E
arly September, two months before.
Claire and I were walking up the front walkway of a tidy two-story brick house about six blocks from our place. “And why does your renter want to speak with me?” I asked my wife as I fiddled with the collar of my shirt. Finally I gave up and undid an extra button.
“No idea.”
My wife is beautiful. She’s a little shorter than me, 5’9” and about 140 pounds with long reddish hair and dark brown eyes that develop green tints when she is really angry. She also looked muy sexy in a dark blue sweater and skirt and the side of her breast rubbed pleasantly against my arm as we walked. Before we reached the front door it was opened by a middle-aged woman with greying-blond hair cut about an inch long and slightly slanted blue eyes. At a guess I put her height at 5’4” and her weight at around 100 pounds.
“Good afternoon, Claire, Mr. Haaviko.”
She held her hand out and I shook it. “Call me Monty.”
She smiled in a meaningless fashion and showed us both into a small room with no furniture. On the floor were heavy oblong carpets covered in brilliant, bright designs and piles of small round cushions. There was a woman in the corner of the room wearing a rich blue dress that covered her feet and pooled like water. She was sitting in front of a hibachi set out on a thick piece of grey-veined marble.
“I’m Marie Blue Duck. Please come in.” Our host stepped aside.
“Thank you.” Claire’s murmur was polite and non-committal. Nothing else.
Marie went over to the figure by the hibachi. “This is my friend Eloise. She does not speak English so please do not be offended if she does not speak during our conversation.”
Claire looked puzzled and we took cautious seats on the cushions. Marie sat down gracefully and looked at me. “You’re wondering about my last name?”
“Not really.” I was being polite. I wanted to scream ‘Why do you want to talk to me?’ but I didn’t.
“I’ll tell you anyway. My first husband was a Mohawk, a wonderful man. I kept his name after we parted ways, it’s such a wonderful name, don’t you think?”
I agreed and asked her what she did and she just smiled. After a second she quietly said, “I help people.”
Her words made me pause and look at her more closely. She had the angled perversity of a hard-core believer and I started to become worried. I’d seen it before in the faces of social workers, white supremacists, parole officers, black supremacists, religious leaders, Jewish supremacists, drug dealers, and Muslim supremacists. I’d seen it before endlessly in the faces of people who wanted to convince me to do something or not to do something and it left me cold. With nothing
to say I complimented her on the home. “You have a beautiful house.”
“Your wife rented it to us. It’s perfect for our needs, two storeys with finished basement and attached garage.”
Her hands drummed briefly on her thighs and then she turned awkwardly and presented her profile to me while she talked to Claire. “I want to hire your husband.”
Her vocabulary was educated and her tone was calm but it still startled me. “Me? Are you sure you’re talking to the right person?”
“You are Monty Haaviko. Ex-thief, ex-burglar, ex-armed robber, ex-smuggler, ex-drug dealer …” She sounded mostly amused and a brief smile ghosted across her face as I answered, “That’s me.”
Marie held up her hand politely. “Ahwah comes first. That’s Turkish coffee. After that we can talk.” Eloise at the brazier worked with small, brisk motions and dumped a handful of glossy brown beans into a small iron skillet, where they were quickly roasted. When they were done she used a blackened wooden dowel to crush them to a very coarse powder which she scooped into a brass pot with a long handle. That went back onto the brazier along with a little water from a plastic bottle and a piece of crystallized sugar.
When the brew came to a boil Eloise took it from the brazier using the long handle, unceremoniously dropped two greenish-coloured things into the pot, and then put it back to heat. Claire looked at Marie and raised an eyebrow when she answered the implied question. “Cardamom pods for flavour.”
When the pot boiled again Eloise picked it up carefully, took spoonfuls of froth from the pot, and placed them into three tiny steel cups. When the pot boiled a third time she picked it up, added more water, and then filled the cups with
the thickened brew. Marie handed me and Claire cups and I drank the best coffee I’d ever had, sweet and strong and exquisite.
“Good?” She seemed genuinely concerned and interested.
“Very.” Eloise tidied up and Marie faced me again. “I’ll be direct. I bring people into Canada and the United States who cannot make it into the country any other way.”
I put the cup down. “You smuggle them?”
“Yes. I help the hopeless and the dispossessed and I will pay you $5000 to help me. Five thousand dollars for one week’s work.”
Claire looked at me and squeezed my hand but I already had an answer. It wasn’t the one Marie wanted but so it goes. “No.”
