Miss Montreal (18 page)

“Carpets,” he said. “What else would someone want from Afghanistan?”

“Heroin,” Ryan said. “You make it from poppies and Afghanistan is covered with them.”

“Did Mehrdad strike you as a heroin smuggler?”

“He’s already bringing in carpets from there. How hard can it be to throw in a few bricks of smack? And it’s not like the door ain’t open.”

“Which door?”

“Look, I’m not in my old life anymore, you know that. But I stay informed. Have you followed what’s been happening to the Rizzuto family?”

“Not really.”

“They were running the smack trade here. Basically owned it. Only the last few years, almost every last one of them was shot to pieces or grabbed off the street, fate unknown. Nicolo, Nick Junior, Agostino Cuntrera, Paolo Renda. All gone. So if someone was looking to muscle in on that business, like I said, that door’s been opened.”

“Only one way to find out,” I said. “Back to the carpet store.”

Ryan checked his GPS, then headed west to the Décarie Expressway, which would take us north to Ville St-Laurent. The clouds were heavy again, promising more rain. I didn’t like the big outdoor festival’s chances of getting through Friday unscathed.

I’d had my phone turned off while I met with Aubrey Hamilton. I checked it to see if there were any messages: nothing from Jenn yet. Or anyone else. No one called to confess to Sammy’s murder, finger the culprits or reveal a previously unknown dark side of his character.

We were on Sherbrooke Street, a bastion of English-speaking shoppers, most of them old enough to count their remaining sunsets, when blue lights flashed behind us. I looked in the side mirror and saw an unmarked car, the lights flashing in the grille. Ryan pulled over and turned off the engine.

“Look who it is,” I said.

“Who?”

“René Chênevert. Paquette’s partner.”

“The asshole?”

“Yup. All the way here in Westmount, making traffic stops.”

Chênevert took his time coming up to the driver’s side, showing us his swagger. When he got there, Ryan took his time powering down the window.

“Permis de conduire et les enregistrements du véhicule
,” Chênevert said, holding out his hand.

Ryan answered him in the fastest, most guttural Italian I’d ever heard.

Chênevert said,
“Quoi?”

Ryan said,
“Ma che dice ’sta paparella?”

“Votre permis. Vos papiers. Maintenant.”

Ryan shrugged.
“Non parlo francese. Sugno un turista di Ontario, mangiacake.”

Chênevert’s complexion began to redden. He breathed out loudly through his nostrils—letting us know he was put upon—and said to me,
“Dites-lui de me donner son permis et les enregistrements.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t speak Italian.”

He brushed back the vents of his sport jacket so we could see the pistol holstered butt first on his left hip.
“Tu penses que c’est une blague, là? Que je suis comédien?”

Ryan looked at me, all innocence, and said,
“Boh?”

“I think he said he’s just joking with us.” Then I leaned across to look at Chênevert and said, “Don’t suppose you know how to say that in Italian?”

“I am not joking wit’ you,” he hissed. “Tell him to give me the fuckin’ licence now or I’m gonna have your car towed to the farthest lot I can find.”

I said to Ryan, “Ah.
Licencia di conduira
.” Having no clue if that was even close.

“Patente di guida?”
Ryan said.
“E perchè non l’ha detto a prima vota, chista faccia di minchia?”

He got out his wallet and handed Chênevert his licence—someone’s licence, at any rate. Chênevert snatched it and stomped back to his car.

“What was the last thing you said?” I asked.

“Something along the lines of, ‘Why didn’t he ask for it in the first place, the prick?’ ”

“Good thing he didn’t understand.”

“Like I give a shit.”

“What’s going to happen when he runs that licence?” I asked.

“You underestimating me?”

“Never.”

“The same thing’s gonna happen that always happens. It’s gonna come up clean and a perfect match for the registration.”

“You are Al Spezza and Al Spezza is you.”

“Certamente.”

Chênevert made us wait a good ten minutes while he ran the licence. When he returned, he came curbside to my window and tossed Ryan’s papers in my lap. “You think you are funny guys,” he said. “You want to make me look stupid.”

The obvious line there was to say he needed no help in this regard. But I swallowed it. No point in making him so mad he’d do something we’d all regret.

“You’re a long way from Homicide,” I said.

“My work takes me everywhere.”

