“This can’t be his only place,” I said. “It’s too far to go back and forth every day.”
“The guy looks poor as a leper. You think he has this and a place in the city?”
“I don’t know what to think. But his father or sister would know.”
“Except we can’t call,” Ryan said. “Not in these fucking woods. You want to start walking back? See if the reception improves?”
“Let’s check the boathouse first,” I said.
I haven’t spent enough time lakeside to know what should or shouldn’t be in a boathouse. The only boat of any kind was an old canoe overturned on two sawhorses off to one side. There were some paddles, their flat ends darkened by water and scored from pushing against rocks. A few life vests on hooks. Some tools and a shelf of screws, anchors and other fasteners. A caulking gun. Some gardening tools and bags of topsoil, also pushed to the right. Otherwise, it was empty, except for a pile of white plastic bags. I turned one over and read the label and felt my arms go stiff with tension.
Each empty bag had held five kilos of ammonium nitrate and there were at least twenty of them left behind.
“Look here,” Ryan said. He was pointing to a series of circular marks on the floor of the boathouse, each with a radius of a foot and a half or so. I’d seen circles like that before, at the home of a friend who’d invited me for a barbecue; more specifically, in the garden shed where he kept his spare tank of propane.
CHAPTER 17
It took us about thirty minutes to walk up the leaf-shrouded lane and back along the side road to a point where we had cellphone reception. Of course that didn’t help much because we didn’t know who to call for a tow in the middle of nowhere. So we kept walking, Ryan favouring his left leg but giving nothing away in his expression or speed. I’d have been complaining but that’s my nature, not his. So I just brooded about Luc Lortie, what we had and had not seen, wondering what he was involved in. He could simply have been a screwed-up young man who didn’t know how to please his father, who wasn’t presentable in the way politicians like their kids to be, the way his sister so obviously was. He could have issues only a bevy of shrinks would be able to resolve, or he might be up to something seriously deranged. He could be someone who loved baseball but couldn’t draw a proper field.
But he had also bought a hundred kilos of a compound that could be used to make a fertilizer bomb. Timothy McVeigh had used ammonium nitrate to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City. Sales were supposed to be restricted, the key word being “supposed.”
It was close to noon by the time we came to the 117, where the owner of a Jet Ski dealership gave us the number of a local tow-truck driver and let us use his phone. I could barely understand the driver’s French, but the dealer took the phone from me and explained exactly where we were.
“Gonna be at least half an hour before he gets here,” the dealer said. “What kind of car you have?”
“A Charger,” Ryan said. “Less than a week old.”
“Sorry to hear that. But there’s no Dodge dealership around here,” the man said. “You gonna have to go to St-Jérôme, probably. How bad is the damage?”
“No idea. It might just be cosmetic, but the way we went into the ditch, we might have busted a wheel. Or worse.”
“Too bad. It’s a nice car, the Charger. Me, I’d like to have one from the old days, eh? Lots of muscle on that one.”
“This one too.”
The dealer let Ryan use his washroom. He spent a good ten minutes in there, washing the wound on his leg.
“You going to need stitches?” I asked when he got out.
“I don’t think so.”
“The bleeding stopped?”
“Until we find Luc.”
Forty minutes passed before a tow truck pulled into the dealership lot and honked twice. We thanked the man for his help and squeezed into the front seat of the truck. The driver was around fifty, with a huge gut that strained against his seat belt, his left arm tanned a dozen shades darker than his right. We directed him to the spot where the Charger sat on a thirty-degree angle and stood out of his way while he got it hooked up and slowly eased it back onto the road. I asked in my best French if he knew where there was a Dodge-Chrysler dealership in St-Jérôme. He said yes—Ouai—and we got back in and drove south on the 117 with French rock blaring through tinny speakers in the truck. The dealership we were looking for was right on the 117. The driver took us around back to the service entrance and lowered the battered car. Ryan paid him in cash, then unlocked the trunk, in which we had secured our matching Halliburton cases and my laptop. When he went inside to speak to the service manager, I checked my cell for messages.
