Heat

10

He wanted to make sure he’d given her enough time to get here.

She had called him at the squadroom at nine o’clock, to say she was going to the movies after all, if he wouldn’t mind, and would be catching the 9:27 show, just around the corner, he didn’t have to worry about her getting home safe, the avenue was well-lighted. She had then gone on to reel off the name of the movie she’d be seeing, the novel upon which it was based, the stars who were in it, and had even quoted from a review she’d read on it. She had done her homework well.

It was now a little past ten.

The windows on the first floor of the Hopper Street building were lighted; Michael Lucas, the painter, was home. On the second floor, only the lights to the apartment shared by Martha and Michelle were on; Franny next door was apparently uptown with her Zooey. The lights on the third and fourth floors were out, as usual. Only one light burned on the fifth floor, at the northernmost end of Bradford Douglas’s apartment — the bedroom light, Kling thought.

He waited.

In a little while, the light went out.

He crossed the street and rang the service bell. Henry Watkins, the superintendent he’d talked to this past Tuesday, opened the door when he identified himself.

“What’s it now?” Watkins asked.

“Same old runaway,” Kling said. “Have to ask a few more questions.”

“Help yourself,” Watkins said, and shrugged. “Let yourself out when you’re finished, just pull the door shut hard behind you.”

“Thanks,” Kling said.

He waited until Watkins went back into his own ground-floor apartment, and then he started up the iron-runged steps. On the first floor, a stereo was blaring rock and roll music behind Lucas’s closed door. On the second floor, he heard nothing as he passed the door to the apartment shared by the two women. He walked past the studio belonging to Peter Lang, the photographer on the third floor, and then took the steps up to the fourth floor. The light was still out in the hallway there. He picked his way through the dark again, and went up the stairs to the fifth floor.

His heart was pounding.

Carella did not reach Sam Grossman at home until a quarter past ten that night. The first thing Grossman said was, “I’ve got a good one for you.”

He was about to tell a joke. Carella could virtually feel over the telephone wires the contained glee in his voice. Grossman was a tall and angular man, who’d have looked more at home on a New England farm than in the sterile orderliness of a police laboratory. He wore glasses, his eyes a guileless blue behind them. There was a gentility to his manner, a quiet warmth reminiscent of a long-lost era, even though his voice normally rapped out scientific facts with staccato authority. Except when he was telling a joke. When he was telling a joke, he took his time.

“This shyster attorney is scheduled for a court appearance downtown,” Grossman said, “the Criminal Courts Building downtown. You know how tough it is to park down there?”

“Yes,” Carella said. He was already smiling.

“So he circles the block, and he circles the block again, and the time is ticking away, and the judge who’s going to hear the case is a stickler for punctuality. So finally the lawyer parks in a No Parking zone, and he writes a little note. The note says, ‘I’m an attorney with a criminal case to try, and I’m late, and I’ve been circling this block for the past twenty minutes, and finally I had to park here. Forgive us our trespasses.’ And he takes out a five-dollar bill, and folds it neatly inside the note, and sticks the bill and the note under the windshield wiper.”

“Forgive us our trespasses,” Carella said, still smiling.

“Yes, and a five-dollar bill,” Grossman said. “So he comes down again four hours later, and his note and the five-dollar bill are still under the windshield, but there’s also a summons for the parking violation and a note from the patrolman who wrote the ticket. And the cop’s note says, ‘I’ve been circling this block for the past twenty years. Lead us not into temptation.’”

Carella burst out laughing. Cops loved nothing better than jokes about foiled bribery attempts.

“Brighten your day?” Grossman said, chuckling.

“Immeasurably,” Carella said. Whenever he was talking to Grossman, he found himself using vocabulary he rarely used otherwise. “But — what have you got for me on the Newman case?”

“Nothing,” Grossman said.

“That’s a big help,” Carella said. “Owenby told me the report would—”

“Oh, I have the report, all right, it was on my desk when I got back from court this afternoon. Have it right here with me, in fact. How’s that for conscientious?”

“Then what do you mean ‘nothing’? I saw the techs lifting prints all over the place.”

“Oh, yes, plenty of prints. All the dead man’s and his wife’s.”

“No wild prints at all?”

“None.”

“How about on the thermostat?” Carella asked.

