After a silence, LaPointe asks, “You figure she’s worth it?”
“What do you mean?” Carrot lights another Gauloise and sucks in the first long, rasping drag, then she lets it dangle forgotten between her lips.
“A dummy like that? Is she worth the trouble you’re in now?”
“Nobody says she’s a genius. And talking to her is like talking to yourself… but with dumber answers.”
“So?”
“What can I say? She’s fantastic in the rack. The best botte I ever had. She just stares up at the ceiling, squeezing those big tits of hers, and she comes and comes and comes. There’s no end to it. And all the time she’s squirming all over the bed. You have to hang on and ride her, like fighting a crocodile. It makes you feel great, you know what I mean? Proud of yourself. Makes you feel you’re the best lover in the world.”
LaPointe looks over at the bovine, languid girl shuffling aimlessly to the third table. “And you would kill to keep her?”
Carrot is silent for a time. “I don’t know, LaPointe. I really don’t. Maybe. Depends on how mad I got. But I didn’t kill that wop son of a bitch, and that’s the good Lord’s own truth. Don’t you believe me?”
“Do you have an alibi?”
“I don’t know. That depends on what time the bastard got himself cut.”
That’s a good answer, LaPointe thinks. Or a smart one. “He was killed night before last. A little after midnight.”
Carrot thinks for only a second. “I was right here.”
“With the girl?”
“Yeah. That is, I was watching television. She was up in bed.”
“You were alone, then?”
“Sure.”
“And the girl was asleep? That means she can’t swear you didn’t go out.”
“But I was right here, I tell you! I was sitting right in that chair with my feet up on that other one. Last customer was out of here about eleven. I cleaned up a little. Then I switched on the TV. I wasn’t sleepy. Too much coffee, I guess.”
“Why didn’t you go up to bed with her?”
Carrot shrugs. “She’s flying the flag just now. She doesn’t like it when she’s flying the flag. She’s just a kid, after all.”
“What did you watch?”
“What?”
“On TV. What did you watch?”
“Ah… let’s see. It’s hard to remember. I mean, you don’t really watch TV. Not like a movie. You just sort of stare at it. Let’s see. Oh, yeah! There was a film on the English channel, so I changed over to the French channel.”
“And?”
“And… shit, I don’t remember. I’d been working all day. This place opens at seven in the morning, you know. I think I might have dropped off, sitting there with my feet up. Wait a minute. Yes, that’s right. I did drop off. I remember because when I woke up it was cold. I’d turned off the stove to save fuel, and…” Her voice trails off, and she turns away to look out the window at the empty street, somber and cold in the zinc overcast. A little girl runs by, screeching with mock fright as a boy chases her. The girl lets herself be caught, and the boy hits her hard on the arm by way of caress. Carrot inhales a stream of blue smoke through her nose. “It doesn’t sound too good, does it, LaPointe?” Her voice is flat and tired. “First I tell you I was watching TV. Then when you ask me what was on, I tell you I fell asleep.”
“Maybe it was all that coffee you drank.”
She glances at him with a gray smile. “Yeah. Right. Coffee sure knocks you out.” She shakes her head. Then she draws a deep breath. “What about your coffee, pal? Can I warm it up for you?”
LaPointe doesn’t want more coffee, but he doesn’t want to refuse her. He drinks the last of the tepid cup, then pushes it over to her.
While pouring the coffee, her back to him, she asks with the unconvincing bravado of a teen-age tough, “Am I your only suspect?”
“No. But you’re the best.”
She nods. “Well, that’s what counts. Be best at whatever you do.” She turns and grins at him, a faded imitation of the sassy grin she had when she was a kid on the street. “Where do we go from here?”
“Not downtown, if that’s what you mean. Not now, anyway.”
“You’re saying you believe me?”
“I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying I don’t know. You’re capable of killing, with that temper of yours. On the other hand, I’ve known you for twenty-eight years, ever since I was a cop on the beat and you were a kid always getting into trouble. You were always wild and snotty, but you weren’t stupid. With a day and a half to think up an alibi, I can’t believe you’d come up with a silly story like that. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless a couple of things. Unless you thought we’d never trace the victim to here. Unless you’re being doubly crafty. Unless you’re covering for someone.” LaPointe shrugs. He’ll see. Little by little, he’ll keep opening doors that lead into rooms that have doors that lead into rooms. And maybe, instead of running into that blank wall, one of the doors will lead him back to La Jolie France Bar-B-Q. “Tell me, Carrot. This Italian kid, did he have any friends among your customers?”
She gives him his coffee. “No, not friends. The only reason he ate here sometimes was because some of the guys talk Italian, and his English wasn’t all that good. But he always had money, and a couple of my regulars went bar crawling with him once or twice. I heard them groaning about it the next morning, so sick they couldn’t keep, anything but coffee down.”
“What bars?”
“Shit, I don’t know.”
“Talk to your customers tomorrow. Find out what you can about him.”
“I’m closed on Sundays.”
“Monday then. I want to know what bars he went to. Who he knew.”
“Okay.”
“By the way, does chocolate mean anything to you?”
“What kind of question is that? I can take it or leave it alone.”
“Chocolate. As a name. Can you think of anybody with a name like chocolate or cocoa or anything like that?”
“Ah… wasn’t there somebody who used to be on TV with Sid Caesar?”
“No, someone around here. Someone this Tony Green knew.”
“Search me.”
“Forget it, then.” LaPointe swivels on his counter stool and looks at the plump girl. She has given up clearing the tables, or maybe she has forgotten what she was supposed to be doing, and she stands with her forehead against the far window, staring vacantly into the street and making a haze of vapor on the glass with her breath. She notices the haze and begins to draw X’s in it with her little finger, totally involved in the activity. LaPointe cannot help picturing her squirming all over the bed, kneading her own breasts. He stands up to leave. “Okay, Carrot. You call me if you find out anything about this kid’s bars or friends. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll be back.”
“And maybe you’ll be back anyway, right?”
“Yes, maybe.” He buttons up his overcoat and goes to the door.
“Hey, LaPointe?”
He turns back.
“The coffee? That’s fifteen cents.”
8
On the way to his apartment, LaPointe passes the headquarters of the First Regiment of the Grenadier Guards of Canada. Two young soldiers with automatic rifles slung across their combat fatigues pace up and down before the gate, their breath streaming from their nostrils in widening jets of vapor, and their noses and ears red with the cold. They are watching a little group of hippies across the street. Three boys and two girls are loading clothes and cardboard boxes into a battered, flower-painted VW van, moving from a place where they haven’t paid their rent to a place where they won’t. A meaty girl who is above the social subterfuges of make-up and hair-washing is doing most of the work, while another girl sits on a box, staring ahead and nodding in tempo with some inner melody. The three boys stand about, their hands in their pockets, their faces somber and pinched with the cold. They have fled from establishment conformity, taking identical routes toward individuality. They could have been stamped from the same mold, all long-legged and thin-chested, their shoulders round and huddled against the cold.