Lullaby

'I forget her name,' Archibald said. 'A fat lady.'

'Uh-huh.'

'She said you were very good.'

'Uh-huh.'

'So I asked the sergeant downstairs for you. Gloria Something?'

'Well,' Kling said, and shrugged.

'Gloria, I think.'

'Well, in any event, Mr Archibald, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to come to your home and to intrude on what doesn't even appear to be a family dispute as yet. I would suggest . . .'

'A pistol is a family dispute,' Archibald said. 'If she has threatened to kill me with it.'

'Did she use those exact words? I'm going to kill you?'

'She said she would shoot me with the pistol. A .22-caliber pistol'

'Was this during an argument?'

'No, it was calmly. Over breakfast.'

'When?'

'Every day this week.'

'Every day.'

'Yes.'

Kling sighed.

'She keeps the pistol in the bread box,' Archibald said.

'I see.'

'In the kitchen.'

'Uh-huh.'

'She probably plans to shoot me while we're eating.'

Kling sighed again.

'I can't come with you . . .'

'Then my murder . . .'

'. . . just now,' Kling said. 'I've got a showdown to run, some women are coming in at one o'clock.' He looked at his watch. 'I should be done around two, two-thirty. I can maybe get over there around three. Will your wife be home then?'

'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.'

'Where do you live?'

'337 South Eustis. Apartment 44.'

'You make sure your wife's there, okay? I'll come by and talk to her. Does she have a license for that pistol?'

Archibald looked as if he suddenly realized he'd bought more trouble than he'd bargained for.

'No, sir,' he said. 'But I don't want to . . .'

'Gives me a reason to take the gun away from her, right?' Kling said, and smiled.

Archibald did not return the smile.

'Relax, nobody's going to hurt her,' Kling said.

'Thank you, sir,' Archibald said.

'I'll see you at three,' Kling said.

It never occurred to him that in this city certain types of Jamaicans sometimes shot policemen.

* * * *

There were times when the irony of the situation amused Teddy.

She was deaf. She had been born deaf. She had never heard a human voice, an animal's cry, the shriek of machinery, the rustle of a fallen leaf. She had never spoken a word in her life. A woman like Teddy used to be called a 'deaf mute.' A label. Intended to be descriptive and perhaps kind. 'Dummy' would have been the cruel word. Now she was called 'hearing-impaired.' Progress. Another label. She was, after all, merely Teddy Carella.

What sometimes amused her was that this deaf mute, this hearing-impaired person, this dummy was in fact such a good listener.

Eileen Burke apparently understood this.

Perhaps she'd understood it all along, or perhaps she'd only reached her understanding last Friday night, when during dinner she had seized upon Teddy as a sympathetic ear.

'I've always thought of you as my best friend,' she said now, surprising Teddy. Their relationship had, at best, been a casual one. Dinner out with their respective men, an occasional movie, a football game, a private party, a big police affair. But best friend? Strong words. Teddy was a woman who chose her words carefully. Perhaps because her flying fingers could only accommodate so few of them in a single burst. Best friend? She wondered.

'I wouldn't tell this to anyone else,' Eileen said. 'I've been seeing a shrink, Teddy. I go twice a . . .'

She hesitated.

There was a puzzled expression on Teddy's face.

One of the words had thrown her.

Eileen thought back for a moment, and then said, 'Shrink,' exaggerating the word on her lips. Then, to nail it down, she said, 'Psychologist.'

Teddy nodded.

'I go to her twice a week.'

Without saying a word, merely by slightly raising her eyebrows and opening her eyes a trifle wider, Teddy said - and Eileen understood - a multitude of things.

And?

How's it going?

Tell me more.

'I think she's going to be okay,' Eileen said. 'I mean, I don't know yet. It bothers me that she's younger than I am . . .'

Teddy began signing.

And caught herself.

But she used her hands, anyway, signaling Eileen to go on, to elaborate, to tell her exactly . . .

'Twenty-six or -seven,' Eileen said.

Teddy pulled a face.

'Yeah,' Eileen said, 'that's just it. She seems like a kid to me, too.'

The restaurant was crowded with Saturday shoppers taking a break away from the Hall Avenue department stores. Eileen was wearing jeans, a bulky green sweater, and brown boots. A dark blue car coat was draped over the back of her chair. Her service revolver was in her shoulder bag, on the floor under the table. Teddy had taken the subway in from Riverhead. She, too, was dressed for a casual afternoon in the city. Jeans, a yellow turtleneck with a tan cardigan over it, Adidas jogging shoes. A black ski parka was draped over the back of her chair. Her small handbag was on the table. At a nearby table, two women noticed that she was using her hands a lot, making exaggerated facial expressions. One of them whispered, 'She's deaf and dumb,' another quaint label Teddy would have found offensive had she heard it. She did not hear it because she was too busy talking and listening.

Eileen was telling her that she'd stopped seeing Kling.

'Because I don't think he understands what I'm trying to do here.'

Teddy watched her intently.

'Or how much . . . how . . . you know ... I don't think he ... he's a man, Teddy, I don't think any man in the world can really understand what . . . how . . . you know . . . the effect that something like . . . like what happened . . . how traumatic it can be to a woman.'

Teddy was still watching her.

Dark brown eyes luminous in her face.

Listening.

Waiting.

'Rape, I mean,' Eileen said.

Teddy nodded.

'That I was raped.'

Tears suddenly sprang to Eileen's eyes.

Teddy reached across the table, took her hands in her own.

'So ... so you ... I figure if I have to cope with his goddamn feelings while I'm trying to understand my own ... I mean, it's just too much to handle, Teddy.'

Teddy nodded. She squeezed Eileen's hands.

'I mean, I can't worry about his . . . his . . . you know . . . his sensitivity, he's not the one who got raped. Aw, shit, I don't know, maybe I did the wrong thing. But don't I count, Teddy? Isn't it important that I ... aw, shit,' she said again, and reached down into her bag for the package of Kleenex tissues alongside her gun.