Fool's Gold (11 page)

She said to come right over so I took a cab, directing the driver in French, which was my mother's native language. My French is good enough that the driver took me for a local and spent the trip beefing about the black Haitians who had cornered the cab-driving market. Racism isn't a peculiarity of WASPs, despite what you read in the newspapers.
 

Carol answered the door as soon as I knocked. She was wearing a black dress that looked too chic to be widow's weeds, and her makeup was perfect. I figured she was going out for dinner. I've never been close to her, despite her friendship with my ex, but close enough that we exchanged French-style kisses on the cheek. I got a whiff of her perfume and guessed my estimate was dead right. She was loaded for bear. "Come in, please," she said, smiling like a geisha girl, all formality, no warmth. I followed her into the living room, furnished in the kind of spare elegance you see in the magazines that dentists keep on their waiting room tables. The most conspicuous item in it was a man—tall, dark, with that elegant, hollow-cheeked look that French movie stars cultivate. He was holding what looked like a Dubonnet on the rocks. Lover-boy, I figured.
 

I don't expect people to leap to their feet when I come into a room, but most guys would make some kind of gesture of recognition. He didn't. He drew on his cigarette and looked bored.
 

Carol introduced him. His name was Henri Laval. He stood up to shake hands but kept his cigarette dead center in his mouth. He also tried to crush my hand, but I didn't do anything about it.
 

"
M'sieu
," he said. He looked like a suit advertisement.
 

"Reid Bennett. Glad to know you." I didn't think Carol knew I spoke French and kept the news to myself; it could prove useful.

It did, almost at once. "This is the policeman you told me about. His feet are big enough," he said to her in rapid French, smiling at me divinely at the same time.
 

I smiled back. "And you must be a lawyer, your head's plenty big enough," I said, in English.

He was cool enough to laugh, while Carol gasped in embarrassment. "I apologize," he said. "It is an old expression, and you are very much a policeman."
 

I beamed back. There's nothing like being one up to bring out your good nature. "I assume you're Carol's lawyer."

He blew smoke through his nostrils and stubbed his cigarette as if he had suddenly realized the cancer stories were for real. "And friend," he said ambiguously.
 

Carol fussed about getting me a drink and I took rye and water and we sat and looked at one another until Henri was finally curious enough to ask, "What brings you to Montreal? This sad business of poor Jim?"
 

"Yes." I sipped my drink and let him think about that for a minute. He said nothing so I pushed on. "I understand that you identified Jim when he was found."
 

He shrugged, an expression that painted a picture of his selfless devotion to helping the poor widow. What else could a friend have done?
 

I glanced at Carol. She was very carefully pushed into the back of her armchair, about as relaxed as a heart patient waiting to hear the prognosis. "I'm sorry, Carol, I have to ask some questions that may disturb you. Do you mind?"
 

She fluttered a look at Henri, then back at me, and shook her head silently. I nodded my acknowledgment and bored in with the first one. "How certain were you that the remains were his?" I asked Henri.
 

"Really," he said angrily. "This is very distressing for Carol."

"That's why I apologized in advance," I reminded him politely. "Sudden death is always distressing. I'm asking for a very good reason."
 

Now it was his turn to look at her. He was the perfect gentleman in that glance, anxious to spare her suffering, impatient with this big-footed policeman, certain of the truth. I waited, and at last he turned back to me.
 

"I was absolutely certain," he said.

"Did you check anything other than the clothes he wore?"

He frowned at that one. "I do not understand."

"Well, I wondered if Jim had any identifying marks, scars, tattoos, anything that made you certain."

Carol spoke now, her voice high and reedy like a soprano sax. "Jim didn't have any marks like that." She was very eager to give me the news.
 

I nodded thanks and smiled. "Of course, you would know, Carol, but I wondered whether there was anything else than his clothes used to identify him. Understand that I'm just being careful."
 

Henri took out cigarettes—Gauloises, of course—and lit one, making an angry little pantomime of it. "
M'sieu
," he said coldly, "if you had seen poor Jim's remains for yourself, you would have realized that the only way to identify him was by the clothes. He had been mauled by a bear." He broke off and spoke soothingly to Carol, "Forgive me, Carol, this is painful." Then to me again, "You have never seen anything so terrible."
 

I had, plenty of times, in Nam and since, but this wasn't the time for tall stories so I continued. "You will appreciate, as a legal authority, that anybody could have been wearing those clothes."
 

He was suddenly all lawyer. He stood up and walked up and down as if I was a jury he had to convince. "And this 'anybody,' he made Jim disappear and then dressed in Jim's clothes and was eaten by a bear?"
 

"I have a witness who can swear that Jim was seen alive after you had identified the body," I said.

Carol slopped white wine down her cocktail dress and gasped in horror. Henri turned to stare at me in fury. "Produce this witness," he said. He suddenly gave up on English and spoke rapidly in French. "My God. This poor woman is just being reconciled to the fact that her husband of ten years is dead and now this imbecile comes here with these stories."
 

I waited until he stopped, then went on, in English. "No, I don't believe it, either, but that's why I came to see you. I wondered how thorough your identification had been."
 

"Thorough enough," he said. He sat down and crossed his legs, like a girl who has lost an argument. "I do not wish to pursue this unpleasant conversation any further."
 

"Did you, for instance, take an imprint of his teeth and compare it with his dental records?"

He threw up his hands. "My God, what are you saying? Do you suspect me of complicity in some crime?"

"Just a question," I said amiably. "If the incident had happened in my own area I would have taken a dental imprint and compared it with Jim's records. It's routine practice. I wondered if you'd done it, that's all."
 

He sucked on his cigarette as if it were an air hose. "There wasn't enough left to get an impression," he said.

"The top jaw was intact. I saw the photograph." I was polite, reasonable, but he stayed mad.

