Andrew Klavan - Damnation Street

"She must be in love." It came out of me in a tone of quiet wonder, spoken aloud before I'd meant it, before I'd fully thought it through. But now I came to myself. I confronted the man across from me. "I mean, doesn't that seem like the most likely explanation? A young girl acts mysteriously, slips out at night and early in the morning. She must've fallen in love with someone, and for one reason or another, she's not ready to tell you about him yet."

The professor answered with a violent snort. "Why shouldn't she?" he said-but he looked past me. He avoided my gaze. "She's had boyfriends before. It's never been like this. We've talked about them-openly. Sometimes we've even laughed about them. She's still always found time for a movie or our conversations and so on."

The darkness in me grew darker, the sorrow deeper. She could've been mine. She would've been. All I had had to do was call the damn number on the Carlo's coaster. She had been made for me. Made for me.

I had to force myself to answer him. The words were thick in my throat. "Maybe she doesn't want to laugh with you about this one," I said. "Maybe she wants to take this one seriously."

McNair blustered, making a vague circular gesture with one hand. Clearly, he didn't like this idea any more than I did. "Well…" His mouth worked. His eyes darted here and there as if he were searching for an avenue of escape. "Well… maybe. What can I say, since we don't know. Of course: maybe."

He scowled at the walls, the floor. He still wouldn't look at me. But I looked at him. I sat there with my hands in my lap again. I looked at him and nodded to myself. This was no more mere coincidence, him coming here. This was a cosmic rebuke. This was all the forces of the universe speaking to me in a single voice, saying, Schmuck! All you had to do was call the fucking number!

The pain of it was terrible. I hadn't fully realized until then how much I had hoped Emma and I might love each other.

After another long moment of silence between us, the older man sighed. Sitting there as if enthroned, frowning regally down at the floor. "Whatever," he said-it seemed to fall from him with a thud. "Whatever it is, I want you to find out. Whatever it is, I want to know the truth."

That Sunday morning, suddenly, Bishop was set free. He was surprised. He'd been expecting trouble.

Ever since he'd broken the clay-headed guy's arm, he'd been lying on his cell bunk wondering what kind of hell he'd have to pay for it. He figured Ketchum would dance on the Hall of Justice rooftop when he got the news. Before this, the inspector had been keeping him here on bullshit charges that wouldn't hold up ten minutes in court, but there was all kinds of garbage he could throw at him now. Bishop figured he'd be behind bars for a year before he even got a hearing. It was his own damn fault too. He should've kept out of the whole business. He should've let the Clay-head cut the punk's head off. What did he care?

But it was too late to worry about it now. He'd done what he'd done; there was no changing it. So he waited on the cell bunk, expecting trouble. Only trouble never came. Deputies came. They took the screaming Clayhead away. Then, a little while later, they came back and took the screaming punk away, the willowy pale-as-paper punk whom the clay-headed guy had been trying to kill. They took him away in his soiled coveralls, and Bishop figured they'd come back for him next. But they didn't. All that night and all the next day and all the next night, they didn't. Deputies went past the cell and new prisoners arrived and old prisoners left, but no one said a word to him. If Ketchum was dancing on the roof, it was a long dance. He was still at it. Nothing happened.

Then, about eight o'clock Sunday morning, a towering deputy with a sorry face opened the cell door. He waggled his thumb over his shoulder. "Bishop," he said.

Here it was then. With a grunt, Bishop got off his cot. Rolling his shoulders defiantly, he strode out of the cell into the hall.

But it was strange. The sorry-faced deputy didn't cuff him. He didn't even take him by the arm. He just walked down the hall to the elevator. After a second Bishop followed him. They rode down silently together one floor. They stepped out into Processing. There was a counter and then the big tiled room where Bishop had been searched when he came in. A short, round deputy shoved a plastic bag across the counter at Bishop: his clothes. Bishop took the bag into the tiled room. He stripped off the county orange and got back into his jeans and his T-shirt. The clothes smelled of beer and there were whiffs of that girl too, that bank teller or whatever the hell she was. He was glad to get them back.

When he was dressed, he came out again. The big sorry-faced deputy returned to the elevator. Bishop followed him. This time they rode down to the fourth floor, Homicide.

The sorry-faced deputy led the way through the maze of desks and filing cabinets and inspectors in their shirtsleeves. He led Bishop back to that cramped, dingy interview room the size of an outhouse, the room where Ketchum had harassed him when he was first arrested. The deputy held the door open, and Bishop stepped into the room.

"Wait here," the deputy said.

It was the same as before. Bishop sat slouched in the chair, staring at the grime-dark soundproofing. Waiting for Ketchum to finish dancing on the roof or whatever the hell he was doing, and come down here and charge him with battery or attempted murder or conspiracy to run a criminal enterprise or something and basically throw him into the hole for the next five years or so. The only thing he didn't understand was why they'd given him back his clothes.

Now here came Ketchum, also the same as before-Ketchum and his Baleful Glare of Wrath, exactly the same. Same as before, the sinewy little black man propped a foot on a chair seat and leaned over Bishop, seething and silent.

Finally, Bishop got sick of it. "What the hell's going on?"

"If it was up to me, you piece of garbage…" Ketchum growled back at him.

Bishop didn't get it, at first. Then the surprising idea occurred to him. "What? You mean I can go?"

Ketchum couldn't even bear to say it out loud. He nodded. He took his foot off the chair. He turned away, snarling and despondent.

Bishop blinked, scratched his jaw. It was an unexpected turn of events, all right. What do you know? he thought. He hadn't realized how crappy he'd been feeling till just now when he suddenly felt a lot better. He had no clue what was going on, but he wasn't going to ask questions about it either. He got out of his chair. His sardonic smile found its way back to his face.

Ketchum caught that, caught the smile with a sidelong glance. That was too much. He shook his head in disgust. He muttered curses into the knot of his tie. "Yeah, you can be real proud. You can put this on your resume. You know why? You know why you're getting out of here?"

Bishop shrugged. "No. Do I care?"

"If it was up to me, you'd be looking at battery."

"Yeah, I figured that was coming."

"But you know that fuck? That fuck whose arm you broke?"

"Yeah?"

"The fuck with the knife?"

"Yeah, the clay-headed fuck with the knife, sure, I know him."

"Punk he was trying to kill?" said Ketchum.

"Skinny white kid, sure. What about him?"

"Name is David Adalian."

Bishop's mouth opened. He made a little noise, a sort of laugh. The two men were only a couple of feet apart from each other in that outhouse of a room. For a second he could only stand there, looking deep into Ketchum's steaming brown eyes.

"Like Joseph Adalian?" Bishop said finally.

Ketchum gave a quick nod, jutting out his chin. "He's Joseph Adalian's son."