by Thomas Perry
Millikan reached the small, two-story house on the quiet street in the northern part of Sherman Oaks, and pulled into the driveway. He got out of the car and closed the door as gently as he could. He looked around him, as he always did, but this time his mood made the sight irritating. When he and Marjorie had moved here, the whole neighborhood had been single-family houses much like theirs, but now on the busy east-west boulevards on two sides, he could see tall apartment buildings. Down the next street they had just bulldozed another house and begun digging a hole for a foundation that could hardly be anything but an underground parking garage for another big apartment building. It frustrated him that he had no memory at all of the house that had been destroyed.
He was also frustrated because it should not have been allowed: this area had always been zoned R-1. But Millikan had enough connections in the local government so he should have been incapable of surprise at the granting of exemptions. The lives of politicians were a tormented rush to collect money for the next election, so their frequent meetings with developers were a degrading alternation of bribery and extortion. He only hoped that it would remain tolerable to live here for the years he and Marjorie had left.
Millikan took a step toward the front door, then stopped and stood motionless for a moment breathing the hot, still air and listening to the distant, whispery sounds of cars speeding along Chandler. He knew that he had just been distracting himself from his personal discomforts by railing against the anonymous forces he liked to blame for ruining things. He leaned against the door of his car and considered what was really bothering him. It was that the Louisville restaurant killer had caused him to do things that he had never intended to do, never would have believed he would do.
There were homicide detectives who had never actually solved a murder in their careers. What Millikan meant when he used the word solved was that there was no eyewitness, no confession, no suspect who was indisputably the only possible killer. What the investigator had was a crime scene and a mind. Millikan had solved many, perhaps three hundred. His books and his courses had helped police officers all over the country solve an unknown, larger number. He had sacrificed security and suffered doubt and long, lonely hours early in his life in exchange for knowledge, and then worked steadily and tirelessly to improve, but in the end he had made a contribution. If he had been able to look at himself from a distance, through someone else’s eyes, he would have had to say that he had been a reasonable success. But the premise was false: the distant observer would not know that after a lifetime of professing his faith in the slow, logical process of collecting evidence and helping prosecutors present it in courts of law, he had finally resorted to sending someone like Roy Prescott out to get a killer.
It suddenly occurred to him that Marjorie had probably heard the car drive in, and she would be wondering what he was doing out here. He stepped to the door, unlocked it, and opened it, ready to turn off the alarm. There was no alarm sound.
“Dan?” It was Marjorie’s voice, the sound of all the good in his life: warmth, softness, a bit of concern.
“Yeah, honey,” he called. “It’s only me.”
She padded into the kitchen on bare feet, wearing a soft flannel nightgown, her long dark hair hanging loose, a hairbrush in her hand. She came close, stood on her toes, and kissed his cheek as he took off his coat.
“You forgot to turn on the alarm again,” he said.
“I was going to go to bed without you, and if I fell asleep and you came in late, it would go off and scare me.”
He kept himself from repeating his lecture on precautions; she knew. He put his arm around her waist and felt the soft cloth move against her naked body, the narrow waist curving outward to the rounded hip. In early middle age, she had been concerned and upset by the graying of her hair and subtle changes she detected in her body, but a few years ago, she had simply stopped. One day she had said, “My body isn’t young anymore, but it’s a body that somebody loved, and that carried our children and nursed them.” She still dyed her hair to cover the gray, she still dieted and exercised, but there was not the same frantic and despairing quality to what she did. He suspected that even now, she did not quite accept that she was a beautiful fifty-year-old, any more than he had been able to convince her that she was a beautiful twenty-eight-year-old at the time. She had always been distrustful of compliments, but she seemed to have grown comfortable in her body again. The way she stood still and leaned to his hand was at once a familiar, comforting assertion of her proprietary right to his affection and a gesture that was intensely erotic to him.
She turned to put her arms around his neck and look up into his eyes. “It wasn’t him, was it?”
“No,” Millikan said. “Not this time.”
“Then come to bed, and forget about it for now.”
Millikan waited until she had gone up the stairs and turned on the hall light at the top before he went through the first floor, checking the bolts and locks on the doors, resetting the alarm system, and switching off the lights, one by one. He made his way upstairs as she was leaving the bathroom, then took his turn. It was a ritual that had become changeless, efficient, and nearly silent years ago, to keep from waking Katie and Mary Ann when they were still small. Now they were grown, married women, each the mistress of her own house in another city, and mother of her own children.
He turned off the last lights and slipped under the covers beside Marjorie. She snuggled close to him and rested her head on his chest, as she did most nights, and he felt the calm, comfortable sensation that he supposed must be a quality of old marriages, where all the rough edges had been worn smooth and there were no longer any boundaries that mattered. She knew she was entitled to the spot and was welcome there. “You didn’t have to wait up for me,” he said.
“Well, yes.” He felt her shift a bit closer as she shrugged. “Actually, I did. Unless you’re too tired . . .?” He felt her hand move lower on his belly. “You don’t seem tired to me.” He could hear the amusement in her voice.
