“Fred.” Fred gave him a quick, clammy shake and then withdrew. “I’ve got a phone book here someplace.”
A look around convinced Tony that it might be hard to find. The apartment was a filthy mess. The sparsely furnished room was piled high with magazines and notebooks. Newspapers littered the floor, along with uneaten food, some on plates, some just lying on the worn carpet. This was the source of the stench.
A wave of sadness went through Tony. My God, what kind of a life is he living, was the first thought that occurred to him. And then fear. This could have been me. A couple of wrong turns, and this could have been me. He had a sense of how thin the barrier was that separated the two of them. And he desperately wanted to get out of here. But he couldn’t-just yet.
Fred was methodically going through the piles of written material, hunting for a phone book. Tony lifted his gaze. Hundreds of pictures were taped to the walls. Pictures of girls. Almost every square inch of the walls was covered. Most had evidently been cut out of magazines. A few, like the one of Britney, were posters. Tony recognized some of the pictures of models, actresses, and singers. Others were unknown to him. All were young and beautiful. Tony didn’t see any nudes among the pictures. No Playboy centerfolds, such as had graced the walls of his fraternity in college. All the girls were at least wearing swimsuits.
“Great pictures,” Tony said, for lack of something better to say.
“Yeah,” was all Fred said, but he did smile for the first time.
“You must know every pretty girl in the world.”
“Not quite.”
There was only one other window in the room, in addition to the one beside the front door. An inside door led to another room, probably a bathroom. But that couldn’t have a window because its outside wall abutted the wall of the next apartment. The windows didn’t have a good view of another building. So Fred wasn’t looking at any tattoos out his windows. Shahla was right; that was a fantasy.
“Where do you sleep?” Tony asked.
Fred nodded toward the side wall opposite the internal doorway. “Hide-a-bed.”
The bed folded into the wall. Tony could make out its outline. It was covered with pictures. That’s why he hadn’t noticed it before.
“Here,” Fred said, pulling a phone book out from one of the piles. He handed it to Tony.
“Thanks.” Fred didn’t look at him when he handed him the book. In fact, he hadn’t looked him in the eye since he first opened the door.
Tony noticed a cell phone for the first time. The cell phone from which Fred made his calls to the Hotline? It was sitting on top of some magazines, on an end table beside a dilapidated chair, which was also covered with junk. There was a plastic gizmo beside it that looked like a toy. Tony had never seen anything like it. It occurred to him that it might be the voice-altering mechanism that the Chameleon used.
Tony pretended to be looking through the phone book. He said, “Are you a writer? I see you’ve got some notebooks.”
“No. I just use them to put…put pictures in.”
More pictures. “So you don’t write poetry?”
“Not a chance. I’m the world’s worst poet. Excuse me for a minute.”
Fred went through the doorway leading to what Tony assumed was the bathroom and closed the door. Tony took a step and picked up one of the loose-leaf notebooks sitting on the chair. He quickly riffled through it. Sure enough, it was crammed with more pictures of girls, taped to the pages. He didn’t see one word of writing.
Tony replaced the notebook before Fred returned and resumed his perusal of the telephone directory. It was time for him to make as graceful an exit as possible. But first, was there any way to figure out whether Fred had the potential to be a killer? He remembered his Hotline training regarding noninvasive questioning.
“You must really love girls,” Tony said as Fred returned to the room.
Fred shrugged without looking at him.
“Do you ever get irritated with them?”
Fred thought about that for a moment, still without looking at Tony. “Yeah. They don’t pay much attention to me.”
“And you wish they would.”
“Yeah.”
But he said it wistfully. Tony could not detect any undertone of anger.
“Apparently my friend isn’t in the phonebook. Thanks for letting me look at it.” Tony walked the couple of steps to the door, carefully, both to avoid the piles on the floor and to protect his knee. He had been standing since he had left the car, and his knee was beginning to ache.
Fred glanced up almost to Tony’s eyes and said, “You’re welcome.”
He didn’t say anything more. He stood in the middle of his room and seemed to be looking at the pictures on one of the walls. As Tony closed the door, he was still standing there, motionless.
Tony went slowly down the stairs, leaning on the railing with his arm to support much of his weight, each time he lowered his left foot from one step to the one below. He limped to the SUV and settled himself into the driver’s seat. He drove home at a leisurely pace, while thinking about Fred. And being glad that he wasn’t Fred.
CHAPTER 28
The next morning as Tony prepared his version of an omelet for breakfast, he thought some more about Fred. He couldn’t picture Fred as a killer. A masturbator, yes. He was obviously that. The pictures, the phone calls, the voice-altering mechanism. The girls had been trained to hang up on him whenever he started talking dirty-and rightly so. But he didn’t appear to have any normal sexual outlets. Whatever normal meant.
Not only did he show no signs of anger or pugnacity, he wasn’t as big as Joy. And Tony couldn’t picture him wielding a knife to subdue her, let alone strangling her. When Tony had gone to meet him the first time, Fred had fled before he even knew that Tony was a man instead of a girl. It had probably taken all the guts he had just to go to the meeting place. He had undoubtedly persuaded himself that Shahla-Sally-wouldn’t show up, and so he was safe. But when someone did show up, he couldn’t face the situation.
And last night, Shahla had again talked him into meeting her. This invitation was so different from the usual hang ups he received from the girls that he had been flustered enough to give his work address. He had grasped at a thread of hope, while probably dreading what would happen if she actually came. But when she didn’t come, it cemented his self-image. He was a loser, and girls wouldn’t have anything to do with him.
One more thing. Fred undoubtedly had an alibi for the night of the murder. He had probably been working. And although he worked alone, didn’t he have to punch time clocks and leave other tracks during his shift?
That sealed it. Tony was not going to talk to Detective Croyden about Fred. For one thing, he didn’t want to take Croyden’s shit about doing police work and interfering with the law. He hadn’t interfered with anything. Croyden would be able to verify Fred’s employment, his alibi, and anything else he wanted to know. And nothing Tony had done would stop him. Fred didn’t associate him with the police or with the Hotline. He was sure of that.
The doorbell chimed. Who could that be at 10:00 on a Saturday morning? Tony glanced at his attire, relieved that he was wearing shorts, even though he was shirtless. At least he was presentable enough to answer the door. He padded slowly into the living room, without his crutches. He didn’t intend to use them anymore. He didn’t bother to look through the peephole in the front door. The sun was shining and nothing bad could be lurking outside. He opened the door and found himself looking at the crooked nose of Detective Croyden.
It was a shock to see the man he had just been thinking about. Tony stared at him for a moment before he found his voice. “Good morning, Detective Croyden,” he said. “Do you work twenty-four hours a day?”
“Thirty, sometimes. I’ve come to talk to Josh.”
Josh. Tony was horrified. When he had given the panties to Croyden, he had known at some level that Croyden would have to talk to Josh. But he hadn’t actually pictured how this would take place. In his house. And so soon.
