The Main

by Trevanian

  Marie-Louise sits at the kitchen table, her elbow on the oilcloth, her chin in her hand, watching him tear up the lettuce for their salad. He has planned a simple meal: steak, salad, bread, wine. And cheese for dessert.

  “It’s funny seeing a man cook,” she says. “Do you always cook for yourself?”

  “I eat in restaurants, mostly. On Sundays I cook. I enjoy it for a change.”

  “Hm-m.” She doesn’t know what to make of it. She never met anybody who enjoyed cooking. God knows her mother didn’t. It occurs to her that this old guy might be a queer. Maybe that’s why he didn’t make love to her last night. “What kind of work do you do?”

  “I’m with the police.” He says this with a shrug meant to shunt away any fear she might have of the police.

  “Oh.” She’s not very interested in what he does.

  He puts the salad bowl on the table before her. “Here. Make yourself useful. Mix this.” The skillet is smoking, and the steaks hiss and sizzle as he drops them in. “What did you do today?” he asks, his voice strained because he is standing tiptoe, looking in the cupboard for an extra plate and glass.

  “Nothing. I just sat around. Mended some things. And I took another bath. Is that all right?”

  “Of course. No, you don’t stir a salad. You toss it. Like this. See?”

  “What difference does it make?” There is annoyance in her voice. She could never do anything right in her mother’s kitchen either.

  “It’s the way it’s done, that’s all. Here, let’s see.” He lifts her chin with his palm. “Ah. That eye is looking better. Swelling’s gone.” She is not a pretty girl, but her face is alert and expressive. “Well.” He takes his hand away and turns to cut the bread. “So you sat around and mended all day?”

  “I went out shopping. Made breakfast. I borrowed that coat from your closet when I went out. It was cold. But I put it back again.”

  “Did it fit?”

  “Not bad. You should have seen the man at the grocery look at me!” She laughs, remembering what she looked like in that coat. Her laughter is enthusiastic and vulgar. As before, it stops suddenly in mid-rise and is gone.

  “Why did he look at you?” LaPointe asks, smiling along with her infectious laughter.

  “I guess I looked funny in an old woman’s coat.”

  He pauses and frowns, not understanding. She must mean an old-fashioned coat. It is not an old woman’s coat; it was a young woman’s coat. He attends to the steaks.

  “There isn’t much to do around here,” she says frankly. “You don’t have any magazines. You don’t have TV.”

  “I have a radio.”

  “I tried it. It doesn’t work.”

  “You have to jiggle the knob.”

  “Why don’t you get it fixed?”

  “Why bother? I know how to jiggle the knob. Okay, let’s eat. I think everything’s ready.”

  She eats rapidly, like a hungry child, but twice she remembers her manners and tells him it’s good. And she drinks her wine too fast.

  “I’ll do the dishes,” she offers afterwards. “That’s something I know how to do.”

  “You don’t have to.” But the thought of her puttering around in the kitchen is pleasant. “All right, if you want to. I’ll make the coffee while you’re washing up.”

  There isn’t really enough room for two in the narrow kitchen, and three times they touch shoulders. Each time, he says, “Excuse me.”

  “…so I thought I might as well try Montreal. I mean, I had to go somewhere, so why not here? I was hoping I could get a job… maybe as a cocktail waitress. They make lots of money, you know. I had a girlfriend who wrote me about the tips.”

  “But you didn’t find anything?”

  She is curled up on the sofa, Lucille’s pink quilted robe around her; he sits in his comfortable old chair. She shakes her head and looks away from him, toward the hissing gas fire. “No, I didn’t. I tried everywhere for a couple of weeks, until I ran out of money. But the cocktail bars didn’t want a cripple. And my boobs are small.” She says this last matter-of-factly. She knows how it is in the world. Yet there is some wistfulness in it, or fatigue.

  “So you started working the street.”

  She shrugs. “It was sort of an accident, really. I mean, I never thought of screwing for money. Of course, I had screwed men before. Back home. But just friends and guys who took me out on dates. Just for fun.”

