Dead Watch

lifelessly at the ceiling.
    Goodman was breathing hard, stunned, astonished, looked at George, gasped, “We gotta get the fuck outa here,” and he led the way out, said, “Put away the fuckin’ gun, we gotta get out,” and panic clutched at him and he shook it off, and they were out, the door locking behind them . . .

    Jake lost some time with The Goshawk Squadron ; glanced at his watch and was shocked to see that it was after one o’clock. He got up, put the novel in his case, and headed back to the PollCats office.
    Up State, down Johnson, watching the ass on a tall slender blonde, and when she turned, thought, my God, you’ve been watching the ass of a child. She stopped at a curb to cross the street, caught his eye and smiled a bit; not a child’s smile.
    In the old brick building, the smell of rug and flaking paint, up the stairs, to the PollCats door. It was locked. He rattled the handle, then knocked. No answer. And he thought, Ah, man .
    They’d run on him, and he hadn’t seen it coming. He rattled the door again, exhaled in exasperation. The critical thing was, time, and Green must know that. All he had to do was stay out of sight for a while. . . .
    He was turning away from the door when he noticed the shoe. The shoe was in the open doorway of Green’s private office. He couldn’t see all of it, just a heel and part of the instep. It was a woman’s shoe, upside down, the short stacked-heel in the air, and there, in the corner, an oval, that might be a toe in a nylon stocking.
    Jake backed away from the door. Wondered what he’d touched. Thought, Maybe it’s not what it looks like. Thought, What if somebody’s not dead, what if I can save a life by calling the cops? Thought, The big GMC with the blacked-out windows.
    Thought, That’s ridiculous, there’s gotta be a thousand of those trucks in Madison . . .
    But he knew what was in the office. Felt it like an ice cube in his heart.
    He walked to the end of the hall, searching the corners of the ceilings, listening for voices. Heard nothing; but did see a woman in one of the offices, hunched over a stack of paper, working with a pencil. No cameras. But: he’d not tried to hide his approach. He’d used his cane, carried his case, hadn’t worn a hat. If anybody had seen him, they’d remember. And he’d for sure wrapped his fingers around the arm of a chair in Green’s office.
    “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” He walked back to the PollCats office, knocked once, then again, rattled the door. Nothing. The shoe sat there. “Goddamnit.”
    He used the steel grip on the cane to punch a hole in the glass panel. He punched out enough that he could get a hand through, didn’t try to hide the noise; but then, there really wasn’t much noise.
    He stepped inside the door, crossed to Green’s office.
    The blond secretary lay on her back, a palm-sized spot of blood under her head. Green was also on his back, a stain on the rug beneath his head. There was a spatter of blood on the glass of the pictures on the wall.
    Jake looked for a moment, then took out his cell phone and dialed. Novatny came up: “Yes?”
    “Chuck, this is Jake Winter. We’ve got a hell of a problem, man.” He looked at the blank dead face of the young secretary. “Jesus, Chuck, we’ve got, ah . . .”
    “Jake, Jake . . . ?”

    Novatny told him to walk out of the office and wait in the hallway, not to let anyone in the office. “I’ll have somebody there in five minutes. I don’t know who yet.”
    Jake hung up, took a step toward the door. Hesitated. Stepped back to Green. Reached beneath him, toward his heart. Felt the cell phone. Slipped his hand inside, took the phone, put it in the phone pocket of his briefcase. Looked at the office phone for a second, then took a tissue out of a box of Kleenex on Green’s desk, picked up the desk phone and pushed the redial button. The phone redialed and a man answered on the first ring, “Domino’s.” Nothing there—not unless Domino’s Pizza was delivering the package.
    He hung up, stepped toward the door, caught the glaze on the secretary’s dead, half-open eyes. The rage surged: the same rage that he’d felt in Afghanistan when he’d encountered dismembered civilians, killed by dissidents to make some obscure point. The secretary had been a kid. Probably waiting to get married; probably looking forward to her life. All done now. All over.
    His hands were shaking as he turned away and stepped past her,