“Of course,” Willow said promptly. “Delighted.”
From an inner pocket he whipped out an unusual pair of glasses: prescription spectacles with an additional pair of magnifying glasses hinged to the top edge. The lieutenant shoved on the glasses, flipped down the extra lenses. He held the Daniel Blank inscription so close it was almost touching his nose.
“Felt-tipped pen,” he said immediately. “Too bad. You lose the nuances. Mmm. Uh-huh. Mmm. Interesting, very interesting. Captain, does this man suffer from constipation?”
“I have no idea,” Delaney said.
“Oh, my, look at this,” Willow said, still peering closely at Blank’s handwriting. “Would you believe…Sick, sick, sick. And this…Beautiful capitals, just beautiful.” He looked up at the Captain. “He grew up in a small town in middle America-Ohio, Indiana, Iowa-around there?”
“Yes.”
“He’s about forty, or older?”
“Middle-thirties.”
“Well…yes, that could be. Palmer Method. They still teach it in some schools. Goodness, look at that. This is interesting.”
Suddenly he jerked off his glasses, tucked them away, halfrose to his feet to flip the photo of Blank onto Delaney’s desk, then settled back to pour himself another glass of sherry.
“Schizoid,” he said, beginning to speak rapidly. “On one side, artistic, sensitive, imaginative, gentle, perceptive, outgoing, striving, sympathetic, generous. The capitals are works of art. Flowing. Just blooming. On the other side, lower case now, tight, very cold, perfectly aligned: the mechanical mind, ordered, disciplined, ruthless, without emotion, inhuman, dead. It’s very difficult to reconcile.”
“Yes,” Delaney said. “Is the man insane?”
“No. But he’s breaking up.”
“Why do you say that?”
“His handwriting is breaking up. Even with the felt-tipped pen you can see it. The connections between letters are faint. Between some there are no connections at all. And in his signature, that should be the most fluid and assured of anyone’s handwriting, he’s beginning to waver. He doesn’t know who he is.”
“Thank you very much, Lieutenant Willow,” Captain Delaney said genially. “Please stay and finish your drink. Tell me more about handwriting analysis-from a graphologist’s point of view, of course. It sounds fascinating.”
“Oh yes,” the bird-man said, “it is.”
Later that evening Delaney went into the living room to inspect the log. Danny Boy had returned to the White House at 2:03 p.m. At 5:28 p.m., he had called the Princess in the Castle, hung up abruptly after speaking only a few minutes and then, at 5:47 p.m., had taken a cab to the Castle. He was still inside as of that moment, reported by Bulldog Three. Delaney went over to the telephone desk.
“Did you get a tape of Danny Boy’s call to the Castle at five twenty-eight?”
“Yes, sir. The man on the tap gave it to us over the phone. Spin it?”
“Please.”
He listened to Daniel Blank talking to the lisping Valenter. He heard the clicks, hisses, and echo they were feeding onto the tapped line. He smiled when Blank slammed down his phone in the middle of the conversation.
“Perfect,” Delaney said to no one in particular.
He had planned his meeting with Monica Gilbert with his usual meticulous attention to detail, even to the extent of deciding to keep on his overcoat. It would make her think he could only stay a moment, he was rushed, working hard to convict her husband’s killer.
But when he arrived at 7:00 p.m., the children were still awake, but in their nightgowns, and he had to play with them, inspect their Christmas gifts, accept a cup of coffee. The atmosphere was relaxed, warm, pleasant, domestic-all wrong for his purpose. He was glad when Monica packed the girls off to bed.
Delaney went back to the living room, sat down on the couch, took out the single sheet of paper he had prepared, with the speech he wanted her to deliver.
She came in, looking at him anxiously.
“What is it, Edward? You seem-well, tense.”
“The killer is Daniel Blank.-There’s no doubt about it. He killed your husband, and Lombard, Kope, and Feinberg. He’s a psycho, a crazy.”
“When are you going to arrest him?”
