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CHAPTER 1
The story of the cop was a made-for-tabloid tragedy: He was young, good-looking, talented—and convicted of murder. Then there was the love interest. Beautiful, about ten years older . . .
Cameras were banned during his trial, so the media sent in sketch artists who came back with images straight out of last century’s penny press.
The picture is there with your morning toast and coffee. It is crafted meticulously, and includes all the details: A courtroom, simultaneously modern and puritan; the judge’s bench in the middle, in front of the flag and to the right of the jury. Across from the bench are some seats occupied by the accused and his counsel.
Arany seems almost lost in the scene. He stands between two giant, muscular police officers. He looks perfect, with a stylish suit draped over his slim frame. Even on your wedding day, you don’t dress as carefully as you do in the courtroom, especially when the case involves a capital crime.
The prosecutor had sought the death penalty. He didn’t have much of a chance but it was worth a try. In cases involving police officers—even ex-police officers—judges and juries tend to be more stonehearted. Arany’s attorney was hoping for much less. Maybe eight years, which would mean he would be out in five with good behavior. That would be it, if Arany was lucky. If he wasn’t: maybe life.
The artist records the neat lines of Arany’s dark gray, pinstripe suit, his snow-white shirt and his conservative tie. His neatly trimmed hair is thick and brown. Prison has yet to leave its mark—that stunned look of anger, fear and resignation a convict’s face can have.
He had been locked up for the whole trial, because the judge set a bail that neither he nor Celia could pay. "Don’t let it worry you," his lawyer had told him. "It means nothing." Of course, nothing.
In the picture, Arany looks to the left. Not at his police escort, but at Celia Allesandro, behind the officer.
The drawing you see in the morning paper, next to your coffee and toast, gives more than any photograph can give. Photos catch the moment: Glassy eyes in the flash’s harsh light, clumsy looking, unfinished moves, frozen strange faces. But a drawing can be art, even in the morning paper. It condenses. It’s as if a sorcerer made one picture from the thousands living in the artist’s brain. The drawing shows a characteristic motion, a hiding smile, the fear in those brown eyes.
The tableau’s dramatic center ought to be the judge’s bench, the place where most people in the courtroom are looking. But Arany is looking at her. His body is twisted in a half turn, the shoulder lifted, as if his muscles were preparing to jump toward her.
In a photo, Celia Allesandro would look about twenty-five—not much more. She is slim and girlish, in contrast with the serious, conservative suit she bought for the occasion. The clothes were her lawyer’s idea, to keep the men in the jury from seeing her as a femme fatale and to keep the women jurors from feeling jealous. It was probably a bad idea: Her good looks showed through, and the suit defeated its purpose. The clumsy attire somehow drew the eyes to her long, exquisite thighs, her slim waist, her deeply curved hips and small, well-shaped breasts. And drawing her hair back in a tight bun only emphasized the delicate features of her face.
But the drawing shows more than a photo would. It shows the lines around her eyes, the small, merciless signs of age on her slim neck.
Celia is looking at Arany. There is a tension between the lovers, as if something physical—some sort of energy—spans the space that separates them. And there is an imploring look on her face, like she is about to ask something. She prays that he will remain calm.
Looking at the picture, you can almost feel the solid muscles under his suit. His physique doesn’t quite go with the businessman’s attire. A restrained, badly concealed, impatience radiates from the man.
Arany’s burly escorts are hoping he doesn’t try anything stupid. OK, he made a mistake, but he had been one of them once. Besides, look at her and say you don’t understand him. They don’t want to hurt the kid, these two—but they could. They are both over six-feet tall and each weigh at least 250 pounds. Their Colt Specials wait at their hips in open holsters.
Of course Arany understands the look on Celia’s face. His mind is flashing a half-dozen variations on its internal movie screen, like the high-speed computer that it is. He pictures ways of taking care of the guards, beginning with the two musclemen beside him. He is already aware of the grilled windows, the door where another guard was standing and—behind the judge’s bench, the door to the jury room. He remembers that there are no bars on that window. If he can get the guard’s gun . . .
