The Roma Plot

by Mario Bolduc

  Back in his room at the Fairmont Hotel, Max tallied the dates: only two weeks between Costinar’s visit to Winnipeg and Raymond’s death. Bankrupt, humiliated by the con he’d just fallen victim to, Raymond had reached Woodlands toward the end of March. Four days later Costinar was gunned down on his way to Winnipeg’s airport — while Raymond was probably already back in Montreal. In April, Raymond pulled Sacha with him into the depths of rivière Saqawigan.

  Were these events related? If so, how? Had Kevin played a role in these two tragedies? Was it now necessary to add the deaths of Sacha and Raymond to the murders of Laura, Micula, and the Zăbrăuţi Street Roma? The edges of a plot were becoming visible, or so it seemed.

  Max tried to consider every angle of this whole affair, and yet could find no meaning, nothing tying it all together. He was missing a piece of data, the keystone that would hold the edifice of truth together. And he was headed to Montreal to get Caroline to spit it out.

  He drove all the way to North Bay and abandoned his Subaru in a Canadian Tire parking lot before continuing his trip by Greyhound. Soon enough rivière des Outaouais appeared under a sky heavy with clouds. A few kilometres north of Deep River, snow began to fall, first lightly, then abundantly. The driver slowed down, the cars behind following suit, as if all were suddenly participating in some ritual, some religious procession.

  After a short night in a Best Western in the Ottawa suburbs, Max took yet another bus that dropped him off on boulevard Maisonneuve in Montreal, his back bent by three days of travel. The cold, humid weather reminded him of his childhood winters on rue Lajeunesse. It was no longer snowing. It was almost day. There were no taxis idling in front of the bus station. Max walked down rue Berri toward Old Montreal. He passed Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours and stopped for a moment before it, seized by the memory of Raymond Dandurand’s funeral four years earlier. The chapel’s doors were locked. He would have liked to sit for a moment inside, to try to understand what sort of trouble Raymond, and now his son, Kevin, as well, had gotten themselves into. No point standing before a locked door. The chapel wasn’t open for business.

  Max suspected the accusations levied against Kevin had stirred up a wasp nest in Montreal. The media were hunting for the truth about Nordopak’s bankruptcy, Kevin’s potential role in the whole affair, and his friendship with a known criminal. The sort of high drama that would sell copies for weeks — a heady mixture of fraud, international crime, family tragedy, and the sickly scent of blood. Max couldn’t just go knocking on Caroline’s door; likely her apartment was under surveillance. And what was more, he’d have to find a way to explain everything. Max had little to offer her in terms of peace and comfort. All he could give Caroline were his regrets, and that wouldn’t solve anything, wouldn’t make anything better, just the opposite. And how could Caroline ever trust Max again? Or Kevin? Even if the murder accusation were untrue, they’d both lied, both betrayed her. She would never forgive them.

  After serving breakfast, Refuge Sainte-Catherine put everyone back on the street in order to clean and prep the place for the evening meal. During the day, the volunteers could rest, take a moment to breathe, get ready for the rush hour.

  Max walked around the block once, looking for surveillance, not noticing anything out of the ordinary. Outside the refuge, young men and women, lost at sea, packed together on the sidewalk, not knowing where to go to while away the day. Inside, other homeless men and women on washing-up duties were supervised by volunteers. They all ignored him. One of them, a man with grey hair in a musty ponytail, moved docilely away as Max made a beeline for the kitchen.

  Caroline saw him first. She didn’t seem surprised, as if she had been expecting his visit. Max grabbed two chairs and set them down on each side of a table in the dining room. They sat facing each other: time for confession.

  He had expected she might be angry at him, at the whole world, or otherwise broken-hearted to the point of confusion. In fact, she seemed little more than discouraged.

  Perhaps even desperate.

  “Where is he?”

  Truth, for once.

  “Romania, probably. In the hands of very dangerous people. I don’t know why they want him, why they’ve got it in for him, but I intend to find out.”

