“Crap. We don’t know what the hell we’re confronting.”
“And I can’t help you unless I’ve got more information. I’m not going to go spouting out suppositions that could get quoted in the papers. Anyway it’s your problem to protect the community, so protect it. My interest is strictly scientific. So bring me a head. If I’m going to give you your answers, I’ve got to have a head.”
Wilson’s chin was pulled in, his shoulders were hunched. “Hell, you can count on us! Bring you a head—we can’t possibly bring you a head and you know it. Nobody’s ever caught one of these things. Even if they’ve evolved at absolute top speed, how long have they been around?”
“At the very least—and this seems next to impossible—give them ten thousand years.”
“Longer than recorded history and you want us to bring you a head! Let’s get out of here, Detective Neff, we’ve got work to do.” He got up and left.
“Just one more thing,” Becky said as she was leaving, “just one thing I’d like you to think about. If they are following us, they probably know we came to see you.” She went out behind Wilson, leaving the scientist staring at the door.
Wilson didn’t speak again until they had passed back through the nearly empty museum and were in the car. “That was bullshit you fed that schmuck,” he said. “He won’t believe us no matter how close to home you try to take it.”
“Maybe not. It sure would help us though, to get a Ph.D. behind us. Think of what would happen if that guy went to Underwood and said these two cops might have a point.”
“Don’t, Becky. It isn’t going to happen that way.” They rode on in silence for a few minutes. “Maybe we’re spooked,” Wilson said. “Maybe it was just our imagination last night.”
“Our?”
“I saw something too.” He said it as if he didn’t want to. “Something watched me from a fire escape when I was on my way to my rooming house. It was a damn strange-looking dog. I only got a glimpse and then it was gone. I’ve never seen a face like that on a dog—so intense. In fact I’ve never seen a face like that before except once, when I collared a maniac. He looked at me like that. It was because the bastard was about to pull a hidden shiv on me.”
“Why didn’t you say something about this earlier?”
“I was wishing it was my imagination. I guess we’re in trouble, Becky.” This last he said softly, almost in awe of the words. They both knew exactly what the stakes were. Becky felt sick. Wilson, sitting beside her as solid as a statue, had never seemed so frail. She found herself wanting to protect him. She could imagine the thing on the fire escape—she could picture the eager, intent eyes, sense the frustration at the crowds on the sidewalk, imagine the silent anger it felt as Wilson went unmolested on his way, protected by all the unsuspecting witnesses.
“George, I just can’t believe it. It’s so hard to make it seem real. And if it isn’t totally real, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to deal with it.”
“It’s happened before, Becky. There are even legends about it.” She waited eagerly for more but he seemed to see no need to continue. Typical of him to lapse into silence after making a leading statement like that.
“So go on. What are you driving at?”
“I was just thinking—you remember what you said to Rilker about werewolves? You might not have been too far wrong.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Not really. Say they’ve existed throughout recorded history. If they really are as smart as we think, people in the past would have believed that they were men turned into wolves.”
“Then what happened? Why did the legends die out?”
He braced his knee against the glove compartment and slumped in the seat. “Maybe the reason is that the population of the world grew. Back in the past their hunts were noticed because there were so few people. But as the population got bigger they started concentrating on the dregs, the isolated, the forgotten—people who wouldn’t be missed. Typical predators in that respect—they only take the weak.”
She glanced at him as she drove. “I think that’s a hell of an idea,” she said. “I don’t think it’s very good news for you and me, though.”
He laughed. “We’re not weak. That probably means they’ll be very careful. There also isn’t any knowledge about them at all, which must mean that they’re very thorough about covering their tracks.”
He means that they hunt down people like us, Becky thought as she guided the car through the traffic. It was like being in a bad dream, this feeling of being hunted. Her mind kept going back to the shadow on the ceiling, the shadow on the ceiling… the patient shadow waiting for that single, perfect instant when it could destroy the woman who knew its secret. The world was whirling around her, around her and Wilson, a world of lights and voices and warmth—except for the darting shape, the shadow leaping in pursuit.
“It’s a shame nobody believes us,” Wilson said. “I mean, it’s a shame the… things are wasting their time hunting us down, seeing as how we couldn’t reveal them even if we wanted to.” He rubbed his face. “Except maybe to Rilker and Evans. Even Ferguson if he’ll quit worrying about what they’ll say in Science News. But we just might be able to convince Rilker and Evans—hell, I don’t care what they decide is after us, I just want them to know we’re in danger and give us a hand!” He turned his head, looking at her with a haggard face. “You know, that Ferguson was a prize jerk. I think he was attracted to you.”
He’s jealous, she thought, and he doesn’t even know it. “I could tell he was a jerk from the first moment I saw him,” she said; “he looked like one.” There, Wilson will like that. True to her expectations he put his arm out along the seat.
“I like it when you wear that smell.”
“I’m not wearing any perfume.”
“Must be your deodorant then. It’s very nice.”
“Thank you.” The poor man, his best efforts were so terrible. She felt a twinge of sorrow for him; his loneliness was becoming more and more obvious to her. “You’re very sweet to say that,” she heard herself say, but the words sounded false.
Apparently they did to him, too, because he didn’t say anything more. When they reached Police Headquarters Becky pulled the car to a stop on a crowded nearby street rather than risk the big, empty garage beneath the building.
“We’ve got to try and get Underwood to assign a special detail,” she said when they were back in their office. Wilson nodded. He sat down at their desk and shuffled through the papers heaped on top of it: a day-old Times covered with coffeecup rings, a copy of the New York magazine crossword, half a dozen departmental memos.
“Nobody ever calls us,” he said.
“So let’s call Underwood ourselves. We’ve got to do something, we can’t just let ourselves rot.”
“Don’t say that! It does bad things to my gut. Why don’t you call Underwood? Hello, this is the Detective with a capital D. You know the one? Well, please assign me a special protective detail. You see, I’m being chased by these werewolves. That’ll get action.”
“An invitation from Psychiatric Services and a little confidential note in the old personnel file. I know. But we don’t want protection, we want to eliminate the menace!”
“You think we can, Becky?”
“We’ve got to try.”
“So we’ll call Evans and Rilker and try to get them on our side. And maybe even the scientist will put his two cents in if Rilker pushes him. Stranger things have happened. Maybe we’ll at least get a scratch squad together, enough men to uncover some positive evidence.”
Becky didn’t feel particularly confident but she got on the phone. Wilson didn’t even offer to lend a hand; they both knew that his services were, at best, counterproductive in the area of convincing people to give him help.