One or the Other

by John McFetridge

  Even Peg looked like she wouldn’t mind if it turned into a brawl. Dougherty knew her a little from the times he’d come into the motel on the job, but he’d also seen her when he was a kid in the Point. He remembered some ceremony at the Boys and Girls Club where she’d given them a cheque for football equipment.

  Laperrière said, “You have no idea what you’ve done.” He was looking at the guys at the table, not the Higgins brother but Boyle, and he said, “This isn’t a fucking hold-up, this is big.”

  “Didn’t you get your cut,” Boyle said. “Is that the problem? Talk to whoever did it, you’re wasting your time here.”

  Dougherty watched Boyle, trying to see if his casual act was cracking, but he couldn’t tell. The guy was, as far as anyone knew, the top boss of the Point Boys. They weren’t like the Italians, they didn’t have ceremonies and take oaths and give out ranks and Marlon Brando wasn’t going to be in any movies about them, but everybody’s got to answer to somebody and Dougherty was pretty sure the Point Boys answered to Peaky.

  Laperrière said, “You fucked up, Petey. You brought more heat than you can handle.”

  Boyle just shrugged, and Dougherty looked from him to Laperrière and saw the cop clenching up, looking like he was the one going to snap.

  The whole room was tense. It was their first move in the investigation; it was their statement.

  Laperrière said, “This the way you want to do it, okay.” He turned his head a little and looked at Ste. Marie, and Ste. Marie motioned to Caron.

  It took Dougherty a second to realize that was his signal, and when he did he took a last look at Boyle and Higgins and Sadowski and then turned and walked through the motel office to the parking lot.

  Two in the morning, and it was quiet, no traffic on St. Jacques, the other motels along the street pretty much empty. Dougherty walked to the car and leaned against it and lit a cigarette. He could see the big buildings downtown all lit up, Place Victoria, the CIBC tower and Place Ville Marie, and the streetlights along the slopes of Mount Royal like a skirt spreading down to the river and the suburbs on the other side.

  A couple hundred feet south of St. Jacques was the huge drop down to the expressway below, the 2-20 and the train yards and the Lachine Canal.

  “Hey, Eddie, right?”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah,” and realized he didn’t know Paquette’s first name.

  “Like old friends in there.”

  Paquette stepped beside Dougherty and leaned back against the car.

  “Known each other a long time,” Dougherty said. “Came up through the ranks together.”

  “Different than the guys we see, eh?”

  Dougherty wasn’t sure what he meant by that but he saw Paquette looking like it was some kind of inside joke and didn’t want to be on the outside so he said, “For sure.”

  Paquette took a drag on his cigarette and blew smoke at the stars and said, “This should be interesting, this secret squad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You been here before?”

  “Peg’s?” Dougherty said. “Yeah.” It was a two-storey building in a horseshoe shape, every room with a view of the pool in the middle. At one time a nice place, not one of those motels thrown up for Expo 67, it was probably built in the ’50s, before the expressways when St. Jacques was called Upper Lachine Road or before that when it was Western and it was the road into Montreal from Ottawa and Toronto, but it had faded in recent years and now the restaurant got the most use.

  Room fourteen, where they’d found the guns and hash and bank bags, was at the end of the horseshoe on the ground floor. According to Peg the room hadn’t been rented out since last fall, five months ago. She had no idea, of course, who could have been using it.

  “I knew a couple of the Higgins brothers,” Dougherty said. “From the Point.”

  “That where you’re from?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That could help you with this,” Paquette said. He took another drag on his smoke and flipped the butt into the parking lot.

  Dougherty said, “If they did it,” and tried to sneak a look at Paquette’s reaction.

  “Who else could it be?”

  “We’re probably going there next,” Dougherty said, motioning back a little.

  Paquette didn’t know what he meant, so Dougherty said, “Nittolo’s, you ever been there? The Italians.”

  “No, I haven’t worked the west end,” Paquette said. His English was good and he didn’t seem to have a problem using it with Dougherty even though they were the same rank and probably the same age.