  “Don’t use that word.” LaPointe knows that no daughter of his would ever use that word.

  Marie-Louise cocks her head thoughtfully, trying to think back to the offending word. With her head cocked and her frizzy mop of hair, she has the look of a Raggedy Ann doll. “Screw?” she asks, uncertain. “What should I say?”

  “I don’t know. Making love. Something like that.”

  She grins, her elastic face impish. “That sounds funny. Making love. It sounds like the movies.”

  “But still…”

  “Okay. Well, I never thought of… doing it… for money. I guess I didn’t think anyone would pay for it.”

  LaPointe shakes his head. Doing it sounds worse yet.

  “Well, I stayed with some people for a while. All people of my age, sort of living together in this big old house. But then I had a fight with the guy who sort of ran everything, and I moved to a room. Then I ran out of money and they kicked me out. They kept most of my clothes and my suitcase. That’s why I don’t have a coat. Anyway, I was kicked out, and I was just walking around. Scared, sort of, and trying to think of what to do… where I could go. See, it was cold. Well, I ended up at the bus station and I sat around most of the night, trying to look like I was waiting for a bus, so they wouldn’t kick me out. But this guard kept eyeing me. I only had that shopping bag for my clothes, so I guess he knew I wasn’t really waiting for a bus. And then this guy comes up to me and just straight out asks me. Just like that. He said he would give me ten dollars. He was sort of…” She decides not to say that.

  “Sort of what?”

  “Well… he wasn’t young. Anyway, he brought me to his apartment. He came in his pants while he was feeling me up. But he paid anyway.”

  “That was good of him.”

  “Yeah,” she agrees with a frankness that undercuts his irony. “It was sort of good of him, wasn’t it? I didn’t know that at the time, because I hadn’t been around, and I thought everyone was like him. Nice, you know. He let me stay the night; and the next morning he bought me breakfast. Most of the others weren’t like that. They try to cheat you out of your money. Or they say you can spend the night, but when they’ve had all they want, they kick you out. And if you make a fuss, sometimes they try to beat you up. Some of them really get a kick out of beating you up.” She touches her eye with her fingertips. The swelling is gone, but a faint green stain remains. “You know what you have to do?” she confides seriously. “You have to get your money before he starts. A girl I went around with for a while told me that. And she was right.”

  “That was how long ago? When this old man picked you up?”

  She thinks back. “Six weeks. Two months, maybe.”

  “And since then you’ve been getting along by selling yourself?”

  She grins. That sounds even funnier than making love. “It’s not so bad, you know? Guys take me to bars and I eat in restaurants. And I go dancing.” She tucks her short leg up under her. “You might not think it, but I can dance real well. It’s funny, but I can dance better than I can walk, you know what I mean? I like dancing more than anything. Do you dance?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know how.”

  She laughs. “Everyone knows how! There’s nothing to know. You just sort of… you know… move.”

  “It sounds like you had nothing but fun on the streets.”

  “You say that like you don’t believe it. But it’s true. Most of the time I had fun. Except when they got rough. Or when they wanted me to do… funny things. I don
’t know why, but I’m just not ready for that. The thought makes me gag, you know? Hey, what’s wrong?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

  “Does it bother you when I talk about it?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “Some guys like it. I mean, they like you to talk about it. It gets them going.”

  “Forget it!”

  She ducks involuntarily and lifts her arms as though to fend off a slap. Her father used to slap her. When the adrenalin of sudden fright drains off, it is followed by offense and anger. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” she demands.

  He takes a deep breath. “Nothing. I’m sorry. It’s just…”

  Her voice is stiff with petulance. “Well, Jesus Christ, you’d think a cop would be used to that sort of thing.”

  “Yes, of course, but…” He rolls his hand. ‘Tell me. How old are you?”

  She readjusts herself on the sofa, but she doesn’t relax. “Twenty-two. And you?”

