“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know how.”
She laughs. “Everyone knows how! There’s nothing to know. You just sort of… you know… move.”
“It sounds like you had nothing but fun on the streets.”
“You say that like you don’t believe it. But it’s true. Most of the time I had fun. Except when they got rough. Or when they wanted me to do… funny things. I don’t know why, but I’m just not ready for that. The thought makes me gag, you know? Hey, what’s wrong?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“Does it bother you when I talk about it?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“Some guys like it. I mean, they like you to talk about it. It gets them going.”
“Forget it!”
She ducks involuntarily and lifts her arms as though to fend off a slap. Her father used to slap her. When the adrenalin of sudden fright drains off, it is followed by offense and anger. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” she demands.
He takes a deep breath. “Nothing. I’m sorry. It’s just…”
Her voice is stiff with petulance. “Well, Jesus Christ, you’d think a cop would be used to that sort of thing.”
“Yes, of course, but…” He rolls his hand. ‘Tell me. How old are you?”
She readjusts herself on the sofa, but she doesn’t relax. “Twenty-two. And you?”
“Fifty-two. No, three.” He wants to return to the calm of their earlier conversation, so he explains unnecessarily, “I just had a birthday last month, but I always forget about it.”
She cannot imagine anyone forgetting a birthday, but she supposes it’s different when you’re old. He is acting nice again. Her instinct tells her that he is genuinely sorry for frightening her. This would be the time to take advantage of his regret and make some arrangements.
“Can I stay here again tonight?”
“Of course. You can stay longer, if you want.”
Push it now. “How much longer?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. How long do you want to stay?”
“Would we… make love?” She cannot help saying these last words with a comic, melodramatic tone.
He doesn’t answer.
“Don’t you like women?”
He smiles. “No, it isn’t that.”
“Well, why do you want me to stay, if you don’t want to sleep with me?”
LaPointe looks down at the park, where a tracery of black branches intersects the yellow globes of the streetlamps. This Marie-Louise is the same age as Lucille—the Lucille of his memory—and she speaks with the same downriver accent. And she wears the same robe. But she is younger than the daughters he daydreams about, the daughters who are sometimes still little girls, but more often grown women with children of their own. Come to think of it, the daughters of his daydreams are sometimes older than Lucille. Lucille never ages, always looks the same. It never before occurred to him that the daughters are older than their mother. That’s crazy.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll look around and see if I can find you a job.”
“In a cocktail bar?”
“I can’t promise that. Maybe as a waitress in a restaurant.”
She wrinkles her nose. That doesn’t appeal to her at all. She has seen lots of waitresses, running around and being shouted at during rush times, or standing, tired and bored, and staring out of windows when the place is empty. And the uniforms always look frumpy. If it weren’t for this damned pig weather, and if the men never tried to beat you up, she’d rather go on like she is than be a waitress.
“I’ll try to find you a job,” he says. “Meanwhile you can stay here, if you want.”
“And we’ll sleep together?” She wants to get the conditions straight at the beginning. It is something like making sure you get your money in advance.
He turns from the window and settles his eyes on her. “Do you really want to?”
She shrugs a “why not?” Then she discovers a loose thread on the sleeve of the dressing gown. She tries to break it off.
He clears his throat and rubs his cheek with his knuckles. “I need a shave.” He rises. “Would you like another coffee before we go to bed?”
She looks up at him through her mop of hair, the errant thread between her teeth. “Okay,” she says, nipping off the thread and spitting out the bit.
He is shaving when the phone rings.
He has to wipe the lather from his cheek before putting the receiver to his ear. “LaPointe.”
Guttmann’s voice sounds tired. “I just got down here.”
“Down where?”
“The Quartier Général. They called me at my apartment. They’ve picked up your Sinclair, and he’s giving them one hell of a time.”
“Sinclair?”
“Joseph Michael Sinclair. That’s the real name of your bum, the Vet. He’s in a bad way. Raving. Screaming. They’re talking about giving him a sedative, but I told them to hold off in case you wanted to question him tonight.”
“No, not tonight. Tomorrow will do.”
“I don’t know, sir…”
“Of course you don’t know. That’s part of being a Joan.”
“What I was going to say was, this guy’s a real case. It’s taking two men to hold him down. He keeps screaming that he can’t go into a cell. Something about being a claustrophobic.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!”
“Just thought you ought to know.”
LaPointe’s shoulders slump, and he lets out a long nasal sigh. “All right. You talk to the Vet. Tell him nobody’s going to lock him up. Tell him I’ll be down in a little while. He knows me.”
“Yes, sir. Oh, and sir? Terribly sorry to disturb you at home.”
What? Sarcasm from a Joan? LaPointe grunts and hangs up.
Marie-Louise is mending the paisley granny dress she was wearing when he found her in the park. She looks up questioningly when he enters the living room.
“I have to go downtown. What are you smiling at?”
“You’ve got soap on one side of your face.”
“Oh.” He wipes it off.
As he tugs on his overcoat, he remembers the coffee water steaming away on the stove. “Shall I make you a cup before I go?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t really like coffee all that much.”
“Why do you always drink it then?”
She shrugs. She doesn’t know. She takes what’s offered.
6
By the thermometer it is not so cold as last night, but that was a dry cold, crystallizing on surfaces, and this is a damp cold, the serrate edge of which penetrates to LaPointe’s chest as he walks down the deserted Main. He does not find a cruising taxi until Sherbrooke.
LaPointe’s footfalls clip hollowly along the empty, half-lit halls outside the magistrates’ courts. The sound is oddly loud and melancholy, without the covering envelope of noise that fills the building during the day.
The elevator doors open, and he walks down the brightly lit corridor of the Duty Office. There is sound and life here: the stuttering clack of a typewriter in clumsy hands; the hum of fluorescent lights; and somewhere a transistor radio plays popular music.
Guttmann steps into the hall at the sound of the elevator. He looks unkempt and haggard; more like a real cop, LaPointe thinks.
“Good morning, sir. He’s in here.” Guttmann’s tone is flat and unfriendly.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” LaPointe asks.
“Sir?”
“Your attitude, tone of voice. What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t know it showed, sir.”
“It shows. I warned you to cancel that date of yours.”
“I did, sir. She went to a film with a friend. But she dropped by later for a drink. We live in the same apartment building.”
“And the call got you out of bed?”
“Something like that.”
“At an awkward time?”
“As awkward as it gets, sir.”
LaPointe laughs. Guttmann recognizes the comic possibilities of the situation, but he doesn’t find this particular case funny.