One or the Other (22 page)

“Yeah, that's true.”

“My mom's doing her best stiff upper lip but she's had too many stiff ones.”

“Tense?”

“The sarcasm is.”

“Gillian's there,” Dougherty said. “That's good.”

“I think she's stoned, her and the boyfriend.”

“Well, everybody else in town is, it seems like.”

Judy said, “Yeah, you'll probably arrest my father later. He asked me if I knew anyone who could get him cocaine.”

“Has he tried any bar in the city?”

There was a pause and Judy said, “I used to think they were happy, my parents, happily married.”

“They probably were,” Dougherty said. “At the time.”

“I guess so.” There was another pause, and then Judy said, “How do people do that, how do they go from being happy to being so unhappy.”

“I don't know. Why, you worried it could happen to you?”

“No,” Judy said, “I've never been that happy.”

“I don't know about that, I've seen you pretty happy.”

“How do you know I'm not faking it?”

“Good enough for me,” Dougherty said. “I'm gullible that way.”

“You're the least gullible person I've ever met,” Judy said. “No one ever gets away with lying to you.”

“People lie to me all the time.”

“But you always know,” Judy said.

Dougherty wanted to keep joking around, say something like, So you better watch your step, but it didn't feel right. He said, “You want me to pick you up in Pointe-Claire when this is over?”

“No, I'll catch a bus, meet you back at the apartment.”

“You sure? Once I'm on the highway it's no problem. We could grab a bite somewhere.”

Judy said, “My mom will insist on some kind of dinner, but if you don't mind driving out here.”

“I don't mind. It'll probably be seven before I get there.”

There was some talking in the background, Judy's mother saying something to her and then Judy said, “Yes, I see it,” and then to Dougherty, “Do you see that? The torch is coming into the stadium.”

“No,” Dougherty said, “I'm at a pay phone, who did they get to carry it?” Another one of the potential controversies about the Olympics, who would be the torchbearer, everything getting so political.

“My mom's saying I should be excited because it shows equality, it's a boy and a girl.”

“Two of them?”

“Yeah, and now they're explaining that he's French and she's English.”

“No Indians?” Dougherty said.

“Or Eskimos. All right, I'll see you later.”

Dougherty said bye and hung up feeling pretty good.

He walked back to the security room and watched the end of the ceremony, the queen declaring the games officially open, Mayor Drapeau waving the flag handed to him by the mayor of Munich, and then a few athletes started dancing and then that spread throughout the stadium.

Delisle said, “Okay, that's it, going to be non-stop now for two weeks. Everybody get some rest, it may be the last you sleep for a while.”

On the way out of the Forum, a couple of the other cops said they were going to head over to Crescent Street and see what was going on, and they asked Dougherty if he wanted to go, too.

“I know what's going on,” he said.

“Hey, you're not an old married man yet.”

“No,” Dougherty said, “but I need my beauty rest. See you tomorrow.”

He felt good driving out to the West Island to pick up Judy. He didn't want to have to go into the house but he did, and it was awkward, of course, but it didn't bother him as much as he thought it would.

As they drove back to LaSalle, Judy said, “I feel bad leaving Gillian and Abby there.”

“Gillian didn't seem to notice where she was.”

“Should we be worried?”

“Probably.”

Judy said, “And it probably won't be long until Abby is just as stoned.”

“You never know,” Dougherty said. “She might go the opposite way and become a nun.”

There was a parking garage under the apartment building, but Dougherty pulled into the lot in the back. He parked facing the pool and got out of the car.

Judy said, “Maybe I'll ask Abby if she wants to come hang out with me for a while.”

“What for?”

“Just to get away for a while. Maybe we'll go see some of the Olympics.”

They were walking to the back door of the apartment building and Dougherty said, “We should've got the two bedroom.”

Judy took his hand.

The next day Dougherty was walking down the hallway outside the security office and a middle-aged guy stepped in front of him and said, “You cop?”

Dougherty said, “Yes.”

The guy's dark hair was in a kind of bowl cut and he had a bushy moustache. He was wearing a track suit and had an ID badge hanging around his neck.

He just stood there and didn't say anything so Dougherty said, “Can I help you?”

The guy said, “No,” and turned and walked away.

Dougherty waited a minute and then walked in the same direction, down the hall and then through the tunnel onto the floor, what would have been the ice surface during hockey season. There was a young uniform cop standing there and Dougherty said, “That guy who just came through here, who is he?”

“I don't know.”

“Didn't you look at his ID badge?”

“I just looked to see that he had one.”

To Dougherty the cop looked like a teenager, all the new recruits did, but he had to be at least twenty years old. Dougherty said, “Which way did he go?”

“I don't know.”

