Free Hard Rain by Peter Abrahams Page B

awaited the coming of a new and steely Emily Post.
    Alice went out the door, into an elevator, out into a lobby. Photographers clicked cameras in her face. Microphones were stuck in front of her mouth. Then Edmund was beside her, his hand around her waist. He flashed his white smile, proud as a papa whose kid had won the race.
    â€œShit,” said Dahlin.
    â€œFuck,” said Keith.
    They were watching a twenty-five-inch Mitsubishi video monitor. Dahlin jabbed at the remote-controlled pause button. A woman’s face froze on the screen. She was middle-aged, but obviously possessed the kind of bones and money that would keep her beautiful for another ten or twenty years. That was no comfort to the two men confronting her image.
    Keith rose and walked across the room. He stared abstractedly at a framed blowup on the wall: a grainy photograph shot from overhead. It showed a bald man with a big strawberry mark on his forehead. He appeared to be urinating against a hedge. Keith turned to Dahlin, sitting behind his desk.
    â€œDon’t blame me,” he said.
    â€œWho mentioned blame?” replied Dahlin.
    â€œI wouldn’t blame you.”
    â€œIf I mentioned blame?”
    â€œI wouldn’t. Maybe you think I put him up to it.”
    â€œThat’s too strong.”
    â€œBut I encouraged him.”
    â€œThat’s about right.”
    â€œHe would have gone ahead anyway.”
    â€œProbably.”
    Their heads turned toward the screen.
    â€œShit,” said Dahlin.
    â€œFuck,” said Keith.
    â€œHe doesn’t have to worry about crap like this.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œHim.” Dahlin pointed his chin at the urinating man on the wall.
    â€œHell no. That’s what makes America great.”
    â€œThat’s a good one,” Dahlin said. But he didn’t laugh.
    â€œWhat are we going to do?” Keith asked.
    â€œHow about nothing?”
    Keith took off his horn-rimmed glasses and polished them on a monogrammed handkerchief. “Nothing?” he said.
    Dahlin frowned. “You missed a smudge.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œThe right lens.”
    â€œThis one?”
    â€œThe other one.”
    â€œThat’s my left.”
    â€œIt’s my right.”
    Keith nodded. He polished both lenses. “I’m not sure it can be nothing,” he said.
    â€œFrom where you sit.”
    â€œThat’s part of it.”
    â€œThen,” said Dahlin, “it’ll have to be something.”
    Keith gazed out the window. In the distance flowed the river, dark gray under a light gray sky. Beyond it rose the city with its monuments to this and that. “Maybe I should handle it myself,” he said.
    â€œYou? What kind of talk is that? How can it be you? He knows you. She knows you. Why do I have to do all the thinking myself?”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œObjectivity,” Dahlin said, “appearance of. Commandment one.” He opened his desk drawer, took out a pipe and reamed it violently. “We’ll just have to treat this like a normal …” He searched for a word. After a while, he gave up.
    They looked at the woman, quivering very slightly in the freeze-frame. It was a close-up—none of the fluttering equipment showed. Dahlin lit his pipe. Time passed. Smoke rode convection currents through the air. The phone on Dahlin’s desk buzzed. He didn’t pick it up. The river flowed. On the far side, little figures chased an invisible football across a football field. They darted around, lay down in piles, jumped up, darted around.
    â€œI’ve had a thought,” Dahlin said at last.
    â€œShoot.”
    â€œHow about Zyz?”
    â€œZyz?”
    â€œWhy not? At least it would get him out of the office.”
    â€œSurely that’s not our first—”
    Dahlin interrupted: “And what possible harm could he do?”
    â€œHe’s not exactly toothless.”
    â€œMaybe not. But what harm