The Last Witness

by John Matthews

  ‘But then you get all the times when it’s not so black and white – all the grey areas like Pascal and me, where we end up in the business by default. Pascal because our father found out his bookkeeper was cheating him, and he needed someone he knew he could trust for a while before getting someone new.’ Jean-Paul shrugged. ‘…Though Pascal ended up staying much longer. And me because he feared that Roman wouldn’t have the right acumen for the business, or temperament – that he was far too headstrong. And then of course what happened with Pascal ended up supporting that judgement.’ He waved his brandy glass. ‘You know that my father partly blamed Roman for Pascal?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ They’d touched on the subject before, but never in such depth or so heartfelt. The only emotional plea ever put to it had been when Jean-Paul and Jon Larsen first convinced him to join the fold, explaining why this bid to clean the business was so vital, so close to the family’s heart. It wasn’t just a passing whim. And suddenly it hit Georges why Jean-Paul was covering it all now: Something was wrong, was concerning Jean-Paul, and he was testing loyalty. But was it just a suspicion, or had Jean-Paul heard about Chenouda hauling him in? Which way to play it?

  ‘So hopefully now you can see why cleaning this business is so important, not just to me but so many others like Art Giacomelli. A possible solution for the generations to come, aside from them simply having to step outside of the family business to get their father’s approval. Because the problem is not really with them, but the nature of the business. And the fact that nobody wants to leave a legacy to their children that might end up getting them killed.’

  Georges laid one hand flat on the smooth polished table to stop it trembling. Which way to play it? Jean-Paul had circled in so well. Georges had always felt the terrible burden of this commitment, the fear of letting Jean-Paul down when he knew how much it all meant personally to Jean-Paul… that burden growing by the day with his withheld secret. Then had come the knowledge that their progress was suddenly of interest to other leading crime families, bets and pre-judgements were being made on each side; but at least he’d been able to view all that as one step removed from the fray. Now suddenly it was of personal interest to Art Giacomelli. He wouldn’t just be letting down Jean-Paul, but also America’s most powerful crime boss. It was as if Jean-Paul had purposely chosen it as the perfect extra pressure to apply. He moved the hand to trace one finger around the base of his brandy glass, his brow creasing: measured concern.

  ‘I knew how important this was to you from the outset, though I must admit I didn’t know that it was also something so close to Giacomelli’s heart. I thought he was just a close friend and interested observer, nothing more.’ He chose his words carefully, sensing that he was tip-toeing through a minefield. ‘But my commitment was made on what I think about that aim, not anyone else. If I didn’t believe wholeheartedly in it and see it as a challenge, I wouldn’t have joined you – it’s as simple as that. And that commitment remains as strong now as on day one.’

  Jean-Paul slowly nodded in understanding. He proffered one palm towards Georges. ‘It’s just that sometimes it can be difficult joining a family like this. It’s easy to feel like an outsider, as if there’s nobody you can confide in.’

  Confide in. Now there was little doubt remaining. ‘Yes… I know.’ He swallowed hard; his collar felt suddenly tight, a hot flush rising up through his neck to his face. ‘And at first, I must admit that was difficult. Particularly the close relationship you had with Roman: the feeling that I might be somehow interfering, coming between you by changing the direction of the business.’

  ‘And now?’ Jean-Paul opened out both palms: a priest welcoming confession.

  Georges swallowed hard again, a light sweat coming to his brow. It was as if he’d been steadily pushed in a corner with each word domino played by Jean-Paul. He’d been expecting: ‘So if you ever feel the need to confide in anyone, don’t forget I’m always here for you.’ But instead Jean-Paul had done it with just two words; two words as that final feather on the scale to hopefully make him crumble, the burden of his betrayal suddenly too much. But it would seem conveniently trite just to blurt it all out and turn turtle on what he’d struggled to avoid all along – setting brother against brother – and would likely come across as little more than a desperate cheap shot under pressure. And what if he was reading the whole thing wrong, just getting paranoid, and this little heart to heart was completely innocent, had simply been prompted by Jean-Paul’s recent visit with Giacomelli? But if he said nothing or got the tone wrong, Chenouda’s warning could soon hold frighteningly true: Jean-Paul’s protection would quickly evaporate and he’d be out in the cold, at Roman’s mercy. He traced the same finger back and forth again by his brandy glass… Which way to play it?… Which way?… before looking back directly at Jean-Paul, the right words finally in place.

