The Edge of Sleep (11 page)

“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.

Becker was out of sight beyond the angle of the garage for a moment, and when he came into view again he was smiling. Karen loved his smile. He was normally of sober mien so that when he smiled it offered such a happy contrast. If he had been a man who practiced charm, it would be a formidable weapon, Karen thought, for it made him look boyishly winning, shedding years and revealing a sweet and mischievous side to him.

“A pleasant surprise,” Becker said.

Karen resisted her own impulse to smile.

“I couldn’t raise you on your phone,” she said. “I was passing here, so I thought I’d try my luck in getting you at home ... And I got lucky.”

“if you consider me good fortune.”

“Your local Chief of Police apparently does. We had a little chat.”

“Tee likes to chat.”

“I noticed. He seems to think rather highly of you.”

“We’ve been friends since high school.”

“I got the impression he was trying to fix us up.”

“Did you tell him we’d already been fixed up?”

“I didn’t think that was for me to say,” Karen said. “He’s your friend; I don’t know how much you want him to know.”

“With Tee, it’s probably better for him to know than to let his imagination go to work. I’m surprised he didn’t try to pick you up himself.”

“He does that, does he? He’s a married man.”

“It’s not that he does it. He just can’t seem to stop thinking about it.”

“Men,” she said.

“You’re right. I can’t argue.”

“No wonder women are losing patience.”

“I don’t know why you’ve put up with us this long.”

“It’s a tribute to our good nature.” Karen tilted her head slightly, hoping to firm her jawline. “But enough is enough.” Becker sat on the railing and grinned at her. The directness of his attention summoned her back to the business that had brought her here.

“Another boy is missing.” she said.

“A snatch?”

“We don’t know yet, it’s too early. We have the state and local police in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts reporting any disappearances that fit our profile immediately. It’s a nine-year-old boy. Physically he matches the others; he was last seen at a mall ...” Karen shrugged. “Maybe he’ll show up by the time we get there. Maybe he fell asleep in the movies ...”

“Maybe. Where was it?”

“Bickford.”

“That’s about an hour from here.”

“If we go in my car, we’ll be able to talk. But I’ll have to leave no later than five-thirty, so if you think you’ll want to stay longer, maybe we’d better take both cars.”

“Why do you have to go?” he asked.

“I have to be home by seven. That’s when the babysitter leaves.”

Becker blinked.

“I have a child, remember?”

“You do this every day?”

“Do what? Go home? Take care of my son? Act like a parent? Yes, I do it every day. That is what mothers do, isn’t it? Or did I get that part wrong?”

“Sounding a little defensive there, Karen.”

“Why do you people always act surprised when you hear that I’m a mother? I do mother things. I love my son. I make myself available for him.”

“ ‘You people’?”

“I’m acting like a mother. If we could get more men to act like fathers, the world wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in.”

“Why do I feel I have to justify myself?” Becker asked. “I don’t have any children.”

“Then I can’t expect you to understand,” she said. Karen was furious with herself. She had vowed to keep the meeting professional.

“Understand what?”

Karen started abruptly for her car.

“Your car or mine,” she said. “Suit yourself.”

“Are you so sure I’m coming at all?” Becker asked, staying on the porch.

She turned to him angrily.

“I don’t have time for you to be coy,” she said. “Of course you’re coming.”

Becker hesitated.

“Oh, Christ, don’t make me woo you,” she said. “We’ve already done that number. Let’s get on with business.”

She got into her car and buckled up, not looking at him anymore.

Becker thought about telling her to go stuff herself. He thought about it all the way to the car.

They were already on the Merritt Parkway and heading east before he asked, “What made you so sure I was coming?”

“Because the trail is still warm and you know you have a better chance of people remembering something now than you will a day from now. You’re smart enough to know that.”

He looked at her curiously. She was concentrating on her driving, pushing the car to eighty miles per hour, flashing her headlights in annoyance at anyone who slowed her down. Presumably she was saving her siren until she hit ninety. Her jaw was clenched and thrust forward defiantly. Becker realized she was angry as hell about something and he just happened to be available.

It wasn’t until they swept north on Route 8 that she seemed to relax. Traffic had cleared and she sped along in the left lane basically without interference.

“What made you so sure of me?” Becker asked again.

This time she turned from the road long enough to glance at him. The tension eased from her face and was replaced by sympathy.

“I knew you’d have to study the photographs.” she said. Her eyes went back to the highway. “You told me something about your childhood once. John. Do you remember?”

“No.”

