“I am giving you a direct order to stop your harassment of this citizen.”
There is a long silence, during which LaPointe continues to look out the window as though he has not heard.
Resnais pushes his pencils back and forth with his forefinger. Finally, he speaks with a quiet, flat tone. “Well. This is the attitude I expected from you. You don’t leave me any alternative. Discharging you will make a real gibelotte for me. I won’t bullshit you by pretending it’s going to be easy. The men will put up a hell of a stink. I won’t come out of it smelling like a rose, and the force won’t come out of it without bruises. So I’m going to rely on your loyalty to the force to make it easier. Because, you see, Claude, I’ve come to a decision. One way or another, you’re out.”
LaPointe leans slightly forward as though to see something down in the street that interests him more than the Commissioner’s talk.
“Look at it this way, Claude. You came on the force when you were twenty-one. You’ve got thirty-two years of service. You can retire on full pay. Now, I’m not asking you to retire right now, this morning. I’d be content if you’d send in a letter of resignation effective, say, in six months. That way no one would relate your leaving to any trouble between us. You would save face, and I wouldn’t have the mess of petitions and letters to the papers from the kids. Make up an excuse. Say it’s for reasons of health—whatever you want. For my part, I’ll see to it you’re promoted to captain just before you go. That’ll mean you retire on captain’s pay.”
Resnais swivels in his posture chair to face LaPointe, who is still looking out the window, unmoving. “One way or another, Claude, you’re going. If I have to, I’ll retire you under the ‘good of the department’ clause. I warned you to sort yourself out, but you wouldn’t listen. You just don’t seem to be able to change with the changing times.” Resnais turns back to his desk. “I’m not denying that it would go easier on me if you would turn in your resignation voluntarily, but I don’t expect you to do it for me. There’s never been any love lost between us. You’ve always resented my drive and success. But there’s no point going into that now. I’m asking you to resign quietly for the good of the department, and I honestly believe that you care about the force, in your own way.” There is just the right balance between regret and firmness in his voice. Resnais evaluates the effect of the sound as he speaks, and he is pleased with it.
LaPointe takes a deep breath, like a man coming out of a daydream. “Is that all, Commissioner?”
“Yes. I expect your resignation on my desk within the week.”
LaPointe sniffs and smiles to himself. He would lose nothing by turning in a resignation effective in six months. He doesn’t have six months left.
By the time LaPointe has his hand on the doorknob, Resnais is already looking over his appointment calendar. He is a little behind.
The man who enslaves his minutes liberates his hours.
“Phillipe?” LaPointe says quietly.
Resnais looks up in surprise. This is the first time in the thirty years they have been on the force together that LaPointe has called him by his first name.
LaPointe’s right fist is in the air. Slowly, he extends the middle finger.
When he gets back to his office, LaPointe finds Detective Sergeant Gaspard sitting on the edge of his desk, a half-empty paper cup of coffee in his hand.
“What’s going on?” LaPointe asks, dropping into his swivel chair and turning it so he can look out the window.
“Nothing much. I was just trying to pump the kid here; see if he is learning the gamique under you.”
“And?”
“Well, he’s at least learned enough to keep his mouth shut. When I asked him how you were coming on the Green case, he said you’d tell me what you wanted me to know.”
“Good boy,” LaPointe says.
Guttmann doesn’t look up from his typing for fear of losing his place, but he nods in agreement with the compliment.
“Well?” Gaspard asks. “I don’t want to seem nosy, but it is technically my case, and I haven’t had a word from you for a couple of days. And I want to be ready, if this case is what Resnais le Grand wanted to see you about.”
Already the rumor has been around the department that Resnais was in a furious mood when he called in LaPointe.
“No, it wasn’t about that,” LaPointe says.
Gaspard’s raised eyebrows indicate that he is more than willing to hear what it was all about, but instead LaPointe turns back from the window and gives him a quick rundown of progress so far.
“So you figure the kid was being laundered, eh?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“And if he was such a big time sauteux de clôtures as you say, almost anyone might have put that knife into him—some jealous squack, somebody’s lover, somebody’s brother—almost anyone.”
“That’s it.”
“You on to anything?”
“We’ve got suspects falling out of the trees. But most of the leads have healed up now. I’ve got something I’m looking into tonight; a bar the kid used to go to.”
“You expect to turn something there?”
“Not much. Probably twenty more suspects.”
“Hungh! Well, keep up the good work. And do your best to bring this one in, will you? I could use another letter of merit. So how’s our Joan getting on? Is he as much a pain in the ass to you as he was to me?”
LaPointe shrugs. He has no intention of complimenting the kid in his presence. “Why do you ask? You want him back today?”
“No, not if you can stand to have him a while longer. He cramps my romantic form, hanging around all the time.” Gaspard drains the cup, wads it up in his hand, and misses the wastebasket “Okay, if that’s all you’ve got to tell me about our case, I’ll get back to keeping the city safe for the tourists. Just look at that kid type, will you? Now that’s what I call style!”
Guttmann growls as Gaspard leaves with a laugh.
LaPointe feels a slight nausea from the ebb of angry adrenalin after his session with the Commissioner. The air in his office is warm and has an already-breathed taste. He wants to get out of here, go where he feels comfortable and alive. “Look, I’m going up on the Main. See what’s going on.”
“You want me to go with you?”
“No. I lose you tomorrow, and I want this paper work caught up.”
“Oh.” Guttmann does not try to conceal his deflation.
LaPointe tugs on his overcoat. “I’m just going to make the rounds. Talk to people. This Green thing has taken up too much of my time. I’m getting out of touch.” He looks down at the young man behind the stacks of reports. “What do you have on for this evening around seven? A date to wash clothes?”
“No, sir.”
“All right. Meet me at the Happy Hour Whisky à Go-Go on Rachel Street. It’s our last lead. You might as well see this thing through.”
Before it lost its cabaret license, the Happy Hour Whisky à Go-Go was a popular dance hall where girls from the garment shops and men from the loading docks could pick one another up, dance a little, ogle, drink, make arrangements for later on. It was a huge, noisy barn with a turning ball of mirrored surfaces depending from the ceiling, sliding globs of colored light around the walls, over the dancers, and into the orchestra, the amplified instruments of which made the floor vibrate. But once too often, the owner had been careless about letting underage girls in and about making sure his bouncers stopped fights before they got to the bottle-throwing stage, so now dancing is not permitted, and the patronage has shrunk to a handful of people sitting around the U-shaped bar, a glowing island in a vastness of dark, unused space.