Face/Mask (20 page)

“His name is Jolicoeur, and he expects to be personally thanked as well.”

“Yes, of course,” Janus replied, depressed at the impunity with which the policemen displayed their corruption. He felt they could do whatever they wanted with him. He looked back at the desk sergeant and received a none-too-subtle wink in response.

Therrien took Janus down a long corridor and into what looked like a lunch room, and asked him to sit.

“You’ll have to wait here,” he said. “You can have a cup of sim-choc from the machine if you wish.” Therrien left the room, and closed the door behind him.

Janus looked at the shiny new dispensing machine, but felt no desire to drink. He sat on a well-cushioned chair and asked himself what it was he thought he could do there. Since Terry’s call he’d acted as if he knew what needed to be done to help Joe, but that was far from the truth.

He’d expected the prestige of his official title to open some doors for him and to gain him a little respect, but it was clear that here his position would afford him few privileges.

They kept him waiting for twenty minutes, and he was beginning to wonder if Therrien had decided to abandon him there when the door opened. The man who stepped in was shorter than Janus, had a barrel chest, and wore his uniform sharply creased. He had a bushy moustache, but otherwise the rest of his face and head were clean-shaven.

“
Vous êtes le directeur, Allen Janus
?”

“
Oui
. Uh, yes. My French isn’t great, I’m afraid.”

“That isn’t a problem,
monsieur
. My name is Robert Sévigny. I’m not, I’m afraid, in charge at this station. But I am in a position of some authority. I’m head of security operations for Laval, and I just happened to be in a meeting here tonight. Perhaps I can help you.”

“All right, if there’s nobody else who actually runs things here.”

“I’m afraid I’m the only person who will see you now,
monsieur
,” Sévigny said with a firmness that indicated that he wasn’t used to being argued with.

“Okay then,” Janus conceded, not sure what, if anything, this man could help him with. “Thanks very much. It’s my wife’s uncle. His name is Joe...Giuseppe Pizzi. He was arrested at my house earlier today.”

“Arrested? Why did they arrest him at your house?”

“He lives with us. For two years now, since he came from Italy.”

“I see. And was he arrested as an illegal alien?”

“Oh, no. It’s nothing like that. In fact, it’s really a very minor matter. He’d bought some meat at an unlicensed butcher, you see.”

The policeman lifted a palette that he had with him and scrolled through it for a moment, before stopping and reading from the green-lit screen. He finally looked up at Janus and turned the palette to face him, as if to justify what he was going to say.

“
Monsieur le Directeur,
it seems that your uncle-”

“He’s my wife’s uncle.”

“Yes, fine. It seems that your wife’s uncle has been charged with conspiracy against the administration, as well as supporting a terrorist organization and committing acts in aid of enemies of the state. This is not so minor a matter, I fear.”

Janus was stunned at hearing the offences they’
d charged Joe with
. Until that moment he’d hoped that it was all a misunderstanding, that maybe Terry had confused what the arresting officer had told her. Joe was truly in trouble, and it was his anonymous call that had put the police on his track.

“But you’ve made some sort of mistake,” he protested. “He’s just an old man who doesn’t know anybody. He isn’t a terrorist or a subversive or anything.”

“I would think a man in your position would understand that these types of charges are in fact very serious, and wouldn’t have been brought without a significant evidentiary foundation. In fact I’m surprised that you permitted such a person to live under your roof while he was openly flouting the law.”

Janus suddenly found himself at a loss for words. He realized that he could be blamed for anything Joe did under his roof. In fact, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he and his family could be charged as accomplices.

He had hoped to keep them all out of the picture during Joe’s arrest and prosecution. At one time he’d imagined Terry standing worriedly on the sidelines while the wheels of justice slowly rolled over her uncle. Now, by coming down here like the cavalry riding to the rescue in an old western, he was bringing himself and his family to police attention.

The insecurity of his own position was clear to Janus, and Sévigny’s sarcastic expression showed that the policeman was thinking along the same lines. Janus had hoped to show Terry that she could rely on him, but at that moment his only thought was to get himself out of there as fast as he could.

He stood up and cleared his throat, trying to sound official, if not officious.

