McBain, Ed - Killer's Wedge

"Yes, Miss?" Byrnes said.

Teddy stopped dead outside the railing, a surprised look on her face. If she had read the lieutenant's lips correctly "Can I help you, Miss?" he said.

Teddy blinked.

"Get in here, you," Virginia barked from her desk. Teddy could not see the woman from where she stood. And, not seeing her, she could not "hear" her. She waited now for Byrnes to spring the punch line of whatever gag he was playing, but his face remained set and serious, and then he said, "Won't you come in, Miss?" and-puzzled even more now-Teddy entered the squad room

She saw Virginia Dodge immediately and knew intuitively that Byrnes was trying to protect her.

"Sit down," Virginia said.

"Do as I tell you and you won't get hurt. What do you want here?"

Teddy did not, could not answer.

"Did you hear me? What are you doing here?"

Teddy shook her head helplessly.

"What's the matter with her?" Virginia asked ini patiently

"Damnit, answer me."

"Don't be frightened, Miss," Byrnes said.

"Nothing will happen to you if..." He stopped dead, feigning discovery, and then turned to Virginia.

"I t~... I think she's a deaf mute," he said.

"Come here," Virginia said, and Teddy walked to her. Their eyes locked over the desk.

"Can you hear?"

Teddy touched her lips.

"You can read my lips?"

Teddy nodded.

"But you can't speak?"

Teddy shook her head.

Virginia shoved a sheet of paper across the desk. She took a pencil from the tray and tossed it to Teddy.

"There's paper and pencil. Write down what you want here."

In a quick hand, Teddy wrote "Burglary" on the sheet and handed it to Virginia.

"Mmm," Virginia said.

"Well, you're getting a lot more than you're bargaining for, honey. Sit down." She turned to Byrnes and, in the first kind words she'd uttered since coming into the squad room she said, "She's a pretty little thing, isn't she?"

Teddy sat.

"What's your name?" Virginia asked.

"Come over here and write down your name.

Byrnes almost leaped forward to intercept Teddy as she walked to the desk again.

Teddy picked up the pencil and rapidly wrote "Marcia..." She hesitated. A last name would not come. In desperation, she finally wrote her maiden name-"Franldin."

"Marcia Franklin," Virginia said.

"Pretty name. You're a pretty girl, Marcia, do you know that? Can you read my lips?"

Teddy nodded.

"Do you know what I'm saying?"

Again, Teddy nodded.

"You're very pretty. Don't worry, I won't hurt you. I'm only after one person, and I won't hurt anybody unless they try to stop me. Have you ever loved anyone, Marcia?"

Yes, Teddy said with her head.

"Then you know what it's like. Being in love. Well, someone killed the man I loved, Marcia. And now I'm going to kill him.

Wouldn't you do that, too?"

Teddy stood motionless.

"You would. I know you would. You're very pretty, Marcia. I was pretty once until they took my man away from me. A woman needs a man. Life's no good without a man. And mine is dead. And I'm going to kill the man who's responsible.

I'm going to kill a rotten bastard named Steve Carella."

The words hit Teddy with the force of a pitched baseball. She flinched visibly, and then she caught her lips between her teeth, and Virginia watched her in puzzlement and then said, "I'm sorry, honey, I didn't mean to swear. But I... this has been..." She shook her head.

Teddy had gone pale. She stood with her lip caught between her teeth, and she bit it hard, and she looked at the revolver in the hand of the woman at the desk, and her first impulse was to fling herself at the gun. She looked at the wall clock. It was 7:08. She turned toward Virginia and took a step forward.

"Miss," Byrnes said, "that's a bottle of nitroglycerin on the desk there." He paused.

"What I mean is, any sudden movement might set it off. And hurt a lot of people."

Their eyes met. Teddy nodded.

She turned away from Virginia and Byrnes, crossing to sit in the chair facing the slatted railing, hoping the lieutenant had not seen the sudden tears in her eyes.

CHAPTER I7

The clock read 7:10.

Teddy thought only, I must warn him.

Methodically, mechanically, the clock chewed time, swallowed it, spat digested seconds into the room. The clock was an old one, and its mechanism was audible to everyone but Teddy, whirr, whirr, and the old clock digested second after second until they piled into minutes and the hands moved with a sudden click in the stillness of the room.

7:11... 7:12 I must warn him, she thought. She had given up the thought of jumping Virginia and thought only of warning Steve now. I can see the length of the corridor from here, she thought, can see the top step of the metal stairway leading from below. If I could hear I would recognize his tread even before he came into view because I know his walk, I have imagined the sound of his walk a thousand times. A masculine sound, but lightfooted, he moves with animal grace, I would recognize the sound of his walk the moment he entered the building if only I could hear.

But I cannot hear, and I cannot speak. I cannot shout a warning to him when he enters this second floor corridor. I can only run to him. She will not use the nitro, not if she knows Steve is in the building where she can shoot him. She needs the nitro for her escape. So I'll run to him and be his shield, he must not die.

And the baby?

The baby, she thought. Hardly a baby yet, a life just begun, but Steve must not die. Myself, yes. The baby, yes. But not Steve. I will run to him. The moment I see him,

I will run to him, and then let her shoot.

But not Steve. She had almost lost him once, she could remember that Christmas as if it were yesterday, the painfully white hospital room, and her man gasping for breath. She had hated his occupation then, detested police work and criminals, abhorred the chance circumstances which had allowed her husband to be shot by a narcotics peddler in a city park. And then she had allowed her hatred to dissolve, and she had prayed, simply and sincerely, and all the while she knew that he would die and that her silent world would truly become silent. With Steve, there was no silence. With Steve, she was surrounded by the noise of life.

This was not a time for prayer.

All the prayers in the world would not save Steve now.

When he comes, she thought, I will run to him and I will take the bullet.

When he comes.... The clock read 7:13.

That isn't nitroglycerin, Hawes thought.

Maybe it is.

That isn't nitroglycerin.

It can't be. She handles it like water, she treats it with all the disdain she'd give to water, she wouldn't be so damn careless with it if it were capable of exploding.

It isn't nitroglycerin.

Now wait a minute, he told himself, let's just wait a minute, let's not rationalize a desire into a fact.

I want desperately for the liquid in that bottle to be water. I want it because for the first time in my life I am ready to knock a woman silly. I am ready to cross this room and, gun be damned, knock her flat on her ass and keep hitting her until she is senseless. That is the way I feel right now, and chivalry can go to Hell because that is the way I feel. I know it's not particularly nice to go around slugging women, but Virginia Dodge has become something less than a woman, or perhaps something more than a woman, she has become something inhuman and I no more consider her a woman than I would apply gender to a telephone or a pair of shoes.

She is Virginia Dodge.

And I hate her.

And I'm ashamed because I hate so goddamn deeply. I did not think myself capable of such hatred, but she has brought it out in me, she has enabled me to hate deeply and viciously. I hate her, and I hate myself for hating, and this causes me to hate deeper. Virginia Dodge has reduced me tLi an animal, a blind animal responding to a pain that is being inflicted. And the curious thing is that the pain is not my own.