John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

… no sense of divertisement. Ifs a great responsibility, accepting the role of policeman. I suffer for you. Do you know why you hunt? Do you understand the Order you struggle to preserve? Alas, gentlemen, I suffer for your victims, too. The poor kid that goes through town with his muffler open, the old man that runs his cart down the center of Main, the kids that skinny-dip in the Reservoir, those Indian boys, or me, or that poor fool Benson.

CLUMLY: Tell us why you burned the papers in your billfold.

PRISONER: Because I wasn’t out of matches.

Miller flicked off the tape.

“I don’t see it,” Clumly said.

“Listen. Boyle told us this Sunlight Man can see things. He told us the guy predicted that woman will die — the one the Injuns put in the hospital.”

“Is she dead?”

“Not yet. But she’ll die. The point is, the Sunlight Man made Boyle halfway believe he really could do it, even though Boyle doesn’t want to believe it. And the Indians believe it. Salvador says—”

“What are you driving at?” He broke wind again and frowned.

“Salvador says the man does it all the time, tells them things he can’t possibly know.”

“But you don’t believe all that?”

“I don’t know. How can I? There’s things in this world would surprise a person. That’s my honest opinion. You ever seen what a fortune teller can do with cards? I mean they tell you facts, not just vague stuff, some of them. Or palmists. There was one at our church one time — made your hair stand up. There may be lots of things we don’t like to admit to. Flying saucers, ghosts, I don’t know what. Ok, so maybe there is all that stuff and maybe not — who cares? But if some of it comes along and you can use it … this time for instance. If it’s true, if it just happened to be more than a joke, say.”

“Now wait a minute. Are you saying you’re going to get the Sunlight Man to come here and tell us—”

“No. Hell no! He’s told us already! Listen again.” He turned back the tape and played it once more, squinting at it.

skinny-dip in the Reservoir, those Indian boys, or me, or that poor fool Benson

He snapped it off.

“Benson!” Clumly said. His back crawled. Miller nodded. Clumly said, chewing, “Hmp. Even if I accept your wild theory that he can read people’s minds, how do we know it’s not a slip of the tongue — how do we know he didn’t mean to say Boyle?”

“Don’t move,” Miller said. He crossed to the door and went to the outer office. He came back with his clipboard, the pencil dangling by a string. He pushed the clipboard toward Clumly and quoted without looking at it, “Walter Arlis Benson, 362 Maple Street, Kenmore, New York. Male. Blue eyes. Height, 5–8. Weight 190. Married. Occupation, salesman.”

Clumly glanced at him.

“I talked to his wife on the phone this afternoon. He’s out of town on a trip, been out for three weeks. Doesn’t know when to expect him back. I can have her here tomorrow for an identification.”

“You told her—”

He shook his head.

“Holy smoke,” Clumly said. Face drawn into a fixed wince, he turned the tape back once again and listened. Then he got up, lit a cigar, and went to stand in the doorway to the other office. At last he said, “You may be right.”

“A hundred dollars says yes.”

He puffed at the cigar, building up smoke, shaking his head slowly. “It’s a hell of a thing. Crooks build up a system you can’t beat, and then all of a sudden—” He was uneasy. As if talking to himself, he said, “You almost didn’t tell me. You told me the business about Salvador, and you were about to leave. If I hadn’t asked you right out if there wasn’t something else—” He was whining, he noticed.

Miller shrugged, grinning. “You gotta admit it’s a crazy damn piece of police work.”

But Clumly shook his head. It was coming clearer. “When’s she due to arrive here? Who brings her — Buffalo police?”

“Who, Chief?”

“Who, who, who!” he roared. “The Benson woman.”

“Sorry,” Miller said. “Ten o’clock. With the Buffalo fuzz, right.”

Clumly came back to his desk. “Call it off,” he said.

“What?”

“Call it off. You heard me. No identification, no nothing.”

“For Christ’s sake, Chief—” But he moved toward the door.

“And this, Miller. When they fire me and make you Chief, then you be Chief. Not yet.”

“You mean you plan to let Boyle walk out free? Just walk out the door when you know damn well how to tie him? Boy! the State’s Attorney will do cartwheels.”

“I don’t know what I’m gonna let Boyle do. I need to think about it.”

“Let me get this straight. You think I was butting into your business, and you’ve decided if you can’t get Boyle yourself, nobody gets him for you. That it?”

“Of course not.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” He raised his hands and smiled, angry.

Clumly sat down, partly because of his gas problem, and put his chin on his fists. He remembered again that Miller had taken some of the papers from the clutter on his desk, and he couldn’t tell whether to be grateful or indignant. It came to him (some secondary part of his mind still grinding grist) that maybe the Sunlight Man knew Walter Boyle from somewhere. As simple as that. And if so … He filed it to think about later. Miller stood waiting, and Clumly sighed. “It was good thinking, Miller. I’m cognizant of that. It was a good hunch, damn good thinking. But you have to give me time. I’m not up with you yet. Whole thing’s got implications I’ve got to think through. Sorry. No hard feelings.”

Miller looked at him. “Ok. No hard feelings.” He went out. There were hard feelings.

Clumly shut his eyes. The station was quiet now. If he let himself he could hear the scratching, tunneling sound, the creature waking up, or anyway feel it moving toward him, coming from the darkness outside the city limits, maybe, to smash down the door with its fingertips and have them before they knew it. Clumly snorted.

“Home,” he said suddenly, aloud. It was getting late.

He ought to go out somewhere with his wife, get his work off his mind. He should take her to dinner — except that dinner would already be fixed, waiting for him. Out on the town, then. Over to Bohm’s Mortuary, where Paxton was laid out.

His wife’s minister was there when he got home. Clumly himself had no patience with ministers or churches, not that he had anything serious against them. He was not an atheist, simply disliked religion. Sermons left him full of a vague turmoil of questions, irritation at answers not sufficiently convincing — right answers, maybe, but answers not explained to his satisfaction. There were questions of fact — why the fish weren’t killed when the other things were in Noah’s flood, why Christ prevented the stoning of the adulteress but blasted the barren fig tree in a fit of pique. It was true that the questions were of no importance, no interest, even; nevertheless, he felt there were things that weren’t getting said, loopholes left open, problems of contradiction and confusion. As for singing, Clumly was tone-deaf. And as for the offering, it was not clear to him that the work of the church was a thing he ought to invest in. He never went to church, except to drive his wife and pick her up after the service. But for her sake he tolerated the minister’s visits. She was very religious. She got copies of Today magazine in braille, which cost him plenty, and kept them piled like old telephone books on the wicker hamper in the bathroom. She gave his money not only to the church but to the Children’s Home, the old-folks’ home in Rochester, even a thing called the Jewish Orphans’ Fund. When they were first married, she would kneel beside the bed for fifteen minutes every night to pray, moving her lips, and when she found it bothered him she had taken to praying in the bathroom before she came in. She never nagged him about his opinions, he would give her that. Indeed, the truth was, she was as fine a Christian woman as a man could know, except maybe for the drinking. At the head of their bed she had a cloth she’d laboriously embroidered before the operation, when the last of her eyesight went. A poem.