Prayer for the Dead (3 page)

“So beautiful,” Dyce murmured in the gloom.

He sat perfectly still for a long time before he reached for the first chicken wing.

Chapter 2

S
eventy-five feet in the air
over Route 87, clinging to a rock with all the dubious tenacity of a cookie magnet to a refrigerator door, Becker came to the conclusion that he must have been crazy. Would a sane man have decided to take up rock climbing at his age? Would a sane man have taken up rock climbing, period?

“There’s a little depression just above your right hand. Not more than eighteen inches.” The voice came from below, which meant it was Alan Something, the kid with the stringy hair. Alan could look at a bare rockface from the ground and see every handhold and piton strike all the way to the top, then leap at the rock as if it weren’t going up straight as a plumb line, and scamper up it with the agility and contempt of a kid vaulting over the neighbor’s fence. Becker didn’t care for Alan very much; he was the expert who had convinced Becker to take the lessons.

“Just eighteen inches. But if you feel you can’t, you don’t have to.” That voice was Cindi’s, the girl who had preceded Becker to the top in what seemed like a minute and a half, finding the holds, wedging the pitons into the cracks so Becker could secure his rope and have a “safe” trip up. Her hair was as stringy as Alan’s, but on her it looked better. “No one will think any the worse of you if you don’t want to try,” she said.

“Except me,” said Becker. His words were muffled by the rock against which his face was pressed as if he could somehow cling to it with lips and cheek.

“Just reach up with your right hand,” said Alan from below. He was having a hard time concealing his impatience. Becker had been frozen in position three-quarters of the way up the one-hundred-foot palisade for almost a minute. To Becker it seemed the better part of a day. His left hand was extended to the side and down, gripping with only the fingertips an irregularity in the rock that was slanted toward the ground. His left klettershoe was firmly planted—or as firmly as anything was ever planted in a sport that sought insecurity as its challenge—but only his right toe had the slightest purchase on a nub of stone. If he reached for the next hold with his right hand, he would have to release his left foot, which was the only thing keeping him up in the air. The other two grips had as much purchase on the rock as tail flaps on a jetliner. They might steer him a bit but they certainly wouldn’t hold him up.

“Your muscles will cramp if you don’t move,” called Alan.

“He’s right,” said Cindi in a softer tone. She was nearly as good in her way as Alan was in his, but with none of his arrogance. Becker liked her, but didn’t want her to see him in this position. The muscles in his left arm and right leg had been dancing for the past several seconds already. He either had to move or be kicked off the rockface by a muscle spasm. The question was, move where? Upward and onward to glory, or the ignominious climb back to the base. “What did you say?”

Cindi was on her stomach on top of the rock, leaning out as far as she could to watch Becker. If Becker rolled his eyes upward, he could just make out the bright red of her helmet.
Crash
helmet. If Becker kept his eyes strained upward long enough to make out her features, he got dizzy. It seemed a poor choice of pastimes for a man with a tendency to vertigo, which confirmed Becker in his suspicion that he was crazy.

“I can’t hear you,” said Cindi.

“Golf I said golf,” said Becker, turning his lips from the rock so he could be heard. “I could have taken up golf.”

His right leg began to jerk involuntarily.

“What is he
doing?”
Alan demanded.

“He’s joking!” Cindi called.

“Choking? I know that.”

Cindi lowered her voice so Alan could not hear.

“Do you want me to come down and get you? There’s no disgrace in it. It happens all the time in the beginning.”

“Or tennis,” Becker said. “I actually like tennis.” Tilting his head a fraction more, he could see what Alan was referring to as a handhold. With luck, Becker could get three fingertips on it. That would give him three fingertips and the toe of his spasming right leg to support his weight—to
lift
his weight— until he found something for his left side. Not only crazy but a danger to himself.

“I’m coming down for you,” said Cindi.

Becker pushed off with his left leg and reached for the handhold. He caught it with the last three fingers of his hand as he straightened his right leg. The edge of rock sliced into his fingers as his body kept swinging to the right, pivoting around his right toe. His hip struck the rockface, his fingers leaped off the grip, and he fell headfirst toward the highway.

