One or the Other (4 page)

Dougherty was pretty sure he'd seen a bottle of Jameson behind the bar, but he was getting tired of explaining the difference between English and Irish so he said, “Thanks.”

Caron had a new bottle of Canadian Club for himself. “Don't mention it.” He laughed then and said, “I mean, really, don't mention it.”

Dougherty nodded, taking up the rear of the convoy.

They were getting nowhere. Shaking down every English guy in town who'd ever been anywhere near a bank when it was robbed — and in Montreal that was a lot of guys — but none of them had anything from the Brink's job. Listening to hours of wiretaps from the pay phones at Molly McGuire's and the Country Palace and the Cock 'n' Bull and the Cat's Den Lounge and the Shack Club got them nothing but a lot of guys cheating on their wives and a lot of women cheating on their husbands.

Dougherty needed something to justify his being put on this team, in plainclothes, doing detective work. He could see Paquette and some other young guys passing him by, and he knew this was the best chance he'd ever get — a big job by English guys, guys from his old neighbourhood in the Point. If he didn't score something on this job, he'd be walking a beat the rest of his life.

Then he ran into Fred Bergman.

Driving home from the office, the 4.07 in the bank building, two in the morning in his own car, nothing on the wiretaps again, Dougherty pulled up behind a '75 Monte Carlo on the Bonaventure Expressway. Six lanes and almost no other cars. He followed the Monte Carlo past the Champlain Bridge and Nun's Island exit and up around the bend towards the Décarie, and when it took the C
ôt
e St. Luc Road exit Dougherty knew it was Bergman.

Cavendish was quiet, lined with apartment buildings and two-storey storefronts. When the Monte Carlo stopped at the red light at Cavendish, Dougherty pulled up beside it and rolled down the window of his Mustang.

It took Bergman a second, but then the power window lowered and he said, “What do you want, Constable?”

“Pull over.”

Bergman shrugged and said, “I'm stopped.” Then he looked more confused and said, “And you're not even on duty.”

“Pull over.” Dougherty pointed to the gas station and when the light changed Bergman cut diagonally through the intersection and stopped in front of the dark garage doors. He cut the engine but didn't make a move to get out of the car.

Dougherty pulled up beside the Monte Carlo and got out and walked back to the trunk. He knocked on it like he was knocking on a door.

Bergman got out of the car then and said, “You look like you want a gold chain. I have some beautiful pieces, just came in.”

“I guess gold doesn't break falling off the truck.”

“You want a TV,” Bergman said, “I can get you one, Sony Trinitron, all solid state, fifteen-inch portable, five hundred bucks.”

Dougherty said, “I can get it at Eaton's for five-fifty.”

“Three hundred, then, but I don't make anything.”

“I'm looking for bonds,” Dougherty said. “And Olympic coins. And cash, about two million dollars.”

Bergman laughed. He was a big man, had a big belly anyway, but he wasn't as tall as Dougherty. He said, “You think I look like a guy who has two million bucks, Constable?” Then he looked Dougherty up and down and said, “They make you a detective?”

Dougherty ignored that and said, “I think you're smart enough not to start throwing a lot of cash around. I think you'd lie low for a while, pretend like nothing changed for you, go about your business.”

“How can I go about my business,” Bergman said, “if I keep getting pulled over by the cops?” He put the key in the lock and opened the trunk. “Olympic rings, twenty-four carat.” He held up a gold chain and a pendant, the five rings. “Or, you want to party?” The next gold chain had a tiny gold razor blade pendant.

Dougherty said, “I want to know about laundromats.”

“I know a good one on Côte St. Luc Boulevard.”

“Do they clean money?”

“Come on,” Bergman said. He looked at Dougherty and said, “This is out of my league, something like this.”

“It's out of everybody's league,” Dougherty said. “But somebody did it. Who?”

Bergman shrugged. He had another box in his hand and he said, “What about a watch? Got some nice ones, Swiss.”

Dougherty grabbed the box and said, “What about the gun?”

“What gun?” He looked at Dougherty and said, “The big gun from the robbery, what do you think I am?”