Dougherty almost said, What do you know, but he kept his mouth shut. A huge cheer went out from the crowd and Dougherty looked up into the seats. It felt so strange to him, nine thirty on a Sunday morning and there were almost eighteen thousand people in the Forum. Cheering for gymnasts.

The cheer faded out and the place was eerily silent. Then a murmuring started, grumbling, and it spread throughout the crowd.

Dougherty turned to the young cop and said, “What's going on?”

He didn't expect anything other than, I don't know, but the kid said, “That girl there just had an amazing routine on the uneven bars but they scored it a one.”

“That's not good?”

“It should be a 9.8 at least.”

“You know a lot about gymnastics?”

“I've been standing here for a week watching them set up, I picked up a few things.”

“Yeah, I bet you did.”

The young cop leered and said, “My Romanian is getting a lot better.”

An announcement came over the PA system then, which Dougherty didn't catch, but the whole building cheered.

Dougherty said, “What is it?”

“It's a ten, a perfect ten,” the young cop said. “The first time that's ever happened, it's history.” He was excited, practically jumping up and down, and he took a few steps forward, looking through the crowd of gymnasts and coaches and TV announcers who were all trying to get a look at the girl who'd scored the perfect ten.

Dougherty saw her then, and he saw the man with the bowl haircut and the moustache was with her, hugging her and kissing her on both cheeks.

If he'd wanted to talk to a cop, he didn't anymore.

Dougherty walked back down the tunnel and into the hallway. He was almost at the security office when he noticed a kid standing by the door. This guy really was a teenager.

Dougherty said, “Can I help you?”

The kid said, “Are you Canadian official?”

“Yeah, I am, I'm a police officer.”

The kid nodded. It seemed to take him a few seconds to decide what he was going to say next, and then he nodded again and said, “I want defect.”

Dougherty said, “Okay, well I guess this is the place.”

The kid said, “Yes?”

“Yes, come on.” Dougherty opened the door to the security office and motioned the kid inside. He started to follow him but stopped when a man's voice yelled, “Halt.”

Dougherty turned around and said, “Halt?”

A bunch of men were coming towards him, practically running down the hall. A couple of them were wearing track suits though they had big bellies, and the rest all wore dark suits. One of the suits said, “He must return, open that door, send him out.”

Dougherty said, “No can do.”

The same man said, “He must come with us.”

“We have a protocol,” Dougherty said. “We spent weeks bored out of our minds learning it, we're damn well going to use it.”

The man who was doing all the talking for the group said, “We will not leave.”

Dougherty shrugged and said, “I've got ten hours left in a twelve-hour shift. I can stand here all day.”

He didn't have to, though, ten minutes later the place was crawling with diplomats and reporters.

“He's seventeen years old,” Dougherty said. “He's got an aunt and uncle in St. Catharines, it's in Ontario somewhere. He's going there.”

Judy said, “He's just a kid.”

“I thought he was twelve when I first saw him.”

They were finishing off a late dinner at Centrale Pizzeria, spaghetti and Caesar salads, and Judy said, “Is it going to be a big diplomatic event?”

“I don't know. We were prepared for it, well, I mean we knew who to call to come and take over right away. We were told there were over a hundred defections in Munich four years ago so they figured there'd be some.”

“Was it a lot of Germans then, trying to get back together with their families in the West?”

Dougherty used a piece of bread to mop up the last little bit of meat sauce and said, “I don't know. There was another guy just before the kid, an older guy, I thought he was going to try, but he seemed to lose his nerve.”

“You didn't say anything?”

“We're not supposed to. If they ask us we're supposed to help them, get them somewhere safe and call the diplomats, but we're not supposed to assume anything.”

“Well, you know what happens when you assume.”

“Yeah.”

Judy finished off her glass of wine and said, “I hope the kid's okay. Wait till he finds out it's not blue jeans and rock 'n' roll all the time.”

The waitress came to the table and asked if they'd like any dessert.

Dougherty said to Judy, “Rice pudding? Apple pie?”

“No, thanks, that's all for me.”

“Okay, me too.”

The waitress tore a page off her pad and put it on the table. Then she cleared the empty plates and glasses.

Dougherty slid open his cigarette pack and held it out to Judy. She took one and leaned forward as Dougherty flicked his lighter.

“Did it make you think about the kids on the bridge?” She leaned back and blew smoke at the ceiling.

“It does now.”

Judy said, “You were thinking it.”

“I guess I was.”

“That's good, you don't want to just forget about them.”

Dougherty took a drag and blew rings. Then he said, “Carpentier told me to move on, you know? But he doesn't. He's got open cases he goes back to sometimes.”

“So he knows you won't just move on.”

