‘Along the highway?’
‘Elaine took a back-roads route. She drove for about twenty minutes and there it was alongside the road with the bare trees with the black branches.’
‘Well, you’re going to have to be more specific than that.’
‘I know.’
‘I know a place. A place we drink at after classes sometimes and I go there after work, too. It’s a quiet dive. I’ll tell her to meet us there in half an hour.’
Darren and I sat at a table in the bar by a large sliding window looking out on the street, waiting for Michelle. The plan worked, in theory; Darren called and told Michelle to meet us in thirty minutes at his bar, Chez Carlos, and all she had to say was yes or no and she said yes. Nevertheless, we’d been waiting for about thirty extra minutes and she still hadn’t shown. For the first fifteen, I refrained from drinking beer with Darren and had a club soda with lime, but after fifteen I cracked and ordered a beer when Darren asked for his second. We sat there silently drinking our bottles of beer and staring off into nowhere, like the three or four other patrons. The bar was exactly as Darren had described it, a quiet dive. Punk rock music played softly and there was a pool table but no one playing and only men sat at the bar but the bartender was a woman, a thin pretty redhead, who looked tough, though, not to be fucked with, and the server was the only other woman in the barroom, a stout Québécoise waitress in her mid-forties, I’d guess, but I’m bad at guessing. Darren peeled the label off his second beer and used it as a coaster. He yawned, then rubbed at his eyes. I felt tired, too, but when was I ever going to sleep well again? This case, these people, they were devouring me, I thought, and I’d never rest well again. I stared out on to the street and it had started to rain.
I spotted Michelle walking in the rain with a black umbrella before Darren because she was walking north and I was facing south. She saw me and waved a small wave. Darren jerked around fast when he saw me wave back. She smiled.
Closing her umbrella and shaking off the raindrops, Michelle entered the bar and came over to our table. ‘Hey, guys.’
‘Have a seat,’ said Darren and she sat down beside him, across the table from me. ‘How’re you?’
‘Good, fine. Sorry about before, on the phone, but I was with Bouvert. He came back to the office after the hotel.’
‘Do you know why?’ I said.
‘No, but it wasn’t unusual.’
‘Well the question remains,’ said Darren. ‘Do you know of a restaurant Bouvert frequents in the Old Port?’
‘Yeah, of course. Diavolo Cucina, or its full name’s something like La Diavolo del Cucina, but Diavolo Cucina, yeah … Italian … Bouvert goes there all the time — sometimes with Adamson but it’s where he goes. I think he might even be a part owner or something, but I’m not sure.’
‘That’s helpful, Michelle. Thanks.’
She nodded.
‘Have you ever been there with him?’ asked Darren.
‘Yes, a few times. It’s not very big, sort of dark inside, very, very good. And Bouvert clearly knows everyone who works there.’
‘Did you know he’s going there tonight?’ I said.
‘No, but that doesn’t surprise me. It’s one of the few places that he won’t ask me to make him a reservation at. I don’t think I’ve ever called the restaurant for him. He just goes.’
‘Did you know the Andrewses at all?’ I asked. ‘Did you see them ever come into the office or anything?’
‘Yes, of course. Both mister and missus.’
‘Would they come in often?’
‘Not often, I wouldn’t say, but they were important clients and treated as such. Bouvert would golf with Gerald Andrews from time to time or they’d go for dinner. Elaine Andrews and Bouvert would dine together once in a while, too.’
‘Not Adamson?’
‘He’s not as social.’
‘What else can you tell us about the nature of Gerald and Elaine Andrews’ relationship with Bouvert and Adamson?’
Michelle shrugged. ‘Not much. Like I said, they were important clients — they spent a lot of money at the firm.’
‘Right.’
‘Did you talk to the Andrewses much?’ Darren said.
‘Not really, no. They said hello when they came in and I booked their appointments sometimes but they’d often bypass me and call Bouvert directly on his cell, especially Gerald Andrews.’
‘What’s your general impression of Elaine Andrews?’ said Darren.
‘I’m not sure. She’s beautiful, of course, and seems intelligent, but we don’t talk much. She’s hard to read, I guess.’
‘And Gerald?’
‘Rich and powerful.’ She laughed. ‘I don’t know. Intimidating. He was handsome and nice enough to me but again I didn’t have much contact with him.’
‘We appreciate your help,’ I said. ‘Now let’s get you a drink.’
Darren and Michelle and me sat drinking but Michelle didn’t have much more to tell us. Darren looked tired, rough, but seemed happy to be around Michelle. He had gold sparkles underneath his eyes, embedded in the dark circles, from rubbing at his tired eyes after picking at his beer’s green and gold label. I stared out on to the rainy street, thinking about the case, while Darren flirted with Michelle. The puddles were undulating and spitting in the wind and rain and changing colour with the traffic lights. A detective attempts to make sense of both what’s presented to him or her and what’s hidden from plain sight, modestly trying to parse things out, not accept received opinions, while maintaining one’s own dignity; this is why those of us, those of us without power, are detectives, that is to say, we wake up to a world every day that has all sorts of plans for us and we spend our time figuring out said plans, battling the day, till we’re too tired and need drink and/or love to put us to sleep again. This is what a detective does, I thought. Michelle had one vodka-cranberry and then left. Darren and I needed to come up with a plan.
‘So what should we do?’ said Darren.
‘I was just thinking the same thing,’ I said.
‘And …?’
‘Well, we’ll get there first. Stake it out.’
‘We should probably pick up your gun.’
‘I don’t own a gun.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have a camera?’
‘Yes.’
‘We should get photos of the payoff.’
‘Right.’
‘Also, man, we need some sort of weapon. They’ll all be packing, for sure.’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘I don’t know. What do you have?’
‘A Louisville Slugger. A block of kitchen knives. You?’
‘Some old golf clubs, I guess, and a baseball bat, too. We have a nail gun in the back of the boutique.’
‘Great. Let’s collect our gear.’
‘Okay,’ said Darren.
We went to my place first, since it was on the way to chez Darren and Chez Marine. Darren waited in the car out front while I ran in to get the baseball bat and camera and anything else I could find. I ran up the three small flights of stairs and dug around in my pockets for my keys. I was fumbling and flustered. While inserting my key into the lock I was greeted from behind with an X26 Taser buried in my side. I was down on the ground in a second, neuromuscularly sedated with 50,000 volts, and once again in cuffs. The cops had me in the back of a squad car before I knew what was happening; for a moment I thought I’d had a heart attack and/or a stroke.
23
Sitting handcuffed to a chair, I thought, I spend an inordinate amount of time handcuffed to chairs. They left me in the interrogation room alone for at least twenty minutes, which is pretty much sop. Sometimes they make you wait much longer but O’Meara had a rendezvous with the Devil, I thought, or Devils, plural, or at least with some real bad assholes, so he couldn’t waste too much time. Still, he wasn’t there to attempt to intimidate me right away and left me sitting there restrained, still rattled from the 50,000 volts. On the car ride to the station one of the officers asked me if I’d ever had a taste of an X26 before and I said, ‘Why would I have?’ He told me that in the academy he’d volunteered to be shot up with electricity and had been OC-sprayed, too. ‘Like pepper-sprayed?’ I said, and he said yes and said that OC was an abbreviation for Oleoresin Capsicum. I asked him which was worse, the X26 or the spray, and he said they were both bad but before both they took away his service weapon and that if he’d had it after the Taser he would’ve shot the cadet who’d Tased him and if he’d had it after the pepper spray, he would’ve shot himself. ‘The academy sounds like a gas,’ I said, and we stopped talking for the duration of the ride.