Nothing Too Dangerous

AN UNKNOWN HUNGER

"Sorry. Just tired." He glanced away, not wanting to meet her eyes. How did he ever manage to talk to Marilyn, back in college? "I don't have any letters waiting, do I?"

"Um." She fiddled with stacks of mail. "Nothing yet. Is that bad?"

He tried to smile. "You have a good day, miss."

The line at the supermarket moved in jerks and fits and by the time he was outside the sun was cresting and the sidewalk smoked under his shoes. He sat on a bench and drank chocolate milk from the carton, cold and sweet. Sweat broke out across his forehead.

"We drank milk on the day of the derby," he said suddenly. "Soapbox derby. Silver trophy. Goddamn." He hadn't thought about that day in years. If someone had reminded him about it he would have said they were mistaken.

A strip of yellow police tape wriggled across the concrete, coiled around a street sign, and was carried away by the wind.

* * *

The coroner called at lunchtime. "Possibly a stroke. Possibly heart attack. It's unlikely the bruising around the right eye and the broken tooth were from an assault. Probably the fall. No other wounds, though. I'll do the full autopsy tomorrow."

"Cheers." Alan Packer had a TV above his desk. On the screen was the sidewalk outside the milkbar, night shadows stretching over the gutter. A clock in the corner of the screen read 02:23:45 16:07:2007. A man in a sportsjacket entered from the left, hunched against the summer wind. Robbie Olive. Thirty nine, once married, never divorced. His wife had sobbed and calmed herself and then sobbed again and grabbed at Packer's hands, and he'd wished not for the first time that he could bring Yelena along to these things. She always knew what to say.

Robbie's back was to the camera, which meant that Packer had a perfect view of the second man.

Forty, forty-five, maybe older from the way the skin hung off his cheeks. Knit jumper, chinos, belly hanging over his belt. Hands clasped before him like he was clutching a rosary, counting off prayers. Dragging his left foot with every step, the toe of his shoe grinding into the pavement.

Robbie stopped. The other man continued. Step, shuffle, drag. Then he stopped too.

The man in the woollen jumper opened his mouth. If Robbie said anything in reply, Packer couldn't see. Then Robbie threw his hands in the air and fell, first to his knees and then onto his face. There was no sound but Packer imagined he heard the sharp crick as Robbie's teeth snapped. His left hand brushed the other man's right foot.

In the corner of the screen the clock ticked off a full minute before the man in the jumper turned away. Step, shuffle, drag. Out of frame.

The video ran another three hours but Robbie didn't twitch once.

Packer rewound the tape, watched again. The second man kept his hands together. Then, in the last moment, a flash of movement. A gun in his hand? A knife? Impossible to tell.

He printed the second man's face as large as he could and called Elliot. "You busy, Watson? Work to do."

* * *

Con was stretched out on the couches in the foyer with a copy of Darkness at Noon when the two men in charcoal suits arrived. He watched them march to the front desk, lean over the counter to speak to the girl with the tight black bun. She pointed across the foyer to Con, and he felt a cold hand twist in his guts.