Vigilante Season

by Peter Kirby

  Vanier took a paper napkin and wiped grease and egg yolk from his mouth. Then he picked up the styrofoam coffee cup, sipped, and winced. It was warm, and that was the most distinctive thing about it. “So they lifted Legault at 10 a.m., took him somewhere, and he shows up at midnight in a body bag, looking like he spent the day in a cement mixer with a couple of bricks. What do you think?”

  “Why kidnap him. Why not just kill him where he was?” said Saint-Jacques.

  “To get information? To avoid publicity?”

  “Kidnapping would get a lot more publicity than just another drug murder.”

  “Yeah, but only if anyone found out. Maude wasn’t in a hurry to call it in.”

  “What kind of information could he have had?” asked Vanier.

  “Who knows? He wasn’t exactly a kingpin.”

  Vanier was using the last slice of toast to mop up egg yolk and ketchup. “Were we using him? You think he could have been an informant?”

  “I’ve seen worse. We could check.”

  “You can try. But nobody is going to come forward to volunteer that their informant was killed. That always looks bad.”

  Saint-Jacques was writing notes. “What about the body bag?”

  “It’s better than a rolled-up carpet for disposing of a body.”

  “Lighter, too. It’s even got handles.”

  “The body bag’s interesting. Who the hell uses body bags? I’ve never seen that before.”

  “Worth tracking down?”

  “I don’t suppose you can buy them at Canadian Tire. Sure, have someone look into it.”

  Saint-Jacques pushed her plate away and pulled out her cell phone. She’d left everything else except that one egg. Vanier took her plate, put it on top of his own, and finished off her breakfast while she made the call.

  She watched him eat, then hung up the phone,

  “Flood’s going to do both: the body bag and the informant possibility. You hungry?”

  “Got to feed the machine.”

  “Clog up the machine is more like it.”

  “We’ve been through that. Tapeworm, remember?” Vanier stood up. “Okay. Let’s go visit Mom and Dad and break the bad news.”

  “I never get used to breaking the bad news.”

  “Try not to,” said Vanier, carrying the plates to the trash.

  The address Maude had given them was a social housing block on Vimont, a four-story brick building with a wheelchair ramp, electric doors, and an elevator. It was probably the best place any of the tenants had ever lived. It wasn’t often that bureaucrats shelled out the money to build social housing, but when they did, they made sure to spend enough. It was a great way to repay favours to contractors. You can’t have graft without fat in the contracts.

  The Legault apartment was on the first floor, and Madame let them in. She pegged them for police immediately and didn’t see the need for conversation. Instead, she turned and walked back into the apartment, leaving the door open and expecting them to follow. They navigated around an electric scooter – the kind you find outside Walmart – that took up most of the width of the hallway.

  The air was poisonous with cigarette smoke, and Madame was lighting another when they walked into the living room. Except for a single chair at the table, every flat surface was covered with the kind of assorted junk and gadgets you’d find in a down-scale charity shop. It looked like they had given up balancing the incoming stock against sales; the room was bulging with a hoarder’s trove of mismatched cutlery, chipped glasses and cups, food mixers, toasters, a microwave oven, even a George Foreman grill. The kind of junk the pawn shops teach kids not to steal. Madame stood by the chair and flicked cigarette ash into a dinner plate already brimming with spent butts and ashes.

  She said, “It’s about Émile.”

  “Yes, Madame. Is your husband here?”

  “He’s in the back. This way.”

  She led them past more piles of crap into a small bedroom where Émile Legault’s father lay in bed sucking oxygen through a face mask under loose pages of the Journal de Montréal. He pulled off the mask and said, “It’s Émile?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Vanier. “Your son Émile was found dead last night. He was murdered.”

  The old man reached for a cigarette. Vanier was expecting tears but there were only the resigned looks of people beyond surprise.

  “We’ll have to arrange a funeral,” Madame said to her husband.

  He ignored her.

