Montreal Noir Read online

  “What?”

  “Look to the east, Hugues. You won’t be sorry.”

  Disconcerted, Hugues turns his head toward an empty lot that stretches out for a good kilometer.

  “You’re looking? Perfect. Five, four, three . . .” Létourneau whispers.

  “But what are you—”

  “. . . two, one, zero.”

  For a few seconds, Hugues sees nothing. Then he makes out the plumes of smoke rising several kilometers to the east; a small cloud, pitch black and ominous. Quickly, his exasperation is overtaken by a fear that crawls right up his throat. He turns his pale face toward the cell phone, as if he can see the man on the other end of the line. “What have you done?! What the—”

  “Calm down, Hugues, that wasn’t the bomb I was telling you about. This one was much smaller, planted in an abandoned building. I set it off from a distance, so I couldn’t see if there were any people nearby, but I’d be surprised if there were.”

  Hugues moistens his lips, his eyes still fixed on the phone. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Listen to your two-way.”

  Hugues stares at the black box. After a few seconds of silence, an anxious voice comes on: “Alert, explosion on Rue Jean-Grou, at Pointe-aux-Trembles. Police are sending a team over right now. There appears to be no victims, but we are awaiting confirmation.”

  “Do I have your attention now, Hugues?” asks Létourneau.

  Hugues squints at the smoke in the distance, breathing faster. His second cell phone rings again. He ignores it.

  “Hugues, do I have your attention?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perfect. Get back on the road. Head downtown. If you take another direction, I’ll know and I’ll set off the bomb.”

  His hands trembling, Hugues shifts up a gear and accelerates toward Rue Sherbrooke. Dry-mouthed, he manages to ask: “You . . . you’ve become a terrorist?”

  The ex-controller lets out a laugh, at once bitter and amused. “Come on, Hugues. On the Internet, anyone can learn to make a bomb.”

  “So, what do you want?”

  “I’ve planted a bomb on a street downtown and it’ll do much more damage than the one you just saw, especially in the middle of rush hour. It’s programmed to go off automatically, but I can set it off whenever I want. So if you call the police, if I see a few too many cops or squad guys hanging around downtown, I set it off. Ditto if I hear you make any hints about a bomb or try to warn people on the air. Is that clear?”

  “Why are you warning me?”

  “I told you, I want you to live through what I lived through. For you to understand that your so-called stress is nothing compared to what I—”

  “You’re insane!”

  “Call the psychiatrist I’ve been seeing for the past six months and tell him he botched his diagnosis,” responds Létourneau.

  “Your plan makes no sense! You’re the one who’ll set off the bomb. I won’t feel what you felt. I won’t be responsible.”

  “If you manage to find it in time.”

  “What?”

  “You’re the most popular traffic reporter in the city, Hugues, make the most of it. But to be clear, I won’t have you announcing on the air that there’s a bomb on this or that street, no, no. That’d be too simple, too amateurish. And it’d just create panic. You’ve got to behave like a professional . . . manage the stress, understand? So, if you find where it’s hidden, you’ll say on the air that the street is backed up, or under construction, it doesn’t matter, whatever you want, and you’ll tell people to take a different route, like you normally do. If you can do that, you’ll prove that you can manage the same kind of stress I had to deal with, and I’ll deactivate the bomb.”

  Hugues stays silent for a moment, astounded. He keeps driving on Sherbrooke, then crosses Papineau, now heavily jammed, approaching downtown. “You’re insane!” he blurts out again.

  “You’re repeating yourself, Hugues. I know, it goes along with your job, but still . . .”

  “How am I supposed to guess where your fucking bomb is?”

  “It’s a year ago today since the accident, Hugues. I want the story to play out all over again, same time, same place, but through—”

  “The same place? But it was in New York!” Hugues shrieks.

  “Oh, please, Hugues, you’ve never heard of symbolism?”

  “Wh . . . what?”

  “By the way, don’t worry. I synchronized the timer with your station’s clock, so we all have the same time down to the second. And I know you give four traffic updates per hour: at three minutes past the hour, then eighteen, thirty-three, and forty-eight. It’s 3:44, you’ve got four minutes before your next update.”

  “I won’t find shit in four minutes!”

  “In that case, pray the bomb won’t go off before the next one, at 4:03.”

