EATON'S During The 1960's Second French Revolution

Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

The next morning at Eaton's had been busy, but Ricky kept making time to think about and go over what he was going to say to when he met for lunch to discuss his resignation.

He left Eaton's a little earlier for his lunch meeting as a heavy wet snow was falling and severely snarling traffic in the downtown core. He pulled up the collar of his London Fog overcoat, as a shield against the penetrating blast of cold winter air. He stood for several moments among the throng of entering and exiting Christmas shoppers at the University Street doorway. Several flakes of snow blew into his face signaling the continual dropping temperature and next predicted snow storm. The street was encased in crusting snow layered over slippery slush, while the sidewalk was peppered with powdery snow which concealed the dangerous patches of ice below. Customers entering the store rubbed their hands for warmth and stomped their feet free of the clinging snow and ice.

Ricky leapt over a compacted ugly mound of sand and salt mix snow; packed high by the snow plows the previous night. He tried to reach the other side of University Street, without falling mid-street, where he could secure a northbound taxi cab. It didn't help that he was only wearing his slick soled dress boots which afforded him little traction in the wet slush. Available taxis were scarce at midday and he had to wait several minutes before a cab emerged from the throng of traffic. The taxi turned north from St. Catherine Street and came to a slush spraying stop by the curb. The Concourse cab was from the largest fleet of Montreal taxicabs allegedly owned by the Calabrisee crime family. Although it was a comparably new car, the cab bore the usual scars of the severe Montreal weather; sporting rusted out wheel wells and door panels, and numerous dents and scrapes.

Ricky opened the rear door and grimaced as he sat down on the cold vinyl seats.

"Eight-six seven five Decarie Boulevard. Take Guy Street over Mount Royal, Okay?" Ricky spoke in an annoyed tone to the driver. He was visibly upset that the slush spray from the cabs sudden stop, marked the front of his razor pleated trousers and brand-new overcoat.

"A votre plaisir, monsieur," At your pleasure, Sir, was the simple curt reply from the 400 plus pound, cigar smoking driver.

The cab navigated the treacherous 30-minute trek; north on University; left on Sherbrooke Street and then passed the elite Holt Renfrew, six story department store, which catered to the high society shoppers of Montreal. When the driver turned right onto Guy Street, Ricky smiled as he remembered that the restaurant on the corner had been the famous "Diana Grill Restaurant," owned and operated during the depression by his notorious gambling grandfather, Nicko; known to Montrealers as Canada's, "Nick the Greek."

As he stared at the meter slowly ticking off the fare in ten-cent increments, Ricky recalled the descriptions he had heard from his mother and grandmother about his grandfather who had been anything but a good husband, or father. He was portrayed as a crazy-ass Greek who took his anger out on his wife, daughter and son. His chronic gambling escapades often resulted in the family losing all their furniture, and on at least one occasion, being forced out onto the street. His mother had relayed that it was not uncommon for his grandfather to chase his kids around the house in uncontrollable rage, threatening them with a butcher knife. And, that his mother's brother had ended up in the Royal Victoria Hospital emergency room, on numerous occasions, with lacerations and broken bones resulted from beatings from Nicko.

The public story was that having won and lost his Diana Restaurant in numerous poker games, Nicolaus Coliopoullos in an effort to escape his gambling debts, had abandoned his wife and two kids and fled to places unknown, never to be seen or heard from again.