  Within twenty-four hours they had all the answers to the information Georges had provided.

  Jean-Paul phoned Roman minutes after Georges leaving. Roman had been expecting the call, so after the initial impatient, ‘So? What did he say?’ Roman merely listened, his breath falling shallow over the line as Jean-Paul ran through Georges’ account of events.

  Yes, he admitted that he had been confronted by Chenouda and had to go downtown with him, but he says nothing happened. ‘Chenouda is apparently suspicious that you had something to do with Savard’s death, and he had a tape to play because Savard was wired for sound the night he was abducted. Georges said he only listened to part of the tape before he started screaming for a lawyer. They pumped him some more questions about that night with Leduc, things apparently passed on by Savard – but he claims he said nothing and shouted again for a lawyer. They kept him alone in a holding room for another twenty minutes or so, then let him go.’

  ‘How long did he say they kept him?’

  ‘Just over an hour, maybe an hour and a half.’

  ‘No, it was over three hours. My guy doesn’t make mistakes. Donatiens isn’t telling you the whole picture. And why didn’t he tell you all this before?’

  ‘He says that he was nervous about coming between us, has been from day one. He wanted to sit on the information for a few days, perhaps get some advice from Jon Larsen before confiding. Particularly with Chenouda’s claim that you had a meeting arranged with Savard the night he was abducted.’ Jean-Paul left a marked silence, making clear the gravity of this information.

  Roman knew the likelihood of it coming out and had prepared well; with him on a RCMP video, it wasn’t something he could lie about. ‘Sure, I had a meet with Savard earlier the night he was killed, for which he didn’t show. I mentioned to Frank at the time that it was a strange, but it wasn’t the sort of thing worth troubling you with. Tony was still working protection in Lavalle, and with our club there I’d meet up with him sometimes twice a month.’ Roman sensed faint clinging doubt from the pause at the other end. ‘Come on? If I’m going to take Tony out, I’ve got opportunities every day and week to do it quietly, without anyone knowing. You think I’m going to do it knowing that Tony’s wired and a pack of RCs are looking on? No, the Cacchione’s are behind it: perhaps they even knew through Savard we had a meet and set it up to make us look bad. And Chenouda’s fallen for it, because he’s desperate – and so now he puts pressure on our weak spot: Donatiens.’

  ‘Could be… but I take your point about such an open move.’

  Roman sensed the advantage and decided to push a bit more. ‘I mean, you know, Donatiens is so concerned about not coming between us, and then the first opportunity he does just that – he starts speaking out of school about me.’

  ‘No, he was quite reluctant to talk… I had to press him. He kept saying: you really should be talking to Roman about all this, not me.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you’re talking to me about it now, and you know what I think – the guy’s full of shit.’

  They agreed that not much more could be done until Jean-Paul could check with Georges’
PA, Jaqueline, just how long he was actually away from the office the morning in question. Roman was sitting the other side of Jean-Paul’s desk when the call was made first thing the next morning.

  After prompting with ‘Are you sure?’ halfway through, Jean Paul related pensively that she thought, ‘About an hour and a half.’

  ‘She’s lying, or she’s mistaken,’ Roman fired back, and in face of Jean-Paul’s quizzically raised eyebrow he fell silently thoughtful for a second before coming up with the suggestion of checking with some of Donatiens’ regular callers.

  They came up with six names and split the list between them. Three hadn’t called at all that morning, one couldn’t remember whether he had or not, but of the remaining two they ascertained that Donatiens was out ‘about nine-fifteen, nine-twenty,’ and again at 11.30am.