  Hugues feels his body shaking. “You’re screwing with me! You’re just trying to scare me to death!”

  “After what you’ve seen over at Pointe-aux-Trembles, do you really want to take that risk?”

  The reporter massages his forehead as he crosses Rue Saint-Denis.

  “Stay downtown, don’t drive anywhere else until it’s all over,” Létourneau says. “If you go too far in another direction, I’ll know.”

  “You . . . you installed a tracking device under my vehicle, is that it?” Hugues asks with a quiver in his voice.

  “Very good, Hugues. And if you try to remove it: boom! I’ll call you later.”

  “Wait—”

  But the lunatic hangs up. For a few seconds, Hugues hardly notices the heavy traffic around him. This is a bad joke, he thinks. It has to be. Yet the voice that comes on the radio quickly shatters this illusion.

  “Confirmation: a device has exploded on Rue Jean-Grou. One wounded. Police on-site. The area will be closed off for the rest of the day.”

  Hugues starts to turn his head when a ringing invades his eardrums; it takes him a moment to realize it’s his console signal, alerting him that he’ll go on the air in less than two minutes. The cars inching forward along Sherbrooke come back into his peripheral vision, just as one of his cell phones rings.

  “Tr . . . traffic, bonjour.”

  “Hugues! It’s Paul! Hey, it’s not looking good on Papineau Bridge, lemme tell you.”

  Hugues’s hand flutters as he takes his pad and jots down the notes from this regular who’s been calling him for ten years, not really seeing what he’s writing.

  “Okay, Paul, thanks . . .”

  “You don’t seem too cheery, Hugues.”

  “No, it’s just . . . I’ve got a cold. Thanks, Paul.” He disconnects, slips his headset on, and the voice of the on-air host fills his left ear. Don’t say anything about a bomb, or danger. Stay professional. A wave of nausea makes him grimace as he waits for his cue.

  “Now, the traffic update with Hugues Nadeau.”

  For a second that lasts an eternity, the reporter is incapable of making a sound.

  “Hugues?” the host calls out.

  “Yes, Valérie. Traffic is getting heavier downtown. Papineau Bridge is gridlocked. The broken-down vehicle on the 640 has been removed, but the jam has already formed . . .” He goes on like this for thirty seconds, managing to keep his voice natural, only a little stiff-sounding, though he wants to scream his lungs out with every word. Afterward, Valérie asks him if he has any updates on the explosion at Pointe-aux-Trembles. Hugues licks his lips several times. “Ah, well . . . nothing too serious it seems, but the area around Jean-Grou is closed, so drivers should avoid it.”

  “Thank you, Hugues. Now, we turn to some new film releases . . .”

  Hugues removes his headset and turns onto Union, a small avenue, almost empty. There, he parks close to the curb, opens the passenger-side door, and vomits on the asphalt. He sinks down into his seat and takes several deep breaths. Panic washes over him, but he has to stay calm and lucid, he simply has no choice. Think. Hard and fast. If the bomb is time
d to go off before the next traffic update, it’s all over.

  He voice-dials a number on one of the two cell phones and Muriel, a fact checker for the program, answers. “Muriel, I need you to find me some information on the plane crash that happened in New York last year.”

  “Why? You want to talk about it on the air?”

  “It’s . . . it’s been a year today and I might want to fit in a reference to it, yes. Perhaps mention the exact time of the accident.”

  “What? Why? I might not have time, Hugues, we’re in the middle of a show, you know how it is.”

  “Just do what you can, okay?”

  He hangs up, shaking his head. He’s an idiot to count on Muriel, she’s clearly much too busy. He takes out his personal cell phone, connects to the Internet, and brings up the Google home page. Shit, he was never good with the keypad, his thumbs are too slow. And his next update is in twelve minutes.

  Finally, he finds an article that appeared in La Presse last year, the day after the accident, and starts reading: TWO DELTA AIRPLANES CRASH IN NEW YORK. Yesterday, at 4:25 p.m., Philippe Létourneau, an air-traffic controller at John F. Kennedy Airport, changed the course of this city’s history . . .

