Strange Highways

persistent to be ignored, and he answered it. "Hello?"
     "Chase?"
     "Yes."
     "Do you know me?"
     "No," he said, unable to place the voice. The man sounded tired - but aside from that one clue, he might have been anywhere between twenty and sixty years old, fat or thin, tall or short.
     "How's your leg, Chase?" His voice contained a hint of humor, though the reason for it escaped Chase.
     "Good enough," Chase said. "Fine."
     "You're very good with your hands."
     Chase said nothing, could not bring himself to speak, for now he understood what the call was about.
     "Very good with your hands," the bird-dogger repeated. "I guess you learned that in the army."
     "Yes," Chase said.
     "I guess you learned a lot of things in the army, and I guess you think you can take care of yourself pretty well."
     Chase said, "Is this you?"
     The man laughed, momentarily shaking off his dispirited tone. "Yes, it's me. I am me. Exactly right. I've got a badly bruised throat, Chase, and I know my voice will be just awful by morning. Otherwise, I got away about as lightly as you did."
     With a clarity reserved for moments of danger, Chase recalled the struggle with the killer on the grass by the Chevrolet. He tried to get a clear picture of the man's face but could do no better for his own sake than he had for the police. "How did you know I was the one who stopped you?"
     "I saw your picture in the paper. You're a war hero. Your picture was everywhere. When you were lying on your back, beside the knife, I recognized you and got out of there fast."
     "Who are you?"
     "Do you really expect me to say?"
     Chase had forgotten his drink altogether. The alarms, the goddamn alarms in his head, were ringing at peak volume. "What do you want?"
     The stranger was silent for so long that Chase almost asked the question again. Suddenly, the amusement gone from his voice, the killer said, "You messed in where you had no right messing. You don't know the trouble I went to, picking the proper targets out of all those young fornicators, the ones who most deserved to die. I planned it for weeks, Chase, and I had given that young sinner his just punishment. The slut was left, and you saved her before I could perform my duty, saved a whore like that who had no right to be spared. This is not a good thing."
     "You're not well." Chase realized the absurd inadequacy of that statement, but the killer - like all else in the modern world - had reduced him to clichés.
     The killer either did not hear or pretended not to hear what Chase had said. "I just wanted to tell you, Mr. Chase, that it doesn't end here. You are not a facilitator of justice."
     "What do you mean?"
     "I'll deal with you, Chase, once I've researched your background and have weighed a proper judgment on you. Then, when you've been made to pay, I'll deal with the whore, that girl."
     "Deal with?" Chase asked.
     The euphemism reminded him of the similar evasions of vocabulary to which he had grown accustomed in Nam. He felt much older than he was, more tired than he had been a moment earlier.
     "I'm going to kill you, Chase. I'm going to punish you for whatever sins are on your record, because you've interfered with the intended pattern. You are not a facilitator of justice." He was silent. Then: "Do you understand?"
     "As much as I understand anything."
     "That's all you have to say?"
     "What more?" Chase wondered.
     "I'll be talking to you again."
     "What's the point of this?"
     "Facilitation," the killer said - and disconnected.
     Chase hung up and leaned back against the headboard of the bed. He felt something cold in his hand, looked down, and was surprised to see the glass of whiskey. He raised it to his lips and took a taste. It was slightly bitter.
     He closed his eyes.
     So easy not to care.
     Or maybe not so easy. If it had been as easy as he wanted it to be, he could have put the whiskey aside and gone to sleep. Or, instead of waiting for the bird-dogger to come after him, he could have blown out his own brains.
     Too easy to care. He opened his eyes.
     He had to decide what to do about the call.
     The police would be interested, of course, because it was a solid lead to the man