"And to fluff up Radley Grussing's ego in the process?"
He winced. "That's not fair," he said stiffly. "I'm not trying to make a name for myself here."
"But you like the power." She stared him straight in the eye. "Admit it, Radley—you like knowing these people's darkest secrets."
Radley clenched his teeth. "I don't think this discussion is getting us anywhere." He turned away.
"Will you destroy the book?" she asked bluntly from behind him.
He couldn't face her. "I can't," he said over his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Alison... but I just can't." For a long moment she was silent. Then, without a word, she moved away from him, and he turned back around in time to see her collect her purse and jacket from the couch and head for the door. "Let me walk you downstairs," Radley called after her as she unlocked the deadbolts.
"I don't think I'll get lost," she said shortly.
"Yes, but—" He stopped.
She frowned over her shoulder at him. "But what?"
"I just thought that... I mean, there are a lot of rapists running loose in this city...."
She gazed at him, something like pain or pity or fear in her eyes. "You see?" she said softly. "It's started already." Opening the door, she left.
Radley exhaled noisily between his teeth. "Nothing's started," he told the closed door. "I'm just being cautious. That's hardly a crime."
The words sounded hollow in his ears, and for a minute he just stood there, wondering if maybe she was right. "No," he told himself firmly. "I can handle this. I can."
Turning back to the kitchen, he pulled a frozen dinner out of the refrigerator and popped it into the microwave. Then, pulling a notebook from the phone shelf, he flipped it open and got out a pen. Time to compare the Book's listings of murderers, arsonists, and rapists against the lists he'd made last night. See who, if anyone, had sold their souls to the devil in the past fourteen hours.
According to the papers, there had been two gang killings in the city that day, both of them drive-by shootings. Both apparently by repeaters, unfortunately, because no new names had appeared in the Murderers listing. The Arsonists listing hadn't changed since last night, either. On the Rapists list, though, he hit paydirt. The phone rang six times. Then: "Hello?"
A woman's voice. Radley gripped the phone a little tighter. He'd hoped the man lived alone. "James Whittington, please," he said.
"May I ask who's calling?"
A secretary, then, not a wife? A thin straw, but Radley found himself clutching it hard. "Tell him I'd like to discuss this afternoon's activities with him," he instructed her. "He'll understand."
There was a short silence. "Just a minute." Then came the sound of a hand covering the mouthpiece, and a brief and heavily muffled conversation. A
moment later, the hand was removed. Radley waited, and after nearly ten seconds a man's voice came on. "Hello?"
"Is this James Whittington?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"Someone who knows what you did this afternoon," Radley told him. "You raped a
woman."
There was just the briefest pause. "If this is supposed to be a joke, it's not especially funny."
"It's no joke," Radley said, letting his voice harden. "You know it and I know it, so let's cut the innocent act."
"Oh, the tough type, huh?" Whittington sneered. "Making anonymous calls and vague accusations—that's real tough. I don't suppose you've got anything more concrete. A name, for instance?"
"I don't know her name," Radley admitted, feeling sweat beading up on his forehead. This wasn't going at all the way he'd expected. "But I'm sure the police won't have too much trouble rooting out little details like that."
"I have no idea what the hell you're talking about," Whittington growled.
"No?" Radley asked. "Then why are you still listening?"
"Why are you still talking?" Whittington countered. "You think you can shake me down or something?"
"I don't want any money," Radley said, feeling like a blue-ribbon idiot.
Somehow, he'd thought that a flat-out accusation like this would make Whittington crumble and blurt out a confession. He should have just called the police in the first place. "I just wanted to talk to you," he added uncomfortably. "I suppose I wanted to see what kind of man would rape a woman—"
"I didn't rape anyone."
"Yeah. Right. I guess there's nothing to do now but just go ahead and tell the cops what I know. Sorry to have ruined your evening." He started to hang up.
"Wait a second," Whittington's voice came faintly from the receiver.
Radley hesitated, then put the handset back to his ear. "What?"
There was a long, painful pause. "Look," the other man said at last. "I don't know what she told you, but it wasn't rape. It wasn't. Hell, she was the one who hit on me. What was I supposed to do, turn her down?"
Radley frowned, a sudden surge of misgiving churning through his stomach.
Could the Book have been wrong? He opened his mouth—
"Damn you."
He jumped. It was a woman's voice—the same voice that had originally answered the phone. Listening in on an extension.
Whittington swore under his breath. "Mave, get the hell off the phone."
"No!" the woman said, her voice suddenly hard and ugly. "No. Enough is enough—damn it all, can't you even drive to the airport and back without screwing someone? Oh, God... Traci?"
"Mave, shut the hell up—"
"Your own niece?" the woman snarled. "God, you make me sick."
"I said shut up!" Whittington snarled back. "She hit on me, damn it—"
"She's sixteen years old!" the woman screamed. "What the hell does she know about bastards like you?"
Radley didn't wait to hear any more. Quickly, quietly, he hung up on the rage boiling out of his phone.
For a minute he just sat there at his table, his whole body shaking with reaction. Then, almost reluctantly, he reached for the Book, still open to the Rapists listings, and turned to the end. And sure enough, there it was: Rapists, Statutory—See Rapists.
Slowly, he closed the Book. "It was still a crime," he reminded himself.
"Even if she really did consent. It was still a crime."
But not nearly the crime he'd thought it was.
He took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly. The tight sensation in his chest refused to go away. A marriage obviously on the brink, one that probably would have gone over the edge eventually anyway. But if his call hadn't given it this particular push...
He swallowed hard, staring at the Book. The solitude of his apartment suddenly had become loneliness. "I wish Alison was here," he murmured. He reached for the phone—
And stopped. Because when she'd finished sympathizing with him, she would once again tell him to burn the Book.
"I can't do that," he told himself firmly. "She can play with words all she wants to. The stuff in the Book is true; and if it's true then it's truth.
Period."
A flicker of righteousness briefly colored his thoughts. But it faded quickly, and when it was gone, the loneliness was still there.
He sat there for a long time, staring at nothing in particular. Then, with another sigh, he hitched his chair closer to the kitchen table and pulled the Book and notebook over to him. There were a lot of criminals whose names he hadn't yet copied down. With the whole evening now stretching out before him, he ought to be able to make a sizeable dent in that number before bedtime. He arrived at the shop a few minutes before eight the next morning, his eyelids heavy with too little sleep and too many nightmares. Never before had he realized just how many types of crime there were in the world. Nor had he realized how many people were out there committing them.
Business was noticeably better than it had been the previous few weeks, but Radley hardly noticed. With the evil of the city roiling in his mind's eye like a huge black thundercloud, the petty details of printing letterhead paper and business cards seemed absurdly unimportant. Time and again he had to drag his thoughts away from the blackness of the thundercloud back to what he was doing—more often than not, finding a bemused-looking customer standing there peering at him.