For a time she is silent as she meditatively torments her cracked lip with the tip of her finger. At last she says, “I think I recognized three of them.”
LaPointe nods to Guttmann, who opens his notebook.
The concierge gives the name of a French Canadian chippy whom LaPointe knows. She doesn’t know the name of the second woman, but she gives the address of a Portuguese family that lives around the corner.
“And the third?” LaPointe asks.
“I don’t know her name either. It’s that woman who runs the cheap restaurant just past Rue de Bullion. The place that—”
“I know the place. You’re telling me that she came here?”
“Once, yes. Not to get herself stuffed, of course. After all, she’s a butch.”
Yes, LaPointe knows that. That is why he was surprised.
“They had a fight,” the concierge continues. “You could hear her bellowing all the way down here. Then she slammed out of the place.”
“And you don’t know any of the other people who visited this Verdini?”
“No. Just plottes. Oh… and his cousin, of course.”
“His cousin?”
“Yes. The guy who rented the room in the first place. Verdini didn’t speak much English and almost no French at all. His cousin rented the room for him.”
“Let’s hear about this cousin.”
“I don’t remember his name. I think he mentioned it, but I don’t remember. He gave me an address too, in case there were any problems. Like I said, this Verdini didn’t speak much English.” She is growing more tense. Time is running out against Arnaud’s return.
“What was the address?”
“I didn’t pay any attention. I got other things to do with my time than worry about the bums who live here.”
“You didn’t write it down?”
“I couldn’t be bothered. I remember it was somewhere over the hill, if that’s any help.”
By “over the hill” she means the Italian stretch of the Main, between the drab little park in Carré Vallières at the top of the rise and the railroad bridge past Van Horne.
“How often did you see this cousin?”
“Only once. When he rented the room. Oh, and another time, about a week ago. They had a row and—hey! Chocolate!”
“What?”
“No… not chocolate. That’s not it. For a second there I thought I remembered the cousin’s name. It was right on the tip of my tongue. Something to do with chocolate.”
“Chocolate?”
“No, not that. But something like it. Cocoa? No, that’s not it. It’s gone now. Something to do with chocolate.” She cannot help drifting to the window and peeking through the curtains.
LaPointe rises. “All right. That’s all for now. If that ‘chocolate’ name comes back to you, telephone me.” He gives her his card. “And if I don’t hear from you, I’ll be back. And I’ll talk to Arnaud about it.”
She takes the card without looking at it. “What’s the wop kid done? Some girl knocked up?”
“That’s not your affair. You just worry about the TV set.”
“Honest to God, Lieutenant—”
“I don’t want to hear about it.”
They sit in the yellow sports car. LaPointe appears to be deep in thought, and Guttmann doesn’t know where to go first.
“Sir?”
“Hm-m?”
“What’s a plotte?” Guttmann’s school French does not cover Joual street terms.
“Sort of a whore.”
“And a guidoune?”
“Same kind of thing. Only amateur. Goes for drinks.”
Guttmann says the words over in his mind, to fix them. “And a… sauteux de… what was it?”
“A sauteux de clôtures. It’s an old-fashioned term. The concierge probably comes from downriver. It means a… sort of a man who runs after women, but there’s a sense that he chases young women more than others. Something like a cherry-picker. Hell, I don’t know! It means what it means!”
“You know, sir? Joual seems to have more words for aspects of sex than either English or French-French.”
LaPointe shrugs. “Naturally. People talk about what’s important to them. Someone once told me that Eskimos have lots of words for snow. French-French has lots of words for ‘talk.’ And English has lots of—ah, there she goes!”
“What?”
“That’s what I’ve been waiting for. The concierge just took the To Let’ sign out of the window. She was trying to get at it all the time we were there. It’s a warning to her Arnaud to stay away. I’d bet anything it’ll be put back as soon as we drive away.”
Guttmann shakes his head. “Even though he bashes her in the mouth.”
“That’s love for you, son. The love that rhymes with ‘forever’ in all the songs. Come on, let’s go.”
They run down the two leads given them by the concierge. The first girl they catch coming out of her apartment as they drive up. LaPointe meets her at the bottom of the stoop and draws her aside to talk, while Guttmann stands by feeling useless. The girl doesn’t know anything, not even his name. Just Tony. They met in a bar, had a couple of drinks, and went up to his room. No, she hadn’t charged him for it. He was just a good-looking guy, and they had a little fun together.
LaPointe gets back into the car. Not much there. But at least he learned that Tony Green’s English was not all that bad. Obviously he had been taking lessons during the two months he stayed at the rooming house.
Guttmann is even more out of it at the second girl’s house. Not a girl, really; a Portuguese woman in her thirties with two kids running around the place and a mother in a black dress who doesn’t speak a word of French, but who hovers near the door of an adjoining bedroom, visible only to the standing Guttmann. From time to time, the mother smiles at Guttmann, and he smiles back out of politeness. The timing of the old woman’s smile is uncanny in conjunction with the daughter’s confession. She seems to punctuate each sexual admission with a nod and a grin. Guttmann is put in mind of his deepest secret dread when he was a kid: that his mother could read his thoughts.
The young woman is scared, and she talks to LaPointe in a low, rapid voice, glancing frequently toward her mother’s room, not wanting her to hear, even though she doesn’t have two words of French. Just having her mother listen to the incomprehensible noise that carries this kind of confession is daunting.
Her husband left her two years ago. A person has to have some fun in life. The mother nods and grins. Yes, she met Tony Green at a cabaret where she went with a girlfriend to dance. Yes, she did go to his room. The mother nods. No, not alone. She is embarrassed. Yes, the other woman, her friend, was with them. Yes, all three together in the same bed. The mother grins and nods; Guttmann smiles back. It wasn’t her idea—all three in the same bed—but that’s the way this Tony wanted it. And he was such a good-looking boy. After all, a person has to have some fun in life. It’s rough, being left with two kids to bring up all by yourself, and a mother who is just about useless. The mother nods. It’s rough, working eight hours a day, six days a week. The oldest girl goes to convent school. Uniforms. Books. It all costs money. So you have to work six days a week, eight hours a day. And nobody’s getting any younger. It’s a sin, sure, but a person has to have some fun. The mother smiles and nods.
LaPointe slides into the car beside Guttmann, and for a while sits in silence while he seems to sort through what the women have told him.