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"What was he like?"

"Who?"

He softened his voice. "Why's it so hard for you to talk about your dad?"

"I thought I did."

Janek
shook his head. "You said he was a failure and he called you on your birthdays and he drank and you smelled liquor on his breath. That's not enough. The guy was your father. You must have more to say about him than that."

"What are you now? My therapist?"

He ignored her sarcasm. "Obviously you have some grievance against him, but you've got to know that whatever lousy thing he may have done he didn't deserve to be killed."

She looked at him in wonderment, then tears started pulsing from her eyes. She didn't wipe them away. He put his arm around her, brought out his handkerchief and tenderly dabbed her cheeks.

"Talk about it," he urged.

"So damn difficult." She was weeping now.

"You'll feel better."

"Don't know where to start."

"Start anywhere. Just let it out."

Her anguish upset him. He went to the galley to make coffee and give her time to settle down.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know I've been acting like a bitch."

"You've been hurting. There's nothing wrong with that." When he came to her she took the mug of coffee gratefully, then settled back onto the couch. He watched her, feeling she was ready, waiting patiently for her to begin. "He was real good-looking. A handsome guy."

"I could tell that from the snapshot."

"When he was young, I mean; later he wasn't so handsome. But always charming. He was a charmer. He could charm anybody out of anything." She paused, took another sip, then gulped. "He was a bastard too. Terrible temper. It came out when he was drunk. All his anger came out and then he was dangerous. He'd make threats: 'One of these days I'm going to snap. Going to go into work, pull out the old thirty-eight and kill them, mow them down.' Never knew who he meant. The other officers. The bad guys. Or just anyone who rubbed him wrong." She paused. "He hit us, Frank. My mother, my older sister and me. I'm not claiming we were battered women. He didn't beat us up, but when he was mad he'd slap us. A single hard stinging smack across the face. So maybe we
were
battered. I remember once he knocked my mother down. Then he got remorseful and promised he wouldn't do it again. But still he'd warn us: 'Don't push. Push too hard and I'm not responsible. No telling what I'll do if I'm feeling pushed.'

"He could also be gentle." She smiled. "I remember some terrific times. Like playing hide-and-seek with him between the sheets hanging on the laundry lines in our backyard, and him walking me to school in his uniform, taking my hand as we crossed the street. There was a time, I remember, when he seemed to have a lot of money. Then, later, he was broke. That period when he was flush he rented us a house for the whole summer down on the Jersey shore. The first day he took me into the water and held me up in front of the waves.
I
started to cry and he said, 'It's all right. Trust me. I'm holding you. I'll never let you go.' But
I
couldn't trust him, could never be sure, never know when he'd turn furious. Whenever he started to drink I knew there might be trouble. But then sometimes he'd get drunk and turn sweet, almost maudlin." She shook her head.
"I never knew
."

"He said, 'Trust me,' but he wasn't dependable."

"That's right. That was the whole damn trouble."

"What's your best memory of him?"

She laughed. "One time when I was little and it was winter, really cold, I came home from school, my toes so frozen they were numb. He scooped me up and carried me to my room, put me down on the bed, peeled off my socks and slowly massaged my toes till they were warm."

"And the worst?"

She looked away. "Seeing him hit my mother, hearing her cry, then the anger on his face as he turned away, the sound of the front door slamming and the car roaring off. Then his curses hours later when he came home from a bar. Being afraid to go to sleep, afraid of what he'd do."

"A violent man. The worst kind of cop."

"But he could control it."

"Sure. That's why he became a cop. A cop carries around a big burden of menace. But he's disciplined. There're all these rules. I've known a lot of men like your dad."

"I loved him. Even the last years.
I
was disappointed in him, hated the way he lived, but I loved him anyway. He'd smile and when he did, it just lit up his face. And then it didn't matter that he was a loser and a drunk. He was almost…"

"What?"

"Irresistible."

"So you cried a lot when he was killed."

"Yes," she nodded. "I cried."

"And you were relieved too."

She nodded again. "Because I didn't have to be disappointed in him anymore."

Janek
sat back and studied her. "When did you start
Aggression
?"

"Oh, some of those shots go back a long time." She gestured toward the walls. "I did that chess player five years ago."

"When did you decide to do the book?"

"It was just one of maybe four or five ideas."

Janek
smiled. "You're not answering my question."

"Okay. It was sometime in July."

"And you don't think there's a connection?"

"Sure there is. Of course."

"This idea you have about men and violence, the way it attracts you and also turns you off—you must know that comes from your experience with your father, the way you could never be sure if he'd be loving and warm your toes or turn on you and slap your face."

She nodded slowly, then looked up at him. "You're such a different kind of cop."

"What kind am I?"

She thought awhile before she answered. "You're the cop I wished he could have been. Hey, come over here." He went to her on the couch. "You're confident and competent." She began to trace her forefinger upon his face. "Not a blusterer or a hothead. Not like him at all. You know how he strapped on his gun? Angry. And he wore it in the house. He never drew it even when he was drunk, but it was always there, strapped to his waist, a threat. He could have pulled it out anytime and shot us all in his awful rage."

Janek
did his best to soothe her, holding her, rocking her gently back and forth, lightly kissing her hair.

H
e parked in front of the house. This was the third of the last four Sunday mornings he'd driven here. Perhaps a reprieve from the puzzle of Switched Heads, but
Janek
had the feeling he was about to complicate his life.

The air was still as he approached the door. He rang the bell, heard the chimes go off but no footsteps. He walked around to the side. The blue Honda was in the garage. He went to the back door and looked into the kitchen. There was a half-empty bottle of vodka on the counter.

