?Gabby, I?m sorry. I shouldn?t have talked about this. Gabby, are you all right??

She straightened in her seat and set the glass down deliberately, holding on to it a moment before letting go. She continued to stare at me. I signaled the waiter.

?Do you want coffee??

She nodded her head.

We finished dinner, indulging ourselves in cannoli and cappuccino. She seemed to recover her humor as we laughed and mocked the memory of our student selves in the Age of Aquarius, our hair worn long and straight, our shirts tie-dyed, our jeans slung low on our hips and belled at the ankles, a generation following identical escape routes from conformity. It was past midnight when we left the restaurant.

Walking along Prince Arthur, she brought up the murders again.

?What would this guy be like??

The question took me by surprise.

?I mean, would he be wacko? Would he be normal? Would ya be able to spot him??

My confusion was annoying her.

?Could ya pick the fucker out at a church picnic??

?The killer??

?Yes.?

?I don?t know.?

She pursued it. ?Would he be functional??

?I think so. If one person did kill both these women, and I don?t know that for sure, Gab, he?s organized. He plans. Many serial killers fool the world for a long time before they?re caught. But I?m not a psychologist. That?s pure speculation.?

We arrived at the car and I unlocked it. Suddenly she reached over and grabbed my arm. ?Let me show ya the strip.?

I didn?t follow. Again the mental leap had left me out. My mind went into bridge building.

?Uh . . .?

?The red-light district. My project. Let?s just drive by and I?ll show ya the girls.?

I glanced over just as the headlights of an oncoming car caught her. Her face looked strange in the shifting illumination. The light moved across her like the beam of a flashlight, accentuating some features, throwing others into shadow. Her eagerness was persuasive. I looked at my watch-twelve-eighteen.

?Okay.? It really wasn?t. Tomorrow would be tough. But she seemed so anxious I didn?t have the heart to disappoint her.

She folded herself into the car and slid the seat back to its farthest position. It gave her some leg room, but not enough.

We rode in silence for a couple of minutes. Following her instructions I went west several blocks, then turned south onto St. Urbain. We skirted the easternmost edge of the McGill ghetto, a schizoid amalgam of low-rent student housing, high-rise condos, and gentrified brownstones. Within six blocks I turned left onto Rue Ste. Catherine. Behind me lay the heart of Montreal. In the rearview mirror I could see the looming shapes of Complexe Desjardins and Place des Arts challenging each other from their opposite corners. Below them lay Complexe Guy-Favreau and the Palais des Congr #232;s.

In Montreal, the grandeur of downtown gives way quickly to the squalor of the east end. Rue Ste. Catherine sees it all. Born in the affluence of Westmount, it strides through Centre-ville, eastward to Boulevard St. Laurent, the Main, the dividing line between east and west. Ste. Catherine is home to the Forum, Eaton?s, and the Spectrum. Downtown it is lined with high-rises and hotels, with theaters and shopping centers. But at St. Laurent it leaves behind the office complexes and condominiums, the convention centers and boutiques, the restaurants and singles? bars. The hookers and the punks take over from there. Their turf stretches eastward, from the Main to the gay village. They share it with the drug dealers and the skinheads. Tourists and suburbanites venture in as visitors, to gawk and avoid eye contact. They see the other side and reaffirm their separateness. But they don?t stay long.

We were almost at St. Laurent when Gabby indicated that I should pull to the right. I found a spot in front of La Boutique du Sex, and turned off the engine. Across the street a group of women clustered outside the Hotel Granada. Its sign offered CHAMBRES TOURISTIQUES, but I doubted any tourists frequented its rooms.

?There,? she said. ?That?s Monique.?

Monique was wearing red vinyl boots that reached to midthigh. Black spandex, pulled to its tensile limits, struggled to cover her rump. Through it I could see the line of her panties, and a lumpy ridge formed by the hem of her white polyester blouse. Plastic earrings dangled to her shoulders, splashes of dazzling pink against her impossibly black hair. She seemed a caricature of a hooker.

?That?s Candy.?

She indicated a young woman in yellow shorts and cowboy boots. Her makeup made Bozo look drab. She was painfully young. Except for the cigarette and clown face, she could have been my daughter.

?Do they use their real names?? It was like witnessing a clich #233;.

?I don?t know. Would you??

She pointed to a girl in black sneakers and short shorts.

?Poirette.?

?How old is she?? I was appalled.

?Says she?s eighteen. She?s probably fifteen.?

I leaned back and rested my hands on the steering wheel. As she pointed them out, one by one, I couldn?t help thinking of gibbons. Just like the small apes, the women spaced themselves at equal intervals, dividing the field into a mosaic of precise territories. Each worked her patch, excluding others of her gender, and trying to beguile a mate. The seductive poses, the taunts and jeers, were a courtship ritual, sapiens style. With these dancers, however, reproduction was not the goal.

I realized Gabby had stopped talking. She?d finished her roll call. I turned to look at her. She was facing in my direction, but her eyes went past me, locked on something outside my window. Perhaps outside my world.

?Let?s go.?

She said it so quietly I could hardly hear her. ?Wha-??

?Go!?

Her ferocity stunned me. A volley flew to my lips, but the look in her eyes convinced me to say nothing.

Again we rode in silence. Gabby seemed to be deep in thought, as though mentally she?d relocated to a different planet. But as I pulled up to her apartment she blindsided me with another question.

?Are they raped??

My mind rewound and played the tape of our conversation. No good. I?d missed another bridge.

?Who?? I asked.

?These women.?

The hookers? The murder victims?

?Which women??

For several seconds she didn?t answer.

?I?m so sick of this shit!?

She was out of the car and up the stairs before I could react. Then her vehemence slapped me in the face.

FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS I HEARD NOTHING FROM GABBY. I was also not on Claudel?s dialing list. He?d cut me out of the loop. I learned about Isabelle Gagnon?s life through Pierre LaManche.

She?d lived with her brother and his lover in St. #201;douard, a working-class neighborhood northeast of Centre-ville. She worked in a lover?s boutique, a small shop off St. Denis specializing in unisex clothes and paraphernalia. Une Tranche de Vie. A Slice of Life. The brother, who was a baker, had thought of the name. The irony of it was depressing.

Isabelle disappeared on Friday, April 1. According to the brother, she was a regular at some of the bars on St. Denis, and had been out late the night before. He thought he?d heard her come in around 2 A.M., but didn?t check. The two men left for work early the next morning. A neighbor saw her at 1 P.M. Isabelle was expected at the boutique at 4 P.M. She never showed up. Her remains were discovered nine weeks later at Le Grand S #233;minaire. She was twenty-three.

LaManche came into my office late one afternoon to see if I?d finished my analysis.

?There are multiple fractures of the skull,? I said. ?It took quite a bit of reconstructing.?

?Oui.?

I took the skull from its cork ring.

?She was hit at least three times. This is the first.?