Bannerman was sitting at a table in front of a cup of coffee and a bowl of chili. The TV
had misled. He wasn’t a big man; he was a huge man. Johnny walked over and introduced himself.
Bannerman stood up and shook the offered hand. Looking at Johnny’s white, strained face and the way his thin body seemed to float inside his Navy pea jacket, Bannerman’s first thought was: This guy is sick – he’s maybe not going to live too long. Only Johnny’s
eyes seemed to have any real life – they were a direct, piercing blue, and they fixed firmly on Bannerman’s own with sharp, honest curiosity. And when their hands clasped, Bannerman felt a peculiar kind of surprise, a sensation he would later describe as a draining. It was a little like getting a shock from a bare electrical wire. Then it was gone.
‘Glad you could come,’ Bannerman said. ‘Coffee?’
‘Yes.’
‘How about a bowl of chili? They make a great damn chili here. I’m not supposed to eat it because of my ulcer, but I do anyway.’ He saw the look of surprise on Johnny’s face and smiled. ‘I know, it doesn’t seem right, a great big guy like me having an ulcer, does it?’
‘I guess anyone can get one.
‘You’re damn tooting,’ Bannerman said. ‘What changed your mind?’
‘It was the news. The little girl. Are you sure it was the same guy?’
‘It was the same guy. Same M.O. And the same sperm type.
He watched Johnny’s face as the waitress came over. ‘Coffee?’ she asked.
‘Tea,’ Johnny said.
‘And bring him a bowl of chili, Miss,’ Bannerman said. When the waitress had gone he said, ‘This doctor, he says that if you touch something, sometimes you get ideas about where it came from, who might have owned it, that sort of thing.’
Johnny smiled. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I just shook your hand and I know you’ve got an Irish setter named Rusty. And I know he’s old and going blind and you think it’s time he was put to sleep, but you don’t know how you’d explain it to your girl.’
Bannerman dropped his spoon back into his chili – plop. He stared at Johnny with his mouth open. ‘By God,’ he said. ‘You got that from me? Just now?’
Johnny nodded.
Bannerman shook his head and muttered, ‘It’s one thing to hear something like that and another to … doesn’t it tire you out?’
Johnny looked at Bannerman, surprised. It was a question he had never been asked before. ‘Yes. Yes, it does.’
‘But you knew. I’ll be damned.’
‘But look, Sheriff.’
‘George. Just plain George.’
‘Okay, I’m Johnny, just plain Johnny. George, what I don’t know about you would fill about five books. I don’t know where you grew up or where you went to police school or who your friends are or where you live. I know you’ve got a little girl, and her name’s something like Cathy, but that’s not quite it I. don’t know what you; did last week or what beer you favor or what your favorite TV program is.
‘My daughter’s name is Katrina,’ Bannerman said softly. ‘She’s nine, too. She was in Mary Kate’s class.’
‘What I’m trying to say is that the … the knowing is sometimes a pretty limited thing.
Because of the dead zone.’
‘Dead zone?’
‘It’s like some of the signals don’t conduct,’ Johnny said. ‘I can never get streets or addresses. Numbers are hard but they sometimes come.’ The waitress returned with Johnny’s tea and chili. He tasted the chili and nodded at Bannerman. ‘You’re right. It’s good. Especially on a night like this.’
‘Go to it,’ Bannerman said. ‘Man, I love good chili. My ulcer hollers bloody hell about it.
Fuck you, ulcer, I say. Down the hatch.’
They were quiet for a moment. Johnny worked on his chili and Bannerman watched him curiously. He sup-posed Smith could have found out he had a dog named Rusty. He even could have found out that Rusty was old and nearly blind. Take it a step farther: if he knew Katrina’s name, he might have done that ‘something like Cathy but that’s not quite it’ routine just to add the right touch of hesitant realism. But why? And none of that explained that queer, zapped feeling he’d gotten in his head when Smith touched his hand. If it was a con, it was a damned good one.