Chase (13 page)

Cauvel thought a moment, abandoned any thought of using implied threats, and said, ‘And you still
can
avail yourself of it, Ben. I'm here, waiting to see you-’

‘It's no longer a benefit,’ Chase said. He realized that he was beginning to enjoy this. For the first time he had Cauvel on the defensive for more than a brief moment, and the switch in positions had a delightful quality of triumph to it.

‘Ben, you
are
angry about what I said to the police. That is the whole thing, isn't it?’ He was certain that he had the situation analyzed now, all carefully broken down into neat compartments by his clever reasoning powers.

‘Partly,’ Chase said. ‘But there are two other reasons.’

‘What?’

‘Your articles, for a start.’

‘Articles?’ Cauvel asked, playing the idiot either consciously or out of confusion.

‘You surely did glorify the treatment you gave me, didn't you? In your piece for
Therapy Journal,
you come off like a Sigmund Freud or even a Jesus Christ.’

‘You read my articles?’

‘All of them,’ Chase said. He had almost said
five
of them before he realized that two of the articles had not yet seen print but were only rough drafts in Cauvel's files.

‘How did you know they were concerned with your case? I didn't use any real names.’

‘A colleague of yours tipped me off,’ Chase lied.

‘Of
mine?
A fellow professional?’

‘Yes,’ Chase said. He thought: That's really not too far off base, though. He was a colleague of yours, in a sense - another madman.

‘Look, Ben, I'm sure we can talk about this and reach some sort of understanding -’

‘You forgot the third reason,’ Chase said. ‘I told you there were three reasons why I won't be coming back.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes,’ Chase said. ‘The third reason is the best of the lot, Dr Cauvel. You are an egotist, a sonofabitch and a monumentally petty man. I can't stand to be around you, and I find you disgustingly immature.’

He hung up on Cauvel, convinced that he had begun the day in the best manner imaginable.

Later, he was not so sure of that. He genuinely believed all those things he had said about and to Cauvel, and he actually did find the man disgusting. But making the break with his psychiatrist was, in some way he could not clearly define, more of a definite rejection of his more recent life style than anything else he had done. He told himself that when Judge was located and the police received the conclusive proof that he, Chase, would compile against the killer, he could resume his sheltered existence on the third floor of Mrs Fiedling's house. Now he had decided to cease psychiatric treatment, an admission that he was not the same man he had once been and that the burden of guilt he bore was growing distinctly less heavy. He was a bit disconcerted by that.

To make matters worse, once he had shaved and bathed and exercised some of the stiffness out of himself, he found that he had no leads to follow in his investigation. So far as he could think, he had been everywhere that Judge had been, and yet he had gained nothing for his trouble except a fairly accurate description of the man, something that would do him no concrete good unless he could connect a name with it or could think of a place where the description might be recognized. He could hardly tramp through the entire city asking everyone he met if one of them had seen a man with those particular characteristics. And short of that, he did not see what he was going to do with the long day ahead.

Once he had taken breakfast at a pancake house on Galasio Boulevard, however, he was able to think more clearly and more optimistically. He still had two possible sources, no matter how slim a chance might ride on them. He could return to the Gateway Mall Tavern and talk to the real Eric Blentz to see if the man could put a name to Judge's description. It seemed likely that Judge had not just chosen Blentz's name out of the phone book when he used it with Brown. Perhaps he knew Blentz or even more likely, had once worked for him. And even if Blentz could provide no new lead, Chase could go back to Glenda Kleaver, the girl at the
Press-Dispatch
morgue room, and question her about anyone who had come into her office the previous Tuesday - something he had not done right off, for fear of making a fool of himself or arousing the interest of the reporters in the room.

He began with a call to the newspaper morgue, but he found it was not open for business, as he had suspected might be the case. In the phone book he found a listing under the girl's name and dialled that, received an answer on the fourth ring.

‘Hello?’ she said.

He had forgotten how tiny and soft and feminine her voice was, so breathless that it almost seemed contrived.

