Down with the Underdogs

by Ian Truman

  There was no money in arts and crafts. The money was in liquor and drugs and loud music, sex, dope, dancing and pain.

  I remembered the slanted cement floors, and stacks of papers were everywhere, piles of paper on piles of paper against makeshift shelves on feeble legs. You could see the seventeenth-century hooks, nets and pulleys still there, and at least I hoped they kept that part around. Otherwise, I remembered the place smelling like a fucking fire hazard, dust and pneumonia. I also remembered there were cats. Lots and lots of cats and lots and lots of rat shit, too.

  Now the building was a fancy club with golf-green lawn on the front and potted plants in white plastic vases you used to see only in movies, in places like New York or Los Angeles, places where assholes lived, and now it was true of Montreal as well, and it still baffled me.

  There was a dead end right there, down Dalhousie, about two hundred yards ahead. It was the perfect place to kill a man for a fucking century. Lots of people died there, and while I had no memory of anyone recently, the seventies and eighties must’ve seen a lot of blood spilled on the edges of that elevated rail.

  Lots of big messy bushes against that massive slab of concrete, and the trains were so noisy, I don’t think you could’ve heard a .22. A silencer on anything bigger would probably have worked just fine, too. A good, clean job and no one to give a shit. Fifteen seconds later you could be down Wellington or up into Ville-Marie. You could be across the tracks and downtown in minutes.

  I rummaged through Phil’s disgusting food, took a bite of what used to be a burrito, and decided not to finish it. I sipped the rest of his Coke and then chewed on ice for a good hour, or two or three. I needed some alcohol in my system. Six fucking days on this stakeout and nothing to show for. The boss was gonna want some answers, and Sean Cullens was going to be asking the questions.

  I got bored waiting and decided to shake the cage a bit. I still had Ducas’ phone in my glove compartment.

  Karl’s guy had cracked it for us. I keyed in the code, and the phone came to life with about twenty percent battery life remaining. I punched up the profile Karl had used to contact the pushers and sent him a message on a fake account: “Your cell phone will be in the lost and found at Glasshouse.” Then I wrote out his address on Bellechasse and where his wife still lived, on Nuns’ Island: “I STRONGLY suggest you come and pick it up.” Then I hinted at who was coming after him: “Erin go Bragh.” That was cheesy, sure, but it would get the message across.

  I walked to the door. There must’ve been forty people waiting outside, but I wasn’t gonna bother with that. I walked straight between the two potted fucking ferns, across their fake grass terrace and right to the door. I had the suit and the cash and that look on my face that said, “Don’t bother.”

  “Y’a un line-up,” the doorman said, mentioning the wait list.

  I pulled out my wallet and grabbed a few hundred-dollar bills. It wasn’t even everything I had in there.

  I shoved the money into his chest. “Ta ’yeule.” Shut the fuck up. Then I opened my own damn door.

  He didn’t stop me.

  The volume of the music hit me right away. The smell of sweat, liquor, cologne, pussy and beer was everywhere, the way the light show was going on, the way people danced or moved or the way they were dressed. I couldn’t stand the fucking place.

  I was fucking made for another era. Give me an old dirty dive bar any fucking time.

  I looked around, found Ryan hunched over a countertop that had a screen projecting fucking tweets built into it. I walked over and handed him the phone.

  “Give this to lost and found.”

  “We don’t have a lost and found.”

  “Then give it to the barmaid, tell her not to fucking lose it.”

  “All right.” He walked over to a hot twenty-something. She leaned in. He leaned in, too. Maybe he was flirting, or maybe I had been out of the game too long. But she nodded and took the phone, and that was that.

  He talked with her a bit more, probably looking for a hook-up, and she seemed to agree. Ryan was a big motherfucker, but he had a way with the women, you had to give him that.

  I sat myself at the other end of the bar. My barman was a hipster I could have punched right in the face any time just because it felt so fucking called for. He looked down at me. I wasn’t his crowd, that was for sure, but at least I had money.