  “I always told him drugs are shit. Sure, he made some money, but drugs are shit. There are other ways to make money.”

  “You don’t seem surprised,” said Vanier.

  “Do I look stupid? You don’t retire selling drugs, or using them, and Émile did both, he had a bad habit.”

  Vanier said nothing. Saint-Jacques was looking at Legault’s mother, who had raised her arm up and was scratching the fat at the back, like it helped her think.

  Legault coughed and said, “He was his own best customer. If it wasn’t for Maude, he would’ve gone bust long ago.”

  “Maude?” Vanier had trouble imagining that the wasted junkie had been a lot of help.

  “She was the brains.” He coughed again, this time from deep within his lungs. Then he leaned over and retched a tennis ball of phlegm into a pint glass on the bedside table. “Maude’s a junkie too. But she knew enough to sell enough to keep it going. Émile thought he was in charge, but she was the business woman.”

  “You guys got along?”

  “Hell no. I hate the bitch. Every time I saw her she was asking for money. Like their problems were mine.”

  “Like you’ve got money,” Madame said.

  He flashed her a look that said shut your mouth, and she ignored it.

  “Did he say anything recently to suggest why someone would want to kill him?” Saint-Jacques asked.

  “Émile said a lot of things,” said the father. “Most of it was bullshit. He was a junkie first and a dealer second. His problem was selling enough to keep going. His customers stole from him. His girlfriend stole from him. There had to come a time when he couldn’t pay.”

  “Any names? Who he owed money to? Did anyone threaten him?” asked Vanier.

  “You sure you’re a cop? His suppliers would fuck him over for the thrill of it. His customers were junkies. Fuck, they’d steal your eyeballs and come back for the lashes. You want names, go ask Maude. That bitch wrote everything down. I’ve seen her. Her mind is shot, so she had to write everything down. She’ll know how much he owed and to which fucker he owed it. Not complicated.” He turned to his wife. “Should have been a cop myself.”

  Then he laughed.

  Madame turned to Saint-Jacques. “The funeral place will know where to collect him?”

  Saint-Jacques handed the card to the woman. “If they don’t, have them call me.”

  “He was a good kid when he was young,” she said.

  “I’m sure,” said Saint-Jacques.

  The old man’s laugh had turned to a hacking cough, and neither of them wanted to stay around for the birth of the next ball of phlegm. As they were making for the door, the old man managed, “Hey, officers, see anything you like, make me an offer.”

  Poste de Quartier 23 is Hochelaga’s police station. It sits back from the street on a grassy incline, with a large plate-glass door at the top of a white stone staircase.

  Vanier was inside, sitting in front of Commander Lechasseur. They were on page six of a PowerPoint presentation on crime reduction in Hochelaga. Vanier and Saint-Jacques had been looking for information on drug dealers who had disappeared in the last few years, and the desk officer had suggested they talk to the Commander. The desk officer was probably still laughing about it now. Saint-Jacques had made an excuse and left as soon as she saw Lechasseur pull out the PowerPoint.<
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  Vanier stared at a graph. Lechasseur said, “The X-axis measures time, in years. The Y-axis is the number of establishments known to sell drugs.”

  There was a chart, with columns for each year. In case Vanier missed the point, Lechasseur leaned over and traced his finger along the declining red line above the columns.

  “We went from twenty-eight establishments four years ago to six last year.” He tapped his finger on the column that represented last year. “Émile Legault would be in here. And next year he won’t.”

  He turned the page to reveal a map of Hochelaga with printed stars. “The stars represent the illegal establishments. This one is four years ago. The next four show progress over time.” Lechasseur leaned over again and turned pages for Vanier. He was obviously enjoying himself, honing his presentation skills. “From twenty-eight to eighteen, to ten, to six. We think they’ll all be gone next year.”

  “Impressive, sir. Where did they go?”

  “Go?”

  “Yes. What happened to them?”

  “Some, we arrested and closed down. The rest have just left my jurisdiction and haven’t come back. I assume they’ve either reformed or that they’re someone else’s problem. Someone else’s problem, more likely.”

