“A wolf?”
“Sure. They’re much more intelligent and more sensitive than dogs. A good bloodhound might have a nose a hundred million times more sensitive than a human nose. A wolf would be two hundred million times more sensitive. And wolves are correspondingly more intelligent, to handle the data. But even so there’s a tremendous richness of data, more than their minds can possibly assimilate.”
Wilson moved from his spot by the door and picked up the plaster paw model. “Is this closer to a wolf or a dog?”
“A wolf, I’d say. Actually it does look more like the paw of a giant wolf—except for those extended toes. The toes are really wonderful. A marvelous evolution. They are beyond canine, as I understand the genus. That’s why I keep asking you for a head. I just can’t do more with this thing unless I get more of the body. It’s too new, too extraordinary. Right now whatever made those pawprints is outside of science. That’s why I’m asking for more.”
“We can’t give you more, Doctor,” Becky said, it seemed for the hundredth time. “You know the trouble we’re in. We’d be lucky even to get a picture.”
“We wouldn’t, and live,” Wilson put in. “These things are too vicious for that.”
He signaled Becky with his eyes. He wanted to get moving. Since night had fallen Wilson had kept on the move. Officially they were on an eight-to-four, but neither of them was recognizing duty hours right now. They had been cut loose from their division, their squad, their block and put on this thing alone. Nobody was marking their names on a blotter. Nobody was counting their presence or giving them calls.
They were on the case because the Chief felt there was a remote chance that something unusual was indeed happening. Not enough to really do anything about, just enough to keep the wheels turning very, very slowly. Which meant a single team, alone, digging as best they could. And being available as scapegoats—if needed.
“We ought to go,” Becky said to Ferguson. “Wë figure our best bet is to keep on the move.”
“You’re probably right.”
Wilson stared at him. “Sorry about the way we came in. No other way to reach you, the museum was closed.”
Ferguson smiled. “What if I hadn’t been here?”
“No chance. You’re really running after this. It’s got under your skin. I knew you’d be here.”
Ferguson walked with them through the dim corridors, to a side door where a single guard nodded under a small light. “I’m leaving with you,” he said. “I haven’t had a bite to eat since lunch and I don’t think I can accomplish anything just sitting and staring at that paw.”
Their feet crunched in the snow as they crossed the quiet grounds of the museum. Becky could see their car on Seventy-seventh Street where they had left it, now covered with a dusting of snow. They had perhaps twenty yards to walk up a disused driveway before they reached the safety of the car. Nothing seemed to be moving among the shadows of the trees that surrounded the museum, and there were no tracks visible in the new snow. The wind was blowing softly, adding the crackle of bare limbs to the hiss of the falling snow. The clouds hung low, reflecting the light of the city and covering everything with a green glow stronger than moonlight. Even so, the trip to the car seemed long. By the position of his hand Becky knew Wilson felt the same way: he was touching the butt of the pistol he kept holstered under his jacket.
As they reached the car Ferguson turned, saying he was going to take the Number 10 bus up Central Park West to his apartment. They let him go.
“I wonder if we should have done that,” Becky said as she started the car.
“What?”
“Let him go off on his own. We have no way of knowing how much danger he’s in. If they were watching us, they saw us with him. What would that mean to them? Kill him too, maybe? I think he’s in more danger than he knows.”
“Get moving. Put on the damn radio. Let’s listen to the traffic.”
“You handle the radio, man, you’re not doing anything else.”
He flipped it on and settled with his knee against the dash. “It’s too cold for junkies on the streets, it’ll be a quiet night.”
They listened to a rookie call and immediately cancel a signal 13 at Seventy-second and Amsterdam. But you can’t cancel an assist officer call just like that. Guys would move in on him anyway and then rib him about it later. “What made him jump, you suppose?” Wilson asked. He didn’t really expect an answer and Becky didn’t talk. Who the hell cared about some rookie and his erroneous 13. Becky headed the car east across Central Park on the Seventy-ninth Street transverse. She was heading toward a Chinese restaurant in her home neighborhood the other side of the park. She wasn’t particularly hungry, but they had to eat. And what they would do after that, how they would pass the night she had no idea. And what about the days and nights to come, what about the future?
“What the hell are they going to do about us?”
“Do, Becky? Not a damn thing. They’re just gonna leave us hanging on this here string. Hey, where’re you going—you live over here, don’t you?”
“Don’t get your hopes up, I’m not taking you to my place. We’re going to stop for a little supper. We need to eat, remember.”
“Yeah. Anyway, the brass isn’t going to do a damn thing about us. They’re too busy pushing paper and worrying—who has this division, who has that precinct, who’s moving up, who’s getting flopped. That’s their whole career, that and figuring who has the biggest hook, who is the biggest hook for that matter. You know that’s what they do. That’s about it in Commissioner country.”
“Bitter boy. I think maybe Underwood actually thinks we belong on the case. He respects us.”
“Who belongs on a closed case? Oh Jesus, Becky, this is a Szechwan restaurant—I can’t eat here.”
She double-parked the car and pulled out the key. “You can eat here. Just ask them to hold the hot sauce on your chow mein.”
“I can’t even get Goddamn chow mein in a place like this,” he sulked.
She got out of the car and he followed reluctantly. They entered the dimly lit restaurant knocking snow off their clothes. “Getting heavier?” the coat-check girl asked.
“Heavier,” Wilson said. “Becky, this place is going to cost a fortune. It’s got a hatcheck girl. I never eat in places with hatcheck girls.” He followed her into the restaurant still complaining, but he subsided into subvocal grumbling when he received the menu. She could see the gears turning over as he calculated whether he could eat for less than two dollars.
“I’ll order for both of us since I’ve been here before,” she said, taking his menu. “I’ll get you out for five bucks.”
“Five!”
“Maybe six. I hope you’re not too hungry though, because it’ll only be one dish.”
“What?”
The waiter came. She ordered prawns in garlic sauce for Wilson and Chicken Tang for herself. At least she would enjoy what could easily be her last meal. But she stopped that line of thought—you think that way, it happens. She also ordered a drink, and Wilson got beer. “A buck for a Bud,” he muttered. “Goddamn Chinks.”
“Come on, relax. You’ll enjoy the food. Let’s talk about it.”
“What Ferguson said?”
“What he said. What ideas did it give you?”
“We could set up living quarters in Evans’s meat locker.”
“It gave me a better idea than that. It’s something I think we’ve got to do if we’re going to survive. Obviously it’s only a matter of time before our friends see their chance and move in. Sooner or later the two of us are going to join DiFalco and Houlihan. Then the department will wade into this thing all the way. But it won’t make a damn bit of difference to us.”
“Insufficient evidence, that’s what’s got the wheels gummed up. We have provided theories, hearsay, suppositions and a funny-looking piece of plaster of Paris made by Doctor Whozis.”