“Well, I won’t take any more of your time,
Monsieur
Sévigny. I do understand the gravity of Mr. Pizzi’s situation now.”

“Good. I’m glad you understand...everything.”

“Yes. Yes, well I’ll leave you to do your work. Obviously the legal procedures will unfold as they must.”

“Obviously.”

“I will, you understand, be retaining legal counsel for Mr. Pizzi.”

“You go right ahead and do that,
Monsieur
Janus.”

“Yes. Well, thank you again. Good-night.”

“
Bonsoir, Monsieur le Directeur.”

On the long drive home Janus found himself thinking about the things he’d done in recent years, and wondering how he’d gotten into the position he was in. He’d never been a very ambitious or adventurous man. All he’d ever wanted was a job with decent pay to satisfy his professional ambitions. And a nice suburban home, with a loving wife and healthy kids to fulfill his personal needs.

Except, obviously, none of that was true. He had the stable career, the good salary, the comfortable home and loving family. Yet he’d always needed an outlet to release the restlessness and frustration that sometimes threatened to overwhelm him. Over the previous two years he’d become someone he didn’t recognize.

He’d never chased after women before, but now his relationship with Sahar was an integral part of his life. And even though she was a prostitute that he was paying for sex, he would always think of what they had as a relationship. He’d become a stereotypical cheating husband, making up lies as they became necessary, and he’d been willing to take on that role without a second thought.

Of course the secrecy and lies had all begun with betting on dog-fights in one of the seediest parts of town. He was revolted at the memory, yet he’d gone there for months. He’d mixed with the lowest kind of men; men who were, in effect, just like him. He’d laughed at the suffering of the animals, and shouted with glee when a dog he’d bet on tore its rival to shreds.

He’d been glad to bet more than he could afford, and when he lost, which was often, he indebted himself to loan sharks so he could bet some more. To this day he couldn’t understand how he’d let himself get so deep in debt, nor how he let Joe give him the money to get out from under.

That was the one thing that had never made sense to Janus. Joe had given him the money without hesitation, and without expectation of ever getting it back. As hard as it was for Janus to understand his own actions, Joe’s selflessness was even more incomprehensible. And Janus had repaid his generosity by having him arrested.

He shook his head in wonder at how easy it had been for him to cause so much suffering to so many people.

When he got home Janus was relieved to find that Terry was disappointed, but not surprised, at his inability to even see her uncle at the police station. Richard had gone online to look up information about police procedures and explained to her that arrested suspects were always kept in total isolation until they appeared in court.

“Did you know that they’re not even allowed to speak to a lawyer,” she complained to her husband.

“Are you sure? What about their one phone call?”

“That’s just in the old movies,” Richard explained. “That’s been done away with for years now.”

“And here I was wondering who to call for him. I even told the officer I’d be getting Joe a lawyer and he just smiled at me. Probably thought I was an idiot.”

“It’s not your fault,” Terry said. “I realize there was nothing you could have done. It was very sweet of you to go down there though.”

“So what do we do now?”                                                       

“I suppose we should all try to get some sleep. It’s late, and I don’t know how Richard is going to get up to go to school in the morning.”

“I’m not going to school, mom. I’m going with you guys to the court.”

Janus sat down on the sofa between Terry and their son and put his arm around his shoulders.

“Listen, Rich. I appreciate you staying up with your mom. But I think it’s important for your brothers that we don’t disrupt their routines more than necessary. They’re going to be very upset when they wake up and find that Uncle Joe is gone. Especially since we can’t really give them any idea of how long he’ll be gone for. Or if he’s ever coming back.”

“Allen, you can’t be serious about that,” Terry gasped. “This is all such a minor matter.”

“That’s what I thought. I even said that at the station, and they looked at me like I was nuts. Or worse, an accomplice. We’ve all been sort of winking and looking the other way over this, well, this under the table stuff. But the police are saying that there was a lot more to it than what we thought. Joe is in deep trouble, and we’re going to have to get him a really good lawyer if he’s going to have any chance.”

“It’s like we’re living in a fascist state,” Richard said, surprising both his parents with his vehemence. “So people have to break the rules just to live a decent life.”

