“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. “Voilà. 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 silence, 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.”