Chase: Roman

asked Chase if he was giving a party. Chase said that he was.
        Then, anxious for the barren confines of his little attic room, he walked two blocks toward home before he remembered that he now had a car. He walked back to it, embarrassed that someone might have seen his confusion, and when he settled in behind the wheel he felt too tightly wound to risk driving. He sat there for fifteen minutes, looking through the service manual, the ownership papers and the temporary owner's card, then started the engine and drove home.
        He did not go to the park to watch the girls on their lunch hour, because he feared recognition. If one of them should come over to him and try to strike up a conversation, he would not know what to do.
        In his room, he poured a glass of whiskey over two ice cubes and stirred it with his finger.
        He turned on the television and found an old movie starring Wallace Beery and Marie Dressier. He had seen it at least half a dozen times, but he kept it on just the same. The repetition, the stability of the sequential scenes - through thousands of showings in movies theatres and on television - soothed his nerves. He watched Wallace Beery make a clumsy romantic pass at Marie Dressier, and the familiarity of that awkwardness, seen so often before and in that same exact detail, was like a balm on his mind.
        At 11:05 the telephone rang.
        He finally answered it, denied permission for an interview and hung up.
        At 11:26 it rang again.
        This time it was the insurance agent with whom the Merchants’ Association had taken out a year's policy on the Mustang, in Chase's name. He wanted to know if the coverage was adequate or whether Chase would like to increase it for a nominal sum. He was upset when Chase said it was adequate.
        At 11:50 the phone rang a third time. When Chase picked it up, the killer said, ‘Hello, how has your morning been?’
        Chase said, ‘What do you want?’
        ‘Did you see the papers?’ His voice was hoarse, a loud whisper.
        ‘One of them.’
        ‘Lovely coverage of your heroism, a great deal of purple prose, don't you think?’
        ‘I don't like publicity,’ Chase said, hoping to put himself in the man's good graces, even while he understood their roles should be reversed.
        ‘You have a knack for getting it, all the same.’
        ‘What do you want?’ Chase repeated.
        ‘To tell you to be by your phone at six this evening. I have spent the morning researching your biography, and I have similar plans for the afternoon. At six I'll tell you what I've found.’
        Chase said, ‘What's the purpose in that?’
        ‘I can't very well pass judgment on you until I know what sort of transgressions you're guilty of, can I?’ Under the pervading wheeze of protesting vocal cords lay a trace of that amusement Chase had previously noticed. The man said, ‘You see, I didn't randomly select which fornicators I would punish up on Kanackaway.’
        ‘You didn't?’
        ‘No, I researched the situation.’ The man chuckled, an indulgence that strained his damaged throat and made him cough like a heavy smoker. When he had control of his voice again, he said, ‘I went up there every night for two weeks and copied licence-plate numbers. Then I matched them up until I found the one most often repeated.’
        Chase said, ‘Why?’
        ‘To discover the most deserving sinners,’ the stranger said. ‘In this state, for two dollars, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles will trace a licence number for you. I had that done and learned the identity of the boy who owned the car. From there, it was a simple matter to investigate his background and to learn the name of his partner in these activities. She was the third girl that he had gone with, steadily, and she was not the only one he entertained on Kanackaway even when she thought he saw her and no one else. She had her own promiscuous affairs, too. I followed her, twice, when other boys picked her up, and one of those times she gave herself to her date.’
        ‘How do you know all this?’ Chase asked.
        ‘Listen to me,’ the stranger said. ‘Never mind my methods.’ His anger sent him into another coughing fit. When he was recovered, he said, ‘They were both sluts, the boy as well as the girl. They deserved exactly what they were to have gotten - except that you saved her.’
        Chase waited.
        The man