Ludzie pragną czasami się rozstawać, żeby móc tęsknić, czekać i cieszyć się z powrotem.
Perry Brown and Jeff Black. He had forgotten them, how funny.
Brown and Black, who would now almost certainly take his case away
from him.
“They’re still out at the Paradise Motel,” the Mad Hungarian goes
on, “although I think the FBI guy went back to Milwaukee.”
2 2 0
■
B L A C K H O U S E
“I—”
“And County,” the Hungarian plows relentlessly along. “Don’t for-
get them. You want me to call the M.E. first, or the evidence wagon?”
The evidence wagon is a blue Ford Econoline van, packed with every-
thing from quick-drying plaster for taking tire impressions to a rolling
video studio. Stuff the French Landing P.D. will never have access to.
Dale stands where he is, head lowered, looking dismally at the floor.
They are going to take the case away from him. With every word
Hrabowski says, that is clearer. And suddenly he wants it for his own. In
spite of how he hates it and how it scares him, he wants it with all his
heart. The Fisherman is a monster, but he’s not a county monster, a state
monster, or a Federal Bureau of Investigation monster. The Fisherman
is a French Landing monster, Dale Gilbertson’s monster, and he wants to
keep the case for reasons that have nothing to do with personal prestige
or even the practical matter of holding on to his job. He wants him be-
cause the Fisherman is an offense against everything Dale wants and
needs and believes in. Those are things you can’t say out loud without
sounding corny and stupid, but they are true for all that. He feels a sud-
den, foolish anger at Jack. If Jack had come on board sooner, maybe—
And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. He has to notify
County, if only to get the medical examiner out at the scene, and he has
to notify the State Police, in the persons of Detectives Brown and Black,
as well. But not until he has a look at what’s out there, in the field be-
yond Goltz’s. At what the Fisherman has left. By God, not until then.
And, perhaps, has one final swing at the bastard.
“Get our guys rolling at five-minute intervals,” he said, “just as I told
you. Then get Debbi in the dispatch chair. Have her call State and
County.” Arnold Hrabowski’s puzzled face makes Dale feels like scream-
ing, but somehow he retains his patience. “I want some lead time.”
“Oh,” Arnie says, and then, when he actually does get it: “Oh!”
“And don’t tell anyone other than our guys about the call or our re-
sponse. Anyone. You’d likely start a panic. Do you understand?”
“Absolutely, boss,” says the Hungarian.
Dale glances at the clock: 8:26 a.m. “Come on, Tom,” he says. “Let’s
get moving. Tempus fugit. ”
The Mad Hungarian has never been more efficient, and things fall into
place like a dream. Even Debbi Anderson is a good sport about the desk.
T H E T A K I N G O F T Y L E R M A R S H A L L
■
2 2 1
And yet through it all, the voice on the phone stays with him. Hoarse,
raspy, with just a tinge of accent—the kind anyone living in this part of
the world might pick up. Nothing unusual about that. Yet it haunts him.
Not that the guy called him an asswipe—he’s been called much worse
by your ordinary Saturday night drunks—but some of the other stuff.
There are whips in hell and chains in shayol. My name is legion. Stuff like
that. And abbalah. What was an abbalah? Arnold Hrabowski doesn’t
know. He only knows that the very sound of it in his head makes him
feel bad and scared. It’s like a word in a secret book, the kind you might
use to conjure up a demon.
When he gets the willies, there’s only one person who can take them
away, and that’s his wife. He knows Dale told him not to tell anybody
about what was going down, and he understands the reasons, but surely
the chief didn’t mean Paula. They have been married twenty years, and
Paula isn’t like another person at all. She’s like the rest of him.
So (more in order to dispel his bad case of the willies than to gossip;
let’s at least give Arnold that much) the Mad Hungarian makes the ter-
rible mistake of trusting his wife’s discretion. He calls Paula and tells her
that he spoke to the Fisherman not half an hour ago. Yes, really, the Fish-
erman! He tells her about the body that is supposedly waiting for Dale
and Tom Lund out at Ed’s Eats. She asks him if he’s all right. Her voice
is trembling with awe and excitement, and the Mad Hungarian finds
this quite satisfying, since he’s feeling awed and excited himself. They
talk a little more, and when Arnold hangs up, he feels better. The ter-
ror of that rough, strangely knowing voice on the phone has receded a
little.
Paula Hrabowski is discretion itself, the very soul of discretion. She tells
only her two best friends about the call Arnie got from the Fisherman
and the body at Ed’s Eats, and swears them both to secrecy. Both say
they will never tell a soul, and this is why, one hour later, even before
the State Police and the county medical and forensics guys have been
called, everyone knows that the police have found a slaughterhouse out
at Ed’s Eats. Half a dozen murdered kids.
Maybe more.
10
OOOOO
A s th e c ru i se r with Tom Lund behind the wheel noses down Third
Street to Chase—roof-rack lights decorously dark, siren off—Dale takes
out his wallet and begins digging through the mess in the back: business
cards people have given him, a few dog-eared photographs, little licks of
folded-over notebook paper. On one of the latter he finds what he wants.
“Whatcha doin’, boss?” Tom asks.
“None of your beeswax. Just drive the car.”
Dale grabs the phone from its spot on the console, grimaces and
wipes off the residue of someone’s powdered doughnut, then, without
much hope, dials the number of Jack Sawyer’s cell phone. He starts to
smile when the phone is answered on the fourth ring, but the smile