Montreal Noir Read online

  Today, Mrs. Sen enters the store and takes a seat on the divan. Albertson puts down his coffee and walks over to her.

  “Mrs. Sen,” he says, smiling.

  “We’re having a dinner party, you know.”

  “And what will you be wearing?”

  “No, no, I’m not here for shoes,” she says, laughing. “I’m here to invite you.”

  This is an odd thing, Albertson thinks. Beyond their lunches, Mrs. Sen has never invited him into her social orbit. “When?” he asks.

  A pair of shoes has caught Mrs. Sen’s attention, a pair of muted-blue open-toed pumps. “Oh my,” she says.

  “I’ll have to check if we have your size.”

  Mrs. Sen turns sharply to him as if he has just said something amazingly rude. “I don’t want them.”

  “I can check.”

  “Friday night.” She stands and takes a look at the shoes again. “Can you order them?” she asks.

  “For Friday?”

  “I don’t need them for Friday. It’s nothing fancy. Some dentists. A doctor. The usual lawyers and judges. A city councillor. The lady who owns the nice café in the food court. She has a young boyfriend who’s a musician.”

  “I can order the shoes,” Albertson says.

  “Thank you. Bring wine if you want.”

  As Mrs. Sen steps into the damp light of the mall, she calls Albertson over, and he rushes to her. She leans in, motioning him to come closer.

  “Did you see the horses?” she asks in a whisper. Albertson’s eyes radiate fear and awe, but also community. A communal warmth. Bathed in cold.

  * * *

  Albertson picks up a Beaujolais. He doesn’t know a thing about wine, can’t tell the difference between names or regions or grapes. The girl at the SAQ looks like she’s just turned eighteen, but acts like she’s been drinking wine forever. He decides not to ask her about the horses. He’s convinced that everyone around him knows something about the horses, something he isn’t allowed to know. That his understanding of this isn’t permitted. By someone. By someone important.

  Mrs. Sen and her husband live downtown on Sherbrooke Street, in an ancient high-rise, built when the city was prosperous. Back then, if you said you lived on Sherbrooke Street, it meant a lot more than a street name. It meant more than money, class, or anything like that. If you said you lived on Sherbrooke Street, it meant that, because of your address, you had inexhaustible power. That if you’d told someone the world revolved around you, they would have had to consider the possibility. All because of your address.

  Albertson announces himself to the elderly doorman, who gets on the phone, nods, and welcomes him in. The doorman escorts him into a tiny elevator that smells like lemon-scented wood polish.

  Albertson knocks on Mrs. Sen’s door, and she answers with a look of momentary confusion—Albertson is not on her regular guest list, after all. He holds out the wine bottle awkwardly in his hands.

  “The girl said it was a good year for Beaujolais.”

  “What girl?”

  “At the SAQ. I know nothing about wine, unfortunately.”

  She accepts it and studies the label. She puts the bottle down on the side table where Albertson imagines it will sit, forgotten. “Come in.”

  He takes in the apartment’s decayed grandeur, the vaguely yellowish lights and dimly lit corners populated by exotic statues, bookcases, and half-dead plants. The apartment smells like the elevator, mixed with some unidentifiable odor coming from the kitchen, a collection of spices he can’t quite make out.

  “Let me introduce you to my husband.”

  She takes his arm and leads him to a room with three dignified-looking men, all in gray suits, standing and talking, each holding a tumbler of Scotch.

  “Am I early?” asks Albertson.

  Mrs. Sen stops walking and looks at him oddly. “No. My guests are late. Annoyingly so. My husband just arrived himself. He’s in his study.”

  She opens the door to the study and her husband, the judge, is standing in the middle of the room, also holding a tumbler of Scotch, watching television.

  “Louis, this is the young man who sells me my shoes.”

  The judge turns to face him. He studies Albertson and Albertson studies him and neither man learns much. Louis is wearing a gray suit; it seems to be a uniform.

  “My wife owns a lot of shoes. You are a very lucky man.”

  Mrs. Sen nudges Albertson toward her husband. Albertson allows himself to be nudged.

