Butcher's Moon

Fifteen

While standing in the phone booth, receiver hunched between shoulder and ear as the phone did a lot of clicking and beeping before going into the ring sound, Grofield breathed on the glass wall, drew a heart in the steam, and inside the heart put AG and a plus sign. Then he paused, suddenly at a loss. What the hell was the girl’s name?

It was ringing. What was her name, for the love of God?

Click. “Hello?”

Dori! Dori Neevin; it came to him in a flash at the sound of her voice, bringing him both the look of her as he’d last seen her in the library and the earlier sound of her telling him her name. “Hi, there, Dori,” he said, pleased with himself, and then fumbled for a second as he tried to remember his own name. That is, the name he’d given her. Green, that’s right. “This is Alan,” he said. “Alan Green.”

“Oh, hi,” she said as he scribbled in a quick DN inside the heart. “How are you?” She sounded very pleased to hear from him; that business of the overreaction again, her trademark.

“I just couldn’t get away last night,” he said. “Business, you know.”

“Well, you told me that might happen,” she said. He could hear in her voice her willingness to forgive him anything, anything at all.

“But tonight,” he said. “Ah, tonight.”

“You’re free?”

“Totally.” He looked at his watch. “It’s just seven now. Why don’t I come around for you at eight?”

”That would be just wonderful.”

“I don’t have your address.”

“Oh, ah . . .” He could practically hear the wheels spinning in her head as she worked something out. “I’ll, um,” she said, “I’ll meet you at the corner of Church Street and Fourth Avenue, at eight. Okay?”

Parent trouble. Possibly also a boyfriend to be cooled out. “Fine with me,” he said.

“There’s an old monastery on the corner there,” she said. “Lancaster Abbey. Do you know it?”

“I can find it.”

“I’ll be waiting right in front.”

“Fine. See you then.”

He left the phone booth and went back over to the Impala. Parker was sitting at the wheel, listening to the seven o’clock news. Grofield slid in next to him and said, “My love life bubbles.”

“You’re all set?”

“Just fine.”

Parker put the car in gear, and headed out toward the southern end of town, where a number of motels were clustered together. They’d arrange a place for tonight, and then Grofield would take the car for his date. Parker, aside from the fact that he seemed to be monogamous with Claire, never did have anything to do with women while he was working. Grofield understood that in a theoretical sort of way, but it wasn’t natural for him not to have something stirring in his own life, and he’d never tried to emulate Parker’s monkishness.

Not at home, though. Around the theater he limited his activities strictly to Mary; partly because he liked her enough to be content with no one but her, and partly because he liked her too much to humiliate her. But away, while working, he almost always found some girl to help brighten the laggard hours.

“Listen!”

Grofield looked at Parker, frowning, and saw him pointing at the car radio. The newscaster was talking about a dead policeman, a uniformed cop named O’Hara, shot dead in a diner this afternoon. Possibly, the newscaster said, the work of the same people who had done those robberies last night.

Grofield said, “What’s the matter?”

“O’Hara,” Parker said. “That’s one of the cops from Fun Island. He helped them look for the money.”

“Oh ho,” Grofield said.

“Watch for a phone booth,” Parker said. “We have to call Lozini.”

Grofield sighed. “And I’d better call my little Dori back,” he said.