The Last Witness (12 page)

  Michel’s money was on Venegas. Turcotte’s hair colour and the shape of his eyes more or less matched, but there was a broadness to the bridge of Turcotte’s nose that didn’t quite fit with the CCTV frame lift. Unless Yves had somehow narrowed the nose in filling in the grain and shadow.

  Michel held up the 10 x 8 CCTV frame enlargement next to Venegas’ computer mug shots, his eyes jumping rapidly between the two, comparing.

  ‘I think it’s Venegas,’ he said on the back of an exhalation that carried finality. ‘The nose, the hairline, the eyes. Only the mouth and part of the jaw-line, where it starts losing definition, we can’t be sure of.’

  Yves nodded. ‘I would concur. I myself thought it was Venegas, and we took a quick poll between us and forensics: five out of six thought it was Venegas too. The other reserved judgement, didn’t want to swear between the two.’

  ‘Okay. Okay.’ Michel lightly shook the 10 x 8 and flicked its top corner with the back of one finger. ‘Enrique Venegas it is.’

  He thanked Yves and went back up to his office. He accessed the full file for Venegas from his computer and checked the date of last update: almost two years. He buzzed through to Christine Hébert, gave her Venegas’s file reference and Social Security number, and asked her to come back to him pronto with Venegas’s current address.

  He drummed his fingers lightly on his desk top as he hung up, as if trying to catch the flow and rhythm with which everything should happen. Timing would be essential. They’d have to pull in Donatiens at practically the same time as Venegas for the plan to work. He picked up the phone again and buzzed Chac to prime him that they’d come up with an ID match. ‘Enrique Venegas.’

  ‘When do we roll?’

  ‘Soon. I’m waiting on current address confirmation for Venegas, then we’re all set.’ Michel checked his watch. ‘As long as Venegas hasn’t moved too far out of town, we should be on his doorstep not long after eight.’

  ‘What’s the team split?’ Chac enquired.

   ‘You take Phil Reeves and three armed Constables for back-up for Venegas. He could be armed, and we’ll need reasonable show. I’ll just go with Maury for Donatiens. We don’t expect any resistance or trouble there.’

  ‘Will you go to Donatiens’ apartment?’

  ‘No, we’ll head to the Lacaille offices on Côte du Beaver Hall, flash our badges as he approaches the door. He might already be there – a lot of mornings he makes an early start.’ Through his glass screen, Christine was deep into a phone conversation with one finger pointed towards her computer screen, as if checking a specific detail. She didn’t look towards him or acknowledge. ‘I’ll let you know the second we’ve got a green light on Venegas’s current address.’

  In the lull after hanging up, Michel felt the tension of expectancy grip him again, so decided to kill time by scrolling down through the rest of Venegas’s file while keeping half an eye on Christine in the back-field of his vision.

  One truck hi-jacking eleven years ago, Crown failed to prosecute. Attempted murder eight years ago, five years served by Venegas in Orsainville Prison. At least two other hits attributed to Venegas, neither of them pursued due to lack of evidence.

  Michel scrolled down through the attempted murder case and double-clicked on the hyper-text heading:
Trial Transcript
. Eighty-four pages of it between the English and the French; Michel found himself rolling rapidly through the pages, skimming sentences, only half paying attention – until one paragraph caught his eye:
‘Four months before the alleged final shooting in which you attempted to take Gerard Fortin’s life, Mr Fortin claims that you and another man, Michael Trapani, abducted him. That you pulled up in a van with blacked-out windows, put a sack over his head, and drove off.’

 
‘That’s baloney.’

  ‘You deny it?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘… A conversation then ensued between yourself and Mr Trapani as to which high building you intended to throw Mr Fortin from, clearly designed to frighten Mr Fortin in the extreme. Except that in the end, after you swung him several times and Mr Fortin was convinced he was about to die, you dropped him unharmed in a farmer’s field.’

  ‘Don’t recall it. Sorry.’