  “Fifty-two. No, three.” He wants to return to the calm of their earlier conversation, so he explains unnecessarily, “I just had a birthday last month, but I always forget about it.”

  She cannot imagine anyone forgetting a birthday, but she supposes it’s different when you’re old. He is acting nice again. Her instinct tells her that he is genuinely sorry for frightening her. This would be the time to take advantage of his regret and make some arrangements.

  “Can I stay here again tonight?”

  “Of course. You can stay longer, if you want.”

  Push it now. “How much longer?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. How long do you want to stay?”

  “Would we… make love?” She cannot help saying these last words with a comic, melodramatic tone.

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Don’t you like women?”

  He smiles. “No, it isn’t that.”

  “Well, why do you want me to stay, if you don’t want to sleep with me?”

  LaPointe looks down at the park, where a tracery of black branches intersects the yellow globes of the streetlamps. This Marie-Louise is the same age as Lucille—the Lucille of his memory—and she speaks with the same downriver accent. And she wears the same robe. But she is younger than the daughters he daydreams about, the daughters who are sometimes still little girls, but more often grown women with children of their own. Come to think of it, the daughters of his daydreams are sometimes older than Lucille. Lucille never ages, always looks the same. It never before occurred to him that the daughters are older than their mother. That’s crazy.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “I’ll tell you what. I’ll look around and see if I can find you a job.”

  “In a cocktail bar?”

  “I can’t promise that. Maybe as a waitress in a restaurant.”

  She wrinkles her nose. That doesn’t appeal to her at all. She has seen lots of waitresses, running around and being shouted at during rush times, or standing, tired and bored, and staring out of windows when the place is empty. And the uniforms always look frumpy. If it weren’t for this damned pig weather, and if the men never tried to beat you up, she’d rather go on like she is than be a waitress.

  “I’ll try to find you a job,” he says. “Meanwhile you can stay here, if you want.”

  “And we’ll sleep together?” She wants to get the conditions straight at the beginning. It is something like making sure you get your money in advance.

  He turns from the window and settles his eyes on her. “Do you really want to?”

  She shrugs a “why not?” Then she discovers a loose thread on the sleeve of the dressing gown. She tries to break it off.

  He clears his throat and rubs his cheek with his knuckles. “I need a shave.” He rises. “Would you like another coffee before we go to bed?”

  She looks up at him through her mop of hair, the errant thread between her teeth. “Okay,” she says, nipping off the thread and spitting out the bit.

  He is shaving when the phone rings.

  He has to wipe the lather from his cheek before putting the receiver to his ear. “LaPointe.”

  Guttmann’s voice sounds tired. “I just got down here.”

  “Down where?”

  “The Quartier General. They called me at my apartment. They’ve picked up your Sinclair, and he’s giving them one hell of a time.”

  “Sinclair?”

  “Joseph Michael Sinclair. That’s the real name of your bum, the Vet. He’s in a bad way. Raving. Screaming. They’re talking about giving him a sedative, but I told them to hold off in case you wanted to question him tonight.”

  “No, not tonight. Tomorrow will do.”

  “I don’t know, sir…”

  “Of course you don’t know. That’s part of being a Joan.”

  “What I was going to say was, this guy’s a real case. It’s taking two men to hold him down. He keeps screaming that he can’t go into a cell. Something about being a claustrophobic.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

  “Just thought you ought to know.”

  LaPointe’s shoulders slump, and he lets out a long nasal sigh. “All right. You talk to the Vet. Tell him nobody’s going to lock him up. Tell him I’ll be down in a little while. He knows me.”

  “Yes, sir. Oh, and sir? Terribly sorry to disturb you at home.”

  What? Sarcasm from a Joan? LaPointe grunts and hangs up.

  Marie-Louise is mending the paisley granny dress she was wearing when he found her in the park. She looks up questioningly when he enters the living room.

  “I have to go downtown. What are you smiling at?”

  “You’ve got soap on one side of your face.”

  “Oh.” He wipes it off.

