paid a premium rent he could barely afford, especially as he ran up more and more gambling debts. The margin from the patisserie was just enough to keep the family afloat, as long as Thaddeus could keep his fingers out of the till. It was easier for Luc, a bachelor who worked as a barman at a popular watering hole when he wasn’t helping his brother out.

  Catastrophe finally struck in the spring of 1982, when Stefan was twelve years old. His father had fallen into the grip of loan sharks who took everything he had and shut him down. Stefan remembered the night his father came home and told Verene the tragic news: they had lost everything because he had gambled it away. He cried as he begged forgiveness. Seeing his father on his knees with tears streaming down his face, Stefan lost all love and respect for him.

  When he came home from school the next day his mother was not there. Instead, his father was sitting in his usual armchair, staring at nothing. He seemed to be in a coma.

  Verene did not return that night. She was gone. Stefan never saw her again.

  Not long afterwards they were forced to leave their house. Stefan remembered living in a series of shabby guest houses and cheap motels for a brief period. Then Thaddeus landed a job at one of the chain hotels downtown, in the tourist precinct. The children were a burden; he had neither the time nor the ability to care for them as he struggled to get back on his feet. So Agnes was sent to live with an aunt in Halifax, while Stefan was farmed out to Uncle Luc. These were to be short-term arrangements; Thaddeus vowed to send for them both as soon as he was able.

  The family had completely disintegrated.

  ‘I know all of this is my fault,’ Thaddeus told Stefan. ‘But one day soon I’ll make it right, you’ll see. Then we’ll be a happy family again.’

  But Stefan felt only a mixture of pity and contempt for his father. It was because of him that Verene had abandoned them. He was a hopeless loser; even as a twelve-year-old, Stefan detected the false bravado in his father’s words. They were empty promises, any half-intelligent child could see that. When his father embraced him, Stefan clenched his eyes shut, wanting only to be free of this weak person. If only he would go away and die.

  ‘Besides,’ Thaddeus continued, ‘look on the bright side. You’ll have a wonderful time with Uncle Luc. I’ve no doubt he’ll spoil you rotten!’

  Uncle Luc lived in a small clapboard house in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, an undesirable district to the north of the city. Stefan had heard about this dangerous place but had never been there before. What was Uncle Luc doing living in such a suburb, apparently full of street gangs and vicious criminals?

  Turned out it wasn’t as bad as Stefan thought.

  ‘It’s different around here, that’s true,’ Luc told him over lunch on his first Saturday. ‘But it has a lot of character. Get to know the people. They’re all right, just like anywhere else. But you don’t want to go wandering around at night.’

  Stefan moved to a school nearby, close enough to walk. He could have caught a bus, but preferred not to. Soon enough, he started to get a feel for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. No one gave him a hard time—but then he was only a kid.

  One day when he was coming home from school, he came across a fight in progress. There seemed to be a gang of five or six men attacking one man, who was trying to shield his head from the many punches
that were being thrown at him. Stefan stopped to watch, frightened but also excited by the spectacle of such raw brutality, which he had never witnessed before. The victim fell to the ground and then the gang began kicking him—a ceaseless barrage of boots aimed at the man’s head and body. Everyone was screaming. A crowd had gathered. The man was writhing and squirming on the ground, desperately trying to protect himself.

  Then Stefan saw something he would never forget. The man’s head split open; blood and brains spilled out onto the cobbles. Seconds later police cars screamed into the street as the attackers fled in different directions, leaving the victim motionless on the ground, legs and arms spreadeagled. A massive pool of dark blood had formed around his head and threaded its way through the gaps between the cobbles. Ambulance officers rushed to assist the man, but anyone could see he was as dead as could be.

  It was a scene Stefan relived many times as he lay in bed at night.

