by John Farrow
Norris was chuckling to himself.
“What’s so funny?”
“You are. You’re a riot.”
“I’m glad you’re so amused.”
“Think about it, Jul.”
“Yeah yeah.”
“Think about it.”
“Good night, Sel.”
“Good night, Snoop. If you’re looking for a New Year’s resolution—”
“Good night, Selwyn.”
Julia sat on the sofa in the aching silence of that country house. She switched off the lamp. She was fully awake now, although inert, unable to move much. She wanted to belt him. Julia let her body slide down the sofa until she was on the floor, and she sat there in the ambient dark, listening and wondering what there was to think about. What she hated most was that she had no arguments to refute him. Common sense warned her to run from the guy. Yet she had no reason to do so. Everything he said was enticing. She didn’t have to look around, for years it had been obvious that parents and stepparents and older folk were playing out their run without enthusiasm, with little aspiration, devoid of any zest for the ideals they had once coveted. The farm was supposed to have been a colony for an alternative lifestyle, instead it was a paean to the great sellout, the relinquishing of expectations and values. She knew about the slide. She had seen it with her own eyes, she feared it, she had always feared it, and Selwyn Norris, she knew, played to the heart of her fears.
What she hated, and what she dreaded, was that she could imagine herself consenting. She wanted to. She wanted the unknown over the known. The adventure over the banal. Risk over prudence. Damn him! He knew how to work her.
4
Tuesday, December 28
A child, his name was Daniel, was walking to his local rink for a game of pickup hockey during his Christmas vacation. Skates were slung over one shoulder. He carried his stick while kicking a puck. The eleven-year-old loved soccer most of all, but in the winter he only got to kick pucks along the sidewalk. Sometimes the puck became embedded in a snowbank, and then he used the stick to dig it out. He figured that was all the stick was good for. Hockey was not his game and Daniel usually embarrassed himself on the ice, but the other kids knew he was a hotshot soccer player so they never teased him about it very much.
The street in the east end along which Daniel walked was run- down, overcrowded, with mostly crummy two-story walk-ups occupied by large families. At eight o’clock in the morning those off to work were starting their cars in the cold. One such man was short and exceptionally well dressed for the neighborhood. He had been visiting a new girlfriend overnight. Daniel did not know, nor would he have cared, that the man who kicked his puck back at him was a physician who did private consults for the Hell’s Angels. In a time of war the man had been kept busy. Daniel welcomed the challenge, did a little feint with his feet, and kicked a goal between the man’s legs. The doctor laughed, fished his keys out of his coat, and climbed into a Camry.
The puck had careened into a snowbank and Daniel was digging for it. He wasn’t sure where it had gone after darting past the man. He thought he saw it and thrust his stick deeper, but the bank contained ice and he was unable to dislodge it easily. The boy hacked away at the ice to reach the black object there, then worked the blade of his stick under it and heaved with all his might. The ice broke free, the puck floated aloft and bounced off the hood of the car.
The physician was not amused. He opened his car door, put one foot down on the pavement, and stepped halfway out. He warned the boy to watch it. Daniel said that he was sorry. He scaled the snowbank and came down the other side and saw his puck lying on the road. The man was telling him that he could’ve put a dent in his car, that it was a lucky thing for him he hadn’t. Daniel gripped his stick and began to stick-handle the puck past the man and the automobile.
The doctor never put his key in the ignition. He never closed his door a second time. The car erupted just as Daniel was stepping past him, and they were both annihilated that instant.
The Wolverines stated that the bomb had been detonated by remote control, that the Rock Machine had taken out a Hell’s Angel sympathizer, that the killer could have waited for the boy to leave the area, or for the car to move on, but hadn’t bothered.
The same day, thanks to the immediate and intense public outcry, the Wolverines were granted the budget they’d been requesting. In the history of Canadian law enforcement, no agency had ever operated with such generous fiscal resources. Along with the check they were handed a simple mandate—break the backs of the biker gangs.
At last, the Wolverines said to one another, the bad guys had lost their shine, public opinion would finally turn against them. The people would demand justice, wouldn’t they?
An unofficial spokesman for the Hell’s Angels stated that his gang would never have done such a thing, none of their members would kill an innocent child. They weren’t animals. The Rock Machine, he said, was too stupid to be believed, too stupid, he stipulated, to be allowed to live.
To the astonishment of the Wolverines, out on the streets, as the days went by, citizens, in their rage and sorrow, were looking not to them but to the Hell’s Angels to exact revenge.
5
Wednesday, December 29
They drove into the poor neighborhoods that spread southwest from downtown. Made narrow by winter, the streets were lined by snowbound parked cars in igloos. Red-brick row houses were crammed together, never a gap between them, two- and three-story flats with crooked exterior staircases made of wrought-iron railings and worn wood steps, hard against the sidewalks. Some entranceways had been tramped smooth by boots, others had been shoveled out. Balconies, holding mounds of snow, were pitched in different directions, shifting with time and rot, and windows were sealed by plastic wrap and old newsprint to bar drafts. At the rooflines, snow drooped like wisps of white hair on aging gentlemen. Trees, leafless, rose from the snowbanks as knurly sentinels, their upper branches run through with electrical wire. In the front windows of a few homes, Christmas lights, off now, had been strung in the shapes of squares or circles or stars, a cheery defense against long winter nights. People waiting for a bus or tramping through the snow looked cold, scrunching their shoulders up and tucking their heads down into their collars as though they had no necks, their faces concealed by scarves, like bandits.
