Killing Time Read online

  Katharine gave a dirty laugh, strangely reminiscent of Shuster’s. “No woman who lives in this hell-hole of a city is protected.”

  In view of Tierney’s calling, this was a real provocation. They hardly ever quarreled, and never before on a matter which referred to law enforcement. It was also a revelation to Tierney, after years of marriage, that Katharine, sister of four men, daughter of one, wife of one, mother of two, could level a charge against the breed. And how easily she had dismissed the incestuous feature of Denny’s displaying himself to his own sister. Brother Jim slapped her butt, joked intimately of her childhood bed-wetting: these things could be given a sinister interpretation were Tierney as rash as she. But he of course was not. Whatever their flaws as individuals, as a race men were peculiarly committed to justice. You could see this even in professional hoods, who defied the law but understood it.

  Tierney now had to consider whether he did not feel more at ease with a male criminal than with any woman. He had never had a sister; his parents were killed in a railway accident when he was a child, and he had been raised by an aunt and uncle, whom he nowadays rarely saw. He hardly remembered his mother.

  Without warning Katharine returned to her old role. She covered her mouth to yawn. Through her fingers she said: “Well, it’s none of my affair. It’s your job.”

  And as suddenly, Tierney felt an unbearable desolation. “I wonder if it’s a job for a man,” meaning in this sense a human being and not a sexual differentiation. The weird feature was that a moment later he did not know whether he had spoken aloud or expressed it to himself. No response came from Katharine, who collected their cups and delivered them to the sink. It was all the worse if he had thought, and not said, it.

  He went into the bedroom, fetched his pistol from under the pillow on his side of the bed, collected the handcuffs and leather-braided sap from the dresser, leaned over the crib and kissed the baby’s translucent forehead. John Michael as yet had very pale hair, even more fair than Detweiler’s.

  Tierney took his overcoat and hat from a shallow closet in the hall. From there he had a direct view to the kitchen and the back of Katharine’s cardigan and bowtied apron strings. It was superstition with him never to kiss her goodbye when he went to work: his was one of those trades, like auto racing, in which it is bad luck to wish good.

  He called: “So long, Kath.”

  She turned and said: “Oh, that informant phoned again last night, real late. I just remembered.” Tierney asked: “The woman?”

  “Yeah,” Katharine said. She waved a dishcloth at him. “O.K., I’ll see you when I see you. If you’re on late, you can come right to Jimmy’s.”

  “Sure,” said Tierney. “I’ll be talking to you.”

  He drove south for a few blocks through a gray morning with a low, oppressive ceiling that would soon release either a cold rain or a tepid snow, the temperature being definitely above 32° F. His hands were too warm in his Christmas gloves, gift of Katharine, and he unsheathed them after he parked the car, tossing the pigskin gloves, still bright orange on the backs but already palm-blackened, onto the passenger’s seat.

  He went into a drugstore and entered a phone booth. A deskman at Betty’s hotel told him the Baysons had checked out the day before. The forwarding address was that of their home, in the near suburbs. Tierney already had that, and the home phone number, in his notebook, dating from his first interview with her on Christmas Eve.

  The line came alive after half a ring, and a weighty voice said: “This is the police.”

  “What?” asked Tierney. “Who’s talking?” He gave his name.

  “It’s about damn time,” the voice responded, as heavy but less ominously.

  “Who is this?”

  “Arthur Bayson. What kind of protection do you people provide, anyway? All night we’ve been trying to reach you. We have been enduring a reign of terror.”

  Tierney had been apprehensive until now, fearing Betty had been trying to invade his home by telephone, on some private matter: this was the only sort of menace that scared him. However, the word “terror” in Arthur’s use surely signified that which in Tierney’s job was routine. Therefore he was back at work again, investigating the irregularities of others, his own superseded.

  Arthur proceeded to explain, and as usual with civilians, he had exaggerated: the “reign of terror” consisted of some crank phone calls. The Baysons were of course listed in the phone book, and now famous. “A target,” said Arthur. “This is our home. We have no place to hide.”

  Tierney said: “The telephone company will give you a new number.”

  “Absolutely no,” Arthur answered indignantly. “I refuse to run, to be run out of my own home. It’s up to you to take measures.”

