Almost immediately the door is snatched open by a slovenly woman who pushes back a lock of lank gray hair and snaps, “Hey! What the hell’s wrong with you? You want to break down the door?” Her lower lip is swollen and cracked where someone hit her recently.

“Police,” LaPointe says, not bothering to show identification.

She looks from LaPointe to Guttmann quickly, then stands back from the doorway. They enter a hall that smells of Lysol and boiled cabbage. The woman’s attitude has changed from anger to tense uncertainty. “What do you want?” she asks, touching two fingers gingerly to the split lip.

The tentative tone of the question gives LaPointe his cue. She’s frightened about something. He doesn’t know what it is, and he doesn’t care, but he’ll push it a little to give her a scare and make her cooperative. “Routine questions,” he says. “But not here in the hall.”

She shrugs and enters her apartment, not inviting them to come in, but leaving the door open behind her. LaPointe follows and looks around as Guttmann, a little nervous, smiles politely and closes the door behind him. Without a warrant, you’re supposed to await an invitation before entering a home.

The small room is crowded with junk furniture, and hot from an oversized electric heater she uses because it doesn’t cost her anything. It just goes on the landlord’s monthly bill. She keeps the place too hot because otherwise she’d feel she was losing money. LaPointe knows her type, knows how to handle her. He unbuttons his overcoat and turns to the woman just as she is glancing nervously out the window. She is expecting someone; someone she hopes will not come while the police are there. She adjusts the curtain, as though that is why she went to the window in the first place. “What do you want?” she asks sullenly.

For a moment, LaPointe does not answer. He looks levelly at her, draws a deep, bored breath and says, “You know perfectly well. I don’t have time to play games with you.”

Guttmann glances at him, confused.

“Look,” the woman says. “Arnaud doesn’t live here anymore. I don’t know where he is. He moved out a month ago, the lazy son of a bitch.”

“That’s your story,” LaPointe says, tossing a pillow out of the only comfortable chair and sitting down.

“It’s the truth! Do you think I’d lie for him?” She touches her split lip. “The bastard gave me this!”

LaPointe glances at the fresh bruise. “A month ago?”

“Yes… no. I met him on the street yesterday.”

“And he said good morning, and hit you in the mouth?”

The woman shrugs and turns away.

LaPointe watches her in silence.

She glances quickly toward the window, but does not dare to go and look out.

LaPointe sighs aloud. “Come on. I don’t have all day.”

For another minute, she remains tight-lipped. Then she gives in, shrugging, then letting her shoulders drop heavily. “Look, officer. The TV was a present. It doesn’t even work good. He gave it to me, like he gave me this fat lip, and once the clap, the no-good bastard!”

So that’s it. LaPointe turns to Guttmann, who is still hovering near the door. “Take down the serial number of the TV.”

The young man squats behind the set and tries to find the number. He doesn’t know why in hell he is doing this, and he feels like an ass.

“You know what it means if the set turns out to be stolen?” LaPointe asks the woman.

“If Arnaud stole it, that’s his ass. I don’t know anything about it”

LaPointe laughs. “Oh, the judge is sure to believe that.” That’s enough, LaPointe thinks. She’s scared and ready to cooperate now. “Sit down. Let’s forget the TV for now. I want to know about one of your roomers. Tony Green.”

Confused by the change of topic, but relieved to have the questioning veer away from herself, the concierge instantly becomes confidential and friendly. ‘Tony Green? Honest, officer—”

“Lieutenant.” It always surprises LaPointe to find people on the Main who don’t know of him.

“Honest, Lieutenant, there’s no one by that name staying here. Of course, they don’t always give their right names.”

“Good-looking kid. Young. Mid-twenties. Probably Italian. Stayed out all night last night.”

“Oh! Verdini!” She makes a wide gesture and her lips flap with a puff of breath. “It’s nothing when he stays out all night! It’s women with him. He’s all the time after it. Chases every plotte and guidoune on the street. Sometimes they even come here looking for him. Sometimes he has them in his room, even though it’s against the rules. Once there were two of them up there at the same time! The neighbors complained about all the grunting and groaning.” She laughs and winks. “His thing is always up. He wears those tight pants, and I can always see it bulging there. What’s wrong? What’s he done? Is he in trouble?”

“Give me the names of the women who came here.”

She shrugs contemptuously and tucks down the corners of her mouth. The gesture opens the crack in her lip, and she licks it to keep it from stinging. “I couldn’t be bothered trying to remember them. They were all sorts. Young, old, fat, skinny. A couple no more than kids. He’s a real sauteux de clôtures. He puts it into all kinds.”

“And you?”

“Oh, a couple of times we passed on the stairs and he ran his hand up under my dress. But it never went further. I think he was afraid of—”

“Afraid of this Arnaud you haven’t seen in a month?”

She shrugs, annoyed with herself at her slip.

“All right. How long has this Verdini lived here?”

“Two months maybe. I can look at the rent book if you want.”

“Not now. Give me the names of the women who came here.”

“Like I told you, I don’t know most of them. Just stuff dragged in off the street.”

“But you recognized some of them.”

She looks away uncomfortably. “I don’t want to get anybody into trouble.”

“I see.” LaPointe sits back and makes himself comfortable. “You know, I have a feeling that if I wait here for half an hour, I may be lucky enough to meet your Arnaud. It’ll be a touching scene, you two getting together after a month. He’ll think I waited around because you told me about the TV. That will make him angry, but I’m sure he’s the understanding type.” LaPointe’s expressionless eyes settle on the concierge.

For a time she is silent as she meditatively torments her cracked lip with the tip of her finger. At last she says, “I think I recognized three of them.”

LaPointe nods to Guttmann, who opens his notebook.

The concierge gives the name of a French Canadian chippy whom LaPointe knows. She doesn’t know the name of the second woman, but she gives the address of a Portuguese family that lives around the corner.

“And the third?” LaPointe asks.

“I don’t know her name either. It’s that woman who runs the cheap restaurant just past Rue de Bullion. The place that—”

“I know the place. You’re telling me that she came here?”

“Once, yes. Not to get herself stuffed, of course. After all, she’s a butch.”

Yes, LaPointe knows that. That is why he was surprised.

“They had a fight,” the concierge continues. “You could hear her bellowing all the way down here. Then she slammed out of the place.”

“And you don’t know any of the other people who visited this Verdini?”

“No. Just plottes. Oh… and his cousin, of course.”

“His cousin?”

“Yes. The guy who rented the room in the first place. Verdini didn’t speak much English and almost no French at all. His cousin rented the room for him.”

“Let’s hear about this cousin.”

“I don’t remember his name. I think he mentioned it, but I don’t remember. He gave me an address too, in case there were any problems. Like I said, this Verdini didn’t speak much English.” She is growing more tense. Time is running out against Arnaud’s return.

“What was the address?”