He’s like a circus tiger that balances on a giant ball and then jumps through a flaming hoop. No one thinks the big cat won’t be able to do its trick. The audience is watching because they want to know: Will the beast tear its tamer to pieces this time? Some unknown factor—laziness, or perhaps uncertainty—keeps the tiger in check, but only children think it’s the tamer’s pathetic little whip.
The courtroom audience wonders what keeps Arany in check. He could probably put up quite a fight if he wanted to. He first made headlines when he broke up a gang of bank robbers. The result was daunting: Three dead and several seriously wounded.
And the two of them stare at each other, their bodies straining to reach out and make contact. You see it all in the picture the next day, in one of more than 100,000 copies, with a two-column article, in the morning paper, next to the toast and coffee. A picture that tells a lot, but doesn’t tell the whole story. It began with an arrest.
CHAPTER 2
Dark rain. Dim lights glimmering on the damp pavement and dark shadows in the doorways. Dark fear. Arany, before leaving the car, secretly touches the gun under his coat. Don’t worry. It’s there, you didn’t leave it home. This is the twentieth time he’s felt the familiar grip. Years ago he used to believe this touch would give him a sense of security. Maybe it does some other people, not him. How does it affect Carl, he wonders. His partner, a well-dressed, heavy-built man whose bulk is a mixture of hard muscles from an athletic youth and the flab that comes from living well later. Maybe Carl is experiencing the same fear, but suppressing it. Maybe, just like Arany, he is driven by the same shame of being a coward. And maybe they’ve been cheating each other for two years, showing false courage. Is it possible? Could a black cop feel the same fear as Arany does in this neighborhood?
Arany craves a bourbon, and maybe a platoon of commandos behind him. Maybe in front of him.
"Ready?"
Carl’s voice is reassuring. They smile at each other as the door opens and the car’s interior light flashes for a moment.
Cold, fine, grainy rain drizzles, and the smell of decay and poverty pours out from the doorways, along with the noise of scurrying feet. Darkness. Carl’s flashlight cuts a sharp beam of light through a small piece of the night. He holds the light in his right hand, as the left rests on the gun swinging in the holster on his hip. Graffiti covers the peeling paint on the broken street door. Arany finds it hard to move. Go on! Inside! The stairs stink of piss. Just below the second floor landing, a corpse lies flat. Or is this man alive? Carl steps over the body and Arany follows with some resolve, glancing back from above. Just a sleeping drunk. The top button of the man’s jeans is open, allowing his enormous, disgusting belly to bulge freely from under his red T-shirt. There is some kind of bag near the man’s hand on the floor. They walk on up to the seventh floor, silently, not panting, not complaining. The only sound is an occasional squeak from their sneakers. Arany’s hand disappears under his coat. The gun. The twenty-first time. Why on earth couldn’t they joke around now, at least say something.
"Carl!" Arany shouts in a whisper.
The big man stops short, grasping at his hip.
"What?"
"Tell me something!"
"Go to hell!"
It’s 2 a.m., when most people are asleep. Even the crackheads are scarce. The sound of thick, almost ominous snoring comes through one of the doors. Pity, this isn’t the place they’re looking for. Room 720 is on the far end of the long corridor. Arany touches his gun one more time. He runs a finger past the safety catch. Catch 22.
Silence from the other side of the door. The light goes out in Carl’s hand and they see nothing. A slight panting is all Arany hears, but after two years of working with Carl, he knows what’s happening. Carl steps back and swings his enormous leg. He hits the lock with his heel. Arany knows he wouldn’t like to be on the other end of a kick like that. The cheap dead bolt gives way easily, there’s the sound of wood crunching and the door slamming open.
Carl is inside. He bumps into something and curses loudly in the darkness. Arany follows, the heavy service revolver is in his right hand. With his left he gropes around to find the switch.
