by John Farrow
(Gin fizz for kids)
Cinq-Mars instigated the drive out to an industrial park near the airport. Giroux agreed to tag along if they stopped for burgers, and over lunch filled him in on his case regarding the theft of a painting. He pegged it as an insurance scam. ‘When people don’t piss and moan over what’s missing and instead they brag about the value, it’s a scam’ went the gist of his conjecture.
‘Yours isn’t.’ Cinq-Mars stabbed his fork into a French fry.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Isn’t a scam.’
‘What do you know about it?’ Giroux scoffed.
‘It’s a Tom Thomson that was stolen, right?’
‘Yeah, the painter was Thomson.’
‘He’s a big deal in English Canada.’
‘Where does he live?’
They were occupying a pair of stools at a greasy spoon. Giroux ordered a strawberry milkshake, Cinq-Mars a Seven-Up.
‘Yves, he’s dead. One reason the painting is worth a lot.’
‘Ah. He won’t paint another one too soon.’
‘Worth a mint if he does. Look, people often insure for less than the value.’
‘Why do that?’
‘To save on the premium. Or the market jumped ahead of them. Tom Thomson prices are exploding right now. Odds are the owner was caught underinsured. She could have sold it for a fortune – way more than the insurance pays – so your theory that she can hang the painting back up in a month doesn’t wash.’
‘Can’t be hard. Stick a nail in the wall.’
‘Yves, the painting is too famous for that.’
Giroux buried his face in the burger and thought things through. He resurfaced. ‘Bona fide, the robbery?’
‘A winner. Enjoy.’
They headed out. Soon after mounting the ramp onto an elevated expressway westbound, they were snarled in traffic.
‘Beat the crowd? Go loud?’ Cinq-Mars asked. He might be a stickler for the law, but mere rules were made to be circumvented. An illegal move, but who would arrest them?
Giroux grinned and stuck out his tongue. ‘I got the siren. You do the lights.’
An overheated car had caused the snarl. Once past the bottleneck, they turned the sound-and-light show off and zipped along without traffic.
‘Why are we out in the boonies?’ Giroux wanted to know.
‘Jim Tanner’s an ex-con,’ Cinq-Mars reminded him. ‘He cracked safes. His daughter’s a thief. Coincidence? It’s not genetics. Did the father mentor his kid? Is he as clean as he looks? Also, did he have a grievance against the dead boy?’
‘Woah! Heavy thinking there, Cinq-Mars.’
‘Begs to be asked, no? Plus, my gut says the firebombing has nothing to do with Quinn. How does that fit with a kid? That leaves the dad. Who’s he pissed off? What’s he been up to in his day-to-day?’
‘All right. We’re dropping by his place of work, why?’
‘I don’t want the daughter to see me leaning on her dad. Besides, a man’s home is his castle. At work, he’s more vulnerable. He won’t want to look like he’s in trouble in front of his coworkers or his boss.’
Giroux agreed. ‘We’ll bust his balls.’
‘Not what I had in mind.’
‘Live and learn, Cinq-Mars.’
He wondered if he shouldn’t have left Giroux behind, let him bully an old lady about her non-existent scam with a painting.
The area Giroux described as ‘the boonies’ was a mundane industrial park off the expressway. Jim Tanner’s place of work, Plant 59 of the Continental Can Company, was noisy and hectic. The screeching of machinery, the shuffling of product and raw material – metals, fibers, glass – assaulted the senses.
Cops showing up didn’t bother Tanner in the least, he welcomed the respite. He led the two men through a side door into the parking lot and sunlight.
‘Suddenly, I like my job,’ Giroux declared without explaining himself. Tanner took his meaning. He worked in a sweatshop, his days a grind.
‘Honest work,’ Cinq-Mars stated. The man went up a notch in his mind. Judging by the brief visit to the shop floor, it had not been easy to remake his life. Cinq-Mars was adjusting his line of inquiry when Giroux jumped in ahead of him.
‘Have we met before, Mr Tanner? You have a record, but I doubt we go that far back. Have we had a run-in since your last arrest?’
‘We met on a difficult day,’ Tanner revealed.
‘Then we’ve met. Did I chase you down a dark alley? What was difficult?’