  He stops reading: 4:25! The bomb will go off in thirty-one minutes! That leaves him two more traffic updates. He breathes a little easier. But now he has to find the spot. The bomb obviously can’t be in New York, so where? Trudeau Airport? It has to be there. But not in the building itself, no. Létourneau said he’d planted it on a street. What’s the name of that road that leads to the airport? That narrow road that everyone’s complained about for years?

  He grabs his personal cell phone again and brings up Google Maps, indifferent to the ringing of another phone. He zooms in as close as possible on the area surrounding the airport and scans the road names in panic.

  There are two possible routes. He knows that one is more commonly used than the other, but which? On the map, even in satellite mode, it’s not clear. He brings his face up close to the phone, blinks several times . . . Yes, that’s the one. Boulevard Roméo-Vachon. Now, what’s the alternative route? He grabs his notepad, his eyes darting from screen to paper, and writes, crosses out, rewrites.

  One of the hand-free cell phones rings and Hugues glances at it in exasperation. He reads Unknown Number on the dash screen. Létourneau? He connects. “Yes?”

  “Are you sweating yet, Hugues? I’ll bet your idea of stress is already quite a bit different,” Létourneau taunts through the speaker.

  “I figured it out! I found the time and place! It’s at—”

  “Tell it to your listeners, Hugues, not to me. And I see you’ve been parked for almost ten minutes. Get driving.”

  “I had to look up—”

  “Act like a pro and drive!” Létourneau yells.

  Realizing that the slightest annoyance could cause this lunatic to set off the bomb, Hugues hurries to get back on the road. His hands are so damp that he has to wipe them on his pants before gripping the steering wheel.

  The voice on the other end of the line softens. “Perfect. Now stay downtown.”

  “Can’t you tell me if I—”

  But Létourneau has already hung up. Hugues bangs his fist on the dashboard and curses. He rubs his left eye, then glances at the clock: 3:59. On the air in four minutes.

  A cell phone rings. Goddamn these drivers and their traffic tips! Yet if he doesn’t keep doing his job as usual, he’ll deliver a half-assed update. And Létourneau had ordered him to stay professional to the end. Manage the stress! He lets out a joyless laugh and activates the phone.

  “Hey, Hugues, I didn’t stop at Rockland Centre after all!”

  It’s Diane again. Hugues tries to make his voice sound normal. “That so, Diane?”

  “Pffft, no, I’ve been spending too much money lately anyway! You know, last week I bought my little . . .”

  He barely listens, his head buzzing, as he answers in monosyllables. Finally, Diane tells him that the 15 is now backed up from the 440; he thanks her and disconnects.

  Turning west on René Lévesque to join the long line of bumper-to-bumper cars, he takes another call from a regular who cracks a few jokes with him. And Hugues laughs too, a laugh that tears at his chest and makes his lips twitch as he scribbles in his notepad, his vision blurring.

  At 4:02, he puts on his headset. A minute later, Valérie’s voice fills his ears: “Well, Hugues, the traffic’s getting heavier, I imagine?”

  Don’t go to the airport! Don’t take Boulevard Roméo-Vachon, there’s a bomb! Obviously, he says none of these things. He clears his throat and in his normal voice . . . professional . . . he starts his update: “Yes, Valérie, it’s pretty slow all around. I’ve just been told that Roméo-Vachon is closed—the boulevard that leads to Trudeau Airport. I don’t know why, but it’s closed. I suggest taking Jacques-de-Lesseps—but via Chemin de la Côte-de-Liesse, not Autoroute Côte-de-Liesse.”

  “So, if you don’t want to miss your flight, take Autoroute Côte-de-Liesse to Jacques-de-Lesseps—”

  “No, no, no! Not the autoroute, the chemin!” Hugues cuts in impatiently. “Take Chemin de la Côte-de-Liesse, or you’ll end up on Roméo-Vachon!” He blurts out these last sentences a bit too passionately, and the host stammers a disconcerted, “Right, thanks.”

  Turning north on Atwater, Hugues grinds his teeth. Goddamnit, he has to stay calm. He continues his update in a smooth voice, summing up the situation on the other main roads of Montreal. “And don’t forget,” he concludes, “for those heading to the airport, avoid Roméo-Vachon.”

  “Thank you, Hugues. Now for the weather, with . . .”

