Oniria
Patrick Senécal
(Excerpt: p. 1-15)
"Hey, Dave, you asleep?"
And he punctuates his question with an elbow poke.
"Shut up!" Dave answers.
"But that's twice now that I've..."
"I told you to shut up!"
Dave speaks in a low voice, but the tone leaves no room for a reply. So Jef shuts up, but not without a few grumbles of protest.
A jolt: all four jump, bumping into each other in the perfect darkness and Jef's head bangs against the container lid. He couldn't help swearing. Éric ventures a stifled laugh.
Silence, except for the motor of the truck that has been rolling for about fifteen minutes now. Dave is definitely not reassured. An escape all alone is already risky, but with four, it borders on suicide, especially with an imbecile like Jef... Fortunately, Éric follows instructions to the letter. And Loner is perfect: no hesitation, no doubt, no false moves. Which is normal, since he is the architect of this escape. He has not said three words since the beginning of the operation more than an hour ago now. Moreover, if Dave couldn't feel him against his shoulder, he would swear he is no longer with them.
Dave tries to control his anxiety. Come on, now that they are all in the container, they can say they've succeeded, can't they?... If everything goes well, David D'Or will be able to proclaim himself free once again in a few hours. And that will be justice!
Because HE is innocent! He's not a killer, like all these prisoners he has been rubbing elbows with for six months! He's innocent, and he fully intends to show it, to prove it to the world!
The truck stops for the first time. They all know what that means: the vehicle is leaving the main road to go into the town. Dave then has the impression that everyone has stopped breathing around him.
They start up again, they roll on a little... then, stop again. No doubt red lights or stop signs.
Loner stands up without warning, rustling the papers around him. Dave immediately does the same thing and the two men carefully lift the rusty metal lid, as the truck starts up again.
One glimpse. But enough to see that they are, in fact, in the town. If you can call it a town. The advantage of these small municipalities is that their streets are nearly deserted at night, even downtown.
What time could it be? Ten thirty? A little later?
"Time to go?"
Loner doesn't answer, and continues looking outside through the thin opening of the ajar lid. A car meets them. A couple walks by on the sidewalk. They must be getting to the dump soon! Then they'll be screwed!
"Loner..."
He gives a little click of the tongue, puts his oval glasses back on his nose, then nods silently. He lifts the lid about forty centimetres, holds it in this position and signals to the others to hurry. Since there is another container in the truck box between them and the cab, the driver can't see them as long as the lid isn't raised.
Just before hauling himself up the side, Dave has a quick view of the night, the façades of small businesses, then he flips over. A short fall, during which he thinks to protect his head with his hands. The landing is rather rough, but he gets up quickly, in time to see Jef in turn bounce on the asphalt, ten metres away from him. The two men join each other: their ribs hurt, but there's nothing broken. And the street is empty of any human life.
Farther away, Éric stands up, while Loner, even farther, hits the ground just as the container lid closes. The resulting crash of metal is a little too loud for Dave's taste. He freezes a moment, certain the truck is going to stop. But it doesn't: it continues on its way, turns a corner, disappears. The four men quickly come together. Loner examines the surroundings.
On the other side, a man on the sidewalk is looking at them, dumbfounded.
"Let's get out of here," Loner whispers calmly.
Moving quickly but not running, they walk towards the closest intersection, completely ignoring the motionless pedestrian, except Jef who glances at him with amusement. In the narrow, little cross street, they press themselves against a cement wall and relax a little. But Dave is worried: the pedestrian will certainly sound the alarm. Loner reassures him. The man will just go home and tell his wife that he saw something funny: four guys jumping out of a container. He'll sleep on it and, tomorrow only, listening to the TV news, he will make the connection.
"In any case, by this time, our escape has been reported, that's for sure. So, let's get going. Your turn, Jef."
Jef sizes up the three cars parked in the street, then heads to the second one, a black Focus. The door is locked. He goes to the third, a blue Saturn: the door opens with no problem and the escapee disappears under the steering wheel. Thirty seconds later, the engine comes to life and Jef emerges from the vehicle, smiling proudly. Dave surprises himself once again by telling himself that Jean-François Fortin looks more like an adolescent than an adult. He really doesn't have the face or the attitude of a man in his late thirties.