  *

  In the first few months, life with Uncle Luc was a pleasant change. Stefan noticed that, aside from a certain physical similarity in height and build, Luc was different in many ways from his father. For starters, he was not married, even though he was probably in his mid-forties—an old man in Stefan’s eyes—and there was no sign of a girlfriend. And he drank a lot: beer, wine, Dubonnet, cocktails of all kinds. His hair was streaked with grey, his face fleshy and usually bright red, like a ripe peach, from too much alcohol, and his eyes took on a strange, opaque quality when he had a few cocktails under his belt. But he was always in a friendly mood and did his best to make Stefan’s life enjoyable. In the fall of ’82 he even took him to Saint-Michel to see a new circus, a spectacular show, even though one of the trapeze artists fell in the middle of his act.

  Sometimes Thaddeus would visit on weekends and take Stefan to a movie or lunch in a café. He was still at the chain hotel and living in a downtown boarding house. He’d crashed his car, and now had to travel by public transport.

  Stefan wished his father wouldn’t bother coming to see him. He was no fun to be with. Compared to Uncle Luc, his father always seemed depressed and sullen, as if life itself was lived under sufferance. Stefan figured this was because he was plagued with guilt for screwing up his family and causing Verene to dump the lot of them. And so he should’ve been.

  Uncle Luc had an unusual routine: when he came home from work at six fifteen, smelling of drink, he would shower and dress in what he called ‘evening attire’: brightly patterned silk shirts, cravats and black trousers with a vertical band on the seams, as if they were part of a dinner suit or tuxedo. And he would put on shiny black patent-leather shoes that looked very expensive. He would come into the loungeroom, awash with the powerful scent of cologne, mix himself a cocktail of some sort and relax in his La-Z-Boy for an hour or so, listening to jazz music—Miles Davis, Count Basie, Lena Horne, Fats Waller. Stefan knew all their names. Then he would prepare dinner for them both, singing and whistling jazz tunes as he did so. He was a first-rate cook, able to toss food high in the sizzling skillet without spilling anything and throw together a delicious meal of duck or veal or lamb chops in just a few minutes of intense activity.

  Then they would sit down to eat, and Luc would fix Stefan with his alcohol-affected eyes and regale him with funny stories about various characters in the Bar Escargot, where he had worked for years.

  Some Saturday evenings, after he’d gone to bed, Stefan would wake up at a late hour to the noise of a party going on in the house. There seemed to be a number of men, all drinking and telling stories and laughing against a backdrop of Luc’s jazz collection. Glasses and bottles would clink, conversation would flow in rapid French, peppered with spicy language. If he strained to listen, Stefan could sometimes pick up some references to sex, which would be followed by guffaws of laughter and more dirty stories. Now and then when they got too loud, Uncle Luc would tell them to quiet down. There were obviously no women present—just the same group of men on each occasion, as far as Stefan could tell.

  On Sunday mornings following these parties, Uncle Luc wouldn’t get out of bed until the afternoon, sometimes as late as three. Stefan would have to forage for something to eat among the overflowing ashtrays and empty bottles and glasses with dregs left in them that were littered throughout the house, even in the bathroom.

  Later that same year, Uncle Luc somehow managed to wangle tickets to the Montreal Canadiens hockey match against the Boston Bruins at the Montreal Forum. It was by far the biggest thrill of Stefan’s young life to see his heroes in action—live—for the first time.

  It was a serious winter: deep snow drifts in the suburbs and outlying areas, roads impassable, people snowed into their homes. Stefan’s school and many others closed for three days, a joyous occasion, but for the most part it was too cold to venture out. When Luc went off to work in the mornings, Stefan stayed at home watching television, tasting some of his uncle’s alcoholic beverages. From boredom he explored Luc’s bedroom, lit up one of his cigarettes from the pack next to his unmade bed, checked out his chest of drawers.

  In it, among the socks and underwear, he found packages of condoms—and porno tapes. Stefan’s eyes boggled at the covers, which depicted naked men with huge, erect penises. From the other boys at school he’d heard about the pleasures of masturbation, but so far his efforts hadn’t produced much of a result. Nonetheless he was sufficiently tantalised to play one of the tapes.

  So he sat down in front of the TV, avidly watching extreme gay porn, smoking Luc’s cigarettes and sipping from a small glass of Cointreau. The fumes went straight up his nose, but once he got over that the orange-tasting liqueur was most enjoyable, inducing in him a pleasant state of mind and a desire for more.

