wasnât sure what to do. He wasnât on duty but he was working, so he didnât 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, âSo,
un maudit anglais, une tête carrée
, why would you join the police force?â
Dougherty took a drink of Fifty while he thought about what to say to that, and Carpentier said, âActually, you do have a square head.â
âSo, Iâve heard.â
Carpentier laughed and Dougherty said, âIt seemed like a good idea at the time.â
âAll your friends growing their hair long and marching in protests and it looked like a good idea to become a cop?â
âNot my friends.â
âIn the Point?â
âWe moved out of the Point,â Dougherty said. âMy parents bought a house on the South Shore, Greenfield Park, but I didnât make many friends there. I only had one year of school left and I finished it at Verdun High and then I wasnât sure what to do.â
âWhere does your father work?â
Dougherty looked at Carpentier and thought the detective and his father were about the same age, close to fifty. âHe works for the phone company, so does my mom. The Bell, they call it.â
âYou didnât want to do that?â
âMy 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¦â
âIf we were in America youâd be in Vietnam.â
âI guess.â
He felt Carpentier looking at him and he didnât 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, âWell, thatâs a different war, isnât it, not the same at all.â
âWere you in?â
âThe air force,â he said, taking a bite of roast beef. âBut the war was almost over when I turned eighteen; I never went overseas.â
Dougherty nodded and took a bite himself, surprised at how good it was. Then he said, âMy dad joined the Legion but said it was full of guys who never got any further than Longueil, and he stopped going.â
Carpentier nodded and said, âYour father went?â
âServed on corvettes, spent the whole war in the North Atlantic.â
âDoes he tell you much about it?â
Dougherty had a mouth full of mashed potatoes and he swallowed and said, âNo, not really.â
Carpentier picked up his beer. âYou ever have a few of these with him?â He looked around the tavern and said, âIn a place like this?â
âHe might be here tomorrow,â Dougherty said, âif heâs working in the area.â
Carpentier took a long drink, finished off the beer and said, âOkay, so Brenda Webber was probably meeting her friends to drink beer and smoke dope. Where do you think she got the dope?â
âIf she bought the beer,â Dougherty said, âmaybe one of the other girls bought the dope.â
âYes, maybe.â 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, âMaybe the man at the store knows whoâs selling the dope.â
âOr maybe Buck-Buck knows.â
âWho?â
âDanny Buckley. He was at Napâs the other day and he was coming out of Bossâs when we went in. He got in a car with Frank Higgins.â
âOne of the Higgins brothers?â
âYeah. Iâm not surprised Buck-Buckâs working for him, was just a matter of time.â
âI remember the father, Michael Higgins,â Carpentier said, setting down his almost-empty glass, âwhen he worked at
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