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“I didn’t pay any attention. I got other things to do with my time than worry about the bums who live here.”
“You didn’t write it down?”
“I couldn’t be bothered. I remember it was somewhere over the hill, if that’s any help.”
By “over the hill” she means the Italian stretch of the Main, between the drab little park in Carré Vallières at the top of the rise and the railroad bridge past Van Horne.
“How often did you see this cousin?”
“Only once. When he rented the room. Oh, and another time, about a week ago. They had a row and—hey! Chocolate!”
“What?”
“No… not chocolate. That’s not it. For a second there I thought I remembered the cousin’s name. It was right on the tip of my tongue. Something to do with chocolate.”
“Chocolate?”
“No, not that. But something like it. Cocoa? No, that’s not it. It’s gone now. Something to do with chocolate.” She ca
LaPointe rises. “All right. That’s all for now. If that ‘chocolate’ name comes back to you, telephone me.” He gives her his card. “And if I don’t hear from you, I’ll be back. And I’ll talk to Arnaud about it.”
She takes the card without looking at it. “What’s the wop kid done? Some girl knocked up?”
“That’s not your affair. You just worry about the TV set.”
“Honest to God, Lieutenant—”
“I don’t want to hear about it.”
They sit in the yellow sports car. LaPointe appears to be deep in thought, and Guttma
“Sir?”
“Hm-m?”
“What’s a plotte?” Guttma
“Sort of a whore.”
“And a guidoune?”
“Same kind of thing. Only amateur. Goes for drinks.”
Guttma
“A sauteux de clôtures. It’s an old-fashioned term. The concierge probably comes from downriver. It means a… sort of a man who runs after women, but there’s a sense that he chases young women more than others. Something like a cherry-picker. Hell, I don’t know! It means what it means!”
“You know, sir? Joual seems to have more words for aspects of sex than either English or French-French.”
LaPointe shrugs. “Naturally. People talk about what’s important to them. Someone once told me that Eskimos have lots of words for snow. French-French has lots of words for ‘talk.’ And English has lots of—ah, there she goes!”
“What?”
“That’s what I’ve been waiting for. The concierge just took the To Let’ sign out of the window. She was trying to get at it all the time we were there. It’s a warning to her Arnaud to stay away. I’d bet anything it’ll be put back as soon as we drive away.”
Guttma
“That’s love for you, son. The love that rhymes with ‘forever’ in all the songs. Come on, let’s go.”
They run down the two leads given them by the concierge. The first girl they catch coming out of her apartment as they drive up. LaPointe meets her at the bottom of the stoop and draws her aside to talk, while Guttma
LaPointe gets back into the car. Not much there. But at least he learned that Tony Green’s English was not all that bad. Obviously he had been taking lessons during the two months he stayed at the rooming house.
Guttma
The young woman is scared, and she talks to LaPointe in a low, rapid voice, glancing frequently toward her mother’s room, not wanting her to hear, even though she doesn’t have two words of French. Just having her mother listen to the incomprehensible noise that carries this kind of confession is daunting.
Her husband left her two years ago. A person has to have some fun in life. The mother nods and grins. Yes, she met Tony Green at a cabaret where she went with a girlfriend to dance. Yes, she did go to his room. The mother nods. No, not alone. She is embarrassed. Yes, the other woman, her friend, was with them. Yes, all three together in the same bed. The mother grins and nods; Guttma
LaPointe slides into the car beside Guttma
Guttma
And some you understand? Is understanding a tactic too?
“Let’s go have a cup of coffee,” LaPointe says.
“That’s a wonderful idea, sir.” Guttma
The Le Shalom Restaurant is bustling with customers from the small garment shops of the district: young women with only half an hour off push and crowd to get carry-out orders; boisterous forts from the loading docks push sandwiches into their mouths and ogle the girls; intense young Jewish men in suits lean over their plates, talking business. There are few older Jews because most of them are first generation and still keep Shabbes.
Even though it’s afternoon, most of the orders involve breakfast foods, because many of the people only had time for a quick cup of coffee that morning. And besides, eggs are the best food you can buy for the money. This area of Mont Royal Street is the center of the garment service industry, where labor from undereducated French Canadian girls is cheap. There are no big important companies in the district, but dozens of small, second-story operations that receive specialty orders from the bigger houses.