  It could have been two separate occasions that Donatiens was out, so they decided to visit the building after office hours and get security to run through the video tapes for that morning. As Chairman of Santoine International, Jean-Paul explained to the guard that he feared a breach of security might have taken place. ‘Two police officers came that morning and left with Monsieur Donatiens. We need to see what time he returned.’

  It took almost half an hour to run through the tapes on visual fast-forward. They quickly found the point where Chenouda and an another officer entered the building and left with Donatiens seventeen minutes later, the timer in the top right corner showing 8.36 a.m. as the guard slowed the tape again. Then came the more tedious trawl for him returning, involving checking the basement garage cameras as well, just in case he came back in that way. They finally found it: Donatiens walking back in through the foyer with a glimpse in the background of the same unmarked grey car he’d left in earlier, with the timer now showing 12.09 p.m; Chenouda wasn’t evident this time, but from the profile the car’s front passenger looked like the same accompanying officer as before.

  Jean-Paul closed his eyes for a second as the grainy grey images registered. Three and a half hours! Georges had lied to him. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered to the guard.

  ‘You’ve got to do something about it,’ Roman pressed as they walked from the building.

  ‘I know, I know.’ Jean-Paul kept up the same brisk pace slightly ahead of Roman, not wanting him to see the pain of betrayal in his eyes, that he was close to tears. ‘But this isn’t a decision I can take lightly. I need overnight to sleep on it, work out what to do. We’ll talk again in the morning.’

  Georges looked out over the lights of Montreal from his penthouse: the dark expanse of Mount Royal to his left, a snaking stretch of the St Lawrence to his right – slim ribbons of reflected light punctuating its inky blackness – with the band of downtown lights in between spreading wider and sparser into the distance.

  His body was shivering, even though the heating was set at 22˚C, his eyes darting, cannoning off the city’s skyscrapers, as if they might provide the answer to his problems and what he should do next. He wished Simone would call back. He knew she had a dinner function for a client launch this evening and he’d left two messages now; surely she’d know that he wouldn’t forget her meeting and wouldn’t be bothering her now unless it was urgent. All she had to do was steal two minutes away. Two minutes.

  He relaxed back his clenched hands, breathed deeply, tried to ease his tension. He was convinced his salvation now lay with her: to spill all to Jon Larsen wouldn’t sit right after his meeting with Jean-Paul, only somebody emotionally close would do; so emotionally close that it wouldn’t seem strange sharing with them all the awkward details that he’d shied away from with Jean-Paul.

  But what he felt the crushing need for most now was that he act quickly: his talk with Jean-Paul had only been a halfway house, a stop-gap. And caught on the hop like that, it hadn’t gone quite the way he’d hoped; with Jean-Paul pressing, he’d said much more than he’d have liked. He couldn’t admit that he was with Chenouda for three hours with what little he claimed had passed between them; so he’d said only an hour or so and covered himself with a call to Jaqueline at her home straight afterwards.

  Maybe he was worrying for nothing. Maybe Jean-Paul would, as he’d suggested, talk to Roman about it, Roman would say something that didn’t quite fit, and any shadow of doubt would fall more on Roman than him. But as his eyes cannoned between the buildings, measuring the various angles and potential problems, he saw more ways of the chips falling wrong for him than right.

  Perhaps once he’d spoken to Simone and the dust had settled, he’d head to his parents for the weekend. But was that guilt because his workload had kept him from seeing them for almost three months, or a reaction to him feeling shunned from the Lacaille clan, left out? Seeing in Jean-Paul some sort of replacement father-figure to make up for his stepfather’s shortfalls that he should have known from the start had the potential for disaster, would only complicate his long-rooted feelings about family: fear now that once again he was being deserted, the backs of those he held fond were again turning away, just when–

  The ringing phone crashed abruptly into his thoughts. He went hurriedly across and grabbed the receiver before it had hardly started the second ring. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Georges… Simone. I got your message.’ Background clatter of voices, plates and cutlery, muted music. Simone was struggling to be heard above it. ‘They’re deep into the thank-you speeches now – hopefully nobody will miss me for a few moments. What’s the problem?’