“I’m not going to arrest him. There’s no evidence I can take into court. He’d walk away a free man an hour after I collared him.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“It’s true. We’re watching him, every minute, and maybe we can prevent another killing or catch him in the act. But I can’t take the chance.”
Then he told her of what he had been doing to smash Daniel Blank. When he described the Christmas Eve call as Frank Lombard, her face went white.
“Edward, you didn’t,” she gasped.
“Oh yes. I did. And it worked. The man is breaking apart. I know he is. A couple of more days, if I keep the pressure on, he’s going to crack wide open. Now here’s what I want you to do.”
He handed her the sheet of dialogue he had written out. “I want you to call him, now, at his home, identify yourself and ask him why he killed your husband.”
She looked at him with shock and horror. “Edward,” she choked, “I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can,” he urged softly. “It’s just a few words. I’ve got them all written down for you. All you’ve got to do is read them. I’ll be right here when you call. I’ll even hold your hand, if you want me to. It’ll just take a minute or so. Then it’ll all be over. You can do it.”
“I can’t, I can't!” She turned her head away, put her hands to her face. “Please don’t ask me to,” she said, her voice muffled. “Please don’t. Please.”
“He murdered your husband,” he said stonily.
“But even if-”
“And three other innocent strangers. Cracked their skulls with his trusty little ice ax and left them on the sidewalk with their brains spilling out.”
“Edward, please.”
“You’re the woman who wanted revenge, aren’t you? ‘Vengeance,’ you said. ‘I’ll do anything to help,’ you said. ‘Type, run errands, make coffee.’ That’s what you told me. A few words is all I want, spoken on the phone to the man who slaughtered your husband.”
“He’ll come after me. He’ll hurt the children.”
“No. He doesn’t hurt women and children. Besides, you’ll be tightly guarded. He couldn’t get close even if he tried. But he won’t. Monica? Will you do it?”
“Why me? Why must I do it? Can’t you get a policewoman-”
“To call him and say it’s you? That wouldn’t lessen any possible danger to you and the girls. And I don’t want any more people in the Department to know about this.”
She shook her head, knuckles clenched to her mouth. Her eyes were wet.
“Anything but this,” she said faintly. “I just can’t do it. I can't.”
He stood, looked down at her, his face pulled into an ugly smile,
“Leave it to the cops, eh?” he said in a voice he scarcely recognized as his own, “Leave it to the cops to clean up the world’s shit, and vomit, and blood. Keep your own hands clean. Leave it all to the cops. Just so long as you don’t know what they’re doing.”
“Edward, it’s so cruel. Can’t you see that? What you’re doing is worse than what he did. He killed because he’s sick and can’t help himself. But you’re killing him slowly and deliberately, knowing exactly what you’re doing, everything planned and-”
Suddenly he was sitting close beside her, an arm about her shoulders, his lips at her ear.
“Listen,” he whispered, “your husband was Jewish and you’re Jewish-right? And Feinberg, that last guy he chilled, was a Jew. Four victims; two Jews. Fifty percent. You want this guy running loose, killing more of your people? You want-”
She jerked away from under his arm, swung from the waist, and slapped his face, an open-handed smack that knocked his head aside and made him blink.
“Despicable!” she spat at him. “The most despicable man I’ve ever met!”
He stood suddenly, looming over her.
“Oh yes,” he said, tasting the bile bubbling up. “Despicable. Oh yes. But Blank, he’s a poor, sick lad-right? Right? Smashed your husband’s skull in, but it’s Be Nice to Blank Week. Right? Let me tell you-let me tell you-” He was stuttering now in his passion to get it out. “He’s dead. You understand that? Daniel G. Blank is a dead man. Right now. You think-you think I’m going to let him walk away from this just because the law…You think I’m going to shrug, turn away, and give up? I tell you, he’s dead! There’s no way, no way, he can get away from me. If I have to blow his brains out with my service revolver at high noon on Fifth Avenue, I’ll do it. Do it! And wait right there for them to come and take me away. I don’t care. The man is dead! Can’t you get that through your skull? If you won’t help me, I’ll do it another way. No matter what you do, it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. He’s gone. He’s just gone.”