Black Rock Page 24

  Danny Buckley wasn’t in the Arawana, but a couple of the younger Higgins brothers were. They stared at Dougherty and he stared back. The whole thing had a kind of first-inning feel to it, like they all knew there was a lot more game to be played. Nothing would be decided for a while.

  After a minute standing by the door, Dougherty turned and walked out.

  He drove up and down Wellington a couple of times and along St. Patrick past the Northern Electric plant, a few thousand people in there making telephones, and he wondered if he might have been one of them if his family hadn’t moved out of the Point.

  Northern Electric or CN or the Canada Packers plant. One of them, anyway.

  Or would he be like Danny Buckley or the Murphy kids or the Higginses, looking for a bigger score?

  Dougherty parked his Mustang and walked through the neighbourhood, making sure not to walk down Coleraine so he wouldn’t have to pass the Webber place and maybe see Arlene.

  He looked in on Nap’s and a couple other places, then stepped into the One and Two on Butler and found Danny Buckley standing at the bar by himself.

  Dougherty walked up to him and said, “They get them yet?”

  Buckley was looking at the black-and-white TV flickering behind the bar, and he didn’t take his eyes off it. “Fuckin’ ragheads.”

  On TV was a scene in some desert in the Middle East, where three of the hijacked planes had been taken. Walter Cronkite was talking but the sound was off.

  “The Americans going in?”

  “Don’t know what they’re waiting for.”

  On the day of the hijackings one plane had landed in London. One of the hijackers was killed and another, a woman, was arrested. Another plane landed in Cairo and when everybody got off one of the hijackers detonated explosives he’d brought on and blew up the empty plane.

  Now the whole world was watching the last three planes in the desert and waiting.

  Buckley turned to Dougherty and said, “What can I do for you, officer?”

  “Or what can I do for you?”

  Buckley turned back to look at the TV, and Dougherty said, “There’s a lot of talk about the fuel oil scam.”

  Buckley didn’t budge.

  “You’re being watched a lot more these days.”

  “Oh yeah?” Buckley said, turning his head slowly to look at Dougherty and then nodding slightly towards the TV. “You’re not watching all the terrorists here. They must be watching this, too, getting some ideas.”

  “Ideas they’ve got,” Dougherty said, “it’s balls they don’t.”

  Buckley gave a little shrug, “But they’re stupid — that usually makes up for it.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So,” Buckley said, “you looking for some more hash?”

  “Have you got any? That’s not screwing up your supply?” Another glance at the TV. And now Dougherty noticed a lot of Jeeps driving away from the planes.

  “They’re letting some of the hostages go,” Buckley said. “They’re just keeping the Jews it looks like.”

  “Figures.”

  “They think they can do anything, because they always have the Jews to blame.”

  Dougherty heard something at the door and turned to see a couple of guys coming in, both wearing identical leather jackets. One of the guys made eye contact with Buckley, and then the two guys in leather sat down in a booth against the far wall.

  As they were sitting, Dougherty saw the jackets both had big insignias on the backs, some kind of skull and fire in the middle, the word Devil’s across the top and Disciples across the bottom. It took Dougherty a second to realize they were the same gang Rozovsky had mentioned at Atwater Park, the ones in the fight with the guys calling themselves the Popeyes.

  It sounded like something out of a movie, Marlon Brando being a tough guy, but Dougherty got the ­feeling these guys were for real.

  Buckley said, “I have to talk to somebody, but go over to the Arawana parking lot around eleven — somebody’ll meet you.”

  Dougherty said okay and started to leave, then he stopped and looked back at Buckley. “You know anybody drives a Lincoln?”

  “Like a limo?”

  “No, a white Lincoln with a black roof, what do you call it, brougham? I’m looking for the guy driving it.”

  “You a fag now, Dougherty?” Buckley said. “Looking to get laid?”

  Dougherty said, “Fuck you,” but then he said, “If you see the Lincoln, let me know,” and walked out while Buckley went to meet with the two Devil’s Disciples.

  Outside there were two motorcycles, Harleys, parked right in front.

  It was just after ten, so Dougherty didn’t have too much time to kill before he drove to the Arawana and parked behind the one-storey brick building. He got out of the car and leaned against it, smoking a cigarette.

  A few guys went into the bar and a few guys came out, but no one looked at Dougherty.

  Now a guy was walking towards him, not coming from the bar but from further up Bridge Street. Dougherty didn’t recognize him, but he was the kind of guy you could never pick out of a lineup, because he looked like every other twenty-year-old: long hair, scraggly beard, jeans, jean jacket.

  The guy said, “You want a dime?” and Dougherty said yeah, and handed him a couple of fives. The guy handed Dougherty the tinfoil ball and walked away.

  Dougherty got in his car and started it and sat there for a minute. So this was it now? Buck-Buck already getting too big to do the deals himself, working with biker gangs and moving up in the Point Boys.