  He gave her a rundown of his time in Bucharest. His meeting with Cosmin Micula, Kevin’s phone call, Laura Costinar’s body. How he’d managed to flee thanks to Toma Boerescu.

  He knew he was doing everything to avoid speaking about the elephant in the room: Kevin’s criminal activities with his friend and mentor, Max O’Brien.

  Caroline forced the issue. “Do you mind if I keep calling you Robert?”

  Max closed his eyes. He’d anticipated this exact moment for months, years. It was just too hard to explain his past, to justify his actions. There were few good answers down that road.

  “I’m responsible for what’s happened to Kevin, what he’s become. I led him down that path.” Max sighed. “I wanted to help you, the three of you, really. But I went about it all wrong, and by the time I realized it, I’d painted myself into a corner.”

  He felt so discouraged, so miserable, engulfed by despair. “I wish I could do it all over again. From the very beginning, fix what I’ve broken.”

  “The scam against Raymond. That was Kevin’s idea, wasn’t it?”

  Max raised his head. For the first time, he had his doubts. Caroline seemed to know more than she’d let on. Was it possible that …?

  She confirmed his suspicious. “I knew. And I let it happen. I’m as guilty as you are.”

  Max didn’t understand.

  “The scam. He just wanted to get back at his father.”

  “Because Raymond didn’t want to lend him money for the gym, right?”

  Caroline sighed. She closed her eyes. “That was his excuse. But he would never have found the courage to go after his father if it hadn’t been for …”

  Max remained silent. This was all new to him.

  “When we came back from New York —”

  “What happened, exactly?”

  “Raymond started flirting with me. At first I thought it was funny, that he was just messing around, wanting to make me feel at home. But then one night when he’d been drinking, he made advances, serious ones. He told me I deserved better than his son.”

  She fell silent. “I was pregnant with Kevin’s child, and he was hitting on me as if I were some floozy he’d met in a bar. I told him to back off, to leave me alone, but he wouldn’t.”

  “And you didn’t tell Kevin?”

  “At the time, no, I didn’t. I was scared of how he’d react. And I felt guilty about dragging him back to Montreal, forcing him to make peace with his father.” Caroline lowered her eyes. “But one day I couldn’t help myself. I admitted everything. Kevin flew into a rage. I thought he was going to kill Raymond.”

  And that was when he’d decided to rob him.

  Kevin had told her the truth then. About the lie he shared with Max, their desire to protect Caroline and Gabrielle. Max understood where things had gone from there. Kevin’s motivation to rob his father, the gym simply a pretext. Raymond had gone too far; he’d committed an unforgivable offence. Kevin would make him pay dearly. In the end, though, his anger had turned against him. Kevin’s father had had the last word.

  “Raymond knew that Kevin was involved in the scam. I don’t know how, but I’m sure of it.”

  Raymond’s revenge had been complete: he’d driven off the bridge, Sacha in tow. An ultimate punishment, both to his son, and to Caroline, who’d refused him. Raymond died, yes, but he’d left desolation behind him.

  Suddenly, Max caught movement out of the corner of his eye. On the other side of the cafeteria, something was going on. Max had been careless; he hadn’t located his emergency exit before sitting down. Through the kitchen maybe. Not a minute to lose. Ignoring Carol
ine, he jumped to his feet and ran to the far end of the room, just as two men reached him. He was about to kick through the door when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He whipped around. It was the volunteer with the ponytail. He didn’t seem as old now. Or as docile.

  Max threw a punch. The man parried and swung him around in a shoulder lock. Max tried to push him off, but the volunteer threw him to the ground with disconcerting ease. He felt a jolt through his back as his arm was twisted behind him. The two other men leaned over him, watching him like a wounded beast. Max at their mercy. His face against the floor, he heard footsteps, and from the corner of his eye, a woman’s high-heeled shoe.

  Marilyn Burgess.

  She watched him writhing on the ground and smiled with satisfaction. “Welcome back to Canada, Max O’Brien.”