“Why?” She was calm, very calm, and Eloise was looking down into her lap as I answered.
“Five thousand is too much money for you to pay me to do something even remotely legal. This means you want me to do something illegal. I do not want to do anything illegal. So the answer is no.”
“Illegal? Does that bother you?”
That was a stupid question but I answered it anyway. “Illegal doesn’t bother me. Being caught does. Prison bothers me, arrest bothers me.”
“Even if it’s for a good cause?”
“What is a good cause?”
“Let me put a face on what I deal with … maybe that will help. Eloise was from Vietnam. She fled when she was twelve by boat, her family was Muslim.” Behind the veil the woman kept her face averted.
“I see …”
“Do you?” Marie’s face was blank. “She had a brother, a
father, and two sisters when they left by boat. That first night they were attacked by Communists. They took everything of value and raped the women, the girls, and some of the boys. The next night fishermen found them and that happened the next night, and night after night. The fishermen would board, steal whatever they could find, rape whomever they chose, and leave. Within eighteen days the brother was eaten after a lottery, the father went mad and was drowned by the survivors, one sister hemorrhaged to death after being raped by Thai fishermen, the other vanished during a storm. They were rescued by the Red Cross and put into an internment camp in Thailand. And things became worse.”
Eloise understood something and made a low noise in her throat and I looked at Claire and she looked at me. Marie cleared her throat and smiled serenely. “When my friends rescued her from the camp Eloise weighed seventy-three pounds and was dying of cholera. She was so weak she couldn’t kill herself.”
Marie looked at Eloise and her smile dipped and vanished. “No one should have to do any of that. Ever. Not just because they want to go somewhere else. Does her story help you change your mind?”
I smiled too and it was not a nice smile but Marie didn’t know that. Claire did and frowned as I asked, “What exactly is it that you want me to do?”
“Help us set up the smuggling operation. Help us run it right. You can stay on the Canadian side and walk away at the end. I and my friend will be the only ones who know who you are. Simple enough, yes?”
“Next time, Tim Horton’s or Starbucks will be fine. Because this …” I gestured at the room. “This all makes me feel manipulated. Blackmailed.”
Marie frowned and looked ten or twenty years older and I waited for her to say anything. When she didn’t I went on. “And my response to blackmail is ingrained. And neither of us would like it. So I’m going to walk out and think for awhile. I’ll talk it over with Claire and decide.”
“I understand.” She bit her lip hard and her brow furrowed. She was trying to understand. “I won’t do it again.”
When Claire and I were standing Marie spoke in a bantering tone: “Out of curiosity. Just what is your response to blackmail?”
I didn’t smile. “I hurt you. I hurt you badly enough so you remember it forever. I burn down your house. I take an electric drill to your kneecaps. I blow up your workplace. Memorable shit like that.” I gave her space and time to respond but she had nothing to say to that so I went on. “Claire and I are going to take a walk and when I’m not angry anymore we’ll come back. Then we can talk and you can tell me what you want and I can answer.”
We left.
O
utside Claire wrapped her fingers in mine and led me down the walk and towards the river. The night was warm but the wind was cool and every few minutes there would be a gust that made the drifts of leaves on the ground dance. After a few hundred metres I spoke up. “So we have to talk about this?”
“Yep.”
“Right. We could use the money; it would make a difference in our lives. But I don’t want to break the law.”
“Bullshit, try again.” Claire said it without turning.
“’Kay. I don’t want to get caught.”
“Better.”
We walked down Cathedral Street and crossed Main. When we reached the Red River and the start of Scotia Street I stopped and Claire stopped with me. There were two houses that attracted me for some reason, one brightly lit and one dark. Beyond them was the river itself. The night was peaceful, serene, and I wished someone would try to rob us so I
could beat the shit out of them. But nothing happened because shit like that never happens when you expect it to. If someone tried to rob me then I could take them apart and thereby make myself feel better.
So of course it didn’t happen.
The truth was I did not want to think about helping Marie. I did not want to become involved. I did not want to risk anything. But the desire to work—to rob, to pillage, to move, to act—that was fucking powerful too. The urge to steal was strong in me.
The brightly lit house beckoned to me and I stood there and stared and thought dark thoughts. Equal chances. It could be a happy house with a fine father and upstanding mother, smart children, and happy pets. Or it could be a home of a pedophile father, alcoholic mother, abused and psychotic children, and vicious animals.
Black or white.
Right or wrong.
