'Why give me her picture?'
'It's the only thing I've got with my name and number on it. Why?
Do you know her?'
He studied her picture, then raised his green eyes to meet mine.
'No,' he said. 'I never saw her.'
The phone woke me, wrenching me out of a dream. I sat up in bed, grabbed for the phone, got it to my ear. A voice, half in a whisper, said,
'Scudder?'
'Who is this?'
'Forget about the girl.'
There'd been a girl in the dream but the dream was melting off like snow in the sun. I couldn't bring her image into focus. I didn't know where the dream ended and the phone call began. I said, 'What girl? I don't know what you're talking about.'
'Forget about Paula. You'll never find her, you can't bring her back.'
'From where? What happened to her?'
'Quit looking for her, quit showing her picture around. Drop the whole thing.'
'Who is this?'
The phone clicked in my ear. I said hello a couple of times, but it was useless. He was gone.
I switched on the bedside lamp, found my watch. It was a quarter to five. It had been past two by the time I turned the light out, so I'd had less than three hours. I sat on the edge of the bed and went over the conversation in my mind, trying to find a deeper message behind the words, trying to place the voice. I had the feeling I'd heard it before but couldn't draw a bead on it.
I went into the bathroom and caught sight of my reflection in the mirror over the sink. All my years looked back at me, and I could feel their weight, pressing down on my shoulders. I ran the shower hot and stood under it for a long time, got out, toweled dry, got back into bed.
'You'll never find her, you can't bring her back.'
It was too late or too early, there was no one I could call. The only person I knew who might be awake was Mickey Ballou, and he'd be too drunk by now, and I didn't have a number for him. And what would I say to him anyway?
'Forget about the girl.'
Was it Paula I'd been dreaming about? I closed my eyes and tried to picture her.
When I awoke a second time it was ten o'clock and the sun was shining. I was up and half-dressed before I remembered the phone call, and at first I wasn't entirely certain if it had actually happened. My towel, tossed over a chair and still damp from my shower, provided physical evidence. I hadn't dreamed it. Someone had called me, urging me off a case I had already pretty much dropped.
The phone rang again as I was tying my shoelace. I answered it and said a guarded 'Hello,' and Willa said, 'Matt?'
'Oh, hi,' I said.
'Did I wake you? You didn't sound like yourself.'
'I was being cagey.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'I woke up to an anonymous call in the middle of the night, telling me to stop looking for Paula Hoeldtke.
When it rang just now I thought I might be in for more of the same.'
'It wasn't me before.'
'I know that. It was a man.'
'Although I'll admit I was thinking of you. I sort of thought I might see you last night.'
'I was tied up until late. I spent half the night at an AA meeting and the rest in a ginmill.'
'That's a nice balanced existence.'
'Isn't it? By the time I was done, it was too late to call.'
'Did you find out anything about what was bothering Eddie?'
'No. But all of a sudden the other case is alive again.'
'The other case? You mean Paula?'
'That's right.'
'Just because someone told you to drop it? That's given you a reason to pick it up again?'
'That's just part of it.'
Durkin said, 'Christ, Mickey Ballou. The Butcher Boy. How does he fit into it?'
