by Trevanian
“Would your diary tell me the last time you and this Pearson were together?”
“I can tell you that myself. Mike’s stabbing was in the papers. He was killed not twenty minutes after leaving here.”
“Why didn’t you inform the police?”
“Well, what was the point of getting involved? Mike was married. Why did the wife have to know where he spent his last night? I didn’t dream his getting killed had anything to do with me. I thought he was mugged, or something like that.”
“And that’s why you didn’t inform the police? Consideration for the wife?”
“All right, there was the reputation of the school too. It would have been messy PR. Say! Wait a minute! Why wasn’t there anything in the papers about Tony’s death?”
“There was.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“His name wasn’t mentioned. We didn’t know it at the time. But I wonder if you would have called us, if you had known about the Verdini stabbing.”
She has emptied her glass, and now she reaches automatically for his untouched one. He frowns, afraid she will get too drunk before the questioning is over. “Yes, I think I would have. Not out of civic duty, or any of that shit. But because I would have been scared, like I’ve been scared all afternoon, ever since you told me about it.” She grins, the alcohol rising in her. “You see? That proves I didn’t kill them. If I were the killer, I wouldn’t be scared.”
“No. But you might tell me you were.”
“Ah-ha! The foxy mind of the fuzz! But you can take my word for it, Lieutenant. I don’t go around stabbing men. I make them stab me.” She wobbles her head in a blurred nod. “And there, Sigmund, you have a flash of revelation.”
LaPointe has opened his notebook. “You say you don’t know anything about the third man? The American named MacHenry?”
She shakes her head profoundly. “Nope. You see, there are some men in Montreal whom I have not yet screwed. But I’ll get around to them. Never fear.”
“I don’t want you to drink anymore.”
She looks at him incredulously. “What… did… you… say?”
“I don’t want you to drink anymore until the questioning is over.”
“You don’t want…! Well, fuck you, Lieutenant!” She glares at him, then, in the wash of anger and drunkenness, her manner trembles and dissolves. “Or… better yet… fuck me, Lieutenant. Why don’t you screw me, LaPointe? I want to be screwed, for a change.”
“Come on, cut it out.”
“No, really! Making it with you may be just what I need. A psychic watershed. The final daddy!” She slides over to him and searches his eyes. There is a knowing leer in her expression, curiously confounded with the pleading of a child. Her hand closes over his leg and penis. He lifts her hand away by the wrist and stands up.
“You’re drunk, Mlle. Montjean.”
“And you’re a coward, Lieutenant… Whateveryournameis! I’ll admit I’m drunk, if you’ll admit you’re a coward. A deal?”
LaPointe reaches into his inside coat pocket and takes out a photograph he picked up from Dr. Bouvier that afternoon. He holds it out to her. “This man.”
She waves it away with a broad, vague gesture. She is hurt, embarrassed, drunk.
“It may not be a good likeness. It’s a post-mortem shot. Would it help you to place the man if I told you he was killed about two and a half years ago?”
Like a petulant child forced to perform a chore, she snatches the photograph and looks at it.
The shock doesn’t shatter her; it voids her. All spirit leaks out of her. She wants to drop the photograph, but she can’t let go of it. LaPointe has to reach out and take it back.
As she puts her barriers back together, she saws her lower lip lightly between her teeth. A very deep breath is let out slowly between pursed lips.
“But his name wasn’t MacHenry. It was Davidson. Cliff Davidson.”
“Perhaps that was the name he told you.”
“You mean he didn’t even give me his right name?”
“Evidently not.”
“The son of a bitch.” More soft wonder in this than anger.
“Why son of a bitch?”
She closes her eyes and shakes her head heavily. She is tired, worn out, sick of all this.
“Why son of a bitch?” he repeats.
