River City (103 page)

Houde raised an eyebrow and touched a finger to his big nose. “Le
Chef,”
he declared, which was the truth. “Who else? For my loyalty at the end of my career, and also, to keep an eye on these guys. Nobody trusts anyone here, but I am the old mayor, and if there is to be deceit on this evening, I will speak of it, and be believed. Now, show us the knife.”

Duplessis would never come on his own, nor could he trust the Nazi, who might abscond with the dagger worth unknown millions. Fencing ancient relics and paintings kept Nazis well heeled down south. The relic would be right up their alley. As far as Roger could tell, Duplessis now had at least
three representatives on site, four if he counted himself, and five, possibly, because—who knows?—he probably had a hand up Laurin’s spine as well.

He removed the Cartier Dagger from his inner coat pocket. He unwrapped it from the kerchief.

Perhaps because he knew him best, Roger first handed the knife to Houde. The light that caught the old mayor’s face came from a travelling ambulance, yet he seemed to glow, his smile emerging at the corners of his mouth to become the expansive grin he’d made so famous. The least likely to be at a loss for words, he said only, “Yes. Yes.”

He passed the knife to Laurin.

Who said nothing. His evaluation seemed scientific, as though discerning authenticity. He passed the knife to Michel Vimont, who immediately presented it to de Bernonville. But the count refused to receive it, saying, “I can see we’ve got it.”

Roger took the dagger back from Vimont.

More sirens. Fire trucks eastbound on Dorchester, chased by an ambulance. The men awaited the uproar’s end, as it was a nuisance to speak above the wail. Roger saw Father François emerge from beyond the Burns statue behind the conspirators.

Suddenly, just as the trucks sped by, a bellow from a crowd on Ste. Catherine echoed off the face of buildings and resonated in the smoky air. “What was that?” Roger asked.

The others had grown accustomed to such outbursts on this night, and did not react. Vimont shrugged. Out of the dark, Father François chose to answer him. “A mob,” he declared, “engaged in its idea of fun. Roger, might I not also view the dagger?”

“Who’re you?” de Bernonville demanded.

Vimont told him, “He’s a priest. You’ve met before.”

“When? What priest?”

“Asbestos,” Vimont said, and de Bernonville nodded. “Father François Legault, sir. Not exactly at your service. But I am here in service of the Cartier Dagger, and in the service of the Holy Mother Church.”

“This is no place for a priest, Father,” Houde scolded him. “Anyway, you’re more communist than cleric.”

“This is no place for the former mayor of Montreal,” Father François shot back. “Nor is this any place for the eminent Dr. Laurin, or a Nazi already barred from this country.”

The last thing anyone wanted here was to be identified.

“What do you want, Father?” Laurin asked him.

“Why,” the priest said, as though the news should come as no shock, “the knife. The Cartier Dagger. For the greater glory of the Holy Church. Would you like to show it to me, Roger?”

“Father, I’ve already promised it to these men.”

The priest smiled then. He was standing a little higher than the others, on the monument’s base. “Roger, Roger, Roger,” he said, and shook his head. “From the time of Maisonneuve, who with Jeanne Mance held this knife in trust, through Étienne Brulé, Dollard des Ormeaux and Radisson, the knife has honoured those blessed with its possession. Such men and women achieved the impossible. Initially, their cause was spiritual. Our duty must be to return the dagger to its true vocation. The greater Church, the one that we have yet to create, ought to be the next recipient, to protect the welfare of the souls of this land.”

“Fine words for a priest,” Houde remarked. “I say the Church is rich enough, Father. But I’ll come to you next time for my confession. I’ll sing you an opera.”

“You can begin right now, if you like. What are you doing here, Mr.

Mayor?”

Houde chortled again. “Father, I was out on a walk to discover what was happening to my beloved city. As so many are doing this evening. From a distance, I spotted Roger here—a man I’d recognize at a thousand paces. We spent years together in an interment camp, did you know? Seeing him, of course, I came up to greet him. Shall I say a rosary, Father, for the impudence of talking to a friend? What kind of priest are you to war against civility and friendship in this way?”

“The picket line boss,” de Bernonville said, remembering him from Asbestos. “He’s a rioter. Out tonight to smash store windows.”

