Face/Mask (32 page)

Sévigny raised his eyebrows in a look that expressed his surprise. Then he took Janus by the arm and moved him away from where a small group of policeman was standing and watching them. He spoke in a low, but harsh, voice.

“I didn’t expect you to be grateful,
Monsieur
Janus
,
but this hostility on your part is quite unexpected.”

“Damn right, I’m not grateful. I don’t need to spend my days waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is that your idea of fun?”

“But the shoe may never drop. I said I
may
be calling on you in the future. Then again, I may not.”

“I don’t get it. What game are you up to? You’re a Division Head; you should be throwing my ass in jail right now.”

Sévigny folded his arms across his barrel chest and looked down for a few seconds, pursing his lips. Eventually he raised his head to look Janus in the eyes.

“As a general rule I don’t feel obliged to explain my reasons for doing what I do. In fact, I don’t know that I’m going to truly explain them even now. Suffice it to say that I could put you in jail tonight, as you said. I could even have you disappear into a foreign hellhole the likes of which you can’t imagine. But I choose not to
,
for the simple reason that it’s in my power to choose not to.

“I know where you live, and where you work. I know about your wife and your three sons, and the woman you like to screw each week. I even know you informed on your uncle. Sorry; your wife’s uncle. So, maybe I don’t have to throw you in jail because you are already in jail of sorts. Or is that too abstract for you?”

He sighed and shook his head, and Janus wondered if the man even understood his own motivations.

“Maybe I won’t throw you in jail,” Sévigny went on, “because whether you go to jail or not, whether you live or not, just doesn’t matter to the rest of the world. You have been trying so hard to undo the damage you’ve caused that it puzzles me. I can’t for the life of me figure out why you bother. Don’t you get it? Haven’t you seen enough to understand? Nothing you do matters. You don’t have the power to change anything in the world. So why should I arrest you, something which in the grand scheme of things is totally irrelevant? To be frank, I don’t feel like being irrelevant right now.”

Janus heard the policeman, but understood none of it. How could nothing he did matter? Was the policeman being honest, or just pulling his leg? Janus had no way to find out, because Sévigny reached out to grasp his shoulders and turned him around.

“
Bonne soir, Monsieur
Janus,” he said, with a gentle shove toward the elevators.

October 11, 2039:

Sévigny had never been in the office of a Deputy Minister before. He was surprised how much expensive furniture there was, including a huge desk that looked like real mahogany, as well as two leather sofas and a long glass coffee table.

Somebody’s been ignoring the administration’s austerity bulletins
.

Prescott, dwarfed by the huge chair in which he sat on the opposite side of the desk, evidently noticed Sévigny’s expression as he looked around the office.

“Quite ostentatious wouldn’t you say,
Monsieur
Sévigny? I’ve learned that the size of a public official’s office is inversely proportional to the importance of the work he does.”

“I’m sure your work here is very useful, sir.”

“Please,” Prescott rolled his eyes, “if I didn’t maintain my interest in security matters I would have jumped through that ridiculously huge window months ago.”

Sévigny smiled knowingly, while nodding toward the window. “Must have been quite a view here once, before the air became so, umm…”

“Visible?”

Sévigny laughed at the dark humour, something he rarely felt the urge to do in Prescott’s presence. He was feeling quite good about himself, and had every intention of continuing to feel that way no matter what Prescott’s reaction was to his news. Of course the news he intended to give to Prescott was an edited version of the truth. Edited, because Prescott was to be kept out of the loop concerning certain topics, but also because there were some things that were in Sévigny’s best interest not to tell him.

He tugged lightly at his left sleeve in order to get a clearer view of his wrist-screen. A double tap enlarged the writing that now hovered an inch over his fore-arm. He had written nothing in his report concerning the missing info-chip. Schultz had made it clear that nobody outside the highest levels of the Security Directorate or the RCMP was to be made aware that it existed.

“We’re still waiting for Allen Janus to contact Roger Chaloux of the
Palais de Justice
Division,” Sévigny said, aware that this would not be the last time he would lie to the former prosecutor. “He’s supposed to hand over $100,000 in cash. This money is to pay off Chaloux and two others who worked directly on the Pizzi investigation. Obviously, as we are pre-informed, the officers will be arrested as soon as the transaction takes place.”

“$100,000 for three people,” Prescott mumbled, as if speaking to himself. “I wonder how they will divide it up.”

Sévigny looked up from his report at Prescott, who sat with his head back and his eyes closed. For a moment he wondered if Prescott might know that the money had already changed hands under Sévigny’s watchful eye. Prescott’s bored expression told him he had nothing to worry about. Prescott didn’t suspect that Chaloux had passed the money up the line to Sévigny, nor that Sévigny had allowed the three policemen to take $10,000 each. He’d kept the other $70,000 for himself, as payment for not having them all thrown in jail.

No reason not to let them have a little taste
.
They might be useful down the road
.

He turned his eyes back to the report.

“My understanding is that Janus still has some money to pay off, um, someone from Security Prosecutions,” he said, unsure how Prescott would react to the allegation of corruption in his old office. Again, the Deputy Minister just sat there unmoving, eyes still closed.

“Anyway,” Sévigny continued, “it’s unlikely that he, Janus that is, will make any payments in that direction once his police contacts are detained. He’ll be more worried about his own impending arrest at that point.

“In the meantime, the arrest of Janus’s uncle has not provided us with anything which we didn’t already know. And not much of that, either. It might well be that his role, if anything, in this underground movement, was quite limited.”

