by Kathy Reichs
Charbonneau turned to Claudel. “Lemme see that picture a minute.”
Claudel pulled it from his pocket. Charbonneau studied it, shifting his eyes from the traffic to the photo in his hand.
“He sure don’t look like much, does he?” he said to no one in particular. Wordlessly he extended the picture to me over the seat back.
What I held was a black-and-white print, a blowup of a single frame taken from high up and to the subject’s right. It showed a blurred male figure with face averted, concentrating on the task of inserting or retracting a card at an automatic teller machine.
His hair was short and wispy in front, splayed downward into a fringe on his forehead. The top of his head was almost bare, and he had combed as many long strands as possible from left to right in an attempt to hide his baldness. My favorite male “do.” About as attractive as a Speedo bathing suit.
His eyes were shielded by bushy brows, and his ears flared out like petals on a pansy. His skin looked deathly pale. He wore a plaid shirt and what looked like work pants. The graininess and poor angle obscured any other details. I had to agree with Charbonneau. He didn’t look like much. It could have been anyone. Silently, I handed the photo back.
Dépanneurs are the convenience stores of Quebec. They are found anywhere shelves and a refrigerator can be packed into a covered space. Scattered throughout the city, dépanneurs survive by providing grocery, dairy, and alcohol essentials. They dot every neighborhood, forming a capillary bed that feeds the needs of locals and foot travelers. They can be counted on for milk, cigarettes, beer, and cheap wine, the remainder of their inventory determined by neighborhood preferences. They provide no glitz and no parking. The upscale version may have a bank machine. It was to one such that we were heading.
“Rue Berger?” Charbonneau asked Claudel.
“Oui. It runs south from Ste. Catherine. Take René Lévesque to St. Dominique then go back north. That’s a snakepit of one-ways in there.”
Charbonneau turned left and began creeping south. In his impatience he kept goosing the gas then tapping the brake, causing the Chevy to lurch like a Ferris wheel seat. Feeling a bit seasick, I focused on the action at the boutiques, bistros, and modern brick buildings of L’Université du Québec, which lined St. Denis.
“Calvaire!”
“Ca-lice!” said Charbonneau as a dark green Toyota station wagon cut him off.
“Bastard,” he added as he hit the brake then shot up to its bumper. “Look at that oily little freak.”
Claudel ignored him, apparently used to his partner’s erratic driving. I thought of Dramamine, but held my tongue.
Eventually we reached René Lévesque and turned west, then cut north onto St. Dominique. We doubled back at Ste. Catherine and, once again, I found myself in the Main, less than one block from Gabby’s girls. Berger is one of a small checkerboard of side streets sandwiched between St. Laurent and St. Denis. It lay directly ahead.
Charbonneau turned the corner and slid to the curb in front of the Dépanneur Berger. A dingy sign above its door promised “bière et vin.” Sun-bleached ads for Molson and Labatt covered the windows, the tape yellowed and peeling with age. Rows of dead flies lined the sill below, their bodies stratified according to season of death. Iron bars safeguarded the glass. Two geezers sat on kitchen chairs outside the door.
“Guy’s name is Halevi,” said Charbonneau, consulting his notebook. “He probably won’t have much to say.”
“They never do. His memory may improve if we sweat him a little,” said Claudel, slamming the car door.
The geezers watched us silently.
A string of brass bells jangled as we entered. The interior was hot and smelled of dust and spices and old cardboard. Two rows of back-to-back shelves ran the length of the store, forming one center and two side aisles. The dusty shelves held an assortment of aging canned and packaged goods.
On the far right a horizontal refrigerator case held vats of nuts, dal, dried peas, and flour. An assembly of limp vegetables lay in its far end. Something from another era, the case no longer refrigerated.
Upright coolers with wine and beer lined the left wall. In the rear, a small, open case, draped with plastic to conserve the cold, held milk, olives, and feta cheese. To its right, in the far corner, was the bank machine. Except for this, the place looked as if it hadn’t been renovated since Alaska applied for U.S. statehood.
