Atmosphere Read Free Page A

enforcement. On the contrary, they had painstakingly tried to avert his enthusiasm for becoming an officer, constantly pestering him about all the money doctors and lawyers made, reassuring him that he'd quit his job as soon he saw his first dead body.
    That was nearly thirty years ago, and he'd seen many bodies since then, murdered ones, raped ones, kidnapped ones. Terrible encounters that tormented him with nightmares, migraines, an ulcer. But not once had he wanted to leave the force. It all seemed worth it when an opportunity arose to shut a piece of filth away, expunge all the crimes that he or she might have committed had they continued roaming the streets. It was almost like playing God: he could intervene, he could make a difference and put an end to one bad person's string of crimes. And as far as retiring, well, every time thoughts of packing it in toyed with his mind, he would suffer sick visions of Jaimie in the grasp of some scum-of-the-earth, and he'd find the will to continue. "Takes a crazy man, huh Captain?"
    With this, Rodriguez asked the inevitable. "Speaking of crazy men, what the hell're you doing out here? What happened?"
    Frank rubbed his tired eyes with a thumb and forefinger. "It all happened so quickly." He went on to explain how he had worked late on the Lindsay case, parked the car, heard the scream. The cabby, flailing wildly—it seemed he was good at this—was now telling his version to an officer who took notes on a small scratch pad.
    "Must be something in the air," Hector said, watching the ambulance pull away from the scene.
    "That time of year, Hect. Weather gets cooler, people get depressed and toss themselves in front of moving vehicles."
    Hector pointed up 4th street. "You said you were standing on the corner when you heard the scream and came running?"  
    "Yes, I...wait..." Frank stepped away towards the curb. "There's something else..."
    Hector followed.
    "Come, look." Frank crouched down next to the curb. The rain had stopped altogether, and although the sun had not yet broken over the East River, it started to grow lighter out and he was able to see the blood more clearly than before: dried now, thin stains streaking along the crevice joining the curb and the street.
    "This is what originally caught my attention. Don't ask me what made me look down, I just did. I stepped in it as I got out of my car tonight." Frank stood back up, stretched out his right leg and displayed his shoe to Hector. There were crustlets of dried blood edging the sole. "Look, see?"
    Hector peered down, his interest obviously piqued. "You sure that didn't come from the naked boy?"
    Frank shrugged his shoulders. "Could've. But not while I was trying to help him."
    "So you heard the scream then stepped in the blood?"
    "No, the other way around."
    "So he'd been injured before the cab hit him."
    "Yes, I'd say so. Assuming all this blood came from him. When I got to him, his genitals were badly mutilated. My guess is that that injury occurred before he fled into the street."
    "Probably much before," Hector said. "It'd take time for the rain to carry the blood around the corner."
    "That means the kid was tortured by someone."
    "Looks that way. Unless it was self-inflicted, and I doubt that very much."
    Frank locked gazes with Hector. "He must have been fleeing someone when he darted into the street."
    Hector nodded. "Can you remember anything else?"
    Frank closed his eyes, rubbed his chin, digging through the cloud of fatigue shrouding his memories. "Well, after I stepped in the blood," he said, pacing along the curb, pointing, "I followed it to the corner." Both he and Hector trailed the veiny smears, which ran a few yards down Mason, then up the curb and across the sidewalk into a thin alley. The two men peered wide-eyed into the dark of the alley like two young boys trying to drum up the nerve to descend into a darkened cellar.
    "Hector...he came from here, the naked boy. I'm almost positive of it."
    "You