The Montreal Connection

At customs Jude showed his passport and told the agent he planned to visit a friend in Montreal for the weekend. The agent asked to see the back of the van.

“It’s unlocked,” Jude said.

He watched through the side mirror as the agent walked to the rear of the van and disappeared from view. The back door opened, a few seconds later it shut. The agent came back around to Jude’s window.

“Okay, you’re all set.”

Always easier getting out of the country than back in.

In an hour he reached the heart of Montreal in a section of town called Vieux Ville near the port. The streets were narrow and one-way; Jude drove slowly and turned behind the Fontaine Hotel down a service alley that opened to a small lot where two Dumpsters and a few cars were parked. He backed the van to the loading dock. The overhead door was down. Sitting in front of it was a Vulcan sixty-inch range with eight 26,000 BTU cast iron burners and two 35,000 BTU ovens below. Jude opened one of the oven doors and peered inside. Spotless.

He entered the service door of the hotel. Garbage bags awaiting transport to the Dumpster lined the hallway. Grease slicked the damp floor. Jude stepped with caution. The hallway opened into a massive commercial kitchen where two cooks filled late-night bar and room service orders. The cooking line gleamed with new double ranges and overhead broilers, the seams not yet gunked, the stainless pure.

A dishwasher with a cigarette between his lips leaned against a tub sink. He looked at Jude but made no sign of recognition or interest.

Jude asked him where he could find Gil. He repeated himself in French. “Ou est Gil? Ou se trouve Gil?” The dishwasher pointed to the office around the corner from the convection ovens.

Jude knocked on the open door and entered. Gil had removed his tie and rolled his sleeves halfway to his elbows, leaving the diamond-studded cufflinks hanging loose. He was sorting cash and credit card receipts into piles on his desk.

“A good night?”

“Americans are desperate to spend before summer is over, even with the exchange rate now in our favor,” Gil said. “How are you?”

He stood and shook Jude’s hand, then poured them each a cognac from a bottle on a glass shelf behind his desk. Gil was short with broad shoulders and a thick, solid frame and wavy silver hair, the locks parting and returning to place as he ran his hand through them. He was one of those French Canadians with a meticulously groomed bad haircut, favoring a mullet otherwise seen only on hockey players. He also wore a Breitling on his wrist and a platinum and diamond ring on his hairy middle right finger, the skin thick and bunched on either side of the band. The watch was a specimen, but the ring too loud.

Gil opened a box and offered Jude a cigar, took one for himself. He sat back and crossed his feet on his desk. Jude sank into a leather armchair. They drank and filled the office with smoke.

“You see the range?”

“Andrew will be thrilled. We’ve been looking for a replacement for months. And thanks for cleaning it up.”

“It’s heavy, my guys will load it for you,” Gil said. “You want to spend the night before driving back?”

“That’s what I was hoping.”

Gil sat up and opened his desk drawer, retrieving a key card he handed to Jude. “The usual. Suite 1015. Use the service elevator.”

“Any word on the other?”

“On schedule,” Gil said. “But the credit terms are different now that we’re increasing quantity. It’s COD.”

“How much?”

“All of it.”

Jude paused and nodded. He blew a stream of cigar smoke. “The credit terms were one of the reasons I like working with you. All that cash at once makes me edgy.”

“It’s the size of the order, and the variety—a lot for both of us—everyone in the chain is demanding cash.”

“That’s to be expected, I guess.”

“Any changes?”

“No, we’re good, although I might need a few days to work out cash flow.”

“Once I get the inventory assembled, I’ll call. You’ll have twenty-four hours.”

“Is this a squeeze?”

“You know I’m not trying to knock you. You hear about that big bust in New York? Demand is up. I’d be foolish not to move whenever I have opportunity. I can’t sit on inventory.”

Jude stood up. Gil handed him an envelope. “The paperwork for the range,” he said. “I put in a receipt for the GST tax, but you’ll have to pay duty at the border.”

“What about the girl?”

“Still part of the deal,” Gil said. “She’s up there now.”

That gave Jude an idea. “I have to run back out to the van for a second.”

“You need a wake-up call?”

“I never oversleep.”

“Suit yourself,” Gil said. He stuffed his cigar deep into his jaw, went back to his piles of cash and receipts.

