10

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 cornrows 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.

“Tabernac!” shrieked a voice directly in my ear. The piercing Québecois expletive sent my heart leaping into my throat.

I turned and saw that the voice came from a first-floor window eight inches to my left. A face scowled through the screen in undisguised annoyance.

“What do you think you’re doing? You break that door, trou de cul, and you’re going to pay for it.”

“Police,” said Claudel, ignoring the asshole reference.

“Yeah? You show me something.”

Claudel held his shield close to the screen. The face leaned forward and I could see it was that of a woman. It was flushed and porcine, its perimeter bordered by a diaphanous lime scarf, knotted with exuberance on the top of her head. The ends sprouted upward, bobbing on the air like chiffon ears. Save for the absence of armaments and ninety extra pounds, she bore a noticeable resemblance to the goat.

“So?” The scarf tips floated as she looked from Claudel to Charbonneau to me. Deciding I was the least threatening, she pointed them in my direction.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” I said, feeling instantly as if I’d done a Jack Webb imitation. It sounded as clichéd in French as it would have in English. At least I hadn’t added “ma’am” at the end.

“Is this about Jean-Marc?”

“We really shouldn’t do this in the street,” I said, wondering who Jean-Marc was.

The face hesitated then disappeared. In a moment we heard the rattle of locks being turned, and the door was opened by an enormous woman in a yellow polyester housedress. Her underarms and midsection were dark with perspiration, and I could see sweat mixed with grime in the folds that circled her neck. She held the door for us, then turned and waddled down a narrow hall, disappearing through a door on the left. We followed in single file, Claudel leading, me bringing up the rear. The corridor smelled of cabbage and old grease. The temperature inside was at least ninety-five degrees.

Her tiny apartment was rank with the stench of overused cat litter, and was crammed with the dark, heavy furniture mass-produced in the twenties and thirties. I doubted the fabric had been changed from the original. A clear vinyl runner cut diagonally across the living room carpet, which was a threadbare imitation of a Persian original. There wasn’t an uncluttered surface in sight.

The woman lumbered to an overstuffed chair by the window and dropped heavily into it. A metal TV table to her right teetered, and a can of diet Pepsi wobbled with the tremor. She settled in and glanced nervously out the window. I wondered if she was expecting someone, or if she simply hated to have her surveillance interrupted.

I handed her the photo. She looked at it, and her eyes took on the shape of larvae, burrowing between their well-padded lids. She raised them to the three of us and realized, too late, that she had placed herself at a disadvantage. Standing, we had the benefit of height. She craned up at us, shifting the larvae from one of us to the other. Her mood seemed to change from belligerent to cautious.

“You are . . . ?” began Claudel.

“Marie-Eve Rochon. What is this all about? Is Jean-Marc in trouble?”

“You are the concierge?”

“I collect the rent for the owner,” she answered. Though there wasn’t much room, she shifted in the chair. Its protest was audible.

“Know him?” asked Claudel, gesturing at the photo.

“Yes and no. He’s staying here but I don’t know him.”

“Where?”

“Number 6. First entrance, room on the ground level,” she said, making a wide gesture with her arm. The loose, lumpy flesh jiggled like tapioca.

“What’s his name?”

She thought for a moment, fidgeting absently with a scarf tip. I watched a bead of sweat reach its hydrostatic maximum, burst, and trickle down her face. “St. Jacques. Course, they don’t usually use their real names.”

Charbonneau was taking notes.

“How long has he been here?”

“Maybe a year. That’s a long time for here. Most are vagrants. Course, I don’t see him much. Maybe he comes and goes. I don’t pay attention.” She flicked her eyes down and crimped her lips at the obviousness of her lie. “I don’t ask.”

“You get any references?”

Her lips fluttered with a loud puff of air, and she shook her head slowly.

“He have any visitors?”

“I told you, I don’t see him much.” For a time she was silent. Her fidgeting had pulled the scarf to the right, and the ears were now off center on her head. “Seems like he’s always alone.”

Charbonneau looked around. “The other apartments like this?”

“Mine’s the biggest.” The corners of her mouth tightened and there was an almost imperceptible lift to her chin. Even in shabbiness there was room for pride. “The others are broken up. Some are just rooms with hot plates and toilets.”

“He here now?”

The woman shrugged.

Charbonneau closed his notebook. “We need to talk to him. Let’s go.”

She looked surprised. “Moi?”

“We may need to get into the flat.”