“Give me his name again.” Cinq-Mars let Bill Mathers drive. He equated driving with thinking, except when the roads were this perilous.
“You’re not good at names,” Mathers observed.
“French ones I am.”
“Hagop Artinian. It’s not that difficult.” Mathers turned up an unplowed side street. “That the garage?”
“Should be,” Cinq-Mars guessed.
Above a broad garage door flush to the sidewalk a faded sign declared the premises to be Garage Sampson, bodywork and foreign cars the specialty.
“Watch first or go in?”
“Park. Give it a minute.”
What interested Émile Cinq-Mars was the innocuous style. By appearances the business was legitimate, although it had done little to advertise itself. No specials on fenders or tires, no night lights for the sign. He gave a moment’s thought to the little boy who had been killed the day before. At Headquarters, everyone was feeling both angry and saddened by the event. Not that rage or sorrow was going to win the war.
Mathers glanced across at the senior detective a few times.
“What’s on your mind, Bill?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“Come on. Spit it out.”
“I was wondering what we’re doing here.”
Cinq-Mars could see that he was nervous. He didn’t bite his fingernails, but he kept bringing them up to his lips as though he was tempted to do so. “You mean this isn’t our case?”
“Something like that.”
“You haven’t taken an interest?”
“Like you said, it’s not our case.”
Cinq-Mars didn�
��t seem inclined to explain himself. No sign of life was visible from the garage. A minute passed before he spoke again, and when he did his voice was grave and Mathers listened intently.
“I received a call one night, directing me to a tavern in the east end. I was to go inside, sit down, order a draft, then look for a young guy sitting under the clock. I did what I was told. The guy would get up to take a leak, then leave. On his way out he’d stop to put on his hat and gloves. The moment he did that, the boys on his immediate right were the ones I wanted for a series of violent muggings. Bad boys, Bill. They didn’t just rob their victims. They pistol-whipped them, threatened them with knives, and always they were old people, men and women both. My contact inside would leave the tavern and I was to let him go. Which I did. I made my arrests. The young man who’d been sitting under the clock was Hagop Artinian, not that I knew his name back then. The night he died, Bill? The sign he wore around his neck? Merry Xmas, M-Five. That’s me. March the Fifth. To show contempt, the bad guys—especially the French—they say my name in English. So I’ve taken an interest in this case, Bill.”
Mathers nodded. “You told the IO all this?” “I told LaPierre squat and I’ll thank you to do the same. We’re on this case, Bill. It’s not official, but we’re on this case.” Cinq-Mars stared at him to gauge his reaction.
“I’m square, as long as you can skate us around the department.”
“You let me worry about the department.” “What about Sergeant LaPierre? I don’t know much about the guy, but he catches us messing with his case—” He’d not had to deal with these issues working in the suburbs. They had internal political problems there, too, but nothing that skirted so far around the rules. Bill Mathers was a man who stayed within the lines, but he was not so much inclined that way as fearful of doing otherwise. He was coming up against his own trepidation, rather than a moral dilemma.
“Relax. He’s doing his duty. Today’s the boy’s funeral. LaPierre’s attending.”
Mathers offered a little smirk. “You think of everything.”
“Let’s go.”
They clambered out of the car and walked up to Garage Sampson. The door to the side office was locked. Lights were on inside, and they could hear a radio.
Mathers rang the bell.
The radio was switched off.
Mathers rang again, and this time they detected a motion down a lengthy corridor. A figure advanced toward them. When he was near he shouted in English for them to hang on a second. Momentarily they identified the figure as a young man approaching with a ring of keys. He had to open several locks.
“Is this Fort Knox?” Mathers inquired in French when the door swung open.
“What?” the young man asked in English. He was dressed in a mechanic’s greasy coveralls. Steel-toed boots protected him from mishaps.
“Never mind.” Mathers pushed his coat back and showed his hip badge. “Police. We’d like to come in, ask you a few questions.”
The youth promptly stepped aside. Cinq-Mars gave him a nod as he followed Mathers through the door and did a broad scan of the premises.
“You alone here?” Mathers asked the mechanic. He offered a wide smile, to suggest that he was the one person he’d want to trust in all the world.
“Yeah.”
“What’s your name?” He was good-looking, dark-haired, thin, and Mathers guessed that Cinq-Mars would describe him as not having a criminal appearance. He looked the part of a grease monkey. He wore what girls were calling hockey hair, long at the back and on top, shorn on the sides.
“Jim Coates. This about Hagop?”
“You know Hagop Artinian?”
“Yeah, he works here. Or—I mean. You know. He did. I can’t believe he was killed, man. Whew. He’s a good guy. Nobody deserves something like that. What was he doing in that Santa suit anyway?”
“Were you friends?”
“Sort of. Not really, but, you know, we worked together.”