“I could, though. I don't think I'm ever going to get assigned to homicide. I'm probably going to be driving patrol forever.”

“No you're not.”

“The way I'm making friends?”

“It's not about making friends.”

“It's office politics,” Dougherty said. “Like anywhere else, you have to play the game.”

Judy inhaled on her cigarette and then exhaled a long thin stream of smoke. She started to say something, stopped and then said, “I'm not exactly one for giving career advice, here I am almost thirty and starting my first real job.” She looked at Dougherty and he was nodding slightly, and she said, “You're supposed to say I've been busy with worthwhile things.”

“You're still busy with worthwhile things.”

She made a face, kind of dismissive that but not completely, and said, “But when I finally figured out that I could teach, that I
should
teach, it felt really good.”

“I remember.”

“But then when I had my first placement, and I walked into the teachers' lounge and it was so awful?”

“I remember that, too.”

“I just about quit on the spot,” Judy said. “The tension in that room, the cynicism, the, I don't know . . . disdain for the kids. It was unbelievable.”

Dougherty said, “I believe it, I remember those teachers.”

“I had no idea so many of them hate it so much. How burnt out they are.”

“It's a tough job.”

Judy nodded and said, “Yeah, well, I'm not going to get like that.”

“I never thought you would.”

“So you're not going to get like that, either.”

“I wasn't planning on it.”

She raised her eyebrows at him.

“Okay, I get it.”

Walking home through LaSalle, past the old row houses with the wrought-iron staircases winding down the front, they held hands and talked about what a nice night it was, how beautiful Montreal was in the summer.

Dougherty said, “Until it gets humid.”

“It'll be nice here by the river,” Judy said. “Get a nice breeze.”

When they got back to the apartment the phone was ringing and Judy answered it. She listened for a little and then said, “
Un moment, s'il vous plaît
,” and held out the receiver for Dougherty. “It's a woman. French.”

Dougherty took the phone.
“Oui?”

On the phone Legault said, “I have a line on Marc-André Daigneault.”

“That's good.”

“Louise Tremblay, remember, I told you I was talking to her.”

“Yeah, right,” Dougherty said. “But didn't Captain Allard talk to you?”

Legault said, “Sure, so?”

Dougherty said, “Well, maybe you should listen to him.”

There was a pause and then Legault said, “Oh, you don't want to do this?”

“I want to,” Dougherty said. “But maybe we shouldn't.”

“I'm going to.”

Dougherty squeezed the receiver till his fingers hurt. “When?”

“Tomorrow, she said when she finishes work, four thirty.”

“Where does she work?”

“UPS, it's near the airport.”

Dougherty said, “I know where it is, off the thirteen.”

“We're going to meet at the Lafleur on Côte de Liesse.”

“Okay,” Dougherty said, “I'll pick you up at your place at three thirty.”

Legault said, “Good,” and hung up.

Dougherty turned away from Judy as he hung up. He said, “I think I should do this.”

“It sounds like you've already decided to.”

Judy's French wasn't as good as Dougherty's, but he never offered to translate or asked her if she understood everything, and this was a time she didn't need to know the words to know what was being said.

“It's a good lead.”

“After Carpentier told you not to?”

“No one else will do this.”

Judy was nodding. She said, “So, I finally decide to join the establishment and now you're going to be the rebel, breaking all the rules?”

“You didn't join anything,” Dougherty said. “You're just working it from the inside.”

“That's what I'm telling myself.”

The next day the Romanian girl, Nadia Com˘aneci, scored another perfect ten and the place went crazy. There were more reporters showing up at the Forum all the time and Delisle was going crazy in the security office trying to get all the credentials approved.

Dougherty decided it would be easier to just slip away rather than ask for the time off, so at a quarter to three he was in his own car heading for the Champlain Bridge. He was scheduled to finish his shift at four anyway, though most of the guys working days were also working the four to midnight and Delisle was surprised when Dougherty turned down the overtime.

Legault was waiting in her driveway when Dougherty pulled up, and she jumped into the car.

He said, “You're getting around pretty good on that cast.”

“I'm about to tear it off,” she said. “So itchy, it's driving me crazy.”

“Have you tried driving with your left foot?”

“Didn't work.”

Dougherty laughed a little. “But you did try?”

“Of course.”

They were heading back onto the Champlain Bridge and he slowed down at the tollbooths and tossed a quarter into the basket.

Legault said, “You don't have tokens?”

“I don't cross often enough. I usually take the Victoria.”

“My husband usually throws in a slug.”

