All right, we’d follow her script. She’d have to calm down and tell me in her own way. But tell me she would.
“Home?” I asked.
She nodded, never taking her face from her hands. I started the car and headed for Carré St. Louis. When I arrived at her building she still hadn’t spoken. Though her breathing had steadied, her hands still shook. They had resumed their clasping and unclasping, clutching each other, separating, then linking once again in an odd dance of panic. The choreography of terror.
I put the car in park and killed the engine, dreading the encounter that was to come. I’d counseled Gabby through calamities of health, parental conflict, academics, faith, self-esteem, and love. I’d always found it draining. Invariably, the next time I’d see her, she’d be cheerful and unruffled, the catastrophe forgotten. It wasn’t that I was unsympathetic, but I’d been down this route with Gabby many times before. I remembered the pregnancy that wasn’t. The stolen wallet that turned up beneath the couch cushions. Nevertheless, the intensity of her reaction disturbed me. Much as I longed for solitude, she didn’t look as if she should be alone.
“Would you like to stay with me tonight?”
She didn’t answer. Across the square an old man arranged a bundle under his head and settled onto a bench for the night.
The silence stretched for so long I thought she hadn’t heard. I turned, about to repeat the invitation, and found she was staring intently in my direction. The jittery movements of a moment ago had been replaced by absolute stillness. Her spine was rigid, and her upper body angled forward, barely touching the seat back. One hand lay in her lap, the other was curled into a fist pressed tightly to her lips. Her eyes squinted, the lower lids quivering almost imperceptibly. She seemed to be weighing something in her mind, considering variables and calculating outcomes. The sudden mood swing was unnerving.
“You must think I’m crazy.” She was totally calm, her voice low and modulated.
“I’m confused.” I didn’t say what I really thought.
“Yeah. That’s a kind way to put it.”
She said it with a self-deprecating laugh, slowly shaking her head. The dreadlocks flopped.
“I guess I really freaked back there.”
I waited for her to go on. A car door slammed. The low, melancholy voice of a sax floated from the park. An ambulance whined in the distance. Summer in the city.
In the dark, I felt, more than saw, Gabby’s focus alter. It was as if she’d taken a road up to me, then veered off at the last minute. Like a lens on automatic, her eyes readjusted to something beyond me, and she seemed to seal herself off again. She was having another session with herself, running through her options, deciding what face to wear.
“I’ll be okay,” she said, gathering her briefcase and bag, and reaching for the handle. “I really appreciate your coming for me.”
She’d decided on evasive.
Maybe it was fatigue, maybe it was the stress of the last few days. Whatever. I lost it.
“Wait just a minute!” I exploded. “I want to know what’s going on! An hour ago you were talking about someone wanting to kill you! You come sprinting out of that restaurant and across the street, shaking and gasping like the goddamn Night Stalker’s on your tail! You can’t breathe, your hands are jerking like they’re wired for high voltage, and now you’re just going to sail out of here with a ‘Thank you very much for the ride,’ without any explanation?”
I’d never been so furious with her. My voice had risen, and my breath was coming in short gulps. I could feel a tiny throbbing in my left temple.
The force of my anger froze her in place. Her eyes went round and cavernous, like those of a doe caught in high beams. A car passed and her face flickered white then red, amplifying the image.
She held a moment, a catatonic cutout rigid against the summer sky. Then, as if a valve had been released, the tension seemed to drain from her body. She let go of the handle, lowered her briefcase, and settled back into the seat. Again, she turned inward, reconsidering. Perhaps she was deciding where to begin; perhaps she was scouting alternative escape routes. I waited.
At length, she took a deep breath and her shoulders straightened slightly. She’d settled on a course. As soon as she spoke I knew what she’d determined to do. She would let me in, but only so far. She chose her words carefully, threading a guarded path through the emotional quagmire in her mind. I leaned against the door and braced myself.
“I’ve been working with some—unusual—people lately.”
I thought that an understatement, but didn’t say so.
