The Man in the Net by Patrick Quentin Page B

Gordon broke in, “Linda destroying your pictures? But that isn’t possible. Linda, of all people … !”
    “You can’t never figure out what a woman’s going to do when she gets riled.” Steve’s voice cut off the sentence. “Okay, John. Go on.”
    His eyes never left John’s face, but, as John continued the story, it was of Gordon Moreland that he was most immediately conscious. Prurient fascination was exuding from him almost like a smell. Don’t miss a thing. Get every detail for Roz. Put it in a book. Of course, this isn’t historical. But why not a modern book once in a while? A change of pace. John felt anger welling up through the total weariness. What the hell had this to do with Gordon Moreland?
    When he’d finished, Steve Ritter stretched from the couch and stubbed his cigarette in an ashtray by John on the desk. “Okay, John. How much money did she take with her?”
    “Practically none, I’d say, unless she had some I didn’t know about.”
    “And where do you figure she’d have been planning to go? New York? She’s always talking about New York. Got a lot of friends down there, it seems.”
    “No,” said John, “as a matter of fact, there really isn’t anyone she’s friendly with in New York.”
    “But that’s absurd,” exploded Gordon Moreland. “She has dozens of friends in New York. She’s constantly talking about them. She knows everyone. The Parkinsons. The …”
    “Okay, Mr. Moreland.” Once again Steve Ritter interrupted him. “You may think you know Linda and I may think I do. But John here’s her husband, ain’t he?” His eyes shifted back to John. “If it wouldn’t be New York, John, then what about Wisconsin? But her folks out there are dead, aren’t they? No reason to go back there.”
    “No,” said John, thinking: So he knows that much about her. She’s at least been that intimate with him.
    “And she don’t have any brothers or sisters. Only child. She’s always yakking about that.” Steve gave a little whistle. “Seems like she was walking out into the blue, don’t it?”
    “Seems like it,” said John.
    “Maybe to give you a scare? You think that, John? Her way, maybe, of winning the fight?”
    “Maybe.”
    “But the suitcase.” Gordon Moreland’s voice was shrill and whinnying. “We found it on the dump. What does anything matter but that? If the suitcase is there, then something must have happened to her.”
    “Sure, sure.” Steve pursed out his lower lip. “I’m afraid it’s that way. Whatever she was planning on, it looks like something’s happened all right.”
    With a lazy physical grace, he got up from the couch. “Well, John, here’s where we call the troopers, I guess. Looks like this is way out of my range. Traffic cop on weekends, checking up that the church door’s locked, helping Old Bill Dairey home when he’s been hitting the wine bottle—that’s about it so far as my authority goes. I kind of hate to do it. I mean, if there’s any chance still that it’s not really serious. But… Okay, John? Okay by you if I call Captain Green?”
    “Sure. What else can we do?”
    “There isn’t nothing you haven’t told us? If there is, now’s the time, now before we let it rip.”
    John looked back at him, wondering: Is this perhaps my mortal enemy?
    “What could I know that I haven’t told you?” he asked.
    “Okay, John. Okay.”
    Smiling almost affectionately, Steve put his hand on John’s shoulder and with the other reached out for the phone.
    “When Captain Green shows, we’ll go up to your place and have a look-see. Better yet. I’ll have ’em meet us there. That may hold the old biddies from going to town for a while.”
    His eyes were still on John’s.
    “And don’t you worry now, John, boy. We’ll find her. We’re all of us friends of Linda’s, aren’t we? We’re all of us just crazy about her. This is pretty near as tough for us as it is for you.”

10
    GORDON