  24

  They dragged him into an unmarked car, handcuffs around his wrists. Max couldn’t help but think of his nemesis, Luc Roberge, who would never get the satisfaction of putting his hands on the collar of the thief he’d been after his whole career. Max couldn’t help but smile ruefully. Poor guy.

  Another car was parked a bit farther off in the parking lot behind the refuge. The ponytailed volunteer’s car. Max looked for Caroline. She was beside the service entrance, speaking with Marilyn Burgess, who was handing Caroline her business card. He tried to catch her eye. She didn’t even glance at him. He couldn’t believe he’d been so naive.

  Despite his delicate situation, Max thought about what Caroline had just told him. Raymond, playing behind Kevin’s back, belittling him to his wife, trying to rob him of what he loved most. Kevin had been right: Raymond tried to destroy everything that stood in his way. Max couldn’t imagine what could drive a man to act so disgracefully toward his own child, especially since he’d been such a good father to Josée: protective, but not excessively so, attentive, respectful. The ideal father. Meanwhile, for a reason Max couldn’t understand, Raymond’s relationship with Kevin had been the polar opposite. The son had suffered mightily from his father’s rejection, and in a sense, had always remained under the man’s sway. Returning repeatedly to kiss the emperor’s ring, to ask once more: “Have I done enough this time?” He couldn’t stand his father, yet couldn’t live without Raymond’s approval.

  Their conflict had created one more victim. Raymond had dragged his grandson with him into death. A scorched-earth tactic. Yes, he’d given up ground, yes, he’d lost a battle, but whatever victory Kevin had claimed tasted only of ash. Raymond had destroyed Kevin’s relationship with Caroline, taken Sacha away from him, and annihilated their futures, their dreams.

  Raymond’s punishment, cruel and irreversible, existed in a context Max couldn’t quite grasp. Roxanne, of Romanian origin, her life cut short one October afternoon. Ioan Costinar, a murdered Romani politician friend of Raymond Dandurand, a successful businessman who’d fallen victim to a scam. Kevin, a hostage in Romania, accused of murdering Laura Costinar, Cosmin Micula, and twenty-three Roma in Ferentari. The Roma, Romania, death — whatever angle you looked at it from, those three elements were never far.

  A room without an exit. A closed circuit. Max couldn’t find the door, the opening, the ray of light. He peered at the enigma from every angle, and it seemed just as obscure. From the stranger Kevin had met in the Bucharest coffee shop to Raymond’s presence at a fundraising cocktail affair for Ioan Costinar, it was all a series of unsolvable mysteries, of coincidences, of backroom intrigue whose rules he couldn’t divine. There had to be a thread, of course, but he didn’t know where to pull to unravel it. And if he ended up locked behind bars, there would be no way to figure any of it out.

  Marilyn Burgess sat in the front, one of her goons driving and the other seated next to Max in the back seat. They turned onto rue Sherbrooke, heading east. The police light had been placed on the roof over the driver’s head. Max evaluated his options. He could try to force his way out of the car, especially since the ponytailed man wasn’t part of the escort. Although Max figured the other men would also likely be able to beat him to a pulp.

  And what could he do, really? He might, for example, jump out of the car at a red light. But even if he managed to flee, he was handcuffed and the men were certainly armed. Still, even a small chance at avoiding extradition to Romania might be worth it.

  Burgess glanced at him in the rearview mirror, guessing his intentions.

  “There are two tail cars. You make a wrong move and you’re a dead man.”

  The goon to his left laughed. The driver snickered. Clearly, they were a bunch of comedians.

  Suddenly, to Max’s surprise, the car veered left into an alley. Burgess didn’t bat an eye. They kept going to an even narrower alley between two buildings, then came out on rue Jean-Talon and drove across it to a third alleyway. As if the driver were trying to lose a tail, he constantly checked the rearview mirror. Then, with no one in sight, the car turned into a car wash, its gate bearing a sign stating that it was closed for repairs. Once inside, a man in overalls lowered the garage door behind the car.

  What was this all about?

  As soon as the car came to a stop, Burgess stepped out and opened Max’s door. “Let’s go.”