“Richard, don’t say that,” Terry scolded.

“No, let him,” Janus said, knowing that his son was expressing his own feelings. “He’s not far from the truth, what with all the crackdowns on protesters, and people being encouraged to spy on each other. Canada was never like this when we ran our own government.”

“Allen,
please
.”

Janus looked in his wife’s eyes and was surprised to see, along with the pain, more than a little fear. He took a deep breath and told himself there was little point getting them worked up over the state of the country. Time to change the subject.

“You’re right. There’s no point talking about that now.”

“Wait a minute,” Richard insisted. “Are you guys trying to protect me from the real world, or are you just afraid to talk about this?”

“Richard, there are other things we should be talking about.”

“Why? Is our house bugged or something?”

This comment stunned Janus for a moment. Although he’d never seriously considered such a possibility, he realized that the doubt was always there, in the back of his mind. He looked at Terry and realized that she was thinking the same thing he was.

“Probably not,” she said.

The three sat quietly, looking at each other for several seconds, and then Richard let a small giggle slip out.

“Well, that’s reassuring,” he said, clearly not meaning it. “Here I was worrying about what I could say in my own home.”

“I think we should only worry about one thing,” Janus said, “and that’s what to do about Uncle Joe.”    

Terry rested her head on his shoulder and sniffled softly. He leaned toward her and kissed her wet cheek. He told himself that there was a positive side to the way things had turned out. His family depended on him now more than ever. Even Joe. It had been a long time since Janus had felt so needed.

Chapter nine

Canadian Illegal Alien Enforcement Act 79-12-1466. Detention or arrest -- Determination of citizenship status:
113 (1) (a)... any law enforcement officer, acting in the enforcement of any provincial or federal law, may conduct any stop, detention, or arrest of a person based upon a reasonable suspicion that an offence was or may have been committed, and if the said person is unable to provide to the law enforcement officer a document listed in Subsection 76-9-1004(1) (known hereunder as a “cit-card”) and the officer is otherwise unable to verify the citizenship of the person, the officer shall detain such a person and have him brought before a verification tribunal, as established under Subsection 78-11-1955(3).

September 15, 2039:

Sahar sat on the sofa in her sparsely furnished living room. She’d just showered, leaving her wet hair wrapped in a towel.

“
Towel head
,” she thought to herself wryly, and not for the first time.

Allen Janus had rushed out of her apartment an hour earlier, his desire to help his wife’s uncle as confusing to her as it was to him. She shook her head, and put him and his unhappy family life out of her mind. She had other concerns just then, things she’d intended to discuss with him tonight, before his wife’s call had sent him off in a panic.

Just as well
.
This is something I’m going to have to deal with myself.

She reached into the top drawer in her night table and her hand clasped the chip that Tony had given her the day before. She breathed in deeply, telling herself that the longer she delayed opening it the harder it would be.

She slipped the chip into her P-screen, worrying as the ancient device’s auto-play whirred and clicked, before several file folders finally appeared.

What Tony had implied seemed impossible to her. As it was he admitted that he hardly understood the technical terminology. Part of her hoped that he’d simply misread the contents of the chip. She’d made peace with the events of 21 years earlier, the loss of so many lives including her own beloved family. She didn’t want to find out that there had been any lies behind that awful night.

The never-ending war against shadowy Jihadist enemies, the rounding up of Muslims across the western world; penned in like cattle, deprived of the very freedoms they’d left their homes to find. Would any of that really come to an end just because so much of the world’s hatred was born of a lie? And was she really about to become a crusader for the freedom of her people?

She decided that her fear of the truth wouldn’t stop her from opening the files and reading the reports. The information they contained wouldn’t be any less true just because she hadn’t read it. Lies didn’t become truth just because everybody believed them. 

So she slid the reports open on the screen, and took a deep breath. The things people kept records of amazed her. Was it to remind themselves of the horrors they perpetrated? Or were they simply obsessively organized?