  Driving out of the Point past the row houses and corner stores and bars and over the bridge across the Lachine Canal, heading up the hill towards downtown, he was thinking maybe Carpentier was right, it could be good for Dougherty’s career, getting in on the ground floor with these guys.

  Wasn’t helping him catch the bastard who killed Brenda Webber and the other women, but that was feeling like old news now.

  And that felt wrong.

  chapter

  twenty-four

  Ruth said, “You didn’t hear about the Women’s Conference?” and Dougherty said, “No, why would I?”

  “They had to call the cops.”

  “What?” Dougherty was pretty sure he saw her smile a little.

  They were walking across the McGill campus, the big green lawn spotted with small groups of students talking and reading. It was quiet and peaceful, a beautiful Saturday afternoon at the beginning of October, and Dougherty was thinking this was probably his father’s idea of college life.

  “The conference was divided between French and English, and some women from the French side came in and took over the English side — they grabbed the microphone and it got quite ugly.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Part of the Women in Business Conference at Man and His World,” Ruth said. “And that’s irony, too.”

  “What did they want?”

  “They were mad at the organizers. One of them was French — one of the organizers I mean, maybe they all were, I’m not sure, they spoke English. Anyway the ones who came in were calling this one a traitor and other things, I didn’t really understand. Someone slapped her.”

  “Someone slapped the organizer?”

  “That’s when the police were called, but it was calmed down by the time they got there.”

  “That’s the way we like to time it,” Dougherty said. “Less for us to do that way.”

  “Very funny,” Ruth said. “They had a point, though, the French women. Their side of the hall was smaller and yet they had a bigger crowd. There was a vote to change rooms but by then no one really wanted to.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “What do you mean? I’m a woman.”

  “Yeah, but not in business.”

  “Ther
e were academics, too. One of the speakers was Dr. Marlene Dixon — she’s also in the sociology department here.”

  He said, “Are there a lot of women professors in sociology?”

  “There aren’t many professors, period, in sociology. It’s a small department.”

  “But you’re going to be one?”

  Ruth said, “Oh yes. I don’t know about here, but somewhere.” She looked at Dougherty and said, “Yes, I’m going to have a career. I’m always going to work — does that surprise you?”

  Dougherty said, “No. My mother’s always worked, at least as much as she could once the kids were in school. She was part-time at the Bell: they call it the May Move when everybody moves and get new phone numbers, and she worked for a couple months every year for that. She worked during the war and then after she and my dad got married she kept working. It’s a little different.”

  “Not as different as you think — a lot of women work.”

  “I guess so.”

  “But at women’s work.”

  Dougherty said yeah, and Ruth said, “And police work isn’t women’s work.”

  “There are women police officers.”

  “Yes, but you couldn’t have a woman for a boss.”

  “A boss?”

  “At the conference, one of the things they said was female police officers can only rise in rank above other women.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

  “And female constables aren’t allowed to carry guns.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Dougherty said. He was going to say that the women were usually used only to deal with female suspects during arrests, when they had to be searched and booked, that kind of thing, but it didn’t take a detective to see Ruth wasn’t looking at it that way.

  She said, “The conference was interesting, though. It was supposed to be about the choices for a woman after graduation — the hostesses at the pavilion are all heading into their last year of school. Did you know all of the managers and assistant managers at the pavilions are men but all of the hostesses are women?”

  “No,” Dougherty said, “I didn’t know that.” Man and His World was sort of leftover from Expo 67, and Dougherty didn’t really understand what it was about now that the World’s Fair was long gone. La Ronde, the amusement park, was still there and there was an aquarium with dolphins and penguins, but the pavilions that had been built by countries from around the world were all — or almost all, he wasn’t sure — given other purposes.

  “Yes,” Ruth said, “so the choices they mentioned were marriage and staying home or a career, or a combination of both. But the audience wasn’t all university students — there were a lot of working women,” she paused and looked at Dougherty, “like your mother, I guess. So for them the issues are things like daycare and opportunities at work, trying to get promotions or trying to get into men’s jobs, where the pay is better.”

  “Like constables with guns.”

  “Even sergeants. Could you work for a woman sergeant?”

  “Couldn’t be much more of a girl than Delisle.”

  Ruth said, “Very funny.”

  They were at the Roddick Gates then, on Sherbrooke, and Dougherty said, “Do you want to get a drink?”

  Ruth said, “Sure,” and Dougherty thought for a second and then said, “We might as well walk to Crescent from here.”

  Along the way Ruth told him a little more about the conference and then she told him all about a study she’d just read, how there were a million kids in Canada under fourteen with working mothers and how less than twenty-five percent of them were in proper daycares and how there was so much more to study that by the time they got to Winny’s, Sir Winston Churchill’s Pub on Crescent Street, Dougherty realized they hadn’t talked about the murders or her progression theory or anything like that at all.

  And Ruth seemed happy about that, so Dougherty didn’t say anything about it.

  They sat on the patio at Winny’s and watched people go by on Crescent as the sun went down. Saturday night was hopping, as usual.

