David Wiltse - The Edge of Sleep

“Why?”

“They don’t ask her out because they’re afraid of you.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true.”

“Nobody in Clamden has any reason to be afraid of me. I’ve never hurt a soul here.”

“They hear the stories.”

“How do they hear the stories? I don’t tell them. Cindi doesn’t tell them.”

Tee held up his hands in innocence.

“Don’t look at me. Your past is private history as far as I’m concerned.”

“So how do they hear ‘the stories’?”

“I don’t know. Word gets around. Rumors are hard to stop.”

“Does Cindi think I’m trying to scare people off?”

Tee shrugged. “Not intentionally.”

Becker studied his feet. “Jesus Christ, Tee, are people really scared of me?”

“Not those who know you, John.”

“But others. Those who just hear about me? They think I’m-what-dangerous enough? Demented enough? Bloodthirsty enough to hurt them for trying to date my ex-wife? I’ve never hurt a soul except as part of my job.”

“I know that, John. Most people know that.”

“I live here, god damn it! I can’t have people being afraid of me!”

“I’m probably exaggerating it. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Start another rumor…”

“I didn’t start this one.”

“Tell them I’m harmless. Tell them I’m a pussycat. Tell them I quit the FBI because I was afraid of the work… That’s the truth, anyway.”

“You weren’t afraid of the work in the sense of being afraid of it, John. Give people a little credit; they’re not going to believe that.”

“I don’t want to be a monster in my own home town. Tee. Jesus.”

They were quiet for a moment, both men studying a teenaged boy who was mowing a lawn as if he held real interest for them. The boy glanced at them curiously.

“Do you suppose that youth with the mower is viewing me right this minute as a model and guide to his future?” Tee asked after a time.

“I don’t want anybody to be afraid of me, Tee. Honest to God, that’s terrible.”

“I’ll do what I can, all right?… It’ll pass.”

Becker shook his head sadly. It always surprised Tee that his friend, whose career was a thing of courageous awe to every law enforcement officer who knew about it, was so vulnerable to the opinions of others. Particularly the opinions of people he did not know. The man would flail through a case, stepping on the toes of everyone who got in his way in the pursuit of his prey, but in civilian life he would worry about offending the sensibilities of the local grocer. Tee didn’t pretend to understand him-he just liked him.

“I told the FBI woman you were proving your virility by jerking off on the side of a mountain,” Tee said finally. “Did I do right?”

“You are a police officer, sworn to tell the truth.”

“You didn’t tell me not to tell anyone. You just said you wanted to be alone to jerk off for a while.”

“It’s okay, Tee.”

“I noticed in the course of my sleuthing that this FBI woman did not wear a wedding ring, by the way. Unlike myself. But very much like your good self.”

“A second ago you were pushing Cindi on me. Now you want me to mate with an agent?”

“Somebody ought to. And masturbation is an ugly thing to see in a man your age.”

“You might stop watching.”

“Hey, I’m the chief.”

“And rank has its privileges,” Becker said.

“I know something else you don’t know,” Tee offered. “I suspect I’m about to. What?”

“The same lady is at your house now, waiting for you.”

“You just happened to notice her?”

“In the pursuance of my duties I did notice a car in your driveway and, knowing that you were hanging by a thong around your dong from Mt. Kilimanjaro, I stopped to investigate further.”

“Ever vigilant.”

“She might have been a burglar come to heist your valuables.”

“I have no valuables worth heisting.”

“This I know, but a burglar might not, burglars being what they are. She was sitting on your porch, waiting, pretty as a… as a… what? What’s particularly pretty?”

“A pretty woman?”

“There you go! She was sitting there, pretty as a pretty woman. Clever devil, you are, not having a car phone so she could reach you

… Do you often have gorgeous women paying you house calls?”

“We have a little business together. Just business. She wants to pick my brain.”

“Have her do it through your pecker.”

Becker returned to his car, shaking his head in mock disgust. Tee closed the door and leaned against it.

“You’re a great role model, but one hell of a bad influence.”

“I thought you were out of the business,” Tee said.

“I am. This is special.”

“Because of her? Because of the babe waiting on your porch?”

Becker studied Tee for a moment as if seeking the answer in his friend’s face.

“You know. Tee, you’ve got all the natural instincts of a busybody and a matchmaker. You may have missed your calling.”

“Salaries for busybodies are so low, though. And besides, think what law enforcement would be missing without me.”

“A chief?”

“Fucking A. So, is it because of her? And if not, why not?”

Becker started the engine, then paused.

“I wish it were that simple,” he said.

“Yeah, it’s complicated, sure, that’s how you like to make things. I respect that. But you’re really doing it for her, right?”

Becker sighed. “Right, Tee. Right.”

He pulled away slowly because the big policeman was still holding on to the door.

“You dog,” Tee said in gleeful approval. “Happy hunting.” Tee slapped the side of the car as if it were a horse.

Becker drove away, still shaking his head in amused disdain at his friend’s simpleminded analysis. But when he pulled into his driveway and saw Karen standing on the porch, balancing herself in that distinctive way she had, one foot behind the other like a dancer, he wondered how big a part of it was exactly what Tee suggested. He could not look at her without feeling a stirring of something that had nothing to do with official Bureau business.

Karen Crist stood when she saw Becker’s car approaching. For a quick moment she longed to check her appearance in a mirror, but she repressed the urge. In the first place, her appearance was irrelevant, she told herself. She was second in command of Kidnapping, she had hundreds of men under her command. Becker was a consultant, nothing more. And in the second place, she had been compulsively looking at her image in the porch windowpane ever since she arrived. She looked as good as she was going to on this day… although she wished her jawline were a little firmer. She always put it on in the face first, which was damned unfair. It didn’t allow her the few extra pounds of leeway most women could add to the thighs and ass. Whatever she ate too much of showed up immediately and then went below her waist. And she had been eating too much lately, she knew it. The stress of work and raising a child as a single parent and…

Becker was out of the car. Karen stood by the porch railing, unconsciously arranging her legs in line with each other, which thrust her pelvis forward and straightened her back. It was the pose she had adopted in grammar school and incorporated so completely into her habits that she was unaware of both the unnaturalness of it and its effect on others. To men, she looked like a ship’s figurehead, bracing into the wind, bold and inviting. Neither the sobriety of her expression nor the propriety of her demeanor-nor even the loftiness of her official position or the seriousness of her career field-could ever completely overcome the impression of her body language. However much men might be impressed or even intimidated by her in other ways, they still reacted to Karen Crist as a woman. It was a situation she was aware of, and she used it when she needed to.