When he arrives at the Quartier General, the workday is in full swing. The halls outside the magistrate’s courts are crowded with people standing around or waiting on benches of dark wood, worn light in places by the legs and buttocks of the bored, or the nervous. One harassed woman has three children with her, separated in age by only the minimal gestation period. She hasn’t made up that day; perhaps she has given up making up. The youngest of her kids clings to her skirt and whimpers. Her tension suddenly cracking, she screams at it to shut up. For an instant the child freezes, its eyes round. Then its face crumples and it howls. The mother hugs and rocks it, sorry for both of them. Two young men lounge against a window frame, their slouching postures meant to convey that they are not impressed by this building, these courts, this law. But each time the door to the courtroom opens, they glance over with expectation and fear. There are a few whores, victims of a street sweep somewhere. One is telling a story animatedly; another is scratching under her bra with her thumb. A girl in her late teens, advanced pregnancy dominating her skinny body, chews nervously on a strand of hair. An old man rocks back and forth in misery, rubbing his palms against the tops of his legs. It’s his last son; his last boy. Youngish lawyers in flowing, dusty black robes and starched collars crossed at the throat, their smooth foreheads puckered into self-important frowns, stalk through the crowd with long strides calculated to give the impression that they are on important business and have no time to waste.
LaPointe scans automatically for faces he might recognize, then steps into one of the big, rickety elevators. Two young detectives mumble greetings; he nods and grunts. He gets out on the second floor and goes down the gray corridor, past old radiators that thud and hiss with steam, past identical doors with ripple-glass windows. His key doesn’t seem to work in his lock. He mutters angrily, then the door opens in his hand. It wasn’t locked in the first place.
“Good morning, sir.”
Oh, shit, yes. Gaspard’s Joan. LaPointe has forgotten all about him. What was his name? Guttmann? LaPointe notices that Guttmann has already moved in and made himself at home at a little table and a straight- backed chair in the corner. He hums a kind of greeting as he hangs his overcoat on the wooden coat tree. He sits heavily in his swivel chair and begins to paw around through his in-box.
“Sir?”
“Hm-m.”
“Sergeant Gaspard’s report is on your desk, along with the report he forwarded from the forensic lab.”
“Have you read it?”
“No, sir. It’s addressed to you.”
LaPointe is following his habit of scanning the Morning Report first thing in his office. “Read it,” he says without looking up.
It seems strange to Guttmann that the Lieutenant seems uninterested in the report. He opens the heavy brown interdepartmental envelope, unwinding the string around the plastic button fastener. “You’ll have to initial for receipt, sir.”
“But, sir—”
“Initial it!” This initialing of routing envelopes is just another bit of the bureaucratic trash that trammels the ever-reorganizing department. LaPointe makes it a practice to ignore all such rules.
What’s this? A blue memo card from the Commissioner’s office. Look at this formal crap:
FROM: Commissioner Resnais
TO: Claude LaPointe, Lieutenant
SUBJECT: Morning of 21 November: appointment for
MESSAGE: I’d like to see you when you get in.
(dictated, but not signed)
LaPointe knows what Resnais wants. It will be about the Dieudonne case. That weaselly little turd of a lawyer is threatening to lodge a 217 assault charge against LaPointe for slapping his client. We must protect the civil rights of the criminal! Oh, yes! And what about the old woman that Dieudonne shot through the throat? What about her, with her last breaths whistling and flapping moistly through the hole?
LaPointe pushes the memo card aside with a growl.
Guttmann glances up from the report on the kid they found in the alley. “Sir? Something wrong?”
“Just read the report.” He must be tired this morning. Even this kid’s careful continental French annoys him. And he seems to take up so goddamned much room in the office! LaPointe hadn’t noticed last night how big the kid was. Six-two, six-three; weighs about 210. And his attempt to fit himself into as little space as possible behind that small table makes him seem even bigger and bulkier. This isn’t going to work out. He’ll have to turn him back over to Gaspard as soon as possible.
LaPointe shoves the routine papers and memos away and rises to look out his office window toward the Hotel de Ville. There are scaffolds clinging to the sides of the Victorian hulk, and above the scaffolds the sandblasters have cleaned to a creamy white a facade that used to bear the comfortable patina of soot with water- run accents of dark gray. For months now, they have been sandblasting the building, and the roaring hiss has become a constant in LaPointe’s office, replacing the rumble of traffic as a base line for silence. It is not the noise that bothers LaPointe, it is the change. He liked the Hotel de Ville the way it was, with its stained and experienced exterior. They change everything. The law, rules of evidence, acceptable procedure in dealing with suspects. The world is getting more complicated. And younger. And all these new forms! This endless paper work that he has to peck out with two fingers, hunched over his ancient typewriter, growling and smashing at the keys when he makes an error…
…It’s strange to think of her using his Mum. Putting his Mum under her arms. He supposes young girls don’t use Mum. They probably prefer those fancy sprays. He shrugs. Well, that’s just too bad. Mum is all he has. And if it’s not good enough for her…
“No identification,” Guttmann says, mostly to himself.
“What?”
“The forensic lab report, sir. No identification of that man in the alley. And no make on the fingerprints.”
“They checked with Ottawa?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hm-m.” The victim looked like the type who ought to have a record, if not for petty arrests, at least as an alien. No fingerprints. One possibility immediately occurs to LaPointe. The victim might have been an unregistered alien, one of those who slip into the country illegally. They are not uncommon on the Main; most of them are harmless enough, victims of the circular paradox of having no legal nationality, and therefore no passports and no means of legitimate immigration, therefore, no legal nationality. Several of the Jews who have been on the street for years are in this category, particularly those who came from camps in Europe just after the war. They cause no trouble; anyway, LaPointe knows about them, and that’s what counts.
“What else is in the report?”
“Not much, sir. A technical description of the wound… angle of entry and that sort of thing. They’re running down the clothing.”
“I see.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We?” LaPointe looks at the daunting pile of back work, of forms and memos and reports on his desk. “Tell me, Guttmann. When you were in college, did you learn to type?”
