The Main

didn’t come here to hear all this psychological vomit. What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

It isn’t an easy change to make, and LaPointe sips his drink slowly before he begins. “There have been three men killed… probably by the same person.”

“And a neurotic man-hater seems a likely suspect?”

He ignores this. “Two of them trace to you. When was the last time you saw Antonio Verdini?”

“I checked that little fact in my diary. I thought you might ask. By the way, I’ll let you read my diary if you want. I suppose you’ll want the names of the men I’ve screwed. In case the killer was one of them. Maybe jealousy, or something like that. Although I can’t imagine why any of them would be jealous. After all, my door’s been open to just about anyone who knocked. I view my body as something of a public convenience.”

LaPointe doesn’t want to get mired again in her self-pity; he holds to the line of questioning. “When was the last time you and Verdini made love?”

“A week ago tonight. He didn’t leave until about midnight. It was a longish number. He was showing off his endurance, which, by the way, was something—”

“All right.” LaPointe cuts her off. He doesn’t care about that. “That checks. He was killed that night, shortly after he left here.”

“Hey… maybe I can put you on to something. He might have been just boasting, but he said he had to leave early because he was going to screw some dancer… no. No, a dancer’s kid. That was it.”

“I know about that. He never got there.”

“Too bad for the kid. He was a good plumber.”

LaPointe regards her flatly. “Why don’t we just stick to the questions and answers, Mlle. Montjean?”

“My hearty attitude toward sex doesn’t impress you, Lieutenant?”

“It impresses me. But it doesn’t convince me.”

“Hey! Wow! The wisdom of the streets! Mind if I take a note on that?”

“Do you want your ass spanked?”

“Whatever turns you on, Daddy!” she snaps back. She’s an experienced emotional in-fighter.

He settles his patient, fatigued eyes on her for a moment before continuing. “All right. Now, this professor at McGill. Tell me about him.”

She chuckles. “You hold your cool pretty well, LaPointe. Of course, you’ve got the advantage of being sober. And you’ve got another edge. Indifference is a mighty weapon.”

“Let’s just hear about the McGill professor.”

“Mike Pearson? He was in charge of the Language Learning Center. That’s where I got my idea of setting up this school. The high-saturation methods we use here were developed by Pearson. I took my M.A. under him… literally.”

“Meaning that you and he—”

“Whenever we got a chance. Even while I was a student. The first time was on his desk. He got semen on papers he was grading. Do you know the root of the word ‘seminar’? He was my first conquest. Think of it, Lieutenant! I was a virgin until I was twenty-four. A technical virgin, that is. Before that, I was what you might call manually self-sufficient. My analyst has given me some textbook crap about protracted virginity being common in cases of sexually traumatic events in childhood. He went on to say that it was typical that the first man should be a teacher—a father figure, an authority figure. Like a cop, I guess. That anus of an analyst always plays doctor after we’ve screwed. It’s his way of taking an ethical shower. Think of it! A virgin at twenty-four! But I’ve made up for it since.”

“Would your diary tell me the last time you and this Pearson were together?”

“I can tell you that myself. Mike’s stabbing was in the papers. He was killed not twenty minutes after leaving here.”

“Why didn’t you inform the police?”

“Well, what was the point of getting involved? Mike was married. Why did the wife have to know where he spent his last night? I didn’t dream his getting killed had anything to do with me. I thought he was mugged, or something like that.”

“And that’s why you didn’t inform the police? Consideration for the wife?”

“All right, there was the reputation of the school too. It would have been messy PR. Say! Wait a minute! Why wasn’t there anything in the papers about Tony’s death?”

“There was.”

“I didn’t see it.”

“His name wasn’t mentioned. We didn’t know it at the time. But I wonder if you would have called us, if you had known about the Verdini stabbing.”

She has emptied her glass, and now she reaches automatically for his untouched one. He frowns, afraid she will get too drunk before the questioning is over. “Yes, I think I would have. Not out of civic duty, or any of that shit. But because I would have been scared, like I’ve been scared all afternoon, ever since you told me about it.” She grins, the alcohol rising in her. “You see? That proves I didn’t kill them. If I were the killer, I wouldn’t be scared.”

“No. But you might tell me you were.”

“Ah-ha! The foxy mind of the fuzz! But you can take my word for it, Lieutenant. I don’t go around stabbing men. I make them stab me.” She wobbles her head in a blurred nod. “And there, Sigmund, you have a flash of revelation.”

LaPointe has opened his notebook. “You say you don’t know anything about the third man? The American named MacHenry?”

She shakes her head profoundly. “Nope. You see, there are some men in Montreal whom I have not yet screwed. But I’ll get around to them. Never fear.”

“I don’t want you to drink anymore.”

She looks at him incredulously. “What… did… you… say?”

“I don’t want you to drink anymore until the questioning is over.”

“You don’t want…! Well, fuck you, Lieutenant!” She glares at him, then, in the wash of anger and drunkenness, her manner trembles and dissolves. “Or… better yet… fuck me, Lieutenant. Why don’t you screw me, LaPointe? I want to be screwed, for a change.”

“Come on, cut it out.”

“No, really! Making it with you may be just what I need. A psychic watershed. The final daddy!” She slides over to him and searches his eyes. There is a knowing leer in her expression, curiously confounded with the pleading of a child. Her hand closes over his leg and penis. He lifts her hand away by the wrist and stands up.

“You’re drunk, Mlle. Montjean.”

“And you’re a coward, Lieutenant… Whateveryournameis! I’ll admit I’m drunk, if you’ll admit you’re a coward. A deal?”

LaPointe reaches into his inside coat pocket and takes out a photograph he picked up from Dr. Bouvier that afternoon. He holds it out to her. “This man.”

She waves it away with a broad, vague gesture. She is hurt, embarrassed, drunk.

“It may not be a good likeness. It’s a post-mortem shot. Would it help you to place the man if I told you he was killed about two and a half years ago?”

Like a petulant child forced to perform a chore, she snatches the photograph and looks at it.

The shock doesn’t shatter her; it voids her. All spirit leaks out of her. She wants to drop the photograph, but she can’t let go of it. LaPointe has to reach out and take it back.

As she puts her barriers back together, she saws her lower lip lightly between her teeth. A very deep breath is let out slowly between pursed lips.

“But his name wasn’t MacHenry. It was Davidson. Cliff Davidson.”

“Perhaps that was the name he told you.”

“You mean he didn’t even give me his right name?”

“Evidently not.”

“The son of a bitch.” More soft wonder in this than anger.

“Why son of a bitch?”

She closes her eyes and shakes her head heavily. She is tired, worn out, sick of all this.