The counter was directly to the left of the front door. Mr. Halevi sat behind it, speaking heatedly into a cellular phone. He kept running his hand over his naked head, the maneuver a holdover from a hairier youth. A sign on the cash register read SMILE. GOD LOVES YOU. Halevi was not taking his own advice. His face was red, and he was clearly piqued. I stood back and watched.
Claudel positioned himself directly in front of the counter and cleared his throat. Halevi showed him a palm and nodded his head in a “hold on” gesture. Claudel flashed his badge and shook his head. Halevi looked momentarily confused, said something in rapid Hindi, and clicked off. His eyes, huge behind thick lenses, moved from Claudel to Charbonneau and back.
“Yes,” he said.
“You Bipin Halevi?” asked Charbonneau in English.
“Yes.”
Charbonneau placed the photo face up on the counter. “Take a look. You know this guy?”
Halevi rotated the picture and leaned over it, his jittery fingers holding down the edges. He was nervous and trying hard to please, or at least to give the impression of cooperation. Many dépanneur operators sell smuggled cigarettes or other black market goodies, and police visits are as popular as tax audits.
“No one could recognize a man from this. Is this from the video? Men were here earlier. What did this man do?”
He spoke English with the singsong cadence of northern India.
“Any idea who he is?” said Charbonneau, ignoring the questions.
Halevi shrugged. “With my customers, you don’t ask. Besides, this is too fuzzy. And his face is turned away.”
He shifted on his stool. He was relaxing somewhat, realizing that he wasn’t the object of the inquiry, that it had to do with the security video the police had confiscated.
“He a local?” asked Claudel.
“I tell you, I don’t know.”
“Does this even remotely remind you of anyone comes in here?”
Halevi stared at the picture.
“Maybe. Maybe, yes. But it’s just not clear. I wish I could help. I … Maybe this could be a man I’ve seen.”
Charbonneau looked at him hard, probably thinking what I was. Was Halevi trying to please, or did he really see something familiar in the photo?
“Who?”
“I—I don’t know him. Just a customer.”
“Any pattern to what he does?”
Halevi looked blank.
“Does the guy come at the same time of day? Does he come from the same direction? Does he buy the same stuff? Does he wear a goddamn tutu?” Claudel was becoming annoyed.
“I told you. I don’t ask. I don’t notice. I sell my stuff. At night I go home. This face is like many others. They come and they go.”
“How late is this place open?”
“Till two.”
“He come in at night?”
“Maybe.”
Charbonneau was taking notes in a leather-bound pad. So far he’d written little.
“You work yesterday afternoon?”
Halevi nodded. “It was busy, the day before the holiday, eh? Maybe people think I won’t be open today.”
“You see this guy come in?”
Halevi studied the picture again, ran both hands to the back of his head, then scratched his halo of hair vigorously. He blew out a puff of air and raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
Charbonneau slipped the photo into his notebook and snapped it shut. He placed his card on the counter.
“If you think of anything else, Mr. Halevi, give us a call. We thank you for your time.”
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“Sure, sure,” he said, his face brightening for the first time since seeing the badge. “I will call.”
“Sure, sure,” said Claudel when we were outside. “That toad’ll call when Mother Teresa screws Saddam Hussein.”
“He works a dépanneur. He’s got chili for brains,” Charbonneau responded.
As we crossed to the car I looked back over my shoulder. The two geezers were still flanking the door. They seemed a permanent fixture, like stone dogs at the entrance to a Buddhist temple.
“Let me have the picture a minute,” I told Charbonneau.
He looked surprised but dug it out. Claudel opened the car door, and baked air rolled out like heat from a smelter. He draped one arm over the door, propped a foot on the frame, and watched me. As I recrossed the street, he said something to Charbonneau. Fortunately, I didn’t hear.