Someone is faster, and suddenly everything becomes visible. Even the one 25-watt bulb seems embarrassingly bright in this room. There is a double bed with a naked woman sitting up on the yellowish cover. Her slack breasts are still shaking. The man beside her looks to be in his early forties. He is well built, with broad, light brown shoulders and slim hips. The kind who looks good in a muscle shirt, which is all he’s wearing right now. There is a long white scar on his hand. Arany knows it was made by a razor ten years before. The guy got off easy that time, because this cut was accepted as proof that the murder might have been self-defense. This time it will be different. He had crept up behind a security guard and cut the man’s throat. This time he won’t sue the police for harassment. This time the cops have everything. They have a witness, and they have proof. The only thing they haven’t got is the guy in a cell.
And he knows it. He grabs under the pillow as he rolls off the bed. But Carl is fast. He wouldn’t survive a marathon, but his big body moves like lightning over short distances. With two leaping steps he reaches the other end of the bed, and his enormous leg kicks before the man can fire. The guy lets the gun slip and bends double, groaning.
She doesn’t scream. Violence is probably a routine part of her life—and cops are too. She just sits on the bed, her body rigid and her eyes burning with anger. Or maybe they aren’t, Arany thinks, that’s only my imagination. She’s too worn out even to hate them.
"Sons of bitches," she says softly and without real conviction, as if she could hear his thoughts. He doesn’t answer, but puts his hand under her pillow, hoping he won’t have to touch this clammy, fatty body. There’s nothing there. Arany takes the woman’s dress from the floor and throws it to her. Then he picks up her shiny imitation leather handbag. Some change, a hairbrush, rouge, keys, a driver’s license, a pack of cigarettes, a silver-look lighter with initials—a memory of better times—a can of mace and a short, slim folding knife. With the bag still in his hand, Arany opens the door of the bathroom to find a dirty shower and, over the basin, some cheap deodorant.
Carl stands over the suspect, who is now crouched on the floor catching his breath, and tells the man he’s under arrest.
The suspect is generally known as Frost. No college would give him a position, but he could be a professor in the university of survival. He listens to Carl, slowly recovering, as his small pig-like eyes dart between the two detectives. There is a quiver in the upper part of his muscular arm, but the rest of him doesn’t move. He looks up at the two guns against him, a slim, fit-looking white cop and a bull-necked ex running back, once the pride of Passaic High.
Carl steps on Frost’s hand and kicks the gun across the floor with his other foot. Arany bends on one knee to pull it out from under the bed. The gun leaves a wide trail in the thick dust.
"You been resisting arrest," Carl murmurs. "You shouldn’t have."
The fear is visible in those little, pig-like eyes as Frost thinks about the men he’s known who died "resisting" arrest—and all the stories he’s heard.
"It’s all right. Everything’s cool—"
Carl backhands him. He hits Frost’s cheek with his fingers outstretched, so the blow will hurt without doing serious damage. For a while it looks like several more blows will follow the first. Carl seems sorely tempted.
"Don’t tell me what’s cool. You tried to pull a gun on me. I should shoot your fuckin’ balls off . . . "
He holds his own gun with such tension that his finger turns pale on the trigger. Arany gets the feeling Carl really will shoot.
Arany steps toward his partner.
"Let’s go," he says softly. The woman on the bed is yawning, showing several gaps in her teeth.
The anger drains from Carl’s face.
"Yeah right. Son of a bitch is lucky you were here. I would have done him. You saved my ass again, babe."
Carl smiles sarcastically, picks up the prisoner’s trousers from the back of a rickety chair and throws them to him.
They both pretend that Carl was just kidding. But Arany had never heard him speak that way before.
Frost dresses slowly, like he’s playing for time, and a sense of foreboding creeps over Arany. He tries to brush it away as he opens the door and checks the hallway. Everything is silent; even the snoring has ceased. Nobody seems curious about all the noise coming from room 720—or at least they aren’t opening their doors to see what happened.
