Coldwater Revenge by James Ross (e novels to read online TXT) 📗

“Attendez.”

There was a click on the line, a long wait, and then a familiar voice on an answering machine. “Hi. Leave a message.”

“Hi Father. It’s Tom Morgan. What are you doing in a convent? I’m in Montreal this afternoon. If you can get to LaFontaine Park, I’ll be sitting there for the next few hours, under a tree with my nose in Spinoza. If you can’t make it, call my cell.”

* * *

For the next few hours, Tom sat with Spinoza and waited for Father Gauss to call or Dr. Hassad to pass the park again. The afternoon waned. As the air began to chill, Tom remembered the other mission that Joe had given him, “if he was feeling ambitious:” to look up the fellow who had dropped his business card at Billy’s funeral.

The address on the card that Joe had stapled to a copy of a Montreal drivers license, was on the south side of l’Village, along the rue Sherbrooke, past l’Musée Juste Pour Rire. Tom circled the block before parking in front of a garish storefront where he felt even more conspicuous than he had in the neighborhood surrounding Dr. Hassad’s mosque. The sign in pink bubble script read Furry Paws, and beneath it, in scarlet and black another announced Going Out Of Business. The O’s were embellished with eyelashes and teardrops.

A disturbingly life-like mannequin posed in the storefront window, majestic in thigh-high, pink plastic boots and matching bumper-sticker sized shorts. A thin metal chain spanned her open vest, attached to anatomical piercings that made Tom wince. He stared mesmerized and slightly queasy.

“Interested in body jewelry?” A youth in day-glow spiked hair and black everything else stepped out of the store and greeted him.

“Is there another kind?”

The boy willed the touché grin of an experienced salesman. “Everything you see is 50% off.” Tom cut the chit chat short, and handed the salesman a photocopy of a Montreal driver’s license. “Is he in today?”

The salesman’s deference morphed into a smirk. “Gérard! There is a tax man here to see you!” He shouted through the open door and twirled to enter. Street lamps hummed to life.

The interior set up of Furry Paws was similar to that of any other variety store of Tom’s experience: wide rows of brightly packaged merchandise, eye-catching displays of this week’s promotional items and security cameras strategically placed to intimidate the larcenous. Only the merchandise itself was uncomfortably unfamiliar: leather this, battery operated that, pointed metal devices whose intended effect he did not wish to contemplate—and all of it celebrated, illustrated and discounted in both English and French. The young man behind the counter gave him an elevator look and asked, “May I accommodate you?”

“I’d like to chat with you about Billy Pearce. If you’ve got a minute.”

“Who?” He pronounced it “oo” in a sharp Quebecois accent.

Tom slid the Furry Paws business card across the counter. “Somebody dropped this at his funeral.”

“Monsieur Bonnefesse does not work here anymore. The recession, you know.”

Tom passed the photocopied driver’s license across the counter. “Same name on this license as on that card,” he noted. “Both with your picture, Monsieur Bonnefesse.”

The counterman shrugged. “What do you wish?”

“Like I said, to chat with you about Billy Pearce.”

“Yes?”

“He was murdered. I was hoping his friends might have some thoughts on who might have done it.”

“And you are who?”

“A friend of the family.”

“Not a policeman?”

“Just a friend.”

The top of the young man’s head barely reached Tom’s collar-bone. He found himself looking down onto close cropped, multi-colored hair, plucked eyebrows and doe-y brown eyes, and tried not to stare. It was not until the boy turned his head, as if in thought, that Tom noted the faint wrinkles and patches of parchment skin that suggested he was older than he first appeared.

“Do you like the Starbuck?”

“I’m addicted.”

“Come.” The boy/man led Tom down a narrow street, coming alive now that darkness had fallen. The establishments that lined it—places with names like Freak Haus and Piercing Palace—gave Tom the feeling that he had stepped onto the set of a sailors-on-leave-and-looking-for-a good-time movie. He did not realize that he’d been squeezing his breath, until Bonnefesse pointed to the Starbucks sign at the end of the street and he heard himself exhale.

Inside and seated in a corner away from the windows, Tom started to introduce himself. But Bonnefesse interrupted. “I saw you with that handsome policeman at the funeral. You look like him, but not so big. You are the sister’s old boyfriend, no?”

“That’s right.”

“Billy hated your stomach.”

“I’m told he hated everybody.”

“True. He was not fond of the sister, also.”

“Still, she’d like to know who killed him… and why.”

“Yes? I did not think that she cared so much for Billy. Only for his house.”

“Did he say that?”

“Billy was a talker, you know? For a long time he spoke only about his big house and how his sister wanted to steal it from him. It becomes boring.”

“Did you believe him?”

“It makes no difference.”

“Then what about who might have killed him? Or why? Any thoughts?”

Bonnefesse snorted. “If I knew that, I would tell your police.”

“Or who wasn’t his friend? Who had Billy pissed-off so badly that they might have wanted to kill him?”

Bonnefesse sighed. “Many people.”

Tom felt himself floundering. Joe was right. He’s the pro, he should be doing this. I’m just butchering it. This guy brought me here to say something, but he’s not going to say it unless I ask the right question or give the secret handshake or whatever it is he’s waiting for that I’m not doing.

He tried again. “Did Billy ever mention a priest by the name of Gauss?”

“Often. He was trying to make trouble for him, I think.”

“How?”

“Oh, saying that the priest did things. That sort of thing.”

“Was he telling the truth?”

“I have no idea. Billy could be such a liar.”

“Did he ever mention a Frankie Heller?”

Bonnefesse hesitated and then shrugged. “The name means nothing.”

“Mike Sharp?”

Bonnefesse shook his head.

“Dave Willow?”

“The sister’s patron? Yes. They had something together, I think. A long time ago.”

Tom felt