The building the Deaf Man was watching was close to Isola’s northern shore, a structure shaped somewhat like a very large Quonset hut constructed of concrete rather than tin. In essence, the building consisted of two parts, a rectangular bottom and an arched top, wedded to create a not-unpleasant whole. Affixed to the top of the rectangle facing the river, just where the base of the arch joined it, were the stainless-steel letters
The facility had been opened in January; it still looked spanking clean even though smoke was billowing out of two tall chimneys on the side of the building farthest from the river. The currents were strong out here on the water. The boat kept bobbing on the heavy chop, causing the building to move in and out of range on the binoculars. Patiently, the Deaf Man kept watching.
He had begun watching the building on the fifteenth of January, shortly after the facility was officially opened. He had watched it steadily for a solid week, trying to determine if anything but sanitation-department personnel and vehicles would be here on any days but the first Saturday of each month. During all that time he had seen nothing but the spruce-green uniforms of the department’s employees and the hulking trucks they used for moving garbage. He had begun his surveillance again on the twenty-eighth of that same month, and had seen only the same employees and the same trucks each and every day until the first Saturday in February, when at last he was rewarded with the sight of police department vehicles and blue police uniforms.
On that first day of February, at ten minutes past twelve in the afternoon—while the Deaf Man watched from a different chartered boat with a different girl sitting bundled in deck robes and drinking champagne in the stern—a blue-and-white van with the wordsPOLICE DEPARTMENT lettered on its sides pulled into the parking lot on the river side of the building. Three uniformed policemen got out of the van. Lower-level personnel from the looks of them, silver shields on uniforms sporting neither stripes nor braid. Mere patrolmen. Some five minutes later, an unmarked Lincoln Continental pulled into the parking lot, and three policemen of a higher rank stepped out into the wintry sunshine, the brass on their uniforms catching whatever pale light reflected off the water.
The Deaf Man kept watching through the binoculars.
In a little while three blue-and-white radio motor patrol cars came down the ramp from the River Highway, and made the right turn into the parking lot. Two patrolmen got out of the first car. A patrolman and a sergeant got out of the second car. A sergeant and a captain got out of the third car. Each of the patrol cars was marked on its side with the blue lettering 87TH PCT. In the next half hour or so, a television van and several unmarked cars drove into the parking lot. The media and the press. All here to record for posterity this first public spectacle at the spanking-new facility. By five minutes to one on that first day of February, the Deaf Man figured that everyone who was going to be there was already there.
Today was the twenty-third day of March.
Across the choppy waters of the River Harb, the building sat on the edge of the shore, uniformed men walking in and out of it, but none of them wearing police uniforms. These were sanitation engineers, if one wished to be politically correct. To the Deaf Man, they were garbage men. The police would not assemble again for their little monthly ritual until the fourth of April.
In February, the commissioner himself had attended the festive little gathering here on the water’s edge. He had not been present at the March seventh meeting. Also present at that first event had been two high-ranking police officers the Deaf Man recognized as Chief of Detectives Louis Fremont and Chief Inspector Curtis Fleet. They were not there in March. Neither were two deputy inspectors whom the Deaf Man had been unable to identify at the February conclave. No one from the media or the press showed up in March. Like everything else in America, only the first time was novelty. Even Desert Storm , that fine miniseries concocted for television, would have become boring if it had lasted a moment longer.Sic transit gloria mundi . The Deaf Man was not expecting much of a crowd on the fourth of April. Just enough policemen to supervise the job and to record the happening.
He took the binoculars from his eyes.
He would check the facility once again next week, to ensure that the routine was, in fact, unchanging. Then, on April fourth, he would be here for the monthly festivities. Until then, there was much to do.
Smiling, he went to the stern of the boat, where the girl was pouring herself another glass of champagne.
“Here, let me do that,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said. “Are you all finished with whatever it was you were doing?”
“The coastal survey, yes,” he said.
She had a tiny breathless Marilyn Monroe voice and eyes the color of emeralds. He had advised her to wear rubber-soled shoes and to dress for what might turn out to be inclement weather. She had taken this to mean white sneakers without socks, short white shorts and a white T-shirt, a yellow rain slicker, and a yellow nor’wester pulled down over her long blond hair. She sat now with the coat open and the champagne glass in one hand, her long legs crossed, watching him as he poured. He guessed she was twenty-three years old, twenty-four at most.
“There we are,” he said, topping off her glass, and then pouring one for himself.
“Thank you, Harry,” she said. She had never liked the name Harry, but on him it was kind of cute. On him,any name would be kind of cute.
He lifted his glass in a toast.
“To you,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said.
“And to me,” he said.
“Okay,” she said, and smiled.
“And to the beautiful music we’ll make together.”
She nodded, but said nothing. No need to make him feel too confident. They clinked glasses. They sipped champagne as the boat bobbed on the water and a raw wind blew in off the river, tearing the clouds to tatters, allowing the sunshine to break through at last.
“There’s a CD player below,” he said.
“Is there?”
Emerald eyes wide in interest.
“Do you think you might like to go down there?”
“What else is down there?”
Champagne glass poised near her generous mouth. Lips slightly parted. One sneakered foot jiggling.
“A double bed…”
“Oh my.”
“And more champagne.”
“Mmm.”
“And me,” he said, and leaned over to kiss her.
She felt suddenly dizzy, and wondered if he’d put something in the champagne. And then she realized it was only the way he was kissing her that made her so dizzy, and she thought Oh boy am I in trouble. He lifted her from the banquette. Carried her across the bobbing deck to where there was an open doorway leading downstairs. Carried her down the stairway, a ladder she guessed you called it, into what looked like a small kitchen, a galley she guessed you called it, carried her up front, up forward , to where there was a double bed—which was the only possible thing you could call it.