An hour earlier, while we’d been trudging along the fly-infested country road, Jenn Raudsepp had called.
“Where the hell are you?” she said when I got her on her cell. “I tried your hotel, your cell, Ryan’s cell.”
“We were on the road and had car trouble,” I said. “Wound up in a reception-free zone.” I didn’t go into details about what happened. Didn’t want her to know there had been any kind of trouble. Or that there was likely to be a whole lot more.
“So where are you now?”
“Outside Montreal. A place called St-Jérôme. Did you speak to Arthur Moscoe?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“What does that mean?”
“Two things,” she said. “One, it wasn’t easy. The reason he wasn’t returning your calls, he had a minor heart attack.”
“When?”
“Couple nights ago.”
“He okay?”
“For his age and condition, yeah, he’s doing all right. They’ve moved him out of the coronary care ICU and into a regular room.”
“What’s the other thing?”
“He had quite the story to tell,” she said.
“You going to dish or leave me hanging?”
“When will you be at your hotel?”
“Why?”
“I’d rather tell you when you’re back there.”
“I have time now.”
“I don’t.”
“Come on, Jenn.”
“Sorry. There’s something I have to do right now. When will you be back?”
“About an hour. Actually two. I think we’re going to have to leave Ryan’s car here and get a rental. Then we have a stop to make on the way.”
“You boys okay?”
“We’re fine.”
“Then I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Jenn?”
“What?”
“When you say quite a story …”
“You’ll stay awake until the end.”
The mechanic who examined the Charger told Ryan he had a broken tie rod. “You drive with that,” he’d said, “your front wheel gonna come off.”
So we left it there for repair and headed back to the city in a loaner they provided, a three-year-old black Jeep 4×4. “Perfect for running someone over,” Ryan said.
I knew who he had in mind.
It took us less than an hour to get back to Montreal. I spent most of it on my tablet, looking up ammonium nitrate. It was first and foremost a fertilizer, used to combat the loss of nitrogen in soil, especially in the fall. In somewhat larger amounts, it could be used to blast away tree stumps or create ponds. The amount Luc had stashed in his boathouse could create a pond the size of Lake Superior. All he needed was the right mix of fuel, like propane, and a detonator. The pressure waves emanating from the explosion would travel at the speed of sound, with enough force to decimate nearby structures and blow human beings to pieces the size of stewing beef.
I called Reynald Paquette and got his voice mail. “This is Jonah Geller,” I said. “I’ve just been to a property in the Laurentians which I think is owned or rented by Luc Lortie. I found evidence that he might be building a bomb—a big one. You need to get up there with a search warrant and check it out. It’s on Chemin Gosselin, about two miles east of the 117, o
ff Autoroute 15, exit 60. I can tell you precisely where when we talk. Which needs to be soon.”
When we got to the QAQ office on Mont-Royal, Ryan left the Jeep in a bus zone and we marched in like we owned the place. I saw Gabriel Archambault leaning over the shoulder of an elderly volunteer—and a quick glance showed they were mostly older and conservatively dressed—and interrupted his conversation.
“I need to speak to Monsieur Lortie,” I said. “Now.”
“Excuse me,” he said, “but we are in the middle of something.”
“Nothing compared to what I’m in. Get him out here.”
His lips pursed and went missing. “He is not here now, and even if he were—”
“What about Lucienne?”
“She is not here either. They’re both out doing media interviews and cannot be interrupted.”
“You’d better find them,” I said. “And interrupt them.”
“I will not.”
Ryan stepped forward but I put out a hand to stop him. “Tell them Luc’s had an accident.”
“What! Is he okay?”
“Just get one of them on the phone and tell them to call me. You already have my number.”
“I can’t promise anything,” Gabriel said. “Their phones might be turned off.”
“They’ll check in at some point.”
I turned to leave. Gabriel said, “Wait! What kind of accident?”
Ryan pushed past me and got up in Gabriel’s face, close enough to give him beard burn. “My kind,” he said.