“I’m not.” He turned toward her only a few degrees and their position became an embrace. “I can’t imagine being that tired.”
The hour was late, but the Millikans were beyond worrying about it, having made the decision to ignore the clock many times before and suffered no consequences that either of them cared about. Their caresses were gentle and unhurried, but uninhibited and sure, from deep knowledge of each other. He was not inclined to pull his attention away from his senses at any time during the next couple of hours, but because the mind could do many things at once, it recorded impressions and observations that he would think about later.
He was making love to the woman who had been his girlfriend and then his wife for so many years that she had gone from the desired to the epitome to the ideal and, at last, to encompass all and become the only woman, to whom he was the only man. Neither of them made any awkward, tentative overture, because there was no longer any doubt, no uncertainty in what they might do to give each other not pleasure, but the greatest pleasure. That was one of the secrets between them: there were no limits. Both of them wished they could do everything they knew for each other every time. And they knew so much now—that being touched exactly here in exactly this way made her feel so excited that she couldn’t quite contain it, couldn’t still her voice or her body, and that her reaction was what in turn made him ecstatic—that it would have taken days, weeks, to repeat everything. And to him each time was better, because it included memories of the others that were strong enough to be partly physical, and each act not performed was an option and therefore a promise for another time.
It ended, and he was lying on his back again in the darkness, with Marjorie in her proprietary place, her head resting on his chest with her soft hair loose and her arm across his stomach. He gently stroked her hair and the nape of her delicate neck and her shoulder, silently bringing down upon her whatever blessing an imperfect man might coax out of a benevolent God for this good woman
. Her breathing gradually slowed and deepened to a soft, even tempo, and she was asleep.
Millikan remained motionless, staring up at the ceiling. He began to see again the images of the evening, the four murdered people lying on the bloody linoleum floor in the hot, cramped space of the restaurant. This time it wasn’t the Louisville killer, but next time, it might be. He reviewed the places in his house where he had put loaded guns after he had returned from Buffalo, and determined to remind Marjorie of them in the morning. He would also have to beg her again to turn on the alarm system whenever he was out: the killer might very well come here looking for the way he could hurt Millikan most. Under certain circumstances, that would be this killer’s next likely move, and tonight it seemed to Millikan that these circumstances might be the ones that had come into being. He had not heard from Prescott for a very long time, and that meant that Prescott was probably dead.
30
It was late summer, and the humidity made droplets of sweat form on Prescott’s glass of beer and run onto the table while he watched Dick Hobart getting ready for the day’s customers. Every afternoon for the past week, the air would grow heavier and thicker, until it took an effort even to sit still, and then a sudden, faint breeze would rustle the leaves on the trees outside, and the droplets would come, big fat globs of water that exploded on the hot tar of the streets and disappeared in a steam that smelled of dust and plants and electricity. The drops came more quickly then, and the rain pounded down, cooling the hot stones and the cracked, dry ground. It lasted fifteen minutes, until the excess had been exhausted, and then stopped. Ten minutes after that, the air would begin to feel close again, but the sun had lost some of its hard, harsh power, and the long, slow decline into evening began. The day-heated air seemed to be old and static, not moving at all.
People were out in the evening this week. Prescott saw them walking up sidewalks or sitting on their front porches after the sun went down, standing in line to get into restaurants that served food that wasn’t as good as they’d have cooked at home if they could bear it, or waiting outside air-conditioned theaters to see movies that they had selected on the basis of starting time. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and as Dick Hobart’s helpers and bartenders lifted cases of bottles over the bar to stock the refrigerators and liquor shelves, Prescott could see that their shirts were already wet down the spines. The sweat was forming on Dick Hobart’s forehead, and each time he bent over, it would drip onto the lenses of his glasses. He came up with four whiskey bottles, set them on the bar, then walked over to Prescott, wiping his lenses on the front of his white shirt, which just smeared them. “I love this weather,” he said.
“It’s an ill wind and all that,” Prescott said.
“That’s the truth,” Hobart agreed. “Ever since the temperature went up, I can barely keep the bar stocked, and we’ve had to keep customers waiting in the parking lot from about eight o’clock until closing.” He grinned. “I’d fit them in somehow, but the damned fire marshals come to see me more in this weather, too.” He leaned forward on the bar close to Prescott’s table and looked significantly at the sport coat Prescott had across his lap. “If you brought me something, I can look at it. I’m ready for a break, anyway.”
They walked to the unmarked door near the stage, along the concrete hallway, and into Hobart’s office, a converted storeroom with no windows. There was room only for a desk and two chairs, because Hobart’s filing system seemed to consist of papers thrown into empty liquor cartons and piled in rows along the wall. Hobart locked the door and turned up the air-conditioning while Prescott sat down. Prescott set the summer-weight sport coat on the desk and reached into the inner pocket. Inside was a small package wrapped and addressed to himself, so that in case of trouble he could drop it in a mailbox. He opened the brown paper and sat back.
Hobart looked at the three ladies’ watches, one by one.
“They all run good?”
