Chase: Roman

one.
        Another lie.
        The smart thing to do, the civilized thing to do, was to turn around right now, cross the darkened dining room as quietly as possible, cross the kitchen and leave by the back door and call the police.
        He stepped into the living room.
        A man sat in a large white recliner chair close to the television set, a newspaper on his lap. He wore tortoise-shell reading glasses pushed far down on his thin, straight nose, and he was humming a sprightly tune which Chase could not identify. He was reading the comics.
        For a moment Chase was certain that he had made a dangerous mistake, for he had never anticipated this: a psychotic killer engaged in a pastime so mundane, engrossed in the latest exploits of Snoopy and Charlie Brown, B.C. and Broom Hilda. Then the man looked up, taking on the cliché pose of total surprise: eyes wide, mouth slightly open, face gone hard and white. And Chase saw that the man fit Judge's description to a detail. Tall. Blond. Harsh about the face, with thin lips and a long, straight nose.
        ‘Richard Linski?’ Chase asked.
        The man in the chair seemed frozen into place, perhaps a mannequin propped there to distract Chase while the real Judge, the real Richard Linski, crept up on him from behind. The illusion was so complete that for a few seconds Chase almost turned around to see if the dining room was empty behind him or if his fears were correct.
        The man in the chair was gripping the pages of the newspaper so hard they might have been made of steel.
        ‘Judge?’ Chase asked.
        ‘You,’ the man whispered.
        He wadded the steel pages in his hands and came out of the easy chair as if he had sat upon a tack.
        ‘Yes,’ Chase said, suddenly calmed, ‘it's me.’
        

    Fifteen
        
        Although Chase had learned the value of concentrating exclusively on the mission at hand during his tour in Vietnam, he had never been one for psyching himself before an operation. Too often the unit never encountered the Cong they had been told were out there, and the mission ended without a shot fired. The men who had worked themselves up, put themselves on edge, on the theory they would perform better under pressure, were left frustrated and had no acceptable outlets for their nervous energy. These were the ones, most often, who worked off their tension on innocent civilians, hyped into a plastic paranoia, into a period of schizophrenia where the sound of gunfire and the odour of burning buildings was like a soporific to lead them back down the scale of frenzy to a point where they could regain control of themselves. Chase had let himself get carried away like that only one time, and the operation had been a disaster that haunted him ever afterward.
        Now, as he faced Judge at last, his ability to control himself and to keep calm proved to be valuable. The confrontation did not immediately progress to violence, as he had envisioned it might.
        ‘What are you doing here?’ Judge asked.
        He had backed away from the white chair, toward the television set. His hands were out at his sides, the fingers working as if he were searching for something to use as a bludgeon.
        ‘What do you think?’ Chase asked. He started slowly toward Linski, gauging the man's retreat.
        ‘You don't belong here.’
        Chase said nothing.
        ‘This is my home,’ Judge said.
        When Judge came up against the television set, Chase stopped ten feet away from him, sizing him up, waiting for the proper moment. He wished it had not come to this, that he could have gotten a good look at Judge without being seen himself.
        Still lying.
        ‘Nobody else belongs here,’ Judge said. This is my home, and I want you out of it.’ He sounded properly irate, except for a quaver in his voice.
        ‘No,’ Chase said.
        ‘Get out!’
        ‘No.’
        ‘Goddamn you!’ Judge said.
        He was standing with his hands out to his sides like wings, and he was beginning to weep. The tears slipped out of the corners of his eyes and hung on his cheeks from wet threads.
        Chase said, ‘I want you to walk slowly toward the telephone on that stand, and I want you to call the police.’ But even as he said it, he knew that was not going to be possible.
        ‘I won't do it,’ Judge said.
        ‘I think you will.’
        ‘You can't make me do it,’