“That’s what the paper said, I think.”
“It’s quite a total when you stop and think of it. And there may have been a few Ackermans not accounted for. A body or two in the river, for instance.”
“You make it sound—”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know. It gives me the willies to think about it. Will he just keep on now? Until they catch him?”
“You think they’ll catch him?”
“Well, sooner or later, won’t they? The Ackermans know to be careful now and the police will have stakeouts. Is that what they call it? Stakeouts?”
“That’s what they call it on television.”
“Don’t you think they’ll catch him?”
The young man thought it over. “I’m sure they’ll catch him,” he said, “if he keeps it up.”
“You mean he might stop?”
“I would. If I were him.”
“If you were him. What a thought!”
“Just projecting a little. But to continue with it, if I were this creep, I’d leave the rest of the world’s Ackermans alone from here on in.”
“Because it would be too dangerous?”
“Because it wouldn’t be any fun for me.”
“Fun!”
“Oh, come on,” he said, smiling. “Once you get past the evilness of it, which I grant you is overwhelming, can’t you see how it would be fun for a demented mind? But try not to think of him as fundamentally cruel. Think of him as someone responding to a challenge. Well, now the police and the newspapers and the Ackermans themselves know what’s going on, so at this point it’s not a game anymore. The game’s over and if he were to go on with it he’d just be conducting a personal war of extermination. And if he doesn’t really have any genuine grudge against Ackermans, well, I say he’d let them alone.”
She looked at him and her eyes were thoughtful. “Then he might just stop altogether.”
“Sure.”
“And get away with it?”
“I suppose. Unless they pick him up for killing somebody else.” Her eyes widened and he grinned. “Oh, really, Emily, you can’t expect him to stop this new hobby of his entirely, can you? Not if he’s been having so much fun at it? I don’t think killers like that ever stop, not once it gets in their blood. They don’t stop until the long arm of the law catches up with them.”
“The way you said that.”
“Pardon me?”
“ ‘The long arm of the law.’ As if it’s sort of a joke.”
“Well, when you see how this character operated, he does make the law look like something of a joke, doesn’t he?”
“I guess he does.”
He smiled, got to his feet. “Getting close in here. Which way are you headed? I’ll walk you home.”
“Well, I have to go uptown—”
“Then that’s the way I’m headed.”
“And if I had to go downtown?”
“Then I’d have urgent business in that direction, Emily.”
On the street she said, “But what do you suppose he’ll do? Assuming you’re right that he’ll stop killing Ackermans but he’ll go on killing. Will he just pick out innocent victims at random?”
“Not if he’s a compulsive type, and he certainly looks like one to me. No, I guess he’d just pick out another whole category of people.”
“Another last name? Just sifting through the telephone directory and seeing what strikes his fancy? God, that’s a terrifying idea. I’ll tell you something, I’m glad my name’s not such a common one. There aren’t enough Kuystendahls in the world to make it very interesting for him.”
“Or Trenholmes. But there are plenty of Emilys, aren’t there?”
“Huh?”
“Well, he doesn’t have to pick his next victims by last name. In fact, he’d probably avoid that because the police would pick up on something like that in a minute after this business with the Ackermans. He could establish some other kind of category. Men with beards, say. Oldsmobile owners.”
“Oh, my God.”
“People wearing brown shoes. Bourbon drinkers. Or, uh, girls named Emily.”
“That’s not funny, Bill.”
“Well, no reason why it would have to be Emily. Any first name — that’s the whole point, the random nature of it. He could pick guys named Bill, as far as that goes. Either way it would probably take the police a while to tip to it, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“You upset, Emily?”
“Not upset, exactly.”
“You certainly don’t have anything to worry about,” he said, and slipped an arm protectively around her waist. “I’ll take good care of you, baby.”
“Oh, will you?”
“Count on it.”
They walked together in silence for a while and after a few moments she relaxed in his embrace. As they waited for a light to change he said, “Collecting Emilys.”
“Pardon?”
“Just talking to myself,” he said. “Nothing important.”
The Dangerous Business
When she heard his car in the driveway she hurried at once to the door and opened it. Her first glimpse of his face told her all she wanted to know. She’d grown used to that expression over the years, the glow of elation underladen with exhaustion, the whole look foreshadowing the depression that would surely settle on him in an hour or a day or a week.
How many times had he come home to her like this? How many times had she rushed to the door to meet him?
And how could he go on doing this, year after year after year?
She could see, as he walked toward her now, just how much this latest piece of work had taken out of him. It had drawn new lines on his face. Yet, when he smiled at her, she could see too the young man she had married so many years ago.
Almost thirty years, and she treasured all those years, every last one of them. But what a price he’d paid for them! Thirty years in a dangerous, draining business, thirty years spent in the company of violent men, criminals, killers. Men whose names were familiar to her, men like Johnny Speed and Bart Callan, men he had used (or been used by) on and off throughout his career. And other men he would work with once and never again.
“It’s finished,” she said.
“All wrapped up.” His smile widened. “You can always tell, can’t you?”
“Well, after all these years. How did it go?”
“Not bad. It’s gone better, but at least it’s finished and I got out of it alive. I’ll say this for it, it’s thirsty work.”
“Martini?”
“What else?”
She made a pitcher of them. They always had one drink apiece before dinner, but on the completion of a job he needed more of a release than came with one martini. They would drain the pitcher, with most of the martinis going to him, and dinner would be light, and before long they would be in bed.
She stirred at the thought. He would want her tonight, he would need her. Their pleasure in each other was as vital as ever after almost thirty years, if less frequently taken, and they both lived for nights like this one.
She handed him his drink, held her own aloft. “Well,” she said.
“Here’s to crime,” he said. Predictably.
She drank without hesitating, but later that evening she said, “You know, I like our toast less and less these days.”