Free Miss Montreal by Howard Shrier

Unless it was a random attack, a swarming. Then all bets are off, unless someone panics, blabs or gives themselves up.”
    “Someone always blabs,” Ryan said. “Especially if they didn’t have the balls to do it alone.”
    “So what is Paquette thinking?” I asked. “Random attack or targeted?”
    “Well, you know the area where he was found. Or maybe you don’t.”
    “His grandfather told me it’s an Arab neighbourhood.”
    “Right. So it could have happened that way.”
    “Or someone dumped him there to throw people off,” Ryan said. “Marked him up with that star.”
    “You got to keep that open,” Bobby said.
    “How bad is the blood here between Jews and Muslims?”
    “I don’t know what it’s like in Toronto, but some of the Arabs here, especially the North Africans, they don’t like the Jews so much. There have been firebombings in schools, threats, beatings of kids who wear the skullcap. Our firm does executive protection and uniformed security, and all the synagogues need it on their holidays.”
    “The question would still be what he was doing there in the middle of the night. We know the police answered a call at his house at two-forty-five in the morning.”
    “About what?”
    “Supposedly a domestic disturbance. Only there wasn’t any.”
    “And a few hours later,” Bobby said, “he’s found dead in Ville St-Laurent.”
    “Yes.”
    “You don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
    “No.”
    “The call prompted him to leave his house?”
    “Could be.”
    “Maybe he knew who was behind it and went to see them.”
    “The Afghan family he was interviewing,” I said. “Their store is in that area.”
    “Yeah, but at a quarter to three in the morning?”
    “It could also have been a cry-wolf routine,” Ryan said. “Someone calls in a false alarm so a second call gets a slower response.”
    “There was no second call,” I said.
    “The old Greek lady said she heard something a few minutes later,” Ryan said.
    “Yes. But she looked out and didn’t see anyone.”
    “Not at the front. But he had a back door too. So maybe the call was meant to give someone the opportunity to snatch him.”
    “How?”
    “Cops show up at your door, you open up, right? You turn off your alarm system. Then the cops go away. There’s a knock on the back door. It’s late, he’s disoriented—three, four in the morning, that’s the magic hour, the time cops love to raid a place because you’re at your most vulnerable. He answers it without thinking—boom, he’s abducted.”
    The waitress picked that moment to arrive with three platters. The sandwiches were stacked high with steaming meat and I had to sneak a quick bite before we could continue, get that first mouthful of clove and other spices. Both of them followed suit. No one looked unhappy.
    “Paquette might be able to tell you where the call came from,” Bobby said.
    “And whether he was killed in the apartment,” Ryan said, “or where the body was found.”
    “You’ll find out tomorrow. Speaking of which,” Bobby said, “there is a little bad news. Paquette’s partner, René Chênevert. Apparently he’s a miserable pain in the ass, what we’d call in French a
trou de cul
.”
    “Which means?” Ryan asked.
    “Asshole. From what I heard, he’s arrogant as hell and the kind of political animal who hates everybody equally, including most of his colleagues, sees them all as rungs on the ladder to the sky. Oh, my God, this is good,” Bobby said, after finishing the first half of his sandwich and wiping his hands and the corner of his lips with a thin paper napkin. “I haven’t had one in a while. I got to keep the waistline trim.”
    There was enough fat in the sandwich to light an Inuit lamp, but I was savouring every bite too. There’s something about the marriage of brisket, smoke and spices that enthralls Montreal, thrills Jews and Gentiles alike. Finally, our plateswere clean, except for balled-up greasy napkins and the