Read Online October 1970 by Louis Hamelin - Free Book Online

heels.
    â€œSeems you taught that Duchesnay kid a lesson or two.”
    Dufour acted as chief organizer for the candidate for the League of Social Vigilance.
    â€œI guess I did,” Coco replied.
    Then he turned away and became absorbed in contemplating the complicated network of potential trajectories on the pool table.
    The hardware-store owner lit a cigarette. Ordered a round of Kik Colas. Indicating the Lincoln in the parking lot, one of the most expensive models in the history of the automobile industry, he said he needed a hand getting people to change their minds on the day of the elections.
    â€œBut careful, like,” he said. “I don’t want to see a scratch on it.”
    â€œWhy not?” Coco wanted to know, sincerely intrigued as he chalked the end of his pool cue.
    â€œBecause I might want to resell it.”
    Coco looked at him without saying anything. More and more interesting.
    â€œIt’s politics,” said the hardware-store owner. “Don’t ask too many questions.”
    Coco leaned over the table and sent the eight ball hard into the corner pocket.
    The municipal elections in 1957 pitted the “mob candidate,” Big Raymond Girard, a jovial and skilled man whose methods apparently didn’t meet with unanimous approval, against Gilbert Giguère, who was running for the League of Social Vigilance. Giguère had vowed to put an end to the “reign of terror” that he said had been imposed on municipal democracy by organized crime. It is now known that the League was a front for the Order of Jacques-Cartier, better known as “La Patente,” a secret society that was an enemy of the Orange Lodge and worked in the background for the advancement of the French-Canadian race. In Montreal, the editors of the daily newspaper Le Devoir , infiltrated by La Patente and under the pen of its municipal affairs columnist Paul Lavoie, the future member of the legislature and Liberal minister, led a vigorous campaign against Girard, his Mafia ethics, and his dubious team of cohorts.
    A Lincoln Continental was found with its four wheels in the air in the driveway of a bungalow in the suburbs in the small hours of the morning. It took a dozen men to do it: five to lift it up by its chassis and flip it over, the rest to catch it and let it down gently on its roof. They looked like a bunch of ants clustered around a piece of immaculate, white flesh. They deposited the beauty almost delicately on the driveway’s asphalt.
    Coco gave the rear fender an affectionate kick to ease his conscience. He looked up at the house and thought he saw the curtain move. The hardware-store owner was right. It would have been a shame to damage the car.
    The others had already taken off, but Coco held back, took his time walking away, his hands in his pockets, and after a few paces stopped and turned around. For a moment he stood in the middle of the road, legs spread defiantly. The living-room curtain opened a little farther. A single blonde braid.
    Later that day, Coco saw a patrol car parked at the sidewalk in front of the hardware store. Inside, Dufour and two police officers were examining the store’s plate-glass window, which had a small, round hole with striations radiating from it, like a star. Coco stopped on the sidewalk and also looked at the hole in the glass from his side. When the hardware-store owner saw him, he gestured for Coco to move on. But instead of leaving, Coco motioned to the police officers to come outside. The two policemen knew him. After a moment, they came out, followed by Monsieur Dufour.
    â€œLooks like a .303,” Coco told them.
    â€œYeah, it does. Why, do you know something?”
    â€œNo, except that the shot was fired from inside the hardware store,” Coco said, nodding his head. “But I guess you already knew that.”
    â€œWhat? What makes you say that?”
    Coco met the hardware-store owner’s murderous look. The man