The first few pages listed so many parts on manifests, chemicals that were illicitly transferred, and equipment that was shipped with false identification numbers. These were the ingredients that went into making a small, portable nuclear bomb, spread out in front of her. She didn’t have to know what each word meant to understand that Tony had correctly grasped its meaning. Beyond the technical jargon were reports and recommendations made by organizations with acronyms that she didn’t recognize.

There had been an alphabet soup of intelligence, military and espionage agencies when she was growing up. Every time a new one was revealed on the news, Rafik used to tell her, there were two others which slipped deeper into the shadows. Nobody knew who they were, nor what they were up to.

Twenty-one years earlier somebody in one of these organizations, had worried that the public was tiring of the never-ending war on terror. The redeployment to Afghanistan in 2017 had barely lasted a year, before Western forces withdrew rather than confront an increasingly restive, and nuclear-armed, Pakistan. Nobody believed there was any point to all these wars; it wasn’t like the problems plaguing the Middle East were ever going to be resolved, so why should the West bother?

But a small a nuclear attack would get everybody back on board. Nobody would dare sit out
that
war. The outrage that such an attack would cause, not to mention the sheer terror, would rekindle fires of war across the globe. It would make the coalition that had jumped to America’s defense after Nine-Eleven look like a private club.

And so for the first time in history, an otherwise non-descript homegrown terrorist group, which until then had done nothing more than post anti-Zionist rants on various websites, was allowed to purchase a bomb.

Sahar’s reading was broken by the sound of her com whistling softly. She passed her hand over the P-screen and saw the face of Walid Kadri. Her old friend was a man who specialized in getting those things that were otherwise impossible to obtain.

“
Bonsoir, ma chère
,” he said, sounding as jovial as ever. “I hope I’m not disturbing you, but I wanted to be sure you were able to get the antibiotics I’d told you about.”

“Yes, Walid. Thank you. Everything worked out just as you said it would.”

“You know I’m always glad to help. I do have some potential leads for those rubber boots you’d asked me for.”

As he spoke Sahar found herself wondering if it was serendipity that he should call her just then. Walid was someone who knew a lot of people, both inside Laval and out. People that she could never get to on her own, but who could help her use the information that she’d been given. He had the kinds of connections that Tony had spoken to her about.

She just wasn’t sure she could trust him.

September 16, 2039:

Richard, who was growing into the position of responsibility that events had thrust him into, was up before seven, despite sleeping only four hours. His brothers had to be woken by seven-fifteen, and their breakfast had to be made. Uncle Joe always got up early to make everybody a fresh, hearty breakfast, but Richard realized that this would no longer be part of the family’s routine.

With his parents sleeping the sleep of exhaustion he limped into their room and turned off the alarm. Since the car accident he’d gotten quite agile with a single crutch and was happy to see that he could move around without disturbing them. He let his parents sleep while he prepared breakfast for Frankie and Rollie. It wouldn’t be very fresh or very hearty, but they could make do with pre-cooked waffles for today.

After he pulled the package out of the freezer he went online, using the mini P-screen on the kitchen counter, and checked the courthouse schedule: detainees had their first arraignments at 2:30 in the afternoon. This meant his parents could get some more sleep before having to head out, and he knew they needed it. He’d never seen his mom cry the way she had last night. In fact he hadn’t been able to keep his own tears in check in the face of Uncle Joe’s arrest.

Once his dad had come home, even though he had no good news, Richard began feeling calmer, the rush of events slowing down. Strange how his dad’s presence, something he’d both taken for granted and mostly ignored in recent years, calmed the panic he’d been feeling. It never occurred to him that his father didn’t know any criminal lawyers. He’d been a Director for so long Richard assumed he knew everyone.

Either way, Richard was confident that his father wouldn’t let the
Cons
get away with what they’d done to Uncle Joe.

He went into Frankie’s room to wake him. He wasn’t sure how he would tell his brothers that their beloved great-uncle had been arrested and taken away during the night. He could leave it to his parents to tell their two younger sons, but he felt that taking on this most serious and unpleasant task was something he had to do. It was scary, this new-found sense of responsibility, but strangely enjoyable as well.

The
Palais de Justice de Montréal
was one of the few major administration buildings in town that Janus had never entered. Although he had a general idea of where it was located, it was Richard who’d looked up the courthouse’s exact address. Terry sat quietly in the passenger seat next to Janus, large dark glasses hiding her puffy and bloodshot eyes. Several tissues were wadded up at her feet.

