Serial (23 page)

Verna Pound was past the point of waiting until no one was looking. She simply walked up to the wire trash receptacle, which was chained to a light pole at the corner, and began poking through its contents. She saw a roach skitter away from a white foam box. It was the small kind that wouldn’t accommodate much food, but well worth a look.

She scooted the roach farther away with the backs of her fingers, and opened the box.

It contained half a hamburger and another cockroach. This cockroach took its leave even before Verna could brush it away or whisk the chewed hamburger and bun from it.

She was grateful. Even if she found nothing more, this was enough food to hold her until breakfast tomorrow morning at the chapel.

She hunched her body around the foam container and limped away from the trash barrel. Her plan was to find a safe place to sit down, eat her meal along with the third-full bottle of wine she’d bought from a friend, and then walk across town to the shelter. She’d rest a few blocks from the shelter and see if she could beg a few more dollars. It was best to get a jump on her tomorrows, assuming she could hide the money safely from the thieves that came in the night. That was a problem at the shelters. That and sex. Why any of those sickos would want to force sex on the sorts of poor and battered women who slept in such places was beyond Verna’s comprehension. And it was absurd that any of the street women would want anything to do with the homeless and hapless—and bathless—men who bedded down at the shelters. Dirt and desperation were mood breakers. Not to mention hunger.

There were exceptions, of course. On her better days, Verna liked to think of herself as one. And perhaps inside his ragged clothes and dirt-smeared exterior was a man worth knowing. One who could see beyond Verna’s exterior to the beauty inside.

Some women—or maybe all women—never gave up hope.

Verna remembered the man who’d given her a five-dollar bill earlier that evening. That was the money that made possible the shelter bed. He seemed genuinely interested in her. His suit had been old and threadbare, but his scuffed shoes weren’t too worn. A guy maybe just beginning the long and steepening slide. He so obviously couldn’t afford to spare the five dollars he’d given her that Verna for a moment felt like returning it. For only a moment.

She’d watched him as he strode away. Viewed from behind, at a distance, he appeared as if he possessed some wealth. Not prosperous, but maybe a guy with a job.

She was thinking about the generous donor when a black sedan pulled over to the curb slightly ahead of where Verna was walking.

Her heart jumped.
Police? I’m not staying in one place, panhandling. I’m not dressed so bad that I look like a street person. What the hell …

She decided the car had nothing to do with her.

But as she walked past it, picking up her pace and staring straight ahead, a man called her name.

She looked over and saw the generous guy standing by the car with the driver’s side door open.

“Verna Pound,” he said again. He was grinning.

“Do I know you?” Verna asked.

“Five dollars’ worth.”

Now she understood what he expected for his money. “I’m not selling,” Verna said. “Only borrowing.”

“I don’t expect to be repaid, Verna. Gifts aren’t meant to be repaid with something of more value. I only want to talk with you.”

Verna had been moving slowly forward, and was now about ten feet away from the man. “How do you even know my name?”

Instead of answering, he slammed the car door and cut across the sidewalk so he could be next to her, walking with her. Casually, he aimed his key fob behind him, and the big car’s lights flashed as its doors locked.

“You
do
remember me?”

“I remember the five dollars,” Verna said. She didn’t tell him about her cataracts. Now that he was close, the man was something of a blur to her.

He slowed his pace to hers, and they walked together for a while. They were approaching a small stone church next to a boarded-up brick building. There was a dark passageway in between the two buildings. Verna attempted to change her direction a few degrees so she’d be walking away from the dark passage, but the man from the big car didn’t budge and let her bump herself into him. Verna began to be afraid.

“How do you know who I am?” she asked.

“I saw your name in the paper, so I looked you up. Tried to find your address and found that you have no address.”

“What is this? Am I owed some money?”

“With what’s going on, maybe you could get a book contract.”

She gave him a dubious look. “Me? What, am I famous? Am I missing my fifteen minutes?”

“Don’t you read the papers or watch the news on television?”

“Hah! I haven’t read a newspaper in months, and if you see a television set trailing behind me, let me know. Not that I could afford the electric bill.”

“You really should read the newspapers,” the man said. “About the rapist who served time for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“What have I got to do with that?”

“You really don’t remember?”