“I was coming to that, are you getting to be a mind reader? Considering the heat, the thermostat should have been getting a big play, am I right? Even under normal conditions, people are fiddling with thermostats all the time. It gets hot, they turn the temperature setting down. It gets cool again, they adjust it. So where are the his-and-her prints you’d normally expect? Nowhere. The thermostat was wiped clean. Did they live there alone?”

“Yes,” Carella said.

“So where are the his-and-hers? We found plenty of them on the flush handle of the toilet tank, partials mostly, that’s another place we look because nobody ever wipes off the flush handle, they just don’t. Their asses they wipe, but not the flush handle. Good partial of the dead man’s right middle finger, one of the lady’s index finger, okay, fine. But the thermostat was clean.”

“So what does that mean to you?” Carella asked.

“What does that mean to you?” Grossman said.

“Well, maybe...”

“More than maybe,” Grossman said.

“How so?”

“Let’s say the lady’s a compulsive housekeeper. She wipes off everything the minute anybody touches it. Let’s say that. So she or her housekeeper — has she got a housekeeper?”

“A cleaning woman. But she’s been away since the middle of July.”

“Which would account for why we found only the his-and-hers. I’m assuming the apartment was cleaned at least once since the middle of July.”

“I’d guess so,” Carella said.

“So let’s say the lady did her own cleaning since then. Would even a very neat person go running around the apartment tidying up every minute and polishing everything in sight? Including an almost-empty bottle of Seconal?”

“What do you mean?”

“It was wiped clean, Steve.”

“Are you telling me there were no prints on that bottle?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I’m telling you what we found. Or didn’t find, as the case happens to be.”

“If Newman handled that bottle, there had to be prints on it. A guy with twenty-nine Seconal capsules inside him doesn’t get up off the floor to wipe his prints off a bottle.”

“It was clean as a whistle, Steve.”

Both men were silent for a moment.

“You think the lady could have wiped off those prints?” Grossman asked.

“The lady was in California while the man was being done in.”

Grossman was silent again. Then he said, “Does the lady have a friend?”

“I don’t know,” Carella said.

“It might be something you’d like to ask her,” Grossman said.

He stood outside the door to Apartment 51 and listened.

Not a sound.

He took his gun from his shoulder holster. Holding it in his right hand, he backed away from the door, and then leveled a kick at the lock. The door sprang open, wood splinters flying. He moved into the room swiftly, slightly crouched, the gun fanning the air ahead of him, light filtering into the room from under a door at the end of the hall, to his left. He was moving toward the crack of light when the door flew open and Bradford Douglas came into the hall.

He was naked, and holding a baseball bat in his right hand. He stood silhouetted in the lighted rectangle of the doorway, hesitating there before taking a tentative step into the gloom beyond.

“Police,” Kling said, “hold it right there!”

“Wh...?”

“Don’t move!” Kling said.

“What the hell? Who...?”

Kling moved forward into the light spilling from the bedroom. Douglas recognized him at once, and the fear he’d earlier felt — when he’d thought a burglar had broken in — was replaced by immediate indignation. And then he saw the gun in Kling’s hand, and a new fear washed over him, struggling with the indignation. The indignation triumphed. “What the hell do you mean, breaking down my door?” he shouted.

“I’ve got a warrant,” Kling said. “Who’s in that bedroom with you?”

“None of your business,” Douglas said. He was still holding the bat in his right hand. “What warrant? What the hell is this?”

“Here,” Kling said, and reached into his pocket. “Put down that bat.”

Without turning, Douglas tossed the bat back into the bedroom. Kling waited while he read the warrant. The bedroom fronted Hopper Street, and there were no fire escapes on that side of the building. Unless Augusta decided to jump all the way down to the street below, there was no hurry. He looked past Douglas, into the bedroom. He could not see the bed from where he was standing, only a dresser, an easy chair, a standing floor lamp.

“Attempted murder?” Douglas said, reading from the warrant. “What attempted murder?” He kept reading. “I don’t have this gun you describe, I don’t have any gun. Who the hell said I...?”

“I haven’t got all night here,” Kling said, and held out his left hand. “The warrant gives me the right to search both you and the apartment. It’s signed by—”

“No, just wait a goddamn minute,” Douglas said, and kept reading. “Where’d you get this information? Who told you I’ve got this gun?”

