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wriggler or a nightcrawler in his life.
It didn't help that he was the shortest member of the department, with the exception of two of the female
officers. In spite of his handicap he had risen to become chief of the largest police department in the state
of Florida. The detectives often wondered how that had come about. Accidents of nature were
frequently invoked.
Moody didn't think about it as much as some of his friends, because he had next to no contact with the
Chief's office. Nor did Feldstein actively seek the company of his officers, preferring the seclusion of his
office with its mollyboards and vorec circuits. They responded promptly and obediently to his requests
and commands, unlike his often obstreperous subordinates.
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Not that Feldstein-was hostile. He was friendly enough when encountered in the hall or the commissary.
Had he been unwilling to work with others, he never would have lived through his years as a patrolman
and detective. He knew what it was like to work a beat, knew how to joke and bullshit on the street. It
wasn't that he was incapable of sharing with others. It was just that he chose not to do so.
Moody turned a comer on his way to the Chief's sanctum. Maybe Feldstein thought it wasn't a good
idea to get too close to people who might be found floating in the Bay the next morning. That Moody
could understand. If he were Chief, maybe he'd feel similarly. Not that he ever would _ be. It didn't
bother him. He was quite comfortable with the level he had achieved.
Security passed him through an admin checkpoint and on to FeMstein's office. It was not spacious,
though it did command a nice view of the Bay. Molly and chip storage lined all the walls, waning with
Feldstein for living space. Feldstein's intellect was all that kept the mutating files at bay, like a
napalm-aimed skier caught in a Colorado avalanche. Each time the files were reduced, western Florida's
antisocial population inevitably restored them to their former dimensions. Try as he might, Feldstein
would never be able to shrink them down to manageable size, nor would they overwhelm him. It was a
perpetual stalemate.
Moody did his best to pay attention. It wasn't easy, because the silvery sheen of the Bay was clearly
visible through the big window at the back of the office. It made him think of fishing, and that made it
difficult to concentrate on his job. Don't eye the Bay, went the conventional office wisdom, and don't eye
Corporal Laney in Processing, and a man might could get his work done.
Feldstein was working at his desk when Moody entered. The detective had never seen him not working.
He was a small dark man, son of a small dark man, grandson of a small dark man, continuing a lineage of
successful small dark men who had arrived in Florida by way of New York, East Europe, and the
Middle East, the end product of several thousand years* worth of small dark men arising originally in
Samaria, where- Moody did not doubt Feldstein's ancestor many dozen times removed had served
as faithful policeman or tax collector or accountant in the service of Solomon or some lesser light.
"Morning, Chief."
Feldstein reluctantly looked up from one of the three screens that sprouted from his desk like flat-faced
mushrooms.
"Vernon." That was his one concession to familiarity. The Chief knew everyone in the building, maybe
everyone on the whole force, by their first name. Maybe the janitors
who worked the night shift, too. "How long have you been on die Kettrick case?"
"About three weeks now, sir."
' 'Got anything yet?''
"As in 'results'?" The Chief hadn't invited him to sit down, which suited Moody fine. It meant this was
going to be a short interview. "No more than what we had by the second day. We got a modus, a
possible motive, and a good description of the prime suspect, but we haven't been able to run him down
yet. We will. APB's are out all over the country, heightened in the Southwest."
Feldstein folded his hands on the desk. That was a bad sign. It meant the Chief had been thinking.
"Having had to do it myself once or twice, I know how frustrating it is to try running an investigation
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twenty-five hundred miles from the likely territory of your prime suspect. That's why I'm sending you to
Arizona to work on it from there. We need someone on the scene."
An image congealed like stale milk in Moody's head. A vision of endless horizons devoid of growth, of
dry, enervating heat; of dust and cactus spines and venomous reptiles and insects. Not that Florida didn't
boast its share of the " latter, but they stayed down in the Glades where they belonged.
"If you don't mind, sir, I'd rather not go." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]