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  Another waitress came in with two drinks on her tray, highball glasses, and one of the girls in the band said, “Hey, this isn’t tropical — where’s the little umbrella?”

  The waitress looked at Mick and said, “Claude wants to see you,” and left.

  Mick looked at Dougherty. “You okay?” Dougherty didn’t say anything right away so the girl in the band said, “He looks fine,” and then the two of them started singing “He’s So Fine,” off-key but with a good beat.

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, I’m fine,” so Mick left, saying, “Let me know if you need anything.”

  One of the girls put on a shiny jacket but the other one just leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. “Did you like what you heard?”

  “I liked the Beach Boys number.”

  The girl smiled. “Me, too. I wanted to do ‘There’s a Riot Goin On’ but they won’t let me.”

  “I don’t know that one.”

  “Nobody does,” she said, “but it’s good. I’m Jasmin, I play guitar. This is Kathy, she’s drums.”

  “Eddie Dougherty, constable.”

  Jasmin leaned forward and shook Dougherty’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  No one said anything for few seconds and it started to get awkward. Dougherty said, “This is like that movie,” and Jasmin said, “Which one?” and he said, “What do you say to a naked lady?”

  Jasmin laughed and Kathy said, “Jaz, put on some clothes.”

  “She spends all her time back behind the drums, she hasn’t gotten used to this yet.”

  Dougherty said, “Neither have I,” and Jasmin laughed too much and said, “I lived in Rochdale in Toronto — I was a dirty-clean hippy. Kathy was a dance teacher.”

  Kathy was lighting a cigarette and she blew out a stream of smoke. “Ballet.”

  “And now,” Dougherty said, “you’re rock ’n’ roll stars.”

  “That’s right,” Jasmin said and laughed too loudly again. Then she got up and searched the small dressing room until she found her cigarettes on the table. She opened the pack and got one out, pretended to look around for a match, then turned her head a little and looked over her shoulder at Dougherty.

  “Have you got a light?”

  He laughed a little and stood up, getting out his matches and striking one. Jasmin had the cigarette in her mouth, and she took Dougherty’s hand in both of hers and pulled it close. When the smoke was lit, she leaned her head back and exhaled towards the ceiling.

  “Well, I guess everything’s okay here. I better be getting back to work.”

  “We have to play one more set,” Jasmin said. “Why don’t you stick around?”

  “I can’t leave the city unprotected.”

  “Maybe you can come back?”

  Dougherty said maybe, and nodded a little at Kathy, who was flipping through a magazine. Then he looked at Jasmin and nodded a little, and she looked right back at him.

  He walked out, thinking maybe he would come back.

  In the lane behind the Hawaiian Club, Dougherty started to get into the squad car but stopped when he saw something in the small parking lot on Drummond.

  Gagnon was opening the passenger door, and he looked over the roof and said, “What is it?”

  Dougherty closed the car door and walked, and then started to run, as the car he was looking at drove away.

  A white Lincoln.

  Gagnon was beside him then, and Dougherty said, “Did you see who got into that car?”

  “No.”

  “Did he come out of the Hawaiian?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Shit.”

  Gagnon said, “What is it?” and Dougherty said, “Come on, we have to go back in.”

  “The first good thing you say all night.”

  Back inside the club, Dougherty cut through the crowd, looking for Mick. From the stage Jasmin saw him and waved a drumstick. He made eye contact but kept moving until he found Mick standing by the bar.

  “I need to talk to the waitresses.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll do it in the dressing room, send them in.”

  Dougherty went to the dressing room and a minute later one of the waitresses came in. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m looking for a guy.”

  “Bud’s is downstairs.”

  “Did someone try to pick you up tonight?”

  She rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to arrest them for that we won’t have any customers.”

  “He’s a young guy, good-looking, charming.”

  “In here? No, I don’t think so.”

  Another waitress came in then and asked, “What’s going on?” and the first waitress said, “He’s looking for a guy who tried to pick you up tonight.”

  “That’s all?”

  “A young guy,” Dougherty said, “good-looking, just left a few minutes ago.”

  The first waitress said, “There was a guy talking to Kelly, one of the girls in the band. He left when they went back onstage.”

  “Which one’s Kelly again?”

  “The bass player.”

  Dougherty pushed past the waitresses and stood in the dressing room doorway, looking at four topless woman moving to a slow beat. “The one with the long hair? The bangs?”

  “Yeah, her.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  The waitresses went back to work, and Dougherty wanted to go onstage and stop the show and talk to this Kelly right away but he waited.

  He paced the small dressing room and waited.

  Eight of a Kind ran through a predictable set of pop songs: “Touch Me” was too cute and “These Eyes” was too slow, but “To Sir With Love” was pretty good.

  Dougherty looked at the crowd, the men and a few women, and saw mostly serious drinkers, people ­looking like they were on the downward slide, just like the Hawaiian Lounge.