“A Nazi would know,” Father François retorted.

“If you want to turn the dagger over to
his
church, Roger,” de Bernonville kept up, “you might as well give it to the Communist Party.”

“So you suggest that he give it to the old regimes of Houde and Duplessis instead?” the priest parried. “The has-beens? Duplessis’s darkness pervades the land. Houde, you’ve had your day. You’re not coming back.”

“A has-been? You must be talking about the Church, Father,” Houde retaliated in a swift fury. “Roger! Give us the knife! Your compensation is assured!”

“The Church is also capable of compensation—”

“For a stolen object?” Laurin spoke up. “What church is this, Father?”

Father François shrugged. “Whoever owns the object will do so in secrecy. Whoever pays compensation will be cautious doing so. If the relic is to be tied to the spiritual destiny of its people, the Church of Rome will intercede to protect it from being pilfered by fanatics.”

“Rome!” de Bernonville burst out. “Now, Rome?”

The portly priest vaguely nodded. “As always, jurisdictions overlap. Yes, you are not dealing with a lowly priest in his cassock. As you can see, I’m not wearing mine. There’s a more formidable front than you can imagine that stands against you. The unions, too. It’s an alliance, shall we say.”

“More commies.”

“With cash. Roger, take note. You, de Bernonville, take note: with cash.”

De Bernonville took a stride forward and, for the first time that evening, smiled. “You lack imagination, priest. Not only you, but these others.”

“How so?” The priest was also smiling, willing to debate.

“Roger, let me see the knife to prove my point. I didn’t have a chance to touch it before.”

Confident that he could recover it easily, Roger allowed the count to receive the dagger onto the leather gloves of his opened palms. The former torturer handled it delicately.

“Priest,” de Bernonville stated, “see this.” The count walked over to the monument and passed the knife to Father François, who removed one mitt and stuck it under his arm, to better feel the blade and handle. “You see,
Father? Stone and bone. Animal hair. There’s no magic. You have not been transformed. You’re still a lowly priest and a pitiful communist.” “And you’re still a Nazi.”

De Bernonville took the knife back in his gloved hand. “Gestapo, let’s not forget. Proud of it, too. By the way, Father,” the count mentioned as he walked away from him, returning the knife to Roger, “thanks for gracing the dagger with your fingerprints.” He swiftly spun. As he completed the turn, his grip on the knife changed. He reared back and, whirling like a dervish, thrust the blade deep into the chest and heart of Roger Clément, up to the hilt. Roger remained standing, his mouth agape, his hands upraised as if in supplication, one upholding the kerchief as a flag of mercy, and as he staggered forward a few clumsy steps the others, in their shock, fell away. Father François pushed forward and grabbed him. Roger died while still on his feet, and the priest could not hold him up, although, illogically, he tried to do so, as though keeping him on his feet would dispute his death. In falling, the body twisted slightly, a last gesture towards redemption, and Roger collapsed into the arms of his bewildered friend, Michel Vimont, who eased his form to the ground.

He lay below the back of the Scottish poet.

The count’s smile slowly broadened. “Pull the knife out of him,” he directed Vimont.

As though in a trance, the driver also put his bare hands on the knife, but he could not extract it. The blade seemed stuck, or perhaps he lacked the gumption to do it. “I can’t,” he declared.

The count cried out, “Squeamish, weak bastards!” and shoved him aside.

“Hey!” bellowed a voice in the park, from towards the Sun Life Building. “What’s going on?”

They all glanced up just as the count bent down to extract the blade. The man who’d shouted was running away towards a cluster of cops on the steps of the Sun Life.

“Shit,” Houde whispered, his voice sounding distant and hollow, but at least he was emerging from paralysis.

Father François commenced mumbling last rites. “It’s stuck!” the count lamented.

“Why did you do that? You didn’t have to kill him,” Vimont complained. He implored the count with his hands, pumping them up and down, palms up. “You could’ve had the knife without doing that.”

“He’s a fucking communist.”

“So what?” Houde argued. “Anyway, he’s not. He’s just a thug—a friend of mine.”

“I saw your friend operate at Asbestos. He would’ve betrayed us, I have no doubt.”

