Will watched Rafe disappear into the crowded living room. He seemed engaging enough. But what was so familiar about him? It was unlikely he'd met Rafe before—probably just someone very much like him. The answer swam tantalizingly close beneath the surface of his subconscious. Will would have been more than willing to wait for it to reveal itself except that he sensed his subconscious might be warning him about Rafe.
He turned to Lisl.
"Well?" she said. "What do you think?"
Her eyes were so bright, her smile so fiercely proud, Will was powerless to feel anything but happiness for her.
"I don't exactly know him yet, but he seems very nice."
"Oh, he is. But he's very much his own man too. He has his own slant on everything."
"Is his slant much off beam from your slant?"
He thought he saw Lisl's eyes cloud over for a minute, but then they cleared. She laughed.
"Sometimes he surprises me. There's never a dull moment with Rafe. Never!"
Wondering how he should take that, Will followed Lisl back into the kitchen.
Will was working through the living room with his second tray of canapes. Lisl had tried to talk him out of helping but he'd insisted, telling her that he knew no one here and that this was a great way to meet her guests.
And it was.
Besides, he preferred to keep busy. He'd never been one for cocktail parties.
He had to admit though that he was enjoying himself this afternoon. He was nursing a Scotch on the rocks as he wove through the crowd with his tray of pigs in blankets. Everyone was friendly. A few had had a little too much to drink and were getting loud, but no one was out of line.
Then the phone rang.
Will froze and almost dropped the tray. Someone must have plugged it back in. He prayed for the ring to pause and
then go on in the stop-and-go pattern of a normal phone call. But it didn't. The ring went on and on, steadily, relentlessly.
And people noticed. One by one they fell silent under the pressure of that endless ring. The conversation noise level dropped quickly by half, then dwindled down to a single slurred voice. And soon even he fell silent. Leaving only the ringing, that damned, incessant, infernal ringing.
Will felt as if he'd been turned to stone. Movement to his left caught his eye and he saw Lisl step into the living room from the hallway.
That ringing! Lisl thought as she entered the room.
Good Lord, what was wrong with the phone? Why did it go on like that? Whatever it was it had brought the party to a screeching halt. The living room looked like a tableau—everyone silent, frozen in position, staring at the phone.
Something unsettling, unnatural about that ring. She had to stop it.
Lisl crossed the room and lifted the receiver. An audible sigh whispered though the room as the ringing stopped. Silence, blessed silence. She put the receiver to her ear… and heard the voice.
A child's voice, a little boy's, sobbing, frightened. No… more than frightened—nearly incoherent with fear, crying for his father to come get him, that he didn't like it there, that he was afraid, that he wanted to come home.
"Hello!" she said into the receiver. "Hello! This isn't your father. Who are you?"
The child cried on.
"Tell me who your father is and I'll get hold of him."
The child continued to plead.
"Where are you? Tell me where you are and I'll get you help. I'll come get you myself. Just tell me where you are!"
But the child didn't seem to hear her. Lisl tried talking to him again but to no effect. Without pausing for breath he continued crying for his father, his voice slowly rising in volume to a wail. Suddenly he began .to scream out his fear.
"Father, please come and get me! Pleeeeease! Father, Father, Father—"
Lisl snatched the receiver away from her ear. So loud. She couldn't bear the sound of such naked fear in a child. She looked around. All the strained faces in the room were looking her way, staring at the phone, listening to that small voice. They could hear it too.
"—don't let him kill me! I don't want to die!"
"What do I do?" she said. "What do I—?"
Suddenly the voice cut off and the abrupt, deathly silence of the room struck her like a blow.
"Hello?" Lisl said into the receiver. "Hello? Are you still .there? Are you all right?"
No answer.
She jiggled the plunger on the base but the line remained dead. Not even a dial tone.
She wanted to cry. A frightened child needed help somewhere and she could do nothing. And without a dial tone, she couldn't even call the police.
As she jiggled the plunger again she spotted the mounting cord coiled on the carpet behind the table. A chill ran over her skin as she lifted the base of the phone. The jack notch at its rear was empty. The phone had been disconnected.
My God! How…?
Lisl turned slowly and stared at her guests. Their pale faces and strained expressions reflected exactly what she felt.
Where was Will?
She didn't see him. She remembered him standing in the center of the room holding a tray when she answered the phone. She remembered the wild look in his eyes as he listened to that insane ring. Like a cornered animal. Where was he now? She glanced down. A tray of cooling pigs in blankets lay on the coffee table.
She heard tires screech outside on the street. Through the picture window she saw Will's old Chevy roar away down the road.
TEN
Manhattan
Detective Sergeant Renny Augustino found a note on his desk that the chief wanted to see him right away. He didn't have anything better to do at the moment so he headed for Mooney's office.
"What is it, Lieu?" Renny said as he dropped into one of the chairs opposite Mooney's puke green desk. A tiny plaster Christmas tree—a product of Mrs. Mooney's ceramics class—sat atop one of the filing cabinets, its lights twinkling chaotically.
Midtown North's chief of detectives, Lieutenant James Mooney, a jowly, fiftyish bulldog, looked up from a paper he was holding in both hands. The fluorescent ceiling lights reflected off his balding scalp.
"Got a message from the PC, Augustino," he said in his whiny voice. "He wants you on his new task force to get that serial killer."
"You sure you got the right Augustino?"
Mooney smiled. He didn't do that often.
"Yeah. I'm sure. Because I checked to make sure myself."
Renny was shocked. The police commissioner wanted him!
"Well, ain't that a kick in the head."
"It's your chance, Renny. Handle yourself right with this one and you can get yourself back on track."
Renny looked at Mooney and saw that the chief genuinely wished him well. Suddenly his opinion of Mooney turned around. He hadn't liked the man much; he was competent but had struck
Renny as too concerned with paperwork. He didn't really inspire his detectives. His men had to be self-starters if they were going to be anything better than paper-shufflers. Fortunately there was a fair number of self-starters at Midtown North. But maybe he'd been too hard on Mooney. And maybe that was because he resented anyone with a detective lieutenant's badge, something Renny should have had long ago.
"Yeah," Renny said, rising and extending his hand. "Maybe I can. Thanks, Lieu."
Mooney shook his hand and passed him his papers.
"They want you down at Police Plaza at one sharp. Try not to be late."
Back in the squad room, the other detectives congratulated him as he passed through. Sam Lang, dressed in green corduroy wrinkles, was waiting at Renny's desk, a coffee cup in his left hand, his right thrust out in front of him.
"Some Christmas present, ay, partner?"