Jim Tanner resisted combating the detective’s tone.
‘Wintertime,’ he remarked. A man with a knack to draw a large picture with a few words. ‘A mighty snowfall. I was on my way to work. Took the bus in those days. It was pulling into the curb when it shimmied on slick ice. As it braked, the tires locked. The bus skidded. I heard a scream I’ll never forget.’
Giroux had never forgotten that day, either. Out of context, and without the hats and coats of winter, he’d failed to connect the man to the incident. The two men, in a twinkling, entered a private space, a quiet sphere of memory. Both gazed across the ugly lot, leaving Cinq-Mars on his own.
‘What’s going on?’ the junior detective asked.
‘A boy,’ Giroux explained. ‘About twelve.’
‘Ten,’ Tanner said. ‘Tall for his age.’
‘Ten. He was sliding behind the bus, hanging on to the bumper. The bus hit a dry patch and shunted him forward. A rear wheel caught his legs.’
‘He was pulled up into the wheel well,’ Tanner recalled. ‘His legs went around and under. Lost them both, poor kid.’
The three men let that image settle.
‘I happened to grab the call,’ Giroux explained. ‘First cop on the scene. This man,’ he indicated Tanner, ‘looked after the boy until the ambulance arrived.’
‘Sounds terrible.’ Cinq-Mars was a bit ashamed of the understatement.
‘I couldn’t deal with it,’ Giroux admitted. ‘This man—’
‘I had no choice,’ Tanner remarked, taking no credit but extending no blame. ‘Covered him with my coat. Held him. I’ve seen him around the neighborhood in his wheelchair, so he made it. I went home. Skipped work. Told Quinn what happened. She was nearly off to school, but I had to talk to somebody and my wife had left for work. I think I hugged Quinn too hard. Scared her. I shouldn’t have said anything. But I was in bad shape.’
Any plan formulated by Giroux to be tough in their discussion dissipated. He reverted to being as silent as on that tragic morning. Cinq-Mars, also deterred from his gambit, took a different tack, remembering something Quinn said.
‘Who’s your union, Mr Tanner?’
‘United Steel Workers.’
‘Is a strike looming?’ Banners indicated as much.
‘A vote next week. Do you think the Molotov is connected?’
‘Do you?’ He cocked his head. ‘I can’t link a firebomb to a teenager.’
‘It’s crossed my mind,’ Tanner admitted. ‘I talked to a few people. We’re in a tough negotiation, but nothing nasty so far. No threats. Still, I can’t rule it out.’
‘Are you active?’
‘Shop steward. Our nego-team is off-site, I’m point on the floor.’
‘Sounds like a strong possibility of a maybe,’ Giroux speculated. ‘Your boss could have ordered it. Waited for you to be home so your house wouldn’t burn down. Broad daylight so nobody gets hurt. Still, a message gets delivered.’
Neither Tanner nor Cinq-Mars would go that far, yet the possibility was viable.
‘If that’s what it was, it may be a one-and-done,’ Cinq-Mars suggested.
‘Us showing up doesn’t hurt,’ Giroux added. ‘If the bosses wanted to scare you off, us being here may scare them off. Put an end to it, maybe.’
Jim Tanner was eyeing both men with intent.
‘What’s on your mind?’ Cinq-Mars asked.
‘My record. Banks, mostly. Private clubs. Back in the day, I could cra
ck any safe. I had a knack.’
‘You’ve gone straight since. You put in a hard day’s work, look after your kid. We’re not leaning on you.’
He believed that he could speak for Giroux on this one, as his senior partner’s demeanor had conveyed respect.
The man remained remarkably still. When he broke off his self-induced trance, he took four steps toward the plant, then turned. ‘Quinn, her stealing. I didn’t know about it. I didn’t put her up to it. It’s tearing me apart, OK? I don’t know what’s going on with her. It’s a kid thing. Just because I was in a ring …’
In stopping there, the man indicated that a doubt existed. He couldn’t shake it loose. He wanted to say that he had done nothing to encourage her to steal, yet he couldn’t rule out being a bad influence or a poor father. For him, Quinn’s stealing and his career as a safecracker were difficult to separate. A mystery at its core. Had his parenting contributed to this debacle? He couldn’t say.