  Intrigued, Max got out of the car. After taking his handcuffs off, Burgess guided him toward the manager’s office, giving orders to her colleagues in a language Max didn’t recognize.

  Burgess noticed his surprise. “A week in the Balkans and you still haven’t developed an ear for Romani!” She burst out laughing at her captive’s confused air.

  What were Roma doing here?

  Burgess opened the door to the office. “I’m Keja of the Lovari clan.” She offered her hand.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Max shook it.

  Keja was her Romani name, the young woman added, which she only used in the presence of her compatriots. For the investigation, she preferred her pseudonym, Burgess.

  “The investigation?”

  “In 1971 in London, the Roma created an international parliament inspired by the traditional Kris romani. We chose a hymn, a flag, and created an organization that was to supervise the growth and development of Romani clans around the world — the World Romani Congress.”

  She paused for a moment before continuing. “The Roma are a people, recognized by the United Nations, but the only people who’ve never gone to war with anybody. Simply because we have no territory to defend.” Burgess went around the table. “A nation without a home doesn’t need an army, but it can’t survive without information, without intelligence. In the 1980s, the Roma created a secret service. Of course, we didn’t shout it over the rooftops.”

  “So you’re not with the RCMP …”

  “We’ve got our people with them. As well as in the FBI and elsewhere. Some police services have people who are either Roma or sympathetic to the Romani cause working on their staff.”

  “Including the Romanian police?”

  “Of course.”

  The intelligence unit Marilyn Burgess was talking about was a tributary of the old Indian secret services — the original home of the Romani Diaspora — following an agreement with Indira Gandhi’s government. Over the past few years, the organization had worked autonomously without reporting to anyone. It saw its mission as the protection of all Roma from potential sources of danger. Currently, that danger seemed to be the resurgence of anti-Romani racism in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

  “The world has always walked over us, our bodies fed to the dogs. Our organization is here to make sure that never happens again.”

  Two days earlier Phil Garrison, an informant of theirs, had gotten in touch with Burgess, detailing the curious visit of a journalist on sabbatical. A man named Mark Callaghan. Bullshit, according to him. It became clear to Burgess that the man could only have been Max O’Brien, who, after successfully getting out of Romania, was continuing his investigation into the deaths of Ioan and
Laura Costinar. Sooner or later, she knew he’d be coming to Montreal.

  “And so we’ve been keeping tabs on Caroline.”

  “Does she know?”

  “No. She still thinks we’re with the RCMP. So does Josée Dandurand.”

  Disappointed by the glacial pace of the Romanian police’s investigation of Kevin and his accomplice, Josée had returned to Paris. She’d kept in touch with Adrian Pavlenco and Marilyn Burgess.

  “So what is it that you want from me, exactly?”

  Burgess took a deep breath. “Ioan Costinar’s murder was never resolved by the gadjo police. It’ll be the same result with Laura’s murder and the killing of twenty-three of our compatriots in Ferentari. We’re certain that something ties these three crimes together, but the local police won’t get anywhere. That’s why we’ve gotten involved.” She stared Max down. “We’re convinced you and Kevin were set up by the real killers to take the fall.”

  An anti-Romani organization was behind it all, according to Burgess. They had to be stopped. Since the end of the Cold War, violence directed toward Eastern European Roma had been mostly spontaneous acts, sparked by racism and frustration. The Roma made good scapegoats. And since existing laws and political structures cared little for them …

  However, forms of more organized violence were increasingly beginning to appear — in Romania in particular. No one knew who was behind it all.

  Examples?

  A mob of a thousand villagers had attempted to lynch the two hundred or so members of a Romani community after the death of a Romanian man. Just as they’d done in Hădăreni in 1993. A few hundred farmers burned the homes of several Roma near Făgăraş. Romani leaders regularly received death threats. Victor Marineci, for example, always travelled accompanied by bodyguards. An extremist group, the Gypsy Skinners, led a campaign of violence and terror against the Roma. After a soccer game, Romanian hooligans had started a riot against Roma and Arabs.