“We’re good to go,” Boris said, leaving the two men on their knees in a corner, hands duct-taped behind their backs.
They sprinted to the minivan. The driver had positioned the vehicle to be ready for a quick departure. They were rolling before the doors had closed. Boris and Martin settled into their seats. Martin took off his ski mask and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Removing the magazine from his pistol, he felt the tension finally begin to ease. Little by little, the knot in the pit of his stomach dissipated.
As the driver swung onto the main highway and it became clear that no one was following them, Boris broke the silence. “Hell of a good job, guys! You were perfect, Lessard!”
Yells and high-fives filled the minivan.
While Boris and the driver were talking and passing a joint back and forth, Martin pretended to doze. He discreetly typed a text into his iPhone, which was hidden in his coat pocket, and sent it. He was about to delete the message from the call log when Boris put a hand on his knee and shook him. Pretending to wake up with a start, Martin stretched.
“Take a hit, Lessard. It’ll do you good.”
The minivan driver let them off in front of an unremarkable residential building in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
“Store the goods, then come back and join us,” Boris ordered the driver.
The vehicle rolled away. Boris put an arm around Martin’s shoulders and led him toward the building.
“What’s the matter, bro? You’re a million miles away.”
Martin pulled himself together and laughed. “I’m fine. Just coming down from the rush.”
“Hah! Seems like maybe you were a little nervous back there, Marty-boy.”
Never show weakness. Never be vulnerable. Never.
“Me?” Martin scoffed. “Nervous? Not a chance.”
“Oh, man … was that awesome or what?”
“Totally. Did you see those two clowns when we walked in?” Martin opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, imitating the first employee’s reaction.
Boris guffawed. “It’s gonna be a great night. Roxanne’ll be there. Lolita and Muriel are coming over. Maybe Amélie.”
Martin forced himself to look excited.
“Muriel likes you, bro,” Boris went on. “She is hot. Woo-hoo, that girl is hot! Play your cards right, Amélie’ll join in. They’re into three-ways.”
I wanna fuck you like an animal.
The brutal music of Nine Inch Nails shook the apartment. The synthetic bass hammered inside Martin’s chest like his own heart. Bodies were everywhere, writhing against each other in the smoke, blending sweat and saliva.
Muriel led him to a corner. The strobe light slid over her large breasts; her nipples were already hard. He tried to lick them, but Muriel evaded him. His zipper opened. A hand pulled him out, and a sudden spasm of pleasure shook him: Muriel’s mouth was burning his flesh.
I wanna feel you from the inside.
His gaze locked with Boris, who, on the far side of the room, was spreading his tentacles over Roxanne’s sculptured form. Was he paranoid, or was his friend looking at him strangely? Earlier in the evening, Martin had gone to the washroom, forgetting his iPhone on the table from which they’d snorted several runways of powder. When he’d returned, Boris had handed him the phone, suggesting with an enigmatic smile that he be more careful where he left it.
You get me closer to God.
Martin shuddered and clutched at Muriel’s hair as she drove her mouth down on him with mounting intensity. Had Boris read the text message he’d sent from the minivan? Or were the alcohol and drugs affecting his perception?
Fuck. How could he have forgotten to delete the message?
Amélie approached, her slender legs glistening in the light. She bit her lower lip. Then, caressing Muriel’s hair, she flicked her tongue in Martin’s ear. Freeing one hand, he seized her buttocks and pulled her to him.
Martin closed his eyes. Images of Boris pointing a gun at his head were jumbled with the sight of Muriel eating him. He let himself be swept into the maelstrom. There was no point in resisting.
31
LOOKING-GLASS GAMES
With Win Butler and the other members of Arcade Fire filling his ears, Louis-Charles Rivard was doing his best to make it seem like his only reason for watching himself in the mirror was to monitor his final set of curls. But in truth, he was admiring his biceps, his athletic build, and his classically handsome face.