It was eleven o’clock, well before the scheduled time for arraignments. Janus still had no idea how he was going to go about finding a lawyer. The traffic crawled around the large black building that housed the criminal courts, its modern design standing out among the antiquated buildings of Old Montreal. It had been refurbished and expanded in the years following Quebec City, as had so many of the administration’s most important sites. Little else in the neighbourhood had been repaired or renovated for decades.

A spot opened up less than two blocks from the courthouse and Janus pulled in quickly. They got out of the car and hooked their unneeded air-masks on the shoulder straps of their coats. They made their way into the courthouse where they saw a large round information desk in the middle of the crowded lobby.

Grabbing Terry’s hand he pushed forward through the crowd until he was in line for the clerk behind the desk. The man was in his late sixties, thin and quite bald. He smiled and spoke with each person with an easy familiarity that indicated he’d held that position for many years, knew everyone there was to know and had seen everything there was to see.

Janus managed to control his impatience while waiting the few minutes it took until it was their turn. Terry was silent and compliant, letting herself be led wherever Janus took her. He’d never seen her like this, and he hoped she’d snap out of it soon.

Leaning across the desk, Janus spoke in a half-whisper to the clerk.

“Excuse me. My name is Allen Janus. This is my wife, Teresa,” he began, having no idea why he was bothering with introductions to this man. “Her uncle...he was arrested last night. I think...maybe he’s passing in court this afternoon?” He tried to sound in control of the situation but knew that his words had come out timidly, like a hopeful-sounding question.

The clerk wordlessly made his P-screen translucent, so that Janus could view a long list of names from his side of the desk. There were several dozen of them. Janus scrolled down the list, but didn’t find Joe’s name among them.

“His name’s not there,” he said.

The clerk looked carefully at the list, as if trying to find the name himself, although Janus had never told him what it was.

“You sure he’s supposed to appear this afternoon?”

“What do you mean? Aren’t all arraignments this afternoon?”

“Only criminal. What was he arrested for?”

“Well, he was arrested for…,” Janus wanted to say “for buying food on the black market,” but realized there was no point in maintaining that illusion. “Conspiracy…against the administration,” he forced the words out in a hoarse whisper.

“Sedition cases have their own schedule, and it’s never published ahead of time. For security reasons, you understand? What’s his name?”

“Joe...Giuseppe Pizzi. With two Z’s.”

The clerk slid his finger across the top of his desk and the list on the P-screen changed. This time there were twice as many names as the previous list. About two thirds of the way down, in the middle of a half a dozen P’s, Joe’s name glowed red.

“Here he is,” the clerk said. “Arraigned this morning.”

“He was already arraigned? I can’t believe we missed him.”

“Doesn’t matter. It was
huis clos;
that means behind closed doors. These kinds of cases always are.”

“These kind of cases?”

“Security proceedings.”

“But he isn’t a terrorist, for crying out loud!”

“There’s a zero-three next to his name,” the clerk answered with a shrug, as if this settled any question about the kind of person Giuseppe Pizzi was.

“So what happened?” Janus asked. “Where is he now?”

“Held over until next Friday. Bail hearing’s at 9:30, Room 3.07.”

“I can’t believe all this happened without any of us there for him. We didn’t even have time to find him a lawyer.”

The clerk pointed over Janus’s shoulder toward a harried-looking young man, hurrying toward an escalator and carrying a briefcase that was bursting at the seams.

“That’s Jean Larochelle. Legal Aid. He probably appeared for your uncle if there was no other lawyer in the file already.”

“Thanks,” Janus answered. He pulled on Terry's hand and rushed to catch up with the lawyer who was already half-way up to the next floor. As Janus approached the bottom of the escalator he yelled out his name, the growing feeling of panic overcoming his earlier concern for discretion. The lawyer got off at the second floor and turned to see who was yelling for him.

Janus pulled Terry onto the escalator and tried to catch his breath as he moved toward the waiting lawyer who, as they got closer, looked barely older than Richard.