She rises slowly and goes to the bar—to get distance, not a drink. She leans her elbows on the polished walnut and stares at the array of bottles in the back bar, shining in the many colors of the glass ball light. Her back to him, she speaks in a drone. “Clifford Davidson was the giddying and grand romance in my life, officer. We were betrothed, each unto each. He came up to Canada to set up some kind of manufacturing operation in Quebec City, and he came here to learn Joual. He already spoke fair French, but he was one of your smarter cookies. He knew it would be a tremendous in for him if he, an American, could speak Joual French. The canadien workers and businessmen would eat it up.”
“And you met him.”
“And I met him. Yes. An exchange of glances, a brush of hands, a comparison of favorite composers, a matching up of plumbing. Love.”
“Go on.”
“Go on? Whither? Quo vadis, pater? Want to know a secret? That Latin I drop every once in a while? That’s just an affection. It’s all I got out of Ste. Catherine’s Academy: a little Latin I no longer remember, and the grooming injunction that all proper girls keep their knees together, which advice I have long ignored. My knees have become absolute strangers. There’s always some man coming between them. And how is that for an earthy little pun?”
“You and this Davidson fell in love. Go on.”
“Ah, yes! Back to the interrogation. Right you go, Lieutenant! Well, let’s see. Cliff and I had a glorious month together in gay, cosmopolitan Montreal. As I recall, marriage was mentioned. Then one day… poof! He disappeared like that fabled poofbird that flies in ever-smaller circles until it disappears up its own anus… poof!”
“Can you tell me the last time you saw him?”
“For that we shall need the trusty diary.” She descends from the bar stool uncertainly and crosses to her desk, not unsteadily, but much too steadily. “Voila. My gallery of rogues.” She brandishes the diary for LaPointe to see. “Ah-ha. I see you have been nipping at the Armagnac, Lieutenant. You’re having a little trouble staying in focus, aren’t you, you sly old dog.” With large gestures she pages through the book. “No, not him. No, not him either… although he wasn’t bad. My, my, that was a night to set the waterbed a-sloshing! Come out of that book, Cliff Davidson. I know you’re in there! Ah! Now let’s see. The last night. Hm-m-m. I see it was a night of plans. And of love. And also… the night of September the eighteenth.”
LaPointe glances at his notebook and closes it.
“That was the night he was stabbed?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Fancy that. Three men make love to me and end up stabbed. And to think that some guys worry about VD! I assume he was married? This MacHenry-Davidson?”
“Yes.”
“A little wifey tucked away in Albany or somewhere. How quaint. You’ve got to hand it to these Americans. They’re fantastic businessmen.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, yes! Fantastic. Naturally, I never charged him for his language lessons.”
LaPointe is silent for a time before asking, “May I take the diary with me?”
“Take the goddamned thing!” she screams, and she hurls it across the room at him.
It flutters open in the air and falls to the rug not halfway to him. Feckless display.
He leaves it lying on the rug. He’ll get it as he goes.
When she has calmed down, she says dully, “That was a stupid thing to do.”
“True.”
“I’m sorry. Come on, have a nightcap with me. Proof of paternal forgiveness?”
“All right.”
They sit side by side at the bar, sipping their drinks in sil
ence, both looking ahead at the back bar. She sighs and asks, “Tell me truthfully. Aren’t you a little sorry for me?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Yeah. Me too. And I’m sorry for Tony. And I’m sorry for Mike. I’m even sorry for poor old Yo-Yo.”
“Do you always call her that?”
“Didn’t everybody?”
“I never did.”
“You wouldn’t,” she says bitterly.
“You never call her Mother?”
She lays her hand on his shoulder and rests her cheek against her knuckles, letting him support her. “Never out loud. Never when I’m sober. You want to know something, Lieutenant? I hate you. I really hate you for not being… there.”
She feels him nod.
“Now, you’re sure…” She yawns deeply. “…you’re absolutely sure you don’t want to screw me?”
His eyes crinkle. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“That’s good. Because I’m really sleepy.” She takes her cheek from his shoulder and stands up. “I think I’ll go to bed. If you’ve finished with your questions, that is.”