I walked over to the old man on the right. He wore faded red running shorts, a tank top, dress socks, and leather oxfords. His bony legs were cobwebbed by varicose veins, and looked as if the pasty, white skin had been stretched over knots of spaghetti. His mouth had the collapsed look of toothlessness. A cigarette jutted from one corner at a downward angle. He watched me approach with unmasked curiosity.
“Bonjour,” I said.
“Hey,” he said, leaning forward to peel his sweat-slicked back from the cracked vinyl of the chair. He’d either heard us talking or picked up on my accent.
“Hot day.”
“I seen hotter.” The cigarette jumped as he spoke.
“You live near here?”
He flapped a scrawny arm in the direction of St. Laurent.
“Could I ask you something?”
He recrossed his legs and nodded.
I handed him the photo.
“Have you ever seen this man?”
He held the picture at arm’s length in his left hand, and shaded it from the sun with his right. Smoke floated across his face. He studied the image for so long, I thought perhaps he’d drifted off. I watched a gray-and-white cat covered with raw, red patches slither behind his chair, skirt the building, and disappear around the corner.
The second old man placed both hands on his knees and raised himself with a low grunt. His skin had once been fair, but now looked as if he’d been sitting in that chair a hundred and twenty years. Adjusting first the suspenders and then the belt that held his gray work pants, he shuffled over to us. He brought the rim of his Mets cap to the level of his companion’s shoulder, and squinted at the photo. Finally, spaghetti legs handed it back.
“A man’s own mother wouldn’t know him from this. Picture’s shit.”
The second geezer was more positive.
“He lives over there somewhere,” he said, aiming a yellowed finger down the block at a seedy brick three-flat, and speaking in a joual so thick I could barely understand him. He, too, was without teeth or dentures, and, as he spoke, his chin seemed to reach for his nose. When he paused, I pointed to the photo and then to the building. He nodded his head.
“Souvent?” Often? I asked.
“Mmm, oui,” he responded, raising his eyebrows and shoulders, thrusting forward his lower lip, and giving the palm up, palm down gesture with his hands. Often. Sort of.
The other geezer shook his head and snorted in disgust.
I signaled to Charbonneau and Claudel to join me, and explained what the old man had said. Claudel looked at me as he might a buzzing wasp, an annoyance that must be dealt with. I met his eyes, daring him to say something. He knew they should have questioned the men.
Without comment, Charbonneau turned his back and focused on the pair. Claudel and I stood and listened. The joual was rapid as gunfire, the vowels so stretched and the endings so truncated, I caught little of the exchange. But the gestures and signals were clear as a headline. Suspenders said he lived down the block. Spaghetti legs disagreed.
At length Charbonneau turned back to us. He tipped his head in the direction of the car, gesturing Claudel and me to follow. As we crossed the street, I could feel two sets of rheumy eyes burning the back of my neck.
LEANING ON THE CHEVY, CHARBONNEAU SHOOK FREE A CIGARETTE and lit it. His body looked as tense as an unsprung trap. For a moment he was quiet, seeming to sort through what the old men had said. Finally he spoke, his mouth a straight line, his lips hardly moving.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“Click and clack look like they spend a lot of time here,” I offered. Inside my T-shirt, a rivulet of sweat ran down my back.
“Could be a pair of real head cases,” said Claudel.
“Or it could be they’ve actually seen the prick-ass,” said Charbonneau. He inhaled deeply then flicked at the cigarette with his middle finger.
“They weren’t exactly star witnesses on details,” said Claudel.
“Yeah,” said Charbonneau, “but we all agreed. The guy ain’t much to remember. And mutants like him usually keep a pretty low profile.”
“And grandpa number two seemed pretty sure,” I added.
Claudel snorted. “Those two may not be sure of anything but the wine shop and the blood bank. Probably the only two landmarks they can map.”
