One or the Other Read Online Free Page B

“This isn’t a fucking hold-up, this is big.”
    â€œDidn’t you get your cut,” Boyle said. “Is that the problem? Talk to whoever did it, you’re wasting your time here.”
    Dougherty watched Boyle, trying to see if his casual act was cracking, but he couldn’t tell. The guy was, as far as anyone knew, the top boss of the Point Boys. They weren’t like the Italians, they didn’t have ceremonies and take oaths and give out ranks and Marlon Brando wasn’t going to be in any movies about them, but everybody’s got to answer to somebody and Dougherty was pretty sure the Point Boys answered to Peaky.
    Laperrière said, “You fucked up, Petey. You brought more heat than you can handle.”
    Boyle just shrugged, and Dougherty looked from him to Laperrière and saw the cop clenching up, looking like he was the one going to snap.
    The whole room was tense. It was their first move in the investigation; it was their statement.
    Laperrière said, “This the way you want to do it, okay.” He turned his head a little and looked at Ste. Marie, and Ste. Marie motioned to Caron.
    It took Dougherty a second to realize that was his signal, and when he did he took a last look at Boyle and Higgins and Sadowski and then turned and walked through the motel office to the parking lot.
    Two in the morning, and it was quiet, no traffic on St. Jacques, the other motels along the street pretty much empty. Dougherty walked to the car and leaned against it and lit a cigarette. He could see the big buildings downtown all lit up, Place Victoria, the CIBC tower and Place Ville Marie, and the streetlights along the slopes of Mount Royal like a skirt spreading down to the river and the suburbs on the other side.
    A couple hundred feet south of St. Jacques was the huge drop down to the expressway below, the 2-20 and the train yards and the Lachine Canal.
    â€œHey, Eddie, right?”
    Dougherty said, “Yeah,” and realized he didn’t know Paquette’s first name.
    â€œLike old friends in there.”
    Paquette stepped beside Dougherty and leaned back against the car.
    â€œKnown each other a long time,” Dougherty said. “Came up through the ranks together.”
    â€œDifferent than the guys we see, eh?”
    Dougherty wasn’t sure what he meant by that but he saw Paquette looking like it was some kind of inside joke and didn’t want to be on the outside so he said, “For sure.”
    Paquette took a drag on his cigarette and blew smoke at the stars and said, “This should be interesting, this secret squad.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œYou been here before?”
    â€œPeg’s?” Dougherty said. “Yeah.” It was a two-storey building in a horseshoe shape, every room with a view of the pool in the middle. At one time a nice place, not one of those motels thrown up for Expo 67, it was probably built in the ’50s, before the expressways when St. Jacques was called Upper Lachine Road or before that when it was Western and it was the road into Montreal from Ottawa and Toronto, but it had faded in recent years and now the restaurant got the most use.
    Room fourteen, where they’d found the guns and hash and bank bags, was at the end of the horseshoe on the ground floor. According to Peg the room hadn’t been rented out since last fall, five months ago. She had no idea, of course, who could have been using it.
    â€œI knew a couple of the Higgins brothers,” Dougherty said. “From the Point.”
    â€œThat where you’re from?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThat could help you with this,” Paquette said. He took another drag on his smoke and flipped the butt into the parking lot.
    Dougherty said, “
If
they did it,” and tried to sneak a look at Paquette’s reaction.
    â€œWho else could it be?”
    â€œWe’re probably going there next,” Dougherty said, motioning back a