  ‘… Mr Fortin was then told – “That was a practice run. If Mr Cacchione doesn’t have his money by the end of the month, we do it for real.”’

  ‘Sorry, sorry. Still don’t strike no chord.’

  ‘And this apparently is a popular method used by the Cacchione’s – and others – to enforce payment from those who might have welched on drug or other debts. It leaves absolutely no marks on the body, no sign that they’ve been threatened or intimidated.’

  ‘Sounds good to me, and I’ll try to remember it for future reference. But you got the wrong man.’

  The transcript simply related what was said, and Michel had to imagine the rest: the muted chuckle from the jury and gallery at Venegas’s jibes and protests, and the Crown Attorney holding firm to his ground as he steam-rollered over them.

 
‘And because Fortin was finally unable to pay, that is why you returned four months later with another accomplice, Anthony Orozco, to complete what you had previously threatened to carry out…’

  Michel’s blood ran cold. The method was well known to him, popular four or five years back more than now – but seeing Venegas’s name linked directly to such an abduction completed the circle. If there was any remaining doubt that Venegas was involved with Savard, now it had gone.

  Two minutes later Christine came through with Venegas’s current address, and Michel noted it down – ‘…Rue Messier, one block south of St Joseph’ – while still scanning through the final salient details of the Fortin case: two shots to the chest, one to the head. But the head shot had deflected off Fortin’s cheekbone and through the front of his face just below his right eye. Fortin had been lucky. He lasted six years before another bullet, probably summoned by Cacchione, succeeded where the other had failed and removed half of his skull. This time, case unproven.

Roman was with Frank Massenat at Santoriello’s, his favourite café just off of Rue St Catherine. For his money they served the best espresso in town, and had fourteen choices of pancake toppings.

  He was diving into a stack of five with maple syrup, crushed walnuts and cream with a sprinkling of nutmeg for his breakfast when Carlo Funicelli walked in. A half-drunk cup of espresso was at his right hand in a cup almost large enough to be a soup bowl, his second refill. Massenat was making good progress of demolishing a large French stick sandwich of pastrami and brie.

  All these two seemed to do was eat, thought Funicelli; or was it just that their meeting places were inevitably café’s and restaurants.

  Funicelli passed the cassette tape across. ‘Last night’s offering.’

  Roman dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his napkin. ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘No. She came over again last night, but it was pretty much as usual. Cook. Eat. Talk. Screw.’

  ‘So, no signs of trouble between them? No complaints from him that his goody-two shoes suburban family might not be too keen on him marrying into a high-profile crime family. Or from her that his dick’s too small and she’s concerned about them having a long-lasting satisfying relationship.’ Roman smiled and nudged Massenat. It was like Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon, except that Massenat was a beat slow in responding with a laugh.

  Roman’s style of humour was brash and gauche, but sometimes it hit the mark because in part it became self-parody and also a welcome relief from the other side of his character: the stormy mood swings and violent temper.

  Funicelli risked only a tentative smile – you never knew when that mood might change – as he shook his head. ‘No such luck.’

  Roman’s smile slowly subsided to a quizzical frown. ‘And no calls to or from any other girls?’

  ‘No.’

  Roman looked between Funicelli and Massenat. ‘You know, this guy ain’t human.’ He thought of his own hectic love-life: Marie, his main girlfriend, a thirty-two year old from the right side of Outremont whose husband had died in a car smash four years ago, he dated primarily to keep up appearances and please his mother. Marie was classy, well-bred and, most importantly for his mother, her family were deeply religious and hailed from the Corsican village only thirty miles from that of his mother’s family. Marie he took to all family engagements and high-profile functions. But for sex, excitement and wild nights, he had two club girls in tow, one of them, Viana, from their Rue Sherbrooke club partly due to him feeding her increasingly expensive cocaine habit. And then there was that beautiful Malaysian girl with a body like a fourteen-year old Russian gymnast at a Lavalle massage parlour he visited now and then.

