Black Rock (24 page)

“No, a Cougar, what's this about?”

“Do you live around here?”

Wayne said, “No.” Then he looked at Kelly. “Actually, I just came back to tell you I can't stick around tonight, I have to go.”

“Why?”

Wayne said, “Family emergency, sorry,” and walked out without looking back.

Dougherty was about to say Wayne was a shitty liar, when Jasmin said, “Well, that was a bad lie.”

Kelly looked at Dougherty and said, “Thanks a lot.”

“Yeah, you should thank him,” Jasmin said.

Kelly stopped, turned around and said, “What?”

“Come on, that guy's married.”

“No, he's not.”

Jasmin just kept looking at Kelly, then Kelly said, “I don't care,” and walked away.

“She doesn't,” Jasmin said, “tonight. But tomorrow …”

Dougherty said, “Yeah, I guess.”

“You're not married, are you?”

“No.”

He was thinking about Ruth now, how he'd like to know what she thought of this Wayne, but also how she'd look so out of place in the Hawaiian Lounge. She'd have nothing to say to someone like Jasmin, someone Dougherty found easy to talk to.

“So, do you want a drink?”

Dougherty looked at Jasmin and said, “I better get back to work.”

“Okay, but we're here till Saturday.”

“Okay.”

He walked out, trailed by Gagnon, and this time the parking lot was empty.

chapter

twenty-three

Dougherty was working a quiet Labour Day, sitting in the Station Ten parade room, getting caught up reading the alerts and old memos from HQ.

A couple of older uniform cops came in and poured themselves stale coffee, one of them was saying something about
“détention illégale de suspects”
and the other one scoffing and saying,
“Maudits juges,”
and Dougherty realized they were still talking about what a judge had said, how he'd called the whole Montreal police force sloppy and dishonest and, like the first cop said, accused them of illegally imprisoning suspects.

The cop said it again on the way out,
“Maudits juges,”
and Dougherty remembered that when the story first broke another judge had said it wasn't the
entire
police force.

He got up to pour himself a cup of coffee and thought about making a fresh pot, and then he saw a
Playboy
magazine on the counter. There was a blonde woman on the cover, wearing a tight blue sweater, a headband and holding up two fingers in a peace sign. Dougherty picked up the magazine and looked over the list of articles: an interview with Peter Fonda, the Abortion Revolution (jeez, another revolution), a “Loving Look at the No-Bra Look” and “Elke Sommer au Naturel.” He figured the blonde must be Elke Sommer, but he didn't recognize her.

On the bottom left of the cover was the sell for another article, “
Playboy
Polls the Campuses, a National Survey of Student Attitudes on Today's Major Issues” and Dougherty thought that might actually come in handy with the calls he was getting to McGill and Sir George. It might even help him get a handle on Ruth, though that seemed more doubtful.

Then a man with a French accent said, “This is what we pay you for, reading skin mags?”

It was Carpentier.

“I only read the articles,” Dougherty said.

“Really? That Elke Sommer has a great rack.”

Dougherty dropped the magazine. “I'll have to take your word for it.”

“No coffee?” Carpentier said, “Come on, let's go then.”

Dougherty followed him around the corner to the Royal.

As soon as they sat down Carpentier said, “Have you heard what happened to your friends from the Point?”

A waiter was at the table then, and Carpentier ordered a rum and Coke and looked at Dougherty.

Dougherty was going to point out he was on duty and it was ten o'clock in the morning but he said, “Just a beer, a Fifty,” and the waiter nodded and left.

Carpentier said, “So, two of the Point boys were killed in Toronto; do you know Stanley Murray and Brian Melvin?”

“I know Allison Melvin. She might be a sister.”

“She might be. The two men were killed by the Toronto police, shot while they were in an antique store. They had robbed a bank the day before.”

“In Toronto?”

“Yes.”

The waiter arrived with their drinks.

“Melvin just got out of jail in May. Do you remember, he shot that constable from Station Four?”

“When was that?”

“A few years ago, maybe five?”

“I wasn't here then.”

“Okay, he went in then and just got out,” Carpentier said. “So this means there will be changes with the Point boys — opportunities, promotions.”