  Dougherty said, “You ever work St. Leonard?”

  “A little, not much.”

  “It’s the same guys,” Dougherty said. “They have the motel and restaurant, Nittolo’s, and the garden centre, they do a lot of landscaping and snow removal in the winter, around here and Westmount.”

  Paquette said, “Nice,” but he didn’t seem too interested.

  “Are you working the hold-up squad now?”

  “Yeah, for a couple of months.”

  Dougherty wanted to ask what he’d been doing before that, how he got to be a detective, but he felt stupid just making conversation, and as the silence dragged on, he realized he was worried Paquette was competition and he didn’t like feeling that way.

  The senior detectives came out of Peg’s office then, and Paquette said, “I wonder what they said to them?” He wasn’t expecting an answer, and Dougherty didn’t say anything.

  They walked across the parking lot and, as they got closer, Dougherty heard Laperrière say, “Run a line on the pay phone.”

  Ste. Marie said, “You want to start someone on the paperwork?” He nodded a little and Dougherty thought he should step forward and volunteer, but then he realized Ste. Marie meant Paquette.

  Laperrière said, “Off the books for now. Okay, let’s go.”

  Caron started around the car, saying to Dougherty, “You know Motel Raphaël?”

  Dougherty got in the car and waited while Caron said something to Ste. Marie and then he got in, too, saying, “You know those guys?” looking back at Peg’s.

  “I know Higgins a little,” Dougherty said.

  He pulled out onto St. Jacques at the back end of the convoy of unmarked cars.

  “The more pressure we put on them,” Caron said, “someone’s going to want to talk, save his own ass, maybe make a little money — we have some to spend.”

  “Snitch money?”

  “A little more,” Caron said. “The bank is going to give us some cash.”

  Dougherty nodded. “That’s good.”

  “You got any guys you want to talk to?”

  “Maybe,” Dougherty said.

  No one at Motel Raphaël had anything to say, and then Laperrière decided that was enough for the first night, they’d hit Nittolo’s and the Cavalier the next day.

  Dougherty went home, thinking that somehow he’d lost his spot in the starting lineup.

  * * *

  The old man working the night desk at the Cavalier Motel had never heard of any Brink’s truck robbery or any bank robberies. They searched all rooms, two floors’ worth, and didn’t find anything except used rubbers under every bed.

  Caron said, “Don’t they clean these rooms?”

  “In and out,” Dougherty said.

  Same thing at the West-End Motel and the Belvedere.

  Ste. Marie looked at his watch and said, “Bon, c’est le temps des visites à domicile.”

  In the car Caron was singing, “We’ve got us a great big convoy, rocking through the night,” as the half-dozen cop cars pulled out onto St. Jacques and headed up Cavendish towards Sherbrooke. “We got us a great big convoy, ain’t she a beautiful sight.”

  Dougherty said, “You the rubber duck?”

  Caron laugh
ed, “What’s your 10-4, Pig Pen?”

  Ten minutes later they passed the campus of Loyola College, now part of Concordia University, and Dougherty wondered if they had evening classes out here in the suburbs like the downtown campus in the old Y building, but he doubted it, not out here with the big lawn and trees and sports fields, trying to look like a real university. Just past Monsieur Hot Dog, the convoy turned into Montreal West and the streets were lined with old red-brick houses, each one with a big tree on the front lawn.

  The convoy took up half the block on Percival Street.

  Ste. Marie walked to the house and knocked, and a few minutes later a woman opened the door.

  Dougherty was surprised the woman was dressed this time of night, wearing tight jeans and a loose blouse, and she stood her ground, saying, “You can’t come in.”

  Ste. Marie pushed past her and said, “Is your husband home?”

  The rest of the cops followed Ste. Marie into the house.

  Dougherty was the last one in, and he noticed Paquette was near the front, right behind Ste. Marie.

  Ste. Marie said, “We have a warrant,” and held out a piece of paper.

