A matter of time

'Oh… nothing. Just… for some reason I was remembering the war.' Now he was more puzzled than frightened.

'Is John up to something?' Annie demanded.

'Not now. I'll tell you later. Tonight. Okay? I'll find him. Bye.' Teri. Damned, it had better be Teri. 'Beth, would you get ahold of the Post's classified ad department for me?'

Those grim panzergrenadiers stalked forward under the low gray sky, their silence a dread contrast with the squeal, clank, and roar of the armor. The young Cash turned the crank on the abandoned field phone, round and round and round. No one answered.

Who was he calling, anyway? Hitler himself?

He was dead meat. He knew it.

'Norm?' Beth was offering the phone.

'Teri Middleton, please,' he croaked, hoping the girl was using her maiden name again, or that there was only one Teri employed there. 'No, dammit! This isn't a personal call. This's the goddamned police department.'

He waved Beth out.

The girl was on the line in seconds. 'John?'

'Shit,' he muttered to himself. 'Teri? This's Norm. I don't want to pry, but have you seen John?'

'No.'

'Look, it's important. I want to make sure he isn't in some kind of trouble. We haven't been able to locate him since yesterday.'

'Well, I haven't either.'

'You're sure?'

'I said so, didn't I?'

'Shit. Oh, shit.'

'Swear to God. Really. He was supposed to meet me after work yesterday. He never showed up.'

'He didn't?'

'No.'

'Okay. Thanks.' He lowered the receiver slowly. 'What the hell am I going to do?' He looked right through Beth, who had ignored his directive to withdraw.

'Norm?' She sounded frightened now. 'What is it? What happened?'

'It's John. He… no. I can't tell you yet. I've got to check some things before I tell anybody.' His ass was going to be in a sling. He was, voluntarily, going to confess to an illegal entry. 'I'll be back in a little while.'

He first checked John's car. It seemed to be in the same parking space as yesterday, though that wasn't remarkable in itself. Still, no one had seen Harald. He hadn't signed in, nor had he called in.

A half hour later Cash was cruising past John's home. Harald's children were playing in the yard. He scrunched down to avoid recognition.

Carrie's Plymouth Satellite stood at the curb. And John's Honda stood inside the open garage, leaning against one wall.

John hadn't gone off to live on the beach at Malibu.

'Shit.' His vocabulary had grown terribly limited today, he reflected.

His guts were cramping again.

The feldwebel with the Winter War patch spun through the door of the shack a second after another grenadier smacked it with the heel of a field boot. His submachine gun looked like an eighty- eight. Cash hadn't believed his fear could grow stronger.

Honking horns and squealing tires yanked him out of the flashback.

He had run a stop sign. Death's greedy claws had missed him by inches.

The brush calmed him.

He drove past the Groloch house twice. It hadn't changed, yet it now seemed somehow both deadly and dead.

Annie would tell him what to do.

'What're you doing home?' She had been trying to explain macrame to Tran's wife. The boys were watching television and playing chess. Cash had already discovered, to his embarrassment, just how good they were at the latter.

'Honey, I… I think I yanked the tiger's tail one time too many.' He collapsed into a chair. 'I don't know what to do.' He rubbed his forehead with his left hand.

'What is it?' She was alarmed now.

'It's John. I… I had him sneak into Miss Groloch's place while she was at the funeral yesterday.'

'Without a warrant? Stupid. You want to blow your retirement? Norman, I think you've become obsessed. When you start cutting corners-'

'Annie. Please. I know all that. That's not the point. It's already too late to worry about it.' His breath came in