——
At the hotel, we parked underground and took all our gear upstairs. I had to find one of the Lorties and get a line on where Luc might be and what he was planning. There was no professional baseball team anymore, so if the drawing we’d found was indeed a ballpark, it wasn’t Olympic Stadium. If he was building a bomb, what other target might he have in mind?
We took the elevator up to our floor. Ryan’s limp seemed to be worse, his gashed leg stiffening up on him. I didn’t mention it and neither did he.
Outside our room, I got out my key card and slid it into the lock. It disengaged and I opened the door, held it open for Ryan.
“Why don’t you get out of those pants,” I said. “Let me have a look.”
“Jesus Christ,” a woman said. “I knew it. I knew you two were lovers.”
I almost dropped my metal case when I looked up and saw Jenn sitting at the edge of my bed.
I said, “What the hell?”
“No, no,” she said. “Don’t let me interrupt. Why exactly is Ryan dropping his pants and what were you hoping to see?”
I turned to Ryan, who looked every bit as stunned as I felt.
“And you,” she said to him, with that evil grin I’d missed so much. “Always trying to get me to switch teams. Look who switched first.”
I said, “How did you—”
“What?”
“Get here so fast?”
“There was a seat sale and I jumped on it first thing this morning. I was already here when we spoke.”
“I thought you were with Arthur Moscoe this morning.”
“No, you assumed. I actually saw him last night. Well, yesterday afternoon and last night. His story took a while to tell and he didn’t have the strength to tell it in one sitting.”
I walked over to the bed and held out my arms and she stood and hugged me for the first time in ages. It felt so good to hold her, to feel strength in her arms. I’d been so worried about her for so many weeks, had been picturing her wasted, worn down by what had happened to her. And here she was in blue jeans and an oversized man’s blue Oxford shirt, hiding her figure a little—something she needed to do these days—but still looking fit and tanned like she’d just hitched a ride from the family farm.
She let go of me and held her arms out to Ryan and gave him a briefer hug. Patted his shoulder. “Hey, you,” she said.
“Hey.”
“You both look like slack-jawed idiots,” she said.
“I just can’t believe you’re here,” I said.
“The truth is, I needed to get out. Finally. And I didn’t know it until you called. I’ve been so trapped inside myself since Boston—treating myself like a Fabergé egg, Sierra treating me like one. Feeling like if I left the house, left our little neighbourhood, something horrible would descend and carry me off. Like I was on pterodactyl watch. Then I spoke to you and realized how much I’ve missed you, missed working. You know me, I’ve never been one to sit around feeling sorry for myself. And that’s all I’ve done for so fucking long.”
“But why come here? I mean, I’m thrilled to see you but we could have done this over the phone.”
“I know. But I figured, once I was stepping out, I might as well go all the way. And once I heard Arthur’s story, and saw how much he loved his grandson and how heartbroken he was over his murder, I just decided I’d get on the plane. See if you needed me.”
“I always need you,” I said.
“Cue the sappy music,” Ryan said.
“You’re as big a sap as Jonah,” she said.
“Like fuck. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go drop my pants in the bathroom and look at my own fucking leg.”
When the door slammed shut behind him, she grinned and said, “Someone hasn’t changed a bit.”
“His marriage is over,” I said.
“I know.”
“He says he’s okay with it but he’s not.”
“He shot anyone yet?”
“Not for lack of interest.”
“And his leg?”
“Nothing serious.”
“He hurt it in the car?”
“You could say that.”
“Jonah … was there mayhem?”
“A little.”
“Because there is one thing I promised Sierra when I left. And promised myself too, if I’m honest. I’m here to help out. Support you however I can. But I’m not ready for anything crazy, okay?”
“I know.”
“I’m not sure you do. I talk a good game, but when I said I was ready for action, I meant helping out on the computer. Making phone calls. Research. Maybe batting an eyelash or two. That’s about it.”
“I get it.”
“Things get crazy, I’m staying on the sidelines.”
“Of course.”
“So what happened in the car? The truth, please.”
I told her. I told her everything that had happened from the time we’d arrived.
“So you think one of these two stories led to his murder,” she said. “This family of politicians or maybe some kind of arms deal.”
“Yes.”
