“Yes, that’s the victim.”
“Hm-m. An Italian kid with an Anglo alias. No record of fingerprints. Not a legal immigrant. What does that give us? A sailor who jumped ship?”
“I doubt it.”
“Yes. The hands were wrong. No calluses. Any leads to a skill or a craft?”
“No.” LaPointe’s head rises just as Bouvier’s eye is opening wide. They have the same thought at the same moment.
It is Bouvier who expresses it. “Do you think your victim was being laundered?”
“Possible.”
There are a couple of small-timers up on the Italian Main who make their money by “laundering” men for the American organized-crime market. A young man who gets into trouble in Calabria or Sicily can be smuggled into Canada, usually on a Greek ship, and brought into Montreal, where he blends into the polyglot population of the Main while he learns a little English, and while the laundryman makes sure the Italian authorities are not on his tail. These “clean” men are slipped across the border to the States, where they are valuable as enforcers and hit men. Like a clean gun that the police cannot trace through registration, these laundered men have no records, no acquaintances, no fingerprints. And should they become awkward or dangerous to their employers, there is no one to avenge, even to question, their deaths.
It is possible that the good-looking kid who called himself Tony Green was in the process of being laundered when he met his death in that alley.
Dr. Bouvier takes off his glasses, turning his back so that LaPointe doesn’t see the eye normally covered by the nicotine lens. He flexes the broken bridge and slips them back on, pinching the skin of his nose to make them stay up better. “All right. Who’s active in the laundry business up on your patch?”
Old man Rovelli died six months ago. That leaves Canducci—Alfredo (Candy Al) Canducci.
“Chocolate,” LaPointe says to himself.
“What?”
“Chocolate. As in candy. As in Candy Al.”
“I assume that makes some subtle sense?”
“The kid had a ‘cousin’ who rented his room for him. The concierge thought the name had something to do with chocolate.”
“And you make that Candy Al Canducci. Interesting. And possible. I’ll tell you what—I’ll put in a little time on the case. Maybe your friendly family pathologist can come up with one of his ‘interesting little insights.’ Not that my genius is always appreciated by you street men. I remember once dropping a fresh possibility onto your colleague, Gaspard, when he was satisfied that he had already wrapped up a case. He described my assistance as being as welcome as a fart in a bathysphere. You want some more coffee?”
“No.”
Guttmann has made slight rearrangements to receive Mr. Matthew St. John W—. He has moved his chair over to LaPointe’s desk, and has seated himself in the Lieutenant’s swivel chair. He rises to greet Mr. W—, who looks around the room with some uncertainty.
“Lieutenant LaPointe isn’t here?”
“I’m sorry, sir. He’s not available just now. I’m his assistant. Perhaps I could help?”
Mr. W—looks exactly like his photographs in the society section of the Sunday papers—a slim face with fragile bones and veins close to the surface, full head of white hair combed severely back, revealing a high forehead over pale eyes. His dark blue suit is meticulously tailored, and there is not a smudge on the high shine of his narrow, pointed black shoes.
“I had hoped to see Lieutenant LaPointe.” His voice is thin and slightly nasal, and its tone is chilly. He surveys the young policeman thoughtfully. He hesitates.
Not wanting to lose him, Guttmann waves a hand at the chair opposite him and says in as offhanded a voice as possible, “I believe you had some assistance to offer in the Green case, sir?”
Mr. W—frowns, the wrinkles very shallow in his pallid forehead. “The Green case?” he asks.
Guttmann’s jaw tightens. He is glad LaPointe isn’t there. The victim’s name was not mentioned in the newspaper. But the only thing to do is brave it out. “Yes, sir. The young man found in the alley was named Green.”
Mr. W—looks toward the corner of the room, his eyes hooded with thought. “Green,” he says, testing the sound. He sighs as he sits on the straight-backed chair, lifting his trousers an inch by the creases. “You know,” he says distantly, “I never knew that his name was Green. Green.”
Instantly, Guttmann wishes he had somebody with him, a witness or a stenographer.
But Mr. W—has anticipated his thoughts.
“Don’t worry, young man. I will repeat anything I say to you. What happens to me is not important. What does matter is that everything be handled as quietly as possible. My family… I know I could rely on Lieutenant LaPointe to be discreet. But…” Mr. W—smiles politely, indicating that he is sorry, but he has no reason to trust a young man he does not know.
“I wouldn’t do anything without consulting the Lieutenant.”
“Good. Good.” And Mr. W—seems willing to let the conversation rest there. A thin, polite smile on his lips, he looks past Guttmann’s head to the damp, metallic skies beyond the window.
“You… ah… you say you didn’t know his name was Green?” Guttmann prompts, making every effort to keep the excitement he feels from leaking into his voice.
Mr. W—shakes his head slightly. “No, I didn’t. That must seem odd to you.” He laughs a little sniff of self- ridicule. “In fact, it seems odd to me… now. But you know how these things are. The social moment when you should have exchanged names somehow passes with the thing undone, and later it seems foolish, even impolite, to ask the other person his name. Has that ever happened to you?”
“Sir?” Guttmann is surprised to find the conversational ball suddenly in his court. “Ah, yes, I know exactly what you mean.”
Mr. W—investigates Guttmann’s face carefully.
“Yes. You have the look of someone who’s capable of understanding.”
Guttmann clears his throat. “Did you know this Green well?”
“Well enough. Well enough. He was… that is to say, he died before we…” Mr. W—sighs, closes his eyes, and presses his fingers into the shallow sockets. “Explanations always seem so bizarre, so inadequate. You see, Green knew about the White Plot and the Ring of Seven.”
“Sir?”
“I’d better begin at the beginning. Do you remember the nursery rhyme ‘As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives’? Of course, you probably never considered the significance of the repeated sevens—the warning passed to the Christian world about the Ring of the Seven and the Jewish White Plot. Not many people have troubled to study the rhyme, to unravel its implications.”
“I see.”
“That poor young Mr. Green stumbled upon the meaning. And now he’s dead. Stabbed in an alley. Tell me, was there a bakery near where he was found?”
Guttmann glances toward the door, trying to think up something he has to go do. “Ah… yes, I suppose so. The district has lots of bakeries.”
Mr. W—smiles and nods with self-satisfaction.
“I knew it. It’s all tied up with the White Plague.”
Guttmann nods. “Tied up with the White Plague, is it?”
“Ah! So Lieutenant LaPointe has told you about that, has he? Yes, the White Plague is
“Cream of Wheat?”
“That surprises you, doesn’t it? I can’t blame you. There was a time when we hoped against hope that Cream of Wheat wasn’t in on it. But certain evidence has come into our hands. I mustn’t tell you more than you need to know. There’s no point in endangering you needlessly.”
