One or the Other

by John McFetridge

  Legault said, “Mrs. Rahmani, we’re investigating a serious crime.”

  “So what are you doing here?”

  “Was your husband in jail a week ago?”

  “Yes, it’s been almost three weeks.”

  Legault said, “All right, thank you.”

  The woman glared at Dougherty and started to close the door. He stepped back just enough to let it pass. He stood on the stoop for a moment, looking back at the street, and then walked the few steps back to the car.

  Legault said, “Who’s next?”

  Dougherty took a last look at the closed door and then checked his notebook. “Marc-André Daigneault.” He closed the notebook and opened the car door. “Ville-Émard, other side of the aqueduct.”

  It was only a few blocks and the row house style was the same but the street names went from being Argyle and Egan and Osborne to Hurteau and Jogeus and D’Aragnon.

  The conversation at the door was almost the same, too, except it was in French instead of English and the woman was the mother instead of the wife. But the man they were looking for wasn’t there and hadn’t been there for weeks. The mother told Dougherty that she wasn’t sure where her son was and that she had no idea when she’d see him again.

  Legault played good cop and got the mother to admit that her son had been in jail for a couple of months over the winter and since he’d been out she hadn’t seen him much. She added that he might be at his girlfriend’s, and then spat out the name Louise Tremblay but said she had no idea where that might be.

  In the car Legault said, “How many Louise Tremblays do you think there are in Montreal?”

  “We can circle back around to her,” Dougherty said, “we still have a few more guys to track down.”

  Dougherty looked at his notebook and said, “Next one is William Garner.”

  “Another old friend of yours?”

  “I don’t know this one,” Dougherty said. “But I bet he hates to be called Willy.”

  They drove up to St. Patrick and along the canal. There were no boats on it, of course, there never were since the St. Lawrence Seaway went in almost twenty years before. Dougherty said, “My father said he used to go swimming in the canal.”

  “In that filthy water?”

  “I guess they didn’t care back then.” Dougherty was driving slowly and looking across the canal at the factories on the other side. A couple of the ancient buildings looked like they still had something going on inside but whole floors looked empty. “My grandfather worked on the canal, at that old crane that’s still there, you know it?”

  Legault said, “No.”

  “Unloading the coal boats. I guess that’s what most of the traffic was on the canal back then, coal from Nova Scotia.”

  Dougherty turned onto Atwater and went through the tunnel under the canal and then headed up the hill. He said, “Address we have for Willy is on St. Mathieu, but the building is called Dorchester Place, must be on the corner.”

  “Nicer neighbourhood.”

  Dougherty turned onto Dorchester and said, “Yeah, look at that, brand new.”

  “So ugly,” Legault said.

  Dougherty parked in front of a hydrant just around the corner on St. Mathieu and got out of the car. He looked up at the building, twenty-five or thirty storeys of flat windows and concrete, towering over the old two- and three-storey stone houses on the rest of the street, and said, “Apartment 2310.”

  As they were getting out of the car, Dougherty’s beeper went off. He found a pay phone and called in for the message: “407-911.” Return to the bank office immediately.

  Legault said, “What is it?”

  “I’ve got to go back to the office right away.”

  “The homicide office?”

  Dougherty got back in the car. “No, the task force, the Brink’s truck squad.”

  “You’re still on that?”

  He pulled away from the curb. “I never know where I am.”

  Legault said, “I’ve noticed.”

  “And you’re in the passenger seat, so what does that say about you?”

  “Good question.”

  “I can drop you on Bonsecours.”

  “Where is the robbery squad’s office?”

  “Top secret,” Dougherty said. “They were convinced it was an inside job, maybe even with help from someone on the force, so everything’s under the cone of silence.”

  “Even who’s on it?”

  “There was a rumour someone put out a contract on the senior detectives. Fifty grand.”

  “Not bad.”

  “We did get shot at and a couple detectives got beaten up in a bar, one’s still in the hospital.”

  Legault said, “I heard about that.”

  “I hope we got someone,” Dougherty said. He had to slam on the brakes coming out of the tunnel, the traffic backed up at the red light.

  In the parking lot behind the police HQ, Legault got out of the car and said, “I’m going to get addresses for as many Louise Tremblays as I can.”

  “There may not be a lease in her name,” Dougherty said. “But it’s worth a shot.”

  Legault went into the building, and Dougherty continued to Old Montreal.

  * * *

  The whole squad was in the office when Dougherty got there, and the first words Ste. Marie said were, “I suppose it’s no surprise to you that we can’t keep this squad together forever.”

  Dougherty was standing in his usual place at the back of the office, and he tried to see the reactions from the other detectives. He couldn’t see any faces, but he could feel the mood in the room, and it wasn’t good. These guys didn’t want to give up.

  Ste. Marie was saying, “We’ve been on this now for two and a half months. We’ve raided more than forty places, businesses and homes.”