“No, no. I know that sounds banal. I don’t mean the usual street people. I can handle that.”
Her choice of words was tortuous.
“If you know the players, learn the rules and the lingo, you’re fine down there. It’s like anywhere else. You’ve got to observe the local etiquette and not piss people off. It’s pretty simple: Don’t trespass on someone’s else’s patch, don’t screw up a trick, don’t talk to the cops. Except for the hours, it’s not hard to work down there. Besides, the girls know me now. They know I’m no threat.”
She went mute. I couldn’t tell if she was closing me out again, or if she’d gone back to the shelves to continue her sorting. I decided to nudge.
“Is one of them threatening you?”
Ethics had always been important to Gabby, and I suspected she was trying to shield an informant.
“The girls? No. No. They’re fine. They’re never a problem. I think they kind of like my company. I can be as raunchy as any of them.”
Great. We know what the problem isn’t. I prodded some more.
“How do you avoid being mistaken for one of them?”
“Oh, I don’t try. I just sort of blend in. Otherwise I’d be defeating my own purpose. The girls know I don’t turn tricks, so they just, I don’t know, go along with it.”
I didn’t ask the obvious.
“If a guy hassles me, I just say I’m not working right then. Most of them move on.”
There was another pause as she continued her mental triage, considering what to tell me, what to keep to herself, and what to scoop into a heap, not tendered, but accessible if probed. She fumbled with a tassle on her briefcase. A dog barked in the square. I was sure she was protecting someone, or something, but this time I didn’t goad her.
“Most of them,” she continued, “except this one guy lately.”
Pause.
“Who is he?”
Pause.
“I don’t know, but he has me really creeped out. He’s not a john, exactly, but he likes to hang out with prostitutes. I don’t think the girls pay much attention to him. But he knows a lot about the street, and he’s been willing to talk to me, so I’ve been interviewing him.”
Pause.
“Lately, he’s begun following me. I didn’t realize it at first, but I’ve started noticing him in odd places. He’ll be at the Métro when I come home at night, or here, in the square. Once I saw him at Concordia, outside the library building where I have my office. Or I’ll see him behind me, on a sidewalk, walking in the same direction I am. Last week I was on St. Laurent when I spotted him. I wanted to convince myself it was my imagination, so I tested him. If I slowed down, so did he. If I speeded up, he did the same thing. I tried to shake him by going into a patisserie. When I came out, he was across the street, pretending to window shop.”
“You’re sure it’s always the same guy?”
“Absolutely.”
There was a long, laden silence. I waited it out.
“That’s not all.”
She stared at her hands, which, once again, had found each other. They were tightly clenched.
“Recently he’s started talking some really weird shit. I’ve tried to avoid him, but tonight he showed up at the restaurant. Lately it’s like he’s equipped with radar. Anyway, he got off on the same stuff, asking me all kinds of sick questions.”
She went back insi
de her head. After a moment she turned to me, as if she’d found an answer there she hadn’t seen before. Her voice was tinged with mild surprise.
“It’s his eyes, Tempe. His eyes are so weird! They’re black and hard, like a viper, and the whites are all pink and flecked with blood. I don’t know if he’s sick, or if he’s hung over all the time, or what. I’ve never seen eyes like that. They make you want to crawl under something and hide. Tempe, I just freaked! I guess I’ve been thinking about our last conversation, and this shitfreak you’re cleaning up after, and my mind took the first bus outa there.”
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t read her face in the darkness, but her body spoke the language of fear. Her torso was rigid and her arms were drawn in, pressing the briefcase to her chest, as if for protection.
“What else do you know about this guy?”
“Not much.”
“What do the girls think about him?”
“They ignore him.”
“Has he ever been threatening?”
“No. Not directly.”
“Has he ever been violent or out of control?”
“No.”
“Is he into drugs?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know who he is or where he lives?”
“No. There are some things we don’t ask. It’s an unspoken rule, sort of a tacit agreement down here.”