  Tierney had a feeling he would say, “You got us into this,” but Arthur merely created the implication, then said: “Where were you all night? I don’t keep guns around the house—I don’t hunt or anything. We’ve got oil heat here, don’t even have a poker. I sat up till dawn with a butcher knife.”

  Tierney said: “Generally speaking, the type of person who makes threatening calls doesn’t carry through. Usually he’s yellow, which is why he phones. If he was serious he wouldn’t tip you off.”

  “I don’t want to hear rationalizations,” Arthur said in the kind of voice that might be accompanied by a stamping foot: his tone was deep but his rhythm almost girlish. “I don’t intend to argue the matter, mister. You’re a public servant, and you can damn well do your duty for a change. Or are you looking for a handout?”

  “I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Bayson. Nothing in the city ordinances calls for me to listen to that kind of talk. You should have called your local police last night. That’s not my jurisdiction, and I’m not your private bodyguard.”

  “But this man,” Arthur shouted, “this anonymous caller says he committed the murders, that Detweiler is the wrong one, that he will get us next. My wife is sick with fear, in bed, incapacitated. We feel trapped here, under observation from hidden eyes. There’s a vacant lot in back. I see a glint there, movement: he could be in that old shed. A high-powered rifle, telescopic sights: he could get us at a window. I’m unarmed. I’m an office worker. I’m not trained for violence.”

  “Now calm down,” Tierney said mechanically. “It’s probably your imagination.”

  Arthur shouted: “Are you prepared to guarantee that?”

  “Well, naturally I can’t—”

  “You’re not God, are you, Tierney?”

  This seemed to Tierney a very strange query, in view of his recent dialogue with Detweiler, though of course Arthur would not have had that in view: it was a common enough expression of democratic reminder, signifying “Who do you think you are?”, the basic city question, leadenly secular, bleakly atheist though as often asked by churchgoers as any other. Tierney had himself asked it of Detweiler. Only now did he appreciate its meanness, its total denial of possibility, its frightened envy, its loser’s idiom. For the first time he considered whether Detweiler might not be a better man than his victims, not only the dead but the living; this insane murderer, this generous wretch.

  The thought made him more tolerant of Bayson, who after all was a civilian and under pressure. He was also thinking of Betty: in bed, prostrate with fear? Tierney found it unlikely, but attractive.

  He said: “All right. I’ll come over. If you get any more calls, try to keep him on the phone.”

  Arthur gave a nervous laugh, then seemed immediately to relax.

  “You’re probably right,” he said. “Imagination. But the calls were real enough…. There is somebody in the vacant lot: a kid, playing. I see him now.”

  “You still want me to come over?”

  “Of course,” said Bayson. “I think you owe it to Betty.”

  A cryptic remark if he ever heard one. Tierney called headquarters and left word for Shuster where he would be. Then he returned to his car and saw that his gloves had been stolen. Naturally he had
not locked the doors. The vehicle was his own property and bore no special markings, but thieves could generally tell a detective’s car from the aura or aroma. No likely prospect was in view. The shop nearest the car was a barber’s, two-chair but, early as it was, only one man in attendance. He was of course Italian; answered “Nuh” to Tierney’s questions, saw nobody near the automobile.

  Bastard, thought Tierney, meaning the barber, who had probably watched the theft with pleasure, recognizing Tierney as an officer; small shopkeepers often had a grudge against the Force during the holidays, when the beat cops shook them down for Xmas remembrances.

  Tierney drove away. He would not report this petty larceny to the precinct. He passed a park, the locus, in better weather, of crimes of violence; but now not only the season but the time of day maintained the peace. Felonies were fairly rare from dawn to about 10:30-11 A.M. Even criminals took a while to warm up, wipe the sand from their eyes. Parks held little interest for Tierney in whatever weather except insofar as who might be lurking therein, though he approved of trees and birds: he might take the family on a picnic next spring.

  Thirty-odd minutes later he found the Bayson residence on a street that was rural to his eyes: little houses, the vacant lot that Arthur had mentioned, the old shed or garage, and likewise the kid.

