“I believe it. yes,” she said.
“You’re wrong.”
“I don’t like what you stand for, Detective Reardon,” she said. “If one citizen’s rights are violated, then every citizen’s...”
“Nobody’s fucking rights were violated,” he said heatedly. “The man’s a habitual offender, a rapist who...”
“Tell it to the judge,” she said in dismissal. “And watch your fucking language.”
She moved away from him swiftly, high heels clattering on the marble corridor, little ass swinging indignantly in the simple brown dress.
Under his breath, he muttered, “I hope you’re his next victim.”
An hour and a half to get here, speeding all the way, hoping his detective’s shield would serve him well if a zealous New Jersey highway patrolman stopped him, and too late to take her to lunch, anyway. “She’s already had lunch,” Kathy’s mother informed him, and then made it clear that he was not welcome to sit around the house chatting with his own daughter, this despite the fact that the temperature outside had dropped to eighteen degrees and the wind was howling.
Where do you take a six-year-old kid who’s already had lunch? He’d be working the four-to-midnight this afternoon, he had to leave Jersey no later than two-thirty, and it was already one o’clock. Could you sit in a Baskin-Robbins for an hour and a half, eating ice cream cones while outside it looked like Siberia? He settled on a roller-skating rink not far from her grandparents’ house.
Organ music filled the vast auditorium. He had not been on skates since he was eleven or twelve, but it came back to him almost at once. Elizabeth was an ace. The image of her mother, straight blonde hair and intensely blue eyes, button nose, and freckles all over her Irish phizz, wearing now a plaid skirt and a blue sweater, little Peter Pan collar showing above its crew neck. They moved well together, danced like a famous Spanish ballroom team on wheels. She was telling him about Grandma and Grandpa. Organ music swelled behind them, a tune from the forties.
“They’re okay, you know,” Elizabeth said, “it’s just that they’re so old. Dad.”
“Well, they’re not that old, honey.”
“No? I’ll bet Grandpa’s at least forty.”
“At least,” Reardon said, smiling.
“They don’t like to do anything, you know what I mean? We just sit around on our asses all day.”
“Watch the language, honey.”
“What’d I say?”
“Skip it.”
“So why do I have to be here?” Elizabeth asked. “I’m missing school and everything, Dad. I mean, did Mommy have to go back to work?”
“It’s what she wanted, Liz.”
“Are you out of money or something?”
“No, we’ve got enough money.”
“ ’Cause I thought we were rich and everything. I mean, detectives make lots of money, don’t they?”
“Millions,” he said.
“Well, not millions maybe. But hundreds and thousands of thousands.”
“From the graft alone,” Reardon said.
“Sure,” Elizabeth said. “So why’d she have to go back to work?”
“Honey...” he said, “let’s get a hot chocolate, okay?”
They skated to the railing, and then through the opening onto a carpeted floor. At the concession stand, he ordered a hot chocolate for Elizabeth, and asked her if she wanted anything else. She said she was still stuffed from lunch. He was ravenously hungry, that damn court appearance this morning, that little twerp Samalson or whatever her name was. He ordered a cup of coffee, two hot dogs, and a side of French fries. They sat at a table with benches, near the concession. The organ player was attempting rock now, a bad mistake. The place was virtually empty at this hour; Reardon guessed it wouldn’t fill up until school broke.
“How’s the hot chocolate?” he asked.
“Yummy,” she said.
They were silent for a moment. The organ player was slaughtering a Stones’ tune. A lone skater on the floor twirled like a break dancer.
“Honey,” Reardon said, “there’s something I’ve got to tell you. I want you to be a big girl now, and try to understand.”
“I am a big girl,” she said. Chocolate rimming her mouth. God, how he loved her!
“I know that.”
“Bigger even than Suzie, and she’s seven.”
“Yes, sweetie. So please try to understand what I’m going to tell you.”
“Sure, Dad.” Her face suddenly solemn, blue eyes wide.
“Liz... your mother and I are separated.” He looked into her eyes. “Do you know what that means?”
“No, what does it mean?” she said. That innocent face. Christ!
“It means... it means we’re not living together anymore. All those stories she told you about me having to go down to Miami on an extradition case... they weren’t true, Liz.”
“Then where were you, if not in Miami?” Her eyes puzzled.
“In a hotel. In the city. In New York. I’ve been living in a hotel, Liz.”
“Where?”
“On Twenty-sixth and Broadway.”
“Can I come there sometime?” she asked.
“I don’t think you’d like it much, Liz.”
“When will you be going to Miami?”
“I’m not,” he said. “That was a lie, Liz. I’m not going to Miami at all.”
She stared at him.
“Liz... your mother and I are getting a divorce.”
“Oh,” she said.
The single word. Nothing more. Everything in that single word. And in her wide blue eyes.
“Do you know what divorce means?”
“Yes,” she said. “Suzie’s divorced.”
“Her parents,” he said.
“Whoever,” she said. She was thoughtful for a moment. Then she asked, “Is that why I’m in New Jersey?”
“Until the lawyers work it out, yes.”
“Work what out?”
“Well, the alimony payments, and child support, and... there’s a lot to be worked out, Liz.”
She nodded.
The organ player started “Tennessee Waltz.”
“Who will I live with, Dad?” she asked. “After the divorce, I mean.”
“Mom, I guess.”
“I want to live with both of you,” she said.
“Well... honey. I’d like that, too, but...”
“I love you both,” she said, “and I want to live with both of you.” Another nod. A child’s simple logic. You love two people, you live with both of them. Period.
“Honey.” he said, “that won’t be possible.”
“Why not?”
“When two people break up...”
“Well, why do you and Mom have to break up?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know, darling.”
She looked into his face. She must have seen something on it — his pain and confusion perhaps, although he was trying very hard to hide it — because suddenly she threw herself into his arms. He held her tight, squeezing his eyes shut, clinging to her desperately.
6
A kerosene heater was going in the squadroom at four-thirty that afternoon, enabling the men to work in relative comfort. It was colder outside than it had been this morning. The sun was gone now, the meshed windows showed as only frost-rimed black rectangles. Reardon had been fifteen minutes late, relieving at four on the dot, rather than at the customary fifteen minutes to the hour. He was on the phone now, trying to get through to Washington, D.C. At his own desk, Gianelli was also on the phone.
“Okay, I’ll wait,” Gianelli said, and rolled his eyes at Reardon. “Ballistics,” he said. “I hate Ballistics.”