“Could Monsieur Baumgartner have set that up”—Beauvoir pointed to the statements—“by himself, or would he need help?”
“No, he could do it himself. It would take organization, but I suspect he started small, then grew it. All he’d need is a hidden account and to choose his targets wisely.”
“People who wouldn’t see,” said Beauvoir.
“People who wouldn’t question, Chief Inspector. And there are a lot of those.”
Lamontagne looked at the statement on the table. A few slender sheets of paper, but, like Madame Ogilvy that afternoon, the broker could see what they meant.
Ruin.
This scandal would kill Taylor and Ogilvy. And throw them all out of work. And maybe Anthony Baumgartner would, in death, have his revenge.
Beauvoir thanked Monsieur Lamontagne and made his way back along the corridor to the interview room where Bernard Shaeffer waited.
Delusion and madness, he thought as he reentered the room. There was a lot of both in this case.
It was close. Amelia could feel it.
Even those around her, the junkies, the whores, the trannies who’d been drawn to her, could feel it. They couldn’t feel their fingers and toes. Their faces were numb and ravaged.
They’d lost all compassion. All good sense. Even their anger and despair were gone. They’d lost their families, and they’d lost their minds.
But this they could feel.
Something big was coming.
It didn’t yet even have a street name. Whoever controlled it would get naming rights. For now it was just “it.” Or “the new shit.” And that seemed to only add to the excitement, the mystique.
Amelia knew what “it” was.
Carfentanil.
She also knew that whoever had it, whoever controlled the carfentanil, would win. And Amelia was determined to win.
But time was short. Once it hit the street, it was out of her hands.
Amelia stood at the window, but the view was obscured by thick frost and grime, so that all she saw were blurry streetlights.
Though she couldn’t see them, she knew they were out there. Waiting for her.
The junkies and whores and trannies. Who’d turned to her for protection. Because she had muscle on her bones and a brain not completely fried. And she could see around corners. What was hiding. What was waiting. What was coming.
They slept in the corridor outside Marc’s room, armed with guns and knives, and some had clubs, and waited for her to come out. And lead them.
Their eyes glowed in ways their mothers would never recognize.
They had nothing to lose and one thing to find. It.
Out there somewhere, in the hollowed-out core of Montréal, there was a factory cutting and recutting the drug. And this David knew where it was.
If she wanted to find it, she’d have to first find him.
“So, Sweet Pea,” said Marc as they prepared to leave. “What’re you going to call it?”
“What?”
They’d stepped out of his room, and Amelia saw, up and down the dingy hallway, skeletons struggling to stand on pin legs. On feet clad in boots stolen from corpses of friends who’d OD’d.
Bodies. Pale. Frozen. Picked up by dark vans and taken to lie on autopsy tables, then in drawers. Unnamed. Unclaimed. By mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, who’d spend the rest of their lives wondering whatever became of their bright-eyed child.
“It. The shit,” said Marc. “Ha. It rhymes. It the shit.”
Amelia had to smile. She thought her favorite poet, Ruth Zardo, would like that little morsel. It the shit.
“When you find it, you’ll have naming rights,” said Marc. His eyes were unfocused and his words indistinct. Mumbled. His lips and tongue no longer able to work properly. He shuffled and muttered like an old man after a stroke. He put his arm around her shoulders. “Dragon. Wicked. Suicide. Something terrifying. Kids like that.”
She felt, even through his winter coat, his bones.
There was hardly anything to him anymore. He was being eaten alive. Consumed from the inside out. They all were.
Except Amelia. At least not so that it was visible. But still she wondered if her mother would recognize her anymore. Or claim her as her own.
Beauvoir took his seat across from Bernard Shaeffer and smiled.
“Tell me.”
“What?”
“No more games,” said Beauvoir, his tone cold but calm. “Baumgartner set you up at the Caisse Populaire, a bank, for a reason. Now I want that reason.”
“I don’t—”
“Tell me.”
“There’s—”
“Tell me,” Beauvoir snapped. “Where do you think I was just now?”
Shaeffer looked from Beauvoir to Agent Cloutier, his eyes wide. He clearly hadn’t given it any thought. Now he did.
“I don’t know—”
“I was next door, in another interview room.” Beauvoir glared at him. “Asking questions and getting answers. Now I’m giving you a chance. Answer the question. What did Baumgartner want from you?”
There was silence.
“Now,” shouted Beauvoir, bringing his open hand down on the table with such force that Shaeffer nearly jumped out of his skin. As did Agent Cloutier, who dropped her pen on the floor and had to quickly bend to scoop it up.
“An account,” said Shaeffer. “Okay? He wanted me to set up an offshore account. And put the money he sent into it.”
“For both of you?”
“No. Just under the name Anthony Baumgartner.”
“He used his own name?”
The question seemed to surprise Shaeffer. “Of course. Why not?”
“Easy to trace.”
“He didn’t expect to be caught.”
“How much is in it?”
“I’d have to check, but I think it’s somewhere around eight million,” said Shaeffer.
“And how much did you take for yourself?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” said Beauvoir. “How stupid are you? You know we’ll find out.” He turned to Agent Cloutier. “She’s in charge of forensic accounting for the entire Sûreté. Nothing gets past her. She’s brought down business leaders, politicians, mob heads. She’ll bring you down too. Before breakfast. So save us the trouble.”
Shaeffer looked at Cloutier, who now wished she hadn’t stuck the pen in her mouth and chewed it.
“Okay,” he said. “Maybe a little. But don’t tell him.”
“That I can promise,” said Beauvoir.
Shaeffer shook his head. “Sorry. I forgot he’s dead.”
Beauvoir hadn’t missed the tone of Shaeffer’s voice when he’d, just for a moment, forgotten that Baumgartner was dead.
He was afraid of him, thought Beauvoir. Genuinely afraid. In fact, Jean-Guy thought as he got to his feet, that might’ve been the most genuine moment in this whole interview.
“Give Agent Cloutier the information on the account, please.”
“I can go?”
“We’ll see.”
They were getting closer, thought Beauvoir as he walked toward his office. Closer to embezzlement, if not murder. But he knew Gamache was right. When they found the money, it would be infused with delusion. With madness. With the stink of emotions rotten enough to lead to murder.
Amelia could hear the footsteps of the junkies and whores and trannies following them as she and Marc walked down the concrete stairs. Marc gripping Amelia’s hand for support.
The air got colder and colder the closer they got to the front door.
Amelia braced for the frigid blast as soon as the door opened, but still it took her breath away and made her eyes water.
“Oh, fuck,” she heard Marc say, coughing and choking on the air.
Through watery eyes Amelia saw a little girl in a red hat with the Montréal Canadiens logo. She stood alone, at the mouth of an alley.