“I could make it in ten minutes, Tiger!” the boy answered, obviously pleased.
“Fine. O.K. That’s O.K. with me, Ponce,” Tiger said, still holding the pencil. His eye moved downward.
“Thanks a lot, Tiger. I appreciate it. I sure do appreciate it,” the lad said.
“Alright, Ponce,” Tiger told him.
“I’ll be there in nothing flat. I sure want to thank you, Tiger,” the lad now said, happily.
“O.K., Ponce.”
“See you!” And the lad hung up.
Tiger held on to the phone, just a moment Then he replaced it gently.
His eye, traveling downward, reached Looby Loo. Without a doubt, she should have a separate list
He gave her another full star. . . .
He sat back now, reflecting on things, everything. He looked forward to seeing Ponce, who was quite the lad. He could make his day. The only bright spot—well, practically —today. That poor kid. It certainly was a catastrophic discovery he had made. Would he ever be the same? Tiger worried. It would be one hell of a shame if he changed. Not only a shame but a blow, without a doubt, to Sawyers-ville as a whole—and in particular, the high school. Tiger knew. And what could he do? He hoped for the best. He hoped the lad had resources enough to absorb the profound shock which no doubt it was. Just a few hours ago. All told. It was a shame. A damn shame. It was life—at its rawest cold. Enough to test someone twice as old. It was rough.
The phone rang again.
Tiger picked it up and a warm, low, female voice filled his ear. Tiger loved it, climbing ever more toward the sun.
“What time, Tiger?” the voice said, only.
Rochelle Hudson. How he loved it.
His eye fell on her name on the list
“Nine-thirty?” He offered her.
“Fine, Tiger,” said the voice, even warmer.
The phone clicked and there was the dial tone, in his ear.
He replaced the receiver.
He sat there a moment.
64 Pretty Maids All in a Row What a girl.
Picking up the special blue pencil, he penciled in another half-star, beside her name. For good measure.
He awaited his visitor.
14
The story had broken and was receiving wide coverage by the media, locally and throughout the State. Also, having been picked up, it got a certain mention, or at least a glance, here and there, nationwide. But it was the local radio and TV stations that really got Chief John Poldaski down. They left him feeling profoundly frustrated, not to mention bitter, for he never once heard mentioned his name. And no matter how smoothly Surcher had done it, Poldaski was growing more and more aware that he had been elbowed completely out of the case. His role, he slowly realized, was to be that of Chief Traffic Cop, no more, no less. And he resented it. For Poldaski, among other things, had long harbored the knowledge, unbeknown and unacknowledged by others, that he was an extraordinarily gifted crime-buster, of no mean order. He was a clever, formidably astute, cunning culprit duster— and more. He was convinced of it. He had requested Proffer to call in the Staties, true, but for assistance only, not to be shoved in a corner. And, definitely, he felt bottled up in a comer, more and more, the more he thought it over. All his years of service to the community of Sawyers-ville seemed to him suddenly to have acquired a meaning bordering on meaningless, on the face of it, and in view of it. For the truth be known, the Chief had regarded this situation, this case, from the moment he had been urgently summoned into it, as the supreme test of his career, no less. He had been on the verge of tackling it, head on, with certain technical assistance from the State Police, when with a few smooth words from that Static Captain he had more or less been kicked right out of it. Definitely. And how he resented it.
Just now, in Selmo’s Tavern, next door to the high
school of course, where he had retired a short while ago for a few quick ones during his first break of the day from his traffic duties, he was fuming. The traffic, as a matter of fact, had increased significantly, the approach to the school, Washington Avenue, being fairly thick with traffic, and where this fine road ran near the school, blocked with it. The Chief had just been relieved by some State Troopers, who had, on top of everything, tried to get him to move his Squad Car out of the way, a request which had led to a fierce exchange on the pros and cons of the matter between the Chief and the Troopers, ending up in the car remaining just where it had been, and would stay, so long as John Poldaski held sway. A shot of whiskey and a beer stood before John on the bar. Quite a few of the boys were putting away generous helpings of Selmo’s delicious ravioli and spaghetti, famous far and wide. The sauce was especially alright, in fact a pure gourmet’s delight. Responsible for this was Selmo’s cute wife.
“Who the fuck those guys think they arc I dunno,” he muttered to Seimo behind the bar, and knocking off the shot, his first one, “Is the goddamn town mine—or theirs?” He added, in an afterglow of free thought and expression, not to mention association.
“I dunno, John,” said Seimo, neutrally.
“I went in right away, Jesus Christ, five minutes after the kid, soon as they called me,” the Chief went on, starting on his beer, “I talk to the kid, I question him, I get it all down, a half hour almost of stuff, and important stuff, in my notebook—” He paused, thinking of his notebook.
“That right, Chief?” Seimo said, pouring out another shot for him, and a few more for other clients about him.
“Sure that’s right.” Poldaski uttered, sipping half the beer, “You’re goddamn right that’s right,” he added, polishing off the beer, signaling to Selma for another. “A hell of a lot of important stuff—the kid gave me.” He stopped.
“No shit, John—” said Abe Muvitz, nearest him, “Was her head down the toilet?”
“Sure it was,” the Chief informed him, “Din’t I tell ya?”
“And her pants off? Her ass up in the air?” Jake Dalton queried, near the curve of the bar, not far from him. He was working on ravioli.
“Her pants wasn’t off,” the Chief told him, “Who told
you?” He paused, “Her ass, yeh, right up in the air, oh
yeh—”
“When you got there?” Ralph Delano, one of Selmo’s staunchest regulars, inquired now. He had spaghetti.
"Nah,” the Chief answered, somewhat short-tempered, “The kid found her—that’s the way the kid found her—got it now?” he told them.
“Did he find her?” Delano pressed on.
"Sure, he found her. Who you think found her? Seimo? Christ, boy!” Poldaski flung out.
“O.K., John,” Delano mollified him.
“And I talked to him one hell of a time, I should have taken him down the Station, that’s what. I’d still be talking to him, I’ll teU ya—” the Chief added.
“What for, John?” Asked Dutch Belmont, at his post near the middle of the bar, polishing off a long shot.
The Chief glared at him, “Wise guy?”
“Nuh, Chief. You kiddin’?” Dutch asked.
“Well what you think what foi? Huh? Just what the hell for?” Poldaski rapped out at him.
“Yeh but you talked to him—” Dutch put in.
“Not enough I didn’t talk to him!” The Chief poured on him.
A moment’s silence. Seimo filled up some glasses.
“John—” said someone, it was Jack Mizner, “Hey John —” he repeated, softly.
“Yeh?” the Chief said, gruffly, obviously deep in thought.