  “Four beers,” I said

  “Which table?”

  “Right in front of me.”

  I gave him forty bucks and waved him away. The stools to the left and right were empty. No guys came for advice or cried their lives away, no women came to flirt. People went on by, on their way to the bathroom and back out again, none of them I’d give a fuck about except maybe that one woman, who looked out of place.

  She had that wasp shape only the Italians seemed to manage. Perky perfect breasts against that long, thin body of hers diving into a low, wide ass, and she walked with purpose. She wore a black dress, showing off some skin on her square shoulders, more on her thighs. She wore her hair in bangs and a bun on top, and had thin red lips and glasses meant for a librarian that really worked on her.

  She glanced my way, or at least I thought she did. Fierce brown eyes I was surprised I caught in the mess of the place, but I did. There was a perfect stillness in the moment before she moved away. I held half a breath and checked her out on her way to the end of that hallway and then down some stairs into somewhere else.

  I sighed and looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar. Don’t bother, I thought. I hated my life right now, and the job wasn’t any fun. I held my glass and lurched backwards for the next sip. I wouldn’t want to flirt with me if I was her.

  Ducas showed up when I was getting to my last beer; it seemed the thinly veiled threat against his yet-to-be-divorced wife was enough to make him man up and take a risk. I looked at my cell phone. That made about a beer every ten minutes. Whether that was a lot or not was still for the rest of the world to judge.

  He looked like the asshole I expected: light grey suit and unbuttoned white shirt, trimmed dark beard and a haircut just as short. He looked groomed and expensive. I hated the motherfucker.

  He asked the cute barmaid for his cell phone. She nodded and headed to the end of the bar. Ducas looked around nervously, looked at the crowd, maybe even looked at me, but there was no way he could know who I was. If he asked the barmaid who had given her the phone, she’d say one of the bouncers had found it, and that would be the truth.

  I was just a guy sitting at a bar, fucking around on his cell phone. Truth was, I was texting Ryan to wait for me in the car right now.

  “Spotted him getting in. Already there,” he replied.

  I had half a beer left, so I took it to go. I made my way along the railing that surrounded the dance floor. I was damn glad to get out of there.

  Ducas got his phone from the barmaid. She had him unlock it in front of her to prove it was his. When she was satisfied with that, she went back to serving the new-rich assholes of Griffintown.

  I walked out the front door with my drink still in my hand. The bouncer hesitated about holding me back, and that was good. I was pissed, I looked pissed and I had emptied the beer by the time I got to the sidewalk. I wanted more. I wanted to be drunk and brawl. I longed for the old days of dark and dirty taverns where everyone shared my state of mind. These clowns weren’t gonna fight me. I lurched once more for the last of the beer at the bottom of the glass. Then I threw it on the sidewalk for it to shatter in a hundred pieces.

  “What the fuck’s his problem?” someone said.

  You’re my fucking problem, I thought. I didn’t say a word, and I made my way to the Impala, where Ryan was ready to drive.

  Thank God, because I was too drunk for it.

  He didn’t say a word, and he tailed Ducas better than I could have imagined. Ducas was parked in a handicapped spot by the corner of the street. He went up Universit
y to Sherbrooke, then Parc Avenue. All were broad, wide streets with plenty of room to navigate and enough traffic to hide.

  I expected tailing a guy to be hard. It wasn’t.

  At one point a cop car pulled up next to us at a red light. The driver looked over. I was dressed in a business suit and looked drunk and dead tired. Ryan was fresh and driving. They seemed happy about that. If only they knew I was out to catch and possibly kill a man twenty feet ahead.

  The light turned green, and the cops moved on to beat up some kids on Saint-Laurent or some shit.

  Ducas drove up Parc all the way to Mile-Ex. He took a left into one of these dead-end loops around the tracks. Going in there would have trapped us, so we slowed down, but it was easy to tell where he was headed. There was no need to confront him just now; we were just gathering information, and we had a good lead now.

