Stella Cibulkova didn’t smile at work. Not usually. But today she laughed.
—
Bob left theStar Tribunebuilding carrying a paper cup of coffee and with today’s newspaper under his arm. Got into the Volvo that was so illegally parked he’d left his ID card easily visible on the dashboard. Opened the paper. He’d read somewhere that the Help Wanted section would soon be gone completely from the paper. It was bound to be true, he just didn’t know if he believed it. The only police job openings he found were in neighboringstates, none of them detective level, naturally. He kept looking, but after a while realized he wasn’t taking in the words, that his thoughts were somewhere else completely. He was a cop. Had been all his life, never wanted to do anything else. He’d fulfilled that dream, even managed to join the Homicide Unit. He’d managed it, though it hadn’t been easy. He was a good detective. Not brilliant, not the type with supernatural intuition or intelligence, not FBI material. But solid. Someone who made up for everything he lacked by never giving up. Now and then there had been friction with his bosses, of course, as when he couldn’t let go of certain cases once other priorities had been announced. He didn’t have the highest number of cases solved or even the highest percentage success rate. But that was because he always angled to get himself the most difficult cases, the most time-consuming ones that often ended up being shelved. He had a few feathers in his cap, but a case being difficult didn’t necessarily make it high-profile, and those were the ones his colleagues snapped up.
Bob took a sip of coffee. He had a car and a roof over his head, what more could a man need? Why does a man need a job when he doesn’t have a family to look after? He folded the newspaper and put it down on the passenger seat. He could easily have picked up aStar Tribunesomewhere else besides the paper’s headquarters, but it was here he had come. He looked across to the far side of the little park. The sun sparkled on the glass facade of the building housing Alice’s psychology practice. How often had he stood in front of that entrance, waiting to pick her up on those bitterly cold winter days when you didn’t want to use your bike or even wait for the bus? Or when it was dark. Not that Alice had a phobia about the dark—that would be him. That, and horror movies. She never tired of reminding him of the time he rentedPsychofrom a video store. It was soon after they’d met, and she’d told him she liked horror movies. They’d reached the scene where LilaCrane, to the accompaniment of hysterical violins, walks toward the back of the old woman in the rocking chair. Alice knew that Bob knew it was a mummified corpse sitting there because they had told each other they had both seen the movie before. But in the dark Alice saw Bob with his eyes shut tight. Later, when some friends were visiting, Alice told that story and said that was the moment she knew she was in love with him.
Bob checked the time. How fucking slowly it crawled along. Maybe look for a bar?
Easy, easy, easy.
We talked about loneliness.
He looked at his phone. Made up his mind. Found the name and made the call.
“Hi, Rooble, Bob here.”
“Hi.”
“Listen, I’m really sorry, I haven’t managed to drop off that grill.”
“Forget it, Bob. Really. You’re doing me a favor by hanging on to it.”
“You’ve got something there, I really ought to be charging you. Our place isn’t exactly a parking garage.”
Rooble laughed.
“Hey, just to satisfy my curiosity, how is the Gomez investigation coming along?”
“Not good,” said Rooble. “It’s like he’s vanished into thin air, no trace at all.”
“Have you done anything else besides send out a BOLO?”
“We’ve spoken to everyone we know of who had some connection with him, but there aren’t many. The janitor, landlord, neighbors. But they don’t know much. Nothing, really.”
“Did you get Myers’s report from the neighbor we spoke to?”
“Sure we did. But that didn’t give us much either. It’s nevereasy with people like Gomez who aren’t registered anywhere. You don’t find employers, relatives, school friends. Perfect situation for somebody working as a hit man, of course.”
“Good job he isn’t then,” said Bob.
“You sure about that?”
“A hit man doesn’t shoot his own neighbor. He doesn’t miss. He doesn’t leave the rifle case behind in the apartment along with a lot of technical traces.”
“You’re right there, Bob. But vanishing completely the way he’s done, that’s pretty good.”
“To go missing for two days isn’t difficult. Day three is when the planning has to start.”
“Just like you say, Bob.”
Rooble. Always diplomatic, always listening. Humble when it paid to be, firm when necessary. The boy would go far.
“I gotta go, Rooble. But can you keep me in the loop, d’you think?”
“On the Gomez case?”
“Yes. I’ve got a homicide that’s similar, so I’m wondering if there might be a connection. Just call this number, I’m working mostly from home at the moment.”