"If you have ever seen a friend as badly hurt as poor Jim had been, you wouldn't put anybody through such suggestions," he said snottily. This time I handed it back to him.
 

"I appreciate how you feel. It happened to me many times in a war I fought in. Please excuse the unpleasantness. I am only doing it because there may be a chance that Jim is alive."
 

Carol got up and fled the room. We both stood up automatically and Henri followed her a few paces before turning back to me, shaking his head in disbelief at my behavior. For myself, I was beginning to wonder whether Carol was upset by the thought that Jim might sweep her into his arms again at some point or whether she was wishing he would stay dead.
 

Henri spoke first. He put out his cigarette and this time dropped a lot of playacting as well. "What do you intend to do?" he asked quietly.
 

"Well, I'd like to make a comparison between Jim's teeth, at least the teeth on the body, and Jim's records," I said, just as quietly.
 

He looked at me unblinkingly. "And to do that you would" —he searched for the word—"disinter the body?"

"If necessary. It's grisly, I know, but there is a witness who saw Jim days after that body was found."

He uncrossed his legs and sat looking down at his knees for a moment, straightening his creases with tiny little tugs. When he looked up there was a hint of his original arrogance in his eyes. "I'm afraid it's too late," he explained. "The remains have been cremated."
 

I sat and smiled back, saying nothing, wanting to find out what he would do next. He savored his triumph for about thirty seconds and then decided I wasn't impressed enough. "So you see,
M'sieu
, it is too late. Carol does not have to go through the distasteful experience."
 

I pulled out the envelope which I had folded, carefully, so that the imprint of the bite wasn't creased. "She won't have to anyway. I have an impression of that jaw, right here. All I want from you is the name of Jim's dentist."
 

I guess he'd seen all the right movies. He knew exactly how to take the statement. "What a relief for everybody concerned," he said. "No need for all that digging. If you will excuse me, I will ask Carol for the information."
 

He left and I put the envelope back in my pocket and sat and finished my rye and water. He was gone so long I was wondering if I'd be welcome to pour myself a second shot. Then they came back together.
 

Carol had been crying. I stood up and spoke first. "I'm sorry about all this, but once the dentist has checked the imprint we'll know for certain and you can put all this behind you for keeps."
 

She looked at me levelly. "It was already behind me," she said. "I had no idea that Amy would ask you to do all this crazy digging on my behalf. It's a mistake and tomorrow you'll know that and I will ask you to go home and forget all about this."
 

"That's my plan exactly," I lied.

"Please understand that I'm grateful for your efforts, but they are misplaced." She was in such tight control of herself that she was speaking English as if it were her second language. I nodded and waited and she gave me the name and address of the family dentist. It was a place in a shabby end of Montreal and she felt obliged to apologize for that. "Jim was always very loyal to old friends and people who had known him before he started to make good money."
 

"Yes, he was a very nice guy, and I'm sorry for your loss," I assured her.

She stayed on her feet, Henri at her elbow, so I took the hint. "And I've taken up too much of your time already. Thank you for the help. I'll call you when the dentist says what we all expect him to say." Tactful, Bennett, put yourself on the side of the angels whenever possible.
 

Henri showed me out, all amiability. "Do you know Montreal?"

"A little, enough to know where the best lobster in town can be had."

"Ah, and where is that? I must see how well you know our city," he laughed. If I'd been more couth we would have looked like a scene from Noel Coward.
 

"Well, I lean to Chez Pauze," I admitted, and he sucked in his cheeks and nodded acknowledgment of my cleverness.

"An excellent choice," he said. "Enjoy your dinner." He stood at the door and watched until I reached the sidewalk.

I walked to the corner, flagged a cab, and went for the lobster, which was excellent, with a couple of Bras d'or ales. I was feeling on top of the world when I came out onto the sidewalk again and turned along Ste. Catherine Street toward the hotel. But I wasn't drunk. I was aware of my surroundings, as I always am, ever since I first walked point on patrol in the Marines. And so, within a few seconds I had seen the two black men in the doorway opposite and I wondered why they were watching me so carefully, not moving along or talking or smoking, like the few other pedestrians.
 

Montreal is a safe town, not as safe as Toronto—few places are—but nothing like New York. I stood for a moment on the curb, looking as if I was debating taking a taxi, then wandered away toward the hotel, stopping a time or two to look at traffic. It gave me a chance to see that they had split up. One of them had gone back to the corner behind me and was crossing the street, the other was walking rapidly toward the next corner.
 

They were very professional. The one in front crossed and was waiting as I reached the corner. He had a dollar bill in his left hand and he spoke to me politely in English. "Par'n me, sir, have you got change for a dollar?"
 

It's an old trick. The sucker puts his hand, his good hand, in his pocket, and the other guy clobbers him a good lick. But I'd met men who had been rolled this way so I stepped back against the wall and told him, "Sorry, no. But I have a gun. Would you like to see that instead?"
 

He raised both hands and grinned. "That's cool, man, that's real cool with me."

And then his buddy bounded up beside me and tried to hit me in the head from the side—throwing all his strength into it.

I stepped forward at the last moment, slamming the first one in the gut so he doubled over as the other guy passed behind me. Then I whirled to face the second one as he recovered and came back, pulling a knife. I grabbed his knife hand and tugged, sticking my left leg in his way so he fell face first on the sidewalk. The first one was already up but slow on his feet, and I sunk my fist in his kidney and he went down again. Then I kicked the knifer on the inside of his knee as he tried to stand and he buckled into a heap on the sidewalk, moaning. I picked up the knife, a big switchblade, and dropped it into the grating at the curb. Then I pulled the owner to his feet and ran him into the wall, head first. He groaned some more, but I had his arm behind him and he couldn't escape.