Millikan picked up one of the old telephone bills. “Oh, boy. Number, city, date, hour, time.” He looked up and saw Prescott pick up the telephone receiver on the desk. “Wait, you can’t . . .” but he saw the look on Prescott’s face. “Never mind.”
Prescott finished dialing a number. “Hello?” He was talking loudly, as though the person on the other end was in a noisy place. “Is Dick Hobart in? It’s Bob Greene, and I need to talk to him right away.” He listened, then said, “Do you know where I can reach him?” He paused, then sighed in frustration. “If he comes in, tell him to take the night off, and not come back until I get there.” He pushed down the button with his finger, then dialed a second number quickly. He waited impatiently, then rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Jeanie, this is Bob Greene. I don’t know if you’re scheduled to work tonight or not. I hope you’re in class. Do not go to Nolan’s until you’ve talked to me. It’s really important. Call in sick if you have to.” He hung up.
He took a card out of his wallet and dialed a third number. “Hello. My name is Roy Prescott. I need tickets from Cincinnati to St. Louis on the next available flight.” He looked at Millikan while the person on the other end spoke. “Two. And my companion is an off-duty police officer who will need to fly with a firearm. My card number is . . .”
39
Prescott stood beside the cluster of pay telephones at the edge of the waiting area for gate A-14 and listened to the electronic voice of his answering machine. “No messages,” it said. He had been hoping that the killer would have been angry enough to leave a message that would tell him something. He hung up and looked at the desk to see if the airline people were ready to begin letting passengers onto the plane, then turned to see how Millikan’s calls were coming.
Millikan was already hurrying toward him from the next set of telephones down the concourse. Prescott could see there was news. Millikan pulled him to the wall away from the other travelers, and said quietly, “The police in Louisville have been leaving messages on my phone all day, and I just reached Lieutenant Cowan.”
“Has somebody there seen him?”
“Worse. It’s Carter Rowland—Donna Halsey’s ex-husband. They found him in his house. He was shot in the head, but nobody heard.”
“He’s moving fast.”
Millikan turned to look at him. “You’re not surprised.”
Prescott shook his head. “He’s cutting all the strings. He’s getting everybody who had anything to do with the job that got him into trouble. I was afraid he might do that.”
“But Rowland didn’t do anything to him.”
“Rowland hired him to do the job in the restaurant. He did it, so Rowland was a satisfied customer. How is he supposed to know that Rowland wasn’t the one who told me how to get in touch with the people in Cincinnati? He can’t know, but now he doesn’t have to wonder.”
Millikan shook his head. “Maybe we should exchange our tickets and go to Louisville while we can still get a look at the scene.”
“Too late,” said Prescott. “No point in going where he was this morning. We’ve got to go to the place where he’ll be tonight.”
When the plane arrived in St. Louis, the sun was already low. Prescott and Millikan had barely spoken to each other. Prescott had spent much of the time on the airplane telephone trying to call Hobart, then Jean, then Hobart again. Millikan had, at first, not been able to reach anyone in the St. Louis police department who knew him. He had not convinced anyone else that he was expert enough to be able to predict that a killer could be expected at Nolan’s Paddock Club. Finally, he had managed to get a captain on the phone who seemed to have some sympathy for his reasoning, but the captain had not been willing to describe to Millikan what, precisely, he was going to do.
The two men strode along the boarding tunnel. Millikan said, “I told the captain the flight number and arrival time, so there will probably be somebody here to get a copy of the picture for the plainclothes guys.”
As they emerged from the tunnel into the waiting area, he pulled Prescott to the side to let the other travelers pass, while he turned his head in every direction, searching for a uniform.
“It doesn’t look like they’re eagerly waiting for us,” said Prescott, and began to walk quickly up the concourse.
Millikan had to trot to catch up. He said, “They could have asked the Buffalo police to fax the picture to them. They might already have it, and be at the bar looking for him.”
“We’ll find out,” said Prescott.
Their pace took them quickly down to the car-rental counter. Prescott had called to reserve a car, so it took only a few minutes before they were on the road. Prescott drove with a quiet determination, always pushing slightly faster than the traffic, weaving in and out when he had to.
When they pulled into sight of the building, all traces of daylight were gone, and the big green sign that said NOLAN’S PADDOCK CLUB was a bright splash of electric color against a black sky. The huge parking lot was already lined with cars, pickup trucks, and utility vehicles. “Is it always this busy?” asked Millikan.
“It’s filling up a little early,” said Prescott. “Let’s hope all the extra cars belong to your undercover cops.”
He pulled into the lot and found a space in nearly the last row of cars facing the side of the building in a dimly lighted sector two hundred feet away. Both men got out. Prescott took another look around the lot, then handed Millikan a few copies of the picture and took a few for himself. He leaned into the car as though he’d forgotten something, but Millikan could see he was collecting the parts of a gun from several places in his suitcase, and assembling it.
Millikan scanned the lot as he spoke. “How do you want to do this?”
Prescott said, “Split up. You go in, stay close to the bar and away from the stage, where you can watch the front door. I’ll try to get in another way and circulate. If you spot a cop, make sure he gets the picture.”
“Right.” Millikan turned and set off for the front door. This was a moment when he had unexpected thoughts. He had a vivid memory of leaving the police force so many years ago. His strongest sensa-tion had been relief: he was never again going to have to walk through the door of an unfamiliar building feeling the weight of a loaded pistol on his body, looking for a face. The memory brought with it a judgment he could only identify as a disappointment in himself. He had struggled all that way—through college, graduate school, the job as a professor—only to be jerked right back in a day. He felt that he should have known he would be doing this again. He should never have let himself imagine it was behind him, or that it ever could be.
As he walked, he was almost unconsciously remembering tactics, preparing himself. If undercover cops were here, he would have to rely on them to spot him and find a way to identify themselves to him. If they were any good at all, he would not be able to pick them out. He had to concentrate on seeing the killer, identifying him first from his picture, and getting around behind him. He knew that tonight was a perfect occasion for one of his nightmares from the old days to come to pass: that he would be in a closed space, squeezed in a crowd of a couple of hundred people, and the killer would open fire.
Millikan acknowledged the thought and set it aside—still there, but not something he could devote any of his consciousness to right now. He had to go in there, quickly scan all the faces that he could see, and then move into a dim spot where he could watch for the right one.
The music grew louder as Millikan stepped toward the building. There was a glow in the doorway, a reddish tint to the shapes he could see, as though the place he was about to enter were on fire. Three big men in jeans, T-shirts, and work boots were walking toward the door from his right. He judged that they had been working at some kind of construction site until dark, and that it must be at least thirty miles away if they had just arrived. He made sure he reached the threshold after they did and edged in behind them, using their bulk as a way to shield himself from view for a few seconds while his eyes ranged the faces of the crowd ahead, searching for the one right configuration of features.