“I guess so.”

“It could go well for your friend, what's his name?”

“Buckley.”

“They've been running a scam with truckers, they're buying heating oil and reselling it.”

“What?”

“It's the same product,” Carpentier said, “but the truck fuel has a tax added, twenty-five cents a gallon. The Point boys, not just them, the Italians, too — they're buying the heating oil for nineteen cents a gallon and selling it to truckers for forty cents and not paying the tax.”

“Do the truckers know?”

Carpentier shrugged, “Who cares?” He finished off his drink and looked around for the waiter. “You want another?”

Dougherty had barely touched his beer. “I'm fine.”

The waiter took Carpentier's empty glass without saying a word.

“It's a good scam,” Carpentier said.

“How do you know about it?”

“There hasn't been much terrorist action,” Carpentier said, “but we're still bringing in informants. Life goes on, you know?”

“I know.”

The waiter brought Carpentier another drink.

“We can't be on this task force forever; we'll have to get back to work soon. I wanted you to know your friend might be in a better position soon, and if he's in a better position, you're in a better position.”

“I haven't talked to him in weeks,” Dougherty said.

Carpentier looked surprised. “You should be buying drug from him every week.”

“I've been busy.”

“We're all busy,” Carpentier said.

“What about Bill?”

“Bill who?”

Dougherty stared at Carpentier for a few seconds and then said, “The guy who's killed five women in the last year.”

Carpentier shook his head. “His name's not Bill.”

“What?”

Another long drink, almost draining the glass. “The girl at the jewellery store, the other one who work there, Susan Bentley, she saw Bill again so she call us and we pick him up but it wasn't him.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes, we're sure, we talk to him. It's not him.”

“So, who made the date with Marielle?”

Carpentier shrugged. “We don't know. The girls at the store, they see a lot of men, they got them mixed up.”

“So you've been working on this?”

“Of course we have.”

“Has there been anything else?”

“No. What about you, did you find out anything more about the Lincoln?”

“No.”

“Well,” Carpentier said, “keep looking. But also, go and talk to your friend in the Point, tell him that you've heard talk about the fuel oil scam and to be careful.”

“You want me to warn him?”

“Sure, be his friend. Tell him they're being watched more, the Point Boys. They know it, I'm sure, they're moving up, you know. But let him know.”

Dougherty said, “Okay, sure. Be his friend.”

Carpentier dropped a few bills on the table. “And don't say anything to the other guys, just keep it to yourself.”

“Sure, yeah, of course.” Dougherty finished off his beer and stood up himself.

Walking out, Dougherty wondered if Carpentier agreed with that judge who said the Montreal cops were sloppy and dishonest. Then he wondered why he was so sure Carpentier was being straight up.

Shit. No way to know really.

It wasn't until the weekend that Dougherty got to the Point to talk to Buck-Buck and everybody was talking about the hijackings — four planes in one day, all headed for New York. Three of them ended up in the desert in Jordan,
310
hostages.

Enough to keep Carpentier and the rest of the detectives on the anti-terrorist squad till Christmas, whether anything was happening in Montreal or not.

Danny Buckley wasn't in the Arawana, but a couple of the younger Higgins brothers were. They stared at Dougherty and he stared back. The whole thing had a kind of first-inning feel to it, like they all knew there was a lot more game to be played. Nothing would be decided for a while.

After a minute standing by the door, Dougherty turned and walked out.

He drove up and down Wellington a couple of times and along St. Patrick past the Northern Electric plant, a few thousand people in there making telephones, and he wondered if he might have been one of them if his family hadn't moved out of the Point.

Northern Electric or CN or the Canada Packers plant. One of them, anyway.

Or would he be like Danny Buckley or the Murphy kids or the Higginses, looking for a bigger score?

Dougherty parked his Mustang and walked through the neighbourhood, making sure not to walk down Coleraine so he wouldn't have to pass the Webber place and maybe see Arlene.

He looked in on Nap's and a couple other places, then stepped into the One and Two on Butler and found Danny Buckley standing at the bar by himself.

Dougherty walked up to him and said, “They get them yet?”