“That doesn’t matter, Mr. Douglas. Are you finished with that?”

“I still don’t—”

“Let me have it. And let’s take a look inside.”

“I’ve got somebody with me,” Douglas said.

“Who?”

“Your warrant doesn’t give you the right to—”

“We’ll worry about that later.”

“No, we’ll worry about it now,” Douglas said.

“Look, you prick,” Kling said, and brought the pistol up close to Douglas’s face, “I want to search that bedroom, do you understand?”

“Don’t get excited,” Douglas said, backing away.

“I am excited,” Kling said, “I’m very excited. Get out of my way.”

He shoved Douglas aside and moved into the bedroom. The bed was against the wall at the far end of the room. The sheets were thrown back. The bed was empty.

“Where is she?” Kling said.

“Maybe the bathroom,” Douglas said.

“Which door?”

“I thought you were looking for a gun.”

“Which door?” Kling said tightly.

“Near the stereo there,” Douglas said.

Kling went across the room. He tried the knob on the door there. The door was locked.

“Open up,” he said.

From behind the door, he could hear a woman weeping.

“Open up, or I’ll kick it in,” he said.

The weeping continued. He heard the small oiled click of the lock being turned. He caught his breath and waited. The door opened.

She was not Augusta.

She was a small dark-haired girl with wet brown eyes, holding a bath towel to cover her nakedness.

“He’s got a warrant, Felice,” Douglas said behind him.

The girl kept weeping.

“Anybody else here?” Kling asked. He felt suddenly like a horse’s ass.

“Nobody,” Douglas said.

“I want to check the other rooms.”

“Go ahead.”

He went through the apartment, turning on lights ahead of him. He checked each room and every closet. There was no one else in the apartment. When he went back into the bedroom again, both Douglas and the girl had dressed. She sat on the edge of the bed, still weeping. Douglas stood beside her, trying to comfort her.

“When I was here Tuesday night, you told me you’d had a visitor the day before,” Kling said. “Who was your visitor?”

“Where does it say in your warrant...?”

“Mr. Douglas,” Kling said, “I don’t want to hear any more bullshit about the warrant. All I want to know is who was here in this apartment between twelve-thirty and one-forty-five last Monday.”

“I... I’d feel funny telling you that.”

“You’ll feel a lot funnier if I have to ask a grand jury to subpoena you,” Kling said. “Who was it?”

“A friend of mine.”

“Male or female?”

“Male.”

“What was he doing here?”

“I told him he could use the apartment.”

“What for?”

“He’s... there’s a girl he’s been seeing.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know her name.”

“Have you ever met her?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know what she looks like.”

“Larry says she’s gorgeous.”

“Larry?”

“My friend.”

“Larry who?” Kling said at once.

“Larry Patterson.”

Kling nodded.

“He’s married, so’s the broad,” Douglas said. “He needed a place to shack up, I’ve been lending him the pad here. I do a lot of work for him. He’s one of the creative people at—”

“Chelsea TV,” Kling said. “Thanks, Mr. Douglas, I’m sorry for the intrusion.” He looked at the weeping girl. “I’m sorry, Miss,” he mumbled, and quickly left the apartment.

He had not called ahead to tell her he was coming. He’d been in bed when he placed the call to Grossman, and he’d dressed hastily afterward, and left the apartment without waking Teddy, who’d been asleep beside him. Now, as he walked past the smiling statue of General Richard Joseph Condon, he weighed the possibility that there might be a reasonable explanation for that bottle to have been wiped clean — and decided there could not be one.

He identified himself to the doorman in the lobby of Susan Newman’s building on Charlotte Terrace, and asked the man not to announce him. The doorman balked, citing rules and regulations. Carella told him he would hate like hell to bring charges for Hindering Prosecution, Section 205.55 of the Penal Law, and began quoting, “A person renders criminal assistance when, with intent to prevent, hinder or delay the discovery or apprehension—”

“Criminal assistance?” the doorman said. “Huh?”

“Stay off the phone,” Carella said, and started for the elevator.

He got off on the third floor, and walked swiftly to Apartment 3G. He listened outside the door, and then rang the bell.

“Who is it?” a woman’s voice asked.

Anne Newman.

“Police,” he said. “Detective Carella.”

“Oh.” The single word, and then silence. He waited. “Just a minute,” she said.