  There were only four buildings down there and I knew right away which one he was headed for.

  The motherfucker.

  Third one on the left. There was a small, black square with a logo outside: “D&B Designs.” The designer my boss had hired to package his weed.

  I still had the motherfucker’s card in my wallet.

  Chapter 18

  I came home later that night a bit drunk still, but plenty sober just the same. I was so angry at life and fights and the way shit was going on at home. I hated the fuck out of it. I wanted some peace. I wanted to make love to my wife. I needed to make love to my wife. It had been way too long, and it wasn’t healthy.

  We had gotten married out of love, absolute and pure love but now we had this thick wall of work and sins, sons and responsibilities between us. I needed to know if we could still feel it, in our bodies and in our minds. Kid or no kid, we were fucking human beings and we needed some skin. I needed some skin. That may have been drunk talk but it felt true enough.

  So for the first time in months I walked out of the shower and into the room. I wasn’t drunk anymore. I was just done with the bullshit. I picked up Liam and carried him to his crib, that damn thing that was now in the corner of the living room and was seldom used. I put him in there, ten feet away from his mom. I half-closed the door, and I slid in next to her. I was still wet from my shower. She was still asleep.

  For half a second it seemed like the rest of the world disappeared. For half a second the rest of it completely, truly and absolutely vanished.

  I slid a hand down her back, felt the curves of her thighs as softly as I could. The smell of sweat and lavender covered the bed. The sheets had come undone, and her bare back was covered in goosebumps. I kissed one shoulder blade, pressed my cold, wet skin against hers and felt her body shiver.

  I kissed her some more. The back of her shoulder, working my way up to her neck. She woke up softly and moaned just enough for me to hear. One more kiss, a longer one this time, and she let out a deep breath. She moved, just barely, and tilted her head backwards so her lips could reach mine.

  Patches of weak light came in from the street. Parts of her curves glimmered. Other parts of her hid in the shadows.

  I slid a hand upwards, to the edge of her ample breasts, sliding a single finger around their curves before softly grabbing a handful. She turned a bit more. Her mouth finally pressed against mine—the way it should.

  There was a rawness to her movements. I answered the best I could. I answered with the unflinching energy of pure fucking flesh. This was physical, absolutely and utterly physical. Her lips pressed hard against mine, as if moving them apart was the most difficult thing in the world.

  Her hand slid past my neck and locked me in. A few more kisses, and I freed myself to move down on her. She allowed me to go there, and I could dream of a smile on her lips. The fatigue of months of sleep deprivation couldn’t stop me. The smell of week-old sheets couldn’t stop me. All the baggage, the pain, the anger. All of it, gone.

  I slid down her panties. I made sure to touch every single inch of her legs all the way to the tip of her toes. I kissed the skin of her legs, felt the strength of her thighs, feeling every curve of hers in the palm of my hands, at the tip of my fingers.

  A soft tease around the waist as I made my way back up. I reached for a kiss right where her heart stood between her breast. I stayed there for as long as I could hold my breath.

  A few strokes of my hair, and she guided me down again. Down between her legs to bite the edge of her thigh, down to kiss the inside of her legs one last time only to tease her, feel her smile and laugh for once. Goddamn, it felt good to hear her laugh for once.

  Then I moved on her, finally, sending shivers up her body as my lips closed in tight. She pranced back just enough for me to slide a hand behind her and hold her where I needed her. She reached for a pillow and started to moan through it. The faint sounds told me I was doing something right.

  I stayed there as long as she’d let me. I couldn’t tell how long it was. I didn’t care how long it took. Then she said, “Fuck me,” the way you better listen to.

  “Not yet,” I said, and I meant it. It had been months since we had been together, and I was gonna make this one last.

