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caution for reasons that were not entirely professional—he did fear mobs, this one included, not for what they might do to him, but for the memories they invoked.
    Armand Touton was unaware of the impact of his presence. He was walking down the very centre of the street, a shotgun crooked over one arm, his grey hat on, his charcoal coat flaring out with each immense stride. He was a man in a hurry. To everyone, he was obviously a cop—not only to those who recognized him as the city’s most famous police hero—and he was one cop who was not cowering. Respect was accorded to him. Boys who taunted unwary adults shut up as he went by. Men who had been throwing rocks and snowballs that contained ice and stones at firemen kept their arms at their sides. Before them strode a man on a mission, and it appeared to many that the folkloric hero was intent on single-handedly breaking up the riot. While the idea might be deemed laughable by anyone on the street who thought about it, no one stood in his path to prevent him from doing so, either.
    Those who knew him only by reputation understood that this was his town, the night shift his time. Montreal was a night city. Its clubs and bars were infamous across the continent. Deprived Canadians thirsty for relief from dull social lives booked business meetings and stopovers every chance they got. Americans arrived for the shows and the gambling and the open prostitution. Hookers freely worked the trains coming into town. Over the years, the act he’d enjoyed the most had been Édith Piaf, who’d played the Sans Souci. He suspected that he’d never see her like again. In any case, the Sans Souci was now closed, the closure part of a trend. Yet only last week Touton had caught Vic Damone at the El Morocco. He loved Vic’s voice. He hadn’t had a chance to get back to the El this week to hear Milton Berle, but usually the comedians left him cold because his English just wasn’t quick enough. Another comedian, Red Skelton, was booked at the Tic Toc. Some of the guys had been talking about him, but he’d rather catch Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, coming soon to the Esquire Show Bar, or Sammy Davis Jr. who was booked for the Chez Paree. Last year, he had used his influence—one of only a few times, but the owner, a gambler and a hood named Harry Ship, owed him a big favour—to hear Frank Sinatra, also at the Paree.
    He wondered if he’d ever see those big-name acts again: by morning, half his city might lie burned or smashed.
    Touton liked to catch the stars, but he wasn’t much into the club life, the drinking and conviviality. He was never made welcome anyway. He preferred to go, listen, look around, check things out, see who was talking to whom, and leave. Too many cops went down the tubes spending their wages at the Algiers or the Samovar, or hobnobbing with the likes of Jack Dempsey or Rocky Marciano at Slitkin’s and Slotkin’s, although he’d done that, too—just once, on a dare. Marciano had been in town, and one of his cops had bet that Touton’s fists were bigger than the champ’s. The cop begged him to go down to the club the next night and measure his closed fist alongside the reigning heavyweight king’s. Both men settled for a tie, but the photographers enjoyed themselves, snapping the massive fists side by side on a table, then capturing the two heroes feinting punches. A front page showed Touton cracking a right hook across the champ’s jaw. The champ had been smiling. People wondered, though, and the tabloids asked the question, “Could Touton take out Marciano?”
    “He’s undefeated,” the officer had quipped. “I’ve lost fights. Adolf had me on the ropes, remember?”
    The Top Hat. The Copacabana. The Normandie Roof. The Bellevue Casino, where the cover was fifty cents and so was the beer. The Chez Maurice Danceland, where the young people hung out. The Black Sheep Room at Ruby Foo’s. So many acts and so much action, and the tough guys visited