“I’m lucky if I remember if I got socks on.” They walked on a few steps, more slowly. “Really, how’d you know where to find me?”

“It wasn’t hard.”

“In
New York
?”

“I’m a cop.” the man said. He flashed a badge inside a thin leather folder. “We can find anyone.”

“That didn’t look like a police badge.”

“It is, though.”

“I don’t understand this,” Verna said uneasily. She trusted nothing and no one, and especially she didn’t trust this man.

She’d seen his name when he flashed his shield, but hazily. She couldn’t recall it. If she remembered it later, maybe she’d check him out tomorrow, phone a precinct house and make sure he was actually a cop.

If he was the real thing, that still didn’t mean Verna would talk to him. Right now, cops represented authority, and authority was what had hammered Verna into her present circumstances.

The man grinned over at her. “Whew! If we don’t slow down I won’t have any breath left to ask my questions.”

“Questions about what?”

They were at the passageway between the cathedral and the adjacent building. “Come in here where it’s quiet and we’re alone together and I’ll tell you,” he said.

“I don’t think so.”

He smiled. Shrugged.

That was when a police car came around the corner.

Miracles do happen.

Not that Verna was in any deep trouble; she could handle this guy.

But she couldn’t be sure.

She realized he was no longer gripping her arm.

When she turned to talk to him, he was gone.

Must have run down the dark passageway alongside the church. She stared into the dimness, but knew that with her eyes she couldn’t see him even if he was back there.

Well, she wasn’t going to follow him.

Verna held her head high and strolled past the oncoming police car. The cop who was driving glanced at her and the car slowed slightly. But it didn’t stop. That was fine with Verna. Maybe the guy who’d had her arm really was a plainclothes cop and the car was on its way to pick him up in the next block. That was how cops usually worked, in pairs.

Verna didn’t want to hang around and figure out any of this. All she’d been looking for was a place to sit down and eat the partial hamburger she’d found. This city was tough. It wouldn’t give her even that much.

Then she remembered the five dollars and figured she wasn’t so unlucky after all.

It required eyes that never quite closed.

Vitali and Mishkin had maintained a loose tail on Jock Sanderson for several days. Sanderson led a dull life. He left his apartment and went in to work about ten o’clock, wearing what looked like gray coveralls. Sometimes he wore regular casual clothes and carried the coveralls in a gym bag. Switching off the task of driving, one of the detectives followed Sanderson as he walked to his subway stop. The other simply drove there and waited, then left the parked car and picked up the tail. The car, and the first detective, would be waiting near the offices of Sweep ’Em Up when Sanderson arrived. Then they would tail the white van that transported Sanderson, along with other members of a cleanup crew, to whatever job they had for the night.

After that came boredom and a long night, with sleeping in shifts. Vitali and Mishkin had done this kind of work plenty of times and were used to it—inasmuch as anyone ever really got used to it. Both had learned the cops’ technique of almost sleeping, yet with part of the mind remaining alert and watchful. The watchfulness was accomplished through eyes that never quite closed.

By morning Vitali usually managed not to have been completely exasperated by Mishkin, and not to have injured Mishkin’s delicate feelings. Or Mishkin himself. As for Mishkin, he would seem unaffected except for being tired.

Then would come the daily routine in reverse, as Sander-son left work for home. Sometimes he’d leave directly from the job, and other times he’d return to Sweep ’Em Up in the white van and then go home from there. A normal, everyday, monotonous life. It was nothing like following a showgirl.

“This isn’t like following a showgirl,” Mishkin said, while watching the unmoving white van in his peripheral vision.

Beside him, Vitali said, “We’ve never followed a show-girl, Harold.”

“I’m imagining,” Mishkin said. “You must do that sometimes, Sal.”

“You’d be surprised, Harold, some of the things I imagine.”

Now and then Sanderson would eat out. Often he’d get takeout from a nearby deli. Sometimes he’d stop in at a small grocery store and stock up on simple food he could prepare in a microwave. He ate a lot of frozen pasta.

