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
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
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.
While pouring the coffee, her back to him, she asks with the unconvincing bravado of a teen-age tough, “Am I your only suspect?”
“No. But you’re the best.”
She nods. “Well, that’s what counts. Be best at whatever you do.” She turns and grins at him, a faded imitation of the sassy grin she had when she was a kid on the street. “Where do we go from here?”
“Not downtown, if that’s what you mean. Not now, anyway.”
“You’re saying you believe me?”
“I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying I don’t know. You’re capable of killing, with that temper of yours. On the other hand, I’ve known you for twenty-eight years, ever since I was a cop on the beat and you were a kid always getting into trouble. You were always wild and snotty, but you weren’t stupid. With a day and a half to think up an alibi, I can’t believe you’d come up with a silly story like that. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless a couple of things. Unless you thought we’d never trace the victim to here. Unless you’re being doubly crafty. Unless you’re covering for someone.” LaPointe shrugs. He’ll see. Little by little, he’ll keep opening doors that lead into rooms that have doors that lead into rooms. And maybe, instead of running into that blank wall, one of the doors will lead him back to La Jolie France Bar-B-Q. “Tell me, Carrot. This Italian kid, did he have any friends among your customers?”
She gives him his coffee. “No, not friends. The only reason he ate here sometimes was because some of the guys talk Italian, and his English wasn’t all that good. But he always had money, and a couple of my regulars went bar crawling with him once or twice. I heard them groaning about it the next morning, so sick they couldn’t keep, anything but coffee down.”
“What bars?”
“Shit, I don’t know.”
“Talk to your customers tomorrow. Find out what you can about him.”
“I’m closed on Sundays.”
“Monday then. I want to know what bars he went to. Who he knew.”
“Okay.”
“By the way, does chocolate mean anything to you?”
“What kind of question is that? I can take it or leave it alone.”
“Chocolate. As a name. Can you think of anybody with a name like chocolate or cocoa or anything like that?”
“Ah… wasn’t there somebody who used to be on TV with Sid Caesar?”
