The Night Crew

'And got nothing,' A

'But he'll come.'

They went on for a few more minutes. Wyatt pressing, A

A

A

Wyatt was sceptical, but finally agreed: 'If that's the only way we can do it. Damn it, though. What're you go

A

'Oh.' Wyatt nodded. Behind him, Creek rolled his eyes.

When Wyatt had gone to call the task force leader, A

Glass shook her head: 'Nothing. He had his driver's license suspended for three speeding tickets in three months. That's it.'

'Yeah, I knew it,' A

'He's not out of it,' Creek insisted.

'Creek.'

'Let's see what Jake gets,' Creek said.

They talked for a few more minutes, then Wyatt returned: 'It's all set, but Pam has gotta get to your place without being noticed.'

'I'll drive her,' A

'All right. Coughlin will be there at nine.' He looked at Glass. 'You be careful.'

Glass kissed Creek good-bye, and she and A

So what if the guy came for her, and they took him down, and she wasn't even there to see it? A

'I'd hate to deal with this guy one on one,' Glass was saying. 'Most guys, you can manipulate. But you get a guy like this. have you ever gotten tangled up with a guy who's nuts?'

'No.' They got in the elevator and pushed a button.

'When I was on the street, we got a call about a guy in a halfway house: he'd done some time on some sex offenses, mostly exhibitionism, most of it aimed at little girls,' Glass said. 'Anyway, he was drunk, out on the street, flashing everybody who came by. When we got there, we couldn't find him. He'd walked off. He wasn't supposed to be dangerous or anything, so me and my partner split up, trying to find him. I walked down to this ice cream shop and stopped to ask some people at a bus stop, and he came out of the shop behind me and saw the uniform and freaked out and came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me and picked me up off the ground and started squeezing.'

'Jeez.'

'Yeah. He was huge. Strong. I felt like an egg, I felt like he could crush me. I couldn't move my arms, I just kept trying to talk to him, but he was nuts: he had a mind like a little mean kid having a temper tantrum. I couldn't get him to put me down, and the more I struggled, the tighter he squeezed until I couldn't breathe.'

'How'd you get loose?'

'My partner came along, called for backup and started whacking the guy with his baton. But the guy kept turning in circles and squeezing me, and then the backup arrived and the three guys got us all down on the ground and pried his arms off. I was black and blue. my ribs looked like the American flag, where his arms were. Great big stripes.'

The elevator door opened and A

'What makes me mad is that some wimpy little jerk who never lifts anything heavier than a fork can whack me around because he'd got fifty pounds on me and he's twice as strong, and he's not even trying. It's all hormones.'

'Yeah, but. that's why God made us smarter,' A

'That's true,' Glass conceded.

Glass lay in the back seat of A

'What?' he asked.

A

'Anything at all on Clark?'

'Mmm,' Harper said. He quickly finished the cereal and carried the bowl to the sink. 'Just a little thing.'

'He won't find out.'

'No, no. I've got a friend in a law firm there, they've got a researcher on staff. She walked over and talked around the music department. She said she was checking on a mortgage history.'

'So what'd she find?' A

'There's a rumor of a sexual harassment complaint made by a graduate studenta woman graduate studentin a composition seminar. Apparently nothing was ever filed, no legal action, but there was. something.'

'Just a rumor,' A

'No. There was something,' Harper said. 'We can't really find out what, unless we ask more directly. And he'd most likely hear about it.'

A

Glass glanced at Harper, then said, 'A

'I remember China Lake. But Clark didn't do it.'

'One of his students has a recital tonight; he'll be there. Eight o'clock at Schoenberg Hall,' Harper said.

'Yeah?' A

'We could pick him up after the recital,' Harper said, his voice casual. 'Find out what he does with his evenings.'

'And we'd have time to stop by Kinko's first, and talk to Catwell again,' A

'We could do that,' Harper said.

Coughlin would pick Glass up at the regular night-crew starting time, ten o'clock. If they left any earlier, they thought the stalker would miss them.

Glass said, 'When we go out tonight, if we don't find anybody tailing us, we'll probably cruise just long enough to seem legitimate, then come back here, like I was picking up something. Then go back out again. Give him another chance to pick us up. If we still don't get anything, we'll be back around midnight.'

'So you're go

'I gotta get some sleep,' Glass said. She yawned: 'Watching Creek is tiring.'

'Keep the doors locked,' Harper said. 'The guy's been here at least twice.'

A

'I don't have much faith in this Catwell thing,' Harper said over the seat.

'We just have to keep talking,' A

Bob Catwell was not at Kinko's.

An unconsciously beautiful young blonde woman told them that Catwell had rented a room in some frat house up on the hill. Down in the basement, you have to walk around the side on this gravel tracklike thing, and you see this door. Like, his room used to be the coal bin or something.'

She drew a sketch on a piece of copy paper, and A

'Do you think she knows how beautiful she is?' Harper asked on the way to the car.

'Somewhere down in her brain she knows that she gets special treatment,' A