I ventured from my woods about 8:00 A.M. and headed east toward Plateau Mont-Royal, a bohemian neighborhood that sounded from the guidebook like a local version of Adams-Morgan. I found a cash machine that would give me Canadian money and then bought myself a big breakfast at a neighborhood diner. After breakfast I went shopping for a new outfit—blue jeans, a leather jacket, an Expos baseball cap. I also bought some deodorant and a toothbrush at a drugstore, then found a public bathroom where I could clean up.

Feeling more like a human being, I headed off to a museum, then to a movie and finally to a restaurant for a late lunch. By 4:00 P.M., I thought it might be safe to go to the Voyageur bus station downtown, on the Boulevard de Maisonneuve. When I got there, I took a seat in the waiting room and surveyed the place. The buses that headed south toward Plattsburgh and the United States were all departing from the right side of the station. On Gate 1, where the next U.S.-bound bus was about to depart, several men were examining the boarding passengers. I had been right; that route was dangerous. But I didn’t see any police at Gate 11, the departure gate for the next Toronto Express, which stopped in Kingston.

I approached the ticket window cautiously, head down, cap pulled low on my head. I paid $41.42 Canadian for a one-way ticket to Kingston. The ticket seller peered at me through the window, studied my unshaven face for an instant, and then handed me the ticket. I had an hour to kill before the bus left, so I went back out on the street and browsed in a local bookstore for something to read on the trip. I settled on a recently published account by four Hollywood prostitutes describing the sexual tastes of their clients.

As I was standing in line to board the bus I saw a team of Montreal police officers moving toward us. They were now examining each bus before it left the station. The good luck I had enjoyed all day seemed to be running out. I waited until they were almost to our bus and then left the line, telling the man behind me I needed to go to the bathroom. I stayed in the toilet until just before the bus’s 5:30 departure time. When I returned, the driver had started up the engine. The police had moved on.

I found a seat in the back and began reading my Hollywood book. About an hour out of Montreal, we entered Ontario. It was probably a silly notion, but I believed that Bézy’s powers diminished the moment French was no longer the official language. As we crossed that provincial border, some of the fear inside me began to ease.