rocked his car. As he drove through a small business district with a strip mall and some other stores on the other side of the street, he thought of Christmas time, the way people bent into the furious wind, hurrying on their way home to warmth and shelter. How innocent his life of even twenty-four-hours before seemed now. No dead women in freezers.
He had no trouble finding the address. It was an impressive duplex designed to resemble town houses. No lights shone on either side. He rolled to the kerb and shut off the engine. Wind continued to rock the car. He had another forbidden cigarette, and as he sat there smoking it, he sensed eyes on him. Knowing eyes, watching.
Taking only a few drags before flicking the cigarette into the darkness, Brolan got out of the car and started up the walk. Actually few lights shone in the entire prosperous middle-class neighbourhood. He wondered if everybody there was elderly.
At the door he raised an ornate brass knocker twice and let it fall. It sounded metallic in the chilly silence.
No response.
This time he used his knuckles.
Still nothing.
The impression of eyes watching him remained. He wondered for the thousandth time since the phone call who the caller was and how he knew about the dead woman and why he thought Brolan had killed her.
His hand fell to the knob and turned it. He pushed inward and felt the door start to open.
This didn't make much sense. Who left their front doors unlocked this way? Images from a thousand TV cop shows came to him. He'd walk inside and find the man who'd called him sprawled dead on the floor. The killer had left the door open on his way out.
Frightened but curious, he pushed his way inside.
Darkness, a shadowy gloom illuminated only by ghostly streetlight through gauzy curtains. The shape of fashionable furniture dark against the greater darkness. He inched inward, keeping the door behind him ajar in case he needed to run. The floor was hardwood. Even walking on tiptoe he made a certain amount of noise.
Once his eyes began adjusting to the gloom, he could see more clearly. The living room looked like a popular-culture display in a museum. The walls carried several framed blow-ups of movie stars, from Gary Cooper to Marilyn Monroe. An enormous TV screen sat between two sections of built-in bookcases that were filled with VHS tapes, everything neatly filed and apparently alphabetized. He got close enough to read some of the tides on the books in the other cases. They ran from tides as serious as Andrew Sarris's surveys of American film to books about Saturday matinee serials.
He was just about to explore the other parts of the duplex when he heard a thrumming against the hardwood. At first he didn't recognize the sound. But within moments his mind registered: wheelchair.
And so it was: a wheelchair bearing a small, somewhat twisted man rolled into sight, there in the ghostly light from the street. The man wore a dark turtleneck and what appeared to be jeans. His hair was combed back in a trendy way.
Brolan would have felt pity for such a man except the man was making it very difficult for him to do so.
The man was pointing a. 45 at Brolan's chest.
'You're Mr. Brolan?'
'I've got to tell you. Guns scare the hell out of me. I wish you'd put that thing down.'
'In due time, Mr. Brolan. I have some questions first.' A kind of unreality came over Brolan. He was standing in a darkened room with a crippled man in a wheelchair. The man held a gun on him. Back home Brolan had found a dead woman in a freezer chest. Images burned and faded; all this was like a fever dream he prayed would end soon.
'I want to talk about Emma,' the man said.
'I don't know any Emma.'
'She was hired to walk about and bump you in a certain bar the other night.'
'Hired? What the hell are you talking about?'
'Hired,' the man said. Then he added, 'Why did you kill her?'
Carefully Brolan put a hand to his head. Despite the chilly night and despite the fact that the duplex was not exactly warm, Brolan's head was wet with sweat. As were his back and his shorts. 'Do me a favour.'
'And what would that be?'
'Don't say that anymore. That I killed her, I mean. I don't know who you are, and I don't know who she was, but I didn't kill her.'
'But she did bump into you the night before last?'
'Yes.'
'And then what happened?'
Brolan shrugged, his eyes focused on the. 45 in the man's hand. Wind rattled windows; sleet sprayed like tossed sand against the glass. 'We had words. I was pretty drunk. I don't remember. But it wasn't anything serious.' He smiled at the craziness of all this. 'It certainly wasn't something you'd kill somebody for.'
'You're not telling me everything, are you, Mr. Brolan?'
Brolan said, 'Who was she?'
For a time the man didn't speak. In the shadows Brolan could see that the man's gaze wandered away for a time. Brolan decided this was the best chance he'd have to slap the gun away. He lunged.
The man raised the. 45 and pushed it right against Brolan's forehead.
Brolan's sweat turned chill; he felt as if he had a terrible case of the flu.
He withdrew from the man. The man kept the gun pointed level at Brolan's heart.
'She was the woman I loved,' the man said. 'Do you find that funny? That a man like me would love a woman like her?'
'Why would I find that funny?'
'Pathetic, then? Perhaps you find it pathetic, Mr. Brolan.'
'You loved her. That isn't hard to understand.'
'Then you can understand why I want to kill the man who killed her.'
Brolan paused. 'You still think I did it?'
'Yes.'
'But why? What motive would I have?'
'That's what I want you to tell me, Mr. Brolan.' As the man spoke, Brolan let his eyes roam the dark room. He saw a leather recliner to his right that he could dive behind if he were quick enough and lucky enough.
The more the man spoke, the more aggrieved he sounded. For the first time Brolan began actually to believe that the man might well kill him.
Brolan said, 'We could help each other.'
'And how would that be, Mr. Brolan?'
'We could help each other find out who really did it.'
'What is it you're not telling me, Mr. Brolan? You're like a little child. I can hear guilt in your voice, but I need you to be more specific.'
Brolan dove then.
Without any grace, without any apprehension of injuring himself, he pitched his body to the right, aiming directly for the side of the chair that would shield him from any bullets. He lay there, panting, sodden with his sweat, waiting.
No sound but the wind and the heaving of his lungs.
The man said, 'You were too quick for me, Mr. Brolan. It's the advantage of having a body capable of action.' Brolan said nothing.
The man laughed. It was a short, harsh sound. It almost seemed to pain him. He tossed something heavy to the floor. 'It wasn't a real gun, Mr. Brolan. I bought it at a Republic Studio auction. Have you ever heard of Lash La Rue?'
Getting up from the floor, Brolan said, 'You little son of a bitch. You were holding Lash La Rue's gun on me?'