“Your boss said I wasn’t important enough to follow.”

“My
partner
doesn’t tell me what to do, okay?”

“Qualcuno dovrebbe
,” Ryan said. Which meant, he later told me, “Somebody should.”

“Your friend Bobby was right about him,” Ryan said. “A
trou de cul
. An asshole. A
stronzo
.”

“But what’s he up to? Why follow us around?”

“See what we know.”

“Why? Can they be that hard up they need to latch onto us?”

“He could be in someone’s pocket,” Ryan said. “When I was in the game, we had a dozen like him on the payroll. Hamilton cops, Toronto cops, OPP officers. Didn’t matter. They all get paid shit and most of them want to live beyond it.”

“The question is, whose pocket? The Lorties?”

“The best possibility. It seems like the old man reached out to the adoption worker, told her not to talk to you. He could also have friends on the force.”

“He could. What about the Syrians?”

He shrugged. “I have a harder time picturing them and the
stronzo
together.”

“Me too.”

“But they did both follow us.”

We went through the Décarie Circle and headed north on Marcel-Laurin, past a modest mosque with a brown brick minaret. A knot of men stood outside talking, most wearing traditional dress: skullcaps, white trousers, long white blouses.

“How do you want to handle Mehrdad this time?” Ryan asked. “We gonna make nice or bust in and put a gun on him?”

“Let me ask nicely first.”

“We know this Syrian is into some kind of shit with him. Heroin or not, he was on us the minute we left there.”

“And again when we met Mehri.”

“Maybe your friend Sammy saw something there he shouldn’t have. Or heard something. Maybe some pillow talk with the sister.”

“Could be. So he finds out something, asks the wrong question and Mohammed muscles him out of his apartment and kills him.”

“But not right away. If all he wanted was to kill him, he could have put a bullet in him. A lot less sweat and risk than abducting, transporting and beating him to death.”

“Maybe Mohammed was trying to find out if he’d told anyone else.”

“That makes more sense. Then he either goes too far, or decides to finish it the way he started.”

As we pulled up at the strip mall that housed Les Tapis Kabul, I said, “I’ll go in the front. You come in the back.”

“You want a gun?”

“No. You have enough for two.”

“That I do,” he said. “And unresolved marital issues eating my insides. People better listen to me good.”

Why aren’t more people happy to see me? I’m a nice enough guy, my wit is sharp, my knowledge of world events adequate. My breath unburdened by halitosis.

Even so, Mehrdad Aziz’s face turned sour when he saw me come into the store, like someone had mixed lemonade in his toothpaste. He was alone at the counter, not a customer to be seen.

“You have the nerve to come back here?” he said.

“We never finished our talk.”

“We certainly did.”

“Then let’s start a new one,” I said. I locked the front door and flipped the Open sign to the side that said Closed.

“You can’t do that,” he said.

“I just did.”

He came around the counter, heading toward the door. I moved into his path and held out my palm. “Unless you want to wake up in a dental chair, I suggest we have a very quiet talk.”

“I am calling the police.”

“Make it the RCMP. They’re already interested in Mohammed al-Haddad.”

The mention of Mohammed’s name didn’t cause him to fall into paroxysms of fear, but it also didn’t go over his head.
He called something over his shoulder, then he said to me, “You come here alone, you are one against three now. We’ll see what kind of talk we have.”

He was expecting his two associates to come out of the back, as they had yesterday. The door remained closed.

He called out again. No one came out of the stock area.

“Keep calling,” I said, moving closer. Now he backed away from me and got behind the counter, looking behind him, seeing no one coming to his aid.

“You put your hands on me again,” he said, “I will kill you.”

“I’m tougher than Sammy Adler. Much harder to kill.”

“I did not kill him.”

“Why not? He was trying to sleep with your unmarried sister. She might have dishonoured your family.”

His dark eyes sparked with anger. “She would do no such thing. Not ever.”

“She was getting pretty damn close.”

“Liar!”

I reached the counter. He turned and threw open the door and took three steps into the back room. I vaulted the counter and followed him through into an area filled with hundreds of rugs rolled up in pigeonholes, like those in the front showroom. His two helpers were lying on the floor on their stomachs, their hands behind their heads. Ryan had his foot on the big one’s back, his Glock pointed at the man’s neck. A suppressor was screwed onto the barrel.

