The Main

by Trevanian

LaPointe snorts in agreement. Although he remembered a case in which…

  “Do you feel we’re getting anywhere, sir?”

  “It’s hard to say. Most murders go unsolved, you know. Chances are we’ll learn a lot about this Tony Green. Little by little, each door leading to another. We tipped the Vet because he has a funny hop to his walk. From him we got the wallet. The wallet brought us to the rooming house, where we learned a little about him, got a couple of short leads. From the girls we learned a little more. We’ll keep pushing along, following the leads. Another door will lead us to another door. Then suddenly we’ll probably come up against a wall. The last room will have no door. With a type like that—rubbers with ticklers, two women at a time, ‘blood type: hot!’—anybody might have put him away. Maybe he got rough with some little agace-pissette who decided at the last moment that she didn’t want to lose her josephete after all, and maybe he slapped her around a little, and maybe her brother caught up with him in that alley, maybe… ah, it could be anybody.”

  “Yes, sir. There’s also the possibility that we’ve already touched the killer. I mean, it could be the Vet. You don’t seem to suspect him, but he did take the wallet, and he’s not the most stable type in the world. Or, if Green was playing around with that concierge, her boyfriend Arnaud might have put him away. I mean, we have reason to suspect he’s no confirmed pacifist.” Guttmann finishes his sandwich and pushes aside the plate with its last few greasy patates frites.

  “You know, you’re right there,” LaPointe says. “At some point or other in this business, the chances are we’ll touch the killer. But we probably won’t know it. We’ll probably touch him, pass over him, maybe come back and touch him again. Or her. That doesn’t mean we’ll ever get evidence in hand. But you never know. If we keep pressing, we might get him, even blind. He might get jumpy and do something dumb. Or we might flush out an informer. That’s why we have to go through the motions. Right up until we hit the blank wall.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Well, you go home and see if you can make up with that girl of yours. I’m going to have a talk with someone. I’ll see you Monday at the office.”

  “You’re going to question that woman who runs a restaurant? The lesbian the concierge mentioned?”

  LaPointe nods.

  “I’d like to come along. Who knows, I might learn something.”

  “You think that’s possible? No. I know her. I’ve known her since she was a kid on the street. She’ll talk to me.”

  “But not if I was around?”

  “Not as openly.”

  “Because I’m a callow and inexperienced youth?”

  “Probably. Whatever callow means.”

  As LaPointe turns off the Main, he passes a brownstone that has been converted into a shul by members of one of the more rigid Jewish sects—the ones with side-locks—he can never remember its name. A voice calls to him, and he turns to see a familiar figure on the Main, walking slowly and with dignity, his shtreimel perfectly level on his head. LaPointe walks back and asks what the matter is. Their janitor is home sick with a cold, and they need a Shabbes goy to turn on the lights. LaPointe is glad to be of help, and the old Chasidic gentleman thanks him politely, but not excessively, because after all the Lieutenant is a public servant and everyone pays taxes. Too much thanks would give the appearance of artificial humility, and too humble is half proud.

  He turns the corner of a side street to face a stream of damp wind as he walks toward La Jolie France Bar-B-Q, the cafe nearest the Italian boy’s rooming house. It is the kind of place that does all its business at mealtimes, mostly from single workingmen who take their meals there at a weekly rate. So the place is empty when he enters, meeting a wall of pleasant heat after the penetrating cold. Almost immediately, the steamy windows and the thick smell of hot grease from patates frites make him open his overcoat and tug it off. He has his pick of tables, all of which are still littered with dishes and crumbs and slops. He sits instead at the counter, which is clean, if wet with recent wiping. Behind the counter a plump young girl with vacant eyes rinses out a glass in a sink of water that is not perfectly clear. She looks up and smiles, but her voice is vague, as though she is thinking of something else. “You want?” she asks absently.

  Just then a short, sinewy woman with her hair dyed orange-red and a Gauloise dangling from the corner of her mouth bursts through the back swinging door, hefting a ten-gallon can of milk on her hip. “I’ll take care of the Lieutenant, honey. You get the dishes off the tables.” With a grunt and a deft swing, she hoists the heavy can into place in the milk dispenser, then she threads its white umbilical cord down through the hole in the bottom. “What can I do for you, LaPointe?” she asks, not stopping her work, nor taking the cigarette from her mouth.

  “Just a cup of coffee, Carrot.”