  But he could see a guy like Bill working this room. He’d picked up one of the women working in a jewellery store in Place Ville-Marie, a few blocks away. The two women he’d killed in apartments no more than ten blocks away. He could easily have met them in the Hawaiian, or a place like it, taken them home.

  Gagnon came to the dressing room. “We going?”

  “No, I have to talk to the band again,” and Gagnon said, “Sure you do.”

  “Just watch the show.”

  Gagnon returned to the lounge and took a seat near the back door.

  A couple more songs and then “Respect” was supposed to be the big finisher, but the crowd wasn’t really into it.

  Dougherty stepped aside as the band members returned to the dressing room, and then he went straight to Kelly. “You were talking to a guy tonight?”

  She said, “What the hell?”

  “It’s important, I need to know about the guy you were talking to.”

  Jasmin stepped up. “What’s going on?”

  “Was his name Bill?”

  Kelly was pulling a sweater over her head and she said, “No, it’s not Bill.”

  “Is he coming back?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  Dougherty wanted to shake her. He was balling his hands into fists. “I need to know.”

  “Yes.”

  Jasmin said, “What is it?”

  The girl who’d been playing the organ said, “Can you get out? I want to get changed.”

  Dougherty said okay and looked at Kelly and said, “I want to talk to him.”

  He stepped out of the dressing room and stood by the door as it closed.

  A few minutes later, Jasmin came out dressed in bell-bottom jeans and an old brown leather jacket. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “Do you want a drink?”

  “No.”

&
nbsp; Jasmin said okay and went to the bar.

  Dougherty waited and watched a few people leave, but no one came in.

  After a few minutes, Kelly came out of the dressing room wearing a minidress and a long coat and walked past Dougherty towards the bar. She stood with Jasmin and got a drink, another highball without a little umbrella, and Dougherty watched them sipping their drinks and talking. A couple of minutes later a guy came in and Dougherty watched him scan the room until he saw Kelly and Jasmin at the bar and walked straight to them.

  Dougherty walked over, too, reaching the bar at the same time. The guy looked like a picture in a catalogue, under thirty, an expensive haircut, leather jacket. Confident, easy smile as he started talking to the girls.

  But that changed when he saw Dougherty.

  Jasmin said, “So now you want a drink?”

  Dougherty looked at the guy. “What’s your name?”

  “Wayne … wait, why do you want to know?”

  “Why don’t you want to tell me?”

  “What’s going on?” Jasmin said, and Dougherty kept looking at the guy, Wayne. “Do you drive a Lincoln?”

  “No, a Cougar, what’s this about?”

  “Do you live around here?”

  Wayne said, “No.” Then he looked at Kelly. “Actually, I just came back to tell you I can’t stick around tonight, I have to go.”

  “Why?”

  Wayne said, “Family emergency, sorry,” and walked out without looking back.

  Dougherty was about to say Wayne was a shitty liar, when Jasmin said, “Well, that was a bad lie.”

  Kelly looked at Dougherty and said, “Thanks a lot.”

  “Yeah, you should thank him,” Jasmin said.

  Kelly stopped, turned around and said, “What?”

  “Come on, that guy’s married.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  Jasmin just kept looking at Kelly, then Kelly said, “I don’t care,” and walked away.

  “She doesn’t,” Jasmin said, “tonight. But tomorrow …”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You’re not married, are you?”

  “No.”

  He was thinking about Ruth now, how he’d like to know what she thought of this Wayne, but also how she’d look so out of place in the Hawaiian Lounge. She’d have nothing to say to someone like Jasmin, someone Dougherty found easy to talk to.

  “So, do you want a drink?”

  Dougherty looked at Jasmin and said, “I better get back to work.”

  “Okay, but we’re here till Saturday.”

  “Okay.”

  He walked out, trailed by Gagnon, and this time the parking lot was empty.

  chapter

  twenty-three

  Dougherty was working a quiet Labour Day, sitting in the Station Ten parade room, getting caught up reading the alerts and old memos from HQ.

  A couple of older uniform cops came in and poured themselves stale coffee, one of them was saying something about “détention illégale de suspects” and the other one scoffing and saying, “Maudits juges,” and Dougherty realized they were still talking about what a judge had said, how he’d called the whole Montreal police force sloppy and dishonest and, like the first cop said, accused them of illegally imprisoning suspects.

  The cop said it again on the way out, “Maudits juges,” and Dougherty remembered that when the story first broke another judge had said it wasn’t the entire police force.

  He got up to pour himself a cup of coffee and thought about making a fresh pot, and then he saw a Playboy magazine on the counter. There was a blonde woman on the cover, wearing a tight blue sweater, a headband and holding up two fingers in a peace sign. Dougherty picked up the magazine and looked over the list of articles: an interview with Peter Fonda, the Abortion Revolution (jeez, another revolution), a “Loving Look at the No-Bra Look” and “Elke Sommer au Naturel.” He figured the blonde must be Elke Sommer, but he didn’t recognize her.