The nighttime city’s reddish purple light filters through the hallway window, casting a long shadow from the trio that looks like a twisty dead tree. The tree disappears from time to time, when Carl flicks on his flashlight to see where he’s going. They don’t stop at the elevator, don’t even hesitate. They’re not in the mood to be squeezed into a tight space with Frost. That leaves the piss-smelling stairs again, and Arany begins to feel relieved as they make their way down. His foreboding had been a false alarm. They will get away with it—again. The car was parked only a few feet from the door. In twenty minutes they will type their report and have a beer to wash away the excitement. No more than one, because Carl will be anxious to go home.
The fat man lies in the same position near the second-floor landing. But he stirs as the flashlight’s beam passes over him. Unintelligent, cruel eyes blink at the descending trio. The fat trembles on his belly as he turns on his side and gropes for his dirty plastic bag. His hand comes up with a gun in it. They can’t see the piece clearly, but it looks like it’s old, and has a wide bore.
Suddenly everyone is rigid. Everything happens in frozen images that burn themselves into the mind forever. Images full of murderous anger.
Frost moves. He throws himself toward the wall, and Carl’s gun follows him for a while, automatically. Frost’s hands had been cuffed in the back, but now they’re in front of him. He’s holding a knife. It doesn’t gleam, it just looks like a slight imperfection in the perfect darkness surrounding Frost’s hand.
Arany’s gun is back out of its holster and in his hand, even before his mind can react. A thundering, nauseating echo fills the confined space. Figures move in the dark without practiced skill. There is nothing but bitter, hateful fighting. Another shot. The knife is close in front of him. A blow on his shoulder, then another one. Arany only feels the blow but he knows he’s been stabbed. The paralysis is suddenly gone. He finally pulls the trigger and collapses firing. His last thought is to kill.
CHAPTER 3
When I first saw him . . . God, I thought. This one will be a hard case. Different. A clear liquid dripped rapidly into his arm. A bandage covered one shoulder and most of his chest. He was lying on his back, staring at nothing. He didn’t even glance at me as I entered the room. I stopped at the foot of the bed to check his chart, then moved closer to stand by his side.
"Good morning, Mr. Arany."
He slowly focused on my face. He had an empty look that caused an unfamiliar pain inside of me. I thought I had become immune to the sight of suffering. I used to comfort the dying, trying to give some hope to the hopeless and to breathe courage into widows and orphans. Once I sat for hours beside the bed of a young girl so I could be there when she regained consciousness and realized that one of her legs had been cut off. Then there were those long nights of frustration in the lab with Martin. We would sit there afterwards, empty of sentiments. Martin would serve me a glass of French red wine, saying, "I know it hurts, dear. I really know."
And now this boy . . . I could tell he’d pull through fine. Just a few weeks in bed, and then the only thing that would make him remember the hospital would be a slight ache in the wound when the weather changes. His face looked irregular, the eyes dark blue. He wasn’t especially attractive, but he was also not ugly enough to have "unique charm."
I smiled at him.
"My name is Dr. Alessandro. I’m a psychologist and I work part-time for the police department."
Most people smile back. Even though they plan to refuse the psychological assistance that they badly need, they usually at least smile.
Arany glanced at me. He had an appraising look as his eyes ran across my face and stopped first at my breasts and then at my legs. I suddenly remembered that I was wearing a thin white blouse, which might let light through, and that my skirt was just above my knees. He was almost staring, and it seemed rude, but it didn’t bother me. It comes with the job. He was measuring up the person who wanted to explore all his secrets. He frowned, and I felt he was disappointed that I was a woman—and relatively young at that.
"What do you want?" His voice sounded crackly and parched.
I poured a glass of ice tea from the pitcher near his bed and offered it to him.
"To help."
He sat up slowly, looked hesitantly at the glass then took it out of my hand. A few drops ran down his cheek as he drank, but he ignored them. He put the glass back on the bedside table with shaky hands, then looked into my eyes and smiled at me. It was a sad smile, childish but also weary.
"You just did. Thanks."
His head sank back on the pillow. He stared at the ceiling again, but I was sure it was neither the light colored wallpaper nor the fluorescent lights he saw. I stood there a minute waiting, then quietly left.