  ‘Not of this world, not of this world.’ Roman took a scoop of pancakes and washed it down with a slurp of coffee. ‘He’s got tossed salad instead of testosterone. I don’t believe in all this perfect nineties-man shit. He’s gotta have a dark secret somewhere.’ The words were slightly muffled and slurred with his mouthful of food. He dabbed again with his napkin and pointed at Funicelli. ‘You’ll see, you’ll see. Mark my words. It’s just…’

  His mobile started ringing in his inside pocket. He took it out, looking down at some invisible object just beyond his plate, as if Funicelli and Massenat had suddenly ceased to be present. ‘… a matter of time. Yeah?’

  Roman recognized the voice at the other end straightaway, but he caught only brief bursts from the garbled, breathless sentences: ‘…in the van that night… they’re moving in now… you should warn him…’

  ‘Whoa, whoa. Slow down. Which van?
Whose
moving in?’

  ‘I don’t want to use names on a mobile line. All I can say is the guy in the front passenger seat that night. They picked him up from a security camera and ID’d him. They’re moving in on him any minute.’

 
Venegas!
An icy claw gripped Roman’s stomach. ‘Any minute? How long has he got exactly?’

  ‘They’re checking for his current address right now. They could be on his doorstep in anything from fifteen to twenty minutes. Less, if they trust it to a local squad car.’

  Roman doubted that they would, but he’d still have to step lively. ‘Okay. Thanks.’ He picked up his napkin and threw it over his half-finished plate in disgust. It was also a signal that he’d finished. He waved and called out to the waitress. ‘Hey, hey.
L’addition.
Let’s settle here.’

  The waitress came over and flicked back through her pad. Roman’s face became a study in battling muscle contortions as she summarised what they had. ‘...And did your friend have anything?’ She looked at Funicelli.

  ‘No, he didn’t.’ Roman slapped down a $20 note and stood up in the same motion. ‘Keep the change.’ Which raised only a meek smile from the waitress, unsure whether the $5 tip compensated for the attitude.

  Massenat looked at the third of a stick roll in his hand, then decided finally to take it with him. Funicelli too lagged a few paces behind as Roman hustled quickly towards his BMW parked down the street, a sleek, black series 7. The air outside was fresh, but for one of the first times that year it was above zero. The first hint that Spring might not be far away. At eight paces from the car, Roman pressed the remote key and the BMW briefly beeped and flashed its accord.

  The rush and panic of Roman’s departure reminded Funicelli that there was one thing he’d forgotten to mention. ‘About the tape. There’s one thing on it…’

  Roman wheeled around on him impatiently. ‘What?’

  ‘…There’s one point where Donatiens mentions that night with Leduc.’

  Roman looked agitated, his eyes darting uncomfortably; though Funicelli wasn’t sure how much of that was due to the call just past. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

  ‘I was about to… but then you had that call…’ Funicelli swallowed hard. Roman’s eyes burnt straight through him. He wished now he hadn’t mentioned anything, just let Roman hear it for himself. ‘But it was nothing… just a stupid dream from Donatiens and him mentioning how the incident still troubled him sometimes. But apart from that, nothing.’ Funicelli reached out to put a re-assuring hand on Roman’s shoulder, then decided against it. Roman’s powder-keg eyes warned that one touch might set him off. ‘There was nothing beyond what you already told me. Believe me. Nothing to worry about.’

  Roman’s eyes continued to dart frantically and search his, and looked finally about to settle when another voice came from behind: ‘Got some change?’

  Roman turned sharply. Confronting him was a tramp with wild hair and a Grizzly Adams beard; though it was difficult to tell if the beard was white streaked from frost and sun-bleaching, or from dried food and vomit. Roman sneered and leaned back from the tramp, catching the first mingled stench of cheap wine, stale body odour and vomit.

  He felt suddenly as if his brains were frying, too many random signals hitting him at once. Maybe only minutes to save Venegas from the clutches of the police, Donatiens mentioning Leduc and Funicelli trying to tell him it was
nothing,
and now this bum in his face enveloping his best camel hair in street-stench and vomit breath. It was like some fucking conspiracy.