Nor the maturity, for that matter. And that's what worries Dave. Except that he was obliged to involve him in the escape. When he discovered everything, Jef had been very clear: "Either I go with you, or I tell the guards everything." That drove Dave up the walls (though not over them), but Loner calmed him down: they had no choice.
Dave and Éric get in the back, and Loner takes the passenger seat. Jef starts off so fast the tires squeal.
"This is not the time for hot-rodding!"
"Relax, max! We're free and clear now!"
"We can relax in the States, not before," growls Loner.
But even so, Dave gives a long sigh of relief and sinks a few more centimetres into the seat: they've done it, haven't they? Loner's plan was perfect. And that was precisely why Dave had involved him in his escape: he knew he would be the brains. You have to know your limitations and know how to use the talents of others. And besides, he gets along pretty well with Loner. Well, "get along" might be stretching it a bit. Loner, who is on the wrong side of fifty, is solitary, doesn't really have friends and doesn't talk much with anybody. Let's just say he's one of the rare prisoners Dave could stand having around.
In spite of what Loner did to end up in prison.
As the car rolls through the sleepy little town, Dave closes his eyes, more and more relaxed. He tries to imagine the reaction of the guards, right this moment. They must have discovered everything by now. David D'Or? The quiet prisoner who, in six months on the inside, never got into a fight, never really drew attention to himself? He got away with three others? Chien-Sale must be having a heart attack! That'll teach him, the fat slob!
Oh, yeah! They must be surprised! All of them!
But what about Vivianne Léveillé, won't she be...
Was there anything that could surprise that woman? She came to see Dave twice a month since the beginning of his incarceration and she always exhibited the same calm. No reactions from the prisoner ever caught her off guard. For six months, he screamed his innocence in her face, and she never showed the least impatience, the least irritation. She listened to him, playing nonchalantly with the cameo she wears on a pendant around her neck, and asked questions.
"So you believe that it's a conspiracy, Dave?"
A typical psychiatrist's question! No, he doesn't believe there's a conspiracy! He believes there was a miscarriage of justice, that's all! Ten months and eight days ago now, he had arrived home rather late to his apartment in the Hochelaga neighbourhood, and had found Sonia dead, stabbed several times. And there was so much blood! It was idiotic, but normal under the circumstances: he had picked up the bloody kitchen knife that was lying on the floor, confused, distraught.
Two minutes later, the police, alerted by the neighbours, burst into the apartment and grabbed Dave, the knife still in his hand.
He had no alibi: he had gone to the movies, as he often did when he had had an argument with his girlfriend. Because, yes, he had had a row with her, Sonia's sister had made the point strongly enough at the trial! She had added that they argued frequently too, which was also true. So what? You don't stab people for that! And then more stories started to come out about him: Dave had been fired a few months before. He was a bus driver and his bosses found that he had a "problem" with authority... Several users had also complained about him for his rudeness and his lack of interpersonal skills. But it wasn't his fault! They asked him so many stupid questions, like: "Do you go to Laurier station?" when it was written in big letters on the front of the bus! How can anyone not get annoyed! It also came out that before Sonia he had never been able to keep the same girlfriend for more than a year because of his bad temper. In short, nothing to help him. And since nothing had been stolen from the apartment, since there was no sign of forced entry...
The trial had lasted two months, but the jury hadn't taken long to deliberate. Twenty-five years, with the possibility of parole after fifteen.
"I didn't kill Sonia!" he would often say to Vivianne Léveillé, while Éric, the whole time of the visit, went and loitered in the library. "I might be impulsive, maybe I'm a pig, but I'm against violence! I've never even been in a fight in my life, no kidding! And loved my girlfriend! I was with her for almost two years! That's a record for me!"
The psychiatrist nodded, sitting on one of the two little benches in the cell. She always wanted to meet her patients in their "natural surroundings." Why? To show them she trusted them? Perhaps...
"The real killer is still out there, doctor."
She took notes, but very few.
"You believe me, don't you?
"It's not important whether I believe you or not, Dave. The justice system didn't believe you."
