He stirs the unwanted coffee. “Are you in trouble, Carrot?”
“Trouble? Me? No-o-o. A middle-aged lesbian with rotten lungs, a bad business, a heavy mortgage, two shots in prison on her record, and the laziest bitch in North America working for her? In trouble? No way. I won’t be in trouble until they stop making henna. Then I’m in trouble. That’s the problem with being nothing but a pretty face!” She laughs hoarsely, then her dry cough breaks up the rising thread of gray cigarette smoke and puffs it toward LaPointe.
He doesn’t look up from his coffee. “There was a good-looking Italian boy named Verdini, or Green. You went to his place.”
“So?”
“You had a fight.”
“Just words. I didn’t hit him.”
“No threats?”
She shrugs. “Who remembers, when you’re mad. I probably told him I’d cut off his hose if he didn’t stop sniffing around my girl. I don’t remember exactly. You mean the son of a bitch reported me?”
“No. He didn’t report you.”
“Well, that’s a good thing for him. Whatever I said, it must have scared him good. He hasn’t been back here since. Do you know what that son of a bitch wanted? He used to come in here once in a while. He sized up the situation. I mean… just look at her. Look at me. You don’t have to be a genius to size up the situation. So, while I’m waiting on the counter, this asshole is singing the apple to my girl. Well, he’s a pretty boy, and she owns all the patents on stupid, so pretty soon she’s ga-ga. But it isn’t just her he wants. He thought it would be a kick to have us both at the same time! Sort of a round robin! He talked the dumb bitch into asking me if I’d be interested. Can you believe that? He gave her his address and told her we could drop in anytime. I dropped in, all right! I went over there and dropped on him like a ton of shit off a rooftop! Hey, what’s all this about? If he didn’t report me, why are you asking about him?”
“He’s dead. Cut.”
She reaches up slowly and takes the cigarette from the corner of her mouth. It sticks to the lower lip and tugs off a bit of skin. She touches the bleeding spot with the tip of her tongue, then daubs at it with the knuckle of her forefinger. Her eyes never leave LaPointe’s. After a silence, she says simply, “Not me.”
He shrugs. “It’s happened before, Carrot. Twice. And both times because someone was after one of your girls.”
“Yeah, but Jesus Christ, I only beat them up! I didn’t kill them! And I did my time for it, didn’t I?”
“Carrot, you have to realize that with your record…”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. But I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t shit you, LaPointe. I didn’t shit you either of those other times, did I?”
“But it wasn’t a matter of murder then. And there were witnesses, so it wouldn’t have done you any good to shit me.”
Carrot nods. That’s true.
The plump girl comes back to the counter carrying only four plates and a couple of spoons. She hasn’t heard the conversation. She hasn’t been paying attention. She has been humming a popular song, repeating certain passages until she thinks they sound right.
“That’s good, honey,” Carrot says maternally. “Now go get the rest of the dishes.”
The girl stares at her vacantly, then, catching her breath as though she suddenly understands, she turns back and begins to clear the next table.
Carrot’s face softens as she watches the girl, and LaPointe remembers her as a kid, a fresh-mouthed tomboy in knickers, flipping war cards against a wall—gory cards with pictures of the Sino-Japanese war. She was loud and impish, and she had the most vulgar tongue in her gang. The hair she rucked up into her cap used to be genuinely red. LaPointe recalls the time she smashed her toe when she and her gang were pushing a car off its jack for the hell of it. They brought her to the hospital in a police car. She didn’t cry once. She dug her fingernails into LaPointe’s hand, but she didn’t cry. Any boy of her age would have wailed, but she didn’t dare. She was never a girl; just the skinniest of the boys.
After a silence, LaPointe asks, “You figure she’s worth it?”
“What do you mean?” Carrot lights another Gauloise and sucks in the first long, rasping drag, then she lets it dangle forgotten between her lips.
“A dummy like that? Is she worth the trouble you’re in now?”
“Nobody says she’s a genius. And talking to her is like talking to yourself… but with dumber answers.”
“So?”
“What can I say? She’s fantastic in the rack. The best botte I ever had. She just stares up at the ceiling, squeezing those big tits of hers, and she comes and comes and comes. There’s no end to it. And all the time she’s squirming all over the bed. You have to hang on and ride her, like fighting a crocodile. It makes you feel great, you know what I mean? Proud of yourself. Makes you feel you’re the best lover in the world.”
LaPointe looks over at the bovine, languid girl shuffling aimlessly to the third table. “And you would kill to keep her?”
Carrot is silent for a time. “I don’t know, LaPointe. I really don’t. Maybe. Depends on how mad I got. But I didn’t kill that wop son of a bitch, and that’s the good Lord’s own truth. Don’t you believe me?”
“Do you have an alibi?”
“I don’t know. That depends on what time the bastard got himself cut.”
That’s a good answer, LaPointe thinks. Or a smart one. “He was killed night before last. A little after midnight.”
Carrot thinks for only a second. “I was right here.”
“With the girl?”
“Yeah. That is, I was watching television. She was up in bed.”
“You were alone, then?”
“Sure.”
“And the girl was asleep? That means she can’t swear you didn’t go out.”
“But I was right here, I tell you! I was sitting right in that chair with my feet up on that other one. Last customer was out of here about eleven. I cleaned up a little. Then I switched on the TV. I wasn’t sleepy. Too much coffee, I guess.”
“Why didn’t you go up to bed with her?”
Carrot shrugs. “She’s flying the flag just now. She doesn’t like it when she’s flying the flag. She’s just a kid, after all.”
“What did you watch?”
“What?”
“On TV. What did you watch?”
“Ah… let’s see. It’s hard to remember. I mean, you don’t really watch TV. Not like a movie. You just sort of stare at it. Let’s see. Oh, yeah! There was a film on the English channel, so I changed over to the French channel.”
“And?”
“And… shit, I don’t remember. I’d been working all day. This place opens at seven in the morning, you know. I think I might have dropped off, sitting there with my feet up. Wait a minute. Yes, that’s right. I did drop off. I remember because when I woke up it was cold. I’d turned off the stove to save fuel, and…” Her voice trails off, and she turns away to look out the window at the empty street, somber and cold in the zinc overcast. A little girl runs by, screeching with mock fright as a boy chases her. The girl lets herself be caught, and the boy hits her hard on the arm by way of caress. Carrot inhales a stream of blue smoke through her nose. “It doesn’t sound too good, does it, LaPointe?” Her voice is flat and tired. “First I tell you I was watching TV. Then when you ask me what was on, I tell you I fell asleep.”
“Maybe it was all that coffee you drank.”
She glances at him with a gray smile. “Yeah. Right. Coffee sure knocks you out.” She shakes her head. Then she draws a deep breath. “What about your coffee, pal? Can I warm it up for you?”
LaPointe doesn’t want more coffee, but he doesn’t want to refuse her. He drinks the last of the tepid cup, then pushes it over to her.