Free Vermilion by Nathan Aldyne

called. He wasn’t there. I left a message.”
    â€œYou’re making excuses, Val, you—”
    The telephone rang.
    â€œMust be your father,” said Clarisse, “ I ’m already here.”
    â€œI gave my number to the cop to call back.” Valentine picked up the receiver.
    It was Searcy. “I got your message just this minute, I—”
    Valentine heard two telephones ring on Searcy’s end.
    â€œJust a minute,” said Searcy. The line went blank.
    Valentine sighed and leaned against the cold glass of the bay window. “I love it. First man I’ve given my number to in two years, and he puts me on hold.”
    Clarisse leaned forward over the coffee table. She had taken a small plastic contact-lens holder and a bottle of wetting solution from her leather envelope, and was snapping the lenses into her eyes. The left one went in immediately, but the second popped off her finger into the high pile of the carpet.
    â€œHang up, hang up!” she shrieked.
    â€œWhat the hell’s going on?” Searcy demanded. Valentine had not heard the line reconnect.
    â€œThat was Clarisse,” said Valentine.
    She had dropped to her hands and knees on the carpet.
    â€œWho?” said Searcy.
    â€œThe woman in Bonaparte’s.”
    There was a pause. “In the checkroom…?”
    â€œThat’s Irene. Clarisse, the one with the big—”
    One cheek against the carpet, Clarisse glared at Valentine.
    â€œâ€”big fur coat,” said Valentine.
    â€œI remember,” said Searcy.
    Valentine gave Searcy a circumstantial account of meeting Golacinsky on the Block.
    â€œWell,” said Searcy, “I’m glad you decided to come clean—”
    â€œWhat!”
    â€œYou’re sure you didn’t take Golacinsky back to your place for a quickie? You could have afforded what a kid like that was charging. He wasn’t—”
    â€œLieutenant, I told you what happened.” Valentine gripped the receiver hard. “There was nothing else.”
    â€œWell,” said Searcy then, “it won’t do me much good. I was hoping that you had called about something important. I’ve talked to a number of people already who saw him after you ran into him on the Block. What you’ve given me isn’t much help.”
    â€œYou told me to call if I had any information.”
    Searcy, ignoring the apparent anger in Valentine’s voice, said, “Did you show that picture around?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnything?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNobody recognized the photograph?”
    â€œOf course not. I told you, we don’t let that kind of cheap hustler in.”
    â€œYou found him quick enough on the Block,” said Searcy coldly, “but the next—”
    Valentine didn’t hear the request. He had dropped the receiver softly in its cradle.

Chapter Seven

    I T WAS THE LAST quarter hour of a beautiful cold dusk when Searcy pulled up in front of Professor Lawrence’s house. He hurried up the sidewalk and stood on the front porch; a frigid wind swept out of the luminous blue sky and froze all five fingers as he pushed the doorbell.
    He looked through the leaded-glass panels beside the wide oaken door, and saw that the rooms in the rear of the house were softly and warmly lighted. Waiting, he pulled his collar high up on his neck, and turned toward the Scarpetti house, large and iridescently white beneath black trees. The snow in the yard was dirty and trampled, and the dead lawn had been whipped up into frozen waves of mud near the sidewalk.
    A coupe of locks were slid back. Searcy turned to the door as it was pulled open.
    Professor Lawrence was evidently not pleased to receive a caller. Though his eyes were politely blank, his mouth was set in an irritated crease. He wore a carefully ironed green flannel shirt, carefully pressed brown trousers, and shiny brown leather slippers. Over this was a