Man on a leash - By Charles Williams Page 0,2

the toilet kit.

He put on slacks and sport shirt. It was only a short walk to the center of town; there was no need to take the car. He went up the sidewalk under the increasing weight of the sun, accustomed to it and scarcely noticing it but aware at the same time of the unfamiliar dryness of the air and the faint odors of dust and sage. Not many of the places of business were open yet, and the pace was unhurried along the street.

Just ahead was a coffee shop with a couple of newspaper vending racks in front. One of them held the San Francisco Chronicle. He fished in his pocket and was about to drop in the coins when he saw it was yesterday’s; it was too early yet for today’s. Something half forgotten nudged the edges of his mind as he went inside and ordered coffee. What was it? And where? Then he remembered, and grinned, but with a faint tightness in his throat.

It was in New York. He’d got permission from the military academy he attended in Pennsylvania to come down to meet his father for a day while his ship was in port. They’d had lunch somewhere, and afterward out on the sidewalk his father had flagged a taxi to take them to the ball game at Yankee Stadium. As it was pulling to the curb, he dropped a coin in a vending machine for a newspaper. There was no sign on it warning that it was out of order, but it refused to open, and punching the coin return was of no avail. It didn’t work either. Passersby turned to gawk at this familiar scene of man’s being bilked by another complacent, nickel-grabbing machine, and while somebody else might have given it a shake and retreated muttering, his father stepped back, calmly shoved a size-12 English brogue through the glass front, lifted out his paper, folded it under his arm, and strolled over to the cab while he, Eric, watched aghast in his cadet’s uniform. By the time he’d got into the cab and they pulled away his father was already immersed in the financial section, and when he ventured some doubt about the legality of this direct action, the old man had looked up, puzzled.

“What? Oh— Son, never expect anything free in this world; you pay for everything you get. But at the same time make sure they give you every goddamned thing you pay for.”

The sheriff’s office was on the ground floor at the rear of the new courthouse and city hall, a long room with a wide double doorway. A blond girl came out carrying a sheaf of papers and nodded as he went in. There was a railing just inside, and beyond it five or six desks and banks of filing cabinets. At the back of the room were two barred windows and a door that presumably led to the alley and the parking area for official cars. From an open doorway into another room at the left there issued the sound of static and the short, staccato bursts of police-band voices. There was a corridor at the right end of the room, and next to it a bulletin board, a case containing shotguns and rifles, and a small table holding a percolator and some coffee cups. A dark-haired man of about thirty was typing at one of the desks near the railing. He got up and came over.

“Good morning. Can I help you?”

“I’d like to speak to the sheriff,” Romstead replied. “Is he in yet?”

“No. He’s got to go to court today; he may not be in at all. But if it’s a complaint, I can take it. My name’s Orde.”

“No complaint,” Romstead said. “It’s about Captain Romstead.”

“And you are?”

“Eric Romstead. He was my father.”

There was no reaction this time unless it was the total lack of any expression at all, which was probably professional. Romstead went on, “There was a wire from your office. I called last night from San Francisco and talked to a man named Crowder.”

“Yeah. Well, Crowder doesn’t come on till four, but the man you want to see is Brubaker, chief deputy. He’s in charge of the case. Just a minute.”

He went back to his desk and spoke into the phone. He replaced the instrument and nodded. “Just have a seat there. He’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.”

There was a bench along the wall beside the doors. Romstead sat down.