“Oh, dear God,” she said softly.
“Can I get you something?”
“I’m all right. Thanks. Give me a minute.”
Tate waited. She sat up finally. Tate thought, “You don’t age a tiny bit every day. You go along just the same, and then in a matter of minutes five years happens to you, happens to your face and your mind and your body.”
She said, “I should be full of protestations. I suppose I should tell you you’re mad. I can’t do that, of course. Because, in some crazy way, it was already in my mind. In my subconscious perhaps. In a little box, carefully sealed. You merely opened the lid, and it all came flooding out. It’s a... sickness in him.”
Tate looked at his fist. “That’s what the mental experts tell us we’re supposed to think. Just a sickness, like measles. And we’re supposed to be kind and loving and understanding, or something. Treat the poor guy. Hold his damn hand.”
“You’re bitter, Sergeant.”
“I guess so.”
“Then he won’t be back? Ever?”
“I’ve figured it out this far. I decided from what the last victim told me, that the man had a position. Then I decided that with his face gouged, he’d run even before we used the papers. He’d be that intelligent. He has a business, and a partner and a home. So I think he’ll be back. His face ought to be healed, nearly healed by now. He’ll be back with some gag line about getting away for a few weeks and thinking about life.”
“So you’ll have somebody watching the house?”
Tate stood up. “And have him spot the stake-out, because he’ll be looking for a stake-out, and then take off without stopping here? You told me you’re a strong woman.”
“How strong do I have to be? Do you want me to be strong enough to... welcome him and smile and... turn him in?”
He took out his notebook and scribbled a number on a back page, tore the sheet out and handed it to her. “This is my home phone. When I’m not there, there’ll be another number to call.”
She looked at the small piece of paper and did not take it.
“They were all young kids,” Tate said. “Young dumb scared kids.”
He dropped the bit of paper into her lap and walked back around the house and slammed the car door hard when he got in, and squealed his tires on the smooth asphalt curves as he drove out of there.
Monday afternoon Tate had lunch with Ricks in a back booth in a cheap restaurant just off Flower Street.
Tate said, “Foster Delaney, his name is. A very calm guy. Too damn calm and too damn cooperative. He said it was a bad time for this Vayse to take off. He said it was a real shame. But he wasn’t upset enough to suit me. I had to get him sore. Hell, to hear him, I was going to be walking a beat where they’ve forgotten to build houses yet. Then it came out. He got a call from Vayse. Woke him up at one in the morning. Here’s what Vayse told him on the phone. Wife trouble. Wanted to get away for a while and think it over. Get squared away with himself. That was the exact words. Apologized to this Foster Delaney for doing it at this time. Said he hadn’t decided where he was going, and maybe it would bring his wife to her senses to just shove off, no message, no nothing. It took some time. But I got it. And it means I was right. It means he has to come back, and wherever he is, you can damn well bet he’s been buying papers from here.”
Ricks stirred his coffee, his heavy red face expressionless. “I don’t like it. That woman. How the hell can you trust her that way? By God, she’s married to the guy.”
“She knows in her heart he’s the one.”
“So she tells him to run like hell before he gets electrocuted, Dan.”
“If they were in an apartment someplace, okay. I’d double check by putting in a request for a stake-out. In that neighborhood it’s a risk. Look, this Vayse is bright. He’s a successful guy. At thirty-three he’s making the kind of dough you and I will never see.”
“I don’t like it,” Ricks said stubbornly.
“Bucky, we’ve been working together three years. Right?”
“Yes, but...”
“Don’t you make a peep. I don’t want this thing big-dealed away from me. It’s mine and I think this is the way to do it, and if I’m wrong, I’ll go open a fruit stand and let you steal apples every day.”
Bucky Ricks sighed. “Okay. You’re just nuts. Every year I run into more crazy people. So I’m going a little crazy too.”...
During the next few days a lot of things were piled on Tate. He built up a lot of mileage. He made out stacks of reports. Yet, all the time, in the back of his mind, one single wire was pulled so tightly that he could hear the thin high note of vibration. When he tried to sleep he’d wake up sweating and sit on the edge of the bed and smoke and listen to Jen’s soft breathing.
On the second day of the new month he was standing, at three in the afternoon, by the desk, listening to Barney grumble about assignments, while he waited for a print report to come back from Identification.
When the phone rang Barney answered it, handed it to Tate. Tate listened and then answered shortly and hung up the phone with great care. He did something he had done very few times before. He took out the Special and swung the cylinder out and looked at the load and snapped the cylinder back in.
Ricks came over from the bench where he’d been talking angrily to Comer about the condition of the vehicle they’d been given. Ricks said, “By God, Dan, if it happens again, I’m going to...” He noticed Tate’s face and said, “That was your call?”
Tate felt as though the skin on his face had shrunk, as though it was pulled too tightly across the bones, as though it was flattening his lips hard against his teeth.
“Let’s go get him, Bucky,” he said. “He’s come home.”
