Booked to Die by John Dunning Page A

was thinking but was still not inclined to talk about.
    “What’re you thinking?” she said.
    “Think I’m gonna turn in my badge and become a book dealer,” I said.
    But I said this in a safe, singsong voice, the same tone you use when you say you’re going to the policeman’s ball with Jackie Newton. She couldn’t do much with it but laugh.
    Only she didn’t laugh. She just lay there in my arm and we didn’t speak again for a long time.
    It was the telephone that finally broke the spell.
    “God Almighty,” I said wearily. “If that’s Henness;ey I’ll kill the bastard.”
    “I’ll get it,” she said, reaching over me. “I’ll tell him you’ve died and the funeral’s the day after tomorrow.”
    She picked up the phone. I heard her say hello and then there was a long silence. Without saying another word, she hung up.
    “What’s that all about?”
    “A guy trying to sell me a water softener.”
    “At two o’clock in the morning?”
    She didn’t say anything.
    “What’s going on?” I said.
    “I seem to’ve got myself a heavy breather. That’s why I couldn’t sleep. It started about eight o’clock and he’s been calling back every hour or two.”
    “Does he say anything?”
    “He whispered once.”
    “What’d he say?”
    “The usual stuff. Cunt, bitch, whore. Some other stuff.”
    “Did he say anything personal… anything to indicate that he might know who you are?”
    “Why would he know who I am? Those kinds of calls are mostly random, you know that.”
    “I don’t think this one is.”
    She sat up and turned on the light.
    “What happened out there today?”
    I told her about my day with Jackie. I could see it wasn’t convincing her that Jackie had taken up telephone harassment for revenge.
    “I’m taking the phone off,” she said. “If you don’t get some sleep you’ll be a zombie tomorrow.”
    The phone rang.
    “Let it go,” she said. “He’ll get tired of it and hang up.”
    But I picked it up. Didn’t say anything, just listened. He was there, listening too. This went on for almost a minute. Then I said, “You having fun, Newton?”
    He hung up.
    “It’s Newton,” I said. “He hung up when I called him by name.”
    “That doesn’t mean anything.”
    “All right, then, I can smell the son of a bitch, okay?”
    “Okay, Cliff. I’m sure not going to argue about it at two o’clock in the morning.”
    “Listen,” I said sometime later. “Jackie and me, we shifted gears out there today. There never was any love lost between us, you know that. But it’s different now, it’s on a whole new plain.”
    She had propped herself up on one arm, a silhouette against the window.
    “He’ll do whatever he can to get at me. I don’t think it matters to him that I’m a cop, or that you are. I don’t think anything matters. It’s him and me.”
    “Hatfields and McCoys.”
    “Yeah. It’s gotten that deep. I may’ve given Barbara Crowell some very bad advice today.”
    “Cliff, you need a vacation.”
    “I need to get something on that weasel. That’s the only vacation I need. To get him good and make it stick.”
    “You’re a classic type-A, you’ll die before you’re forty. You need to go and lie on a beach and listen to tropical breezes blowing through luscious palm trees.”
    “And go crazy with boredom. That’s not what I need.”
    “I’d go along too… try to keep you from getting too bored.”
    More long minutes passed.
    “I’ll do whatever I can,” Carol said.
    “As a matter of fact, there is something you can do.”
    “Just tell me.”
    “Get the hell out of here.”
    “Oh, Cliff, that’s not going to help anything.”
    “I’ve been thinking about it all day, ever since I gave Jackie the thirty-eight-caliber lollipop. Newton doesn’t know who you are. All he knows is, he called my place and a woman answered. Nobody knows about us. We’ve taken a lot of trouble to keep what’s ours private.”
    She took a deep, long-suffering