So what are you going to do? You’re his mother, what are you going to do?
What could she do? Would it help Tad if she went out there and got herself killed?
The policeman. Someone had sent the policeman up here. And when he didn’t come back—
“Please,” she croaked. “Soon, please.”
It was eight o’clock now, and outside it was still relatively cool—77 degrees. By noon, the recorded temperature at the Portland Jetport would be 102, a new record for that date.
Townsend and Andy Masen arrived at the State Police barracks in Scarborough at 8:30 A.M. Masen let Townsend run with the ball. This was his bailiwick, not Masen’s, and there was not a thing wrong with Andy’s ears.
The duty officer told them that Steven Kemp was on his way back to Maine. There had been no problem about that, but Kemp still wasn’t talking. His van had been given a thorough going-over by Massachusetts lab technicians and forensic experts. Nothing had turned up which might indicate a woman and a boy had been held in the back, but they had found a nice little pharmacy in the van’s wheel well—marijuana, some cocaine in an Anacin bottle, three amyl nitrate poppers, and two speedy combinations of the type known as Black Beauties. It gave them a handy hook to hang Mr. Kemp on for the time being.
“That Pinto,” Andy said to Townsend, bringing them each a cup of coffee. “Where’s that fucking Pinto of hers?”
Townsend shook his head.
“Has Bannerman called anything in?”
“Nope.”
“Well, give him a about. Tell him I want him down here when they bring Kemp in. It’s his jurisdiction, and I guess he’s got to be the questioning officer. Technically, at least.”
Townsend came back five minutes later looking puzzled. “I can’t get him, Mr. Masen. Their dispatcher’s. tried him and says he must not be in his car.”
“Christ, he’s probably having coffee down at the Cozy Corner. Well, fuck him. He’s out of it.” Andy Masen lit a fresh Pall Mall, coughed, and then grinned at Townsend. “Think we can handle this Kemp without him?”
Townsend smiled back. “Oh, I think we can manage.”
Masen nodded. “This thing is starting to look bad, Mr. Townsend. Very bad.”
“It’s not good.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if this Kemp didn’t bury them in the ditch beside some farm road between Castle Rock and Twickenham.” Masen smiled again. “But we’ll crack him, Mr. Townsend. I’ve cracked tough nuts before this.”
“Yessir,” Townsend said respectfully. He believed Masen had.
“We’ll crack him if we have to sit him in this office and sweat him for two days. ”
Townsend slipped out every fifteen minutes or so, trying to make contact with George Bannerman. He knew Bannerman only slightly, but he held a higher opinion of him than Masen did, and he thought Bannerman deserved to be warned that Andy Masen was on the prod for him. When he still hadn’t reached Bannerman by ten o’clock, he began to feel worried. He also began to wonder if he should mention Bannerman’s continued silence to Masen, or if he should hold his peace.
Roger Breakstone arrived in New York at 8:49 A.M. on the Eastern shuttle, cabbed into the city, and checked into the Biltmore a little before 9:30.
“The reservation was for two?” the desk clerk asked.
“My partner has been called home on an emergency.”
“What a pity,” the desk clerk said indifferently, and gave Roger a card to fill out. While he did so, the desk clerk talked to the cashier about the Yankee tickets he had gotten for the following weekend.
Roger lay down in his room, trying to nap, but in spite of his poor rest the night before, no sleep would come. Donna screwing some other man, Vic holding on to all of that—trying to, anyway—in addition to this stinking mess over a red, sugary kiddies’ cereal. Now Donna and Tad had disappeared. Vic had disappeared. Everything had somehow gone up in smoke this last week. Neatest trick you ever saw, presto change, everything’s a big pile of shit. His head ached. The ache came in big, greasy, thumping waves.
At last he got up, not wanting to be alone with his bad head and his bad thoughts any longer. He thought he might as well go on over to Summers Marketing & Research at 47th and Park and spread some gloom around there—after all, what else did Ad Worx pay them for?
He stopped in the lobby for aspirin and walked over. The walk did nothing for his head, but it did give