LaPointe rises and collects his overcoat. “If I have more questions, I’ll come back.” He picks up the diary from the floor of the “conversation island,” and she accompanies him to the door.
“This memory trip back to the Main has been heavy, Lieutenant. Heavy and rough. I sure hope I never see you again.”
“For your sake, I hope it works out that way.”
“You still think I might have killed those men?”
He shrugs as he tugs on his overcoat.
“LaPointe? Will you kiss me good night? You don’t have to tuck me in.”
He kisses her on the forehead, their only contact his hands on her shoulders.
“Very chaste indeed,” she says. “And now you’re off. Quo vadis, pater?”
“What does that mean?”
“Just some of that phony Latin I told you about.”
“I see. Well, good night, Mlle. Montjean.”
“Good night, Lieutenant LaPointe.”
14
From horizon to horizon the sky is streaming southward over the city. The membrane of layer-inversion has ruptured, and the pig weather is rushing through the gap, wisps and flags of torn cloud scudding beneath the higher roiling mass, all swept before a persistent north wind down off the Laurentians. Children look up at the tide of yeasty froth and have the giddying sensation that the sky is still, and the earth is rushing north.
The wind has held through the night, and by evening there will be snow. Tomorrow, taut skies of ardent blue will scintillate over snow drifts in the parks. At last it is over, this pig weather.
LaPointe stands at the window of his office, watching the sky flee south. The door opens behind him and Guttmann’s head appears. “I got it, sir.”
“Good. Come in. What are you carrying there?”
“Sir? Oh, just a cup of coffee.”
“For me?”
“Ah… yes?”
“Good. Pass it over. Aren’t you having any?”
“I guess not, sir. I’ve been drinking too much coffee lately.”
“Hm-m. What did you find out?”
“I did what you told me; I checked with McGill and found that Mlle. Montjean attended on a full scholarship.”
“I see.” This is only part of the answer LaPointe is looking for. As he walked through back streets of the Main toward his apartment last night, he was pestered with the question of how a girl from the streets, a chippy’s daughter, managed to get the schooling that transformed her into a sophisticated, if bent and tormented, young woman. If she had been Jewish or Chinese, he would understand, but the French Canadian culture does not contain this instinctive awe for education. “How did she come by the scholarship?”
“Well, she was an intelligent student. Did well in entrance tests. Super IQ. And to a certain degree, the scholarship was a foregone conclusion.”
“How come?”
“She attended Ste. Catherine’s Academy. I remember the Ste. Kate girls from when I was in college. They’re prepped specifically for the entrance exams. Most of them get scholarships. Not that that’s any saving of money for their parents. It costs more to send a girl to Ste. Kate’s than to any university in the world.”
“I see.”
“You want me to check out Ste. Catherine’s?”
“No, I’ll do it.” LaPointe wads up the coffee cup and misses the wastebasket with it.
Guttmann pulls his old bentwood chair from the wall and sits on it backwards, his chin on his arms. “How did it go last night? Did it turn out to be true that she never met the American, MacHenry?”
“No. She met him.” LaPointe involuntarily lays his hand over the five-year diary he has been scanning with a feeling of reluctance, invasion.
“Then why did she deny it?”
“He gave her a phony name. She probably read about his death in the papers without knowing who it was.”
“How about that? She’s quite a… quite a woman, isn’t she?”
“In what way?”
“Well, you know. The way she’s got it all together. Her business, her life. All under control. I admire that. And the way she talks about sex—frank, healthy, not coy, not embarrassed. She’s got it all put together.”
“You’d make a great social worker, son; the way you can size people up at a glance.”
“We’ll have a chance to find out about that.” Guttmann rubs the tip of his nose with his thumb knuckle. “I’ve… ah… sent in my resignation, effective in two months.” He glances up to see what effect this news has on the Lieutenant None.
“Jeanne and I talked it over all last night. We’ve decided that I’m not cut out to be a cop.”
“Does that mean you’ve got too much of something? Or too little?”
