The Vision Read Free Page B

had happened before.
    “You know why I sold you my half of the furniture business?” Oberlander asked Henderson.
    “You sold out because you didn’t have any vision,” Henderson said smugly.
    “Vision, smision. I sold out because I knew a superstitious fool like you would run it into the ground sooner or later.”
    “The store’s more profitable now than ever before,” Henderson said.
    “Luck! Blind luck!”
    Fortunately, before the first punch could be thrown, Harley Barnes came to the front door of the house and shouted, “It’s all right. Come on.”
    “Now we’ll see who’s the fool,” Henderson said. “They must have caught him.” He ran across the sidewalk and the slippery wet lawn with that unexpected grace peculiar to certain very fat men.
    Oberlander scurried after him, an angry mouse snapping at the heels of a behemoth.
    Suppressing a laugh, Goldman followed.
    * * *
    Alan Tanner sat behind the steering wheel in order to be in the front seat with his sister. When he saw Harley Barnes at the door of the house, he said, “Did they get the killer, Mary?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. Her voice was hollow; she sounded drained.
    “Wouldn’t there have been a shot?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “There would have been
some
commotion.”
    “I guess so.”
    From the rear seat Max said urgently, “Mary, is it safe for Goldman?”
    She sighed and shook her head and pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “I really can’t say. I’ve lost the thread. I don’t see anything else.”
    Max rolled down his window. The damp air carried his voice well. “Hey, Goldman!”
    The officer was halfway across the lawn. He stopped and looked back.
    “Maybe you’d better stay here,” Max said.
    “Harley wants me,” Goldman said.
    “Remember what my wife told you.”
    “It’s all right,” Goldman said. “Nothing’s going to happen. They caught him.”
    “Are you sure of that?” Max asked.
    But Goldman had already turned and was headed for the house again.
    Alan said, “Mary?”
    “Hmmmm?”
    “Are you feeling well?”
    “Well enough.”
    “You don’t sound good.”
    “Just tired.”
    “He presses you much too hard,” Alan told her solicitously. He didn’t even glance back at Max. He spoke as if he and his sister were alone in the car. “He doesn’t realize how fragile you are.”
    “I’m okay,” she said.
    Alan wouldn’t quit. “He doesn’t know how to prompt you, how to help you refine the visions. He doesn’t have any finesse. He always presses too hard.”
    You creepy little bastard, Max thought, staring hard at his brother-in-law.
    For Mary’s sake, he said nothing. She was easily upset when the two men in her life argued. She preferred to pretend that they were charmed by each other. And while she never entirely took Alan’s side, she always blamed Max when the argument became particularly bitter.
    To get his mind off Alan, he studied the house. A shaft of light thrust through the open door, silhouetted some of the dense lumps of shrubbery. “Maybe we should lock the car doors,” he said.
    Mary turned sideways in her seat and stared at him. “Lock the doors?”
    “For protection.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “For protection from what?” Alan asked.
    “The cops are all up at the house, and none of us has a weapon.”
    “You think we’ll need one?”
    “It’s a possibility.”
    “Are
you
getting psychic now?” Alan asked.
    Max forced himself to smile. “Nothing psychic about it, I’m afraid. Just good sense.” He locked his and Mary’s doors, and when he saw that Alan wouldn’t cooperate, he latched both doors on the driver’s side.
    “Feel safe now?” Alan asked.
    Max watched the house.
    * * *
    Barnes, Henderson, and Oberlander crowded into the laundry room to examine the smears of blood that the killer had left behind.
    Miss Harrington squeezed in beside the chief, determined not to miss any of the excitement. She appeared to be delighted to have been