  The Commander didn’t seem to care whose problem they became. His job was limited to his jurisdiction. The message from the PowerPoint was clear, Commander Lechasseur had led a transformation in Hochelaga. The brass loved statistics, and everyone loves success. Careers are built on a lot less.

  “Commander, if you don’t mind me asking, how did it happen? It is remarkable.” Vanier wasn’t above flattery when it would get him somewhere. And the Commander was beaming at the attention.

  “A very good question, Detective Inspector.” He sat back in his chair. “There’s no point mopping up the water if you don’t fix the leak.”

  “You have a point, sir,” he said, not sure if he understood what the point was.

  “We have implemented a dual focus. We put pressure on the existing establishments to close, and we’re quick to respond to any new businesses opening up. Word soon gets out.”

  “Pressure?”

  “Immense pressure. If I can say so. We might park a cruiser for twelve hours outside an establishment. That’s two men and a cruiser. That’s very risky from a manpower perspective, but I was willing to take the risk. Two or three times a month. I also convinced the fire service to make regular inspections. They would show up to check the batteries in the smoke detectors once a month. The city inspectors would be in and out looking for mice and rats. Believe me, it sounds like nothing, but it’s all very bad for business. Eventually, the bad guys get the message and leave.

  “What’s really interesting, Inspector, is that the more attention we paid to a place, the more likely the neighbours were to put pressure on these people. Now I don’t agree with some of the things that have been done, but I understand it. We are giving honest and law-abiding citizens hope that things could change, and they respond. It’s as though attitudes changed when we showed them the police were committed. The neighbours start taking a stand for themselves. I’m still trying to come up with a way to measure that, you know, to prove my hypothesis: increased police attention translating into increased community involvement. Combatting crime is everyone’s job, Inspector.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You said you didn’t agree with some of the things people did. What sort of things?”

  “I’ve heard stories of different kinds of pressure tactics,” Lechasseur replied. “You know, graffiti on doors, bricks through windows, that sort of thing. Nothing too serious. Last year there was an unfortunate incident with an incendiary device that caused a lot of damage, but it was an isolated event. Obviously, we don’t get a lot of complaints about these incidents, the victims are not the complaining sort. But when ordinary people lash out, it’s usually not very sophisticated. Hochelaga’s a complicated place, Inspector. It takes a while to get to understand it. Tell you what.” He leaned forward, as though he just had a good idea. “Why don’t we ask Constable Wallach to give you the tour?”

  “Constable Wallach?”

  “He’s the station’s Community Relations Officer. He knows what’s going on around here better than any of us. I’ll see if he’s around.”

  Lechasseur picked up his phone to track down Wallach. When he finished, he turned back to Vanier.

  “He’s on his way. He’ll drive you and your partner around for a tour. Constable Wallach’s been a great help with collecting the data for this.” Lechasseur tapped his finger on the presentation. “He knows everyone. It’s his job, I know. But he hears within a day or two as soon as a new establishment opens, and we get to work. Dissuasion, that’s the key. The bad guys have to know that things aren’t what they were. What we have here, Inspector, is Community Policing at its best. Nothing new opening and the old businesses closing down. It takes time.” He leaned forward to make his point. “But it’s a hundred times more effective than the damn justice system.”

  Vanier listened while Lechasseur continued to practice his presentation skills, extolling the virtues of effective community policing in a speech he’d obviously been rehearsing.

  When Vanier was wondering how much more he could take, Wallach knocked on the door and walked in. “You were looking for me, sir?”

  “I was. I’ve just been giving Inspector Vanier some background on the progress we’ve been making over the last few years. He’s investigating the death of Émile Legault.”

  “Murder,” said Vanier, rising to shake hands with Wallach.

  “Yes. Of course. Murder. Émile Legault’s murder,” said Lechasseur.

  “Who’s Legault?” asked Wallach.