Jude returned to the van to retrieve his camera. He rode the service elevator to the tenth floor, located the room, and opened the door with the key.

The living area was dark but he could see the blue flicker of a television from the bedroom. He turned on a light. An overstuffed couch and two chairs surrounded a coffee table, framed Monet reproductions hung on the walls. His shoes sank into a thick pile carpet. Nothing looked disturbed.

Roxanne had not heard him come in and she started when he entered the bedroom. Her clothes lay on the floor. She wore an oversized bathrobe with the letter “F” embroidered on the lapel. She looked at him and smiled and patted the mattress for him to come over.

A young immigrant from Cambodia, Roxanne spoke halting English and spent her days cleaning hotel rooms. She liked Jude. He was taking her to the United States of America to become a citizen.

Jude heeled off his shoes and joined her on the bed. He asked her to comb her hair. She didn’t understand. He got up and went into the bathroom and came back with a brush and handed it to her.

“Your hair,” he said. “Straighten it up. And your face—look pretty.” He showed her the camera.

She said something sharp back to him that he didn’t catch, but took the brush and went into the bathroom. He watched her through the open door. She stood in front of the mirror and brushed out her hair, then started with the makeup and straightened her face.

Finished, she came back into the bedroom and smiled for him. He snapped her photograph, viewed the results in the window. He took one more.

Roxanne opened her robe and dropped it off her shoulders. “You take more?” she asked.

He looked at her, the creamy skin, the small flawless breasts. But he shook his head and sighed. “How many times do I tell you? Now go to sleep.”

“You don’t like Roxanne?”

Jude liked her all right, but the idea of lusting for a woman close to his daughter’s age horrified him, drowning any desire he might feel. If he wanted young ones, he’d bang the cocktail waitresses at Gull, but he preferred women closer to his own age, women with experience and perspective and something to share beyond a flat stomach or firm tits.

He slept in the other bedroom.

He made it back downstairs just before six. Although he saw no one, he smelled a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen and helped himself to a mug and went out to the loading dock. Still more night than day. His breath steamed the air. The end of August and already the mornings cold.

Jude opened the doors to the van. Gil’s crew had centered the range in the cargo hold and secured it with straps front and back. The panel that served as a false floor had been nicked and he checked to make sure it hadn’t come loose.

He shut the doors and finished his coffee, leaving his cup on the loading dock. Forty-five minutes later he was the second vehicle in line at lane four of the U.S. Customs Inspection, with fifteen minutes to spare before Leonard’s shift ended. Jude’s turn came and he pulled into the booth. Leonard Deitch looked like a soldier who’d been on watch all night. Baggy-eyed and tense, an expression left over from his Vietnam days. A sidearm in a belt holster, his turkey flesh pinched in a uniform collar too tight around his neck.

He brightened when he saw Jude.

“Didn’t recognize you with the van.”

“You’ll see me using it sometimes,” Jude said. “I’ve got an oven in the back.”

Jude handed the paperwork along with his passport.

Leonard held them in his hand for a moment.

“Also this,” Jude said, turning on his camera and showing Leonard the small viewer displaying one of the photos he had taken of Roxanne from Cambodia.

Deitch smiled and nodded. “Even better than I expected. When do I get to meet my bride?”

“I’m setting that up, I just wanted to make sure you approved first.”

“Oh, most definitely. Leonard approves.”

“I should be back up next week, I’ll bring her then.”

“Sweet thing,” said Deitch, blowing the camera a kiss. “I’ll see you next week.”

Jude pulled away from the booth and onto the Northway. He had planned to drive straight back, and then changed his mind at the next exit. As long as he was up this way, he should check on Aaron and that part of the order. Get everything lined up properly, leave no risk unmitigated, get this deal done, do it three or four times, and take that big step toward retirement. He made the call to Aaron and said he was coming, but on the way he turned off at the sign for Tear Lake and drove the perimeter, passing her house but seeing no evidence of anyone at home. No cars parked in the drive. Window shades drawn. It had been easy to find out which house was hers—a quick call to a contact in the county clerk’s office and a review of the tax rolls. He drove around the lake a second time and then stopped in the market at the Adams Station junction and bought an egg sandwich, which he ate at a picnic table in a grassy area next to the gas pumps, a good vantage point for watching the few cars come and go from the parking lot.