  One of the detectives near the front of the room said, “And we have a lot more to go,” and Ste. Marie stopped and looked at him and didn’t say anything for a moment.

  Then he said, “Martin, I agree, but we have the Olympics coming up in six weeks.”

  Another detective, Dougherty thought it was Caron, said, “So what?”

  Ste. Marie wasn’t happy, but he continued. “Many of you will be given new assignments, starting today, right now.”

  “This is bullshit, Robert.”

  “This robbery will remain a top priority for the robbery squad.”

  “Incroyable.”

  “Tabarnak.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “The robbery squad will be expanded, some of you here will be assigned to it right away.”

  “Fucking politics.”

  “Who ordered this?”

  “We getting too close?”

  Dougherty was thinking they weren’t really getting anywhere, but he didn’t say anything.

  Ste. Marie waited till the yelling in the room died down, and then he said, “Look, this money isn’t in Montreal anymore, we know that. We’re going to catch the guys that did this, mark my words, but now we have to move on to what they spent the money on. We all know what that is.”

  Some guys agreed and were nodding, but Dougherty felt most of the guys in the room were still pissed off.

  “We’re still investigating,” Ste. Marie said. “If anything, we’re expanding. Some of you will be assigned to narcotics — we know that large shipments of drugs have been arriving for the Olympics. Every hotel room in the city is booked, tens of thousands of people are coming to Montreal for a party. We have to be ready for that, and there are only so many of us. We’re all going to be busy.”

  Dougherty figured maybe there was a little more agreement then, and Ste. Marie finished with a bit of a pep talk about keeping the city safe. It wasn’t enough to convince many of the detectives in the room that they were doing the right thi
ng, but throwing them the bone of more overtime at time and a half would probably grease the wheels enough to move on fairly smoothly.

  As the meeting was breaking into smaller groups, Dougherty saw Paquette standing by himself near the door and he walked over, saying, “Hey, you get an Olympic assignment?”

  “No,” Paquette said. “I’ve been assigned to robbery, permanent placement.”

  “Hey, congrats. Full-time detective.”

  Paquette was trying to play it cool, but he was clearly pleased with himself. “Not official yet, but looks like it.”

  “Sure,” Dougherty said, “it’ll be official soon enough.”

  Paquette started to say something, but one of the older detectives came up to them and said, “Let’s go, some of us are still working.”

  A few detectives started out of the office, and Paquette looked at Dougherty before he started to follow them. He tried to look like he was unhappy about something, being bossed around or something, but he couldn’t really manage it.

  Dougherty said, “Go get ’em.” The he saw Caron coming over, and he said, “Hey, Detective.”

  “I’m supposed to give you your assignment.”

  “I’m already working on something for Detective Carpentier.”

  Caron said, “Well, you have to report back to Station Ten and see what they have for you.”

  Dougherty said, “Seriously?”

  Caron said, “Talk to Delisle. Tomorrow morning.”

  Dougherty said he’d do that. Then he drove back to HQ on Bonsecours and found Legault in the ident office on the third floor and said, “Any luck?”

  “Yes, I found three Louise Tremblays under thirty years old.”

  “Good.”

  Legault was standing up and walking towards the doorway, and she said, “Bad meeting?”

  “No, it was nothing. Let’s go see Willy Garner.”

  They walked out of the building without speaking and got into the car that Dougherty had left double-parked on Bonsecours. He put it in gear and stomped on the gas, sending Legualt sliding around in the seat before she’d had a chance to settle in.

  She said, “Tabarnak, là.”

  Dougherty didn’t say anything. He swerved through traffic, slowed down at a red, then went through the intersection and changed lanes about five times in six blocks along Dorchester.

  Legault said, “Y’a pas le feu?”

  Dougherty turned sharply onto St. Mathieu and stopped, saying, “We’re here.”

  As they were walking into the lobby of the building two young women were coming out and as Dougherty held the door one of them said, “Thank you.”

  Dougherty didn’t say anything and walked into the building.

  On the twenty-third floor they found the apartment, and Dougherty knocked on the door.

  From inside a man’s voice said, “Hey, I didn’t hear you buzz, how’d you get in?” The door opened. The guy was maybe thirty years old with a moustache and shoulder-length blonde hair and wearing a light blue leisure suit with the shirt collar open and no tie. He looked at Dougherty and said, “Who are you?”

  Dougherty shoved the guy and walked past him into the apartment.

  “Hey, I didn’t say come in.”

  “I’m sure you were going to.” Dougherty walked across the small living room to the windows and looked out at the west end, all residential and trees. “What’s the best view from this building? Downtown? All the office buildings and the mountain, or looking south, the river and Mont St. Hilaire?”

  “Who the hell are you?” The guy looked from Dougherty to Legault, who had come just inside the apartment and closed the door.

  “I guess you like the west end, can you see where you’re from?”

  The guy was standing in the middle of the living room, and Dougherty noticed his platform shoes, but before he could say anything the guy said, “I’m gonna call the cops.”