He turned his head imperceptibly to one side. The tall redhead walking his way fully met his high standards of beauty: slender legs, a compact bust, and a flawlessly rounded little ass in tight-fitting shorts. To top it off, she had a perfect beauty mark, and the smooth contours of her thighs were untouched by cellulite. Rivard had noticed her when she came over to use the rowing machine near his. He had also noticed that this was her third trip to the water fountain. She passed behind him and, once again, glanced in his direction.
Apart from the thrill of self-admiration, this was the thing he liked best about working out at the gym: locking eyes in the mirror. He had always known that true communication was achieved with looks, not with words. Everything could be read in the gaze: attraction, repulsion, love, truth, falsehood. Yet most people tended to neglect this fact. He was well aware of it. He’d told countless lies in his life and gotten away scot free.
The only person he couldn’t fool was his mother. They were too similar.
Louis-Charles looked at the redhead again. Bent over the water fountain, she was knowingly offering him a clear view of her endowments. He guessed she was in her midtwenties, a resident of the Plateau area, or perhaps the Mile End district. She wasn’t a regular at the upscale Sanctuaire club. She had come here with the intention of attracting the right kind of man; she was ripe for the picking.
Louis-Charles would provide satisfaction.
When she went by again, he gave her his best untamed look, his king-of-the-jungle stare, the one that said I want to fuck you, right here, right now.
She made a show of ignoring him, but their eyes met in the mirror for a second. A second too long. He knew. She was caught. Her gaze had betrayed her: I’m acting like I’m not attracted to you, but I’d be more than willing.
In Rivard’s experience, most women, especially the really beautiful ones, played this game. They showed a degree of interest initially, then acted like they weren’t really into it. After that, they waited for the man to make the first move.
A woman in her fifties walked past, her face flushed after her workout. Then a man went by — bearded, with a shaved head, a swaying walk, and a tattoo on his right bicep. He and Louis-Charles looked at each other in the mirror. With gay men, it was entirely different. They had mastered the art of the direct approach.
Louis-Charles received all kinds of offers, whether it was at the club, or at the gym on Bélanger Street where he took boxing lessons, or on Facebook. Though he was resolutely straight, he had no qualms about exciting a man’s desire or playing seductive games with a male counterpart. He found it as satisfying to attract a gay man as to attract a woman. He was comfortable either way, and he took advantage of that ambiguity at the office with Lawson. Nothing had ever actually happened between them, but Louis-Charles had always sustained the fantasy, using his charm on the old man, deliberately preserving a grey zone in which Lawson kept hoping that someday, maybe …
Standing up, Rivard returned the barbells to their places on the rack and walked straight toward the redhead.
When a woman had shown her interest but was feigning indifference, you had to be audacious — you had to take the initiative and use the element of surprise. And you had to lie. Most definitely. Never tell the truth. You had to act like you were ready for lifelong love, though the truth was that you just wanted to hook up and spill some seed, after which she wouldn’t hear from you again.
“Hi, I’m Louis-Charles,” he said, extending a hand and offering the redhead a sexy flutter of the eyelids, which, depending
on the context, might mean Vote for me, or I’m a whore, or You can put your faith in me.
Louis-Charles headed for the locker room with the girl’s email address stored in his iPhone. It had been almost too easy. Two minutes of idle chatter and he’d gotten what he wanted.
As always, he had told her that he was going on a business trip for a few days, but he’d be in touch when he got back. This permitted him to identify short-term opportunities and avoid missing any because of scheduling conflicts.
Thereafter, the mathematical equation was pretty straightforward: nice restaurant + good dinner + free-flowing alcohol = your place or mine? All he had to do was drop a few references to his Porsche Cayenne, his loft in Old Montreal, and his sailboat moored at the marina off René Lévesque Park in Lachine, and the equation would produce results as predictable as a Fibonacci sequence.
