“Well, I hope not.”
“Yes, sir. Me too.”
It is fully half an hour before the door to LaPointe’s office opens and Guttmann enters, bringing the Vet along by the arm. The old bomme looks pale and sick, but sober. Sober enough, at least. The shapeless old overcoat has been left behind, along with the wide-brimmed hat, and the collar and front of his shirt are wet from the dunking Guttmann has given him in a washbowl of the men’s room. The hair is wet and dripping, and it has been raked back with fingers that left greasy black ropes. There is a small bruise over the eyebrow, half covered by a hank of hair plastered on the forehead.
“You hit him?” LaPointe asks.
“No, sir. He clipped his head on the edge of the washbowl.”
“Do you have any idea what a lawyer would make of that? A lot more than harassment.” LaPointe turns his attention to the bomme. “Okay, sit down, Vet.”
The old tramp obeys sullenly. Now that his first panic is over, something of his haughty sassiness returns, and he attempts to appear indifferent and superior, despite the stink of urine that moves with him.
“Feeling better?” LaPointe asks.
The Vet does not answer. He lifts his head and looks unsteadily at LaPointe down his thin, bent nose. The intended disdain is diluted by an uncontrollable wobbling of the head.
LaPointe has never liked the Vet. He pities him, but the Vet is one of those men toward whom feelings of pity are always mixed with contempt, even disgust.
“Got a smoke?” the Vet asks.
“No.” Once the Vet begins to feel safe, he’ll be impossible to deal with. It’s best to keep him from getting too confident. “I told you we weren’t going to put you inside,” LaPointe says, leaning back in his chair. “I’d better be straight with you. It’s not really settled yet. You may be locked up, and you may not.”
With almost comic abruptness, the tramp’s composure shatters. His eyes flicker like a rodent’s, and his breath starts to come in short gasps. “I can’t go into a cell, Lieutenant. I thought you understood! I was wounded in the army.”
“I’m not interested in that.”
“No, wait! I was captured! A prisoner of war! For four years I was locked up! You know what I mean? I couldn’t stand it. One day… one day, I began to scream. And I couldn’t stop. You know what I mean? I knew I was screaming. I could hear myself. And I wanted to stop, but I didn’t know how! You know what I mean? That’s why I can’t go to jail!”
“All right. Calm down.”
The Vet is eager to obey, to put himself in LaPointe’s good graces. He stops talking, shutting his teeth tight. But he cannot halt the humming moan. He begins to rock in his chair. Mustn’t let the moan out. Mustn’t start screaming.
Guttmann clears his throat. “Lieutenant?”
“Hm-m?”
“I think he may be a user. There’s a fresh mark on his arm, and a couple of old tracks.”
“No, he’s not a user, are you, Vet? Between pension checks, he sells his blood illegally for wine money. That’s right, isn’t it, Vet?”
The bomme nods vigorously, still keeping his teeth clenched. He wants to be cooperative, but he doesn’t dare speak. He’s afraid to open his mouth. Afraid he’ll start screaming, and they will put him into a room. Like the English army doctors did after he was liberated from prison camp. They put him into a room because he kept screaming. He was screaming because they locked him in a room!
The Vet breathes nasally, in short puffs, humming with each exhalation. The hum strokes his need to scream just enough to keep it within control, like lightly rubbing a mosquito bite that you mustn’t scratch for fear of infection.
“Take it easy, Vet. Answer every question truthfully, and I’ll make sure you get back on the street. All right?”
The tramp nods. With great effort, he forces his breathing to slow. Then he carefully unclenches his teeth. “I’ll do… whatever… anything.”
“Good. Now, last night you took a wallet from a man in an alley.”
The Vet bobs his head once.
“I don’t care about the money. You can keep it.”
The Vet forces himself to speak. “Money… gone.”
“You drank it up?”
He nods once.
“It’s the wallet I want. If you can give me the wallet, you’re free to go.”
The Vet opens his mouth wide and takes three rapid, shallow breaths. “I have it! I have it!”
“But not on you.”
“No.”
“Where?”
“I can get it.”
“Good. I’ll come along with you.”
The Vet doesn’t want this. His eyes flick about the room. “No. I’ll bring it to you. I promise.”
“That’s not good enough, Vet. You’d promise anything right now. I’ll go with you.”
The Vet’s upper lip spreads flat over his teeth and his nostrils dilate. “I can’t!” He begins to sob.
LaPointe scrubs his hair and sighs. “Is it your kip? You don’t want me to find out where it is?”
The bomme nods vigorously.
“I’m sorry. But there’s nothing for it. It’s late, and I’m tired. Either we go right now to get the wallet, or you start ten days of a vag charge.”
The tramp looks at Guttmann, his eyes pleading for intervention. The young man frowns and stares at the floor.
LaPointe stands up. “Okay, that’s it. I don’t have time to fool around with you.”
“All right!” The Vet jumps to his feet and shouts into LaPointe’s face. “All right! All right!”
LaPointe puts his hands on the tramp’s shoulders and presses him back into his chair. “Take it easy.” He turns to Guttmann. “Go down and check us out a car and driver.”
Before leaving, Guttmann glances again at the Vet, who has retreated into the comfort of rocking and humming.
No sooner has the police car carried them three blocks from the Quartier Général and the threat of being locked up than the Vet’s whimpering dread evaporates and he reverts to his cocky, egoistic self. He does not deign to talk to Guttmann, who sits beside him because LaPointe got in front to avoid the alkaline smell of urine. Instead, he leans forward and talks to the Lieutenant’s back, explaining what happened in a loud voice because the windows of the car are open to avoid an onset of claustrophobia, and the bitter wind whistles through the car.
“I was just coming down the street, Lieutenant, when I happened to look up the alley and see this mark. He was kneeling down… low, you know? With his forehead on the bricks. I figures he’s a drunk or maybe high on something. Maybe he’s sick, I says to myself. I got first-aid training in the army. You can make a tourniquet with your belt. Did you know that? Sure. Easy as pie, if you know how. This riffraff on the street don’t know anything. They never been in the army. They don’t know shit from Shinola. Well, I walks up the alley. He don’t move. There’s nobody around. It’s real cold and everybody’s off the Main. Now, I wasn’t thinking of rolling him or nothing. Honest to God, Lieutenant. I just thought he might be sick or something. Need a tourniquet, maybe. When I get close to him, I could see he was real well-dressed. He looks funny. I mean, you know, ridiculous. Kneeling there with his ass in the air. Then I notice his wallet’s half out of his pocket. So… I just… took it. I mean, if I didn’t take it, one of those street tramps was sure to. So why not? First come, first served; that’s what we used to say in the army.”
“You didn’t know he was dead?”
“Honest to God, I didn’t. There wasn’t any blood or anything.”
That is true. The bleeding was largely internal.
“So, anyway, it comes to me that I might as well lift his poke. Share the wealth, like we used to say in the army. So I reach over and pull it out. It comes out hard, what with him squatting over like that and the ass of his pants so tight, you know. And just as I got it, all of a sudden this cop car stops down to the end of the alley, and this cop shouts at me!” The Vet’s breath begins to shorten as he relives his fear. “So I takes off! I was a-scared he might run me in! I can’t be locked up, Lieutenant! If I’m in a closed place, I start to scream. You know what I mean? You know what I mean?”