Again there was a long silence while we both weighed what she’d said. I watched a cyclist pass along the sidewalk, pedaling with unhurried strokes. His helmet seemed to pulsate, blinking on as he passed beneath a streetlamp, then off as he moved back into darkness. He crossed my field of vision then disappeared slowly into the night, a firefly signaling his passage. On. Off. On. Off.
I thought about what she’d said, wondering if I was to blame. Had I set her fears in motion by talking about my own, or had she actually encountered a psychopath? Was she amplifying a set of harmless coincidences, or was she truly in jeopardy? Should I let things ride for a while? Should I do something? Was this a police matter? I was running through my old, practiced loop.
We sat for some time, listening to the sounds of the park and smelling the soft summer night, each of us drifting alone in separate reflections. The quiet interlude had a calming effect. Eventually Gabby shook her head, dropped the briefcase to her lap, and leaned back in the seat. Though her features were obscured, the change in her was visible. When she spoke, her voice was stronger, less shaky.
“I know I’m overreacting. He’s just some harmless weirdo who wants to rattle my cage. And I’m playing into his game. I’m letting this fuckhead grab my mind and shake me.”
“Don’t you run across a lot of ‘weirdos,’ as you call him?”
“Yeah. Most of my informants aren’t exactly the Brooks Brothers crowd.” She gave a short, mirthless laugh.
“What makes you think this guy may be different?
She thought about it, worrying a thumbnail with her teeth.
“Ah, it’s hard to put into words. There’s just a—a line that divides the crackpots from the real predators. It’s hard to define, but ya know when it’s been crossed. Maybe it’s an instinct I’ve picked up down there. In the business, if a woman feels threatened by someone, she won’t go with him. Each one has her own little triggering devices, but they all draw that line on something. Could be eyes, could be some odd request. Hélène won’t go with anyone who wears cowboy boots.”
She took another time-out to debate with herself.
“I think I just got carried away by all the talk about serial killers and sexual devos.”
More introspection. I tried to steal a look at my watch.
“All this guy is trying to do is shock me.”
Another pause. She was talking herself down.
“What an asshole.”
Or up. Her voice was growing angrier by the minute.
“Goddammit, Tempe, I’m not going to let this turd get his rocks off sniveling trash and showing me his sick pictures. I’m going to tell him to blow it out his ass.”
She turned and put her hand on mine.
“I’m so sorry I dragged you down here tonight. I am such a jerk! Will ya forgive me?”
I stared mutely at her. Again, her emotional U-turn had taken me by surprise. How could she be terrified, analytical, angry, then apologetic all within the space of thirty minutes? I was too tired, and it was too late at night to sort it out.
“Gabby, it’s late. Let’s talk about this tomorrow. Of course I’m not mad. I’m just glad you’re all right. I meant it about staying at my place. You’re always welcome.”
She leaned over and hugged me. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine. I’ll call ya. I promise.”
I watched her climb the stairs, her skirt floating like mist around her. In an instant she disappeared through the purple doorway, leaving the space between us empty and undisturbed. I sat alone, surrounded by the dark and the faint scent of sandalwood. Though nothing stirred, a momentary chill gripped my heart. Like a shadow, it flickered and was gone.
All the way home my mind was at warp speed. Was Gabby constructing another melodrama? Was she genuinely in danger? Were there things she wasn’t telling me? Could this man be truly dangerous? Was she nurturing the seeds of paranoia planted by my talk of murder? Should I tell the police?
I refused to allow my concern for Gabby’s safety to overpower me. When I got home, I resorted to a childhood ritual that works when I’m tense or overwrought: I ran a hot bath and filled it with herbal salts. I put a Chris Rea CD on full volume, and, as I soaked, he sang to me of the road to hell. The neighbors would have to survive. After my bath, I tried Katy’s number, but, once again, got her machine. Then I shared milk and cookies with Birdie, who preferred the milk, left the dishes on the counter, and crawled into bed.