I roasted a lamb leg that evening. At dinner I was aware of that astonished look on Martin’s face and I knew he was feverishly thinking. What had he forgotten? An anniversary? A birthday? Poor old, confused, brilliant Martin Baruch.
After dinner he worked for another hour. I wasn’t hurt. I knew those formulas and experiments were like a drug to him. His vaccine! I sat at the table with Arany’s file and began to read, leaving pencil marks I would later erase.
Then I suddenly felt his stare. I smiled at him.
"Sorry, dear! I didn’t realize you had stopped working."
He stood up, walked behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. I knew I could be certain that he wasn’t reading the file.
"Anything interesting?"
I shrugged.
"A cop. His partner had been killed and now he wants to quit."
"Why?"
He astonished me. Martin’s brain was sharp as a razor. How could he ask something so stupid?
"I think he doesn’t want to be next. He’s fed up."
"And you’ll convince him to stay . . . " he began slowly caressing my shoulders.
I let him massage away my stress. He had gentle hands—a little soft and chubby, and as clever and experienced as he, himself was. He knew what he was doing. I closed my eyes.
"Will you convince him to stay?" Martin repeated.
"Maybe. Maybe not. He doesn’t even talk to me." I stood up, tearing myself from the warm touch of his palms. "My job is to help him make a decision, not to decide for him."
"Of course, of course . . . but . . . " he stopped and I waited for him to resume. It wasn’t unusual for him to go quiet like this and continue talking a minute later, when all the pieces were together. But he didn’t this time. He let it drop.
Later we made love. Maybe it was the lamb leg, the feast, that inspired him. Poor old Martin, my experienced, brilliant, tired lover. Sometimes I felt sex was a burden to him, that he did it out of a sense of responsibility and the fear of losing me to another lover. His attraction was clearly more than physical. This realization wounded my sexual self esteem while giving a boost to my professional ego. But when we were intimate he was always a wonderful lover.
Now he was stroking me, kissing me into ecstasy. He was an expert in anatomy, especially mine. He can find my most sensitive places with his eyes closed and play me like a virtuoso on his instrument. "A strad," he answered once when I told him how I felt. He caressed, his tongue explored. This was the point where I lost self-control, my whole body was supple with obedience. A slight move of his fingers and I lifted my knees, arched my back, my hips writhed, my nipples were hard, my body was on fire.
He was everywhere. Inside me and beside me, over and under me. And I lay prone, moaning quietly with my knees bent and my toes pointing at the ceiling, then I was on my back, as if I could spin weightlessly. My eyes opened up for a minute and I saw . . . not my husband’s face but the canopy (yes, we have a four poster bed), then the Baroque ornaments I knew by heart. The familiar curves of these ornaments—which fill my mind during long discourses, sleepless nights, and gloomy dawns—suddenly disappeared. I saw the light colored hospital wallpaper, the flat neon lights. I saw a young man with dark blue eyes.
Martin did something different to me and I reached climax while looking at Arany’s naked, muscular, lanky torso. "You just did. Thanks."
"It was good, wasn’t it," asked Martin, contented.
A tear smarted in my eye as I wearily caressed his face. Had he ever really enjoyed this?
The next day I was there at the same time. My clothes were one degree more modest: a dark sweater and a skirt reaching just below my knees. I felt a little uneasiness as I knocked on the door, waited several seconds then entered.
The infusion bottle was not beside the bed, and he had another bandage, a smaller one. He sat cross-legged on the bed and leaned against the piled up pillows, smoking. Why did the nurses let him get away with this? I felt a strange, fleeting jealousy—a feeling I can’t tolerate. Why doesn’t the fire alarm work?
This time he turned his head toward me, his lips curved into a mocking smile.
I stood beside his bed and glanced at the uncomfortable little chair.
"May I sit down?"
He gestured and I sat, unnecessarily pulling down the hem of my skirt. I wondered if he knew why I chose a dress like this. No way. He was almost ten years younger than me.