He had never asked to be treated by a psychiatrist, but it is part of the program at the Donnacona Penitentiary: every prisoner sees a shrink once every two weeks, some more often. The other prisoners had explained to him that it had been like this for three years: an idea of the new warden (they still called him the new warden, even though Joyal had been running the prison for four years now). But Doctor Léveillé wasn't the only one. Éric, for example, saw another shrink, even though he had been treated by Vivianne for a while at the beginning of his incarceration two years before. He had, however, asked to change doctors. In any case, most of the prisoners found these "consultations" extremely tedious. Except for Dave. He had to admit it: he did not find the visits from Vivianne unpleasant at all. She was the only person who listened to him without any sign of impatience, or irony. It was true that, sometimes, she got on his nerves with her irritating questions, such as: "Go back in time, as far back as your memories can take you," something he hated since he had very rare and very unpleasant memories of his childhood. He only remembered that his father took off when he was eight, leaving his mother to drown in an ocean of bitterness and alcohol. Or else: "Tell me your dreams." He never remembered what he dreamed! And the one she asked most often: "How can you be against violence and be so impulsive?" But he agreed to answer as best he could, knowing that afterward he could pour out his heart once again. And besides, any female visit was a luxury in itself. In her forties, brown eyes, thin lips, a fiery mane of red hair, she could have been pretty if it weren't for her coldness, an attitude that Dave didn't think was directed against him, because he really felt she was interested in his case. Her coldness must come naturally. Maybe she didn't even realize...
"She's special, that woman, don't you think?" he had asked other prisoners who saw Vivianne too.
They had shrugged:
"She's a bitch who asks questions and doesn't give a shit about the answers, like all shrinks."
After a while, Dave had finally started asking questions of his own, out of simple curiosity. Did she live alone? Did she have kids? How long had she been working in the prison? In the beginning, she refused to answer... then, a few months ago, when Dave repeated his questions, she had given an irritated sigh and answered tersely:
"Let's settle this once and for all, Dave: I live alone, I've never been married, I don't have children, and that's all you're going to find out."
He didn't push it. Still, she intrigued him. Not that he was starting to fall in love, far from it. (He couldn't see how he could ever love anyone but Sonia.) But this woman was such a mystery... Even though everything was cerebral with her, he had been convinced since the beginning that, in a way, she was with him, on his side. Just the fact that she called him Dave instead of David...
He opens his eyes. The car is leaving the town. It's on a country road.
"In four hours, we'll be in the States!" Jef exclaims.
Dave closes his eyes again. For him, the United States will only be a transition for a few months. Then, when they've stopped looking for him actively, he'll come back... and find Sonia's murderer. He has no idea how he's going to do it, but he'll find a way. He even told Vivianne that, a few weeks ago, in a moment when he got so carried away he forgot to be careful:
"When I'm eligible for parole, I'll be forty-seven! I won't wait that long for justice, no way! I'm going to get out of here long before that and I'm going to find the real killer! Remember what I'm telling you, doctor!"
He regretted it. At the moment, he still hadn't devised an escape plan, but the psychiatrist was quite capable of going and repeating what he'd said to the warden and Dave would be watched for a long time! But she hadn't reacted. She had kept on playing with her pendant, watching the prisoner attentively but without emotion, as usual.
That mixture of coldness and interest that obsessed him so much...
A month ago, she had forgotten her handbag in the cell. Dave had realized it before Éric came back and, after a moment's hesitation as a matter of form, he had looked inside. Maybe he'd learn a little more about her. Feeling vaguely guilty (but very vaguely!), he had found keys, handkerchiefs, Nicorette gum (she was trying to stop smoking?), a little portable tape recorder, her notepad and a wallet. No make-up. For the first time, he had realized that, in fact, he had never seen her with the least bit of blush on her face.
No photos in the wallet. Credit cards, a little cash, her medical psychiatrist card, another from the Quebec neurologists society (she was a neurologist too?) and a driver's licence with an address: 96 Du Boisé Street, Donnacona. He had reread this address several times. Knowing that she lived so close by had comforted him in a strange way.
But just when he was opening the notepad, he heard the footsteps of the guard. Quickly, he had put everything back and two minutes later, the guard left with the handbag. Had Vivianne been aware of his impertinent curiosity? If she had been, she hadn't shown the least sign of it at their last meeting.
But she never showed anything. Except for her purely clinical interest.