He rang the backdoor bell. No chimes this time—just a loud shrill ring. The gracious amenities were confined to the front of the house; the rear was functional and brash.

He was about to leave when she appeared in the kitchen. She was wearing a pastel-pink robe, her hair was disheveled and there was a look of panic on her, the panic of a woman who was tearing herself apart.

"Frank!" He saw her mime his name. She opened the door and forced a smile.

"Sorry, Lou, I should have called—"

"
Whyyoucomearoundtheback
?"

"Did I wake you?"

"Big surprise you coming by." This time she spaced her words.

She poured him a cup of coffee, asked if he wanted anything else, and when he said he didn't she led him into the living room, where they sat side by side on the couch.

"Want to show you something." He pulled out the snapshot of Al, Tommy Wallace and Hart. "Ever see this before?"

She nodded.

"Torn out of one of Al's old albums, wasn't it?"

She nodded again.

"Mind getting it for me, Lou?" She stared down at the rug. "What's the matter?"

"Where did you get this, Frank?"

"We'll get to that. Why don't you get me the album first." He watched her as she moved solemnly up the stairs. When she came back she was holding the album in both her hands. He didn't like the way she was walking, as if she were in some kind of trance. She handed him the album, sat down, then folded her hands neatly in her lap.

She looked at the rug while he turned the pages until he found the one from which the snapshot had been torn. The patch of glue matched the patch on the picture's back.

"Know this was missing?" She began to jiggle her foot. "Why are you so nervous, Lou?"

"I'm not. Want some toast?" She stood then, abruptly, and moved toward the kitchen. He followed, found her scurrying about slapping slices of bread into the toaster, opening the refrigerator, pulling out butter and jam, shutting it, then opening it again to take out a carton of orange juice, which she shook vigorously before she put it back.

She dug out a tray from a cupboard, arranged a plate and silverware on it, poured him a second cup of coffee with a trembling hand, and though he'd drunk his first black she went to the refrigerator to fetch her creamer and added a sugar bowl from the breakfast table beside the door.

He watched in silence. This wasn't going to be easy; her wind-up-doll behavior told him that. Their eyes met, she turned away, then they both smelled the burning toast. She leaped back to the counter, yanked up the toaster lever and feverishly plucked out the burnt bread with a fork. She gazed at the remnants, flung them into the sink, then raced to the breadbox, grabbed up two fresh slices, stuck them into the toaster, plunged down the lever again and gave the machine a punishing slap.

"Forget the fucking toast, Lou. You're not going to put me off with that. I'll take the juice and the coffee and then we're going to sit. We got some things to talk about."

She tried to lead him back to the living room, but this time he wanted to sit across from her, not side by side. He maneuvered her to the dining table and when they were finally settled she looked at him directly for the first time since he'd come into the house, and he could see that she was scared.

"What's the picture all about?"

"It's just Al and Tommy Wallace and Dale Hart."

"I know who's in it. I didn't ask you that. I asked you what it's all about."

"Where'd you get it, Frank?"

"I'm asking the questions, Lou. You asked me, as a personal favor, to find out if Al was working on a case. Okay, I did, and now I've come up with something and now you start acting like you're sorry that you asked." He looked at her sternly. "Time to cut the crap, Lou. You got something to say—spill it out."

She glanced at him, then bowed her head. A shaft of light hit her face; her nose cast a triangle of shade upon her cheek.
Janek
thought he saw stored-up tears. He waited, silent. She glanced at him again. And then she began to pour.

As he listened he realized that although he had heard many stories in his life, many long confessions, he had never reacted quite like this. It was not that the things Lou confessed were in any way extraordinary, but that he felt aroused by them to an unusual degree.

"...they were grand friends, the three of them, Al, Tommy and Dale. They were pals, though Dale was a sergeant and Al was ten years older than the other two. We saw each other socially, six of us—me, the other two wives and the three of them. They had all been partners at one time or another—Al and Dale, then Tommy and Dale, and finally Tommy and Al. We had a lot of good times together before things went sour on account of what they found.

"I remember the day. More than twenty-five years ago, but I'll remember it till I die. Not just for what happened but for the way things changed. Al and I didn't know it then, but for us it was a terrible day.

"Fell sometime between the holidays. Very cold—one of those days when your cheeks sting and your fingers get numb inside your gloves. Al called me from a pay phone. I could hear the other two whooping it up. They were in a bar celebrating. 'Found it,
darlin
,' Al said. 'We're in the clover now.' I must have smiled, because I'd given Al a four-leaf clover imbedded in a plastic disk to wear around his neck for luck so he wouldn't get shot or something on the job.

"Course it was a young cop's kind of thing, that stash they found. It was in a garage set behind a deserted house. There'd been some windows busted in the neighborhood, kids' vandalism, and it was just a routine call that had brought them to the house behind. There was a fence between the two backyards and part of it was curled back. Can't remember now why they crawled through. Maybe they thought the kids had a gang clubhouse back there. Anyway, they checked out the garage and through a crack they saw the car. It was a green 1940s Chevy convertible, perfect condition, clean and polished, stored up on concrete blocks.

"It was Tommy who wanted to go in and take a look. He always loved cars and he wanted to see this one close up. So they pried open the door, went in and Tommy jumped into the driver's seat. He started bouncing around and that's when the key fell into his lap. It was like some kind of miracle, they said, the way he shook it loose from where it had been hidden in the folds of the top. When it didn't fit the ignition Al tried it on the trunk. It opened that up and there were two cardboard cartons in there tied up with rope. And of course they were curious and opened one to look inside, and soon as they saw the money they looked at each other and it was then they knew they'd made their score.