Unable to conjure anything further that made sense to him, he returned to the bedlam indoors.
The two cops moved toward their car.
After they wedged themselves in and rolled the windows down, Giroux had a suggestion. ‘My oil-painting heist is a worn-out case, but I could get you up to speed pretty quick. Seems it’s a genuine old-fashioned robbery, now.’
Cinq-Mars appreciated both the offer and the break in their mood. ‘I could put in my two cents. My young thief will be taking up some time, though. I need to give her close attention.’
The senior detective indicated that he was willing to negotiate his schedule and duties, but had something else on his mind to run by Cinq-Mars first.
‘I didn’t talk it through with him or anything, but I figured something out.’
‘Talked through what with whom?’
Giroux’s response proved to be more complex than the question. ‘Touton. Your old boss and mine. I couldn’t figure out why he sent you to me. A sly codger, he doesn’t do anything without a purpose. This isn’t about you. He’s not expecting me to train you. Also, it’s not what you think – he didn’t send you here to keep an eye on me. He sent you here for my protection.’
Which made absolutely no sense to Cinq-Mars. ‘You’ve lost me in outer space, Yves.’
‘Idiot!’ he said, as if shouting but without raising his voice. ‘I’m a dirty cop. I skim. Off the top. Touton knows it, and you’ve probably heard it.’
‘Maybe,’ Cinq-Mars concurred. Where was this frenzied confession leading?
The other man spoke in a hushed tone, but intensely. ‘Grade-A bullshit, Cinq-Mars. The full load. Skimming gets me in. Cops think I’m dirty, and the bad guys presume I’m dirty. They figure they own me. They believe they can play me, but the whole deal’s a play. Right down the wire. It’s why I left the Night Patrol. Do you get it now?’
He looked at him through different eyes. If true, he was being initiated into a higher rung of trust and secrecy. Yet he remained skeptical. ‘This is sanctioned?’
‘In this department? I’d be whacked ten times over if people thought I was sanctioned to be a dirty cop. How would a play like that stay tight? Only one person knows. Just one. For my personal preservation. Check with him. You know who.’
‘You’re telling me, why?’
‘Idiot!’ he hissed between clenched teeth and slapped his own forehead with the stump of his palm. Cinq-Mars didn’t know which of the two of them he was referring to. Giroux leaned in again. ‘Touton’s retiring. I need cover, in case my play goes south. He was my cover, now you are. He’s set it up this way. What a bastard! I should have seen it coming. Plain as the nose on my face. Hell! Plain as the nose on your face. And that’s saying something.’
They’d been partnered for a reason. Now Cinq-Mars knew why. He agreed that Armand Touton fit the general description of ‘bastard’. Lovable, cranky, infuriating, and wise. And a bastard.
‘How long have you been doing this?’
‘Undercover, but not?’ Giroux asked. ‘Twenty years. Give or take.’
‘That’s hard time.’
‘Tell me about it.’
Cinq-Mars put the car in gear.
‘Three blocks straight on. East,’ Giroux told him.
‘What’s there?’
‘A bar. We got time owed.’
Cinq-Mars started out of the lot. ‘You’re such a bad cop,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Giroux counselled him. ‘There’s way worse than me.’
Giroux ordered a concoction called a gin fizz. Bars famously and illegally served the drink with minimal alcohol content to adolescents. The teens pretended to be barflies, downing their gin fizzes, and feeling giddy after four of them. Due to the warmth of the day, Cinq-Mars wanted something cool himself, and ordered a whisky sour. He was happy with his choice when it arrived, as was Giroux with a full jigger of gin in his and a silly paper umbrella.
‘Cinq-Mars,’ Giroux said, ‘do both. Help me with the oil painting, put in time with the girl. I’m good with that. You blew off the insurance scam on a scrap of intel. I like that.’
‘Knowing about Tom Thomson, that was just luck.’
‘Maybe. But you heard it here first. You’re good. Just don’t let it go to your head.’
‘I can blow off the firebombing too. It wasn’t part of a union dispute.’
‘You know that how?’
‘I don’t.’ He touched the tip of his impressive beak.
‘This is charades? You’re a bloodhound? What?’