  As he tugs on his overcoat, he remembers the coffee water steaming away on the stove. “Shall I make you a cup before I go?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t really like coffee all that much.”

  “Why do you always drink it then?”

  She shrugs. She doesn’t know. She takes what’s offered.

  6

  By the thermometer it is not so cold as last night, but that was a dry cold, crystallizing on surfaces, and this is a damp cold, the serrate edge of which penetrates to LaPointe’s chest as he walks down the deserted Main. He does not find a cruising taxi until Sherbrooke.

  LaPointe’s footfalls clip hollowly along the empty, half-lit halls outside the magistrates’ courts. The sound is oddly loud and melancholy, without the covering envelope of noise that fills the building during the day.

  The elevator doors open, and he walks down the brightly lit corridor of the Duty Office. There is sound and life here: the stuttering clack of a typewriter in clumsy hands; the hum of fluorescent lights; and somewhere a transistor radio plays popular music.

  Guttmann steps into the hall at the sound of the elevator. He looks unkempt and haggard; more like a real cop, LaPointe thinks.

  “Good morning, sir. He’s in here.” Guttmann’s tone is flat and unfriendly.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” LaPointe asks.

  “Sir?”

  “Your attitude, tone of voice. What’s wrong?”

  “I didn’t know it showed, sir.”

  “It shows. I warned you to cancel that date of yours.”

  “I did, sir. She went to a film with a friend. But she dropped by later for a drink. We live in the same apartment building.”

  “And the call got you out of bed?”

  “Something like that.”

  “At an awkward time?”

  “As awkward as it gets, sir.”

  LaPointe laughs. Guttmann recognizes the comic possibilities of the situation, but he doesn’t find this particular case funny.

  LaPointe enters the Duty Office, Guttmann following. Joseph Michael “the Vet” Sinclair is sitting on a wooden bench against the wall. His long arms are wrapped around his legs, his face is pressed against his knees, and he stil
l wears his ridiculous floppy-brimmed hat. He rocks himself back and forth in misery, humming or moaning one note over and over again. His grip on reality seems fragile. Occasionally he looks around the room, bewildered and frightened, and his teeth begin to chatter, his breath comes in canine sniffs, and he struggles against screaming.

  LaPointe’s nostrils dilate with the stench of urine. Joseph Michael Sinclair has wet himself.

  The symptoms resemble withdrawal. LaPointe has seen this once before. The Vet is a victim of claustrophobia. The Duty Office is a big room, so that isn’t what is eroding his sanity. It was the trip down in a police car and, even more, the thought of being locked up in a cell. The Vet is trapped in the classic terrible cycle facing the claustrophobic: he is almost mad with the fear of being shut up, and if he gives way to his madness, they will lock him up.

  “Where did you pick him up?” LaPointe asks one of the officers getting coffee at the dispensing machine, a tough Polish old-timer who never bothered to take his sergeant’s examinations because he doesn’t want the hassle of responsibility. Although his French is thin and badly accented, he has always been accepted by the French Canadian cops as one of them, because he so obviously is not one of the others.

  The coffee is hot, and the Polish cop winces as he changes the paper cup from hand to hand, looking for a place to set it down. His gestures are comically delicate, because the paper cup is fragile. He manages to balance it on a ledge and snaps his fingers violently. “Jesus H. Christ! We picked him up on St. Urbain, just south of Van Horne. Somebody named Red phoned in the tip. He gave us one hell of a chase. Took off across Van Horne, hopping like a gimpy rabbit! Right through the traffic! Cars and trucks hitting their brakes! Scared the shit out of the drivers. Their assholes must of bit chunks out of the car seats. And there I am, right after him, dancing and dodging through the traffic. Then your friend here climbs the fence and is halfway down the bank into the freight yard before I get to him. Look at that, will you?” He reaches around and tugs out the slack in the seat of his pants, showing a triangular rip. “Got that climbing the goddamned wire fence after the son of a bitch! Twenty-seven bucks shot in the ass!”