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me?”
    “Then you’ll agree, Pierre, that this evening has nothing to do with hockey.”
    “Hockey is the flashpoint. But there’s more to it. This mob will start selecting targets. When it does, it’ll discover its raison d’être.” Sirens wailed through the night. Above Ste. Catherine Street police cars, hook-and-ladder trucks and ambulances raced by. “Watch. Our rioters will educate themselves as they go. That’s already happened, or they would never have bypassed the National Hockey League offices.”
    “They don’t know where the offices are.”
    “Just as well.”
    “I’m serious,” the priest reiterated. “Someone asked me if I knew where the league office was located. He had a brick in one hand, a beer in the other. I almost answered him before I thought better of it. I offered him a smoke.”
    “Good of you.”
    “I traded. A smoke for the brick.”
    “Quick thinking.”
    “It’s hard to get rid of a brick on a night like this. I stuffed it in a mailbox.”
    Trudeau blew warm air into his hands. “Father, while this is not only about hockey, I don’t see that it has much to do with religion.”
    “Now you’re insulting me. Even in this light I detect the devious twinkle in your eye. What does any of this have to do with the Privy Council, Pierre? You’re still employed by the government, no?” Feeling cold, as if the conversation had subdued his adrenaline, the priest stood and stomped his feet a moment. He finally did up the zipper on his jacket.
    “I thought you knew. I’m out of work. I quit. But the Catholic Church, Father. Your boss is no mere boss. The Church is your calling.”
    “The Catholic Church serves the people of Quebec, Pierre.”
    “Arguable,” Trudeau murmured.
    “Put it another way then. My flock is in torment. They’re rioting. Where else should I be? At home? In bed? Reading Cité Libre ?”
    A large pane of glass shattered, catching their attention.
    “Somebody found your brick,” Trudeau said.
    “They probably used the whole mailbox.” Both men smiled. “I agree with you—though, sadly. They’ll be here soon.”
    “The police, too,” Trudeau noted. He glimpsed shadows forming on his right.
    The priest also spotted the gathering forces. Trudeau, the crafty young fellow, had chosen a ringside seat for the fiercest battle of the night. As he had done before, in the midst of past debates, Father François made a mental note of the man’s acumen.
    Getting to his feet, Pierre Trudeau hugged himself against the chill. The two men smiled, for both believed that their conversation on this special night had brought them together as possible, if unlikely, friends—closer than before. They stood side by side as sirens wailed louder, nearer, ever more plaintively, and the mob, too, increased its roar. In the chill of the chaotic March night, the men waited patiently for the riot, and history, to seek them out.
    Captain Armand Touton took the call after the riot had been out of control awhile, the resources of his men stretched beyond their usual limit. Half the police presence was now involved in carting the injured to hospital and keeping roads open for emergency vehicles. In hospital corridors, civilians lined up alongside the same cops who had beaten them, and firemen were streaming in, taken out of action by rocks as often as by smoke inhalation.
    The call was being transmitted to his vehicle over the two-way, relayed by a harried dispatcher at police headquarters who was also on the phone to another officer. The dispatcher sounded quite young, probably in her early twenties, a civilian fearful that the social order had come to an abrupt halt. She dreaded conveying messages between the two roaring lions.
    “I have no time for a goddamned burglary!” Touton yelled back at her. “Tell him to take care of it himself! That’s what he’s paid to do!”
    A delay ensued as his response was passed along.
    The young woman’s sweet voice squeaked again. “Sir,