Free Deadline by John Dunning

was taking so long. He had given the pictures to an old friend named Virgil Craig, who had been with the Bureau even longer than Donovan. Craig was sixty-four, three years older than Donovan, and would be retired next year. Donovan and Craig shared a camaraderie with other Special Agents of their age and longevity. Once a month he tried to make it over to Manhattan for lunch with Virgil Craig and a few of the old heads, some of whom had been out of the Bureau for years. They knew they could count on each other for honest opinion and for material favors, done quickly and without a lot of noise. They were the Manhattan Boys, all serving time in the New York field office at one time or another. New York was the pits to young men making their names in the Bureau. But to the old hands, it was home.
    When a working week had passed and Craig still hadn’t called him back, Donovan decided to press. But gently.
    He called the New York office.
    “Virg, Al Donovan here.”
    “Oh…yes.”
    Donovan caught it at once, a funny edge to Craig’s voice. “You okay, Virg?”
    “Sure I am.”
    “Can you talk?”
    “Sure. I just feel bad, that’s all. Haven’t got anything for you yet on those pictures.”
    “Running into trouble with them?”
    Craig paused, then said, “I’m not sure what it is.”
    “Maybe I ought to get across the river for lunch. We could talk face to face.”
    “No need for that. We’ve been busy as hell this week. You know how some weeks are.”
    “Tell me about it. Look, Virg, I’m not pushing you.”
    “I know that. It’s just…”
    Donovan waited, but Craig let the sentence drop there.
    “I think I’d better come to town,” Donovan said. “It’s been too long since we had lunch anyway.”
    “If you want to,” Craig said. “But not today.”
    “You call it.”
    “How’s Monday?”
    “Monday’s fine. Same time and place.”
    “Good. Maybe by then I’ll have something for you. And I’ll see if I can get a few of the Boys together.”
    “Let’s leave the Boys out of this one. Just you and me this time, okay, Virg?”
    “Sure, Al, fine, if that’s how you want it. I’ll see you then.”
    Still they didn’t hang up. Each seemed to be waiting for the other to finish something, something Donovan felt had never quite begun. He said, “Everything all right at home?”
    “Wife’s a bit under the weather,” Craig said.
    “Nothing serious?”
    “When you get our age you worry, whether it’s serious or not.”
    “Not me, old man,” Donovan said. “I never worry about things I can’t help.”
    “Maybe because your wife’s thirty years younger than mine,” Craig said, faking sarcasm. “If I had a young wife like that, maybe I wouldn’t worry either.”
    “You’d find something to worry about. That’s how you are. You’d probably spend all your time worrying about who she’s sacking out with while you’re slaving away at the office.”
    “I didn’t say a thing, Al.”
    “On the record, then, for all those things left unsaid. On the record, I don’t worry about that either.” Donovan let an awkward moment pass. “Listen, Virg, about those pictures. If this is something you’d rather not do…”
    “Now you are making me feel like hell. I’ll see you Monday. And I’ll try my damnedest to have something for you by then.”
    “Good enough,” he said, but Craig had already hung up.
    Strange, Donovan thought. Damned queer.
    He wondered if he should call Walker and try to dig out more facts. He knew that would be a waste of time. Walker had told him what he had told him, and that was all he would get. The Baker woman was the mother of the little girl who had died in the circus fire. The Gunthers were her friends. They were selling their homes. It wasn’t exactly a federal case.
    He decided to call it a day.
    Donovan’s home was near Great Neck, about a forty-minute train ride from the Prospect Park center of Brooklyn where he worked with another Special Agent, a