And after? After, he wouldn’t call back. He’d move on to the next file.
He thought only about himself, about his career and the money it generated for him.
His Adidas T-shirt was soaked with sweat. He removed it and rippled his abs in the mirror for a few seconds. Satisfied with what he saw, Louis-Charles opened his locker and drank his protein shake. He would take creatine with his post-workout snack when he got home.
Or maybe he’d have dinner on Saint-Laurent before going home to bed. There was that waitress at the trendy restaurant who was just waiting for a snap of his fingers.
Placing his iPhone on the shelf inside the locker, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a second phone, a generic model that he’d bought at the suggestion of the man who had called following his impromptu statement to the press. The mailbox was empty.
As he put down the phone, he saw it: someone had slipped a piece of paper into his locker. Folded in two, it had fallen onto his personal effects. Louis-Charles saw a row of digits and his face lit up.
Lawson’s disappearance had become a profitable enterprise for him. The partners had agreed with his arguments and were trusting him to handle the crisis. Everyone wanted to avoid a scandal that might damage the firm. Pressing the auto callback, Louis-Charles reached a voice mail and left a message with his counter-offer.
After tearing the paper into small pieces, he dropped them in the locker-room toilet, flushing several times to make sure they were gone.
He noticed the man with the shaved head whose gaze he had met in the mirror earlier. The man had a towel around his waist and was looking at him with a puzzled expression, having seen him flush the paper. Louis-Charles shrugged, gave the man his brightest smile, and stepped into the shower, where he washed himself unhurriedly, using two separate shower gels, one for his body and the other for his face. Then Rivard applied a variety of creams and lotions to his skin. Like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, he believed in taking care of himself.
Walking to his car, he checked the voice mail again. The call he was expecting had come through while he was in the shower. His counter-offer had been accepted. A sensation of power washed over him.
Rivard made up his mind to have dinner on Saint-Laurent. That waitress was hot. But first, he would recover an item that now appeared to be his passport to freedom.
In the parking lot, he opened the hatch of the Cayenne. Balancing on one leg at a time, he removed his running shoes and put on hiking boots. Then he donned a cap, bundled himself into a parka, and grabbed a pair of Gore-Tex mittens.
As he touched the handle on the driver’s door, he froze. The reflection of a face had appeared in the window for an instant. Heart pounding, he spun around.
Then he relaxed and smiled.
No one was there.
32
DEBRIEFING
Lost in thought, Paul Delaney had spent the evening gazing out his office window, watching but not seeing the colourful crowd. All those people hurrying to buy last-minute gifts as though the fate of the world depended on it.
The parking lot had emptied out hours ago, but his reddened eyes were still staring into the slush.
Madeleine would be undergoing another operation on the evening of the 24th.
The doctor had refused to say anything about the chances of success. The surgical team would open her up first and offer opinions later. If the cancer had metastasized to the liver, there would be nothing they could do.
The head of the Major Crimes Unit had spent the night at the hospital and would be there over Christmas. He had to tell the kids. But tell them what?
There was a knock at the door.
Delaney mumbled something along the lines of “Come in” and watched Victor struggle with the door while holding two cups of steaming coffee.
“Mind if I sit down, Chief?” Victor asked, indicating one of the guest chairs with his chin.
“Go ahead,” Delaney said, picking up a ballpoint for the sake of appearances.
Victor gave one cup to his superior and placed the other on the desk in front of him. “Good thing we’re both in AA,” Victor said wryly, “or you’d be pulling a bottle out of your drawer right about now.”
“Believe me, I’d like to,” Delaney answered bleakly.
“What’s the news?” the detective sergeant ventured, blowing on his coffee.
“Not good. Surgery in three days. Make or break.”
Victor shook his head, stunned. “Fuck.” He wanted to say something more, something helpful, but nothing came. Neither man spoke for a moment. “Do you want me to come back later?”