Buckley was looking at the black-and-white TV flickering behind the bar, and he didn't take his eyes off it. “Fuckin' ragheads.”

On TV was a scene in some desert in the Middle East, where three of the hijacked planes had been taken. Walter Cronkite was talking but the sound was off.

“The Americans going in?”

“Don't know what they're waiting for.”

On the day of the hijackings one plane had landed in London. One of the hijackers was killed and another, a woman, was arrested. Another plane landed in Cairo and when everybody got off one of the hijackers detonated explosives he'd brought on and blew up the empty plane.

Now the whole world was watching the last three planes in the desert and waiting.

Buckley turned to Dougherty and said, “What can I do for you, officer?”

“Or what can I do for you?”

Buckley turned back to look at the TV, and Dougherty said, “There's a lot of talk about the fuel oil scam.”

Buckley didn't budge.

“You're being watched a lot more these days.”

“Oh yeah?” Buckley said, turning his head slowly to look at Dougherty and then nodding slightly towards the TV. “You're not watching all the terrorists here. They must be watching this, too, getting some ideas.”

“Ideas they've got,” Dougherty said, “it's balls they don't.”

Buckley gave a little shrug, “But they're stupid — that usually makes up for it.”

“Maybe.”

“So,” Buckley said, “you looking for some more hash?”

“Have you got any? That's not screwing up your supply?” Another glance at the TV. And now Dougherty noticed a lot of Jeeps driving away from the planes.

“They're letting some of the hostages go,” Buckley said. “They're just keeping the Jews it looks like.”

“Figures.”

“They think they can do anything, because they always have the Jews to blame.”

Dougherty heard something at the door and turned to see a couple of guys coming in, both wearing identical leather jackets. One of the guys made eye contact with Buckley, and then the two guys in leather sat down in a booth against the far wall.

As they were sitting, Dougherty saw the jackets both had big insignias on the backs, some kind of skull and fire in the middle, the word
Devil's
across the top and
Disciples
across the bottom. It took Dougherty a second to realize they were the same gang Rozovsky had mentioned at Atwater Park, the ones in the fight with the guys calling themselves the Popeyes.

It sounded like something out of a movie, Marlon Brando being a tough guy, but Dougherty got the ­feeling these guys were for real.

Buckley said, “I have to talk to somebody, but go over to the Arawana parking lot around eleven — somebody'll meet you.”

Dougherty said okay and started to leave, then he stopped and looked back at Buckley. “You know anybody drives a Lincoln?”

“Like a limo?”

“No, a white Lincoln with a black roof, what do you call it, brougham? I'm looking for the guy driving it.”

“You a fag now, Dougherty?” Buckley said. “Looking to get laid?”

Dougherty said, “Fuck you,” but then he said, “If you see the Lincoln, let me know,” and walked out while Buckley went to meet with the two Devil's Disciples.

Outside there were two motorcycles, Harleys, parked right in front.

It was just after ten, so Dougherty didn't have too much time to kill before he drove to the Arawana and parked behind the one-storey brick building. He got out of the car and leaned against it, smoking a cigarette.

A few guys went into the bar and a few guys came out, but no one looked at Dougherty.

Now a guy was walking towards him, not coming from the bar but from further up Bridge Street. Dougherty didn't recognize him, but he was the kind of guy you could never pick out of a lineup, because he looked like every other twenty-year-old: long hair, scraggly beard, jeans, jean jacket.

The guy said, “You want a dime?” and Dougherty said yeah, and handed him a couple of fives. The guy handed Dougherty the tinfoil ball and walked away.

Dougherty got in his car and started it and sat there for a minute. So this was it now? Buck-Buck already getting too big to do the deals himself, working with biker gangs and moving up in the Point Boys.

Driving out of the Point past the row houses and corner stores and bars and over the bridge across the Lachine Canal, heading up the hill towards downtown, he was thinking maybe Carpentier was right, it could be good for Dougherty's career, getting in on the ground floor with these guys.

Wasn't helping him catch the bastard who killed Brenda Webber and the other women, but that was feeling like old news now.

And that felt wrong.