She sniffed. “Men don’t. They never remember anything.”

“Women do,” he added.

“Yes, we do. We labor under the delusion that the things you tell us are true.”

“I never lied to you,” he said.

“No.”

After a pause he added, “And I do remember,” although he was not certain that he did.

He briefed her on what he had learned—and not learned—during his visit to the Stamford mall. She spoke into her tape recorder as she drove, taking notes on what he said. When he was finished she telephoned her office in New York and gave orders in a crisp, clipped tone.

“Fax me the results to ...” She turned to Becker. “What’s your fax number?”

“I don’t have a fax,” he said.

Karen sighed. “I’ll have the Bureau get you one. It’s time to enter the decade, John.” Into the phone she said, “Malva, fax the results to my house. I want it waiting for me by the time I get home ... Yes, seven o’clock, of course.” She hung up and eased into the right lane as she saw the exit for Bickford approaching.

She was aware that Becker was studying her openly. “What?”

“I’m remembering you ten years ago when you were still in Fingerprinting and looking desperately for a way to get out of there. Now you’re in charge of how many people?”

“And I was nicer then, right? Sweeter, softer, more feminine? Something like that?”

“Younger.”

“Oh, you smooth-talking son of a bitch. How did you know that was exactly what I wanted to hear?”

“I didn’t mean you looked old,” Becker said defensively. “I meant you seem very much in control.”

“Do you ever say anything tactful to anyone?”

“Not if I’m interested in them.”

Karen had started to say something, but stopped abruptly. She glanced at him, trying to read his meaning in his face, but he seemed to be studying the traffic with great curiosity.

“I didn’t mean to be so short with you,” she said. It was not what she wanted to say, but it seemed safer. She knew him well enough to know that she should never ask Becker a question unless she was prepared to deal with the truth.

“I am a bit defensive about some things,” she continued. “You have no idea how hard it is, being a mother as well as an agent.”

“They’re a pretty chauvinist bunch,” Becker said. “I imagine they give you a lot of grief. At least behind your back.”

“Having a woman tell them what to do shrivels their gonads right up,” she said.

“It’s not the gonads that shrivel, but I take your point,” he said.

“I thought they did something like that.”

“They sort of recede into the body cavity,” Becker said. “If it’s cold—or dangerous. It’s the penis that shrivels.”

“That I know about,” she said, trying to keep the ridicule from her voice. It amazed her that her contempt for men had seemed to increase in direct proportion to the amount of time she had lived without one. She had expected it to work the other way around, absence making the heart grow fonder and so forth. Maybe her fellow agents were right in their muttered assessment of her, she thought. Maybe she really did need a good fuck.

“They call me dragon lady. I know that,” she said.

Becker dismissed it. “They call any woman in authority dragon lady. Don’t take it personally. Just think of all the things they call Hatcher.”

“They mean those things personally,” she pointed out.

“Only because Hatcher deserves them. You don’t.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe I do deserve them. Maybe I am a stony bitch. You wouldn’t know. You don’t know me at all anymore.”

“I’m starting to.”

“You’ve got no idea how hard it is. None of you men know. Just try it one time, just try being a hard-assed executive—but not too hard, don’t want to threaten anyone’s masculinity—and then turn into a loving mother every night at seven until you get him off to school the next morning. All those articles about single parents? They’re not kidding; it’s a bitch. Just try it for a month or two and see how sweet you are.”

“You seem to be managing awfully well,” he said dryly.

She laughed. “Yeah. I’m a whiz. I’m acting, acting all the time. I feel like the world’s biggest hypocrite.”

“Which role is the hardest to sustain?” Becker asked. “The hard-assed exec or the loving mother?”

Karen did not answer immediately. She maneuvered the car onto the exit ramp and stopped at the traffic light. When she spoke her voice was deliberately contained. “I am a loving mother.” she said.

Becker nodded.

“I am.”

“Okay,” he said. He held her eyes for a moment, watching her jaw tighten again. A horn honked behind them as the light changed to green.

“You don’t know anything about it at all,” she said. Her eyes glared angrily.

“About what?”

“About parents and children, what that’s all about.”

The car behind them honked again. Karen turned and very slowly lifted her middle finger at the driver.

“I know half of it,” Becker said.

Karen gunned her car through the intersection and followed the sign toward the mall. The driver behind her blared his horn in frustration.

“No you don’t,” Karen said. “You don’t know any of it! Your childhood was not normal. You can’t judge normal people by your experience. You have no frame of reference for me and my son, none. None!”

“Okay!” Becker said softly.