Pick one. Take your chances. Put your money down.
The rage at the attempted blackmail left along with the pain and only the two houses were left and beyond them, the river.
“Five grand is a lot of cash.” When Claire spoke her voice was very thoughtful.
“It is.” I agreed with her but kept my voice level.
“We’re doing okay. But five grand would make things better. And it wouldn’t be so bad if all you have to do is set the whole thing up and not break any laws on your own. Fifteen hundred and change would pay for a real estate licence. That would put me in the way of some serious cash further down the road. I could broker houses then and pull in a percentage instead of a salary.”
“True?” I was listening carefully and my voice was still level and calm.
“True. And the rest could go into savings for when we can buy our own house.” After a few seconds she added in an undertone, “Plus it’s a good cause.”
“Strong point.”
I laced my arm into hers and we turned to go back to Marie’s place. As we walked Claire leaned against my side and I whispered into her ear. “Tell you a secret; I’m starting to think that stealing is easier than being honest.”
She giggled and I asked, “So what do you know about Marie?”
Claire shrugged and I watched her chest out of the corner of my eye. “Stop looking at my boobs.”
“I thought you’d be flattered.”
“I am. I don’t know much about Marie. I think she is educated and determined and used to speaking to people and convincing them to do things. I’m starting to believe she rented the house from me because of you.”
“So she’s smart?”
“Yes. As opposed to you.”
“Another strong point. What else do you know?”
Claire squeezed my arm. “Marie knew what kind of house she wanted and how much to pay. The account she uses to pay the rent belongs to an incorporated business and her references were from universities in Toronto and Prince George. The job she listed is as an executive secretary with the company that pays the rent. I can look all that up again if you want tomorrow, when I’m back at the office. Maybe there’s more.”
I looked at her and was impressed. “How did you find all that out?”
Claire smiled, “In business we call it ‘due diligence,’ making
sure our client can pay their bills. I called the bank and her references.”
I nodded. “Bad guys call it ‘being nosy.’”
She squeezed my arm again and we kept walking.
When we were back at Marie’s house the first thing I asked her was, “Why did you choose me?”
Marie thought about that question for quite a while before answering. “I’m dealing with people who are in the country illegally, that single truth overshadows everything else. I help them find jobs, arrange their papers, bring their families to them, I do whatever is necessary, but the people we help have their own special problems and are especially prone to abuse. They can’t go to the police, can they? They become easy prey to everyone.”
Claire was sipping more ahwah and answered. “Sure.”
Marie gave her a wide smile. “Glad you agree. I thought it made sense. Then I thought that if I can’t find a good guy to help me, maybe I could find a bad one.”
She turned to me. “Which is you. You’ve smuggled.”
It wasn’t a question but I answered it like it had been one to give me time. “Sure I’ve smuggled. Jamaican marijuana from Montego Bay, Brazilian pistols from Imbituba, French paintings from Tokyo, Russian vodka from Vladivostok, North Carolina cigarettes through the Akwesasne reserve, classic cars from Cuba, Harley Davidson motorcycles from Pennsylvania, farm-grade gasoline off the farm, Canadian CFC’s to Atlanta, Inuit sculpture to Reno, Turkish hashish via Marseilles, Aztec pottery from Brownsville. So on and on and on.”
“Have you ever smuggled people?” Marie seemed genuinely interested.
“No … yes. Twice; bad guys in the States I smuggled into
Canada and bad guys in Canada I smuggled into the States. One-time deals only though.”
She held her hands out like she was balancing something. “Smuggling humans is maybe a $30-billion-a-year industry, mostly people for the sex trade but also ordinary economic refugees, mostly from poor countries to rich ones.” She started to count off on her fingers. “Forgive the lecture here but this is the best way I know how to explain it. The key transshipment countries include Spain, the Ukraine, the Balkan nations, Malaysia, Mexico, and South Africa. The key target countries are America, Canada, and the European Union, the West mostly. Wherever the smuggled and displaced settle down they slip into those societies and vanish in a generation or so.”
Marie kept eye contact with me. “Except when the shipper keeps a leash on them and makes them steal or pimp or whore or gamble or become slaves; in those cases anything can and does happen.”
The woman in the corner brought more ahwah. I was unused to the personal service and it distracted me as Marie kept talking. “I’ve heard stories of migrants forced to become prostitutes to pay for the smuggling or forced to carry drugs. I’ve talked to migrants who had to steal and gamble to pay for the smuggling and I’ve met some who were raped and tortured for fun. There are other stories of migrants murdered or sold into slavery and even being chopped up for their organs.”