“Yes,” said Prescott. “This Rolex retails for two thousand, two fifty. It’s about a year old. The Patek Philippe is thirty-five hundred new, but there’s a scratch on the crystal. The Omega is about fifteen hundred. The diamonds on the dial would be extra, but I’m pretty sure that was some kind of special order, so I’ll let that cancel them out.”
“What should we ask for them?”
Prescott squinted, then stared up at the ceiling. “Let’s say three thousand for the lot. If they have to get split, I’d like fifteen hundred for the Patek Philippe, and I’ll keep the others.” He was aware that Hobart was studiously keeping his eyes from resting on the antique brooch in the center of the open butcher paper.
Hobart lifted each of the watches, listened to it tick, and set it aside. “I’ll try.” He picked up a diamond engagement ring. “Looks like three-quarter carat.”
“That’s what I make it,” said Prescott.
“A thousand?”
“Done.”
He lifted a gold chain, tossed it up and down to feel the weight, examined the jeweler’s mark. “The workmanship is good, not too distinctive. A hundred an ounce?”
“Sounds okay,” Prescott said.
Hobart scrutinized each item, giving estimates and receiving Prescott’s approval. He never wrote down a price or notation of any kind, as though by tacit agreement there should be no evidence that the merchandise had passed into this little box of an office. He kept going until there was nothing left but the brooch.
He poked it with his finger, then picked it up and turned it around and around, examined the clasp, then set it on the desk.
“What do you want for it? Four or five thousand?”
“The center stone is an emerald, and it’s old, so there’s zero chance it’s been cracked and repaired with synthetic bond.”
“You’re sure?”
“The setting is Victorian.” He was silent for a moment. “I know it’ll have to be broken up, but the diamonds alone are worth about four. I’ll take eight for it, as is. If it doesn’t sell, I’ll split the stones myself and sell them off one at a time.”
Hobart shrugged. “Eight it is.” He looked at the jewelry he had moved to the side. “Three for the watches if they sell together, a thousand each for the six, seven, eight rings. Eight thousand for the brooch, I make it seven hundred for the chain. What’s that?”
“Nineteen thousand, seven hundred.”
Hobart stared at the merchandise. “If you’ll let me give you your money tomorrow, I’ll make it twenty even,” he offered.
“Okay,” said Prescott. He pulled his coat off the desk, but Hobart didn’t move.
“Bobby,” he said quietly, “if this is none of my business, I’ll drop it, but I don’t get the feeling you’re a happy man.”
Prescott stared at him thoughtfully, then shrugged.
“Is it Jeanie? Look, I’m your friend and I’m her friend, too. I know that if there’s something wrong, you’ll be able to work it out. She’s—”
“She’s great,” said Prescott. “We get along fine.” His reticence seemed to collapse as he met Hobart’s eyes. “I know you’re a friend, Dick, so I won’t bullshit you. It’s not a permanent thing. I’m too old for her, too old to have that kind of relationship with a woman who’s young enough to think about houses and kids.” He smiled sadly. “I’m a hell of a boyfriend, but pretty soon she’s going to have to put on her clothes and look for a husband. She knows it, and she knows that I know it.”
“Is that what’s bothering you?” asked Hobart. “I don’t want to sound like I’m not taking it seriously, because I am. I’m sixty next May, and I’ve been having these thoughts for longer than you have. But I’ll tell you, life is short, and there’s time enough to be dead after the doctor says you’re dead.” He frowned. “There’s more to this, isn’t there?”
Prescott was silent for a few seconds. “There is. I guess maybe Jeanie set it off, made me think about it again.” He transfixed Hobart with his eyes. “You already know I’ve been away.”
&
nbsp; Hobart nodded, slightly, as though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know more.
“I keep thinking about all that time. Not just the time I spent inside, but the years it cost me to get to where I was doing okay before that, and then losing it all and having to start over.” He took a deep breath and blew it out. “I made a mistake once. It made me a graduate of Corcoran State. Ever hear of it?”
“No.”
“It’s an ugly place. The guards used to set up these fights, just let two prisoners go at it until one of them couldn’t get up. Like gladiators.”
“You?”
Prescott shook his head. “No. Not me.” He sighed. “They saved that for guys they thought were troublemakers, and I never got their attention. I was in for four and a half years.”
“What for?”
Prescott smiled. “You didn’t believe it when I told you about the car washes, did you?”
“Hell no. Would you?”
Prescott said, “It was true. What I did was put most of my profits into things like that, so that no matter what I did, I would have a visible means of support that was dull enough to be real.”
“What were the profits from?”
“I had a crew. I would pick the place and case it, then breeze through, taking out the locks and alarms. Five minutes later, I’d send in the crew with a truck. I’d have one guy in a security uniform like a rent-a-cop. He’d drive up, open the gate, and then stand by it. The rest would load the truck and pull out. He’d lock the gate, go to his car, and drive off. We did construction sites, warehouses. Once we did a grocery store that was closed for the night. I paid my guys, made money. I bought the car-wash places.” He paused. “The mistake I made was branching out.”
