Black Rock by John McFetridge Page B

wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t on duty but he was working, so he didn’t think he should have a beer but Carpentier was, so he just ordered the same thing.
    When the beers came Carpentier lit a cigarette and said, “So,
un maudit anglais, une tête carrée
, why would you join the police force?”
    Dougherty took a drink of Fifty while he thought about what to say to that, and Carpentier said, “Actually, you do have a square head.”
    â€œSo, I’ve heard.”
    Carpentier laughed and Dougherty said, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
    â€œAll your friends growing their hair long and marching in protests and it looked like a good idea to become a cop?”
    â€œNot my friends.”
    â€œIn the Point?”
    â€œWe moved out of the Point,” Dougherty said. “My parents bought a house on the South Shore, Greenfield Park, but I didn’t make many friends there. I only had one year of school left and I finished it at Verdun High and then I wasn’t sure what to do.”
    â€œWhere does your father work?”
    Dougherty looked at Carpentier and thought the detective and his father were about the same age, close to fifty. “He works for the phone company, so does my mom. The Bell, they call it.”
    â€œYou didn’t want to do that?”
    â€œMy dad went to work there after the war. Well, a little before the war and then he went back after. It seemed like a good thing to do after the war, but now …”
    â€œIf we were in America you’d be in Vietnam.”
    â€œI guess.”
    He felt Carpentier looking at him and he didn’t know what to say.
    The waiter, a fussy little guy of course, arrived with two plates of roast beef and mashed potatoes covered in gravy and a pile of peas. He put the plates down without really stopping and was gone.
    Then Carpentier said, “Well, that’s a different war, isn’t it, not the same at all.”
    â€œWere you in?”
    â€œThe air force,” he said, taking a bite of roast beef. “But the war was almost over when I turned eighteen; I never went overseas.”
    Dougherty nodded and took a bite himself, surprised at how good it was. Then he said, “My dad joined the Legion but said it was full of guys who never got any further than Longueil, and he stopped going.”
    Carpentier nodded and said, “Your father went?”
    â€œServed on corvettes, spent the whole war in the North Atlantic.”
    â€œDoes he tell you much about it?”
    Dougherty had a mouth full of mashed potatoes and he swallowed and said, “No, not really.”
    Carpentier picked up his beer. “You ever have a few of these with him?” He looked around the tavern and said, “In a place like this?”
    â€œHe might be here tomorrow,” Dougherty said, “if he’s working in the area.”
    Carpentier took a long drink, finished off the beer and said, “Okay, so Brenda Webber was probably meeting her friends to drink beer and smoke dope. Where do you think she got the dope?”
    â€œIf she bought the beer,” Dougherty said, “maybe one of the other girls bought the dope.”
    â€œYes, maybe.” Carpentier motioned a little for the waiter. Dougherty barely noticed it and a minute later the little guy was at the table with two more beers and then gone again.
    Carpentier said, “Maybe the man at the store knows who’s selling the dope.”
    â€œOr maybe Buck-Buck knows.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œDanny Buckley. He was at Nap’s the other day and he was coming out of Boss’s when we went in. He got in a car with Frank Higgins.”
    â€œOne of the Higgins brothers?”
    â€œYeah. I’m not surprised Buck-Buck’s working for him, was just a matter of time.”
    â€œI remember the father, Michael Higgins,” Carpentier said, setting down his almost-empty glass, “when he worked at