"You haven't heard about it?"
"No, sir."
"Well, I'm telling you," Nelson said. "And they're giving me the goddamned runaround. Somewhere in Jersey is where they found it. Some Jersey state trooper found it, but he wouldn't tell me where."
"I'm sure we could find out, sir," the city editor said. "If that's what you're suggesting."
"Goddamn right," Nelson said. "Get somebody on it. It's news, wouldn' t you say?"
"Yes, sir, of course it is. I'll get right on it."
"I think that would be a good idea," Nelson said.
"I was about to go to Composing, Mr. Nelson," the city editor said. " We're just about pasted up. Would you like to go with me?"
"Why not?" Nelson said. "Have you got somebody around here you could send to the cafeteria for me?"
"What would you like?"
"I'd like a hamburger and french fries," Nelson said. "Hamburger with onions. Fried, not raw. And a cup of black coffee."
"Coming right up," the city editor said.
Nelson walked across the city room to Composing. TheLedger had, the year before, gone to a cold-type process, replacing the Linotype system. The upcoming One Star edition was spread out on slanting boards, in "camera-ready" form. Here and there, compositors were pasting up. '
Nelson went to the front page. The lead story, under the headline " Man Sought In Police Murder Killed Eluding Capture" caught his eye, and he read it with interest.
If all the goddamned cops in the goddamned city hadn't all been looking for that guy, they probably could have caught the bastards who killed my Jerome. They don't give a shit about me, or any other ordinary citizen, but when one of their own gets it, that's a horse of a different color. That sonofabitch Wohl wouldn't 't even tell me where Jerome 's car was found.
The city editor appeared.
"Now that the cops have found that pathetic sonofabitch," Arthur J. Nelson said, "maybe, just maybe, they'll have time to look for the murderer of my son."
"Yes, sir," the city editor said, uncomfortably. "Mr. Nelson, I think you better have a look at this."
He thrust the Early Bird edition of theBulletin at him.
"What's this?" Nelson said. And then his eye fell on the headline, " Police Seek 'Gay' Black Lover In Nelson Murder" and the story below it by Michael J. O'Hara.
"I thought O'Hara worked for us," Arthur J. Nelson said, very calmly.
"We had to let him go about eighteen months ago," the city editor said.
"Oh?" Arthur J. Nelson asked.
"Yes, sir. He had a bottle problem," the city editor said.
"And a nice sense of revenge, wouldn't you say?" Nelson said. He didn't wait for a reply. He turned and walked down the line of pasteups until he found the editorial page.
He pointed to it. "Hold this," he said. "There will be a new editorial."
"Sir?"
"I'm not going to let the goddamned cops get away with this," Arthur J. Nelson said. "Not on your goddamned life."
Louise Dutton slipped out of her robe, draped it over the water closet, and then slid open the glass door to her shower stall. She giggled at what she saw.
"What the hell are you doing?" she asked.
Peter Wohl, who had been shaving with Louise's pink, long-handled ladies' razor, heard her voice, but not what she had said, and opened his eyes and looked at her.
"What?"
"What are you doing?"
"Shaving."
"In the shower? With your eyes closed?"
"Why not?"
"You look ridiculous doing that," she said.
"On the other hand," he said, leering at her nakedness, "you look great. Why don't you step into my office and we can fool around a little?"
"There's not room for the both of us in there," she said.
"That would depend on how close we stood," he said.
"Hurry up, Peter," she said, and closed the door.
She wiped the condensation from the mirror and bent forward to examine her face closely. She looked into the reflection of her eyes. She felt a sense of sadness, and wondered why.
Peter came out of the shower.
"I left it running," he said, as he reached for a towel.
Louise gave in to the impulse and wrapped her arms around him, resting her face on his back.
"The offer to fool around is still open," Peter said.
"What's this?" she asked, tracing what looked like a dimple on his back.
"Nothing," he said.
"Whatis it, Peter?" she demanded.
"It's what they call an entrance wound," he said.
"You wereshot? " she asked, letting him go, and then turning him around so she could look into his face.
"Years ago," he said.
"You're not old enough for it to be 'years ago,' " she said. "Tell me!"
"Not much to tell," he said. "I was working the Ninth District as a patrolman, and a lady called the cops and said her husband was drunk and violent and beating her and the kids up; and when I got there, he was, so I put the cuffs on him, and as I was putting him in the backseat of the car, she shot me."
"Why?"
"She wanted the cops to make her husband stop beating up on her," Peter said, "butarresting the love of her life and father of her children was something else."
"She could have killed you," Louise said.
"I think that's what she had in mind," Peter said.
"Did you shoot her?" Louise asked.
"I don't even remember getting shot… I remember what felt like somebody whacking me with a baseball bat, and the next thing I know, I'm being wheeled into a hospital emergency room."
"How long were you in the hospital?"
"About two weeks."
"But you're all right? I mean, there was no permanent damage?"
"All the important parts are working just fine," Peter said. He moved his midsection six inches closer to Louise to demonstrate. "See?"
"Why, you dirty old man, you!" Louise said, and turned and went into the shower.
When she came out of the shower, she could smell both frying bacon and coffee, and smiled.
Peter Wohl, she thought, the compleat lover, as skilled in the kitchen as the bedroom.
Then she went into her bedroom, and saw that he had left his uniform tunic, and his uniform cap, and his gun, on the bed.
She walked to the bed and picked up the hat first and looked at it, and the insignia on it, and then laid it down again. Then she leaned on the bed and examined the badge pinned to the uniform tunic. And finally, she looked at the gun.
It was in a shoulder holster, of leather and stretch elastic that showed signs of much use. The elastic was wrinkled, and the leather sweat-stained and creased. She tugged the pistol loose and held it up to the level of her face by holding the grip between her thumb and index finger.
It was not a new pistol. The finish had been worn through to the white metal beneath at the muzzle and at the front of the cylinder. The little diamonds of the checkering on the grips were worn smooth. She sniffed it, and smelled the oil.
It's a tool, she thought, like a carpenter's hammer, or a mechanic's wrench. It's the tool he carries to work. The difference is that the function of his tool is to shoot people, not drive nails or fix engines.
She put the pistol back into the holster, and then wiped her hands on the sheet.
Then she got dressed.
He had made bacon and eggs. He was mopping the remaining yolk from his plate with an English muffin; her eggs and bacon were waiting for her.
"Your eggs are probably cold," Peter said.
"I had to take a shower," she said, a shade snappishly.
"Not for me you didn't," he said. "You smelled great to me."
"Don't be silly," she snapped, and this time the snappishness registered.
"Coffee?" he asked, a little coldly.
"Please," she said.
He went to the stove and returned with a pot.
"Did you ever kill anyone, Peter?"