He said, ‘Miss Kleaver, you probably don't remember me. I was in your office yesterday. My name's Chase. I had to leave while you were out of the room getting information for one of your reporters.’

‘I remember you quite well,’ she said.

He said, ‘My name's Chase, Benjamin Chase, and I'd like to see you again, today, if that's at all possible.’

She hesitated a minute and said, ‘Are you asking for a date?’

He said, ‘Yes,’ though he had not been aware that such a thought was even part of his motive.

She laughed pleasantly. ‘Well, you certainly are business-like about it, aren't you?’

‘I guess so,’ he said, afraid that she would turn him down - and at the same time frightened that she would accept.

‘When were you thinking of?’ she asked.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘actually, I was thinking about today. This evening. But now I realize that isn't much notice -’

‘It's fine,’ she said.

‘Really?’ His throat was tight and his voice sounded a bit higher than usual.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘One problem, though.’

‘What's that?’

‘I was planning fondue for supper, and I cut all the meat and seasoned it. I've got everything set out for the rest of the dishes too.’

‘Perhaps we could go somewhere after dinner,’ he said.

She said, ‘I like to eat late. What I was thinking -could you come here for supper? I've more than enough beef for two.’

‘That sounds fine,’ he said.

She gave him the complete address and said, ‘Dress casually, please. And I'll see you at seven.’

‘At seven,’ he repeated.

When the connection was broken, he stood in the booth, trembling. In the back of his mind, swelling ever larger, was the memory of Operation Jules Verne, the tunnel, the descent, the terrible darkness, the fear, the grate, the women, the guns and, last of all, the blood. His knees felt very weak and his heart beat much faster than it should have done. When he felt dangerously close to being overcome, he leaned back against the glass of the booth and forced himself to reason it out. Accepting a date with Glenda Kleaver was in no way a rejection of his responsibility in the deaths of those Vietnamese women. A long time had passed, after all, and a great deal of penitence had been suffered. And suffered alone. Besides, this was to be only little more than an innocent business meeting, an attempt to learn more about Judge. If Judge could be swiftly located and disposed of, Chase would be able to return to his former hermetic existence much sooner than he had anticipated. Instead of behaving wrongly, therefore, he was taking the surest move toward an end to his present condition and a return to his former, respectable retreat from a way of life that he felt he no longer deserved.

He left the booth.

The day was terribly warm and humid. The back of his shirt stuck to him like Saran Wrap.

Driving to the Gateway Mall Tavern, he almost slammed into the rear of three separate automobiles, distracted by the ugly memories which had for a long time been given vent only in his nightmares. The fear of hurting another motorist in an accident and thereby acquiring an even heavier load of guilt had quickly served to sober him and drive the distracting memories down, beyond the veil of recognition.

At the shopping mall, Chase browsed in the bookstore until shortly after noon, then walked up the carpeted slope of the main promenade to the tavern. The barmaid who waited on him said that Blentz was expected in at two o'clock. Chase sat in a corner booth, watching the door, and nursed his drink while he waited.

It was all for nothing. When Blentz arrived at a quarter to three, wearing a white linen suit and a blue shirt that looked slept-in, he was quite willing to accept a drink from Chase and to talk, but he had never employed anyone who fit Judge's description and could not, offhand, think of a friend or regular customer who might be Chase's man.

‘You know how it is,’ he said. ‘Different people every night. Even the regulars change every six months or so.’

‘I guess,’ Chase said, unable to hide his disappointment. He finished his drink and got up.

‘What do you want him for?’ Blentz asked. ‘He owe you some money?’

‘Just the opposite,’ Chase said. ‘I owe him.’

‘How much?’

Twenty bucks,’ Chase lied. ‘You still don't know him?’

‘I
said
I didn't.’ Blentz turned around on his stool. He said, ‘How did you go about borrowing twenty bucks from him without learning his name?’

Chase said, ‘We were both drunk. If either of us had been a bit more sober, I wouldn't have forgotten that.’