When she opened the door, she was wearing a long blue robe over a pink nightgown he could see in the V-necked throat. She was barefooted.

“I’m sorry to be bothering you so late at night but...”

“That’s all right,” she said. “Please come in.”

He went into the small entrance foyer behind her, and waited while she locked the door again. As they moved together into the living room, he asked, “Is your mother-in-law home?”

“She’s asleep,” Anne said. “It’s almost eleven, Mr. Carella, I was getting ready for bed myself.”

“Yes, well, I’m awfully sorry, Mrs. Newman, but we’re trying to close this out, and there are just a few more questions I’d like to ask.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “But I have an early appointment in the morning—”

“I’ll try to make it brief. Mrs. Newman, are you aware that your husband left a will?”

“Yes.”

“When did you learn about it?”

“Monday morning. Our attorney called to inform me.”

“By your attorney...”

“Charles Weber. At Weber, Herzog, and Llewellyn.”

“And this is the first you knew of it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know when the will was drawn?”

“No.”

“Three weeks before your husband died, Mrs. Newman.”

“Oh? Jerry never mentioned it.”

“Are you familiar with the terms of the will?”

“Yes, Charlie spelled them out for me.”

“You know then that your husband left more than two million dollars...”

“Yes, I know that.”

“And that you weren’t named in the will at all?”

“I’m the beneficiary of an insurance policy.”

“Which leaves you a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Yes, so I understand.”

“How do you feel about that, Mrs. Newman?”

“About what?”

“Your getting a hundred thousand and a stranger getting two million.”

“I don’t know how I feel, actually,” she said.

“Well, you must feel something,” Carella said.

“Disappointment?” she said, smiling wanly. “Sadness?”

“But not anger?”

“Anger? No, not anger. Only sadness and disappointment. I was a loving and loyal wife for almost fifteen years, Mr. Carella. To think that... well, it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. I don’t need two million dollars, I’m not an extravagant person, I have my own work, I can get by very nicely on what I earn, even without what the insurance policy will bring.”

“Do you know Mr. Kern?” Carella asked.

“Yes. My father-in-law exhibited his work at the Kern Gallery. It was Louis, in fact, who appraised the paintings my husband inherited.”

“Did you know that Mr. Kern was aware of the will’s contents before your husband died?”

“No, I didn’t know that. How...?”

“He was informed.”

“By whom?”

“Your husband’s former wife. Jessica Herzog.”

“How did... oh, I see, yes. Her brother works for the firm, doesn’t he?”

“He’s a partner there.”

“Yes, of course. But I had no idea she even knew Louis.”

“They’re lovers,” Carella said.

“Louis and Jessica? You’re joking,” she said, and smiled. “But that’s too comical for words!”

“It’s a fact,” Carella said.

“Well, stranger things do happen, I suppose,” Anne said, and shook her head. “Louis and Jessica. My, my.”

“Could either of them have known you were leaving for California?”

“Louis, do you mean? Jessica?”

“Yes.”

“No, of course not. I haven’t seen Louis in years, and Jessica... well, surely you must understand there was no love lost between us.”

“And you say you had no knowledge of the will before Monday morning, is that correct?” Carella asked.

“That’s correct.”

“Your husband never mentioned it to you?”

“Never.”

“Isn’t that a bit odd?”

“Jerry was a bit odd.”

“What I’m saying,” Carella said, “is that it seems strange for a man not to discuss his will with his own wife.”

“Well,” Anne said, “I guess if a man’s wife isn’t in his will, then he might be somewhat reluctant to let her know about it, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Can you think of any reason why your husband may have decided to change his will?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Could he have had any reason to suspect you were considering divorce?”

“None.”

“You were planning to ask him for a divorce?”

“Yes, but that was a recent decision.”

“A decision you’ve been considering for some time, isn’t that so?”

“Not that long a time.”

“How long a time?” Carella asked.

“I couldn’t say with any accuracy.”

“Longer than last month? When your husband changed his will?”