  Dougherty said, “We’re already here. I’m Detective Dougherty, this is Sergeant Legault. You’re Willy Garner.”

  “William.”

  Dougherty looked at Legault and raised his eyebrows. She shook her head a little. She looked worried.

  “William, of course. You’ve changed since the last picture I saw. What do you call that with your hair, is that feathered? Do you call it coiffed?”

  “What do you want?”

  Dougherty looked around the apartment, the chrome and leather couch and armchair and the small dinette set by the kitchen, and then back to Garner in his leisure suit and he said, “Looks like you’re going to get down tonight.”

  “I asked you what you want.”

  “Do a little dance, make a little love.” Dougherty was walking towards him, and Garner didn’t notice until they were almost nose to nose and Dougherty said, “I’m going to ask you about some people you sell drugs to and you’re just going to answer me.”

  “Look, man, I don’t know who told you what, but it’s bullshit.”

  Dougherty punched him in the stomach and Garner doubled over. Dougherty grabbed a handful of the feathered hair and lifted until they were face to face and said, “How you gonna get down tonight with a busted nose?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Dougherty let go of the hair and punched Garner in the face. He wobbled on his platforms, both hands over his nose and Dougherty said, “You got arrested on St. Helen’s Island selling dope.”

  “You’re in so much shit.”

  Dougherty said, “I will throw you out the fucking window. Tell me about St. Helen’s Island.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “It must seem like it up here, like you’ve come a long way, but you haven’t.”

  Dougherty took a step and Garner almost fell over backing away. Dougherty turned and walked over to the fancy stereo system and picked up an album, sliding the black vinyl out of the cover. “We’re not looking for the guys above you — we don’t want you to rat on anyone important. But you sold some coke at a concert at Place des Nations.”

  “The Peter Frampton concert?”

  “Last week.”

  Garner thought about it for a moment and said, “Gentle Giant. That’s more of an acid and mescaline crowd, you know?” He wiped the blood from his nose with a handkerchief.

  “The guy I’m looking for bought coke.”

  “I don’t know,” Garner said. “I wasn’t there.”

  Dougherty threw the album like a frisbee. Garner got out of the way and the record hit the wall but didn’t break.

  “But someone you know was,” Dougherty said. “Someone you sold to.”

  “I don’t keep tabs on people.”

  “Give me one name,” Dougherty said, “and I’ll walk away right now.”

  Garner thought about it, tapped one of his platform shoes on the parquet floor and after a while said, “Okay, a guy I know may have been selling something at that concert.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Sid.”

  “Sid what?”

  “Gupta.”

  “Has he ever been arrested?”

  “No. He’s just a kid.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “I don’t know, NDG I think.”

  Dougherty started walking across the living room and said, “See, that was easy.”

  Garner said, “This won’t come back to me?”

  At the door Dougherty said, “You better hope not.”

  Outside, Legault said, “How did you know he was supplying someone?”

  “I didn’t, I just guessed. I didn’t think he retired from the business after he got busted, and the way he looks now, what else could he be doing, making the kind of money he needs for the rent here and his fancy fucking suits.”

  The elevator door opened and they got on.


  Legault said, “Now we have Sid Gupta and Louise Tremblay. There’s always another name, eh?”

  “Till we get the one we need.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Legault said as they reached the car.

  “About what?”

  “Whatever set you off.”

  “No,” Dougherty said. “I told you, it was nothing.”

  Legault didn’t say anything for a moment and then, “Okay, if you say so.”

  “I say so.”

  They got in the car and drove, and as they were stuck in traffic on Dorchester, Dougherty said, “I have to report back to my station house tomorrow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They broke up the Brink’s squad. They’re sending us all back to our regular assignments.”

  “What does that mean for our investigation?”

  Dougherty banged the steering wheel and said, “Come on, move.” The car ahead of him stopped at the yellow instead of going through and Dougherty had to slam on the brakes. He kept looking straight ahead at the car stopped at the lights and said, “It just means I have to go back in uniform and work this when I can.”

  “You just give it up?”

  “No, I said I work it when I can.”

  “Well, when can you work it if you have to work a regular shift?”

  “Whenever I can. Look, I’ve done this before.”

  The light changed, and the car ahead finally moved. Dougherty pulled out around it, passing on the right and cutting off the car in that lane. There was a lot of honking.

  Then Dougherty said, “Murder cases are never closed.”

  “What if they say Mathieu did it, killed Manon and then himself. That’s what Captain Allard wants. And the detectives.”

  “They might do that anyway,” Dougherty said. “We wouldn’t stop working it then, either, would we?”

  Legault nodded slowly and said, “No, we wouldn’t stop.”

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  Rozovsky said, “Now Dubois says there isn’t even a Dubois gang, just him and his brother and they don’t control anything.”

  “I heard.” Dougherty was sitting on the other side of the booth, picking at his sweet and sour chicken, honey garlic spare ribs and fried rice.