Dougherty tossed the box of watches back into the trunk and said, “I know what you are.”

“Oy vey, you think I'm schlepping around anti-aircraft guns?”

“You could get one.”

“I don't deal in guns, you know that.”

Dougherty had heard the rumour that one of the reasons Bergman was left alone to do his business was because he didn't sell guns, but who could tell how hard and fast these unspoken rules were?

“Who does?”

“Look, you want to buy some chains, you want some earrings for your girlfriend, I can help you. Anything else . . .”

“You can get anything.”

“No, I can't, really.”

“You can find out.”

He was looking sad, then, starting to get desperate. “Come on, Constable.” Then he looked a little hopeful and said, “How about an engagement ring? Make an honest woman out of that girlfriend.” He dug around in the trunk and then held out a ring box, blue like Birks but without the name. “It's a beautiful ring.” He opened the box.

“Yeah, it's nice.” But Dougherty was mostly struck that Bergman even knew he had a girlfriend. He said, “How did you know I'm not married?”

“Look at the diamond,” Bergman said, “it's beautiful.” Then he looked up at Dougherty and said, “Come on, Constable, you know me, I know you, we work the same areas.”

Dougherty said, “Yeah.” He was looking at the diamond ring and thinking the fact he wasn't married couldn't have anything to do with not getting the full-time promotion to detective, could it? He'd heard the term “family man” tossed around but never really thought about it.

“I can let you have it for five hundred bucks. That's a thousand-dollar ring.”

Dougherty said, “I might give you two hundred if you tell me who bought the gun. And I might not arrest you.”

“You fucking guys.” Bergman leaned back against the bumper of his car and fumbled in his coat pocket for his smokes. He took his time lighting the cigarette and blowing smoke at the stars. “How long are you guys going to keep this up?”

“Till we get the money back.”

Bergman let out a burst of smoke, almost choked and said, “Way I heard it, that money went straight from Nun's Island to Dorval and got on a plane.”

“Where to?”

Bergman shrugged. “Vegas? I don't know. Bermuda?”

“Who was it?”

“For Chrissake, you know who it was, you're shaking them down every day.”

“We need some kind of evidence,” Dougherty said. “As long as we're looking it'll be bad for everybody.”

“It's always bad,” Bergman said. “But it's getting worse. These
fercockta
Olympics, they're getting to everybody.”

“I might get some overtime.”

“That's it exactly,” Bergman said. “Everybody sees how much they're spending, they get greedy.”

Dougherty said, “So they were a little early with the robbery.”

Bergman took a drag and blew out smoke. He watched it rise to the night sky and said, “They're just planning. You know what they want it for.”

“The money? They're thieves, they rob banks, it's what they do.”

“I didn't think they had it in them, either,” Bergman said. “Goyim from the Point.” He looked at Dougherty and said, “Never seemed that ambitious to me.”

“What are you talking about, Freddie?”

“Nothing, I don't know. You didn't get anything from me.”

“I never do.”

Bergman smirked at that and shrugged. “Three hundred and that engagement ring is yours. I can see you like it.”

“What do you mean by ambitious?”

“We're going to host the biggest party in the world in a couple of months,” Bergman said. “The city will fill up like it did for Expo, more maybe.”

“So.”

“So,” he waved his hands around, “so, so, so, everybody's going to be selling something.”

“Yeah.”

“They have to buy it first.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don't know, nothing.” He paused and Dougherty waited for him because he had the feeling the guy was actually trying to tell him something. “Let's just say, maybe if you really want overtime this summer you should go into narcotics.”

Dougherty said, “Shit.” It made sense. “They're using the money for drugs.”

Bergman shrugged like he didn't know a thing.

“Something big, though,” Dougherty said. “Hash by the ton?”

Bergman made a point of looking in the trunk of his car, and Dougherty knew right away what he was getting at. “Coke.”

Another shrug. “It's not my business.”

The gold chain with the little gold razor blade pendant was still on top of the box Bergman had opened earlier.

“You're sure about this?”

“I don't know anything, Constable,” Bergman said. “Or should I call you Detective?”