  She finally freed herself from me, throwing her legs over me. She got up on her hands and knees. I looked at her long, smooth back and that tattoo that covered so much of it. I looked at the curve of her ass where the tip of the tattoo stopped.

  Goddamn, the things in this world that made life worth fucking living.

  I leaned into her, pressed myself against her back. I held her tight at the shoulders and nibbled her neck.

  The urgency of the moment was absolutely true, absolutely visceral. It couldn’t have been more real.

  If sex could ever save a fucking marriage, this was the way you were supposed to do it. Her skin was stiff, and it felt cold. She moaned, and I moaned. Quit now, and it all goes to hell, I remember thinking. That much felt true.

  Three in the morning, and we felt alone in the universe, invisible to the world outside. To hell with resentment and all the tension we never seemed to get rid of during the day. It was us against the world for once.

  I pressed harder against her, and she seemed to like it. Her hips told me how to move, her breaths told me when to push. And then she came, and I came, and our bodies crashed together, sweaty and out of breath, in the mess of the sheets. I just lay there, body spent, tired and out of breath, unable to move anymore even if my life depended on it.

  I took a breath and looked at her. I couldn’t make out her face, but she was there, and that was enough. Us against the world, in the forgiving darkness of the night.

  Chapter 19

  We were gonna bust down Boulay’s business in a few hours. It was 3 a.m., and I was sitting on my porch half-naked and drinking water for a change. I could hear the noises of the city in the distance, the faint hum of the highway and someone’s TV a few blocks down. Aside from a few mosquitos coming out of the grass to bite me, the night was fresh and the air was dry, and this felt like heaven to me.

  I was on the phone waiting on some news from the guys.

  Karl had asked to take point on this one. He had a flash, it seemed, and that was uncharacteristic of him. Maybe it was the class rage finally kicking in. I had it. Ryan and Phil had it, Sean Cullens and the boss had it. We all had it and Karl was no different, but he contained it better than we did.

  On any given day, he could walk alongside the rich and the entitled, and you could swear he’d fit right in. But put him in a room with some graphics designer who was fucking with what was not his business? Let’s just say I was gonna let him have this one.

  “What do you have in mind?” I asked when he picked up.

  “Don’t worry about it. We’re gonna remember this one.”

  He seemed adamant about it so I just said, “Okay.” It wasn’t like I could ever really tell Karl what to do.

  “Tomorrow at nine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You need everyone?”

&
nbsp; “Absolutely.”

  “Need any help? Money?”

  “You’ll probably have to pay for the bullets,” he said.

  “I’m not sure—”

  “Tomorrow at nine.”

  “How many bullets are we talking abo—”

  He hung up. I texted him, but got no reply.

  It was funny how I was mostly worried about the budget. Karl was insane, but he kept his jobs clean enough. I would never forget the stunt he pulled on that skinhead down in Hochelaga. He was also the one who torched the house in Hamilton. Karl was insane, but none of us was in prison yet so I had to trust him.

  I looked up at the dark sky over my small backyard. Life was good in Montreal sometimes.

  Can I call? I texted the boss.

  Three minutes later I was on the phone with him to get into the finer details of my investigation.

  “How the fuck did you manage an’ tying this up to the goddamned designer?” he asked. He sounded surprised. Maybe it was too late, and maybe I was looking too hard, but no one could have believed he had been blindsided by Boulay.

  Obviously, I didn’t go for that. You didn’t tell that to your boss, so I asked, “Did this guy, Boulay…did he have any information about anything I might need to be aware of?”

  “I wouldn’t think he knew much. You’d think he managed to get some more info on our dealers without us knowing.”

  I wasn’t about to speculate on that. I took the calmest tone I could muster. “What exactly did you tell him?”

  “He asked the name of two or three pushers, see how they felt the clientele would react to the new legal way of doing things.”

  “Who’d you give him?”

  “One good guy from back in the day whose opinion I trust. The other two were some kids because we needed to get into whatever the fuck these kids are into these days.”