  “Mrs. Sen has an eye for footwear,” says Albertson, uncomfortably.

  The judge takes a sip of his Scotch and turns off the TV. “Nothing about the horses,” he sighs, smiling.

  Albertson is confused, yet intrigued. “I have questions about the horses.”

  The judge walks to a corner and sits on a chair. “What kind of questions?”

  Albertson turns to look for Mrs. Sen, but she is gone. The door is closed. Albertson is alone in the room with the judge. “I have a shoe in my freezer at home with horse shit on it.”

  Louis’s eyebrows reach north.

  “I heard them, but there’s nothing on the news, the Internet, the radio. Nothing. Not even the people on my street saw anything.” Albertson lowers his voice: “They act as if I shouldn’t bring it up. And I’ve only brought it up with a few of them.”

  The judge stands and walks to an alcove in the wall and opens a door. “Would you like a Scotch?”

  Albertson nods.

  The judge pours the Scotch and hands it to him. “Have a seat,” he says, pulling a chair from the corner and placing it in the center of the room.

  Albertson sits.

  “Wait here,” says the judge, leaving the room.

  Albertson sips his drink and closes his eyes. He sees the horses again, feels them rumble through his chest. When he opens his eyes, the judge is before him. This time, he’s with one of the men in the gray suits. “This is my colleague, Bertrand.”

  Bertrand is older than Louis, with thinning white hair and brown marks splotching his temple. He holds out his hand to Albertson and shakes firmly. Bertrand leans into Albertson so close that he can smell the old man’s stale breath. Albertson tries to pull his hand away, but he can’t; the old man’s grip is surprisingly fierce.

  “Tell me about this shoe,” Bertrand says.

  Albertson feels as if he’s about to be sick. Bertrand has Albertson’s hand, but it feels like he has all of him. Albertson feels engulfed.

  “Tell me about your shit-covered shoe.”

  Albertson remains silent, diverting his eyes from the old man’s glare.

  “Fine, tell me: do you ever eat sausage and then lie down, feeling like you’re about to choke or at least suffer from incredible heartburn?”

  Albertson has no idea what this means, and doesn’t know why he’s here, in this room, in this house. Who are these people?

  “Do you sometimes dream in one language, but when you try to recall the dream, you realize that you’ve forgotten said language?”

  Albertson senses a kind of poison running through his veins. He feels the world tilting on its axis. Maybe even changing direction.

  “Does the television always come on before you enter the room?” Bertrand twists his face as he asks this. He doesn’t seem like the type to watch TV.

  Albertson searches out Louis, but only now does he realize that the judge has left again. “Are you going to kill me?” he whimpers.

  Bertrand loosens his grip on Albertson’s hand. His face softens. His eyes become grandfatherly. “I just want to hear more about your shoe.”

  Albertson sits up. He can feel the sweat covering his back in tiny dew-like droplets. “My shoe is covered in horse shit.”

  Bertrand shakes his head emphatically. “No, it is not.”

  “Just one shoe.”

  Bertrand raises his hand. “Stop.”

  “I put it in the freezer,” Albertson says. “Why would I be lying?”

  And then Be
rtrand’s hand coils into a fist, and that fist connects with Albertson’s mouth with the intensity of a meteor hitting earth.

  * * *

  Albertson awakes in a dark room. The floor is damp with humidity. He touches his mouth and confirms he’s lost a tooth. He faintly hears someone, somewhere in the darkness. He stands quickly, and hits his head on the low ceiling.

  “It’s a low ceiling,” a voice says.

  Albertson doesn’t know if he should speak or not. He wonders if any of this is happening at all.

  “You saw the horses too, I’m guessing.”

  Albertson trusts no one. He’s just decided this.

  “I saw the horses,” the voice says, “running through Mile End. Down Maguire. Then up de Gaspé. Crazy shit, huh?”

  Albertson wants to speak and admit everything. He wants to trust someone.

  “Though I guess the real Mile Enders don’t consider that part Mile End anymore. More like Mile End Adjacent.”

  Albertson wants to say something.

