Dirtyshirt Red makes a face. Over the years he has fostered a fine hatred for his fellow bomme, with all his blowing off about being a war hero, and always bragging about his great kip—a snug sleeping place he has hidden away somewhere. A comforting idea strikes Dirtyshirt Red.
“Is he in trouble, Lieutenant? He’s a badass, believe you me. I wouldn’t put nothin’ past him! What’s he done, Lieutenant?”
LaPointe settles his melancholy eyes on the bomme.
“Okay,” Red says quickly. “Sorry. Yeah, I seen him. Down Chez Pete’s Place, maybe ‘bout six, seven o’clock.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
“No. I left to go down to the Greek bakery and get some toppins promised me. I didn’t want that potlickin’ son of a bitch hanging around trying to horn in. He’s harder to shake than snot off a fingernail.”
“Listen, Red. I want to talk to the Vet. You ask around. He could be holed up somewhere because he probably got a lot of drinking money tonight.”
The thought of his fellow tramp coming into a bit of luck infuriates Dirtyshirt Red. “That wino son of a bitch, the potlickin’ splat of birdshit! Morviat! Fartbubble! Him and his snug pad off somewheres! I wouldn’t put nothin’ past him…”
Dirtyshirt Red continues his flow of bile, but it is lost on LaPointe, who is staring out the window where beads of condensation make double rubies of the taillights of predawn traffic. Trucks, mostly. Vegetables coming into market. He feels disconnected from events; a kind of generalized déjà vu. It’s all happened before. Some different kid, killed in some different way, found in some different place; and LaPointe sorting it out in some other café, looking out some other window at some other predawn street. It really doesn’t matter very much anymore. He’s tired.
Without seeming to, Guttmann has been examining LaPointe’s reflection in the window. He has, of course, heard tales about the Lieutenant, his control over the Main, his dry indifference to authorities within the department and to political influences without, improbable myths concerning his courage. Guttmann is intelligent enough to have discounted two-thirds of these epic fables as the confections of French officers seeking an ethnic hero against the Anglophonic authorities.
Physically, LaPointe satisfies Guttmann’s preconceptions: the wide face with its deep-set eyes that is practically a map of French Canada; the mat of graying hair that appears to have been combed with the fingers; and of course the famous rumpled overcoat. But there are aspects that Guttmann had not anticipated, things that contradict his caricature of the tough cop. There is a quality that might be called “distance”; a tendency to stay on the outer rim of things, withdrawn and almost daydreaming. Then too, there is something disturbing in LaPointe’s patient composure, in the softness of his husky voice, in the crinkling around his eyes that makes him seem… the only word that Guttmann can come up with is “paternal.” He recalls that the young French policemen sometimes refer to him as “Papa LaPointe,” not that anyone dares to call him that within his hearing.
“…and that potlickin’ cockroach—that gnat—tells everybody what a hero he was in the war! That pimple on a whore’s ass—that wart—tells everybody what a nice private kip he’s got! That son of a bitch gnat-wart tells—”
With the lift of a hand, LaPointe cuts short Dirtyshirt Red’s flow of hate, just as he is getting up steam. “That’s enough. You ask around for the Vet. If you locate him, call down to the QG. You know the number.” With a tip of his head, LaPointe dismisses the bomme, who shuffles to the door and out into the night.
Guttmann leans forward. “This Vet is the man with the floppy hat?”
LaPointe frowns at the young policeman, as though he has just become aware of his presence. “Why don’t you go home?”
“Sir?”
“There’s nothing more we can do tonight. Go home and get some sleep. I’ll see you at my office tomorrow.”
Guttmann reacts to the Lieutenant’s cool tone. “Listen, Lieutenant. I know that Gaspard sort of dumped me on you. If you’d rather not…” He shrugs.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Guttmann looks down at the Formica tabletop. He sucks a slow breath between his teeth. Being with LaPointe isn’t going to be much fun. “All right, sir. I’ll be there at eight.”
LaPointe yawns and scrubs his matted hair with his palm. “You’re going to have a hell of a wait. I’m tired. I won’t be in until ten or eleven.”
After Guttmann leaves, LaPointe sits looking through the window with unfocused eyes. He feels too tired and heavy to push himself up and trudge back to the cold apartment. But… he can’t sit here all night. He rises with a grunt.
Because the streets are otherwise empty, LaPointe notices a couple standing on a corner. They are embracing, and the man has enclosed her in his overcoat. They press together and sway. It’s four-thirty in the morning and cold, and their only shelter is his overcoat. LaPointe glances away, unwilling to intrude on their privacy.
When he turns the corner of Avenue Esplanade, the wind flexes his collar. Litter and dust swirl in miniature whirlwinds beside iron-railed basement wells. LaPointe’s body needs oxygen; each breath has the quality of a sigh.
A slight movement in the park catches his eye. A shadow on one of the benches at the twilight rim of a lamplight pool. Someone sitting there. At the foot of his long wooden stoop, he turns and looks again. The person has not moved. It is a woman, or a child. The shadow is so thin it doesn’t seem that she is wearing a coat. LaPointe climbs a step or two, then he turns back, crosses the street, and enters the park through a creaking iron gate.
Though she should be able to hear the gravel crunching under his approaching feet, the young girl does not move. She sits with her knees up, her heels against her buttocks, arms wrapped around her legs, face pressed into her long paisley granny gown. Beside her, placed so as to block some of the wind, is a shopping bag with loop handles. It is not until LaPointe’s shadow almost touches her that she looks up, startled. Her face is thin and pale, and her left eye is pinched into a squint by a bruise, the bluish stain of which spreads to her cheekbone.
“Are you all right?” he asks in English. The granny gown makes him assume she is Anglo; he associates the new, the modern, the trendy with the Anglo culture.
She does not answer. Her expression is a mixture of defiance and helplessness.
“Where do you live?” he asks.
Her chin still on her knees, she looks at him with steady, untrusting eyes. Her jaw takes on a hard line because she is clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering. Then she squints at him appraisingly. “You want to take me home with you?” she asks in Joual French, her voice flat; perhaps with fatigue, perhaps with indifference.
“No. I want to know where you live.” He doesn’t mean to sound hard and professional, but he is tired, and her direct, dispassionate proposition took him unawares.
“It’s none of your business.”
Her sass is a little irritating, but she’s right; it’s no business of his. Kids like this drift onto the Main every day. Flotsam. Losers. They’re no business of his, until they get into trouble. After all, he can’t take care of them all. He shrugs and turns away.
“Hey?”
He turns back.
“Well? Are you going to take me home with you, or not?” There is nothing coquettish in her tone. She is broke and has no place to sleep; but she does have an écu. It’s a matter of barter.