“My name’s Chatham. I’m staying at the motel, and I happened to be in the office here when the creep called this time. I listened to him—“

“Why?”

That might not be the stupidest question it would be possible for a police officer to ask, I thought, but it was close. I choked down a sarcastic reply. “Just to see if I could get a lead on where he was calling from—”

“And he told you? That was nice of him.”

I sighed. “No. I’m trying to tell you. I think I lucked into something that could help you—”

“Yeah. Yeah. Sure. You got his prints over the phone.”

“Then you’re not interested?”

“Listen, friend,” he said coldly, “you think we got nothing to do but pussyfoot around looking for a drunk on a telephone jag? Tell Mrs. Langston if she don’t want to listen to this goof all she’s got to do is hang up.”

“She can’t take much more of it,” I said.

“She don’t have to answer, does she?”

“A business phone?” I asked coldly.

“I can’t help what kind of phone she got. But nobody’s ever been hurt over one of ‘em, believe me.”

“I never thought of that,” I said. “I’ll tell her, and everything will be all right.” I hung up, burning.

2

I turned back to her. Josie had returned to work. She pushed a hand up through the dark hair with that weary gesture she had, and she was still too pale. One of these days she was going to come apart like a dropped plate.

“They ever do anything about it at all?” I asked.

“The first time or two. They sent a deputy out to talk to me. But I’m not sure they even believe me.”

That’s about it, I thought; it was a pretty even bet.

“He bother any other women, do you know?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” Then the horror came back into her eyes for a moment, and she cried, “Why does he do it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Why do they jump out of the shrubbery in a park without their clothes on? But they’re nearly always harmless.”

It occurred to me I was almost as silly as that clown Magruder. Harmless? Well, in any physical sense they were.

She glanced up at me. “Why did you ask me to answer him?”

I shrugged. “Force of habit. I used to be a cop.”

“Oh,” she said. “You wanted to keep him talking, is that it?”

“Sure. That’s your only connection with him, and once he hangs up he might as well be in another universe. The longer he spews, the more chance there is he’ll say something that’ll give you a lead. Or that you’ll hear something else in the background.”

She looked at me with quickened interest “And did you hear something?”

That’s right. He was calling from a box.