  This punk, eleven or twelve, had a rifle. Tierney left the car and advanced, opening his overcoat and suit jacket; he did not expect to need his pistol, but there was a cardinal rule that anyone holding a firearm, be they babies, little old ladies, or orangutans, should be approached with caution.

  The weapon turned out to be a BB gun.

  “What are you doing out of school, son?” Tierney asked sternly.

  The boy wore a knitted wool cap with a pompom at the summit. A scarf was wound many times around his throat. Near his mouth it was wettened. His eyes had difficulty in maintaining a consistent direction.

  He said thickly, and with no evidence of feeling: “I’ll kill you. I’ll burn down the shed.” He was an idiot.

  Tierney disarmed him easily, but finding where he lived was a problem. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go home and have some milk and cookies.”

  “You motherfucker,” said the boy, again without feeling, and his nose began to run. Tierney fetched out his own handkerchief and applied it. The boy blew his nose, then seized the handkerchief and kept it. The second personal article lost by Tierney within the hour.

  Tierney took the boy’s hand and led him out to the sidewalk. Presumably he lived down the street, the Bayson house being the last on the block. As they passed he saw Arthur peeping through the closed drapes.

  “I’m going to eat some dogshit,” the boy said.

  “I’ll bet this is your house,” said Tierney, choosing one at random so as to provoke the child into a confession. By chance it was the right one.

  The boy said: “My cat,” pointing to a tiger-striped animal rubbing its ribs on a porch pillar.

  But the woman who answered the door directed Tierney three houses down. The boy suddenly spoke with clarity: “Stupid! My cat, not my house.”

  “No, it isn’t your cat either,” the woman said sweetly.

  “Cock and balls,” chirped the boy, and Tierney pulled him down the steps.

  At the correct door at last, Tierney was greeted by a youngish woman: “Hi! He get in trouble?”

  “No,” said Tierney, “but I don’t think you should let this boy play with an air rifle.”

  “Why not? All the boys have them.” The woman cocked her head and stared suspiciously, though also with humor, at him. “Who are you?”

  “A police officer.”

  “I wasn’t doing anything at all, Momma,” the boy said self-reliantly. “He just came and bothered me.” He was no longer glassy-eyed and wet-mouthed.

  Tierney got the picture: he had been hoaxed. He moved quickly to say—but not before the woman lost the last suggestion of amusement and clutched her son indignantly—“Why isn’t he in school?”

  She sent her boy into the house. “I sure find something funny about a policeman who hasn’t heard of Christmas vacation.”

  Then where were Dennis and Mary? Oh yeah, something at the church, rehearsal for some pageant or the like. Catholic kids always had obligations. Father Healey would catch him after the show and remind him of the masses he had missed. Healey was a former police chaplain and knew few homicides were committed on Sunday before noon.

  When Tierney was young he had thought about going into the priesthood. What decided him against it was his disbelief in divinity. The nearest secular institution was the police force. “You are terribly naive,” he was told by an old boyhood pal who had become a cleric after an early term as precocious cocksman, drunk, delinquent. “It’s the doubters who do best. Anyway, if you don’t believe in God how can you enforce the law?” He was one of those cheerful bastards, spouting paradoxes, teaching at some Jesuit academy for the sons of the rich. Tierney wondered if he had turned queer: it was a useful switch for philosophers, enabling them to reverse meanings at will, to be provocative, amusing, and aesthetic, like old Socrates, turning everybody else’s remarks inside out and then going to bed with a boy.

  When the real question was: How could you respect the law if you believed in God? Unless, like Detweiler, you also believed yourself divine. Tell me that.

  “Tell you what?” the woman asked shrilly.

  He must have spoken aloud. He was cracking up, on the last day of the old vear. He shook himself together.

  “Tell me why he was lurking in that vacant lot. This is serious, lady. We have reports of a prowler around the Bayson house last night. Was your boy out after dark?”

  Then the woman said a curious thing, in the light of Tierney’s own earlier thought at the breakfast table.

  “Why don’t you get a man’s job? Meanwhile, if you want to grill my son, come back with a warrant.” She snatched up the air rifle and marched inside, slamming the door.

