A Brush With Death Read Free Page B

around the hall for hours on the chance that he'll come out."
    John stepped up and tapped on the door. “The French I hear on the street here isn't much like the French I know. In case Latour speaks the local lingo, you'd better talk to him."
    “What will I say?"
    “Wing it.” I stared in mute horror. There were sounds behind the door. “You can ask him if he's interested in donating to the orphans’ overcoat fund,” John said, taking out a cigarette and readying his Bic-Pic.
    “You've got to be kidding!"
    Before we had time for argument, the door opened and a friendly looking man said, "Bonjour. Puis-je vous aider?" He didn't speak the local patois. And of course he didn't speak English. My French was coming along, but I felt so foolish I didn't want to dun him for money. To stall for time, I said, "Parlez-vous anglais, Monsieur?"
    I saw John stick a cigarette between his lips, take aim and light it. "Un peu," the man said, still smiling. He really seemed very nice. He had a lot of curly hair, dark brown, streaked with gray. I thought he was about thirty-nine or forty. The hair nestled on his forehead, and clung to his neck. He wore a mustache not unlike John's, which is full and untrimmed. The outfit he wore was slightly Bohemian, which supported the artist theory. His loose purple shirt was embroidered in the front, vaguely suggestive of the sixties.
    Confusion made me nervous, and I stammered out a foolish question in franglais about wanting his views on the commercialization of Christmas for my university newspaper. He asked me what university I attended, and of course I said McGill.
    "Ah, c'est bon. Mes élèves ne sontpas si belles," he smiled, including John to avoid the idea he was hitting on me. "Je suis professeur à l'Ecole des Beaux Arts."
    John lit his cigarette again, for good measure. The man went on to say that he was just on his way to class, but if I was doing a survey, I could put him on the side of the angels as deriding the degradation of a holy feast to a money-spending spree. “Adults are old enough to realize the meaning of Christmas is love, not commerce."
    I said, "Merci beaucoup, Monsieur," and we left.
    Once the door was closed I turned in excitement to John and whispered, “He teaches at the Beaux Arts, John! It's got to be Latour."
    “Of course it is. The guy's as phony as a three dollar bill. Funny he gave himself an English name, when he doesn't speak the lingo. His accent sounded European, didn't you think?"
    “It sure wasn't joual .” We headed to the elevator.
    “What's joual ?"
    “That dialect you hear in the streets. It's the French-Canadian accent, kind of like English Cockney, or American Brooklynese."
    “Funny name they chose for it."
    “It's the way they pronounce cheval ."
    “So you're learning to speak horse?” he asked, and laughed.
    “Only incidentally. That's not what they teach at McGill. It looks as though this is your chance to get into Latour's apartment. He said he was leaving for a lecture."
    John looked cagey. “That's what he said . It might be worth following him. If he is going to a class, we'll have time to come back and search. If he got the idea I was doing more than lighting a cig, he might have been lying."
    “Why should he be suspicious?"
    “Don't they teach Shakespeare at that college? ‘Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.’ He took a pretty good look at us.” John butted the cig in the ashtray by the elevator door and we went downstairs.
    “I thought he was nice,” I said.
    “That wouldn't be because he thought you were belle , would it? Crooks are often nice—friendly, I mean."
    “His views on Christmas too—he didn't sound like a money-mad sort of person."
    “He gypped the company out of a hundred grand,” John said firmly, and we went to wait in the car.
    In about ten minutes, Latour drove out of the parking garage in the back. He was wearing a felt cap and driving a very nifty little new Jag. Not many of my professors