Morency, I’m here to help him, not to put him down.”
Rodger’s mother watched her without moving, and all of a sudden Juliette felt despicable for making this woman believe she could “fix” her son’s criminal tendencies.
“But to do that, I have to get to know him, understand what got him into this in the first place.”
Not once did Madeleine Morency shift her gaze from Juliette.
There was more silence.
“So, what’ll it be, coffee or tea?”
The life of Rodger, according to his mother, followed the same path as the police reports, but her voice somehow gave it a more personal, intimate hue. According to Demers, Rodger had plunged headlong into crime on purpose, but his mother preferred to talk about his repeated bad luck, one incident leading to another, no matter how hard he tried. There were unscrupulous accomplices, but, according to her, they were opportunists who’d taken advantage of his naïveté and good nature. His long slide to hell had a few bright moments when Rodger could have split from his “negative milieu,” but they didn’t last. Although his mother kept sending out “positive energy,” his lucky star didn’t shine bright enough or long enough.
Oh, okay, New Age stuff. Now Juliette twigged to the long grey hair. Madeleine Morency was into pop spirituality, perfumed candles, et cetera, to free her kid from a life of crime, but it wasn’t working too well for them, no matter what Rodger promised. He was already too far gone by the looks of it. She wouldn’t see him again till the next disaster, probably a call from the police station.
By her third cup of tea, Juliette figured she had enough information. Rodger’s path was twisted and tiring. There had been one incident after another, but nothing to connect him to David. He didn’t read the papers (“all lies”) or watch TV (“more lies”). Above all, Rodger never ever mentioned international politics. The only thing he cared about and his sole subject of conversation was one thing: money. He often got it from his mother.
Just as Juliette was leaving without providing her phone number (“I’m always on the road, but I’ll call him”), she saw Rodger’s mother blocking her way. Juliette couldn’t get out. She had to see Madeleine’s photo album.
“Another time, Mrs. Morency.”
“I want you to see how much I love him. Please.”
There was no refusing Madeleine Morency. Her sanctuary at the back of the house, her “elf garden,” as she called it. In the living room and kitchen, she must have been holding back, because here it was a festival for the senses: little angels, clouds, incense sticks, lace, and fine linens. The place was a medieval dump, and it was from here that she sent her positive vibrations to a son who at the same moment was probably emptying the cash drawer of a pizzeria or a car wash.
The album itself seemed to come from the personal collection of some amateur wizard. An oversized, elongated scrapbook held letters his mother had lovingly glued in and news articles relating his criminal career, every petty arrest or incident connected with his shady world, all of it dated and pasted with loving care. It was a painstaking record that spanned from his very earliest days as a delinquent teen to the present.
Juliette thumbed through it with interest, enthralled by this woman’s pain at the monument to failure that was her son’s life.
“Every letter, every article is glued with my tears.”
Once more, Juliette felt bad that she’d lied again. Rodger had done the same so many times in his life. Whatever nonsense her son had been up to, his mother didn’t deserve this. Juliette’s head was spinning. She should have stopped before her last cup of tea. All of a sudden, she felt like throwing up. Then she passed out.
When she came to, Madeleine was holding out a damp towel: “You’re pregnant.”
Back in the car, Juliette began to cry long and hard.
19
Temagami Penitentiary was on the edge of a forest, and beyond that, farther north, tundra, glaciers, and the North Pole. In winter, Max O’Brien’s cell window provided him with glimpses of deer, caribou, and moose as they ventured into the world of men in search of more food. He felt as though he were in a zoo, a prison invented by some wild-animal lover or by one of the animals, reincarnated as a prison architect. Yeah, why not? Did their ferocity and cruelty condemn them to live out their karma the same as humans … rebirth in that avatar of destruction, mankind, the worst of all animal species? Had wild animals really driven the gods to this level of desperation?
Max was trying to survive here the best he could: walls around his cell, around the workshop where he made key chains no one would use … Santa’s workshop filled with shiftless young delinquents, a sort of North American gulag where porn films and disco music took the place of forced labour.
Far removed from the city and life itself, Max, at twenty-six, felt like he was dying a slow death. He blamed himself for what had happened, for trusting that greenhorn, what’s-his-name. The idiot who worked on two contracts at the same time, a no-no under the agreement he’d sworn to, same as the others. Then it happened, the slow decline into the utterly ridiculous. The idiot got caught speeding while under the influence — another rule broken. The cops checked his identity and found he was out on parole, something Max hadn’t been told, naturally.
Sitting in the Toronto patrol car on his way to booking, the cretin was scared stiff … of what? The speed the cops were driving, their nasty smiles, the leaden darkness that fell around the car? Anyway, instead of shutting his yap and taking the fall, he spilled it all.
“Hey, if you let me off, I’ll tell you everything about a job, a really big one — names, details, everything.”
The cops probably looked at him sideways with a grin. Deals were usually made further down the line, at least after you’d been charged and knew what kind of time you were looking at; and even then, it was your lawyer who did the dealing, not the joker in the deck. This one couldn’t wait.
“You know Max O’Brien?”
Of course they did, but they figured he was in Mexico.
“No way,” said the ding-dong. “He’s in town, and he’s getting something set up on Bay Street.”
The two cops were amazed and delighted to hear it, already seeing themselves honoured by the Kiwanis Club of Greater Toronto or cast in bronze facing the CIBC, their reward for saving an unscrupulous banker from the shame and humiliation of his board of governors.
“You accept my offer, and I’ll tell you how you can pick him like a daisy.”
More like a pimple.
Max and Pascale had just taken shelter at Harbour Square on the 32nd floor of a brand-new building. It felt like a holiday. From the living-room window they could see the ferry shuttling to and from the Toronto Islands, sailboats going by, and the splendid sky of an unforgettable summer. They ate out on the terrace each evening, sometimes chatting about the con that Max and his team were about to pull off. Mostly they talked about what they would do afterward: Hawaii, Guadeloupe, Turkey, or Bermuda? There were long moments of silence. Chit-chat was for jobs, just a tool of the trade, nothing else. Silence was the most precious thing of all. When Max held Pascale in his arms, he couldn’t utter a word. Neither of them even tried. They just rolled together
