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him to say something. He knew they should have questioned the men.

Without comment, Charbonneau turned his back and focused on the pair. Claudel and I stood and listened. The joual was rapid as gunfire, the vowels so stretched and the endings so truncated, I caught little of the exchange. But the gestures and signals were clear as a headline. Suspenders said he lived down the block. Spaghetti legs disagreed.

At length Charbonneau turned back to us. He tipped his head in the direction of the car, gesturing Claudel and me to follow. As we crossed the street, I could feel two sets of rheumy eyes burning the back of my neck.

10

LEANING ON THE CHEVY, CHARBONNEAU SHOOK FREE A CIGARETTE and lit it. His body looked as tense as an unsprung trap. For a moment he was quiet, seeming to sort through what the old men had said. Finally he spoke, his mouth a straight line, his lips hardly moving.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Click and clack look like they spend a lot of time here,” I offered. Inside my T-shirt, a rivulet of sweat ran down my back.

“Could be a pair of real head cases,” said Claudel.

“Or it could be they’ve actually seen the prick-ass,” said Charbonneau. He inhaled deeply then flicked at the cigarette with his middle finger.

“They weren’t exactly star witnesses on details,” said Claudel.

“Yeah,” said Charbonneau, “but we all agreed. The guy ain’t much to remember. And mutants like him usually keep a pretty low profile.”

“And grandpa number two seemed pretty sure,” I added.

Claudel snorted. “Those two may not be sure of anything but the wine shop and the blood bank. Probably the only two landmarks they can map.”

Charbonneau took one last drag, dropped the butt, and ground it with his toe. “It could be nothing, or it could be he’s in there. Me, I don’t want to guess wrong. I say we take a look, bust his ass if we find him.”

I observed yet another of Claudel’s shrugs. “Okay. But I’m not about to get my bacon fried. I’ll call for backup.”

He flicked his eyes to me and back to Charbonneau, brows raised.

“She don’t bother me,” Charbonneau said.

Shaking his head, Claudel rounded the car and slid in on the passenger side. Through the windshield I could see him reach for his handset.

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