Vigilante Season

by Peter Kirby

  “What’s your name?” Vanier asked.

  “Maude.”

  “Maude what?”

  “Maude Roberge.”

  “Truth?”

  “Truth.”

  “How do you know Émile?”

  “I live here. He lets me live here. It’s his place.”

  “For how long?”

  “He always says, for as long as I like.”

  “No. I mean how long have you been together?”

  “Oh. Six, seven years. I met him just after I finished high school.” Even in the gloom she looked years older than five or six years out of high school.

  “I’ve some bad news, Maude. Émile was found dead last night. He was murdered.”

  There was no reaction while she absorbed the news. Saint-Jacques came back into the front room, “Back door’s broken, like a forced entry.”

  Maude stirred, she said in a low voice. “I figured they’d kill him. After they took him yesterday. I knew he was in trouble.”

  “Who took him?”

  “I don’t know who it was.”

  She rambled through a story. Vanier and Saint-Jacques had to drag it out of her with questions and prodding.

  She thought they broke in around ten o’clock in the morning. Émile had been partying all night, and there were people in the place until dawn. She was asleep in the bed when some guys crashed through the back door. Émile must have been in the front. There were three of them, she thought. One of them put a gun to her head and told her to put her face into the pillow and stay quiet. The others went and got Émile. She could hear him swearing and arguing with them. The guy holding the gun to her head told her if she didn’t see anything she had nothing to worry about. So she just lay there and stayed quiet and waited for them to leave. She said she got really scared when she heard Émile shrieking, like he was really hurt, but not like he was dying, just really hurt. She heard them going through the place for about half an hour. The guy with the gun never moved. She thinks that she fell asleep again and when she woke up, Émile was gone and all his stock was gone with him. No money, no drugs, they had taken everything, even her welfare money.

  “You didn’t call the police?”

  She raised her head for the first time and looked at him like he was crazy.

  “I was waiting. Either he’d come back or he wouldn’t. Either way, I still had a place to sleep.”

  “And you have no idea who they were?”

  “I told you. No. I think there were maybe three of them. All dressed dark. White guys, I think. But that’s it. Wasn’t anyone I knew.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “They didn’t seem like the usual guys. Not any of the gangs, and not Angels. They were quiet, you know? Not screaming and shouting. They talked low, did their business, and left. You know, like you see in the movies. Like professionals. Not the usual assholes. The only one screaming was Émile.”

  “We’re going to have to go through this place. It’s a crime scene, Maude.”

  She raised her head again. “But I live here. I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

  Vanier looked at Saint-Jacques, who shrugged her shoulder. “I guess I can stay with her until the crime scene people get here, make sure she doesn’t touch anything.”

  “No need. She’s been here since he disappeared. Another hour won’t make a difference.”

  Saint-Jacques punched numbers on the phone and began organizing the work.

  Vanier kept up the questions, afraid she was falling asleep. “Where did he keep the drugs, Maude?”

  “Drugs?” She said, like a bad actor trying for indignation, but only showing how little energy she had left.

  “Stop fucking around, Maude. Where?”

  “He had four or five spots, but they took everything, even the money.”

  “He showed them?”

  “He didn’t have much choice. I remember him screaming like a kid with its finger caught in a car door. I couldn’t do anything. I had to keep my face in the pillow.”

  “And?”

  “Over there. On the counter.”

  Saint-Jacques moved into the kitchen space.

  “Near the salt. In a Kleenex. I found it after they left.”

  Saint-Jacques saw the red-stained Kleenex and tore it apart. It was a finger cut at the knuckle. She held it up for Vanier to see before dropping it into an evidence bag.

  “You’d need garden sheers to cut off his finger off like that,” Maude said.

  Saint-Jacques put the evidence bag into her pocket.

  Vanier made a mental note to talk to Dr. Nadeau about the hand with the fingertip missing.

  “You do that to someone, and they’re going to show you everything,” Maude said. “I kept it for if he came back. You know, maybe the doctors could re-attach it.”

  “And Émile showed them everything?”

  She looked at him like a child caught in a lie. “Well no. He usually kept some cash, about $1,500, in a pair of jeans at the bottom of the laundry basket. He didn’t show them that. But they got everything else.”

  “$1,500. You counted it?”

  Maude’s her hand went instinctively to her pocket. She saw that Vanier had seen it.

  “It’s all I have.”

  “So they took all of the money and the drugs, is that the story?”

  “Yes. And his guns.”

  “I thought you had your face in the pillow all the time.”

  “I checked, after they left.”

  “Maude, will you tell his family?” Vanier was thinking that Maude didn’t seem like the family sort. It was more likely she would just close the door and walk away. Or, maybe, not even close the door.

  “Don’t need to. They’ll read about it in the paper. They don’t like me.”

  “Are his parents alive?”

  “Yeah. More’s the pity.”

  “What’s the address?”

  Maude had to think. Eventually she gave them an address about fifteen blocks away.

  “So where are you going to be, Maude? If we need to talk to you.”