‘And if he'd been sober, maybe he wouldn't have loaned the money,’ Blentz said. He laughed at his own joke and picked his drink up from the bar.

‘Perhaps,’ Chase said.

As he walked across the tavern and out the door into the mall, he knew that Eric Blentz was still twisted away from the bar on his stool and was watching him.

He supposed that Blentz might know someone who matched the description but was simply not going to talk about it until he understood a bit more of the situation. Whatever Blentz's background was prior to his ownership of the tavern, it was not the sort of mundane existence most people had. He was not naive and gullible like everyone else Chase had questioned, and he had a canny sense of the law. However, even if Blentz were concealing something, there was no way for Chase to squeeze the information out of him, for Blentz was a private citizen, and Chase was in no way a licenced authority.

He started the car and drove home.

He was not shot at.

In his room, he turned on the television, watched it for fifteen minutes, turned it off before the programme was finished, opened a paperback book, which he found he could not concentrate on, and spent a good deal of time pacing from one wall to the other. Instinctively, he stayed away from his window.

At six-thirty Chase left the house to keep his date with Glenda Kleaver. When he unlocked the door of the Mustang, he discovered that Judge had been around and had left a message behind for him. The content of the message was clear, though it was wordless. Judge had taken a knife to the smooth vinyl upholstery of the driver's seat, had slashed it so many times that the white stuffing poured out like foam.

He would have liked to believe that the vandalism was completely unrelated to Judge and that he had merely been the innocent victim of some neighbourhood juvenile delinquent with a batch of unbearable frustrations to work out of his system. You heard about that kind of thing nearly every day, after all. They smashed car windows for nothing more than the sound the safety glass made when it splintered. They broke off radio antennae for fun, let the air out of tyres and then slashed them to pieces, poured sand and sugar in the gas tank. Besides, this was something much more readily explained as the pointless protest of some acned adolescent full of misdirected energy than as the carefully considered act of a grown man. An unrepentant murderer would hardy get any thrill out of destruction of property like this.

Yet he knew it was Judge, despite his unvoiced protestations to the contrary.

The delinquent would have slashed all the seats once he had taken the risk of ruining one of them, and he would surely have carried off the stereo tape deck that lay just under the dash, the favourite booty of the young criminal. The delinquent would never have taken the time to lock the door again before leaving. That had been a touch meant to explain the exact conditions of the situation. This had been Judge's work. He had braved the early evening light to use a coat hangar to pop the lock, had worked over the single seat as thoroughly as he had worked on Michael Karnes, had locked up and gone away, sure that his identity and intent would be plainly understood. The car, Judge somehow seemed to realize, was an extension of the man, the modern voodoo doll.

Chase stepped away from the Mustang and looked quickly around to see if he was being watched. It had occurred to him that Judge might be lingering somewhere on the block, interested in the effect of his latest threat. The street, lined with richly leafed elms, closely packed houses and parked cars, afforded an almost infinite number of hiding places, especially in the lengthening shadows of early evening. As carefully as he looked, however, he could not see anyone nearby nor get a glimpse of the red Volkswagen parked along the kerb, and he decided that he was really alone.

It also seemed reasonable to assume that someone had seen Judge force his way into the locked car. When he looked from porch to porch, however, he discovered that no one was out watching the traffic, as was usually the case. Everyone, it appeared, was still inside finishing supper and washing dishes.

He went into the house again, without encountering Mrs Fiedling, got a blanket from his room and threw that over the ruined upholstery.

When he sat down, the seat was lumpy beneath him, and he could not help but be reminded of the soft, lumpy look of Michael Karnes's corpse as it had lain on the grass in Kanackaway Park. Trying unsuccessfully to shake off that image, he drove off to keep his date.

Glenda Kleaver lived in a modestly expensive apartment on St John's Circle, on the third and highest floor. There was a peephole in her door, and she took the time to use it before answering his knock. She was wearing white shorts and a dark blue blouse, and she was in her bare feet, a casual note that served to make her shorter than him.