“That I don't know. But if you want to keep working this summer you have to give me something concrete.”

Bergman looked tired. He said, “You know a guy named John Sheppard?”

“Let's say I do.”

“You might want to see if he was in Kentucky or Tennessee a couple months ago.”

“All right,” Dougherty said. “And I want the ring.”

“Two hundred and fifty bucks.”

Dougherty said, “I thought you said two hundred,” but he was willing to go to two-fifty.

Now he was feeling like he had something and he could make a move.

Ste. Marie said, “Good work, Detective,” and Dougherty said, “Thanks.”

What was he going to say, it was just luck he happened to see Bergman on the Bonaventure at two in the morning? And he had an engagement ring Dougherty could use?

He certainly wasn't going to correct Ste. Marie calling him Detective, that felt too good.

Then Ste. Marie said, “We've already checked the serial number with the manufacturer and we know the gun was sold in Kentucky to someone who said his name was John Fuller. Must be Sheppard.”

Dougherty thought maybe they would set up some surveillance, get more wiretaps in place, something like that, but Ste. Marie said, “Let's go have a talk with him,” and the convoy was on the move again.

It was just before midnight. They hit Molly McGuire's and the Cock 'n' Bull, a dozen detectives walking into the small bars, and this time Dougherty felt a little more resistance. People who had just answered their questions before or who had told them to fuck off under their breath were now coming out and saying it, the bartender leading the way with, “You want to stick your nose up someone's ass, stick it up each other's.”

Ste. Marie said, “See you next time,” on the way out, and even Dougherty was wondering how long they could keep hitting the same places, shaking down the same guys.

In the car heading out to NDG, Dougherty said, “Maybe we should branch out.”

Caron said, “Maybe.”

They hit Nittolo's Motel but none of the half dozen Italian guys had ever heard of John Sheppard. Or John Fuller.

Driving to Peg's, Caron said, “If we ask them, they've never heard of the Pope.”

Peg's was empty. Which seemed odd to Dougherty. He waited till Laperrière and a couple other cars pulled out and fell in behind them and then he said to Caron, “That seem right to you?”

Caron lit a cigarette and dropped the match out the window, saying, “What's right these days?”

Gunshots went off, loud.

“Holy fuck!”

Caron ducked down behind the seat, and Dougherty turned a hard right, bumping up on the sidewalk. They were just pulling out of the parking lot onto St. Jacques, and there was only one more car behind them, Ste. Marie and Levine.

Dougherty was out of the car and standing behind the open door with his gun in his hand. He could see the other car, the rear window shattered, both doors open and Ste. Marie and Levine with their guns drawn.

There was no sound in the parking lot.

Levine yelled, “On the roof!” and Dougherty started running around the side of the building. In the back it was dark, no lights at all, and Dougherty couldn't see much. The back of the motel, parking spaces, a field and warehouses.

He walked slow, staying close to the wall of the motel, gun in his hand.

There, something moving. Dougherty yelled, “Stop!”

Levine said, “It's me, don't fucking shoot.” Coming around the other side of the motel.

“Shit.”

“They're gone.”

Dougherty said, “You think more than one?”

“Unless it was one guy firing two guns.”

Dougherty took a step towards the bushes. Beyond that was the drop, couple hundred feet, down to the expressway.

Levine said, “Come on.”

“You think they ran down there?”

“Probably over there,” Levine said, pointing at the backs of the warehouses. “Long gone.”

“We might get lucky.” Dougherty started walking.

Caron came around the side then and said, “Hey, let's go.”

Back in front of the motel, the cops were standing in a tight group, the cars in a semi-circle facing the building with their headlights on and doors open.

Laperrière was saying, “This is fucking bullshit.”

Ste. Marie said, “Come on,” and led them all back into Peg's.

They stayed there drinking till the sun came up. Laperrière and Ste. Marie started the talking but then they got quiet and didn't say much. The rest of the detectives were full of what they were going to do to the bastards when they caught them.

Dougherty sat a little off to himself and watched. He nursed a couple of beers. He didn't disagree with anything they were saying, he just didn't feel like part of this group.