Whipped: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel(32)
“I’m sorry, you’re staying put. Pretend you’re a tourist.” Pierette tucked a camera into her day pack and hustled up the road and down the driveway. Margaret itched to follow her, but obeyed orders, lowered her seat-back, ready to duck should a car approach. Only two did, each slowing to catch the view, then carrying on.
She finally began to relax, to fall under the sway of this fair June day. Songbirds were in full throat, warblers flitting among the branches, and below her was a lush view of forest and lake. Ducks foraging among the reeds, a pair of loons diving for their lunch.
Pierette reappeared at the end of the driveway after what seemed an eternity but was probably only twenty minutes. She paused at the privacy sign, took a photo of it, ducked as a car drove by, then hurried to the car.
“Didn’t see a soul, thank God.” She handed Margaret her camera, its viewer on, then started the engine and drove farther up the road. “The one on the screen is taken from below his chalet window. Seem familiar?”
“Yes.” The image of the still lake and hills beyond jibed with the wintry glimpses Margaret had seen on the video: the iced-over lake and skeletal trees rising beyond it, the grove of white birch.
She scrolled through the other pictures: a snug, attractive log structure with a deck overlooking a lake. No interiors, all the windows draped. A one-vehicle carport. A more expansive view across Lac Vert offered a glimpse of a neighbour’s small boathouse, a dock, and a small cabin cruiser.
They continued their climb, hairpinning to a summit where they could see the lake distantly. Lac Vert, so pretty but its name tarnished by the irony that the very non-vert minister of the environment claimed a piece of it.
As they made a similarly sinuous journey down, toward the highway that would take them to Ottawa, Pierette remained watchful and silent, occasionally commanding Margaret to keep her head low. Margaret worried that she might be losing her respect, losing her to Jennie Withers, who didn’t indulge in spontaneous spying expeditions. She thought of confessing her notion to retire. But was she too hooked on politics? Her addiction.
UNSAFE HOUSE
Lou was running low on Cheerios and corn flakes. The last of his milk had gone sour in the fridge. He had half a Polish sausage in there, two rubbery carrots, and a sprouting potato. He would sell his left nut for a deluxe double-patty with fries and a chocolate shake.
It was Friday. For five days he’d been hiding in his stale-smelling flat, its doors double-locked, no lights, no sound, newspapers piling up outside. He rarely stirred from his computer room, a windowless box, except to sleep, shit, and peek furtively out the front window between a gap in the shutters.
Rue de la Visitation was rightly named. It had been like rush hour at Central Station for those five days. The traffic included several of Svetlana’s clients who had appointments. Lou had heard her outside apologizing to one guy for not phoning to cancel. Other pain-seekers gave up when she didn’t come to the door. She was away a lot.
Late afternoon on Tuesday, he heard rummaging noises in her suite, then spied a small unmarked white van parked out front. An hour later, he peeked through the shutters again and saw a man and woman, young, hip-looking, piling cardboard boxes into the van, then driving off. What was that about? No sign of Svetlana or her Miata.
And then there was Christie Montieth. Twice Lou had spied her out there. Peppery little Christie, journalist, opinionated blogger, digger — he knew her from shared press briefings. Both times, she had parked her Mini Cooper and knocked loudly on the locked door to Svetlana’s flat, shouting, “I only need to talk to you for a few minutes.” Both times, she’d been met with silence and retreated to her car.
What the hell was she up to? Had she somehow got a whiff of scandal? A leak about a certain high minister of state? Whatever, it unnerved him.
Infinitely more alarming was the black Lincoln SUV he’d seen driving slowly past. Four times, twice yesterday. He assumed they were hoping to catch him arriving or leaving home. That was their preferred tactic of attrition. The same theme, the same piece of work that got his kids’ snowman beheaded in his former front yard. And last Sunday, a similar drill in Laval, probably the same goombahs in the SUV, riddling Nick Giusti as he was returning home from ten a.m. mass at Holy Rosary.
That event was lavishly reported on, all over the Internet, though no one seemed to give a shit about some crooked mouthpiece getting whacked. No one but Lou. It’s why Lou had been holed up in this hole for five days, freaking out and starving. Nick Giusti, his uncle-in-law, his informant for Waterfrontgate. Somehow his ex-clients found out — or just guessed — that he’d ratted on them. And now that they’d also figured out where Lou lived, his life wasn’t worth a popcorn fart.
There was no point in calling the police for help, especially not Superintendent Malraux, who was pissed at Lou for scuttling their planned bust and refusing to name sources. He would only refer him back to Witless Protection and its smarmy bureaucrat. This had to be the unsafest safe house on the planet. The entire Green Party must know where he lived.
Lou had panicked this afternoon on hearing someone coming up the staircase, shuffling about, finally clanging back down, at which point he found the balls to look out to see Pierette Litvak returning to a waiting car. To top off this dramatic interlude, Svetlana had popped by just then to grab a suitcase. It looked like she was about to do a Houdini.