‘All right,’ he answered, and he kept following her, watching her legs.
‘Be careful, there’s a broken bottle.’
He skirted the shards of brown glass, smelling the whiskey fumes as he passed the alcohol-soaked wood. The girl stopped at a door at the end of the hall. She unlocked it and waited for him to enter. When they were both inside, she put the police lock in place, leaning the heavy, unbending steel bar against the door, hooking it securely into the steel plate embedded in the floor, so that it formed a formidable triangle against which entrance was impossible.
The kitchen was small but clean. A round table sat in the centre of the room, and a bowl was on the table. A single apple rested in the bowl. The girl went to the window and lifted the shade. Light, but not sunlight, entered the room. It was a pale light that bounced from the brick walls of the tenement not four feet away, leaping the airshaft between the building. The girl turned.
‘I... I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘I’ve never done this before.’
‘No?’ he said, and there was a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
‘No. Could... could we talk a little?’
‘What about?’
‘I don’t know. Anything.’ The room grew silent. Patiently, Randolph waited.
‘I’m... I’m sorry the place isn’t nicer,’ the girl said.
‘It’ll do.’
‘I meant—’ She shrugged.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. A girl likes to think—’ She stopped, shrugging again. ‘Would you like a beer or something? I think we have some cold in the Frigidaire.’
‘No, thanks,’ Randolph said. He grinned. ‘We’re not allowed to drink on duty.’
The girl missed his humour. She nodded and then sat opposite him at the table. Silence crowded the room again.
‘Have you been a cop long?’ the girl asked.
‘Eight years.’
‘It must be terrible. I mean, being a cop in this neighbourhood. ‘
For a moment, Randolph was surprised. He looked at the girl curiously and said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘All the... all the dirt here,’ she said.
‘It...’ He paused, studying her. ‘You get used to it.’
‘I’ll never get used to it,’ she said.
She seemed about to cry. For a panicky instant, he wanted to bolt from the room. He sat undecided at the table, and then he heard himself saying, ‘This isn’t so bad. This is a nice apartment.’
‘You don’t really mean that,’ she said.
‘No,’ he answered honestly. ‘I don’t.’
The girl seemed to want to tell him about the apartment. Words were perched on the edge of her tongue, torrents of words, it seemed, but when she spoke she only said, ‘I haven’t got my own room.’
‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘We can use...’ And then he stopped his tongue because he sensed the girl had meant something entirely different, and the sudden insight surprised him and frightened him a little.
‘Where do you live?’ she asked.
‘In a hotel,’ he said.
‘That must be nice.’
He wanted to say, ‘No, it’s very lonely.’ Instead, he said, ‘Yeah, it’s all right.’
‘I’ve never been to a hotel. Do people wait on you?’
‘This is an apartment hotel. It’s a little different.’
‘Oh.’
She sat at the table, and he watched her, and suddenly she was trembling.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘I’m scared,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘Because of... of what I almost did. What I almost became.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m glad you arrested me,’ she said. ‘I’m glad I got caught the first time, I don’t want to be—’
She began crying. Randolph watched her, and he felt inordinately big, sitting across from her, awkwardly immense,’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘what do you want to bawl for?’
‘I... I can’t help it.’
‘Well, cut it out!’ he said harshly.
‘I’m sorry.’ She turned and took a dish towel from the sink, daubed at her eyes with it. ‘I’m sorry. Let’s... let’s do it.’
‘Is this really your first time?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Yes.’
‘What made you... well... I don’t understand.’
‘I got tired,’ she said. ‘I got so damned tired. I don’t want to fight any more.’
‘Fight what?’
‘Fight getting dirty. I’m tired of fighting.’ She sighed wearily and held out her hand. ‘Come,’ she said.
She stood stock-still, her hand extended, her shoulders back.
‘Come,’ she repeated.
There was a strength in the rigidity of her body and the erectness of her head. In the narrow stillness of her thin body, there was a strength and he recognized the strength because he had once possessed it. He rose, puzzled, and he reached out for her hand, and he knew that if he took her hand, if he allowed this girl to lead him into the other room, he would destroy her as surely as he had once destroyed himself. He knew this, and somehow it was very important to him that she be saved, that somewhere in the prison of the precinct, somewhere in this giant, dim, dank prison there should be someone who was not a prisoner. And he knew with sudden painful clarity why there were potted plants on the barred fire escapes of the tenements.
He pulled back his hand.
‘Keep it,’ he said harshly, swiftly.
‘What?’
‘Keep it,’ he said, and he knew she misunderstood what he was asking her to keep, but he did not explain. He turned and walked from the room, and down the steps past the stacked garbage cans in the hallway and then out into the street.
He walked briskly in the afternoon sunshine. He saw the pushers and the pimps and the prostitutes and the junkies and the fences and the drunks and the muggers.
And when he got back to the precinct, he nodded perfunctorily at the desk sergeant and then climbed the stairs to the Detective Division.
Dave Fields met him just inside the slatted rail divider. Their eyes met, locked.
‘How’d you make out?’ Fields asked.
Unwaveringly, unhesitatingly, Randolph replied, ‘Fine. The best I’ve ever had,’ and Fields turned away when he added, ‘Any coffee brewing in the Clerical Office?’
Every Morning
He sang softly to himself as he worked on the long white beach. He could see the pleasure craft scooting over the deep blue waters, could see the cottony clouds moving leisurely across the wide expanse of sky. There was a mild breeze in the air, and it touched the woolly skullcap that was his hair, caressed his brown skin. He worked with a long rake, pulling at the tangled sea vegetation that the norther had tossed onto the sand. The sun was strong, and the sound of the sea was good, and he was almost happy as he worked.
He watched the muscles ripple on his long brown arms as he pulled at the rake. She would not like it if the beach were dirty. She liked the beach to be sparkling white and clean... the way her skin was,
‘Jonas!’
He heard the call, and turned towards the big house. He felt the same panic he’d felt a hundred times before. He could feel the trembling start in his hands, and he turned back to the rake, wanting to stall as long as he could, hoping she would not call again, but knowing she would.
‘Jonas! Jo-naaaas!’
The call came from the second floor of the house, and he knew it came from her bedroom, and he knew she was just rising, and he knew exactly what would happen if he went up there. He hated what was about to happen, but at the same time it excited him. He clutched the rake more tightly, telling himself he would not answer her call, lying to himself because he knew he would go if she called one more time.
‘Jonas! Where the devil are you?’