Through the tolls Dougherty stayed left and got onto the expressway heading west. On the left was the Lachine Canal lined with big factories and warehouses that had been there a hundred years or more. There was an old crane still standing from the days when coal boats came up the canal, before the St. Lawrence Seaway was expanded and LaSalle Coke had closed and a couple of the huge old buildings were empty. On the right were dozens of rail lines coming into Montreal from the west and beyond them the steep hill up to NDG.

Dougherty said, “Tourists coming for the Olympics don't get out here much.”

“Montreal is an industrial city,” Legault said. “A port city. All these factories, the oil refineries in the east end. It's not all Expo and Olympics and parties.”

There wasn't much traffic and they made good time, getting to Côte de Liesse a little after four. It was a wide four-lane boulevard mostly used by trucks coming and going to the CN train yards and Dorval Airport.

Dougherty pulled into the Lafleur Restaurant parking lot and said, “You want a hot dog?”

“Sure.
Tout garni.
”

There were picnic tables beside the small building and Legault sat down at one while Dougherty went inside and got them a couple of coffees, steamed hot dogs with mustard and onions and chopped cabbage, and fries. Afternoon shifts were finishing all over the industrial area and traffic was picking up and people were lining up at the bus stops.

“She said she might be late,” Legault said. “I don't think she wanted anyone to see us together.”

“I'm starting to get a complex,” Dougherty said. “Nobody ever wants to talk to us.”

They finished the food and sipped their coffees and watched people get on buses. Dougherty kept checking his watch and at five o'clock he said, “This is too late.”

“We should give her ten more minutes.”

It was a beautiful day, sunny and hot and even a table in a parking lot beside a busy four-lane boulevard was nice but not where Dougherty wanted to be. He said, “Five.”

Then he didn't check his watch for a while and almost fifteen minutes later said, “She's not coming, let's go to her.”

“She won't want her boss to see her talking to cops.”

“We're not in uniform, how's he going to know we're cops?”

Legault gave him a look, but she stood up and made her way to his car. “All right, but don't be pushy.”

“When am I ever pushy?”

They drove a few blocks to the big concrete UPS building, and Dougherty pulled up at the security gate and held up his ID so the guard could see it. “Police business.”

“Who do you want to see?”

Dougherty looked at Legault and she said, “Someone who works in sorting.”

The guard said, “Building B,” and lifted the gate.

Dougherty drove around the side of the building to where there were fifty or so garage doors and parked by the office door.

Inside the building it was a giant maze of conveyor belts and big white plastic bins on wheels being pushed around by people in brown uniforms.

Dougherty flagged down a guy in a turban who was pulling a stack of packages on a pallet jack and asked him in English where he could find the supervisor.

“Shipping office.” He pointed.

Dougherty tried to see what he was pointing at but there were too many boxes piled everywhere.

The guy said, “This way,” and led them between the packages like they were rows of corn in a field. After enough turns that Dougherty was pretty sure he'd never be able to find his way back, the guy said, “There,” and pointed at a closed door.

“Thanks.”

Dougherty knocked on the door and a voice from inside said, “What is it?”

Legault said, “
Bon, encore un anglais
.”

Dougherty opened the door and said, in French, “Are you the supervisor in sorting?”

A man was sitting behind a desk, looking up at them, and he said, “
Oui, c'est moi, le boss.
”

Dougherty glanced at Legault and then held the door while she made her way into the office and the conversation continued in French. Legault said they were the police and she introduced herself as Sergeant but didn't mention being from Longueuil. She added, “This is Detective Dougherty.”

The supervisor said, “What can I do for you?”

“We're looking for Louise Tremblay.”

“So am I.”

“She works in sorting.”

“She didn't come in today.”

“Did she call?”

“Nothing,” the supervisor said.

Legault said, “Is that unusual?”

“Yes, she never misses a shift. I was very surprised today when she didn't show — she's been trying to get off the night shift onto days for quite a while, and she finally does and now she doesn't show up. What's going on, is she in trouble?”

“No,” Legault said. “We just wanted to talk to her.”

“Detectives? It must be something.”

“It's about a family member,” Dougherty said. “Nothing to do with Louise directly.”

“People have to have clean records to work here,” the supervisor said. “If she's in trouble with the police we need to know.”

“It's not her,” Dougherty said as forcefully as he could without making a scene. “Don't even mention that we were here.”

“It doesn't matter,” the supervisor said. “If she doesn't come in tomorrow morning with a good excuse then she doesn't work here anymore.”

In the car driving back out past the security gate, Legault said, “That guy has too much power.”

“He just likes to use what little he's got,” Dougherty said. “Okay, do you have an address for Louise?”

“You want to go now?”

“Yeah, let's find out what's going on.”

Legault got out her notebook and said, “8445 Boulevard de l'Acadie. You know where that is?”

“Yeah,” Dougherty said. “I know it, do you?”