Summer Cool

18

The police had not been through Jim Coleman's house yet. Paine wondered if they had found Coleman_; for a brief moment, the image of that surprised face staring down from the shower head broke through Paine and made him nauseous.

It was easy to get in; like most cops, Coleman believed in his own invincibility more than in security devices, and, after Paine pulled his gloves on, a cut screen on the side near the back, unseen from the street and well concealed by bushes, was all that was needed.

Coleman's wife had left him long ago, and the house looked as though a single man lived in it. The beam of Paine's flashlight showed wallpaper a woman had obviously chosen still covering the walls in the bedroom, but there was nothing else feminine about it. The bed was unmade, shoes in sloppy ranks along the sideboard where Coleman had dropped them from his feet. A television on the dresser was angled toward the bed, a squeeze of aluminum foil helping the bent rabbit ears on top. It was tuned to Channel 11, the Yankees network; Paine doubted if it had been changed in months.

Washed clothes were stuffed in the dresser, unfolded, with unmatched socks mixed in with underwear. There was nothing else in the drawers. Under the bed there was dust and a couple of Playboy magazines. On the floor of the closet, more magazines, some of them hard-core; a box containing porno novels with a mix of mystery novels, and, surprisingly, a couple of history paperbacks: Carl Sandburg's biography of Abraham Lincoln, Bruce Catton's Civil War books. A few shirts hung in the closet, two pair of slacks with empty pockets.

The living room was a mess-open potato chip bags on the scratched coffee table, which was propped up on one end by an old paint can. One good end table, the other a couple of stacked milk crates with an ugly fat lamp on top. A New York Post opened to the sports page next to the lamp. A couch between the end tables, a chair with a torn seat next to it, both facing another television, an old color console, against the far wall. Another pair of rabbit ears, newer, again with aluminum foil. A TV Guide on top of the TV, two weeks old.

There was nothing for Paine in the living room, nothing in the dining room. A hutch, well preserved but dusty, which stood out against the rest of the furniture: a dining room table and three chairs with worn fabric on the seats, a pile of mail on the table, all junk. On the wall next to the hutch, a wooden case containing a collection of miniature die-cast '50s automobiles.

One of the drawers in the hutch was pulled out. It was empty. Paine went through the rest of them, found nothing: old candles, mail, letters from a brother wanting money. He looked at the open drawer again.

He searched the kitchen, found nothing, backed down the hail and stopped at the bathroom. He pointed the flashlight in.

On the floor, next to the toilet, was a low flat rectangular box, the kind department stores giftwrap shirts in.

Paine went in, picked the box up. He walked back to the living room, sat down on the couch and opened the box, holding the flashlight with his chin, pointing down.

On the top, a three-by-five photograph, four marines bunched together, staring at the camera half solemnly. They shared a comradely look of purpose; one of them on the end, the man Paine and Billy Rader had found beheaded in Fort Worth, smiled grimly.

Next to him was Jim Coleman.

On the other end was Bob Petty.

Paine looked through the rest of the box; there was nothing to do with Vietnam, only the usual valuable papers. It looked as though they had been rifled through, turned aside, until two-thirds of the way down, where Paine imagined the photograph had resided until Coleman had dug it up. The papers around that spot were very old.

On the top of the pile was a ledger book marked Hermano. Paine went through it, found a beautifully neat record of Coleman's dealings that Bryers would love.

Paine put the photograph in his pocket, put the ledger book back in the gift box, closed it, then put the box into the open drawer of the hutch and closed it. He went through the rest of the house, found nothing, went back to the bedroom, turned off his flashlight, and let himself out through the broken screen and went home.