"May I help you?" he asked suddenly.
They resist in the beginning, it’s something I’m accustomed to. A lot of people don’t understand the difference between a psychologist and a witch doctor. "Hey, I’m not crazy!" But this man knew better. Last night I learned a few things about him. A master’s degree in criminology—very ambitious. A bright cop with a bright future. Until now. The file is going to be closed with a short, typewritten note: "Quit service. Psychologist suggests resignation was motivated by unprocessed mental trauma."
"Yes, you may," I said. "By talking to me."
He had an odd look on his face. His eyes dropped down to my chest and I could feel his gaze touch me. I had an uncomfortable, self-conscious sensation that reminded me of my teenage years, when my breasts had first begun to grow.
"Tell me about yourself."
I did my best to keep from sighing. I smiled instead. Smiles come easy in my profession—and they mean nothing.
"What do you want to know? I’m thirty-eight. No children. I work part-time as a psychologist for the police department. But most of the time I help my husband." I hesitated only a second, he probably didn’t even notice it, but I felt a certain embarrassment speaking about Martin to this man. "He is a researcher, you know."
"What does he research?"
I paused, hunting for an answer, then I made the worst decision. "It would be hard to explain it with a few words."
He just nodded. He wore cotton pajama pants that were a little short on him, and his torso was naked, only the bandage covered one of his shoulders and his chest. He was drumming nervously on his shin with his long fingers. The bed sheet was crumpled, it was untucked from under the mattress. A soda and a book lay on the bedside table. A lively romance. What kind of woman had brought it, I wondered. And it occurred to me again that I felt jealous.
"Do you love him?" He asked.
"I do. And you? How did you feel about your partner?"
Sometimes you have to be cruel. But maybe that was too much. I didn’t expect this pained—hateful—look. So much hate I thought for a second he was going to hit me.
"He trusted me," he answered. He dropped his head and I ached to hold him close to me.
"I suppose it hurts." Stupid remark. Unprofessional. A question you would expect from a bewildered, middle-aged woman.
"I killed him!" he moaned. He looked up, looked into my eyes and suddenly he seemed like a child. It was disappointing. All the mystery disappeared, replaced by the banal pain that I’ve seen before. Every cop whose partner was killed feels this way. They all blame themselves.
I didn’t tell him that. I figured he wasn’t interested in other people’s pain.
"Nonsense. You did everything you could."
Once again hate filled his face. He lunged and I expected him to hit me, but he just grabbed my shoulders.
"I didn’t shoot!" he said looking into my eyes. "Did you know that? If I had fired, Carl would still be alive. But I didn’t shoot."
He slowly released me. I reached toward him, gently touching his hand. "I read the report, Arany. You did fire. You emptied your gun."
He bowed his head again. He looked at my hand. I knew I ought to pull it back, and I nearly moved it, but as he began to speak I somehow left my hand on his arm. I felt a muscle quivering.
"I fired too late. By the time I shot, Carl had been killed and I had been wounded. I saved myself."
A painful half-smile flashed across his face for a second.
"The gun was in my hand." He looked down at his hand now, as if he expected to see the weapon still there. "I’m a good shot, I was one of the best at the Academy. The son of a bitch was close to me, three feet at the most. It was dark, but I saw him, I felt him. I should have fired just once."
I felt all my muscles tighten. Martin, I thought, my old genius. Maybe this is what you have been waiting for. I watched him, neither of us talking. He suddenly dropped facedown on the bed. I saw him wince as the abrupt movement pulled at his stitches, but he didn’t make any sound. Then he spoke quietly:
"I couldn’t pull the trigger. Do you understand? I simply wasn’t capable of pulling that goddamn trigger."
I do, I thought. I understand more than you imagine.
CHAPTER 4
Arany walks to the end of the short corridor and around a glass partition into a small anteroom. He slips past the two desks there and knocks on the door behind them. He still feels weak. From time to time he’s overcome by dizziness, but the attacks are brief, and pass quickly. He hasn’t received today’s shot from Dr. Allesandro.