  “A cup of coffee it is.” She takes up a butcher knife and with a quick slice cuts off the end of the white tube. It bleeds a few drops of milk onto the stainless-steel tray. “Aren’t you glad that wasn’t your bizoune?” she asks, tossing the knife into the oily water and taking down a coffee mug from the stack. “Not that you’d really miss it all that much at your age. Black with sugar, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “There you go.” The mug slides easily over the wet counter. “Come to think of it, even if you don’t chase the buns anymore, you were probably a pretty good botte in your day. God knows you’re coldblooded enough.” She leans against the counter as she speaks, one fist on a flat hip, the smoke of her fat French cigarette curling up into her eyes, which are habitually squinted against the sting of it. She is one of the few people who tutoyer LaPointe. She tutoyers all men.

  “She’s new, isn’t she?” LaPointe asks, nodding toward the plump girl who is lymphatically stacking dishes while gazing out the window.

  “No, she’s used. Goddamned well used!” Carrot laughs, then a stream of raw smoke gets into her lungs and she coughs—a dry wheezing cough, but she does not take the cigarette from her lips. “New to you, maybe. She’s been around for about a year. But then, I haven’t seen you around here since I had that last bit of trouble. That makes a fellow wonder if your coming around means she’s in trouble.” She watches him, one eye squinted more than the other.

  He stirs the unwanted coffee. “Are you in trouble, Carrot?”

  “Trouble? Me? No-o-o. A middle-aged lesbian with rotten lungs, a bad business, a heavy mortgage, two shots in prison on her record, and the laziest bitch in North America working for her? In trouble? No way. I won’t be in trouble until they stop making henna. Then I’m in trouble. That’s the problem with being nothing but a pretty face!” She laughs hoarsely, then her dry cough breaks up the rising thread of gray cigarette smoke and puffs it toward LaPointe.

  He doesn’t look up from his coffee. “There was a good-looking Italian boy named Verdini, or Green. You went to his place.”

  “So?”

  “You had a fight.”

  “Just words. I didn’t hit him.”

  “No threats?”

  She shrugs. “Who remembers, when you’re mad. I probably told him I’d cut off his hose if he didn’t stop sniffing around my girl. I don’t remember exactly. You mean the son of a bitch reported me?”

  “No. He didn’t report you.”

  “Well, that’s a good thing for him. Whatever I said, it must have scared him good. He hasn’t been back here since. Do you know what that son of a bitch wanted? He used to come in here once in a while. He sized up the situation. I mean… just look at her. Look at me. You don’t have to be a genius to size up the situation. So, while I’m waiting on the counter, this asshole is singing the apple to my girl. Well, he’s a pretty boy, and she owns all the patents on stupid, so pretty soon she’s ga-ga. But it isn’t just her he wants. He thought it would be a kick to have us both at the same time! Sort of a round robin! He talked the dumb bitch into asking me if I’d be interested. Can you believe that? He gave her h
is address and told her we could drop in anytime. I dropped in, all right! I went over there and dropped on him like a ton of shit off a rooftop! Hey, what’s all this about? If he didn’t report me, why are you asking about him?”

  “He’s dead. Cut.”

  She reaches up slowly and takes the cigarette from the corner of her mouth. It sticks to the lower lip and tugs off a bit of skin. She touches the bleeding spot with the tip of her tongue, then daubs at it with the knuckle of her forefinger. Her eyes never leave LaPointe’s. After a silence, she says simply, “Not me.”

  He shrugs. “It’s happened before, Carrot. Twice. And both times because someone was after one of your girls.”

  “Yeah, but Jesus Christ, I only beat them up! I didn’t kill them! And I did my time for it, didn’t I?”

  “Carrot, you have to realize that with your record…”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. But I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t shit you, LaPointe. I didn’t shit you either of those other times, did I?”

  “But it wasn’t a matter of murder then. And there were witnesses, so it wouldn’t have done you any good to shit me.”

  Carrot nods. That’s true.

  The plump girl comes back to the counter carrying only four plates and a couple of spoons. She hasn’t heard the conversation. She hasn’t been paying attention. She has been humming a popular song, repeating certain passages until she thinks they sound right.

  “That’s good, honey,” Carrot says maternally. “Now go get the rest of the dishes.”

  The girl stares at her vacantly, then, catching her breath as though she suddenly understands, she turns back and begins to clear the next table.

  Carrot’s face softens as she watches the girl, and LaPointe remembers her as a kid, a fresh-mouthed tomboy in knickers, flipping war cards against a wall—gory cards with pictures of the Sino-Japanese war. She was loud and impish, and she had the most vulgar tongue in her gang. The hair she rucked up into her cap used to be genuinely red. LaPointe recalls the time she smashed her toe when she and her gang were pushing a car off its jack for the hell of it. They brought her to the hospital in a police car. She didn’t cry once. She dug her fingernails into LaPointe’s hand, but she didn’t cry. Any boy of her age would have wailed, but she didn’t dare. She was never a girl; just the skinniest of the boys.

  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.