and had decided to put the pressure back on Brolan? But if Cummings knew, that meant he was the killer.
'What's your real problem here, Frank?'
Brolan sat up straight in the chair, trying to look and sound composed. 'I was told you knew her.'
'By whom?'
'Somebody I met'
Cummings smirked again. 'You always did like being mysterious.' He nodded at Brolan to continue. 'So, somebody told you I knew her. So what?'
'So, as I said, I've been trying to find her.'
Cummings sat back in his chair, knitting his hands behind the back of his head. He looked like an ageing matinee idol who had recently been touched by a bad case of malice.
Cummings said, 'You want to hit me, don't you? You're still pissed that I punched you, and you weren't able to. do a damn thing about it. That really galls you, doesn't it, Frank?'
Brolan stood up. Any time a conversation with Cummings degenerated into bullying, the conversation was over. Cummings could snake-charm himself into such a mood, but he was rarely able to snake-charm his way out of it.
Brolan started to walk away. 'See you, Richard.'
Brolan turned his back to Cummings and took three more steps to the door.
Behind him he heard the rustle of clothes and feet actually trotting across the carpeted floor. Was Cummings going to sneak up behind him and hit him?
Brolan turned just as Cummings aimed another punch at his head.
This time Brolan ducked. The punch missed him by several inches.
'You shouldn't have done that, Richard,' Brolan said, surprising both of them. He then sailed a hard fist into Cummings's midsection. He was surprised at all the flab his hand encountered. Cummings looked to be in much better shape than he was.
'You son of a bitch,' Cummings said, face red from pain and embarrassment. But he was still doubled over. The punch had taken its toll. 'You son of a bitch,' he said again, clawing out a hand and trying to reach Brolan.
Brolan simply moved out of his way. 'You're getting older, Richard. People are going to start taking advantage of that. People are going to start hitting back.'
'You son of a bitch,' Cummings said.
'You already said that,' Brolan said. 'Many times.'
Cummings, standing erect now, cocked a fist, as if he were going to strike Brolan. But a hint of leeriness showed in his eyes. Not fear. Just wariness, as if Brolan had dimensions that Cummings had never before suspected.
Brolan walked to the door. 'It's always a pleasure to see you, Richard.' There was no need to trowel on the sarcasm. It was inherent in the words themselves.
He closed the door gently behind him.
16
The bus ride to St. Louis Park took nearly an hour. During it the sky turned from dark grey to black, the oppressive winter-black that Denise hated so much sometimes. It got so dark so early in the late fall and winter, it was as if there were never any light at all, especially during the months of November and December. She always wondered how Eskimos got used to it
The closer the bus drew to St. Louis Park, the larger and more impressive the homes became. When she was still living with her parents, she'd liked to watch sitcoms from the fifties and sixties. The homes in those-at least to Denise's farm girl eye-were like palaces. She recalled especially the Beaver's. What did the Beav and his dorky brother have to complain about anyway? Living in a home like that. God.
Glancing around her, inside the bus, she felt out of place. The other passengers tended to be much older, mostly women toting home various packages. None of them looked particularly friendly, either. She knew she looked out of place. She wondered if they suspected who she was, what she'd been doing with her life the past eleven months. Going with the men still embarrassed her. No matter how she tried to rationalize it, the word was always the same: whore.
That's the word other people put upon her anyway. She could not quite bring the word upon herself.
The bus driver had told her he'd tell her where she should get off. Sure enough, he kept his word. He turned around and said, 'This is it, hon,' and pulled up to a dark corner. She took a moment to note how he'd called her 'hon.' Actually, it made her feel good. She knew it was foolish. To put too much on somebody's calling her an affectionate name. But it made her feel good anyway.
She nodded her thanks and got off the bus, standing on the corner until it pulled away in an invisible cloud of diesel fuel.
She looked around. She felt as if she'd just been dropped off at the last outpost of civilization. Despite all the big houses, she still felt isolated. Hunching down into her coat, she crossed the street and began looking for the address that was on the wallet card.
It took her nearly twenty minutes to find it. The place was large, angular, and set in a copse of elm trees up on a shelf of a hill. The place was also dark. Completely. It stood out in contrast to all the well-lighted homes on either side of it.
The first thing she did was check out the garage. She walked along the snow-encrusted side of the attached garage and looked to see if there were any cars. Pressing her nose up to the window, she peered inside. Empty. Without knowing why, she felt relief. She also felt cold. The temperature had to be nearing zero. Her nostrils felt glued to the bone in her nose. Her cheeks were already numb.
Having no skills whatsoever as a burglar (actually, a few months back, there'd been a street kid who had a crush on her who'd wanted to teach her about such things), she decided the only thing she could try was smashing a window in the back and climbing inside. She might have no skills as a burglar, but she had the appetites. Maybe the guy had stuff worth stealing. Portable stuff that could be easdy sold in pawnshops.
Pale moonlight gave the snow on the hill in back an eerie flat gold colour. She could see occasional dog turds and yellow snow. Either the guy had a dog, or neighbourhood dogs had elected his yard the communal toilet. Dogs scared her. She looked with new fear at the dark windows facing her on the back of the house. What if she got in all right, only to be jumped on and tom about by some pit bull lying in wait? She'd seen a 60 Minutes report on pit bulls that had made her forever petrified of the animals.
She stood there for a time saying an odd prayer or two for good luck and then realized that this was about the worst thing you could do-ask God to help you become a good thief.
She went up to a window to the right of the door, made a fist of her gloved hand, and then smashed her hand through the glass.
She held her breath, waiting for a burglar alarm to sound. She heard a car hissing by on the street out front, a big aeroplane lost somewhere in the rolling silver clouds above, a lonely dog yipping and yapping in the far distance, and an even more distant train roaring through the white mid-western night.
But she did not hear a pit bull, and she did not hear a burglar alarm.
Even though she knew she was being sacnlegious, she offered a silent prayer of thanks.
Then she set about trying to get into the house.
The first thing she realized was that she was too short to reach the hook inside that locked the window. She had to go into the oil-smelling garage and get a plastic milk case and bring it back to the window and stand on it to give herself enough height. The second thing she realized was that she had to break yet another window and fiddle with yet another hook to actually get inside. So, she had to go through all the terror again-waiting for the sound of a pit bull, waiting for the sound of an alarm.
In all it took her seventeen minutes to get inside. She stood in a large and largely empty dining room. The whole place-from what she could see from there-sort of looked like that… curiously empty. Oh, everything looked nice and expensive, what there was of it, but it appeared that the guy didn't have the money (or something) to
