The 1st Deadly Sin

the children was blurred. But they were all there.

“It was all we could get,” MacDonald said tonelessly. “They had about a hundred made up a month ago, but I guess Mrs. Kope won’t send them this year. Will it do?”

“Yes,” Delaney nodded. “Just fine.” Then, as MacDonald turned to go, he said, “Sergeant, a couple of other things…Who’s the best handwriting man in the Department?”

MacDonald thought a moment, his sculpted features calm, carved: a Congo mask or a Picasso sketch. “Handwriting,” he repeated. “That would be Willow, William T., Detective lieutenant. He works out of a broom- closet office downtown.”

“Ever have any dealings with him?”

“About two years ago. It was a forged lottery ticket ring. He’s a nice guy. Prickly, but okay. He sure knows his stuff.”

“Could you get him up here? No rush. Whenever he can make it.”

“I’ll give him a call.”

“Good. The next day or so will be fine.”

“All right, Captain. What’s the other thing?”

“What?”

“You said you had a couple of things.”

“Oh. Yes. Who’s controlling the men on the tap on Danny Boy’s home phone?”

“I am, Captain. Fernandez set it up: technically they’re his boys. But he asked me to take over. He’s got enough on his plate. Besides, these guys are just sitting on their ass. They’ve come up with zilch. Danny Boy makes one or two calls a week, usually to the Princess in the Castle. Maybe to the Mortons. And he gets fewer calls. So far it’s nothing.”

“Uh-huh,” Delaney nodded. “Listen, sergeant, would it be possible to make some clicks or buzzes the next time Danny Boy makes or gets a call?”

MacDonald picked up on it instantly. “So he thinks or knows his phone is tapped?”

“Right.”

“Sure. No sweat; we could do that. Clicks, buzzes, hisses, an echo-something. He’ll get the idea.”

“Fine.”

MacDonald stared at him a long time, putting things together. Finally: “Spooking him, Captain?” he asked softly.

Captain Delaney put out his hands, palms down on his desk blotter, lowered his massive head to stare at them.

“Not spooking,” he said in a gentle voice. “I mean to split him. To crack him open. Wide. Until he’s in pieces and bleeding. And it’s working. I know it is. Sergeant, how do you know when you’re close?”

“My mouth goes dry.”

Delaney nodded. “My armpits begin to sweat something awful. Right now they’re dripping like old faucets. I’m going to push this guy right over the edge, right off, and watch him fall.”

MacDonald’s smooth expression didn’t change. “You figure he’ll suicide, Captain?”

“Will he suicide…” Delaney said thoughtfully. Suddenly, that moment, something began that he had been hoping for. He was Daniel G. Blank, penetrating deep into the man, smoothing his body with perfumed oils, dribbling on scented powders, wearing silk bikini underwear and a fashionable wig, living in sterile loneliness, fucking a boy-shaped woman, buggering a real boy, and venturing out at night to find loves who would help him to break out, to feel, to discover what he was, and meaning.

“Suicide?” Delaney repeated, so quietly that MacDonald could hardly hear him. “No. Not by gunshot, pills, or defenestration.” He smiled slightly when he pronounced the last word, knowing the sergeant would pick up the mild humor. Defenestration: throwing yourself out a window to smash to jelly on the concrete below. “No, he won’t suicide, no matter how hard the pressure. Not his style. He likes risk. He climbs mountains. He’s at his best when he’s in danger. It’s like champagne.”

“Then what will he do, Captain?”

“I’m going to run,” Delaney said in a strange, pleading voice. “I’ve got to run.”

3

The second day after Christmas, Daniel Blank decided the worst thing-the worst thing-was committing these irrational acts, and knowing they were irrational, and not being able to stop.

For instance, this morning, completely unable to get to work at his usual hour, he sat stiffly in his living room, dressed for a normal day at Javis-Bircham. And between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m., he rose from his chair at least three times to check the locks and bolts on the front door. They were fastened-he knew they were fastened-but he had to check. Three times.

Then suddenly he darted through the apartment, flinging open closet doors, thrusting an arm between hanging clothes. No one there. He knew it was wrong to be acting the way he was.

He mixed a drink, a morning drink, thinking it might help. He picked up a knife to slice a wedge of lime, looked at the blade, let it clatter into the sink. No temptation there, none, but he didn’t want the thing in his hand. He might reach up to wipe his eyes and…

What about the sandals? That was odd. He owned a pair of leather strap-sandals, custom-made. He still remembered the shop in Greenwich Village, the cool hands of the young Chinese girl tracing his bare feet on a sheet of white paper. He frequently wore the sandals at night, when he was home alone. The straps were loose enough so that he could slip the sandals onto his feet without unbuckling and buckling. He had been doing it for years. But this morning the straps had been unbuckled, the sandals there beside his bed with straps flapping wide. Who had done that?

And time-what was happening to his sense of time? He thought ten minutes had elapsed, but it turned out to be an hour. He guessed an hour, and it was 20 minutes. What was happening?

And what was happening to his penis? It was his imagination, of course, but it seemed to be shrinking, withdrawing into his scrotum. Ridiculous. And he no longer had his regular bowel movement a half-hour after he awoke. He felt stuffed and blocked.

Other things…Little things…

Going from one room to another and, when he got there, forgetting why he had made the trip.

Hearing a phone ring on a television program and leaping up to answer his own phone.

Finally, when he got to the office, things didn’t go well at all. Not that he couldn’t have handled it; he was thinking logically, he was lucid. But what was the point?

Near noon, Mrs. Cleek came in and found him weeping at his desk, head bent forward, palms gripping his temples. Her eyes blurred immediately with sympathy.

“Mr. Blank,” she said, “what is it?”

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, and then, saying the first thing that came into his mind: “A death in the family.”

What caused his tears was this: do mad people know they are mad? That is, do they know they are acting abnormally but cannot help it? That was why he wept.

“Oh,” Mrs. Cleek mourned, “I’m so sorry.”

He got home, finally. He was as proud as a drunk who walks out of a bar without upsetting anything, steadfast, steps slowly through the doorway without brushing the frame, follows a sidewalk seam slowly and carefully homeward, never wavering.

It was early in the evening. Was it 6:00 p.m.? It might be eight. He didn’t want to look at his watch bracelet. He wasn’t sure he could trust it. Perhaps it might not be his own faulty time sense; it might be his wristwatch running wild. Or time itself running wild.

He picked up his phone. There was a curious, empty echo before he got a dial tone. He heard it ring. Someone picked up the phone. Then Blank heard two sharp clicks.