Charbonneau turned to me. ?Stay alert,? he said. ?If anything breaks, get down.?

I appreciated his refraining from telling me not to touch anything.

In less than a minute Claudel?s head reappeared above the door frame.

?Allons-y,? he said. Let?s roll.

I climbed into the backseat, and the two detectives got in front. Charbonneau put the car in gear and we crept slowly up the block. Claudel turned to me.

?Don?t touch anything in there. If this is the guy, we don?t want anything screwed up.?

?I?ll try,? I said, fighting to suppress the sarcasm in my voice. ?I?m one of the nontestosterone gender, and we sometimes have trouble remembering things like that.?

He blew out a puff of air and pivoted back in his seat. I was sure if he?d had an appreciative audience he?d have rolled his eyes and smirked.

Charbonneau pulled to the curb in midblock, and we all considered the building. It sat surrounded by empty lots. The cracked cement and gravel were overgrown with weeds and strewn with the broken bottles, old tires, and the usual debris that accumulates on abandoned urban spaces. Someone had painted a mural on the wall facing the lot. It depicted a goat with an automatic weapon slung from each ear. In its mouth it held a human skeleton. I wondered if the meaning was clear to anyone but the artist.

?The old boy hadn?t seen him today,? said Charbonneau, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

?When did they go on neighborhood watch?? asked Claudel.

?Ten,? said Charbonneau. He looked at his watch, and Claudel and I followed suit. Pavlov would have been proud-3:10 P.M.

?Maybe the guy?s a late sleeper,? said Charbonneau. ?Or maybe he?s worn out from his little field trip yesterday.?

?Or maybe he?s not in there at all and these geeks are getting ready to bust their balls laughing.?

?Maybe.?

I watched a group of girls cross the vacant lot behind the building, their arms intertwined in teenage comraderie. Their shorts formed a row of Quebec flags, a chorus line of fleur-de-lis swaying in unison as they picked their way through the weeds. Each had braided her hair in tiny cornrows and sprayed it bright blue. As I watched them laugh and jostle in the summer heat, I thought how easily such youthful high spirits could be extinguished forever by the act of a madman. I fought back a wave of anger. Was it possible we were sitting not ten yards from such a monster?

At that moment a blue-and-white patrol unit slipped quietly in behind us. Charbonneau got out and spoke to the officers. In a minute he was back.

?They?ll cover the back,? he said, nodding toward the squad car. His voice had an edge to it, all sarcasm gone. ?Allons-y.?

When I opened the door Claudel started to speak, changed his mind, and walked toward the apartment. I followed with Charbonneau. I noticed that he had unbuttoned his jacket, and his right arm was tense and slightly bent. Reflex readiness. For what? I wondered.

The red-brick building stood alone, its neighbors long since gone. Trash littered the adjacent lots, and large blocks of cement dotted them helter-skelter, like boulders left in a glacial retreat. A rusted and sagging chain-link fence ran along the building?s south side. The goat faced north.

Three ancient white doors, side by side, opened onto Berger at street level. In front of them, the ground was covered by a patch of asphalt running to the curb. Once painted red, the pavement was now the color of dried blood.

In the window of the third door, a handwritten sign rested at an angle against a limp and grayed lace curtain. I could barely read through the dirty glass, ?Chambres #224; louer, #1.? Rooms to rent. Claudel put one foot on the step and pressed on the higher of two buttons next to the door frame. No answer. He rang again, then, after a brief pause, pounded on the door.

?Tabernac!? shrieked a voice directly in my ear. The piercing Qu #233;becois expletive sent my heart leaping into my throat.

I turned and saw that the voice came from a first-floor window eight inches to my left. A face scowled through the screen in undisguised annoyance.

?What do you think you?re doing? You break that door, trou de cul, and you?re going to pay for it.?

?Police,? said Claudel, ignoring the asshole reference.

?Yeah? You show me something.?

Claudel held his shield close to the screen. The face leaned forward and I could see it was that of a woman. It was flushed and porcine, its perimeter bordered by a diaphanous lime scarf, knotted with exuberance on the top of her head. The ends sprouted upward, bobbing on the air like chiffon ears. Save for the absence of armaments and ninety extra pounds, she bore a noticeable resemblance to the goat.

?So?? The scarf tips floated as she looked from Claudel to Charbonneau to me. Deciding I was the least threatening, she pointed them in my direction.

?We?d like to ask you a few questions,? I said, feeling instantly as if I?d done a Jack Webb imitation. It sounded as clich #233;d in French as it would have in English. At least I hadn?t added ?ma?am? at the end.

?Is this about Jean-Marc??

?We really shouldn?t do this in the street,? I said, wondering who Jean-Marc was.

The face hesitated then disappeared. In a moment we heard the rattle of locks being turned, and the door was opened by an enormous woman in a yellow polyester housedress. Her underarms and midsection were dark with perspiration, and I could see sweat mixed with grime in the folds that circled her neck. She held the door for us, then turned and waddled down a narrow hall, disappearing through a door on the left. We followed in single file, Claudel leading, me bringing up the rear. The corridor smelled of cabbage and old grease. The temperature inside was at least ninety-five degrees.

Her tiny apartment was rank with the stench of overused cat litter, and was crammed with the dark, heavy furniture mass-produced in the twenties and thirties. I doubted the fabric had been changed from the original. A clear vinyl runner cut diagonally across the living room carpet, which was a threadbare imitation of a Persian original. There wasn?t an uncluttered surface in sight.

The woman lumbered to an overstuffed chair by the window and dropped heavily into it. A metal TV table to her right teetered, and a can of diet Pepsi wobbled with the tremor. She settled in and glanced nervously out the window. I wondered if she was expecting someone, or if she simply hated to have her surveillance interrupted.

I handed her the photo. She looked at it, and her eyes took on the shape of larvae, burrowing between their well-padded lids. She raised them to the three of us and realized, too late, that she had placed herself at a disadvantage. Standing, we had the benefit of height. She craned up at us, shifting the larvae from one of us to the other. Her mood seemed to change from belligerent to cautious.

?You are . . . ?? began Claudel.

?Marie-Eve Rochon. What is this all about? Is Jean-Marc in trouble??

?You are the concierge??

?I collect the rent for the owner,? she answered. Though there wasn?t much room, she shifted in the chair. Its protest was audible.

?Know him?? asked Claudel, gesturing at the photo.

?Yes and no. He?s staying here but I don?t know him.?

?Where??

?Number 6. First entrance, room on the ground level,? she said, making a wide gesture with her arm. The loose, lumpy flesh jiggled like tapioca.

?What?s his name??

She thought for a moment, fidgeting absently with a scarf tip. I watched a bead of sweat reach its hydrostatic maximum, burst, and trickle down her face. ?St. Jacques. Course, they don?t usually use their real names.?

Charbonneau was taking notes.

?How long has he been here??

?Maybe a year. That?s a long time for here. Most are vagrants. Course, I don?t see him much. Maybe he comes and goes. I don?t pay attention.? She flicked her eyes down and crimped her lips at the obviousness of her lie. ?I don?t ask.?