  “You know him. Had a place on Joliette,” said Lechasseur.

  “Oh, that Legault. He’s dead?”

  “Left the planet,” said the Commander.

  “Does anyone care?” Wallach looked at Vanier.

  “Me,” said Vanier. “Any idea who would want to kill him?”

  “Any one of his customers. His suppliers. Maybe his girlfriend. His neighbours. Is that enough to be going on with? He was a piece of shit, Inspector. He won’t be missed.”

  Lechasseur said, “I thought it would be a good idea for you to give the Inspector and his partner a tour of the neighbourhood. A bit of local flavour might help them.” He reached out to recover his PowerPoint printout, and Vanier put his hand on it.

  “Can I keep it?”

  “Absolutely. The more circulation it gets the better. Real Improvement Through Focused Community Policing. That’s the working title.”

  “It gets the point across.”

  “You ready to go now?” asked Wallach.

  Vanier stood up. “We’ll pick up Saint-Jacques on the way.”

  They took an unmarked car, and Constable Richard Wallach seemed happy to play the tourist guide, hatless but in uniform, with the obligatory bullet-resistant vest with Police written across the back. Saint-Jacques was in the passenger seat, and Vanier was spread out in the back.

  “I grew up here, on Davidson, below Sainte-Catherine. There were maybe eight or ten Jewish families on the street, all from Germany. There were no Jewish schools, so we were put in with the English, along with anyone else who wasn’t French. We went to Memorial on Préfontaine, and the French went to St. Émile. The big divide.”

  Vanier was staring out the window.

  “So how did you feel about coming back?” Saint-Jacques asked.

  “I wasn’t sure at first. So many people had left. The only people still here are those who couldn’t make it out. It was hard at the beginning. The place has changed. But I’m happy now. It was a tough place when I was growing up, working-class, poor, and pretty much ignored by everyone outside. But it was a neigh
bourhood with stable families. The crime didn’t seem to affect daily life. Sure, you could buy a gun in most taverns, but only if you bought two draft at the same time. It was almost civilized.”

  He turned back to Saint-Jacques. “Then it got worse. Much worse, the whole place fell apart. Drugs were everywhere, prostitution, muggings, break and entries. Nobody from here was getting rich, and everyone was suffering. Things are on the mend now. They’re looking up. But before we talk about the present, let’s visit the past.”

  Wallach pulled into the parking lot of Marché Maisonneuve, and they got out. He led them past the indoor market to the plaza. The old market building that now serves as the City Hall dominates the square, an imposing Beaux-Arts building from the early 1900s topped with a fifty-foot high cupola tower. You can’t look at the City Hall without noticing the chalk-white, leaning tower of the Olympic Stadium looking over it like a jealous neighbour. The Stadium is a gaudy, modernist display of the artist’s creativity with poured concrete, but Marché Maisonneuve was built to serve, like a community matriarch with tough muscles and callused hands imposing order and comfort in equal measure. The Stadium keeps legions of professionals busy finding ways to make it useful while the Marché Maisonneuve is just used, as it has been for over a century.

  In the middle of the plaza a bronze statue of a farmer’s wife, La Fermière, standing atop a huge fountain surrounded by bronze children and animals. Someone had poured detergent into the fountain, and the water was covered by a thick layer of dirty white suds.

  They were standing at the top of the steps of City Hall looking down at the fountain and beyond, to the wide Avenue Morgan where the public baths were housed in a temple-like building fronted by massive Tuscan columns.

  Vanier had driven by the plaza countless times and had never stopped. He turned around, taking it in for the first time, like a tourist in Rome.

  Wallach was holding his arms out. “This was all built when Hochelaga still had ambitions. Back then, it was called Pittsburgh North because of the industry and the port. The place was thriving, a serious competitor to Montreal. It had shipbuilding, heavy industry, factories making shoes, textiles, cigarettes, everything. The city fathers wanted it to be a Garden City, to have workers and bosses, everyone living together in harmony.