Michel Charbonneau stood across the room, his face the color of Pepto-Bismol, his hair projecting in clammy spikes. He was jacketless, his col ar soaked with sweat, his tie hanging below the open top button of his shirt. Even loosened it was much too short. I watched him pul a hankie from his pocket and wipe it across his forehead.

Charbonneau once told me that as a teen he'd worked in the Texas oil fields. Though he loved the cowboy life, the heat won out and he'd returned to his home in Chicoutimi, eventual y drifting to Montreal, where he joined the city police force.

At that moment Quickwater emerged from the kitchen. The victim was known to have gang connections, so Carcajou would also be involved.

The constable joined Charbonneau and the two stood watching a team examine bloodstains in a corner behind the victim. Ronald Gilbert held a gray-and-white L-shaped ruler against the wal while a younger man shot videos and prints. They repeated the shots with a plumb line, then Gilbert switched to sliding calipers and took a series of measurements. He entered the data into a laptop computer, then went back to the ABFO ruler and plumb line. More video footage. More photos. More measurements. Blood was everywhere, speckling the ceiling and wal s and mottling objects stacked against the baseboards. The two looked like they'd be at their task a long time.

I took a deep breath and approached the detectives.

"Bonjour. Comment ça va?"

"Eh, Doc. How's tricks?" Charbonneau's English was an odd blend of quebecois and Texas slang, most of the latter out-of-date.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Quickwater."

Quickwater rotated slightly, looking annoyed at having to acknowledge my presence, then returned his attention to the bloodspatter team. They were filming an acoustic guitar propped upright on a rusted birdcage. Behind the cage I could see an athletic cap jammed against the wal , the letters "-- cock --

" visible in the center of a wine-colored blotch. I thought of the posters and wondered what lewd macho message we'd been spared by the gore.

"Where's Claudel?" I asked Charbonneau.

"Checking out a suspect, but he'l be here soon. These guys are real y something, aren't they?" Charbonneau's voice fil ed with disgust. "Got the moral qualities of dung beetles."

"This is definitely gang-related?"

"Yeah. The guy that's not looking too good over there is Yves Desjardins, street name 'Cherokee.' He was a 'Predator.'

"Where do they fit in?"

"The Predators are another Hel s Angels puppet club."

"Like the Vipers."

"You got it."

"So this was a Rock Machine hit?"

"Probably. Though I understand Cherokee hadn't been active in years. He had a bad liver. No. Colon cancer. That was it. Not surprising given the shit these guys usual y have on board."

"What had he done to anger the opposition?"