She leaned forward in the chair and rubbed both hands on her thighs. Her eyes widened and her nostrils seemed to dilate. “I can’t do that. That would be a violation of privacy. You need a warrant or something.”

Charbonneau fixed her with a level stare and did not answer. Claudel sighed loudly, as though bored and disappointed. I watched a rivulet of condensed water run down the Pepsi can and join a ring at its base. No one spoke or moved.

“Okay, okay, but this is your idea.”

Shifting her weight from ham to ham, she scooted forward in diagonal thrusts, like a sailboat on a series of short tacks. The housedress crept higher and higher, exposing enormous stretches of marbleized flesh. When she had maneuvered her center of gravity to the chair’s edge, she placed both hands on the arms and levered herself up.

She crossed to a desk on the far side of the room and gophered around in a drawer. Shortly, she withdrew a key and checked its tag. Satisfied, she held it out to Charbonneau.

“Thank you, madame. We will be happy to check your property for irregularities.”

As we turned to leave, her curiosity overcame her. “Hey, what’s this guy done?”

“We’ll return the key on our way out,” said Claudel. Once again, we left with eyes fixed on our backs.

The corridor inside the first entrance was identical to the one we’d just left. Doors opened to the left and right, and, at the rear, a steep staircase led to an upper floor. Number 6 was the first on the left. The building was stifling and eerily quiet.

Charbonneau stood to the left, Claudel and I to the right. Both their jackets hung loose, and Claudel rested his palm on the butt of his .357. He knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked a second time. Same response.

The two detectives exchanged glances, and Claudel nodded. The corners of his mouth were tucked in tightly, beaking his face even more then usual. Charbonneau fitted the key into the lock and swung the door in. We waited, rigid, listening to dust motes settle back into place. Nothing.

“St. Jacques?”

Silence.

“Monsieur St. Jacques?”

Same answer.

Charbonneau raised a palm in my direction. I waited while the detectives entered, then followed, my heart pounding in my chest.

The room held little furniture. In the left-rear corner a pink plastic curtain hung by rusted rings from a semicircular rod, separating the area into a makeshift bathroom. Below the curtain I could see the base of a commode and a set of pipes that probably led to a sink. The pipes were badly rusted and supported a thriving colony of a soft, green life-form. To the right of the curtain, the back wall had been fitted with a Formica-topped counter. It held a hot plate, several plastic tumblers, and an unmatched collection of dishes and pans.

In front of the curtain, an unmade bed ran the length of the left wall. A table fashioned from a large plywood plank was placed along the right. Its base was formed by two sawhorses, each clearly stamped as property of the city of Montreal. The surface was heaped with books and papers. The wall above was covered with maps, photos, and newspaper articles, forming a cut-and-paste mosaic that extended the length of the table. A metal folding chair was tucked below. The room’s only window was to the right of the front door, identical to that used by Madame Rochon. Two bare bulbs jutted from a hole in the ceiling.

“Nice place,” said Charbonneau.

“Yeah. A thing of beauty. I’d rank it up there with herpes and Burt Reynolds’s hairpiece.”

Claudel moved to the toilet area, withdrew a pen from his pocket, and gingerly drew back the curtain.

“Defense Ministry might want to take scrapings. This stuff may have potential for biological warfare.” He dropped the curtain and moved toward the table.

“Dickhead isn’t even here,” said Charbonneau, flipping a blanket edge onto the bed with the tip of his shoe.

I was surveying the kitchenware on the Formica counter. Two Expos beer tumblers. A dented saucepan encrusted with something resembling SpaghettiOs. A half-eaten chunk of cheese congealed in the same substance in a blue china bowl. A cup from Burger King. Several cellophane packages of saltine crackers.

It hit me when I leaned over the hot plate. The lingering warmth made my blood turn to ice, and I spun toward Charbonneau.

“He’s here!”

My words hit the air at the exact moment a door exploded open in the right-hand corner of the room. It slammed into Claudel, knocking him off balance and pinning his right arm and shoulder against the wall. A figure lunged across the room, body doubled over, legs thrusting toward the open front door. I could hear breath rasping in his throat.

For just an instant in his headlong plunge across the room, the fugitive raised his head, and two flat, dark eyes met mine, peering out from under the orange brim of a cap. In that brief flash I recognized the look of a terrified animal. Nothing more. Then he was gone.

Claudel regained his balance, unsnapped his gun, and bolted out the door. Charbonneau was right behind him. Without thinking, I plunged into the chase.