  “And then the old men, those crazy old men. Especially that Bert dude. He punched you too?”

  Albertson wishes he had a match right now, so he could see this invisible person he doesn’t trust, the only other person who might believe his story. “Why are you here?” he finally asks.

  The voice laughs. “I don’t trust anyone either,” he says. In the silence, one can hear two men trying to figure out the world. “I went down to the cop station on Laurier. I asked them about the horses. They took it down. I filled out a fucking form. And that night, I met Bert.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “He knocked on my door,” the voice says. “Of course he had my address: I’d given it to the cops.”

  “How long have you been here?” Albertson’s going to ask his way to a place of trust.

  “I don’t know,” the voice replies. “It’s always dark. They bring food every two hours. Little bits: chocolate bars, bag of chips, croissants. Pretty good croissants, I have to admit. Not like grocery store stuff. They went to a real boulangerie and bought real croissants. But it’s always dark. That way you lose track of time.”

  “How many snacks have you eaten?”

  “That’s a good question.” Albertson hears the man rustle and imagines he’s sitting up or stretching out his legs. There’s no way to know, and Albertson now realizes he has no idea how large—or small—this low-ceilinged cell is.

  “So you don’t know?”

  “I’m counting.”

  Albertson figures he’s been in here less than two hours, unless he was passed out a long time, which is possible.

  “More than twenty-four.”

  “Snacks?”

  “More than twenty-four snacks,” the voice says. “So that means two days, at least.”

  “And how long have I been here?”

  “Maybe an hour. They threw you in with the last snack.”

  “You’ve been here two days?”

  “At least.”

  “The horses were . . .”

  “Two days ago.”

  “Three.”

  They both contemplate this. Could they be speaking of the same horses? If Louis is a judge, who is Bertrand? Who were the other men in gray? What does Mrs. Sen have to do with all of this?

  “Do you know Mrs. Sen?” Albertson asks. He feels unsafe asking this.

  “Never heard of her.”

  “She owns a lingerie store downtown.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Albertson says, feeling his defenses fall and his trust growing, like some creeping vine.

  “My name’s Phil,” the voice says.

  Albertson doesn’t give his name.

  “I don’t blame you,” Phil says. “This is all fucked up. It doesn’t feel real.”

  Albertson wants to stretch out. He wants to believe that none of this is happening. “I have a shit-covered shoe in my freezer,” he says.

  Suddenly the lights go on. Phil is standing in a gray suit, grinning. Through a trapdoor come Bertrand and Louis.

  “What the fuck?” Albertson shouts, because he has no other words. He has no frame of reference. He has nothing, he realizes. Because he saw some wild horses running down the street, he is at the mercy of these seemingly powerful men. Because in a city like Montreal, even the implausible is not surprising.

  And then Bertrand punches Albertson hard in the mouth.

  * * *

  Albertson wakes up in a motel room. He knows it’s a motel room, the aesthetic tells him so. He’s seen this kind of room in movies. He reaches for the phone on the bedside table, picks up the receiver, and doesn’t hear a dial tone. He stands and walks to the windows, pulling back the blinds, but the windows are covered with black tape. He goes to the washroom, and pisses a long fluorescent yellow. The window in the bathroom is covered in black tape too. He flushes the toilet. He notices that there is no shower curtain. He walks back to the bed and sits down. There is no TV. There is no radio.

  He lies back on the bed and runs his tongue over his swollen lip. Bertrand has punched him in the mouth twice now, and he doesn’t even know who Bertrand is. He’s never disliked anyone as much as he dislikes Bertrand. Not even the ladies with smelly feet who insist on trying on shoes two sizes too small, who insist that Albertson pry such shoes on and off their grotesque feet. But even they are nothing compared to Bertrand. The man has physically assaulted him. Twice. He is responsible for the loss of a tooth. And much of his dignity. Albertson hates him.

  He could use some food. He’s craving a cheeseburger. And then he understands the craving because he can smell meat. He can smell the fried promise of a casse-croûte close by. He could be on Saint-Jacques. He could be in Brossard or Laval. He could be anywhere. But the smell of the casse-croûte tells him he’s still in Quebec. There’s some comfort in that. Some.