The nylon rope secured to Cindi’s piton with a carabiner caught him after a fall of six feet, and he swung into the rock like a speeding pendulum. Becker took the blow with his head and shoulders, rebounded, then bounced in a second time with his helmet. Stunned, he hung upside down for a while before slowly righting himself He dangled in space, the climbing harness digging into his thighs and buttocks. By the time his head cleared, Cindi was at his side and Alan was halfway up the rock.

“Are you all right?” Cindi asked. Becker tried to smile; he was not yet ready to speak. His back was to the rockface now and he saw the police car pull to a stop.

“How is he?” Alan called from below, climbing. “All right, I think.”

Alan was already analyzing the mishap and gave Becker the benefit of his thoughts as he moved upward.

“The problem was you’re not ready for that kind of move yet. You shouldn’t have tried it. That was an advanced intermediate move. You’re not that good, Becker.”

The cop got out of his car and leaned against it, looking up.

“You told him he could do it,” said Cindi.

“I just told him where the handhold was. He’s got to be the judge of whether or not he can do it.”

Alan was just below them now. It seemed to Becker that the young man had made the trip up in three bounds.

Cindi was looking into Becker’s eyes, swinging out from the rockface on the end of the rope she had secured atop the palisade.

“How do you feel now?”

“Stupid.”

“That’s a good sign,” she said.

“You took the wrong route,” said Alan. “That’s where you went wrong.”

“Where I went wrong was getting out of the car,” said Becker.

“You’re obviously all right,” said Cindi.

“The route to the left is much easier. You should have gone that way.”

“I went that way last week,” said Becker. “I thought I’d try something harder.”

“You got the stones for it,” said Alan with a touch of admiration. “I don’t know if you’ve got the aptitude, but you’ve definitely got the stones.”

“You don’t need stones for it,” said Cindi.

The cop lifted his hand and waggled his fingers at Becker.

“Looking good,” said the cop.

Becker put a hand over his crotch and tugged.

“And stylish, too,” the cop said.

“Friend of yours?” asked Cindi. She pulled gently on Becker’s arm and he turned, weightless, to face the rock.

“This has been cleared with the police,” Alan called down. “We got permission already. We don’t need any hassle.”

“Who does?” said the cop. “I’m just watching. This is a spectator sport, isn’t it? I’ve never seen anything quite as graceful as Becker there. I saw a pig on ice once, but that’s as close as it comes.”

“You want to try it?” Alan called heatedly.

The cop chuckled. “Just as soon as you put in a staircase.”

“I don’t like cops,” Alan said in a voice markedly softer.

“Neither do I,” said Becker. “That’s why I resigned.”

Cindi had placed Becker’s hands and feet on secure holds on the rock.

“The next hold is eight inches down with your right hand. I can put your hand there if you like. We’ll just take it one step at a time, and I’ll be right here with you.”

“You’re sure this is the macho thing to do?” Becker said. “Oh, please.”

“Are you sure a real man wouldn’t go right back up and try it again?”

“A real man would be home making soup and humping his woman,” said Cindi. “He wouldn’t have to be out here demonstrating his
stones.”

Becker laughed. “I’ve got a new crockpot at home. Want to come over and check it out?”

“You must have hit your head harder than I realized,” said Cindi. “What’s it going to be? Down or dangle here and flirt?”

“Down, please,” said Becker,

“They look like spiders,” Tee said. He was officially Thomas Terence Terhune, but he had long since reduced it all to an initial.

They were sitting in the police car, watching Alan and Cindi clamber up and down the rock, retrieving their ropes and equipment.

“You, on the other hand, looked like a window washer.”

“Thank you.”

“What possessed you? There are so many nicer ways to kill yourself. That girl would probably do you in in about an hour in bed, for instance. Less, in the back of a car.”

“Cindi’s a nice girl,” said Becker.

“So? Nice girls don’t fuck? Is this a new thing? As I understand it, nice girls fuck nicely. Look at her arms.”

Cindi was splayed across the rock as if she had been hurled there. The spandex of her climbing outfit seemed to accentuate her musculature rather than hide it.

