“I don’t want to waste too much of your time, Commissioner,” LaPointe says, “So, if there’s something…” He raises his eyebrows.

Resnais does not like that. He prefers to control the timing and flow of conversation when it involves delicate personnel problems like this one. To do so is an axiom of Small Group and One-to-One Communication Technique.

If you’re not IN control, you’re UNDER control.

“I was expecting you this morning, Claude.”

“I was on a case.”

“I see.” The Commissioner again rocks onto his toes and squeezes his hands behind his back. Then he sits down in his high-backed desk chair and turns it so that he is looking not at LaPointe, but past him, out of the window. “Frankly, I’m afraid I have to give you what in the old days was called an ass-chewing.”

“We still call it that.”

“Right. Now look, Claude, we’re both old-timers…”

LaPointe shrugs.

“…and I don’t feel I have to pull any punches with you. I’ve been forced to talk to you about your methods before. Now, I’m not saying they’re inefficient. I know that sometimes going by the book means losing an arrest. But things have changed since we were young. Greater emphasis is placed today upon the protection of the individual than upon the protection of the society.” There seem to be invisible quotation marks around this last sentence. “I’m not calling these changes good, and I’m not calling them bad. They are facts of life. And facts of life that you continue to ignore.”

“You’re talking about the Dieudonné case?”

Resnais frowns. He doesn’t like being rushed. “That’s the case in point right now. But I’m talking about more than this one instance. This isn’t the first time you’ve gotten information by force. And it’s not the first time I’ve told you that this is not the way things happen in my department.” He instantly regrets having called it his department. Make every man feel a part of the organization.

He works best who works for himself.

“I don’t think you know the details of the case, Commissioner.”

“I assure you that I know the case. I’ve had every bit of it rammed down my throat by the public prosecutor!”

“The old woman was shot for seven dollars and some change! Not even enough for the punk to get a fix!”

“That’s not the point!” Resnais’ jaw tightens, and he continues with exaggerated control. “The point is this. You got information against Dieudonné by means of force and threat of force.”

“I knew he did it. But I couldn’t prove it without a confession.”

“How did you know he did it?”

“The word was out.”

“What, exactly, does that mean?”

“It means the word was out. It means that he’s a bragging son of a bitch who spills his guts when he takes on a load of shit.”

“You’re telling me he admitted to others that he killed the old woman… whatshername?”

“No. He bragged about having a gun and not being afraid to use it.”

“That’s hardly admission of murder.”

“No, but I know Dieudonné. I’ve known him since he was a wiseassed kid. I know what he’s capable of.”

“Believe it or not, your intuition does not constitute evidence.”

“The slugs from his gun matched up, didn’t they?”

“The slugs matched up, all right. But how did you get the gun in the first place?”

“He told me where he had buried it.”

“After you beat him up.”

“I slapped him twice.”

“And threatened to lock him up in a room and let him suffer a cold-turkey withdrawal! Christ, you didn’t even have any hard evidence to connect him with the old woman… whatshername!”

“Her name, goddamn it, was Mrs. Czopec! She was seventy-two years old! She lived in the basement of a building that doesn’t have plumbing. There’s a bit of sooty dirt in front of that building, and in spring she used to get free seed packets on boxes of food, and plant them and water them, and sometimes a few came up. But her basement window was so low that she couldn’t see them. She and her husband were the first Czechs on my patch. He died four years ago, but he wasn’t a citizen, so she didn’t have much in benefits coming in. She clung to her purse when that asshole junkie tried to snatch it because the seven dollars was all the money she had to last to the end of the month. When I checked out her apartment, it turned out that she lived on rice. And there was evidence that toward the end of the month, she ate paper. Paper, Commissioner.”

“That’s not the point!”

LaPointe jumps up from his chair, “You’re right! That’s not the point. The point is that she had a right to live out her miserable life, planting her stupid flowers, eating her rice, spending half of every day in church where she couldn’t afford to light a candle! That’s the point! And that hophead son of a bitch shot her through the throat! That’s the point!”

Resnais lifts a denying palm. “Look, I’m not defending him, Claude…”

“Oh? You mean you aren’t going to tell me that he was underprivileged? Maybe his father never took him to a hockey game!”

Resnais is off balance. What’s wrong with LaPointe? It isn’t like him to get excited. He’s supposed to be the big professional, so coldblooded. Resnais expected chilly insubordination, but this passion is… unfair. To regain control of the situation, Resnais speaks flatly. “Dieudonné is getting off.”

LaPointe is stopped cold. He can’t believe it. “What?”

“That’s right. The public prosecutor met with his lawyers yesterday. They threatened to slap you with a two-seventeen assault, and the newspapers would love that! I have my—I have the department to think of, Claude.”

LaPointe sits down. “So you made a deal?”

“I don’t like that term. We did the best we could. The lawyers could probably have gotten the case thrown out, considering how you found the gun. Fortunately for us, they are responsible men who don’t want to see Dieudonné out on the street any more than we do.”

“What kind of deal?”

“The best we could get. Dieudonné pleads guilty to manslaughter; they forget the two-seventeen against you. There it is.”

“Manslaughter?”

“There it is.” Resnais sits back in his high-backed desk chair and gives this time to sink in. “You see, Claude, even if I condoned your methods—and I don’t—the bottom line is this: they don’t work anymore. The charges don’t stick.”

LaPointe is lost and angry. “But there was no other way to get him. There was no hard evidence without the gun.”

“You keep missing the point.”

LaPointe stares straight ahead, his eyes unfocused. “You’d better get word to Dieudonné that if he ever sets foot on the Main after he gets out…”

“For Christ’s sake! Don’t you ever listen? Does a truck have to drive over you? You’ve embarrassed… the department long enough! I’ve worked like a son of a bitch to give this shop a good image in the city, and all it takes…! Look, Claude. I don’t like doing this, but I’d better lay it on the line for you. I know the reputation you have among the guys in the shop. You keep your patch cool, and I know that no other man, probably no team of men, could do what you do. But times have changed. And you haven’t changed with them.” Resnais fingers LaPointe’s personnel file. “Three recognitions for merit. Twice awarded the Police Medal. Twice wounded in the line of duty—once very seriously, as I recall. When we heard about that bullet grazing your heart, we kept an open line to the hospital all night long. Did you know that?”

LaPointe is no longer looking at the Commissioner; his eyes are directed out the window. He speaks quietly. “Get on with it, Commissioner.”

“All right. I’ll get on with it. This is the last time you embarrass this shop. If it happens one more time… if I have to go to bat for you one more time…” There is no need to finish the sentence.

LaPointe draws his gaze back to the Commissioner’s face. He sighs and rises. “Is that all you wanted to talk to me about?”