‘What’s the point of sending a message if the guy who gets firebombed doesn’t know who did it or why? How is that a message? Plus, everybody in Plant 59 would be talking about it. Management, union, the receptionist. Guards would’ve been posted. Cops show up, a lot of people would be alert. Instead, nobody cared. I still say it involves the father, not the daughter. But it’s not the strike. It’s something else.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like I don’t know what.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’
‘Before you do. Tell me. What happens to the money you skim when you’re dirty?’
‘You’re drinking it. This one’s on me.’
‘You could donate to charity.’
‘To ease my worried mind? Like that would give me the image I’m looking for. If you gotta be you, I gotta be me. Truth is, I do give to charity.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
‘Maybe you heard of my charity. It’s called the horses.’
‘You gamble.’
‘Don’t sneer at me, you punk. I live at the racetrack.’ He winked at him. ‘Plenty of bad guys there. Talk gets told when people think they own you. I got ears.’
They stayed on for a second drink.
His old boss Touton wanted him to make connections. Cinq-Mars was learning why.
Sacrificial Zinc
(Prospective husbands)
That Giuseppe Ciampini visited Ezra Knightsbridge testified to his regard for the aging peddler. Normally, he took appointments only at his office. Scant few men were deemed worthy of a visit from Montreal’s kingpin of crime.
Although he was always prudent, Ciampini did not travel through town with trepidation. Neither did he flaunt his authority or net worth. He had a driver and sat in the rear seat, yet his vehicle remained a nondescript Chrysler. The driver didn’t carry a submachine gun in the trunk. At the pawnshop, Ciampini sent his man inside to ascertain that the coast was clear, then stepped from the car. He did not wait to have his door opened for him. He had famously snarled that when he couldn’t open his own door he’d sign-up for beauty school.
He entered the premises under the jingling bell.
Among trusted cohorts, Giuseppe Ciampini was known simply as ‘Joe’. As a young hoodlum, he’d gone by the nickname ‘the Whip’. An aunt had remarked that he was ‘as quick as a whip’, and the name stuck until he scrubbed it from his resumé. When a judge asked why he was called ‘the Whip’, he replied that he w
as descended from lion tamers. The judge pointed out that lions don’t dwell in Sicily and threw the book at him. Graduating from prison, Ciampini emerged as a leader of men. Determined to eschew the customary trappings of the gangster, he wouldn’t drive Cadillacs or conduct business in bars or visit his own strip clubs. He’d remain both tattoo-free and bling-free. A businessman, he’d conduct himself accordingly. He should be able to sit at a table with CEOs, as he did for certain charities, without anyone being able to differentiate the mob boss from legitimate businessmen. To those CEOs he was Giuseppe or Mr Ciampini, while his close allies and enemies in the business called him Joe.
During a brief stint in prison, Ciampini had forged a friendship with a man called Dezi, or Dez, whose full name was Dezyderiusz Pilachowski. He might sometimes slip up and still call him Dezi, or Dez, although he knew him now as Ezra Knightsbridge. In prison, they had discussed opposing strategies to guarantee they’d never return. One man desired to be the cog in a machine no one noticed; the other plotted to insulate himself within an impenetrable cocoon.
‘A boat in the water,’ Ciampini noted back then, ‘needs sacrificial zinc. You know this?’
‘I was not informed.’
‘Electrodes in water cause metal to disintegrate.’
‘If you say so, Joe, then I believe with my whole heart.’
‘The least noble metals go first. Zinc corrodes first. That way, the zinc spares the more noble metals, such as the bronze. When the zinc wears away, the other metals corrode, and fast. Replace the zinc, that’s the solution. No corrosion.’
‘I do not want to be the zinc.’
‘Neither me,’ Ciampini philosophized. ‘I will circle zinc around me like a wall.’
‘Makes sense. I will not live on water. I will be like dust.’
‘Also makes sense. Underwater is where I breathe.’
‘Should I call you the Dolphin?’
‘You can call me Joe.’
‘I don’t know my name yet, Joe. Dezyderiusz has a record. A clean slate, I want. I will not be who I have been.’
‘Good plan. Let me know your name when you are like dust,’ Ciampini said. Decades later, as he stepped into the man’s shop, he called out, ‘Ezra, good to see you, old friend.’