“Well… he wasn’t young. Anyway, he brought me to his apartment. He came in his pants while he was feeling me up. But he paid anyway.”

“That was good of him.”

“Yeah,” she agrees with a frankness that undercuts his irony. “It was sort of good of him, wasn’t it? I didn’t know that at the time, because I hadn’t been around, and I thought everyone was like him. Nice, you know. He let me stay the night; and the next morning he bought me breakfast. Most of the others weren’t like that. They try to cheat you out of your money. Or they say you can spend the night, but when they’ve had all they want, they kick you out. And if you make a fuss, sometimes they try to beat you up. Some of them really get a kick out of beating you up.” She touches her eye with her fingertips. The swelling is gone, but a faint green stain remains. “You know what you have to do?” she confides seriously. “You have to get your money before he starts. A girl I went around with for a while told me that. And she was right.”

“That was how long ago? When this old man picked you up?”

She thinks back. “Six weeks. Two months, maybe.”

“And since then you’ve been getting along by selling yourself?”

She grins. That sounds even funnier than making love. “It’s not so bad, you know? Guys take me to bars and I eat in restaurants. And I go dancing.” She tucks her short leg up under her. “You might not think it, but I can dance real well. It’s funny, but I can dance better than I can walk, you know what I mean? I like dancing more than anything. Do you dance?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know how.”

She laughs. “Everyone knows how! There’s nothing to know. You just sort of… you know… move.”

“It sounds like you had nothing but fun on the streets.”

“You say that like you don’t believe it. But it’s true. Most of the time I had fun. Except when they got rough. Or when they wanted me to do… funny things. I don’t know why, but I’m just not ready for that. The thought makes me gag, you know? Hey, what’s wrong?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“Does it bother you when I talk about it?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“Some guys like it. I mean, they like you to talk about it. It gets them going.”

“Forget it!”

She ducks involuntarily and lifts her arms as though to fend off a slap. Her father used to slap her. When the adrenalin of sudden fright drains off, it is followed by offense and anger. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” she demands.

He takes a deep breath. “Nothing. I’m sorry. It’s just…”

Her voice is stiff with petulance. “Well, Jesus Christ, you’d think a cop would be used to that sort of thing.”

“Yes, of course, but…” He rolls his hand. ‘Tell me. How old are you?”

She readjusts herself on the sofa, but she doesn’t relax. “Twenty-two. And you?”

“Fifty-two. No, three.” He wants to return to the calm of their earlier conversation, so he explains unnecessarily, “I just had a birthday last month, but I always forget about it.”

She cannot imagine anyone forgetting a birthday, but she supposes it’s different when you’re old. He is acting nice again. Her instinct tells her that he is genuinely sorry for frightening her. This would be the time to take advantage of his regret and make some arrangements.

“Can I stay here again tonight?”

“Of course. You can stay longer, if you want.”

Push it now. “How much longer?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. How long do you want to stay?”

“Would we… make love?” She cannot help saying these last words with a comic, melodramatic tone.

He doesn’t answer.

“Don’t you like women?”

He smiles. “No, it isn’t that.”

“Well, why do you want me to stay, if you don’t want to sleep with me?”

LaPointe looks down at the park, where a tracery of black branches intersects the yellow globes of the streetlamps. This Marie-Louise is the same age as Lucille—the Lucille of his memory—and she speaks with the same downriver accent. And she wears the same robe. But she is younger than the daughters he daydreams about, the daughters who are sometimes still little girls, but more often grown women with children of their own. Come to think of it, the daughters of his daydreams are sometimes older than Lucille. Lucille never ages, always looks the same. It never before occurred to him that the daughters are older than their mother. That’s crazy.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll look around and see if I can find you a job.”

“In a cocktail bar?”

“I can’t promise that. Maybe as a waitress in a restaurant.”

She wrinkles her nose. That doesn’t appeal to her at all. She has seen lots of waitresses, running around and being shouted at during rush times, or standing, tired and bored, and staring out of windows when the place is empty. And the uniforms always look frumpy. If it weren’t for this damned pig weather, and if the men never tried to beat you up, she’d rather go on like she is than be a waitress.

“I’ll try to find you a job,” he says. “Meanwhile you can stay here, if you want.”

“And we’ll sleep together?” She wants to get the conditions straight at the beginning. It is something like making sure you get your money in advance.

He turns from the window and settles his eyes on her. “Do you really want to?”

She shrugs a “why not?” Then she discovers a loose thread on the sleeve of the dressing gown. She tries to break it off.

He clears his throat and rubs his cheek with his knuckles. “I need a shave.” He rises. “Would you like another coffee before we go to bed?”

She looks up at him through her mop of hair, the errant thread between her teeth. “Okay,” she says, nipping off the thread and spitting out the bit.

He is shaving when the phone rings.

He has to wipe the lather from his cheek before putting the receiver to his ear. “LaPointe.”

Guttmann’s voice sounds tired. “I just got down here.”

“Down where?”

“The Quartier Général. They called me at my apartment. They’ve picked up your Sinclair, and he’s giving them one hell of a time.”

“Sinclair?”

“Joseph Michael Sinclair. That’s the real name of your bum, the Vet. He’s in a bad way. Raving. Screaming. They’re talking about giving him a sedative, but I told them to hold off in case you wanted to question him tonight.”

“No, not tonight. Tomorrow will do.”

“I don’t know, sir…”

“Of course you don’t know. That’s part of being a Joan.”

“What I was going to say was, this guy’s a real case. It’s taking two men to hold him down. He keeps screaming that he can’t go into a cell. Something about being a claustrophobic.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

“Just thought you ought to know.”

LaPointe’s shoulders slump, and he lets out a long nasal sigh. “All right. You talk to the Vet. Tell him nobody’s going to lock him up. Tell him I’ll be down in a little while. He knows me.”

“Yes, sir. Oh, and sir? Terribly sorry to disturb you at home.”

What? Sarcasm from a Joan? LaPointe grunts and hangs up.

Marie-Louise is mending the paisley granny dress she was wearing when he found her in the park. She looks up questioningly when he enters the living room.

“I have to go downtown. What are you smiling at?”

“You’ve got soap on one side of your face.”

“Oh.” He wipes it off.

As he tugs on his overcoat, he remembers the coffee water steaming away on the stove. “Shall I make you a cup before I go?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t really like coffee all that much.”

“Why do you always drink it then?”

She shrugs. She doesn’t know. She takes what’s offered.