"Stop the car," said Loner suddenly.
"Huh?"
"I said stop."
The car, which left the town barely two minutes before, brakes hard and Dave opens his eyes. Loner points at the road ahead.
Less than a kilometre away, several pairs of headlights shine across the road. The same word explodes in the minds of the four men: cops. Already! And no crossroads between here and the roadblock. For thirty long seconds, nothing happened. The escapees stare at the headlights, without moving, without saying anything, as if they're waiting for someone to come and suggest a solution.
Finally, Jef, swearing, turns the car around and heads back towards Donnacona. They decide to get out of town by another road. The cops must be blocking all the roads out, but they had to try anyway.
A light comes on on the dashboard: fuel.
"You could have picked a car with a full tank!" grumbled Dave.
"Shit! And air conditioning too?"
Return to the quiet little streets of the town. The car rolls for a while past closed stores, then the motor starts to sputter. The car was useless now. Jef pulls in at the curb and they all get out. Still nobody around. The four men walk towards the first intersection.
"Should we steal another car?" asks Éric.
No answer. Nothing is going according to plan.
Loner is the first one to the intersection, but backs up immediately.
"Cop car coming!"
An alley, there, between two businesses. The escapees have just enough time to hide before the patrol car rolls slowly by and a beam of light sweeps the street. The car moves away, but the four partners in crime remain in the alley, terrorized. No point in stealing another car: in ten minutes, the town will be crawling with cops and every car around will be checked.
There is panic in the air.
"We could hide in a house," Dave suddenly suggests.
"What?"
"We find a house, we hold the people hostage all night long then tomorrow, when the police think we're far away and take away the roadblocks, we get out of town!
The others are sceptical.
"It's not ideal, but I don't think we have much choice," adds Dave.
"Why not an empty store?" Jef suggests. "There are plenty around."
Loner objects: most of them have alarm systems. A house is safer.
"How can we take people hostage?" asks Éric. "We don't even have a pocketknife!"
"We're four escaped cons," Loner points out, more and more convinced of the idea. "I don't think we'll have too much trouble intimidating a little model family..."
He is not, however, particularly impressive physically, but Dave knows, from having already seen him in action, that he can stand up to someone bigger than him.
Since there really isn't much time for discussion, they all end up accepting the idea. And they start walking quickly, looking for a house.
"We'll take hostages, but no killing, do we agree on that?" says Dave as he walks.
"Unless they give us no choice," Jef objects.
"I said: no killing!"
"Hey, you're the boss!"
"Yes, I'm the boss!" Dave suddenly spits out, stopping right in the middle of the deserted street. "It was Loner who came up with the plan, but I'm the one who suggested an escape to him! Éric's with us because he was in the same cell as me! And you, Jef, you shouldn't even be here, don't forget that! So you listen to me or you're on your own!"
Jef stares hard at him.
"No killing!" Dave repeats emphatically.
"I agree," says Éric.
"Yeah you, you fag, we all know...," grumbled Jef contemptuously.
"What did you call me?"
"Stop your squabbling!" Loner jumps in. "That's great: no killing. Okay? Alright, let's find our house before the cops are all over us."
No private houses on this street, just stores. A few apartments, but they think that's too risky. The four men step up the pace.
Three times, when they see cars approaching in the distance, they have to hide. In two cases, they are police cars. They'll have to find something fast.
They have been searching for about ten minutes when they finally come to a residential neighbourhood. They walk past a dozen bungalows and opulent-looking cottages, but they aren't able to make a choice. Dave thinks they're too close to each other. Loner remarks that they don't have all the time in the world to pick; they have to decide quickly.
"And what if we happen on a family with three sons built like wrestlers?" Éric worries.
"Exactly what a fag would worry about!" laughs Jef.
This time, Éric turns towards his tormenter, his face red with anger.
"Hey, I'm not a fag, OK? How many times do I have to..."
"I've found a house," Dave says suddenly. He has stopped at a nearby intersection.
They all look towards the bungalows. Dave adds:
"You can't see it yet, but it's somewhere in this street."
And he points at the signpost where you can read the name of the cross street: Du Boisé...
© 2004 Éditions Alire & Patrick Senécal
To find out what happens next...