Claire cleared her throat. “So who does it?”
Marie shrugged. “The smuggling? Everyone. Russian Mafiya moves Russian sex-trade workers and Chinese Triads move anyone looking for the good life. The Sicilian Mafia transships workers from Africa and Asia to Europe. Scandinavian human rights organizations move refugees when the red tape becomes too thick and South American drug organizations
move anyone as long as they agree to carry a little something with them. The US military smuggle ex-Nazis and ex-Communists to fight whatever they call terrorism and Saudi Arabians smuggle the poor from anywhere into their country to fill menial jobs graduates of religious studies don’t want to do. People smuggling has been going on for centuries.”
Marie fiddled with her cup and looked off into the distance. “In the late 1800’s Chinese men working on the railroads smuggled their wives to America to live the good life. In the early 1800’s Americans smuggled black slaves past British blockades to sell in New Orleans. In ancient Egypt Ethiopians were considered to be the best slaves and were smuggled despite official prohibitions up into the Nile Valley.”
I looked at Claire and she at me and then she asked Marie, “What kind of people do you smuggle?”
“Anyone who is refused entry to the US or Canada. I have friends and colleagues who refer them to me from all over the place. Baku, Kinshasa, Algiers, Asmara, Yangon, other places. I have friends who work in aid groups and they give me names and other information, scrape together funds, and send the people on. They fly to Toronto on tourist visas, then other friends pick them up and truck them to here and then I help them into the States or I help them stay in this country, whatever they want. Most of them want to be in the States though.”
Great, me vs. the United States and Canada.
Semper fi
, do or die! In the back of my mind the only thing I could hear were the Crash Test Dummies playing the “Superman Song.” And the only thing I could feel was a profound desire for a fix, which kind of took me my surprise. Drug addicts are never really free of their habits, it just becomes a long time between fixes, so I tried not to think about it. “What kind of cross-border route do you have?”
Marie smiled and stirred her coffee. “A good one. Are you in?”
Claire interrupted, “Let’s be straight about this. Monty will be helping you set things up on this side of the border, right? Not crossing?”
“And helping me set up the safe houses here in Manitoba, making sure they’re secure. Can you do that?” Marie looked at me expectantly.
“Sure.” I asked about the route again and she thought it over before answering.
“There’s a First Nations band on the border with Minnesota, right on the Lake of the Woods. We move the people there and then smuggle them across the bay in small boats and up a river to where they’re off-loaded.”
The ahwah was cold and I finished it anyway. “Who takes over from there?”
Marie smiled and intricate patterns of wrinkles showed up beside each eye. “Some Mennonite farmers and people take them from there; they’re very reliable. And very close-mouthed.”
Claire asked quietly, “What about out on the water?”
“What about it?” Marie was puzzled by the question.
I put the cup down. “I’ve smuggled before. In Canada there’s the RCMP in Manitoba and sometimes the Ontario Provincial Police cross borders. Then there’s the Federal Border Services and whoever is providing policing for the band itself.”
Marie dismissed everything with a wave of the hand. “The band is clear. There’s only a cop there on an as-needed basis and the band is small, 200 people, and we have friends there. We just don’t bring people through if the police are awake. As for the rest of them, the RCMP are stationed twenty kilometres away in the town of Sprague and don’t come on the band’s
land unless asked. As for the Border Services, they don’t have a customs post nearer than Fort Frances, a long way away.”
Sounded good. “Okay, what about on the US side? Their customs service is pretty good.”
“It is. And they concentrate their attention on the posts in the eastern and western parts of the country. We’ve done research and, frankly, they don’t have a lot of resources. There’s also the anti-terrorism net and that is mostly holes, the middle of the country is wide open.” She was being dismissive.
I probed a little. “And the crossing is in Lake of the Woods, so that means the US Coast Guard?”
“There’s nothing. The Great Lakes are controlled by the 9th Coast Guard District, which has some Minnesota bases and some cutters stationed there but they’re all in the Great Lakes, none in Lake of the Woods. They’re never anywhere near where we are. As for the Canadian Coast Guard, they have a post in Kenora, which is over 100 kilometres away through some really complicated waterways.”
She smiled again and shrugged. “Your best bet is to let me show you. Tomorrow?”
I looked at Claire and she at me. We both shrugged at the same time and I answered, “Might as well; can’t dance.”