His numb reverie ended with the sound of a door opening downstairs and a corresponding increase in the relentless, pounding surf-noise of Morlacher’s anger. He waited a few seconds and opened the door just enough to give him a vertically slitted view down into the hail. Morlacher and Pridgeon were standing in it, occupying most of the floor space while they closed up their suits in preparation for flight. The door to the downstairs front room was closed and there was no sign of Al Werry. Pridgeon opened the entrance door, admitting a white blaze of snow-reflected daylight, and went outside. Morlacher was on the point of following him when there was an extra movement and a darkening of the trapezium of brilliance on the hall floor, and May Carpenter came into the house. She was carrying a net shopping bag and was dressed in a traditionally styled tweed jacket and skirt trimmed with fur which gave her an oddly demure quality. Morlacher looked down at her with evident appreciation.
“May Carpenter,” he said, putting on a rakish grim which was totally unlike any expression Hasson had seen him use previously, “you get prettier every time I see you. How do you do it?”
“Clean living, I guess,” May replied, smiling, apparently unperturbed by his standing so close to her in the confines of the hail.
“That’s one for the book,” Morlacher chuckled. “All flower arranging and rug tying down at the PTA, is it?”
“Don’t forget the cake competitions — you should see what I can do with a piping bag.”
Morlacher laughed loud, put his hands on May’s waist and lowered his voice. “Seriously, May — why haven’t you been over to see me since you got back into town?”
She squared her shoulders. “I’ve been busy. Besides, it isn’t a girl’s place to go calling on a man, is it? What would people say?”
Morlacher glanced towards the room where he had been talking to Al Werry, then drew May closer to him and kissed her. She relaxed into it for a moment and Hasson saw the slight grinding movement of her hips which had thrown every organic switch in his body the night before. He remained transfixed at his vantage point, terrified of being caught spying and yet completely unable to move away.
“I have to go now,” Morlacher said as they separated. “I’ve got urgent business in town.”
May looked up at him through quivering eyelashes. “Perhaps it’s just as well.”
“I’ll call you,” Morlacher whispered. “We’ll fix something up.” He turned and disappeared into the white radiance of the outside world. May watched him depart, closed the entrance door and — without pausing to remove her outdoor jacket — came straight up the stairs towards the bathroom, taking the steps two at a time. Hasson almost slammed the door shut before realising the action was bound to be noticed. Dry-mouthed and sick with apprehension, he whirled away from the door and stooped over the washbasin as though busy cleaning his hands. May passed the bathroom and went into a bedroom further along the landing.
Hasson, moving with the exaggerated stealth of a burglar in a stage production, left the bathroom and plunged into his own sanctuary silently locking the door behind him. The discovery that his heart was labouring like a museum-piece engine strengthened his resolve to stay in his room as much as possible and avoid direct contact with the rest of humanity. He sat on the edge of the bed, turned on his television set and tried to become part of its miniaturised and manageable world. He had been alone for some thirty minutes when there was a knock on the bedroom door, and on answering it he found Al Werry waiting on the landing. Werry had left off his uniform in favour of duracord slacks and a black sweater, and the change had made him look younger.
“Have you got a minute, Rob?” he said in a conspiratorial undertone. “I’d like to have a word with you.”
Hasson opened the door fully and gestured for Werry to enter. “What’s it about?”
“Can’t you guess?”
Hasson avoided the other man’s gaze. “I’m just passing through this neck of the woods, Al. There’s no need to…”
“I know, but it would help me if I could talk to somebody. How about stepping out for a couple of beers?”
Hasson glanced at his television set which, once again because of time zone differences, was failing to provide the sort of programmes he wanted. “Would the television shops, stores, be open? I need to buy some cassettes.”
“We can do that as well — no problem. What do you say to a beer?”
“I’m dry as hell after last night.” Hasson confessed, reaching for his topcoat. Werry slapped him on the shoulder with something like his normal bonhomie and led the way down the stairs, jigging noisily on his heels. A minute later they were in the police cruiser and swishing along a street whose wet black pavement gave it the appearance of a canal cut through a field of snow. As the car picked up speed thick chunks of snow which had encrusted its hood broke off in the slipstream and shattered on the windshield without making a sound. Hasson deduced that the snow was powder dry and light, unlike the variety he was familiar with in England. The car swung out on to the main road and topped a low rise, giving him a panoramic view of the city looking arctic-pure and idyllic in the generous sunlight. Colours had intensified in contrast to the pervasive whiteness and the windows of houses appeared as jet-black rectangles. Off to the south the fantastic pylon of the Chinook Hotel shone like a steel pin which was holding earth and sky together.
Hasson, already becoming familiar with the general layout of Tripletree, studied the aerial sculptures of the traffic control system and used them as a guide to pick out other landmarks. Among the latter jutting up from a conglomerate of lesser buildings, was the glassy brown bulk of the furniture store where Theo had guided him on to the ring road the previous afternoon. On its roof, and glowing powerfully in spite of competition from the sun, was a huge bilaser projection representing a four-poster bed. Hasson frowned as an amber star began to wink on the computer panel of his memory.
“Quite a sign that,” he said, indicating the building to Werry. “Yesterday it was an armchair.”
Werry grinned. “That’s old Manny Weisner’s latest toy. He changes the image two or three times a week, just for fun.”
“He hasn’t had it long then?”
“About three months or so.” Werry turned his head and regarded Hasson with some curiosity. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Hasson said, trying to extinguish the amber star. Yesterday the sign had portrayed an armchair, and Theo Werry — who was blind — had said that it portrayed an armchair. The obvious explanation was that somebody had described the sign to him on a previous occasion when the image was the same and had not told him about the owner’s habit of switching it around. Armchairs were one of the most common sale items in any furniture store, therefore the degree of coincidence involved in Theo’s being right was not very great. Hasson dismissed the matter from his mind, irritated with its lingering habit of seizing on small shards of information and trying to build mosaic pictures with them. The question of what Werry wanted to talk to him about was of more immediate interest and importance. He hoped there were to be no confessions of corruption. In the past he had known other police officers to become too closely connected with men like Buck Morlacher, and none of the stories had happy endings. The thought of Morlacher brought back an associated memory of his own humiliating encounter with Starr Pridgeon, and it occurred to him that Morlacher and Pridgeon were a strangely assorted pair. He broached the subject to Werry.
“Fine example of an habitual criminal who has never done any time,” Werry said. “Stan’s been mixed up in everything from statutory rape to aggravated assault, but there was always a technical] flaw in the police case against him. That or epidemic amnesia among the witnesses. He has a repair business over in Georgetown — washing machines, fridges, things like that — but he spends most of his time hanging around with Buck.”