Chase: Roman

she asked.
        ‘Us.’
        ‘Why should it change us?’ she asked, and she seemed genuinely perplexed by the statement.
        ‘But now you know what I am, what I've done, my part in the killing of those women.’
        ‘That wasn't you,’ she said.
        ‘I shot like the rest.’
        ‘Listen to me,’ she said, and she spoke more earnestly, more firmly than he had ever heard her, the softness of her voice like a tiny but forcefully driven hammer, rapping out words so there would be no mistake about them. ‘When you were over there in Vietnam, there were two Benjamin Chases. There was the Ben who took his orders seriously and carried them out because he had been raised to believe that every authority was right and that disobedience was some indication of spinelessness or subversiveness, the Ben who was further affected by fear that reinforced this respect for authority because the fear told him he would die on his own. Then there was the other Ben, the one who knew right and wrong, good and evil, instinctively, beyond the interference that his society had built into his moral judgments. That's the Ben I know, the second one. He has spent well over a year trying to destroy the remnants of the other Ben, the one who obeyed this Zacharia, and he's gone through hell to cleanse himself. The first Ben is dead. The war killed him, one of the few good kills that damn stupid war has made. And now there is no reason on earth why the second Ben, my Ben, should be ashamed of himself or want to be punished. And there's even less of a reason why I should hold anything that the dead Ben did against my own Ben.’ She paused and blushed, evidently surprised at her own verbosity, and looked at her round knees. ‘That's simplified, but it's me. Can you understand what I'm saying?’
        ‘Yes,’ he said. He took her in his arms and kissed her then, for he could not see anything else to do.
        When his hands slipped down over her breasts and began to massage her full hips, he realized abruptly that he was only leading them toward another point of frustration. He pulled back, and directing the conversation to Judge again, said, ‘Have you thought of anything I might have overlooked, even the smallest lead?’
        ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I recognized him from your description, but I don't know his name or anything else about him.’ She took a swallow of her drink and suddenly put it down. ‘Did you ask Louise Allenby if anyone had been bothering her and the dead boy - maybe weeks and weeks prior to the murder? If Judge really followed them around doing his “research,” they might have noticed him or had a run-in with him.’
        Chase said, ‘I'd suspect they never even noticed him. Besides, the police would probably have thought to ask.’
        ‘They don't know nearly as much as you do, nothing at all about this “research” angle.’
        ‘True enough,’ he said. ‘I'll give her a call. If she's home, we can go right out there.’
        She was home, and she was pleased to hear from him. At ten o'clock Chase and Glenda left the apartment and went down to the Mustang.
        The night was quiet and far less muggy than the day had been. Chase was conscious, in the pools of darkness, of all the places where a man with a gun might hide.
        He had argued that there was no need for her to accompany him, that it was folly for the two of them to walk out the front of the building together, but he could not make her see it his way. She had said, ‘If we're too frightened to go outside, Judge has already won, in a way, hasn't he?’ Chase had tried to explain what a.32-calibre bullet would do to her if placed properly, but she had countered with the observation that he had made earlier - Judge was a poor shot.
        When he stepped off the kerb with her to walk her to the door, she said, ‘No need to play the courtly gentleman. I hate men opening doors for me as if I'm an invalid.’
        ‘What if the gentleman enjoys being courtly?’ he asked.
        Then he can take me somewhere that I have to wear a long ball gown, where I need help.’
        He let go of her arm. ‘Very well, Miss Liberation. But can we get inside, out of sight?’
        ‘You think he may be watching from a nearby roof? He'd have to have an awfully good eye to shoot in this darkness.’
        ‘Just the same,’ he said, turning away from her and going to the driver's door, which he opened a split