“I didn’t know he’d changed his will till just this Monday. Oh, I see,” Anne said. “You’re thinking that in a childish fit of pique, after I’d learned I was no longer in his will, I began thinking about divorce. I wish everything in life were as simple as that, Mr. Carella. No, I did not know about his new will, and no, it had nothing whatever to do with my wanting a divorce. I’d simply had enough. Enough of wiping up after him, and supporting his ego, and bolstering—” She shook her head again. “Quite enough. On the Coast, when I was out there last week, I finally knew without question that I wanted out. I wanted to breathe again. I called my mother-in-law and told her what I planned to do. She gave me her blessings. So, you see, it really doesn’t matter to me that I’m not inheriting two million dollars. Two million dollars would be very nice, yes. But I don’t care about that, I don’t even care about the hundred thousand the insurance policy will bring. You may find that difficult to understand, but I really don’t care. I feel no anger, none at all. I feel only disappointment and sadness, as I told you. I served him well for almost fifteen years. Disappointment, and sadness, and — I will admit this — tremendous relief. It will be good to be alive again. You cannot know how good it will be.”

“Mrs. Newman, you told me you have a cleaning woman, isn’t that right?” Carella asked.

“Yes. I have someone who comes in once a week.”

“On what day?”

“Friday.”

“You left for California on a Friday, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And returned on a Friday.”

“Yes.”

“Was your cleaning woman there on the morning you left?”

“No. She was in Georgia. I told you that.”

“Was she there on the Friday you returned?”

“No.”

“She was still in Georgia, am I right?”

“Yes.”

“So if she wasn’t there, she couldn’t have done any cleaning that day.”

“Mr. Carella, I’m sorry, but what...?”

“Mrs. Newman, did you do any cleaning that day? Did you, for example, wipe off the thermostat?”

“What?”

“The thermostat.”

“Wipe it off, did you say?”

“Yes.”

“Why would I have done that?”

“I have no idea. Did you?”

“No, of course not.”

“The lab techs were through with the apartment at about ten. That means they’d have dusted the therm—”

“Dusted?”

“For latent prints, the thermostat. And everything else. You got home at eight-thirty, you told me...”

“Yes.”

“Would there have been anyone who — between eight-thirty and ten — might have wiped off that thermostat?”

“Well, I... I don’t know.”

“Or the bottle of Seconal?”

“The what?”

“The Seconal. The bottle your husband had to have handled if he committed suicide.”

“Well, I... I... don’t really...”

“You’re sure you didn’t?”

“Of course I am! Why would I have... of course I didn’t! I went right downstairs to call the police. I wasn’t in the apartment more than... a minute or two... no more than—”

She fell silent all at once.

Carella stood staring at her. When the voice came from behind him, he turned, startled, and saw Susan Newman standing in the doorway to her bedroom beyond. She was wearing a saffron-color quilted robe. There was a faint, forlorn smile on her mouth.

“Darling,” she said, “I think the gentleman already knows.”

“Oh my God,” Anne said, and took a deep breath, and squeezed her eyes shut tightly.

So now it was all over.

Face her down when she got home tonight after the “movie” she’d gone to see, tell her he knew she’d been with this man named Larry Patterson last Monday, enjoying a quick roll in the hay in a borrowed apartment, tell her he knew all about her and her little married playmate, had seen through the lie about the never-scheduled television commercial outside Long General, confront her with the indisputable fact that the man she’d be accompanying to South America was this man Larry Patterson, her lover, tell her, get it over with, end it. End it.

It was almost eleven-thirty when he got back to the apartment.

He inserted his key into the lock, and then opened the door. The apartment was dark, he reached for the switch just inside the door, and turned on the lights. He was bone-weary and suddenly very hungry. He was starting toward the kitchen when he heard the sound in the bedroom.

The sound was stealthy, the sound a burglar might make when suddenly surprised by an unexpected arrival home, nothing more than a whisper really, a rustle beyond the closed bedroom door; he reached for the shoulder holster and pulled his gun. The gun was a .38 Smith & Wesson Centennial Model with a two-inch barrel and a capacity of five shots. He knew this was not a burglar in there, this was Augusta in there, and he also knew that she was not alone, and hoped he was wrong, and his hand began sweating on the walnut grip of the pistol.

He almost turned and left the apartment. He almost holstered the gun, and turned his back on that closed bedroom door, on what was beyond that closed bedroom door, almost walked out of the apartment and out of their life as it had been together, once, too long ago, almost avoided the confrontation, and knew it could not be avoided, and became suddenly frightened. As he crossed the room to the bedroom door, the gun was trembling in his fist. There could have been a hatchet murderer beyond that door, the effect would have been much the same.

