I could tell she was tired, so I let her go. She told me she missed me. I said the same. She told me she was going to work crowd control at some big summer festival the next day. The most boring assignment you can draw, moving crowds of people around like cattle, except cattle have better manners. It’s even worse than writing parking tickets.
Little did she know, the next day she’d hit the cop jackpot.
In Paradise, it was the second day of a summer that hadn’t arrived yet. In Toronto, it was the biggest day of Natalie’s professional life. I thought about her all day, as I finished the roof on the cabin. I sat in the Glasgow and watched the clock, and I said to myself, this is not a good thing. You sitting here and waiting for it to get dark so you can go home and wait by the phone. This is not the right state of mind.
I couldn’t help it.
She called at ten o’clock that night. I could tell something was up. There was a certain energy in her voice. Something I hadn’t heard since she moved out there.
“I told you, I was just going to do crowd control today,” she said. “I was ready for the longest day of my life.”
“I remember.”
“I get to work, and my CO says I need you to go up to the Mounties’ office on Yonge Street. I’m thinking, what the hell is this? What did I do wrong now?”
“The Mounties…I thought they only worked in provinces without their own police.”
“No, they have a regional office here. For anything national. Or international.”
“What did they want with you?”
“That’s what I’m getting to. I go up there, and they take me to the operations room. There’s about thirty people in the room, all sitting in chairs. There’s a podium up front, a big projector screen. The whole works. They’re obviously right in the middle of something. They’re showing pictures of people on the screen. But as soon as I go in, everything stops and they’re all looking at me.”
She paused for a moment. I didn’t say anything. I listened to the faint hum on the line, the sound of the distance between us, until she spoke again.
“The man up front, his name was Keller. He’s some kind of special operations commander for the Royal Mounted. He introduced himself, and then he says to everybody in the room, he says, this is Natalie Reynaud of the OPP. She has a certain talent I think you’ll all be interested to hear about. I’m thinking, what the hell is going on here? I felt like I’d been called down to the principal’s office.”
“I imagine.”
“He says to me, tell us about your previous undercover experience.”
“The stuff you were talking about last night.”
“Yes. He says tell us all about it, so I gave him the whole story. How I had hooked up with these bikers in Hearst. First through the woman and then the leader and everyone else…How it never amounted to anything.”
“Because they ended up dead.”
“Exactly. But somebody I was drinking with last night, they must have tipped off Keller, because he got on the phone to the Mountie who had run that operation up in Hearst, way back when. That guy must have given me quite a recommendation, because all of a sudden I’m a natural-born undercover agent.”
“I’m not surprised, Natalie. I’m sure you were great at it.”
“I don’t know about that. But next thing I know, they turn on the projector and there’s this woman’s face on the screen. She’s really attractive. Just killer. They say her name is Rhapsody. Which is such a perfect name, isn’t it? Doesn’t that make her sound like somebody who should be answering the phone at a beauty salon?”
“Sounds more like a stripper to me.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. Appearing in the lounge tonight, ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’”
“I take it that’s not what she did for a living?”
“Apparently not. According to Keller, she’s hooked up with a man named Antoine Laraque. And Laraque is the reason why everybody’s in that room.”
“Drugs again? Like the biker guy?”
“No, not drugs. Guns.”
“In Canada?”
“I’m telling you, Alex. You wouldn’t believe it here. This whole city is going crazy with guns right now. All these gang members, especially in Rexdale, Scarborough…It’s like they’re catching up with the American cities all of a sudden. It’s like they picked up Detroit and dropped it in Ontario.”
“Hey, that’s my old hometown you’re talking about.”
“I’m sorry, but you know what I mean.”
“Sad to say…But yes, I do.”
“In fact, as it turned out, half the people in that room were from the States. There’s this big joint operation between the ATF and Royal Mounted. Because, of course, you know where all the guns are coming from.”
“Of course,” I said. “But this sounds like big-league stuff. What exactly do they want you to do? You’re not telling me this whole group got together just because you-”
“No, no. The operation’s been active for a good two months now. They’ve got this one Mountie, a guy named Don Resnik. He’s a real undercover pro. They were thinking they’d try to use him to make some kind of contact.”
“But then what? You came along? All of a sudden they’re changing the plan?”
“They think I’ll have a better shot at it. I’m a new face in town. Nobody will recognize me, and they said if I have this ability to make a connection with another woman…Maybe if I have the right kind of backstory to work with…Like maybe I’m here in town trying to set up some kind of deal.”
“Natalie, doesn’t this sound kind of far-fetched to you? Do you think these people are going to fall for this?”
“We haven’t gotten that far yet. Right now, it’s just a little test, to see if I can make the contact. But if you think about it…I’m the perfect cover, aren’t I?”
“How’s that?”
“A woman gun dealer…Who’s going to suspect she’s really a cop? It’s the ultimate double fake-out.”
“Women cops work undercover all the time. Everybody knows that.”
“Yeah, and it’s usually what? A hooker working the corner, right?”
I thought it over for about two seconds. I hadn’t seen many solicitation stings back in my own day, but hell, prostitution was usually the least of our problems in Detroit. In any case, I knew she was right. I couldn’t think of one single time a female officer had posed as anything else.
“So when does this happen?” I said. “When do you try to connect with Rhapsody?”
“Tomorrow.” I could hear the excitement in her voice. And the nerves.
“Just like that? What are you going to do, start talking to her at the supermarket?”
“Actually, it’s a coffee shop. She stops in there every morning. I’ve got this whole script made up. I better go over it again before I go to bed.”
I had a mixture of feelings that night. I was proud of her. I knew how important the operation must have been to everyone involved. If so many guns were really flooding the city, I knew what the effects would be. I knew that all too well. Beyond that, I was envious. She was getting into the kind of police work I would have killed to do myself, back in the day.
But more than anything else, I was scared to death.
Another cold day in Paradise. Jackie was starting to get a little cranky about it. I got my first cancellation. I was almost done with the roof. I wasn’t much use to anyone, though, because all I could think about was Natalie going undercover in Toronto, trying to connect with this woman named Rhapsody, and then, beyond her, with a network of international gun smugglers. I had to try pretty hard to imagine a worse group of human beings to fool around with.
I think I hit my fingers with my hammer about four times before Vinnie finally stopped by and asked me what the hell was wrong with me. I gave him the quick version. I was up on the ladder, finishing up a row of wooden shingles. The sun was trying to fight its way through the gray clouds, finally giving up for the day. Summer was still on back order.
“She’ll be fine,” Vinnie told me. “You know they’ll be right behind her.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I know that.” Like I really believed it. Right behind her. Tell that to my old partner.