Laurin cried out, “Here comes a cop. Run!” He tucked his political career between his legs and heeded his own advice. Vimont, scarcely involved and terrified of prison, lit out as well.

As though drawn by the vacuum the speed of their flight created, Houde hobbled after them. He had not run in twenty years, but he was still the occasional skater, and his legs gathered momentum, beginning to churn under him. His arms commenced pumping.

Finally, de Bernonville, fearing extradition to France and charges of war crimes if captured, quit trying to extract the knife. He ran, and when the priest looked up from his chore, he saw the policeman approaching fast and realized that he alone remained the object of the cop’s charge. He remembered his fingerprints on the weapon and the count’s words on the subject, and ran himself. He did not know what else to do. He had been here to procure a stolen object, and the man who was in league with him to foil the others now lay dead. He ran. They all headed for Peel, and the policeman kept pursuing them even after he had passed Roger Clément’s body, but each man was soon lost in the rampant, shouting riot, escaping into the frenzy of raring men and boys reducing the city to litter and flames as best as they were able.

The nearest to being captured, Father François threw in his lot with a wildly hooting ragamuffin crew, whose miscreants appeared to have an appetite for flesh. The policemen did not want to chase anyone into that cop-hating mob, so he chose to retreat, not unwisely, to care for the man who lay in a lonely, crumpled heap upon a statue’s base.

The cop discovered that the man was surely dead. He shouted to fellow officers for help, and a few idled over. While waiting, not wanting to look at
the corpse, the first he’d ever seen, he read the English words on the face of the monument, not certain of what they might mean.

it’s comin’ yet for a’ that
that man to man the world o’er
shall brithers be for a’ that

The lines didn’t look like any sort of English he knew.

His bowels, his chest, his legs threatened to implode. He was not supposed to exert himself, and Father François Legault did his best to slow down to a pace he might survive. His heart felt crushed. In their floppy boots, his feet keened in abysmal agony. He suspected that he might soon collapse.

Fear of facing his maker in this circumstance kept him alive, kept him running for his life.

What had he done?
What had he done?
What had he gotten himself into?
You idiot.
And not only himself, but Father Joe, too, the former archbishop. If he was caught—they’d check his files. They’d read the letters to Father Joe. His notes. Never had it occurred to him that he’d been incriminating himself—and Father Joe—through his correspondence, but any investigation into his rectory would surrender embarrassing details of their scheme.

His fingerprints. What could be done about his fingerprints? He’d been arrested so often on picket lines or at demonstrations, the cops would find a match. How could he explain this? He’d soon be up on murder charges.

Jogging down Ste. Catherine Street, finally stammering to a stop, he bent over, panting, even as his lungs threatened to tear at the seams. His heart felt like pure, compressed pain unleashed.
Oh dear Lord. I need an alibi now.
What he did not need was for people to see him on the run. Thank God he was not in his cassock. That would have been a sight. The fat priest in flight down the centre of a public riot. Catching his breath, Father François thanked God for that particular leniency. He had gone to the park in civilian clothes not only
because they were his preferred proletarian dress, but because he had intended to commit a profane act—taking possession of stolen property. Now those clothes helped him blend in.

He took note of things, and stopped briefly to counsel the wounded, officers and rioters alike, to not beat up their fellow Quebecers. He knew that he was being an ass, yet they might remember him that way. Both sides told him to go … and engage in activity unbecoming for a priest. Noticing people milling around a burning car, he did his best to shoo them away, in case it exploded. He didn’t want them to kill themselves, but also, who knows, someone might remember him, confirm his innocent presence during the riot.

The grim sight returned to his mind’s eye. Roger Clément, dead. What would he say to his widow? To the poor child, the man’s daughter? He should have squelched the scheme from the outset, but his damn politics, his ambitions, his desire to effect real change—what had that gotten him but the death of a valiant soul, a man trying to do a good deed for his family, his people and his Church? Roger’s adventure had killed him, and his own adventure had made him an accomplice to the murder. Bad enough, but it might have been worse if those fascist bastards had made off with the knife. That it remained stuck in Roger’s heart indicated at least a measure of spiritual justice. The knife had refused to be abducted by men of that ilk.