circumstances such as these. The detective was gripped by a primitive,
superstitious feeling that he was in the presence of an entity that
could imitate humanity but had nothing whatsoever in common with the
human species.
Speaking through split lips, his words somewhat slurred, Morton Redlow
said, “Who are you, what the hell do you want?”
“You know who I am.”
“I haven’t a fucking clue. You blindsided me. I haven’t seen your
face.
What are you a bat or something? Why don’t you turn on a light?”
Still only a black form, the kid moved closer, to within a few feet of
the chair. “You were hired to find me.”
“I was hired to run surveillance on a guy named Kirkaby. Leonard
Kirkaby. Wife thinks he’s cheating on her. And he is. Brings his
secretary to the Blue Skies every Thursday for some in-and-out.”
“Well, sir, that’s a little hard for me to believe, you know? The Blue
Skies is for low-life guys and cheap whores, not business executives and
their secretaries.”
“Maybe he gets off on the sleaziness of it, treating the girl like a
whore.
Who the hell knows, huh? Anyway, you sure aren’t Kirkaby. I know his
voice. He doesn’t sound anything like you. Not as young as you,
either.
Besides, he’s a piece of puff pastry. He couldn’t have handled me the
way you did.”
The kid was quiet for a while. Just staring down at Redlow. Then he
began to pace. In the dark. Unhesitating, never bumping into
furniture.
Like a restless cat, except his eyes didn’t glow.
Finally he said, “So what’re you saying, sir? That this is all just a
big mistake?”
Redlow knew his only chance of staying alive was to convince the kid of
the lie-that a guy named Kirkaby had a letch for his secretary, and a
bitter wife seeking evidence for a divorce. He just didn’t know what
tone to take to sell the story. With most people, Redlow had an
unerring sense of which approach would beguile them and make them accept
even the wildest proposition as the truth. But the kid was different;
he didn’t think or react like ordinary people.
Redlow decided to play it tough. “Listen, asshole, I wish I did know
who you are or at least what the hell you look like, ’cause once this
was finished, I’d come after you and bash your fuckin’ head in.”
“What’re you talking about?” Redlow asked.
“Burnt out.”
The conversation was taking a turn Redlow didn’t understand, which made
him uneasy.
“Excuse me, sir, no offense meant, but you’re getting too old for this
kind of work.”
Don’t I know it, Redlow thought. He realized that, aside from one
initial tug, he had not again tested the ropes that bound him. Only a
few years ago, he would have quietly but steadily strained against them,
trying to stretch the knots. Now he was passive.
“You’re a muscular man, but you’ve gone a little soft, you’ve got a gut
on you, and you’re slow. From your driver’s license, I see you’re
fifty-four, you’re getting up there. Why do you still do it, keep
hanging in there?”
“It’s all I’ve got,” Redlow said, and he was alert enough to be
surprised by his own answer. He had meant to say, Its all I know.
“Well, yessir, I can see that,” the kid said, looming over him in the
darkness. “You’ve been divorced twice, no kids, and no woman lives with
you right now. Probably hasn’t been one living with you for years.
Sorry, but I was snooping around the house while you were out cold, even
though I knew it wasn’t really right of me. Sorry. But I just wanted
to get a handle on you, try to understand what you get out of this.”
Redlow said nothing because he couldn’t understand where all of this was
leading. He was afraid of saying the wrong thing, and setting the kid
off like a bottle rocket. The son of a bitch was insane. You never
knew what might light the fuse on a nutcase like him. The kid had been
through some analysis of his own over the years, and now he seemed to