“If you were expecting help from these fuck-ups, it ain’t forthcoming,” he said to Mehrdad.

Mehrdad turned back to me and said, “Only with guns are you tough.”

I slapped his face hard, a quick left backhand that turned his head and left a bright red mark on his cheek. Then I dropped my hands to my side. “No guns on me. Take your best shot.”

“Why? So your friend can shoot me in the back?”

“The only people I’m shooting in the back are these two,” Ryan said. “If they’re dumb enough to move.”

Mehrdad untucked his shirt, rolled his shoulders, stepped forward and threw a right-handed punch that I could have blocked while reading a menu. Then I slapped him again, dropped my hands by my sides and waited for his next try. He faked a punch and tried to kick me in the groin. I swept his foot aside and he fell to the floor, almost landing on the beefier of his friends.

“I can do this all day, Mehrdad. Tell me what you and Mohammed are up to.”

“We are rug sellers, that’s all,” he said, standing up slowly, head down, resting his palms on his knees. I knew from his body language he was going to rush me, go for a takedown. When he did, I sidestepped him easily. When he turned back, I hit him hard with an open hand on the right ear.

He cried out in pain, but I hadn’t hit him hard enough to do any permanent damage, just set it ringing. While he was wondering which telephone to pick up, I dug my right hand into the base of his neck and squeezed. He yelped like a Yorkie.

“You and Mohammed,” I said. “What’re you doing?”

“Fuck you. Fuck your mother.”

I squeezed harder.

“May your mother spend eternity in hell! Fucking the devil, you bastard.”

I squeezed harder still and he sank to his knees. “I can do this all day.”

“We don’t have all day,” Ryan said. “Why don’t I shoot one of these idiots? See if that speeds things up.”

“He’ll do it,” I told Mehrdad.

“You are bluffing.”

“Me, maybe. Him, never.”

Ryan knelt down with his knee in the big man’s back and put the barrel of the suppressor at the base of his spine. “I can
start by putting this one in a wheelchair.” Then he drew the gun barrel down a few inches. “Or put a round up his ass and see if it comes out his mouth.”

“It’s heroin, isn’t it?” I said.

“What?”

“Heroin,” I said. “The pride of Afghanistan growers. Goes for fifty thousand a kilo. A lot more when you break it into ounces and grams.”

“You are crazy. I have nothing to do with this.”

“Why not? You’re bringing in carpets already. How hard can it be to throw in a few bricks?” I winked at Ryan, acknowledging I was stealing his line.

“All right,” Mehrdad said. “Don’t hit me again. You are right. I bring heroin into the country and Mohammed knows how to distribute it.”

The smaller of the two men on the ground said something and Ryan stepped over and kicked him in the ribs.

“Did Sammy find out?”

“Why do you always ask me about him? I tell you over and over, I had nothing to do with that.”

“Maybe Mohammed did.”

“He couldn’t have!”

“Why not?”

“Because that night,” Mehrdad said, “he was with me.”

“Your sister said you were at home.”

“She lied. To protect me. So I won’t go to jail for drugs. But I was with Mohammed, right here. Getting heroin out from the rug shipments and transferring it to him.”

“How much?” I asked.

He looked away from me, kept his eyes on the floor. “Fifty kilos. Okay? Enough to go to prison for a long time.”

A very long time, I thought. So why was he admitting to it if it weren’t true?

——

“Everything in his voice, his body, said he was lying,” I said. “The shift in his eyes, the change of pitch.”

“So he’d rather admit to trafficking in heroin than what?” Ryan asked.

“Killing Sammy.”

“You still think it was him or the Syrians?”

“Him or. Him and. Some combination thereof.”

We were parked a block away from Les Tapis Kabul, waiting to see if Mehrdad left and if so, in which car. That would give us something to follow, or at the least, a car on which to slap a transponder if the opportunity presented itself.

Nothing so far.

I had also left my small sphere cam in the back room of the store, tucked in a long cardboard tube inside a rolled-up rug. Its viewing range would be limited but the audio feed would pick up any conversation within those walls. If it was in Dari or Pashto, we’d be out of luck. But if Mehrdad called Mohammed al-Haddad, they’d have to speak a language they both knew, which I hoped would be English. If it was French, I could get Bobby Ducharme to translate.