  “That’s bullshit. My kids are asleep.”

  Ste. Marie handed out orders to search the house. Paquette and some of the senior guys got the bedrooms upstairs, a couple other guys were given the kitchen and living room on the main floor, and Dougherty and Caron were told to search the basement.

  The woman was in the kitchen then, the phone receiver in her hand and she was dialling, saying, “If you go in the kids’ rooms, we’ll sue you.”

  On the way down the stairs Dougherty said, “At least we don’t have to wait in the yard.”

  The basement had a shag carpet and knotty pine walls and there was a built-in bar in the corner. Lots of framed photos: Montreal Canadiens players, all autographed; fat men and skinny women on beaches and on big boats; black-and-white street scenes of Point St. Charles. Dougherty was thinking, Shit, the Point’s only a few minutes away down the hill, what’s he need the pictures for, and then he figured it was to remind himself about the mean streets he came from now that he had a respectable house in a respectable neighbourhood.

  Caron said, “Maybe there’s a safe behind one of these.”

  “Yeah, and the combination is his birthday.”

  Caron was behind the bar then and he said, “Bon, j’ai trouvé.” He had a bottle of Canadian Club in his hand and was getting two shot glasses from the shelf behind the bar.

  Dougherty leaned on the bar and accepted the drink.

  Caron reached into his pocket, took a pack of smokes and offered one to Dougherty, saying, “Can you believe it, a buck now.”

  Dougherty lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply. “It’s tax for the Olympics, right?”

  “Ten cents a pack,” Caron said. “I’m going to quit.”

  Dougherty said, “Sure you are.”

  Caron looked at him, serious for a second, and then shook his head. “God damned taxes.”

  “Hey, we’ll get plenty of overtime during the Olympics.”

  “Like this,” Caron said, waving his smoke around. “Chasing our dicks.”

  “We might get lucky.”

  Caron walked out from behind the bar and said, “Oh sure, maybe.” He looked at some of the pictures on the walls, stopped at one of the Point, a bunch of kids in bathing suits in front of a walk-up, some guy spraying them with a hose. Still looking at the picture, Caron said, “Look at the happy kids.”

  Dougherty said, “Looks like the street I grew up on.”

  “You were neighbours.”

  “My parents moved out when I was in high school,” Dougherty said. “Not up the hill, here, though, they bought one side of a duplex on the south shore.”

  “Brossard?”

  “Greenfield Park.”

  “Oh oui, les Anglais.” Caron looked at more pictures, more kids in the Point, and then he turned around and looked over the rec room and said, “How much you think this house cost?”

  Dougherty said, “No idea.”

  “Seventy, eighty grand?”

  “I think my parents paid twelve.”

  “Cross that bridge every day,” Caron said. “No way.”

  “Drives my father crazy, sitting in traffic,” Dougherty said. “It wasn’t so bad when they bought the place.”

  Caron was back behind the bar refilling his shot glass. He looked around the room and said, “Maybe Boyle will move now, he’s got even more money.”

  “Where’s he going to go, Westmount?”

  “Maybe Toronto.”

  “We can hope,” Dougherty said.

  Then he saw Caron looking at him like he was thinking about saying something but not sure, and Dougherty was thinking it was probably something about being an Anglo in Montreal, and Dougherty didn’t have anything to say about that, so he looked away and reached across the bar for the Canadian Club and then the shouting started upstairs.

  “The fuck you doing in my house!” And a door slammed and feet stomped.

  Caron said, “The fun starting.”

  Dougherty headed up the stairs and by the time he squeezed his way into the living room behind the crowd of cops, Peaky Boyle was already in the kitchen, face to face with Ste. Marie, saying, “All of you, get the fuck out.”

  A kid was crying somewhere in the house, and Dougherty didn’t see the woman in the tight jeans and loose blouse, but he did see Paquette coming down the stairs with a small suitcase in his hands.

  “On y va.”

