The naked girl looked more attentively at Jack. She looked him up and down and then she examined La Grande Sauterelle in the same way. It was obvious that she suspected them of being from the police or perhaps the RCMP. She asked them to step back and turn around slowly.

“There’s something weird in your hood,” she told La Grande Sauterelle.

“It’s a cat. He’s asleep.”

“Let’s see . . .”

La Grande Sauterelle turned around, and Jack picked up the cat so the girl in the showcase could see it.

“That’s okay,” she said.

The girl was reassured. Her face was beautiful, expressive and intelligent and very pale, with dark eyes. She asked about Quebec. She wanted to know if independence would be coming soon. She had been born near Parc Lafontaine in Montreal. She had travelled a lot. She’d been to India and to South America.

Jack showed her the picture of Théo.

“You want to know where he is?” asked the girl.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve looked for him everywhere. He’s my brother.”

“Your brother? There is a resemblance, but he’s taller than you, and heavier.”

“That’s because he takes after my father. I’m more like my mother.”

She bent down to put out her cigarette on the concrete floor of the showcase.

“I can’t say exactly where he is.”

“No?”

“He left North Beach. Things have changed a lot around here. It’s not like it used to be.”

“You haven’t seen him since?”

“I saw him once.”

Jack approached the showcase.

“Where?”

“Listen,” said the girl, “life’s hard on everybody. Some people can’t stick it out and it’s rough . . . They let themselves drift along on the current and they go under . . .”

La Grande Sauterelle broke in, “You mean they pass through Chinatown and wash up around Market Street?”

“Yes,” said the naked girl.

“And that’s where you saw him last?”

“Yes.”

“Around Market and Powell?”

“Right.”

Jack gathered his courage to ask, “How was he?”

“Not in good shape,” said the girl sadly, and stood up to let them know that she didn’t feel like talking anymore and that the conversation WITH A LIVE NAKED GIRL was over.

She left in silence through the back door.

The blue light went out.

XXXII. Théo

XXXII

Théo

They moved out of the San Remo Hotel and into the Stratford, on Powell Street.

It wasn’t a luxurious hotel; it wasn’t the St. Francis or the Fairmont or the Hyatt Regency, but they had a big room with two large windows that looked out on the street. And they were just a minute away from Powell and Market.