Lowboy by John Wray

thought, and the idea held his interest. But never for a moment did he suspect that she had any real part to play, either within the Special Category Missing or outside of it. Not until the call came in.

    Her reaction to her son’s case report had been predictable enough: she’d gone absolutely still, as though he’d propositioned her, and had stared at him in a way that he’d been acquainted with since his first day on the job. If she’d kept quiet it was only because her mouth had gone too dry with rage to speak. He’d returned her look calmly, even encouragingly: his misgivings had subsided as he watched her. Her own attitude, after all, had forced his hand.
    “Obstruction of justice seems to come naturally to you, Miss Heller.” He let the file fall theatrically closed. “I’d almost think you had a history yourself.”
    “You’re a born policeman, Detective,” she said, looking past him out the window. “Every little old lady is a mafioso.”
    “Listen to me, please. Everything I’ve learned about your son leads me to believe that time is very tight. His medication is at a negligible level, he’s in a hazardous environment, and his psychoses tend to be violent.” He sat back a moment and let that register. “In my opinion, there’s a good chance that a crime will be committed: a serious crime, Miss Heller. A felony. It could very well be happening as we speak.”
    “Then why aren’t you out looking for him, Detective?” she said, rising mechanically to her feet. “Why are you sitting here doing absolutely fucking nothing, shuffling cards like we have all the tea in China?”
    She was standing an arm’s length from him now, legs set hard against the desk, opening and closing her fists like someone at the onset of a seizure. If I laugh now, he thought, I’ll have lost her completely. She looks as though she might actually take a swing.
    “All the time in the world, I think you mean.”
    Her palms came down on his desk with such force that a drawer clattered open. “ Answer me, Detective! What the hell are we still doing here?”
    Her accent’s stronger now, Lateef thought, composing himself before he gave his answer. She sounds like a Hollywood Nazi. “We’re waiting for the phone to ring, Miss Heller. That’s all we can do, I’msorry to say. Unless you have some ideas about your son that you’d be willing to share with this department.”
    “I do have some ideas, in fact.” She sucked in a breath. “I wonder why you didn’t ask before.”
    He permitted himself a smile. “You don’t seem very shy with your opinions.”
    “You’re manipulating me now, Detective.” She turned away from him tiredly. “If I thought you were acting out of a genuine desire—”
    The buzzing of his deskline interrupted her. She stopped herself at once, her mouth hanging open like a sleeper’s, and stared at the receiver with a look of simple dread. He paused a moment before answering, watching the fact of the call sink into her. There was no trace of relief in her expression.
    “Excuse me just a minute, Miss Heller.”
    She gave no sign of having understood him.
       
    The conversation was brief—a minute at the most—and for his part Lateef said almost nothing. When he set down the receiver Violet slumped slightly forward, making a small defeated sound, as though her worst fears had already been confirmed. Any doubt he might have had that she believed her son was violent vanished in that instant. She’ll work with me now, he thought. No more putting on airs. She knows there’s no more sense in wasting time.
    “A traffic cop working the intersection of Eighty-fourth and Columbus spotted your son through a grate. This was about twenty minutes ago, at ten forty-five. According to the officer, he appeared unharmed.”
    “Through a grate?” she murmured. “Under the sidewalk?”
    He nodded. “He’s still in the MTA network.”
    She was already standing. “I told you he’d stay underground.