  “Got nowhere else to go. I guess I’ll wait till someone throws me out.”

  Vanier got up and handed her his card. “If anything else comes to mind, call me. And Maude, it’s important. If you move, let me know where you’re going. I don’t want to have to come looking for you.”

  She put the card in her jeans. “Yeah. I’ll let you know.” She put her head back on the couch, closed her eyes, and started scratching her arm.

  “We’ll let ourselves out.”

  “Sure. Whatever.”

  The Mayor of Montreal lives behind walls, both the real and the artificial kind. He gets driven everywhere, and nobody bumps into him at the mall. He’s delivered to his office every morning in a city car, and he returns at night the same way. His phone numbers are unlisted, and his arrivals at functions are always choreographed to avoid impromptu meetings with citizens. He’s not an easy man to speak to.

  He likes to think of himself as a man of the people and prides himself on his normality, eating breakfast every morning with his wife and two children, as normal as any family where the father eats breakfast in a suit while reading three newspapers. It’s left to his wife to maintain contact with the rest of the world.

  Her cell phone rang, and a voice announced itself.

  “Madame Chambord, it’s Lucien Houde here, I wonder if I could have a word with Raymond. It’s kind of urgent.”

  She was puzzled. “Why don’t you call him on his cell? You have his number, I suppose?”

  “Of course. We’ve being trying for the last fifteen minutes, but there seems to be a problem. Perhaps he has it switched off.”

  Her husband was watching, noticing the questioning look on her face. She passed the phone acr
oss the table.

  “It’s for you, Raymond. It’s Lucien Houde. He says it’s urgent.”

  He didn’t know any Lucien Houde, and he had a choice: he could take the phone and speak to some lunatic who happened to have his wife’s cell phone number, or he could leave the problem with his wife. No choice. He reached across the table and took the phone.

  “Hello … ah … Mr. Houde. What is this about?”

  “Good morning Mr. Mayor, and thanks for taking my call. It’s so difficult to get you during office hours.”

  “This better be good, you’re disturbing my family time.”

  “I won’t keep you, Mr. Mayor, rest assured. But first, a couple of preliminaries.”

  The Mayor listened.

  “First, your initial reaction will be to hang up on me. Don’t. It’s a common reaction, I know, but it would be unfortunate. Just hear me out. Second, a name: The Sons of Lebanon Charitable Trust. You must remember them, they’ve been very generous to you.”

  “Just a second. Hold on.”

  The Mayor pushed the hold button. His wife had been trying to understand what the conversation was about. She had as much invested in his career as he did, and made it a point to know as much about her husband’s life as possible.

  “I have to take this in the office,” he said, and got up from the kitchen table. There are secrets in every marriage.

  He went into a small office off the kitchen, closed the door, and sat down, breathing out slowly, composing himself. Then he pushed the resume button on the cell.

  “Now, Mr. Houde, what is this about?”

  “Nothing to worry about, Mr. Mayor. I just want to ask you a very small and simple favour.”

  Again, the Mayor said nothing, letting the silence hang.

  “Please write down this name. Mr. Alfredo Cortina. A simple and hardworking Guatemalan who has been in Canada with his wonderful wife and three children for ten years. Every year for the last ten years he has applied to the city. Nothing much, just a humble blue-collar job, anything will do. But guess what? In each of those years his application has been turned down. Have you written down his name, Mr. Mayor.”

  “I’m taking notes.”

  “Well, Mr. Mayor. This year is his lucky year. This is the year he finally gets a job with the city. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  The Mayor didn’t answer.

  “This afternoon, your office will receive an envelope with Mr. Cortina’s application form, employment history, and references. It will be addressed to you and marked ‘Personal and Confidential,’ so you should alert your staff. I would hate for it to get lost in the bureaucracy. I would like Mr. Cortina to receive an offer of employment – full-time, full benefits, and no probationary period – within one week. That’s not a lot to ask, Mr. Mayor. Is it?”

  Perhaps it was the insignificance of the request, but the Mayor started to push back. “This is an outrage. Are you blackmailing me? That’s a criminal offence, you know.”

  The voice responded calmly. “Mr. Mayor. Don’t forget the good Sons of Lebanon. If I wanted to blackmail you I would be asking for a lot more. I am simply offering the city an excellent candidate and helping him overcome the usual cronyism of the city’s hiring practices.”

  The Mayor recalled a cash donation of $100,000 from the Sons of Lebanon in the last election. A donation that required some finesse to accept and distribute, given that it was all cash and a receipt was not required. He also knew that he had already handsomely repaid various members of the Sons of Lebanon in city contracts.

  “Listen, if you have anything to bring to my attention respecting on behalf of The Sons of Lebanon, I suggest you do it through them. I’m sure that if you speak to their Mr. Nabil, I believe, he will provide you with sufficient information to demonstrate that our administration has worked very closely with the Lebanese community and continues to do so. All requests should be addressed to him, and when he brings it to my attention, I will do my utmost to assist your … ah … client.”