“Both, I guess. If I’m going to help people, me, I want to do it from their side of the fence.”
LaPointe smiles at the “me, I” construction. His French was better when they met… but more bogus. “From the way you talk it sounds like you and your Jeanne are getting married.”
“You know, that’s a funny thing, sir. We’ve never actually talked about marriage. We’ve talked about how children should be brought up. We’ve talked about how when you design a house you should put the bathroom above the kitchen to save on plumbing. But never actually about marriage. And now it’s sort of too late to propose to her. We’ve sort of passed that moment and gone on to bigger things.” Guttmann smiles comfortably and shakes his head over the way their romance is going. People in love always imagine they’re interesting. He rises from his chair. “Well, sir. I’ve got to get going. I report this afternoon out at St. Jean de Dieu. I’ll be doing my last two months on the east side.”
“Be careful. It can be rough for a Roundhead out there.”
Guttmann tucks down the corners of his mouth and shrugs. “After being around you, maybe I can pass.” If the chair weren’t in the way, he might shake hands with the Lieutenant.
But the chair is in the way.
“Well, see you around, sir.”
LaPointe nods. “Yes, see you around.”
A few minutes after Guttmann leaves, it occurs to LaPointe that he never learned the kid’s first name.
“Lieutenant LaPointe?” Sister Marie-Therese enters the waiting room with a crisp rustle of her blue habit. She shakes hands firmly, realizing that uncertain pressures are vulnerable to interpretation. “You surprise me, Lieutenant. I expected an army officer.” She smiles at him interrogatively, with the poise that is the signature of Ste. Catherine girls.
“I’m police, Sister.”
“Ah.” Meaning nothing.
As LaPointe explains that he is interested in one of their ex-students, Sister Marie-Therese listens politely, her face a mask of bland benevolence framed by a wide-winged wimple of perfect whiteness.
“I see,” she says when he has finished. “Well, of course Ste. Catherine’s i
s always eager to be a good citizen of Montreal, but I am afraid. Lieutenant, that our rules forbid any disclosure of our students’ affairs. I am sure you understand.” Her manner is gentle, her intention adamant.
“It isn’t the young lady we’re interested in. Not directly.”
“Nevertheless…” She shows her palms, revealing herself to be helpless in the face of absolute rules.
“I considered getting a warrant, Sister. But since there were no criminal charges against the young lady, I thought it might be better to avoid what the newspapers might consider a nasty business.”
The smile does not desert the nun’s lips, but she lowers her eyes and blinks once. There are no wrinkles in her dry, almost powdery forehead. The face shows no signs of age, and none of youth.
“Still,” LaPointe says, taking up his overcoat, “I understand your position. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
She lifts a hand toward his arm, but she does not touch him. “You say that Mlle. Montjean is not implicated in anything… unpleasant?”
“I said that she was not facing criminal charges.”
“I see. Well, perhaps Ste. Catherine’s could serve her best by cooperating with you. Will you follow me, please, Lieutenant?”
As they pass along a dark-paneled hall, he walks through air set in motion by the nun’s habit, and he picks up a faint scent of soap and bread. He wonders if there is a Glory Hole here, and little girls working off punishment tranches by holding out their arms until their shoulders throb. He supposes not. Punishment at Ste. Catherine’s would be a subtler matter, modern, kindly, and epulotic. Theirs would be a beautifully appointed little chapel, and their Virgin would not have a chip out of her cheek, would not be cross-eyed.
Two teen-aged girls dash around a corner, but arrest their run with comic abruptness when they see Sister Marie-Therese, and assume a sedate walk, side by side in their identical blue uniforms with SCA embroidered on bibs that bulge slightly with developing, unexplained breasts. In passing, they mutter, “Good morning, Sister.” The nun nods her head, her expression neutral. But as the girls pass LaPointe they make identical tight-jawed grimaces and suck air in through their lower teeth. They’ll get it later for running in the halls. Young ladies do not run. Not at Ste. Catherine’s.