  Later, after a couple of drinks, when they were crossing the street to go to a French restaurant, there was a loud bang and Ruth grabbed Dougherty’s arm and he said, “It’s just a car, a backfire.”

  In the restaurant Ruth said, “At least there hasn’t been a bomb here in a while,” and Dougherty said, “Yeah, that’s good.”

  “Do you think that’s over?”

  “Who knows? Everybody’s still watching the Middle East.”

  “Those poor people,” Ruth said.

  “Which ones?”

  “All of them.”

  After the hijackers blew up the three planes in the desert — a British TV crew filmed it and it had been showed about a million times, looking like a movie — the hostages were moved into the city, Amman. Then King Hussein declared martial law and the bombing started.

  “They’re calling it Black September,” Dougherty said.

  “It’s just awful.”

  “Well,” Dougherty said, “maybe it’ll give these guys something to think about; maybe terrorism doesn’t look so good now.”

  “You think so? That’s what they’re going to think?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so.”

  Ruth said, “Yeah, let’s hope.”

  They skipped dessert and Ruth said, “You’re too drunk to drive,” and hailed a cab. In the backseat she said, “But not too drunk,” and kissed him and he kissed her back and said, “How drunk are you?”

  “Not at all.”

  And the next morning neither one of them was too hungover, so they stayed in bed and made out again.

  Dougherty left after lunch, Ruth kissing him goodbye at the door, still in her robe, the belt undone and his hands reaching in and touching her skin. She finally had to take his wrist and kiss his fingers and say, “I’ve got work to do.”

  One more grope, one more kiss, and Dougherty left, thinking he liked this, this could be something really special.

  The next morning the British Trade Commissioner was kidnapped from his house a few blocks away from Ruth’s office at McGill, and Montreal was on the front pages of newspapers around the world.

  And Dougherty got new evidence in the Brenda Webber murder.

  PART THREE

  chapter

  twenty-five

  Monday morning Dougherty started two weeks of days and was sitting at a desk in Station Ten at eight thirty when Delisle hung up the phone and said, “Dougherty, a call.”

  “What is it?”

  “A domestic, down the hill in St. Henri.”

  There were two other constables in the station; Tur­cotte, drinking coffee and reading Allo Police, and the rookie, Gagnon, standing by the corkboard looking at the memos, but Dougherty didn’t say anything to them, he just stood up and took the note with the address on it from Delisle and headed for the parking lot.

  Dougherty was getting into a squad car when Gagnon came running out of the station house, saying, “Attends, Dog-eh-dee, t’as un autre appel.”

  “What do you mean, another call?”

  Gagnon ran around the car to the passenger side and got in. “There’s been a kidnapping at the Greek consulate.”

  Dougherty was behind the wheel and pulling out onto St. Matthew. “What street?”

  “Simpson,” Gagnon was staring at a piece of paper in his hand, “between Sherbrooke and Dr. Penfield.”

  “I know.”

  “’ostie,” Gagnon said, “a kidnapping.”

  Dougherty drove fast, cut across traffic on Sherbrooke and up Simpson past the old Golden Mile mansions that had been turned into consulates and new high-rise apartment buildings. He wasn’t surprised there’d been a kidnapping after the attempts on the Israeli and the American embassies, but he wondered, Why the Greeks? />
  Halfway up the block, two squad cars were stopped at angles blocking the street, and Dougherty pulled up and jumped out, running towards the building, then a cop came out waving him back towards the cars.

  “C’est la mauvaise adresse.”

  “What?”

  “Dispatch make a mistake. It’s not here — it’s Redpath, the crescent.”

  Dougherty and Gagnon got back in the car and followed the other two further up Simpson, a block on Pine Avenue and then up the winding Redpath Crescent at the base of Mount Royal.

  They all stopped in front of an old stone house on the north side.

  Dougherty got out of the car but held back as cops rushed up the stone steps to the front door. A couple of detectives were already there talking to two women, looked to be one in her twenties and one in her forties.

  Gagnon got out of the car and said, “What should we do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He wanted to say we should go back and find that domestic in St. Henri, and he was wondering how dispatch could make a mistake between the Greek Consulate and this house on Redpath Crescent that didn’t look like any kind of consulate.

  Then Detective Carpentier came out of the house and walked past Dougherty, motioning for him to follow him across the street to where a man stood by the three-foot-high stone wall in front of a house.

  “Did you see a car here a few minutes ago?” Carpentier said.

  The man said, “About half an hour ago.”

  “What kind was it?”

  “A taxi.”

  “Which company?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What colour was it?”

  “I’m not sure, blue? Maybe black?”

  “What about its sign?”

  The man thought for a moment and then said, “Yellow.”

  Carpentier looked to Dougherty for help. “LaSalle?”

  “Yeah, and there’s another company that uses yellow,” but Dougherty couldn’t think which one.

  Carpentier looked back at the older man. “Did it go straight down the hill?”

  “No, it was facing that way,” he said, pointing towards Mount Royal, “and when the men got in, it pulled a U and then went that way.”