“Here?”
“In the garage, yeah.”
“What did he do?”
“Mechanic. I do bodywork, he did engines.”
Cinq-Mars listened to the boy as Mathers questioned him, catching his tone. An underlying excitement was apparent, as though the investigation was enough of a novelty, despite the grim circumstances, to give him something to talk about later. He seemed nervous but not frightened. Without bothering to ask permission, Cinq-Mars wandered into the garage bays to do a general snoop.
“How long did you know him, Jim?” Mathers asked. His pen and notepad were poised to record the answer, and the boy leaned slightly forward on the balls of his feet to make sure that he did so.
“I been here about three months maybe. Something like that. I knew Hagop since then. We didn’t hang out or nothing, but we talked to each other at lunch and stuff.”
“You didn’t work together?”
“I’m body, he’s mechanics. When I’m working it’s not so easy to carry on a conversation.”
“Where’s everybody? Why are you here alone?”
“Christmas holidays.”
“Cars crack up around Christmas, don’t they?”
“The boss gave us the week off.”
“Except you.”
“Tough luck. I got the least seniority. I got a couple of cars to do, but mostly he wants somebody down here telling customers to come back next week.”
“Isn’t it a strange time of year to be closed down, Jim? With this weather, don’t you have a lot of fender benders?”
“I guess so. Yeah. Maybe.”
Mathers moved around the office, in between desks, casting his eyes on the paperwork waiting in abeyance, order sheets, invoices, much of it left as if the staff had suddenly been spirited away. He wanted to see if the young man would try to stop him, but he didn’t seem concerned.
“Christmas holidays, is this something that goes on every year? Did you know about it in advance? Or did the boss just spring it on you?”
“We had the day off before Christmas, and Christmas and Boxing Day. Then on Boxing Day, after we heard about Hagop and that, we got called and told to take the week off. Me, I was told to come in. The boss came down here and we took care of a few customers and the rest we told to come back.”
“So it came as a surprise. A last-minute sort of thing.”
“I guess so. Not much of a surprise for me. But it’s been a quiet week for me too.”
Cinq-Mars returned to the office area. “I see only one car out there,” he said.
“Yeah. We’re closed.”
“Did Hagop have friends here?” Mathers asked.
“He kept to himself a lot. The boss liked him. He hung out with the boss a bit. That made the rest of us, you know, a little careful around him.”
Cinq-Mars had wandered through to the executive office and plucked a business card from a tray. “This your boss’s name—Kaplonski?”
“Yes, sir,” the youth said. He was showing more nerves now. The line of questioning had not been what he might have expected. He had hoped to get details he could share with others.
“What’s that,” Cinq-Mars called through, “Armenian?”
“Polish,” Mathers answered.
Cinq-Mars joined them again. “They left you in charge,” he said to Coates.
“Yes, sir.”
“You must be a big shot to be left in charge.”
“I’m at the bottom of the heap. Everybody else gets a holiday.”
“Maybe everybody else deserves one. Did you think of that?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir.” The boy was flustered now.
Cinq-Mars loomed a head taller than the young man, and he stepped closer to him and stared down the ski slope of his nose. “Where do you work in this place usually? When you’re not listening to the radio and reading Penthouse in the back like you were when we rang the bell, where would you be working?”
“In the back.”
“In the body shop? Where that Buick
is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What kinds of cars do you work on back there?”
The young man shrugged. “All kinds. Damaged cars.”
“What makes?”
“All makes.”
“Mostly new or mostly old?”
“I don’t know. Mostly old, I guess. New ones, too.”
“Up front, where you don’t work, what kinds of cars get worked on up there?”
The boy shrugged again. “Different cars.”
“Mostly what kind would you say?”
He seemed to not like where this was headed. “Mostly German, I guess. I don’t know.”
“Mercedes-Benz?”
“Yes, sir.”
“BMW?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What about Japanese cars? Lexus?”
“I seen some of those, yeah.”
“Those were mostly new cars, I suppose.”
“I guess so.”
“Do me a favor,” Cinq-Mars demanded. “Don’t guess.”
“It’s just an expression.”
“Don’t express yourself, son. Just answer the questions.”
Coates remained quiet. He was beginning to rebel, Mathers noticed, against this inquiry. He kept looking over to Mathers as though the younger officer might help him out.
“What kinds of problems do they work on up front here?”
“Mechanical. I don’t know. It’s not my department. Tune-ups, I guess.”
“Tune-ups,” Cinq-Mars spat out. “Son, if you owned a new Mercedes-Benz would you bring it down to this shit-box garage in this rat-box neighborhood for a tune-up? Would you?”
The mechanic looked from Cinq-Mars to Mathers and back again. Then he looked down. “Probably not,” he said.
“Son, you’ve got stolen cars coming in and out of this place every day, don’t you?”
The boy kept his head bent down.
“Well? Don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I work on older cars. I talk to the customers. I know those cars aren’t stolen.”
“We’re not talking about the body shop. We already know that’s a front. We’re talking about the cars at this end of the garage. The ones that get priority treatment. Those cars. Does it come as a surprise to you to hear they’re stolen?”