  “Mr. Mayor, my request has nothing to do with the Sons of Lebanon. I simply mentioned their name because I thought it might motivate you to take Mr. Cortina’s application into consideration.”

  The Mayor was confused. This was information that shouldn’t be known by anyone except those involved, and it was worrying to think that others knew. But it all came down to politics – do favours and receive them.

  “Look, Mr. – ” he looked at his notes. “Mr. Houde, send me the application and I’ll see what I can do. You know that times have changed. I don’t control hiring by the city. I can’t get involved in those day-to-day decisions.”

  “I understand. But Mr. Cortina needs work. He’s a good man, he’s qualified, and he will improve the city’s minority hiring record. These are all good things. I’m sure that the city can find a place for him.”

  “I’ll pass along his file, with a recommendation.”

  “With a strong recommendation. Make it a really strong one.”

  “Listen. I don’t want you to call me on my wife’s number, do you understand? If you need to speak to me, and I hope that our business is finished, call my cell phone number.” He recited numbers to the caller.

  “Mr. Mayor, I hope we won’t have to talk again.”

  “So do I. I will see what I can do.”

  In the car ride to the office, the Mayor went over the call. He felt he had handled it well. It was politics, just somebody exercising a bit of leverage. There was nothing to worry about. He would have to speak to Réjane Cloutier, the head of the blue-collar union, about the hiring, but he was sure that they could reach an understanding. It wasn’t a big favour, so Cloutier couldn’t expect too much for agreeing. The Mayor wondered what he would want.

  Vanier stood next to the cash machine in a greasy spoon on Ontario Street watching four eggs cook on the grill behind the counter. Saint-Jacques sat in a booth by the window, talking on her phone.

  A kind review would have called the place unpretentious. The colour scheme was red, white, and black – the shock version of each colour. Below waist level, the tiled floor, the booths, the round plastic tops of the counter stools, and the bottom half of the walls screamed fire-engine red. Above the red, the white walls were covered in a series of black and white posters that listed more meal choices than a buffet at the United Nations. But it wasn’t the kind of place where you ordered anything other than breakfast, burgers, hot dogs or fries, anything else might have been growing mould in the back of the fridge for months.

  The owner loaded eggs, bacon, potatoes, beans, and toast onto thin plastic plates and finished them off with a limp postage stamp of lettuce and an anaemic slice of tomato. He put them on a red tray, took Vanier’s money, and mumbled, “Bon Appétit.” Vanier carried the trays over to the booth.

  Saint-Jacques looked doubtfully at the offering as Vanier slipped into the booth opposite her.

  “Food for the masses,” he said, tearing at sachets of salt and pepper.

  “That’s why the masses are having so many coronaries.”

  Vanier picked up a plastic knife and fork and started ripping the eggs apart.

  “I have a triathlon coming up in three weeks. Bacon and eggs aren’t exactly recommended. It makes you flabby.”

  “Flabby?” Vanier feigned hurt. “Look at me. I’m not flabby.”

  “Have you been tested for tapeworm? Maybe that’s what’s keeping you slim?”

  Saint-Jacques started to cut an egg carefully around the yolk, then she forked the whites and ate. Vanier watched.

  “How far do you run?”

  “It’s an easy one. Swim 1.5 kilometres, bike 40, and then run 10.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  She smiled. “I’m thinking of doing the Ironman in a couple of years. That’s a 4 kilometre swim, 180 kilometres on a bike, and a 20 kilome
tre run to finish things off.”

  Vanier put his plastic utensils down and looked up. “So maybe you shouldn’t eat junk.” He looked at her plate and realized she wasn’t. Her breakfast was largely untouched, except for one egg. She had eaten the white around the yolk, and he watched her slip the plastic fork under the yolk and raise it to her mouth. The yolk disappeared into her mouth and she closed down on it.

  “Now that’s how to eat a fried egg,” she said, grinning.

  Vanier went back to eating.

  “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, boss, but you look like shit.”

  “Thanks,” he said, looking up. “I wasn’t sure. Just thought it was the lighting.”

  “Alex?” she asked. Vanier said nothing, spread jam on his toast. “Tough night?”

  “We’ll get through it. I could do with a good night’s sleep, though.” Which meant, end of conversation. Pick another subject. Saint-Jacques got the message.

  “Laurent says they’re waiting for the garage to report on the Buick, but without the other vehicle there’s not much to go on.”

  “How’s the driver?”

  “In a coma. His brain was swollen with fluid, so the doctors put him out while they drain it. Could be a couple of days before we can we can talk to him.”

  “And Legault?”

  “That was easy. Flood got the prints early this morning and ran them through. Legault’s got a record going back years. His juvenile is sealed, but when he hit eighteen he was already in his stride. It’s all small, crappy stuff, break and enter, assault, possession, one for trafficking put him away for three years, actually served eight months. A typical loser cv.”

  “Gangs?”

  “Flood says no. There’s nothing to suggest he was part of any gang. He didn’t seem to be a joiner.”