  Ste. Marie took the suitcase and put it on the kitchen table, open, so everyone could see the money inside, about a dozen packs of bills still with the paper wrapper around them. Then he spoke English, saying, “Well, lookee here.”

  Boyle said, “My lawyer’s on his way.”

  “You’ll need him,” Ste. Marie said, “when we find out this came from a Brink’s truck.”

  “You won’t.”

  Ste. Marie was putting the stacks of bills in a neat row, and he looked up at Boyle and said, “You don’t think we will?”

  “I know you won’t, that’s not where it came from.”

  “No?” Ste. Marie was staring now, moving a little closer, and the whole house tensed up, Dougherty could feel it way out at the outer ring of the circle of men. “Where did it come from?”

  Boyle said, “I’m not telling you shit.”

  “You don’t have to, but it will help you.”

  “Get out of my house.”

  “Come on,” Ste. Marie said, “you didn’t pull this job by yourself, why don’t you get out in front of it?”

  “You’re fucking hilarious.”

  Dougherty could feel the tension going out of the room. Boyle wasn’t going to say anything and he certainly wasn’t going to name a single name. Dougherty knew they could take him down to the old River Road and beat on his thick skull and threaten to drop him in the rapids all they wanted, they were never going to break him.

  The door opened behind Dougherty, and a guy came in, saying, “All right, all right, time to go.”

  Caron said, “Shrier the shyster, you just in the neighbourhood?”

  The lawyer, Howard Shrier, pushed past Dougherty and Caron and made his way into the kitchen. “Party’s over, let’s go.” He was wearing pyjamas under his overcoat.

  Dougherty stepped out the front door, and Caron and a couple of other cops followed him. They stood on the lawn smoking cigarettes and waving to the neighbours who turned on their lights, but no one came out of their houses.

  Caron said, “At least we can leave an impression.”

  “I think the neighbours already know who lives here,” Dougherty said.

  “If they didn’t, they do now.”

  A few minutes later, Ste. Marie and Lap
errière came out of the house and the convoy headed back downtown.

  As Dougherty was turning onto Sherbrooke, Caron pulled a bottle from under his coat and said, “Gin, right? That’s what you Anglos drink, gin and tonic?”

  Dougherty was pretty sure he’d seen a bottle of Jameson behind the bar, but he was getting tired of explaining the difference between English and Irish so he said, “Thanks.”

  Caron had a new bottle of Canadian Club for himself. “Don’t mention it.” He laughed then and said, “I mean, really, don’t mention it.”

  Dougherty nodded, taking up the rear of the convoy.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  They were getting nowhere. Shaking down every English guy in town who’d ever been anywhere near a bank when it was robbed — and in Montreal that was a lot of guys — but none of them had anything from the Brink’s job. Listening to hours of wiretaps from the pay phones at Molly McGuire’s and the Country Palace and the Cock ’n’ Bull and the Cat’s Den Lounge and the Shack Club got them nothing but a lot of guys cheating on their wives and a lot of women cheating on their husbands.

  Dougherty needed something to justify his being put on this team, in plainclothes, doing detective work. He could see Paquette and some other young guys passing him by, and he knew this was the best chance he’d ever get — a big job by English guys, guys from his old neighbourhood in the Point. If he didn’t score something on this job, he’d be walking a beat the rest of his life.

  Then he ran into Fred Bergman.

  Driving home from the office, the 4.07 in the bank building, two in the morning in his own car, nothing on the wiretaps again, Dougherty pulled up behind a ’75 Monte Carlo on the Bonaventure Expressway. Six lanes and almost no other cars. He followed the Monte Carlo past the Champlain Bridge and Nun’s Island exit and up around the bend towards the Décarie, and when it took the Côte St. Luc Road exit Dougherty knew it was Bergman.

  Cavendish was quiet, lined with apartment buildings and two-storey storefronts. When the Monte Carlo stopped at the red light at Cavendish, Dougherty pulled up beside it and rolled down the window of his Mustang.