Delaney took a breath and sat up a little straighter. “No, no, I’d rather you stayed. I need the distraction.” After a long silence, he said, “How’s the head? And the leg?”
Victor took a sip and made a face. The coffee was too hot. “I’ve got a fair-sized bump,” he said, running his fingers across the swelling on his scalp, “but no concussion. And the leg’s okay.”
“Good. Have forensics found anything that might help identify your skier?”
Victor picked up a paper clip from the desk and unbent it. “No. Still nothing.”
“Don’t worry. Whether he’s connected to the case or not, we’ll find him eventually.” Delaney rubbed his bald spot. “Anyway, now that Lawson’s dead, that takes him off the list of suspects. Lortie too, surely.”
“Let’s wait for Berger to give us an exact time of death for Lawson before ruling out Lortie as a suspect. We still don’t know why he had the wallets in his possession, or how he was connected to the victims.”
“Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Lortie was homeless. He might very well have found them in a garbage can, or stolen them.”
“You’re forgetting what we learned at Louis-H. about his wallet fixation.”
Delaney put his face in his hands, then looked at the floor, seeming overwhelmed. “That’s right. I’m sorry. I forgot.”
Victor put a hand on his superior’s arm. “Hang in there, Paul. We’re all here for you.”
The moment Victor had stepped into the office, Delaney had understood that his visit was more about showing sympathy and support than discussing the case. This was Victor’s way of communicating his respect and his friendship. The chief smiled and cleared his throat, eyes glistening. “Did anything turn up when the house was searched?” he asked.
Victor shrugged and shook his head. “So far, all we’ve got is the CD, Lawson’s body, and his personal effects. We didn’t find his cellphone, but we checked his call log. Nothing suspicious there.” He paused. “Going by what the secretary and the mail boy told me, we should have found a file in the trunk of the car.”
“Concerning a company called …” Delaney rummaged among a stack of papers on his desk. “Where the hell is it? I was sure I’d printed your email.”
“Northern Industrial Textiles,” Victor said, scratching his cheek. “All we found was a couple of empty boxes in the trunk of his car. Either the killer took the papers, or Lawson got rid of them before going to Peter Frost’s house. Either way, we have to consider the possibility that the file had
something to do with the murders.” He took a sip of coffee. “I’m waiting for a research report from the Justice Ministry concerning the company. I’ll send it to you.”
“Okay, thanks.” Paul was silent for a moment. “This Northern thing could be a court case that went wrong.”
“Could be. But if so, it’s ancient history.”
“Has Berger confirmed that the two murders were committed with the same weapon?”
“Not yet. But Jacinthe is convinced they were. Sometimes I think she gets ahead of herself, but in this case, I’d be surprised if she was wrong.”
“What about the recording that you found in Lawson’s car?”
“The CD? You heard it?”
“Jacinthe played it for me earlier.”
“I emphatically deny these charges.” He paused briefly. “At first, we had no idea what it was. But Gilles pointed out that those were the exact words spoken by Lee Harvey Oswald after his arrest. It seems to be a copy of one of the clips that were broadcast at the time. It would be easy enough to get. There are plenty of links on YouTube.”
“What’s the connection between our case and the Kennedy assassination?”
“I don’t think there is one. I talked it over with Gilles and Jacinthe, and we agree: you shouldn’t take the message literally. You’ve got to look at it symbolically. One possibility is that the killer’s pointing us toward a case where someone denies guilt, someone who’s been caught by the system but still claims to be innocent.”
Delaney resumed his favourite sport: hunting for specks of dust on the surface of his desk. He spotted one next to Victor’s elbow, trapped it under his middle finger, and released it into the air by rubbing his fingers together. “An individual who was treated unjustly,” he suggested.
“Something like that.” Victor sat for a moment, idly inspecting his high-tops. “But you know what I find weird? This is the second time the killer’s left a clue. First the numbers on Judith Harper’s fridge, and now the CD …”
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