  There was no way to handle a woman if you ran out of bluff. A policewoman was always present at the interrogation of a female suspect, to protect the male officers. Tierney dreaded seeing Betty again; unreflectively he had been postponing the confrontation. It would not have been so bad if he had really made love to her, with her, or simply but genuinely screwed her. As it was, he didn’t know what he had done except briefly to lose possession of his .38.

  The bell button was behind the screen door, and not only was the screen door in place on 31 December, but it was locked fast. Arthur finally peeped through the drapes again, like a neighborhood snoop. Tierney gestured impatiently and was let in.

  He had forgotten Arthur was larger than he by several inches and at least twenty pounds: a big, soft but not fat man. Not that Tierney was all muscle, but he was organized. But this was Bayson’s home and Tierney a kind of interloper. Tierney removed his hat and tried to breathe the superheated air. He could smell but not see cigarette smoke, and it was the more nauseating for the mystery of its source, which was not a mystery at all. Betty was lurking somewhere within. Arthur did not smoke.

  Arthur said: “I saw you with that kid. Do you suppose the anonymous caller could have been him, changing his voice?”

  “What did the voice sound like?”

  “Gravel-throated, according to Betty,” said Arthur. “I never talked to him, actually.” He hastened to add: “She insisted, wouldn’t let me. She was the one who knew Detweiler, she said. It was her mother and sister who were murdered. I haven’t had much of a part in this whole thing!”

  Arthur had ended on a whine, and looked very much as if he would burst into tears. His style disgusted Tierney, yet Tierney felt a sympathy for him. It was easy to say that Arthur should give Betty a swift kick in the ass, but if he were that sort he would not have married her in the first place.

  At that point Arthur struck Tierney in the jaw. Either Arthur was even weaker than Tierney had thought, or the blow was intended to be but symbolic, for it had
no effect on Tierney’s physical attitude, except to produce a faint grin. Spiritually Tierney was shocked, astounded that he did not in reflex hit Arthur back. Instead he sat down passively in a bright green armchair. Everything in the room was new and in solid colors. The rug was a light tan, unfigured, almost blond, the kind that would show anything tracked in from outdoors, and Tierney’s shoes were filthy from the vacant lot. He had left a trail of mud or maybe even excrement, though he would have smelled that in this stifling atmosphere. He began to wonder whether Arthur had really hit him, or if so, perhaps in accident, developing a gesture. He was in the man’s house, and the man was a respectable citizen. In a dark alley, in a tenement hallway, Tierney might already have blown out his assailant’s navel. Detweiler was wrong about time: it was place that mattered.

  Arthur suddenly trembled.

  He said: “I apologize. You are a guest in my home. That was unforgivable. We should have stepped outside I, I don’t have experience in these matters.”

  “You don’t?” Tierney asked numbly.

  “Well, that’s a pretty cynical question,” Arthur said, regaining self-possession. “You better get up. I’m going to have to hit you again.” He walked arrogantly towards Tierney’s chair.

  But now Tierney was prepared. He rose and seizing Arthur’s right wrist whipped it behind the man’s back and jerked it upwards. Then he tripped Arthur and fell with him, on him, knelt on him, knee against his sacroiliac.

  “Now what have you got to say for yourself?” asked Tierney.

  Arthur spoke with difficulty, into the carpet.

  Tierney said: “Huh?” He kept his knee against Arthur’s spine, but he took some tension off the bent arm. intended to be but symbolic, for it had no effect on Tierney’s physical attitude, except to produce a faint grin. Spiritually Tierney was shocked, astounded that he did not in reflex hit Arthur back. Instead he sat down passively in a bright green armchair. Everything in the room was new and in solid colors. The rug was a light tan, unfigured, almost blond, the kind that would show anything tracked in from outdoors, and Tierney’s shoes were filthy from the vacant lot. He had left a trail of mud or maybe even excrement, though he would have smelled that in this stifling atmosphere. He began to wonder whether Arthur had really hit him, or if so, perhaps in accident, developing a gesture. He was in the man’s house, and the man was a respectable citizen. In a dark alley, in a tenement hallway, Tierney might already have blown out his assailant’s navel. Detweiler was wrong about time: it was place that mattered.