“Look at any of her,” Tee continued. “If she can do that on a mountain, imagine what she can do in bed. I like a bit of muscle on a girl, don’t you? I remember when they first came out. I was turned off by the biceps, the Navratilova look, you know? But now, I like it. Hell, I like anything. Muscle, fat, body hair, you name it.”

“You getting along all right with your wife, are you. Tee?”

“We get along fine. I don’t bother her and she doesn’t bother me. This kid, Cindi, she’s attached to Spiderman there?”

“Alan’s in love with himself, as far as I can figure out.”

“He shows rotten taste, doesn’t he? How about some coffee.”

“You had enough rockface eroticism. Tee?”

The police car was already moving. Tee swung into a sharp U-turn and headed back toward Clamden.

“What do you think she’d do if I put a move on her?”

“Cindi?”

“Yeah, who else we talking about?”

“Probably call a cop.”

“She can call me anything she wants,” said Tee.

“How about correspondent?”

“You’ve got a cold streak, you know that, Becker? You’re just not a fun-lover. No wonder people try to kill you.”

“So finally we’re getting down to business,” said Becker.

Tee adjusted his holster to ride on the front of his thigh before sliding into the booth. Once in, he spent several seconds adjusting the flashlight, radio, and other equipment on his webbed belt until he was comfortable.

“Shit was designed for Robocop,” he said.

“There’s no way a human can sit down without feeling like an asshole with all this crap hanging down and sticking you in the kidneys. Makes me feel like a telephone lineman.”

“It’s very becoming, though,” said Becker. “It gives you that heterosexual look.”

“You don’t think I need to add a nightstick? Kind of as an image enhancer? … Janie?”

The waitress passed them by without looking back.

“I always wondered what would happen to a cop if he fell into the ocean with all that hardware on. The hobnail boots alone would pull you down.”

“I got my belt attached with Velcro,” said Tee. “In case I have to punish a suspect in her bedroom,
rrrrip,
and I’m ready.”

“You get a lot of that, do you. Tee? Consoling widows, comforting victims, that sort of thing?”

“Not yet, but I’ve only been a cop for fifteen years. How about yourself? Were you ever called upon—in the course of your duties—to stuff it to one of those ragheads or whoever you were chasing? … Janie?”

The waitress passed them again.

“I take it she knows you,” said Becker.

“She wants me.”

“You’re a strange sort of chief of police. Tee.”

“Why?”

“Your uniform fits, for one thing. There were no doughnuts in your cruiser, for another. I checked. A kind of suspicious trail of ants leading to the glove compartment, but no doughnuts.”

“So let me get this straight,” said Tee. He shifted his weight, tugging again at the belt. “You hang upside down on a rope, then swing into a rock with your head? This doesn’t hurt?”

“Hurt? Why should it hurt? It’s no worse than slamming your fingers in the car door … Miss?”

The waitress stopped abruptly in her passage.

“Two coffees,” said Becker.

“Two coffees,” said the waitress before moving on.

“I get it,” said Tee. “Her real name is Miss, not Janie.”

Tee grew quiet and Becker realized the waiting period was over. Real questions would be next, or requests. Becker did not look forward to either since they usually amounted to the same thing. Whatever Tee wanted, it would make demands upon Becker and demands were exactly what he had spent the last six months avoiding.

The two men sat in a strained silence until the coffee came and Janie had retired to the other side of the room.

“Tell me again exactly what it is you do?” Tee asked, trying to sound casual as he lifted the coffee cup to his lips.

“Again? I don’t believe I ever did tell you exactly, did I?”

“Not while you were doing it. Now that you’ve stopped, why don’t you tell me?”

“Is this an official question?”

“Come on, Becker. Don’t give me a hernia over this. You’re not doing it anymore, I’m not asking for any secrets. Just give me the outline.”

“You know the outline.”

“I asked around some, yeah.”

“Who would that be?”

“Guy named Hatcher, at FBI. Says he knows you.”

“Hatcher is an anal retentive.”

“I know that—whatever that means. He’s a little prissy, too, but he knows things—or can find them out.”

Becker drank and looked at Tee over the rim of his cup. “And?”

“Is this a guessing game? You going to make me tell you what I know and then you tell me if it’s right?”