LaPointe looks over at the miserable bomme whose eyes are now squeezed shut as he rocks back and forth, with each movement moaning a high, thin note that stops short in his throat. He is right on the limen of sanity.
“You didn’t give him anything to calm him down, did you?”
“No, Lieutenant. Your Joan told us not to. Anyway, it wasn’t necessary. As soon as we told him you were coming down, he settled right down. Just started moaning and rocking like that. A real nut case. Twenty-fucking-seven bucks! And not a month old!”
LaPointe crosses to the Vet and places his hand on his shoulder. “Hey?” He gives him a slight shake. “Hey, Vet?” The tramp does not look up; he is lost in the treacherous animal comfort of his rocking and moaning. His own motion and his own sound surround and protect him. He doesn’t want penetrations from the outside.
LaPointe has seen men go inside themselves like this before. He is afraid he’ll lose the Vet if he doesn’t bring him out right now. He takes off the wide-brimmed hat and lifts up the head by the hair. “Hey!”
The bomme tries to pull away, but LaPointe holds the hair tighter. “Vet? Vet!” The smell of urine is strong.
The Vet’s vague humid eyes focus slowly on LaPointe’s face. The slack, unshaven cheeks quiver. As he opens his mouth to speak, a bubble of thick spit forms between the lips and bursts with the first word.
“Lieutenant?” It is a pitiful, mendicant whine. “Don’t let them lock me up. You know what I mean? I can’t be locked up! I can’t! I… I… I… I… I…” With each repetition, the voice rises a note as the Vet plunges toward panic.
LaPointe snatches the greasy hair. He mustn’t lose him. “Vet! No one’s going to lock you up!”
“No, you don’t! I can’t go inside! I can’t!”
“Listen to me!”
“No! No! No!”
LaPointe slaps the tramp’s cheek hard.
The Vet catches his breath and holds it, his cheeks bulging, his eyes wide open and staring up obliquely at the Lieutenant.
“Now listen,” LaPointe says more quietly. “Just listen,” he says softly. “All right?”
The Vet lets his breath escape slowly and remains silent, but his eyes still stare, and there are rapid little pupillary contractions.
LaPointe speaks very slowly and clearly. “No one is going to lock you up. Do you understand that? No one is going to put you inside.”
The bomme’s squinting left eye twitches as he struggles to comprehend. As understanding comes, his body, so long rigid, droops with fatigue; his jaw slackens; his breathing slows; and the bloodshot eyes roll up as though in sleep.
LaPointe releases the hair, and the tramp’s chin drops back into his chest. LaPointe lays his hand protectively on the nape of the Vet’s neck as he turns to Guttmann. “Get some coffee down him.”
Guttmann looks around for a coffeepot.
“The machine!” LaPointe says with exasperation, pointing to the coin-operated dispenser.
The two uniformed cops leave the Duty Office, the Polish old-timer fiddling with the back of his pants to see if he can hide the triangular rip, and his partner assuring him that nobody wants to look at his ass.
LaPointe leans against the wall and presses down his hair with his palm. “After you get a few cups of coffee down him,” he tells Guttmann, “dunk his head in cold water and clean him up a little. Then bring him to my office.”
Guttmann fumbles in his pocket as he looks with distaste at the heap of rags stinking of stale wine and urine. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t seem to have a dime.”
“The machine takes quarters.”
“I don’t have any change at all.”
With infinite patience, LaPointe produces a quarter from the depths of his overcoat pocket and holds it up between thumb and forefinger. “Here. This is called a quarter. It makes vending machines work. It also makes telephones work. What would you do if you had to make an emergency call from a public phone and you had no change on you?”
“I just threw on my clothes and came over when they called. I didn’t even—”
“Always carry change for the phone. It could save somebody’s life.”
Guttmann takes the quarter. “All right, sir. Thanks for the advice.”
“That wasn’t advice.”
Guttmann shoves the quarter into the slot brusquely. What the hell is bugging the Lieutenant? After all, he wasn’t the one who was called away from a night with a bird to come down and wet-nurse a drunk who has pissed his pants!
As he starts to leave the Duty Office for his own floor above, LaPointe pauses at the door. He sniffs and rubs his cheek. He is shaven on only one side. “Look. I’m sorry, I… I’m tired, that’s all.”
“Yes, sir. We’re probably all tired.”
“Did you say it was your first time with that young lady of yours?”
“First for sure. And probably last.” Guttmann is still angry and stung.
“Well, I hope not.”
“Yes, sir. Me too.”
It is fully half an hour before the door to LaPointe’s office opens and Guttmann enters, bringing the Vet along by the arm. The old bomme looks pale and sick, but sober. Sober enough, at least. The shapeless old overcoat has been left behind, along with the wide-brimmed hat, and the collar and front of his shirt are wet from the dunking Guttmann has given him in a washbowl of the men’s room. The hair is wet and dripping, and it has been raked back with fingers that left greasy black ropes. There is a small bruise over the eyebrow, half covered by a hank of hair plastered on the forehead.
“You hit him?” LaPointe asks.
“No, sir. He clipped his head on the edge of the washbowl.”
“Do you have any idea what a lawyer would make of that? A lot more than harassment.” LaPointe turns his attention to the bomme. “Okay, sit down, Vet.”
The old tramp obeys sullenly. Now that his first panic is over, something of his haughty sassiness returns, and he attempts to appear indifferent and superior, despite the stink of urine that moves with him.
“Feeling better?” LaPointe asks.
The Vet does not answer. He lifts his head and looks unsteadily at LaPointe down his thin, bent nose. The intended disdain is diluted by an uncontrollable wobbling of the head.
LaPointe has never liked the Vet. He pities him, but the Vet is one of those men toward whom feelings of pity are always mixed with contempt, even disgust.
“Got a smoke?” the Vet asks.
“No.” Once the Vet begins to feel safe, he’ll be impossible to deal with. It’s best to keep him from getting too confident. “I told you we weren’t going to put you inside,” LaPointe says, leaning back in his chair. “I’d better be straight with you. It’s not really settled yet. You may be locked up, and you may not.”
With almost comic abruptness, the tramp’s composure shatters. His eyes flicker like a rodent’s, and his breath starts to come in short gasps. “I can’t go into a cell, Lieutenant. I thought you understood! I was wounded in the army.”
“I’m not interested in that.”
“No, wait! I was captured! A prisoner of war! For four years I was locked up! You know what I mean? I couldn’t stand it. One day… one day, I began to scream. And I couldn’t stop. You know what I mean? I knew I was screaming. I could hear myself. And I wanted to stop, but I didn’t know how! You know what I mean? That’s why I can’t go to jail!”
“All right. Calm down.”
The Vet is eager to obey, to put himself in LaPointe’s good graces. He stops talking, shutting his teeth tight. But he cannot halt the humming moan. He begins to rock in his chair. Mustn’t let the moan out. Mustn’t start screaming.
Guttmann clears his throat. “Lieutenant?”
“Hm-m?”
“I think he may be a user. There’s a fresh mark on his arm, and a couple of old tracks.”
“No, he’s not a user, are you, Vet? Between pension checks, he sells his blood illegally for wine money. That’s right, isn’t it, Vet?”