imitation.
“He’s over there!” I screamed, pointing in the opposite direction. “I saw him.”
A man in a Tweedledee costume brushed past me. He was eating a snow cone, and the drops from the melt-off were painting a red trail down his belly. It looked like a blood-spatter pattern.
Claudel’s brows dived in the midline. “You are going to the car,” he said.
“I saw him on Ste. Catherine!” I repeated, thinking perhaps he hadn’t heard. “Outside Les Foufounes Électriques! He was going toward St. Laurent!” Even to me, my voice was sounding a bit hysterical.
It got his attention. He hesitated a second, assessing the damage to my cheek and limbs.
“You’re okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You will go to the car?”
“Yes!” He turned to go. “Wait.” One by one I lifted my trembling legs over a rusted metal cable that looped knee-high around the edge of the lot, crossed to another cement block, and stepped onto it. I scanned the sea of heads, looking for the orange baseball cap. Nothing. Claudel watched impatiently as I surveyed the crowd, shifting his eyes from me to the intersection then back again. He reminded me of a sled dog waiting for the gun.
Finally, I shook my head and raised my hands.
“Go. I’ll keep looking.”
Skirting the open lot, he began elbowing his way in the direction I’d indicated. The mob on Ste. Catherine was bigger than ever, and, in a few minutes, I watched his head disappear into it. The swarm seemed to absorb him, like an army of antibodies seeking out and surrounding a foreign protein. One moment he was an individual, the next a dot in the pattern.
I searched until my vision blurred, but hard as I tried I couldn’t locate Charbonneau or St. Jacques. Beyond St. Urbain, I could see a squad car nibbling its way into the edge of the crowd, its lights flashing red and blue. The revelers ignored its whining insistence on right of way. Once I caught a flash of orange, but it turned out to be a tiger wearing tails and high-top sneakers. Moments later she passed closer, carrying her costume head and drinking a Dr Pepper.
The sun was burning, and my head pounded. I could feel a crust hardening on my abraded cheek. I kept scanning and rescanning, sweeping the crowd. I refused to quit until Charbonneau and Claudel returned. But I knew it was farce. St. Jean and the day had smiled on our quarry, and he had escaped.
An hour later we were gathered around the car. Both detectives had removed their jackets and ties and tossed them in the backseat. Beads of sweat glistened on their faces and flowed into their collars. Their underarms and backs were saturated, and Charbonneau’s face was the color of a raspberry tart. His hair stood on end in front, reminding me of a schnauzer with a bad clip. My T-shirt hung limp, and my spandex workout pants felt as if I’d put them on straight from the washer. Our breathing had slowed to normal, and “fuck” had been said at least a dozen times, with everyone contributing.
“Merde,” said Claudel. It was an acceptable alternative.
Charbonneau leaned into the car and extracted a pack of Players from his jacket pocket. He slumped against a fender, lit up, and blew the smoke out the corner of his mouth.
“Bastard can cut a crowd like a cockroach through shit.”
“He knows his way around here,” I said, resisting the urge to explore the damage to my cheek. “That helps him.”
He smoked for a moment.
“Think it was our guy from the cash machine?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t get a look at his face.”
Claudel snorted, then pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and began wiping the perspiration from the back of his neck.
I locked my one good eye on him. “Were you able to ID him?”
Another snort.
I looked at him shaking his head, and my plan of zero commentary evaporated.
“You’re treating me like I’m not quite bright, Monsieur Claudel, and you’re starting to piss me off.”
He gave another in his series of smirks.
“How’s your face feel?” he asked.
“Peachy!” I shot back between clenched teeth. “At my age free dermabrasion is a bonus.”
“Next time you decide to go on a wild-assed crime fighting spree, don’t expect me to scrape you up.”
“Next time do a better job of controlling an arrest scene and I won’t have to.” The blood was pounding in my temples, and my hands were clenched so tightly the nails were digging small crescents into the flesh of my