Red Dragon Page 0,51
she came falling down the stairs dead."
"He had killed her?"
"Yeah. So I asked the officer I was with to call for SWAT, to get some help. But then I could hear kids in there and some screaming. I wanted to wait, but I couldn't."
"You went in the apartment?"
"I did.Hobbshad caught this girl from behind and he had a knife. He was cutting her with it. And I shot him."
"Did the girl die?"
"No."
"She got all right?"
"After a while, yes. She's all right now.
Willy digested this silently. Faint music came from an anchored sailboat.
Graham could leave things out for Willy, but he couldn't help seeing them again himself.
He left out Mrs. Hobbs on the landing clutching at him, stabbed so many times. Seeing she was gone, hearing the screaming from the apartment, prying the slick red fingers off and cracking his shoulder before the door gave in. Hobbs holding his own daughter busy cutting her neck when he could get to it, her struggling with her chin tucked down, the .38 knocking chunks out of him and he still cutting and he wouldn't go down.Hobbssitting on the floor crying and the girl rasping. Holding her down and seeingHobbshad gotten through the windpipe, but not the arteries. The daughter looked at him with wide glazed eyes and at her father sitting on the floor crying "See? See?" until he fell over dead.
That was where Graham lost his faith in .38's.
"Willy, the business withHobbs, it bothered me a lot. You know, I kept it on my mind and I saw it over and over. I got so I couldn't think about much else. I kept thinking there must be some way I could have handled it better. And then I quit feeling anything. I couldn't eat and I stopped talking to anybody. I got really depressed. So a doctor asked me to go into the hospital, and I did. After a while I got some distance on it. The girl that got hurt inHobbs's apartment came to see me. She was okay and we talked a lot. Finally I put it aside and went back to work."
"Killing somebody, even if you have to do it, it feels that bad?"
"Willy, it's one of the ugliest things in the world."
"Say, I'm going in the kitchen for a minute. You want something, a Coke?" Willy liked to bring Graham things, but he always made it a casual adjunct to something he was going to do anyway. No special trip or anything.
"Sure, a Coke."
"Mom ought to come out and look at the lights."
* * *
Late in the night Graham and Molly sat in the back-porch swing. Light rain fell and the boat lights cast grainy halos on the mist. The breeze off the bay raised goose bumps on their arms.
"This could take a while, couldn't it?" Molly said.
"I hope it won't, but it might."
"Will, Evelyn said she could keep the shop for this week and four days next week. But I've got to go back toMarathon, at least for a day or two when my buyers come. I could stay with Evelyn and Sam. I should go to market inAtlantamyself. I need to be ready for September."
"Does Evelyn know where you are?"
"I just told herWashington."
"Good."
"It's hard to have anything, isn't it? Rare to get it, hard to keep it. This is a damn slippery planet."
"Slick as hell."
"We'll be back in Sugarloaf, won't we?"
"Yes we will."
"Don't get in a hurry and hang it out too far. You won't do that?"
"No."
"Are you going back early?"
He had talked to Crawford half an hour on the phone.
"A little before lunch. If you're going toMarathonat all, there's something we need to tend to in the morning. Willy can fish."
"He had to ask you about the other."
"I know, I don't blame him."
"Damn that reporter, what's his name?"
"Lounds. Freddy Lounds."
"I think maybe you hate him. And I wish I hadn't brought it up. Let's go to bed and I'll rub your back."
Resentment raised a minute blister in Graham. He had justified himself to an eleven-year-old. The kid said it was okay that he had been in the rubber Ramada. Now she was going to rub his back. Let's go to bed - it's okay with Willy.
When you feel strain, keep your mouth shut if you can.
"If you want to think awhile, I'll let you alone," she said.
He didn't want to think. He definitely did not. "You rub my back and I'll rub your front," he said.
"Go to it, Buster."
* * *
Winds aloft carried the thin