Page 7
Then the reprisals, swift, relentless, merciless, had begun.
And when it was over, Joe Moretti the younger emerged as the new capo di tutti capi. The head of the Sixth Family. The most powerful mob boss in Canada and one of the most powerful in North America, behind the five New York–based mafia families.
On this bright Saturday in early October, while Don Moretti strolled the aisles of the Marché Jean-Talon, collecting gifts and signs of respect, “Bonjour, Don Moretti,” enjoying the fruits of others’ labors, the former arson investigator sat looking at her reflection in the window of the Métro car as it careered through another tunnel.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir stood just inside the church and looked around for his father-in-law.
He’d woken early to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and a cold breeze scraping his face. He opened his eyes and stared with rancor at the curtains puffing out at the open window.
Fuck. Fuckity, fuck, fuck.
He snuggled deeper into the bed, spooning Annie and feeling her body heat combined with his own warming the duvet around them. He pulled it tighter and pretended the cold air wasn’t rushing into the room.
He nudged Annie gently, hoping she’d wake up and shut the window. But she didn’t move.
Getting up, he ran to the window with every intention of shutting it, then hopping back into bed. But as he reached it, he saw his father-in-law walking through the soft predawn light along the dirt road that led out of the village. Followed, Dr. Dolittle–like, by the small parade of animals. Henri, the ears that walked like a dog; old Fred; and little Gracie.
Jean-Guy looked back at his warm bed, where Annie was snoring, then returned to the window, but Armand had disappeared.
Closing the window, he kissed Annie and whispered, “I know you’re awake, awful woman.”
Her snoring grew slightly louder.
After checking on Honoré and Idola, he quickly showered, shaved, put on his heavy fall sweater that smelled of the cedar closet, and his cords. Following the scent of fresh-brewed coffee to the kitchen, he poured two mugs; then he too left the quiet house.
The sun was barely visible through the forest. There was a hint of light, rather than light itself. A promise of things to come. It was a few minutes past seven and the day glistened, bright and fresh and filled with promise. Anything might happen.
A mist hung over the village nestled in the valley as the cooler autumn air mingled with the warm earth. The vapor rose thicker over the Rivière Bella Bella, creating a sinewy ribbon over the forest as it followed the freshwater spring through Three Pines and out the other side.
All this gave a village already steeped in mystery an almost mystical feel, heightened even further by the near impossible fall colors of the surrounding forest.
The vapor from the mugs joined the mist, adding coffee to the fragrance of fresh grass and mud and the musky fallen leaves. Jean-Guy took a big breath and inhaled a deep sense of peace.
He knew it was temporary, perhaps even illusionary, but he welcomed it as he followed in Armand’s footsteps up the hill to St. Thomas’s.
Once at the church, he climbed the stairs and paused to look back at the fieldstone and rose brick and white clapboard homes that circled the village green. Three immense pines stood in the middle of the Québec village, towering over the homes and shops, as though sentinels. In fact, as Jean-Guy had learned, three pines planted in formation was an old code, meant to tell those fleeing for their lives that they were finally safe. They had found sanctuary.
People still got sick, still died in Three Pines. Were still hurt, wounded. Terrible things still happened here, as elsewhere. The village did not, could never, guarantee safety from the blows life dealt. That would be ridiculous. The safety they found in the village wasn’t physical but emotional.
Whatever happened, they were not alone. There was help and company, and finally, at the end, there was comfort. A hand to hold.
Jean-Guy saw Olivier leave the Bed-and-Brunch he shared with Gabri and walk across the village green to their bistro. Light soon appeared through the mullioned windows. Before long a thin line of smoke would rise from the bistro chimneys, and villagers would take it as a sign far more important in their lives than any papal election.
Breakfast was ready.
Their Saturday would begin in front of the large open fires, with strong coffee and crêpes, or French toast sprinkled with fresh fruit and doused in maple syrup drawn from trees Jean-Guy could see from where he stood.
There’d be scrambled eggs with melted Brie and maple-smoked bacon, flaky croissants and warm cinnamon buns from Sarah’s Boulangerie next door.
Most of all, the villagers would start their day with each other. While Armand walked up to the church alone. He sat in the same pew each morning, under the stained-glass image of the boys, the brothers who’d left Three Pines more than a century earlier for the Great War and never returned.
It was an image that haunted not for its heroism, though there was that, but for the fear etched deep and forever into the faces of two of the boys while the third, the youngest brother, looked out at the congregation. Not with accusation, though that would have been understandable, but with something more terrifying. Almost unfathomable.
At the age of seventeen he marched with his brothers to certain death in a futile battle that only presaged the next slaughter. And then he spent the next century staring out at the congregation, at those who’d let this happen, who’d let them go. He wanted them to know one thing.
That he forgave them.
Sneak home and pray you never know / the hell where youth and laughter go.