Charbonneau took one last drag, dropped the butt, and ground it with his toe. “It could be nothing, or it could be he’s in there. Me, I don’t want to guess wrong. I say we take a look, bust his ass if we find him.”
I observed yet another of Claudel’s shrugs. “Okay. But I’m not about to get my bacon fried. I’ll call for backup.”
He flicked his eyes to me and back to Charbonneau, brows raised.
“She don’t bother me,” Charbonneau said.
Shaking his head, Claudel rounded the car and slid in on the passenger side. Through the windshield I could see him reach for his handset.
Charbonneau turned to me. “Stay alert,” he said. “If anything breaks, get down.”
I appreciated his refraining from telling me not to touch anything.
In less than a minute Claudel’s head reappeared above the door frame.
“Allons-y,” he said. Let’s roll.
I climbed into the backseat, and the two detectives got in front. Charbonneau put the car in gear and we crept slowly up the block. Claudel turned to me.
“Don’t touch anything in there. If this is the guy, we don’t want anything screwed up.”
“I’ll try,” I said, fighting to suppress the sarcasm in my voice. “I’m one of the nontestosterone gender, and we sometimes have trouble remembering things like that.”
He blew out a puff of air and pivoted back in his seat. I was sure if he’d had an appreciative audience he’d have rolled his eyes and smirked.
Charbonneau pulled to the curb in midblock, and we all considered the building. It sat surrounded by empty lots. The cracked cement and gravel were overgrown with weeds and strewn with the broken bottles, old tires, and the usual debris that accumulates on abandoned urban spaces. Someone had painted a mural on the wall facing the lot. It depicted a goat with an automatic weapon slung from each ear. In its mouth it held a human skeleton. I wondered if the meaning was clear to anyone but the artist.
“The old boy hadn’t seen him today,” said Charbonneau, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
“When did they go on neighborhood watch?” asked Claudel.
“Ten,” said Charbonneau. He looked at his watch, and Claudel and I followed suit. Pavlov would have been proud—3:10 P.M.
“Maybe the guy’s a late sleeper,” said Charbonneau. “Or maybe he’s worn out from his little field trip yesterday.”
“Or maybe he’s not in there at all and these geeks are getting ready to bust their balls laughing.”
“Maybe.”
I watched a group of girls cross the vacant lot behind the building, their arms intertwined in teenage comraderie. Their shorts formed a row of Quebec flags, a chorus line of fleur-de-lis swaying in unison as they picked their way through the weeds. Each had braided her hair in tiny cornr
ows and sprayed it bright blue. As I watched them laugh and jostle in the summer heat, I thought how easily such youthful high spirits could be extinguished forever by the act of a madman. I fought back a wave of anger. Was it possible we were sitting not ten yards from such a monster?
At that moment a blue-and-white patrol unit slipped quietly in behind us. Charbonneau got out and spoke to the officers. In a minute he was back.
“They’ll cover the back,” he said, nodding toward the squad car. His voice had an edge to it, all sarcasm gone. “Allons-y.”
When I opened the door Claudel started to speak, changed his mind, and walked toward the apartment. I followed with Charbonneau. I noticed that he had unbuttoned his jacket, and his right arm was tense and slightly bent. Reflex readiness. For what? I wondered.
The red-brick building stood alone, its neighbors long since gone. Trash littered the adjacent lots, and large blocks of cement dotted them helter-skelter, like boulders left in a glacial retreat. A rusted and sagging chain-link fence ran along the building’s south side. The goat faced north.
Three ancient white doors, side by side, opened onto Berger at street level. In front of them, the ground was covered by a patch of asphalt running to the curb. Once painted red, the pavement was now the color of dried blood.
In the window of the third door, a handwritten sign rested at an angle against a limp and grayed lace curtain. I could barely read through the dirty glass, “Chambres à louer, #1.” Rooms to rent. Claudel put one foot on the step and pressed on the higher of two buttons next to the door frame. No answer. He rang again, then, after a brief pause, pounded on the door.
