looked like! She told you their names but you don’t remember what they were!”
“I remember Susan introducing me to them. I remember shaking their hands and saying nice to meet ya, or something like that.”
“And what did they say?”
Craig slouched. “I don’t remember, man.”
Randy’s face looked pressurized. Jack shifted the angle to cool him off. “Does the ’Croft throw away the empty bottles?”
“We take them twice a week to the recycling plant. All the downtown restaurants and bars do.”
“You still have last night’s bottles?”
“They’re still downstairs, boxed up. We haven’t taken them out yet.”
“Did many other people order Patrizier last night?”
“No, just the two guys with Susan. It’s zero-alcohol beer; not many people buy it. Tastes like German lager, but no buzz.”
“I’ll need those bottles for our evidence people. The prints’ll tell us if we’re dealing with the same two killers, or two new ones. How hard will it be to retrieve those bottles?”
“Easy. They’d be in the last box we stacked last night.”
“Good, I want you to go down to the ’Croft right now with one of our techs. Give him the bottles. Then go home, get some rest.”
“Get some rest?” Randy objected. “We need a composite!”
“Get some rest,” Jack repeated, “think about what you saw, and maybe it’ll come back to you. We’re looking of any details you can give us. Hair color, eye color, moles, scars, anything. Two of the guys we’re looking for are probably tall, well built, and attractive. We know from pubic hair analysis that one is dark blond, the other’s got darker hair. We also know that the same black wig was worn by each of the first two killers. Go home and give it some thought. Maybe some of that will ring some bells.”
Dejected, Craig nodded.
Jack led him out and arranged for TSD to meet him at the ’Croft for the Patrizier bottles. But out in the parking lot, before Craig got into his Alfa, Jack asked, “Was I in the bar last night when the two guys were there?”
“No,” Craig said. “You passed out. I had the cook fill in while I took you home. The two guys came in sometime after that.” Craig donned his shades and looked up. “But…”
“Yeah?”
“I do remember one thing. It was just when I was leaving to take you home. As I was pulling out of the lot, another car was pulling in. The only reason I remember is that it looked like a classy set of wheels, high-buck stuff.”
“Is there any detail you can give me about that vehicle?”
“Just that it was big and black. It could’ve been a limo.”
“I hope you’ve got a sense of humor,” Randy said.
“In this business? What do you think?”
Randy opened the door to interview room No. 2. “And I hope you brought plenty of cigarettes,” he added.
What Jack saw sitting at the table made him think of the word “emaciation.” They called them “dock bums” any port city’s equivalent to an alley denizen. Health Services did a good job of taking care of them in this state — shelters, doctors, food — but there was a percentage of this human detritus that simply refused assistance. These people wore their homes on their backs, slept under boat tarps, and ate out of dumpsters. According to statistics, more than fifty percent were chronic schizophrenics.
“Mr. Carlson, this is Captain Cordesman. I’d like you to tell him what you told me a little while ago. Okay?”
The man at the table wore rotten tennis shoes, an oil-smudged dress shirt, and a crinkled black tie with an embroidered half-moon on it. Folded over the next chair was a tattered gray overcoat. The man’s hair, a dull steel- gray, was neatly combed back and longer than Jack’s. The lined, weather-beaten face captured some vague impression of lost power, a Lear of the streets, a proud exile. His teeth were rotten. His left eye showed only cloudy white.
“Do you believe in gods?” Carlson looked up and asked.
“God or gods?” Jack specified.
“It makes no difference.”
“Well, I’m really not sure, Mr. Carlson. But I think so.”
“I would like a cigarette, please.”
Jack slid the man his lighter and a pack of Camels. Carlson removed a cigarette, examined it, then tapped it down. “You should always light the imprinted end when you’re smoking a filterless. The blank end is the end you put in your mouth.”
“Why is that, Mr. Carlson?”
“So if the enemy finds the butts, they won’t know what brand it is. They won’t know if it’s their own people or yours. I know of men who’ve died because they lit the wrong end. The enemy finds the butts, then they know what direction you’re headed. You ever thought of that? That you can give your position away with a cigarette?”
“No, Mr. Carlson, but it’s an interesting point. Were you in the war?”
“I was one of the gods.” Carlson lighted the Camel savoringly, sucking deep. “We rescued twenty-two thousand people in one day. I T.C.’d an Easy Eight. We thought it was all over by then, but we were wrong. I was a captain too.”
This was not going to be easy, Jack realized, but then Randy offered, “Mr. Carlson was a tank commander in World War II. He won the Distinguished Service Cross.”
“Me and my boys had twenty-seven kills. Tigers and Panthers. The Tigers were tough to open, had over a foot of armor up front. Only way you could get them was to hit the turret ring. The Panthers were easy; they were diesel and always leaked at the lines. All you had to do was put one phosphorus round on the back deck.”
“Mr. Carlson was in the unit that liberated Buchenwald,” Randy said.
“It goes back to what I was saying, about gods.”
“We’re all points of force,” Carlson answered, smoke drifting smoothly from his nostrils. “Everybody. We got bodies, sure, but inside, we’re all points of force. You can define a point of force as a unit of will. Do you follow me, Captain? What is all of life about? Why are we here? There is a reason; it’s not just an accident, even though that’s what most folks think these days.”
“All right,” Jack ventured. “Why are we here?”
“To prove the nature of our will.”
There was something haunting about this man. He spoke softly but with intense deliberation. There was belief growing deep behind the tattered features and racked body. Jack felt a chill; Carlson seemed to be looking at him with the dead left eye, and seeing something.
“The world is a passion play,” Carlson said, “an eternal drama where each actor represents either graciousness or corruption. Bet that sounds silly to you.”
“No, Mr. Carlson. It doesn’t sound silly at all.”
“Gods,” Carlson repeated.
Randy leaned against the wall. Carlson was crazy, obviously, but why did his madness seem so effervescent? Jack very much wanted to know. He wanted to see this man’s heart, not just the blasted face and blind white eye.
“You got a head here?”
“Sure, Mr. Carlson. Down the hall to the left.”
Carlson got up, joints ticking. Yes, Jack thought.
“He’s been in Crownsville a bunch of times,” Randy explained. “City cops pick him up wandering the docks at