  Covered in sweat beneath his spring jacket, Hugues takes off his headset and sighs as if a hundred kilos had just been lifted off his shoulders. I did it! I figured it out! He’d solved Létourneau’s little puzzle, hadn’t he? As he drives past the old Forum, one of the cell phones rings: Unknown Number. He answers, feverish.

  “You did that like a pro, Hugues,” Létourneau says, a note of amusement in his voice.

  “So I guessed right, then? I told people to take a different route. Now you’ll deactivate the bomb?”

  “If you’re right, yes.”

  “Well, am I right or not?” Hugues asks testily.

  “You’ll know when the bomb is supposed to go off. If it doesn’t, you were right. Otherwise . . .”

  “But . . . but why can’t you just tell me now?”

  “So that you can experience stress, Hugues. Real stress. To the very end.”

  The lunatic hangs up again and the reporter stares at the cell phone, then grabs it and hurls it to the back of the car. He regrets it immediately. Shit, that’s the Bell Mobility phone! Létourneau probably has a phone on the same plan and won’t be able to contact him if his is broken. Hugues pulls over, reaches back to grab the cell phone, and checks—it still works. Reassured, he sets it on its stand and slowly smooths back his hair, letting out a sigh that quickly turns into a gasp. He straightens up—if he stays parked too long, Létourneau won’t be happy. He gets back on the road and heads east on Sherbrooke. He feels ridiculous driving in circles like this, but does he have a choice?

  He starts to wonder: Could I have guessed wrong? Hiding the bomb on a street near the airport seems to fall right in line with Létourneau’s logic, with his desire to be as faithful as possible to last year’s events . . .

  A cell phone rings. Grudgingly, he answers. It’s a woman named Juliette who reports in an almost giddy voice that she’s calling for the first time. She starts telling him about her daily commute and Hugues is about to cut her off when she mentions that there’s a broken-down car in the Lafontaine Tunnel. Hugues thanks her, disconnects. He could call the cops and warn them of a bomb near the airport, couldn’t he? Létourneau told him that if he saw too many cops downtown, he’d set it off, which means that the lunatic must be downtown, not at the airport. So he wouldn’t be able to see the cops arriving there . . . He s
tops at a red light at the corner of Guy, frowning. This thought reminds him suddenly of the exact words Létourneau had used: he’d planted a bomb not just on any street in Montreal, but on a street downtown—he’d said that very clearly.

  Hugues screams again, pounding his fists on the steering wheel. How could he have been so stupid to forget this detail? Besides, Roméo-Vachon isn’t big enough for an explosion to cause as many deaths as the crash. He has to start over from square one.

  A cell phone rings, the indifference of its tone unbearable. The name of a regular comes up on the dash screen. “Fuck you!” Hugues spits in the direction of the phone.

  He turns on Mackay, furiously massaging his right temple. He thinks through the details of last year’s tragedy and tries desperately to make connections with the present, with Montreal. At least he got the time right: 4:25. That leaves him seventeen minutes, and ten minutes before his next update. He’ll never make it in time. He stops at a stop sign and squeezes his eyes shut, concentrating with all his strength. The two planes crashed in New York . . . There’s no Rue New York in Montreal, so it can’t be that . . . What, then?

  Startled by the sound of several car horns blaring behind him, he accelerates and turns east onto Sainte-Catherine. The traffic is dense, he can drive slowly and think. But his goddamn cell phone rings again and to save face from his blunder on the air, he has to answer.

  “Hey, Hugues, where’d you get that info about the airport?”

  It’s Denis, a traffic reporter from another station, the only other one who still works from his car. Denis tells him he had no problem on Roméo-Vachon and that Hugues’s last update caused total chaos on Jacques-de-Lasseps. Hugues mumbles that he’d obviously gotten a bad tip.

  “Huh. Well, it happens!” Denis says. “Hey, pretty nice out, isn’t it? Soon we’ll be seeing all the ladies strolling around down—”

  “Sorry, Denis, I’ve got to go.” He hangs up, but his other cell phone rings.

  A caller gives him an update on Champlain. When it rings again a minute later, he ignores it; he can’t think if he’s constantly being interrupted. He turns onto Union, sweat running down his face. Less than four minutes before his next update. And it’ll be the last one before 4:25! It’s not possible. It’s just not possible!