  On the bottom left of the cover was the sell for another article, “Playboy Polls the Campuses, a National Survey of Student Attitudes on Today’s Major Issues” and Dougherty thought that might actually come in handy with the calls he was getting to McGill and Sir George. It might even help him get a handle on Ruth, though that seemed more doubtful.

  Then a man with a French accent said, “This is what we pay you for, reading skin mags?”

  It was Carpentier.

  “I only read the articles,” Dougherty said.

  “Really? That Elke Sommer has a great rack.”

  Dougherty dropped the magazine. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  “No coffee?” Carpentier said, “Come on, let’s go then.”

  Dougherty followed him around the corner to the Royal.

  As soon as they sat down Carpentier said, “Have you heard what happened to your friends from the Point?”

  A waiter was at the table then, and Carpentier ordered a rum and Coke and looked at Dougherty.

  Dougherty was going to point out he was on duty and it was ten o’clock in the morning but he said, “Just a beer, a Fifty,” and the waiter nodded and left.

  Carpentier said, “So, two of the Point boys were killed in Toronto; do you know Stanley Murray and Brian Melvin?”

  “I know Allison Melvin. She might be a sister.”

  “She might be. The two men were killed by the Toronto police, shot while they were in an antique store. They had robbed a bank the day before.”

  “In Toronto?”

  “Yes.”

  The waiter arrived with their drinks.

  “Melvin just got out of jail in May. Do you remember, he shot that constable from Station Four?”

  “When was that?”

  “A few years ago, maybe five?”

  “I wasn’t here then.”

  “Okay, he went in then and just got out,” Carpentier said. “So this means there will be changes with the Point boys — opportunities, promotions.”

  “I guess so.”

  “It could go well for your friend, what’s his name?”

  “Buckley.”

  “They’ve been running a scam with truckers, they’re buying heating oil and reselling it.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the same product,” Carpentier said, “but the truck fuel has a tax added, twenty-five cents a gallon. The Point boys, not just them, the Italians, too — they’re buying the heating oil for nineteen cents a gallon and selling it to truckers for forty cents and not paying the tax.”

  “Do the truckers know?”

  Carpentier shrugged, “Who cares?” He finished off his drink and looked around for the waiter. “You want another?”

  Dougherty had barely touched his beer. “I’m fine.”

  The waiter took Carpentier’s empty glass without saying a word.

  “It’s a good scam,” Carpentier said.

  “How do you know about it?”

  “There hasn’t been much terrorist action,” Carpentier said, “but we’re still bringing in informants. Life goes on, you know?”

  “I know.”

  The waiter brought Carpentier another drink.

  “We can’t be on this task force forever; we’ll have to get back to work soon. I wanted you to know your friend might be in a better position soon, and if he’s in a better position, you’re in a better position.”

  “I haven’t talked to him in weeks,” Dougherty said.

  Carpentier looked surprised. “You should be buying drug from him every week.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “We’re all busy,” Carpentier said.

  “What about Bill?”

  “Bill who?”

  Dougherty stared at Carpentier for a few seconds and then sai
d, “The guy who’s killed five women in the last year.”

  Carpentier shook his head. “His name’s not Bill.”

  “What?”

  Another long drink, almost draining the glass. “The girl at the jewellery store, the other one who work there, Susan Bentley, she saw Bill again so she call us and we pick him up but it wasn’t him.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, we’re sure, we talk to him. It’s not him.”

  “So, who made the date with Marielle?”

  Carpentier shrugged. “We don’t know. The girls at the store, they see a lot of men, they got them mixed up.”

  “So you’ve been working on this?”

  “Of course we have.”

  “Has there been anything else?”

  “No. What about you, did you find out anything more about the Lincoln?”

  “No.”

  “Well,” Carpentier said, “keep looking. But also, go and talk to your friend in the Point, tell him that you’ve heard talk about the fuel oil scam and to be careful.”

  “You want me to warn him?”

  “Sure, be his friend. Tell him they’re being watched more, the Point Boys. They know it, I’m sure, they’re moving up, you know. But let him know.”

  Dougherty said, “Okay, sure. Be his friend.”

  Carpentier dropped a few bills on the table. “And don’t say anything to the other guys, just keep it to yourself.”

  “Sure, yeah, of course.” Dougherty finished off his beer and stood up himself.

  Walking out, Dougherty wondered if Carpentier agreed with that judge who said the Montreal cops were sloppy and dishonest. Then he wondered why he was so sure Carpentier was being straight up.

  Shit. No way to know really.

  It wasn’t until the weekend that Dougherty got to the Point to talk to Buck-Buck and everybody was talking about the hijackings — four planes in one day, all headed for New York. Three of them ended up in the desert in Jordan, 310 hostages.

  Enough to keep Carpentier and the rest of the detectives on the anti-terrorist squad till Christmas, whether anything was happening in Montreal or not.