And then the fear of confrontation gave way to something alien and even more terrifying, a blind, unreasoning anger, the stranger here in his own home, the intruder in his bedroom, the lover, who was Larry Patterson, here with his wife, the trap sprung, she thought he would be working the Night Watch, she knew she would be safe till morning, there hadn’t been a movie at all, there was only the movie here in this bedroom, his bedroom, an obscene pornographic movie behind that closed door.

He took the knob in his left hand, twisted it, and opened the door. And he hoped, in that final instant, that he would be wrong again, he would not find Augusta in this room, not find Augusta with her lover but instead find a small, brown-eyed girl who went by the name of Felice or Agnes or Charity, a mistake somehow, a comedy of errors they would all laugh about in later years.

But of course it was Augusta.

And Augusta was naked in their bed, absurdly clutching the sheet to her breasts, hiding her shame, protecting her nakedness from the prying eyes of her own husband, her green eyes wide, her hair tousled, a fine sheen of perspiration on the marvelous cheekbones that were her fortune, her lip trembling the way the gun in his hand was trembling. And the man with Augusta was in his undershorts and reaching for his trousers folded over a bedside chair, the man was short and wiry, he looked like Genero, with curly black hair and brown eyes wide in terror, he looked just like Genero, absurdly like Genero, but he was Larry Patterson, he was Augusta’s lover, and as he turned from the chair where his trousers were draped, he said only, “Don’t shoot,” and Kling leveled the gun at him.

He almost pulled the trigger. He almost allowed his anger and his humiliation and his despair to rocket into his brain and connect there with whatever nerve endings might have signaled to the index finger of his right hand, cause it to tighten on the trigger, cause him to squeeze off one shot and then another and another at this stranger who was in that moment a target as helpless as any of the cardboard ones on the firing range at the Academy — do it, end it!

But then — and this was against every principle that had ever been drilled into him throughout the years he’d spent on the force, never give up your gun, hang on to your gun, your gun is your life, save the gun, keep the gun — he suddenly hurled it across the room as though it had become malevolently burning in his hand, threw it with all his might, surprised when it collided with a vase on the dresser top, smashing it, porcelain shards splintering the air like the debris of his own dead marriage.

His eyes met Augusta’s.

Their eyes said everything there was to say, and all there was to say was nothing. He turned away swiftly and rushed blindly out of the bedroom, hurling open the front door to the apartment, and rushing for the stairway without closing the door behind him, his eyes burning with unshed tears, down the steps to the entrance foyer, opening the door there, the heat of the night striking him like a closed fist — and suddenly he was seized from behind and pulled back into the foyer.

The arm around his throat was thick and powerful, his hands came up at once, groping for the arm, and a voice whispered close to his ear, “Hello, punk,” and he felt the barrel of a pistol against his temple, and he thought only I threw away my gun. And then, because he had been trained over the years to believe that a bad situation could only get worse, you made your move at once or not at all, he brought up his right foot instinctively, and smashed the heel of his shoe down hard on the man’s instep, and shot his elbow back piston-hard at the same time, into the man’s gut, and whirled into his embrace, knocking the pistol aside with his left hand and gouging at the man’s eyes with the curled fingers of his right. The gun went off with a shockingly loud explosion, plaster falling from the foyer ceiling, the man screaming as Kling tore at his eyes and then brought his knee up into his groin and struck him across the bridge of the nose with the flat edge of his hand, going for the kill, hitting him hard enough to drive bone splinters into his brain. The man reeled away, the gun still in his hand, and Kling butted him with his head, driving it fiercely against the man’s jaw, Fall, you bastard, the gun going off again, the shot reverberating like the roar of a cannon in the small hallway, the sudden stench of cordite on the sodden air. He pulled back his fist and drove it with all his might at the man’s Adam’s apple, and felt him yield at last, saw him go limp at last, and topple at his feet like a giant oak, the gun clattering to the floor beside him.

Breathing hard, Kling looked down at him.

He did not recognize the man.

He took his handcuffs from his belt, and braceleted the man’s hands behind him, and then he sat down on the hallway steps, still breathing harshly, and clasped his own hands in front of him as though in prayer, and lowered his head, and allowed the tears to come at last.