  The front door opens and Bertrand walks in. Albertson reflexively sits up.

  “I won’t punch you again,” Bertrand says. He grabs a chair and brings it over to the bed and sits before Albertson. “No more punching.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Albertson doesn’t expect an answer, or at least one that makes sense.

  “The problem is your shoe.”

  “What about it?”

  Bertrand sighs. “Louis is a very important man. This is what you don’t understand.”

  “What does this have to do with the horses?”

  “You should shut up about the horses.”

  “So there were horses.”

  “Of course there were horses. You saw them.”

  “But no one else did.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Albertson relaxes again, despite the man’s proximity. “Do you work for him?”

  Bertrand looks around the room. “Do you understand what is happening?”

  Albertson considers the question. He considers it ridiculous.

  “Mrs. Sen is worried about you, or for you. She knows what Louis can do. His capabilities. How high up this goes. How wide.”

  Albertson watches the dust float about the room. It’s a dusty room, as if it’s been empty, devoid of any sort of life, for a very long time. “What’s going to happen to me?” he asks.

  “My friend . . .” Bertrand’s voice fades away, perhaps to a place where he doesn’t have to punch people, strangers, for having seen a herd of horses running down a residential street. Perhaps he doesn’t know the answer. Perhaps he’s not even a cog in this, merely the hired help. Perhaps his not-knowing is all that keeps him innocent. Because knowing would get him in trouble as well, on the receiving end of punches and waking in a dusty motel room on the edge of the city. “You are here for now,” he says. “Safe. You are safe here.”

  Albertson wants to laugh. The humor of the thing finally hits him. “This is a weird version of hell,” he says.

  Bertrand shrugs. “It’s nothing. It’s Montreal. Are you hungry?”

  “I want answers.”<
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  Bertrand stands and heads for the door. “I’m tired of punching people,” he says, and then he is gone.

  * * *

  Albertson wakes up in the back of a car. He has a headache, and as he gropes his head in pain, he realizes he has been struck—he has a giant welt on the back of his head. He is alone in the car. The car is old and smells like the inside of a musty garage. And then he looks around, and sees he’s in a musty garage. It’s dark, and he can’t tell if it’s dark because it’s night or because the lights are out.

  He opens the door and stumbles out of the car, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He makes out a wall and heads toward it, slowly, like a toddler learning to walk. He kicks something metallic-sounding, and hears it ricochet off a surface. He finds himself by a wall covered with cobwebs. Albertson thinks that every single awful thing that is ever going to happen to him has happened. He hates spiders.

  He reaches along the wall, feeling his way through the cobwebs, over chipped paint and cracked Gyprock. He feels a light switch, and flips it on. A lightbulb casts a jaundiced yellow glow over the place, and yes, he’s in a garage, except it looks like it hasn’t been occupied in a long time. Along the opposite wall is an old worktable and some tools, but other than that, the only thing inside the room is the car. It’s a cab, a rusted Ford Fiesta that looks like it was never a very good cab—surely a Ford Fiesta is too small to be a licensed cab, even in a city like Montreal with such awful taxis.

  He sees a spider crawl along the floor. The garage door is weighed down with a concrete weight that’s bolted to a chain. Whoever put him in here—and he’s guessing it was Bertrand—doesn’t want him to leave.

  The light goes out. Albertson reaches for the switch, but it doesn’t work now. Where was that spider? he thinks. He hears a sound, like someone turning on a loud stereo system. Suddenly the garage is bathed in a spectacular array of lights, a disco of color; they seem to light the universe. Albertson shields his eyes, but the room is too bright. And then he hears music. Dance music. Electronic, synthetic, pulsating. The lights dance in synchronicity to the beat, and now he is surrounded by both light and music. His body is inside this thing, this aura—he cannot escape what is around him because he has been made a part of it. He runs to the car and gets back in, but there is no relief from the wash of light and ocean of music. He closes his eyes and holds his head, knowing he must escape—it is the only way.