"Come in." The voice is sharp, almost unfriendly.
Arany turns the knob, enters and stands in the doorway. It’s a worn little office, built into the end of the corridor. Its only window faces a back alley. On the captain’s desk, between official forms and files, an inch-long plastic figure swings from a tiny toy gallows. Aside from the desk, the office contains two uncomfortable chairs, a cheap coffee table in a style that was considered dated fifteen years ago and a few pitiful signs of a decorative intent: A faux-Navajo table cloth, the postcards on the wall beside the city map, an old Colt under them and a wanted poster from the last century—the original item, not some cheap reprint. A few framed certificates of merit hang on the other wall. One mentions honorable service in the Korean War, another is a memento of the 1964 police boxing championship (fifth place) and the most recent notes twenty years of service with the Police Department. Then there are a couple of black-and-white photos. A print of Capt. Ericsson shaking hands with some city politician, forgotten long ago. Another, a yellowed newspaper clipping behind a plate of glass, shows him as he takes a handcuffed prisoner into the police station. It’s a plain, slightly drab space, but it clearly belonged to a man who had always understood what was right and always did it. It would be hard to tell such a man that you are a coward.
The captain glances up, blinking short-sightedly through his reading glasses.
"That you, Arany? Come on in!"
Arany stops awkwardly in front of the desk. He gets the feeling that the captain expected a salute, or some other, more military greeting. Instead he studies the mass of papers on the desk, absent-mindedly reading the upside-down words.
Ericsson stands up and goes around his desk. He is close to sixty, and his body is no longer in boxing shape. Arany knows the captain is not well, and has to live on a strict diet. Ericsson faces Arany and pats him on the shoulder.
"I’m glad you thought it over, son."
He embraces Arany with the short, shy moves of an old man. "It’d have been a shame if the force lost two good officers."
"Yes sir." Arany nods.
"I heard you had the typical reaction—blamed yourself." Ericsson trudges back to his chair, and drops himself on it. A tiny curl of his thinning white hair falls on his brow and he sweeps it away with an angry move, as if it’s a fly. "Bullshit," he mumbles at last. "You did everything possible. You had no reason to suspect that this guy sleeping on the stairs was Frost’s partner. And how could you know Frost is some kind of damned amateur contortionist. He had to be double jointed or something to get the handcuffs round in front of him."
Arany takes a deep breath.
"We should have searched his pants more carefully before we let him get dressed."
Ericsson hits the table with his enormous fist and curses. He belongs to the old school, and believes that well-placed anger helps more than any heart-to-heart talk.
"Your partner should have found the knife! Carl—" the captain catches himself and then continues in a calmer voice. "Carl made a mistake, a bad one. I’m as sorry about the whole mess as you are. He was one of us. I feel responsible for all my men. But I don’t let it shadow my judgment."
"Yes sir." Arany nods again. Even though the captain seems a bit theatrical, he knows the older man means what he’s saying.
"I’m glad you had a talk with the psychologist," says Ericsson. "You pay attention to what she says. You can’t just give up. I’m not giving up. We’re going to catch that son-of-a-bitch and I’m going to wring his neck with my own hands if I have to. Understood?"
"Yes sir." Arany feels dizzy again. Suddenly he sees Ericsson’s broad, flat nose, the face dotted with liver spots, through a trembling mist, but he continues speaking anyway. "Unfortunately, that won’t bring Carl back."
He loses his balance for a moment and leans on the desk. Beads of perspiration appear on his forehead. What the hell is this? Is it from loss of blood? The doctors warned him he would feel weak for a while. Or can it be the shots he got from Dr. Allesandro? She said there could be possible side effects. A medicine to assist psychological recuperation—he never would have suspected that something like that existed.
The attack passes; his sight clears. Arany slowly turns and walks out.
He is assigned to a desk job, "till you’re back in top shape." He feels waves of heat and nervous tension while he works. At lunchtime he grabs a sandwich and coffee at the corner deli and eats at his desk. Then he hesitantly reaches for the phone.
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