Джон Макдональд - Hit and Run

“Send him to an industrial school. He’ll learn a trade. He’s good with his hands.”

“I’m going on the train tomorrow,” the boy said, his voice fading out abruptly on the last word. He stared resolutely at the wall above Linda Fairliss’ head.

She stood up and walked toward him. Carney made a half move forward and then stepped back. Linda Fairliss put her hands on the boy’s shoulders, very gently. He looked at her and then quickly away.

In a low voice she said, “Teddy, I want you to be good. I want you to be worth something — as a person. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think so, ma’am.”

“Then there might be some sense to all this.” She took her hands from his shoulders and gave Carney a glance that said clearly she had nothing else to say.

Carney went to the door and spoke to the guard. “Okay.”

“Let’s go, lad,” the guard said.

Teddy took a slow step toward the door. Then he turned back and looked down at the floor in the general direction of Linda Fairliss. “I’m real sorry, ma’am.”

He turned again and plunged through the doorway, giving her no time for any response. Carney walked with her out of the building and down the broad, worn steps to the sidewalk.

She looked up into his face, her eyes steady. “I suppose that it’s something to learn. That there isn’t any pattern. That monstrous things can happen, and that all of us, every one of us. is both guilty and innocent at the same time.”

“It’s something to learn.”

“You learned it a long time ago, didn’t you?”

“It’s more something you have to keep learning. We all look for patterns. There is a pattern, probably, but it’s too complex for the human eye — or the human heart.”

“Are you permitted to accept a lunch in return for services rendered, Sergeant?”

“People who eat with uniformed cops are suspected of being in custody.”

“Then I’ll try to look properly furtive. You know my name. Didn’t I hear that trooper call you Del?”

“For Delbert, unfortunately. Del is the preferred form. There’s a pretty good eating place down the street.”

As they walked slowly along, they talked, as though by agreement, of trivial things. It felt good to be with her. Usually when a case was finished, he took a Manila folder out of the active file and put it into the dead file, and eventually it was stored, and the case was over, and that was that. But this time he had gained an oddly warm and personal friendship.

She slanted a quick smile up at him as he held the restaurant door open for her. And as he followed her over to a comer table, he somehow knew that this friendship would continue.