Vitali and Mishkin were patient. Varying their routine somewhat, they took advantage of slow-moving traffic that made it easy to follow Sanderson in the air-conditioned, unmarked car, even if he was on foot on his way to his subway stop. That way neither of them had to get out in the hot evening and walk. The traffic was so locked up that sometimes Sanderson, walking, would actually pull ahead of them for a while. They would catch up with him at intersections where he was waiting to cross. This kind of work required patience, as well as ways to counteract the boredom.

Vitali was driving the unmarked blue Ford tonight. He felt tired and irritable and by now doubted that Sanderson was anything but a poor ex-con who’d had his life turned upside down by a mistaken identity. He was on a treadmill of despair, and Vitali and Mishkin were on it right behind him.

Lounging next to Vitali, in the Ford’s passenger seat, Mishkin said, “I been thinking, Sal.” He continued watching the unsuspecting Sanderson through the windshield as he spoke. “Wouldn’t it be nice if this tail surprised us and panned out? Like maybe if Sanderson met a mysterious beautiful woman and they went someplace and talked like they had a big secret, maybe exchanged a brown package wrapped with string.”

“A MacGuffin,” Vitali said.

“Huh?”

“That’s what Hitchcock used to call packages like that, MacGuffins.”

“Who was MacGuffin?”

“Never mind, Harold.”

“What I’m talking about is a romantic assignation.”

“That isn’t going to happen, Harold.”

“It does in books.”

“We’re not in a book, Harold. Try to remember that.”

“How do you know we’re not, Sal?”

“Not what?”

“In a book.”

Vitali said nothing. Had his wrist draped over the top of the steering wheel. His gaze was fixed straight ahead on Sanderson. He knew that as long as the tail lasted, he’d simply have to endure Mishkin’s conversational meandering.

“You know that famous athlete that got in trouble because he was addicted to sex?” Mishkin asked.

“Do I know him?

“Of him?”

“Yeah.”

Vitali came more alert. Sanderson had stopped walking and was looking into the show window of an electronics shop. Only a few seconds passed before he walked on. Boredom again descended on the car.

“That athlete that checked himself into a sexual-addiction clinic, Sal. Ever think about sexual-addiction clinics? I mean, really consider them?”

“For myself, Harold?”

“Don’t try to be funny, Sal.”

Vitali said nothing.

“I been wondering what kind of places those are. I mean, even on the outside.”

“Like hospitals, I guess.”

“What sort of architecture?”

“Lots of towers, I imagine,” Vitali said. He didn’t move his head. His right wrist was still draped over the wheel.

“Yeah. I was thinking about the entrances. And the exits. Don’t forget the exits.”

Vitali gave Mishkin a look.

“Maybe dormers, Sal. Sets of big dormers on the roof.”

“Definitely big dormers,” Vitali said.

“Those people who get checked in there, Sal, how do you think they keep them apart?”

“I wouldn’t know, Harold. The doctors and staff, I guess.”

“These are addicts, Sal. What do you think they have for rooms? Do the doors have automatic locks? Are there little individual compounds topped with razor wire? Those people are like rabbits, Sal.”

Sanderson had reached his subway stop. He barely broke stride as he descended the concrete steps and disappeared underground.

Like a rabbit going down its hole
, Vitali couldn’t help thinking.

Mishkin had the door open and was getting out. It was his turn to tail Sanderson on foot.

“I’ll pick you up outside Sweep ’Em Up,” Vitali told him.

“Try parking where you did before, Sal.” And Mishkin was out of the car and jogging toward the subway steps.

Vitali sat and watched Mishkin disappear underground.

Like another rabbit.

Or maybe more like one of those terriers bred to follow their prey into burrows.

“We’re sure Sanderson’s clean,” Vitali told Quinn, after five days on the tail.

Quinn nodded behind his desk. He’d already decided to end the tail. There were only so many suspects you could cover in the case. That was the problem, exactly as the Skinner had planned it. “Get some sleep and I’ll put you and Harold on something else.”

“Better use of manpower,” Vitali said.

“Weaver isn’t gonna like it that she was beat to a pulp for nothing.”

“How’s she doing?” Vitali asked.

“Out of the hospital. Her thoughts are a little scrambled, and she still has headaches. Renz has seen she gets medical leave, and she’s going to stay with her sister for a while.”

“So she’s out of the game on this one.”

“Like Sanderson,” Quinn said.