“You don’t think he was aware of Cirillo’s more radical connections?”

“Oh, he helped in the fund-raising, and in procuring some basic goods for the camps. Nothing that we need to worry about.”

“But he is a smuggler,” Prescott growled.

“
Oui, monsieur
. And we are keeping him detained, as you are aware. But I don’t believe that he is a danger to the administration.”

“
Monsieur
Sévigny. Please allow me to decide who is a danger to the administration and who is not. Minor smugglers can quickly evolve into major criminals. There can be no latitude when it comes to those who exploit any chinks in the administration’s armour.”

“As I said, sir, he has been charged and is being detained without bail. But we have to prioritize our resources. My…
our
interest in Pizzi is limited.”

“And what about Cirillo himself? Surely his activities make him more than a minor smuggler.”

“He’s deceased, sir. I’m afraid we were unable to get much information from him.”

“Oh, yes. I heard that some idiot was a little too enthusiastic with his interrogation methods.”

“That agent has been reprimanded, sir.”

“He should be shot…then fired.” Prescott smiled at his attempt at humour, before continuing. “Anyway, I’m sure you’ll pick up the remnants of Cirillo’s group in no time.”

Sévigny closed the report on his wrist-screen and stood up. He had nothing more he wanted to tell Prescott. He was certain the Deputy Minister had complete confidence in him; if not for his competence, at least for his honesty. The recovered bribe money need never come to his attention.

As for the classified information that Schultz had asked him about, Sévigny was certain that it had never entered his jurisdiction. Months after that first cryptic phone call with the Homeland Security Czar, Sévigny’s sources had been unable to find a trace of it despite his constant pressure on them to come up with some sort of news. He would have liked to know if Prescott’s connections could have come up with anything, but as long as Schultz wanted this kept secret, he’d keep the former prosecutor out of the loop. He walked out of Prescott’s office without another word.

Janus hated coming back to the Detention Center. Between the cameras and the transparent walls he felt as if every secret he’d ever had was exposed. The feeling was amplified by his knowledge that the bribery plan had failed. It had been 24 hours with no news from Sévigny, and Janus was beginning to believe that the policeman really intended to leave him alone.

Joe, looking even frailer than he had just a week earlier, sat across from Janus with his eyes downcast.

“Did the lawyer speak to you?”

Joe shrugged his shoulders and looked away, his unfocused eyes drifting around the room.

“Joe,” Janus repeated. “I need you to listen to me. The plan didn’t work. I’m not sure why.”

“What plan?”

Janus looked again toward the guard, then leaned in close to the metal grill below the glass divider.

“We were supposed to bribe some cops. To get you out of here.”

Joe’s eyes opened wide, but he said nothing.

“It looks like that Chaloux guy took the money and turned it in,” Janus continued. “But they haven’t arrested me yet, so I’m not sure what the hell’s going on.”

An expression of concern appeared on Joe’s tired face.

“Allen, are you now in trouble?”

Janus was taken aback by Joe
’s concern
. While he’d been up nights worrying first about Chaloux, and then about Sévigny, he hadn’t expected Joe, in his situation and in his obviously fragile emotional state, to either notice or care.

“Jesus, don’t worry about me,” he protested a little louder than he’d intended, immediately drawing the attention of the guards. He lowered his voice and said, “We have to concentrate on your defence.”

“What is my defence, Allen? They have ways to prove whatever they want.”

“Don’t talk like that. Maybe I can be character witness for you. Tell the court what a great person you are and that you don’t really understand how things work in Canada. Silver said in some cases the sentence can be brought down to five or six years for a first offence. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”

Joe sniffed and looked down, clearly unable to find the optimism to match Janus’s.

“Allen, you cannot be character witness for me.”

“What’re you talking about? Of course I can be a witness. I’m an administration official with an exemplary record. Silver said I’d be a great character witness.”

“This Silver is stupid in the head!” Joe answered with more strength than Janus thought he had left in him. “If you are witness will they not ask you about how you let me go to meet Tony? Will they not say you must know what people living in your house do? How do you keep your exemplary record then?”

“Joe, I’m not worried about my damn record. I’m trying to help you.”

“Allen, I am in here a month and already I know more about Canadian law than you or stupid lawyer. You are accomplice with me. If you go in court you will have to say you know I buy food without required stamps from Antonio for many months, yes? But you will deny knowing that Antonio and me help people that the administration does not want us to help. They will say that this is not true. They will say you know what he is doing. That you know what I am doing. Why are they going to believe that you take such a risk just so that I can buy fresh food?”

“But they haven’t charged me with anything.”

“This can change, Allen. Because you are Director they give you favour. They do not want to embarrass themselves, so they do not mention your name. But if you are witness for me maybe they decide to arrest you. Or maybe you are lucky, and they just fire you from job that gives you exemplary record.”

“But I can’t just sit by and do nothing,” Janus argued.

“You have done very much, Allen. You get me lawyer and now you take chance to pay policeman. You give me your friendship so I do not feel alone. This is not nothing. Now,
basta!
I do not let you do anything more for me.”

Janus bowed his head, conceding to the logic of Joe’s arguments. He’d come here knowing Joe’s chances were close to hopeless, but had clung to the idea that he could still do something to help. It would have made Terry and the boys even prouder of him. Yet, here was Joe, refusing his help despite his own desperate situation because he wouldn’t let Janus risk his career. The man was breaking down in front of him, but when he sensed the danger to Janus he forgot all about himself, and told Janus to leave him in jail.