My anxiety was not completely dissipated. Sleep didn’t come easily, and I lay in bed for some time, watching the shadows on the ceiling, and fighting the impulse to call Pete. I hated myself for needing him at such times, for craving his strength whenever I felt upset. It was one ritual I’d vowed to break.
Eventually sleep took me down like a whirlpool, swirling all thoughts of Pete, and Katy, and Gabby, and the murders from my consciousness. It was a good thing. It’s what got me through the following day.
ISLEPT SOUNDLY UNTIL NINE-FIFTEEN THE NEXT MORNING. I’M NOT usually a napper, but it was Friday, June 24, St. Jean Baptiste Day, La Fête Nationale du Québec, and I was encouraging the holiday languor allowed on such days. Since the feast of St. John the Baptist is the principal holiday for the province, almost everything is closed. There would be no Gazette at my door that morning, so I made coffee, then walked to the corner in search of an alternative paper.
The day was bright and vivid, the world displayed on active matrix. Objects and their shadows stood out in sharp detail, the colors of brick and wood, metal and paint, grass and flowers screaming out their separate places on the spectrum. The sky was dazzling and absolutely intolerant of clouds, reminding me of the robin’s egg blue on the holy cards of my childhood, the same outrageous blue. I was certain St. Jean would have approved.
The morning air felt warm and soft, perfect with the smell of window box petunias. The temperature had climbed gradually but persistently over the past week, with each day’s high surpassing its predecessor. Today’s forecast: thirty-two degrees Celsius. I did a quick conversion: about eighty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. Since Montreal is built on an island, the surrounding moat of the St. Lawrence ensures constant humidity. Yahoo! It would be a Carolina day: hot and humid. Bred in the South, I love it.
I purchased Le Journal de Montréal. The “number one daily French paper in America” was not as fastidious about taking the day off as the English language Gazette. As I walked the half block back to my condo, I glanced at the front page. The headline was written in three-inch letters the color of the sky: BONNE FÊTE QUÉBEC!
I thought about the parade and the concerts
to follow at Parc Maisonneuve, about the sweat and the beer that would flow, and about the political rift that divided the people of Quebec. With a fall election due, passions were high, and those pushing for separation were hoping fervently that this would be the year. T-shirts and placards already clamored: L’an prochain mon pays! Next year my own country! I hoped the day would not be marred by violence.
Arriving home, I poured myself a coffee, mixed a bowl of Müeslix, and spread the paper on the dining room table. I am a news junkie. While I can go several days without a newspaper, contenting myself with a regular series of eleven o’clock TV fixes, before long I have to have the written word. When traveling, I locate CNN first, then unpack. I make it through the hectic days of the work week, distracted by the demands of teaching or casework, soothed by the familiar voices of “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” knowing that on the weekend I will catch up.
I cannot drink, loathe cigarette smoke, and was logging a lean year for sex, so Saturday mornings I reveled in journalistic orgies, allowing myself hours to devour the tiniest minutiae. It isn’t that there’s anything new in the news. There isn’t. I know that. It’s like balls in a Bingo hopper. The same events keep coming up over and over. Earthquake. Coup d’état. Trade war. Hostage taking. My compulsion is to know which balls are up on any given day.
Le Journal is committed to the format of short stories and abundant pictures. Though not The Christian Science Monitor, it would do. Birdie knew the routine, and hoisted himself onto the adjacent chair. I’m never sure if he’s attracted by my company, or by hopes of Müeslix leavings. He arched his back, settled with all four feet drawn primly in, and fixed his round yellow eyes on me, as if seeking the answer to some profound feline mystery. As I read, I could feel his gaze on the side of my face.
I found it on page two, between a story about a strangled priest and coverage of World Cup soccer.
VICTIM FOUND MURDERED AND MUTILATED
A twenty-four-year-old woman was found murdered and savagely disfigured in her east end home yesterday afternoon. The victim, identified as Margaret Adkins, was a homemaker and the mother of a six-year-old son. Mme. Adkins was last known to be alive at 10 A.M., when she spoke by phone to her husband. Her brutally beaten and mutilated body was discovered by her sister around noon.