“Obviously, I don’t know anything about the Afghans and Syrians,” she said. “But I can shed a little light on the Lortie side of it.”
“Go ahead.”
“As soon as Ryan’s done. It’s too long to tell it twice.”
When he got out of the bathroom, he lay on his bed, Jenn sat on mine, and I took one of the chairs by the window. We were all hungry by then, so we called room service and ordered hamburgers and fries all around, then settled in to hear her story. I was so eager to hear it, I didn’t ask Jenn how she knew Ryan’s marriage was over.
CHAPTER 18
Artie Moscoe was nineteen years old in the summer of 1950. Still living in his parents’ cold-water flat on De Bullion Street, the rent forty-two dollars a month, and still there were months when the family couldn’t pay. Cold months, winter months, when bailiffs piled their furniture in the snow at the curb and Artie had to check all the different clubs above shops on St. Lawrence where his father might be playing pinochle, to pry out that extra ten or twenty dollars his mother needed to pay the landlord. He was still sharing a room with his two brothers, Abie and Bernie. And despite being engaged to be married, still a virgin.
He was working two jobs then. Five days a week he was a shipper at the Dominion Dress Company, owned by his mother’s first cousin, Irving Schiff. Dominio
n was a going concern then, selling its wares to the big department stores: Eaton’s, Simpson’s, Morgan’s and Ogilvy’s. Like most of the garment companies on St. Urbain, the Main and surrounding streets—in their case, in the new Peck Building—it had a number of different divisions: Miss Montreal for higher-end fashions; Stay-in-Style for everyday wear; Working Woman for business suits; and Parapluie for raincoats and other outerwear.
Mr. Schiff had promised to move Artie into sales once he had learned the back-room ropes, knew every model number in every line, how they were made, from what fabric, with what pattern. That summer, he was still in shipping, laying dresses in cartons, sealing them with tape, making sure the orders matched their packing slips. He worked eight to six five days a week and on Saturdays from eight to noon, when the factory opened its back doors and sold seconds for cash to customers who couldn’t afford to buy the items in the stores. His mother gave him grief for working on Shabbos, but always relented when he put eight extra dollars in the kitty. On Sundays, he worked noon to nine at Hammerman’s soda fountain on Park Avenue, corner Villeneuve, scooping ice cream into cones and mixing various flavours of syrup with seltzer water, mostly for rich kids who drifted over from Outremont, along with the neighbourhood kids who’d saved their pennies all week.
His older brother, Abie, had been accepted to McGill University in medicine, despite the quotas that had been established to keep Jewish students to a minimum. Bernie was still in high school at Baron Byng. What was going to be with him? He was a vilder, a wild one, smoking and drinking and skipping school to play pool on Rachel with an older crowd. It was up to Artie to help keep the family afloat, and his resentment sometimes burned in his gut like a cloud of gas on fire.
His fiancée was Esther Felberbaum, one year his junior, a girl from a slightly better neighbourhood—Rue Jeanne-Mance, just two streets in from Park. Her father worked in his father’s fur business and was making a good living, so good the Felberbaums were planning to move to Outremont themselves. Esther was a pretty girl, with auburn hair and dark eyes and a cute figure under the sweaters and plaid skirts she wore. But eyeballing was about as far as Artie was getting. Esther was very firm—emphatic—that there’d be nothing hot and heavy until they were married. Oh, they kissed, they petted, they rubbed against each other. And he’d practically limp home after, his groin aching with frustrated desire. Sharing a bedroom with two brothers, afraid he’d be caught in the act and endure endless teasing and shame, he’d sequester himself in the bathroom to relieve his burning need. In his mind, everyone was having sex but him. Abie for sure, being two years older. Probably Bernie even, given the crowd he ran with. Artie thought he loved Esther. He was going to marry her, for God’s sake, once they had a little more money saved. She was working as a secretary in her grandfather’s company and didn’t have to help her parents with rent and groceries. Her salary was going toward her future—their future—which meant their own flat in the area or maybe, if her parents kicked in something, a semi-detached bungalow in Ville St-Laurent.
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