  That night at dinner, Uncle Luc offered Stefan a small glass of wine to accompany his meal. As he drank it he became aware that his uncle was looking at him knowingly, as if he’d tumbled the boy’s daytime adventures. Stefan wondered how that could be. Luc refilled both their glasses as he causally recounted his day at the Bar Escargot, all the scallywags and what they’d got up to.

  After dinner they sat down to watch TV. To his surprise, Stefan was presented with some Cointreau, served in the same small cut-crystal glass he’d availed himself of earlier in the day.

  ‘Care for a small drop, Stavvie?’ Luc said with a smile. His face shone and his eyes glittered. He was drunk, of course, but Stefan didn’t mind. He accepted the Cointreau wordlessly, made a fuss about the fumes going up his nose and cautiously sipped the drink as if for the first time.

  He didn’t think Uncle Luc was fooled—Uncle Luc didn’t miss anything.

  Luc poured him a second shot.

  By the end of it he was feeling quite drunk, and drowsy. It was his fifth for the day, plus the wine at dinner. What was Luc trying to do—teach him a lesson?

  Not easy to put one past Uncle Luc.

  Stefan stared with glazed eyes at the TV screen. In his mind images of the gay porn were replaying themselves, over and over. He’d been disgusted and titillated by the experience, couldn’t believe his own uncle could sit there watching this stuff. Did people really do those things?

  Then he remembered. He’d left the tape in the machine!

  Panic raced through his body.

  Somehow he had to get it out of there and return it to Luc’s drawer, without him finding out. He waited nervously—what if his uncle suddenly decided to play a tape? He often played tapes in the evenings and had a good collection, all the classic movies: Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean.

  Then Luc got up and went out to the kitchen. As soon as he was gone from the room, Stefan leaped up and pressed the eject button on the VCR.

  There was nothing inside it.

  The tape was gone.

  Stefan felt sick—not just from drink.

  Luc returned with some chocolate cake for them both. Stefan accepted a slice, but had trouble eating it, his mouth was so dry. And he felt dizzy—his head was spinning around and around and
around.

  Next thing, Stefan was vaguely aware of being in bed, having his shirt pulled off over his head and his pants dragged off. Then he was in darkness, dead to the world.

  5

  Friday, 6.55pm

  Gus had been listening to the regional news on the dusty old seventies-model ghetto blaster on his fridge when he’d nodded off momentarily. The sound of the front door buzzer woke him with a jolt. He looked at his watch. A slight frown furrowed his brow as he tried to focus on the watch’s hands. He’d meant to shut up shop at about six but hadn’t got around to it. The store didn’t have strict opening and closing times. Somebody wanted something, Gus was there to serve them, even if it meant appearing in his dressing gown. He hauled himself out of his easy chair and made his way out.

  There were three men in the store. Straight away, Gus didn’t like the cut of them. His gut told him they were trouble.

  ‘Howdy,’ he said. ‘Help you, gentlemen? Just about to close.’

  One of the men grinned at him. The other two ignored him, looking over his merchandise.

  ‘Our lucky day,’ the man said. He was around six-foot-three, gangly, with long hair in a ponytail; it was a dirty shade of nicotine, Gus thought. He had on a sleeveless leather jacket with a fur collar and what Gus recognised as motorcycle club patches. The man also had a dense network of tattoos all the way down both arms, and on the backs of his hands, which were resting on the counter. There were tattoos of stars and dots all over his fingers, along with clusters of heavy silver rings.

  Gus figured he was about fifty years old.

  ‘Say, this is some joint,’ one of the others said. He was younger, in black T-shirt and jeans and Aviator sunglasses. ‘Like a fuckin’ museum, man.’ He was looking at some framed photographs, about a hundred years old, of farmers sitting in tractors and leaning on ploughshares, against a backdrop of tall trees. The third man, also youngish and wearing biker gear and shades, wandered into the store proper, picking up this and that, having a good look around. Gus wasn’t partial to customers wandering through his store. No telling what they might slip into their pockets. Swiss army knives, for instance, or boxes of trout flies.