“A drink?”
“Of course. Help yourself.”
“Well…” Thomas Handry said, pouring Scotch over ice cubes, “he’s a puzzle. He’s not one thing and he’s not another. He’s a between-man, going from A to B. Or maybe from A to Z. I guess that doesn’t make much sense.”
“Go on.”
“He’s just not with it. He’s not there. The impression I got was of a guy floating. He’s out there somewhere. Who the hell knows where? That thousand-yard stare. And it was obvious he couldn’t care less about Javis-Bircham and AMROK II. He was just going through the motions; a published interview couldn’t interest him less. I don’t know what’s on his mind. He’s lost and floating, like I said. Captain, the guy’s a balloon! He’s got no anchor. He puzzles me and he interests me. I can’t solve him.” A long pause. “Can you?”
“Getting there,” Captain Delaney said slowly. “Just beginning to get there.”
There was a lengthy silence, while Handry sipped his drink and Delaney stared at a damp spot on the opposing wall.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Handry said finally. “No doubt about it.”
Delaney sighed. “That’s right. It’s him. No doubt about it.”
“Okay,” the reporter said, surprisingly chipper. He drained his glass, rose, walked toward the hallway door. Then, knob in hand, he turned to stare at the Captain. “I want to be in on the kill,” he stated flatly.
“All right.”
Handry nodded, turned away, then turned back again. “Oh,” he said nonchalantly, “one more thing…I got a sample of his handwriting.”
He marched back to Delaney’s desk, tossed a photo onto the blotter. Delaney picked it up slowly, stared. Daniel G. Blank: a copy of the photo taken from the “Fink File,” the same photo that was now copied in the hundreds and in the hands of every man assigned to Operation Lombard. Delaney turned it over. On the back, written with a felt-tipped pen, was: “With all best wishes. Daniel G. Blank.”
“How did you get this?”
“The ego-trip. I told him I kept a scrapbook of photos and autographs of famous people I interviewed. He went for it.”
“Beautiful. Thank you for your help.”
After Handry left, Delaney kept staring at that inscription: “With all best wishes. Daniel G. Blank.” He rubbed his fingers lightly over the signature. It seemed to bring him closer to the man.
He was still staring at the handwriting, trying to see beyond it, when Detective sergeant Thomas MacDonald came in sideways, slipping his bulk neatly through the hallway door, left partly open by Handry.
The black moved a step into the study, then stopped. “Interrupting you, Captain?”
“No, no. Come on in. What’s up?”
The short, squat detective came over to Delaney’s desk. “You wanted a photo of Roger Kope, the cop who got wasted. Will this do?”
He handed Delaney a crisp white cardboard folder, opening sideways. On the front it said, in gold script, “Holiday Greetings.” Inside, on the left, in the same gold script, it read: “From the Kope family.” On the right side was pasted a color photo of Roger Kope, his wife, three little children. They were posed, grinning self-consciously, before a decorated Christmas tree. The dead detective had his arm about his wife’s shoulders. It wasn’t a good photo: obviously an amateur job taken a year ago and poorly copied. Hie colors were washed out, the face of one of the children was blurred. But they were all there.
“It was all we could get,” MacDonald said tonelessly. “They had about a hundred made up a month ago, but I guess Mrs. Kope won’t send them this year. Will it do?”
“Yes,” Delaney nodded. “Just fine.” Then, as MacDonald turned to go, he said, “Sergeant, a couple of other things…Who’s the best handwriting man in the Department?”
MacDonald thought a moment, his sculpted features calm, carved: a Congo mask or a Picasso sketch. “Handwriting,” he repeated. “That would be Willow, William T., Detective lieutenant. He works out of a broom-closet office downtown.”
“Ever have any dealings with him?”
“About two years ago. It was a forged lottery ticket ring. He’s a nice guy. Prickly, but okay. He sure knows his stuff.”
“Could you get him up here? No rush. Whenever he can make it.”
“I’ll give him a call.”
“Good. The next day or so will be fine.”
“All right, Captain. What’s the other thing?”
“What?”
“You said you had a couple of things.”
“Oh. Yes. Who’s controlling the men on the tap on Danny Boy’s home phone?”
“I am, Captain. Fernandez set it up: technically they’re his boys. But he asked me to take over. He’s got enough on his plate. Besides, these guys are just sitting on their ass. They’ve come up with zilch. Danny Boy makes one or two calls a week, usually to the Princess in the Castle. Maybe to the Mortons. And he gets fewer calls. So far it’s nothing.”
“Uh-huh,” Delaney nodded. “Listen, sergeant, would it be possible to make some clicks or buzzes the next time Danny Boy makes or gets a call?”
MacDonald picked up on it instantly. “So he thinks or knows his phone is tapped?”
“Right.”
“Sure. No sweat; we could do that. Clicks, buzzes, hisses, an echo-something. He’ll get the idea.”
“Fine.”
MacDonald stared at him a long time, putting things together. Finally: “Spooking him, Captain?” he asked softly.
Captain Delaney put out his hands, palms down on his desk blotter, lowered his massive head to stare at them.
“Not spooking,” he said in a gentle voice. “I mean to split him. To crack him open. Wide. Until he’s in pieces and bleeding. And it’s working. I know it is. Sergeant, how do you know when you’re close?”
“My mouth goes dry.”
Delaney nodded. “My armpits begin to sweat something awful. Right now they’re dripping like old faucets. I’m going to push this guy right over the edge, right off, and watch him fall.”
MacDonald’s smooth expression didn’t change. “You figure he’ll suicide, Captain?”
“Will he suicide…” Delaney said thoughtfully. Suddenly, that moment, something began that he had been hoping for. He was Daniel G. Blank, penetrating deep into the man, smoothing his body with perfumed oils, dribbling on scented powders, wearing silk bikini underwear and a fashionable wig, living in sterile loneliness, fucking a boy-shaped woman, buggering a real boy, and venturing out at night to find loves who would help him to break out, to feel, to discover what he was, and meaning.
“Suicide?” Delaney repeated, so quietly that MacDonald could hardly hear him. “No. Not by gunshot, pills, or defenestration.” He smiled slightly when he pronounced the last word, knowing the sergeant would pick up the mild humor. Defenestration: throwing yourself out a window to smash to jelly on the concrete below. “No, he won’t suicide, no matter how hard the pressure. Not his style. He likes risk. He climbs mountains. He’s at his best when he’s in danger. It’s like champagne.”
“Then what will he do, Captain?”
“I’m going to run,” Delaney said in a strange, pleading voice. “I’ve got to run.”
3
The second day after Christmas, Daniel Blank decided the worst thing-the worst thing-was committing these irrational acts, and knowing they were irrational, and not being able to stop.
For instance, this morning, completely unable to get to work at his usual hour, he sat stiffly in his living room, dressed for a normal day at Javis-Bircham. And between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m., he rose from his chair at least three times to check the locks and bolts on the front door. They were fastened-he knew they were fastened-but he had to check. Three times.
Then suddenly he darted through the apartment, flinging open closet doors, thrusting an arm between hanging clothes. No one there. He knew it was wrong to be acting the way he was.