  ‘I’ve got to see you. Something’s happened, and I need to talk to you about it urgently. Can you come by here afterwards?’

  ‘I… I don’t know. I’ve got a real splitter here…’ Her voice faded for a second, the clatter taking over. ‘Can’t you tell me over the phone.’

  ‘No. This isn’t the sort of thing that can be done over the phone. We need to sit face to face.’

  ‘A moment’s pause, then Simone’s voice came hesitantly: ‘Not a problem with me… with us, is it Georges?’

  ‘No, no… nothing like that. It’s a problem I might have with your father and Roman.’

  Less marked pause this time. ‘Let’s meet tomorrow, please… I couldn’t hack it tonight. If I make it through this, all I’m looking forward to is some hot cocoa and bed.’

  ‘Yeah, okay… okay. Tomorrow then.’ Simone only had a half-hour free at lunch, and Georges was sure it would take longer than that, so they agreed on dinner at ‘Thursdays’ on Rue Crescent. ‘Eight-thirty table, then. I’ll book it and pick you up at eight.’

  ‘Yeah, great… see you then. Love you.’ A light blown kiss quickly swallowed amongst the clatter, and she was gone.

  Georges let out a slow, tired exhalation as he hung up. So, he’d have to wait twenty-four hours. Having waited a year to finally bare his soul, given that perspective it hardly seemed to matter. Nothing much was going to happen between now and then.

  ‘Georges… Simone. I got your message. They’re deep into the thank-you speeches now – hopefully nobody will miss me for a few moments. What’s the problem?’

  ‘I’ve got to see you. Something’s happened, and I need to talk to you about it urgently. Can you come by here afterwards?’

  Funicelli sat forward with the urgency in Donatiens’ voice as the tape rolled. Donatiens sounded troubled. Funicelli had to tweak the sound up to fully hear Simone’s voice above the background clatter. He hoped that the problem might be explained, especially when Donatiens commented that it was to do with her father and Roman – but everything ended abruptly with their arranging to meet. All he could do was pass it on. Maybe Roman would know what was troubling Donatiens.

  Roman got the tape by messenger at 8.12a.m. the next morning, and wished that Funicelli had phoned him immediately the evening before. Funicelli’s covering note mentioned the call from Simone and Donatiens sounding worried: ‘Maybe you know what might be worrying him?’ But obviously any urgency attached to that knowledge hadn’t immediately dawned on Funicelli. The one drawback of always m
aking sure the people around you only had half the picture.

  And while Roman knew all too well what was troubling Donatiens, with the two of them meeting in a restaurant, any chance of finding out exactly what was going to be said were gone. He’d just have to fill in the gaps in his mind.

  He remembered a maid that his mother Lillian had shortly after his father died. She would move objects around in the room as she cleaned, and some of them would get progressively closer to the door. Then the next thing they would disappear completely. It was as if the maid wasn’t quite bold enough to steal them straightaway, but once they got closer to the door they became almost hers; the next step wasn’t so bold. Lillian came to know what would disappear next according to how close to the door it was last time the maid cleaned; and with the next two items gone and Lillian sure of her ground, she fired the maid.

  That’s what Donatiens was doing: moving his story closer to the door. He hadn’t wanted to tell all to Jean-Paul, perhaps hoping naively that yours truly, Roman, would meanwhile have a sudden stab of conscience and do it all for him. But first and foremost no doubt was the awkwardness of Donatiens admitting at the drop of a hat that he’d been lying to Jean-Paul for the past year. All trust went out the window either way, and coming hot on the heels of him keeping quiet about meeting Chenouda as well, there were high chances Jean-Paul would have had doubts about both stories. No, he’d read Georges well.

  He had little doubt now either that Georges was going to tell all to Simone, unburden all the messy detail he’d been unable to with her father and use her as go-between. She could explain all the subtleties of why Georges had lied for so long that would have been difficult for Georges to explain directly, face-on.