The Face

storm’s voice was barely audible, less like the drumming of rain than like the whispery wings of some hovering flock.
        “So,” Hazard eventually said, “even with Reynerd dead, maybe Chan the Man had better be looking over his shoulder. The professor-or whatever he might be in real life-is still out there somewhere.”
        “Who’s working Mina Reynerd’s murder?” Ethan wondered. “Anyone I know?”
        “Sam Kesselman.”
        Sam had been a detective with Robbery/Homicide when Ethan still carried a badge.
        “What’s he make of the screenplay?”
        Hazard shrugged. “He hasn’t heard about it yet. They probably won’t drop a Xerox on him till tomorrow.”
        “He’s a good man. He’ll be all over it.”
        “Maybe not fast enough for you,” Hazard predicted.
        At the front of the church, teased by a draft, votive-candle flames squirmed in ruby glasses. Chameleons of light and shadow wriggled across a sanctuary wall.
        “What’re you going to do?” Hazard asked.
        [244] “Reynerd’s shooting will be in the morning newspaper. They’re sure to mention his mother’s murder. That’ll give me an excuse to go to Kesselman, fill him in on those packages Reynerd has been sending to Manheim. He’ll have read the partial screenplay-”
        “About which you don’t know jack,” Hazard reminded him.
        “-and he’ll realize there’s an ongoing threat to Manheim until the professor is identified. That’ll accelerate the investigation, and I might even get police protection for my boss in the meantime.”
        “In a perfect world,” Hazard said sourly.
        “Sometimes the system works.”
        “Only when you don’t expect it to.”
        “Yeah. But I don’t have the resources to investigate Reynerd’s friends and associates fast enough to matter, and I don’t have the authority to dig through his personal records and effects. I’ve got to rely on the system whether I want to or not.”
        “What about our lunch today?” Hazard asked.
        “It never happened.”
        “Someone might’ve seen us. And there’s a credit-card trail.”
        “Okay, we had lunch. But I never mentioned Reynerd to you.”
        “Who’s going to believe that?”
        Ethan couldn’t think of anyone sufficiently gullible.
        “You and I have lunch,” Hazard said, “I cook up a reason to visit Reynerd the same day, and it just so happens he gets killed while I’m there. Then it just so happens the shooter’s getaway car belongs to Dunny Whistler, your old buddy.”
        “My head hurts,” Ethan said.
        “And I haven’t even kicked it yet. Man, they’ll expect us to know what’s going on here, and when we claim we don’t-”
        “Which we don’t.”
        “-they’re going to be sure we’re lying. I was them, I’d think we were lying.”
        “Me too,” Ethan admitted.
        [245] “So they’ll dream up a screwy scenario that sorta-kinda explains things, and we’ll wind up accused of offing Reynerd’s mother, wasting Reynerd, pinning it on Hector X, then popping him, too. Before it’s over, the bastard D.A. will be trying to pin us for the disappearance of the dinosaurs.”
        The church didn’t seem like a sanctuary anymore. Ethan wished he were in another bar, where he might have a chance of finding solace, but not a bar that Dunny, dead or alive, would be likely to visit.
        “I can’t go to Kesselman,” he decided.
        Hazard would never sigh with relief and concede the intensity of his concern. A mirror held under his nostrils might have revealed a sudden bloom of condensation, but otherwise his relaxation of tension was marked by only a slight settling of his mountainous shoulders.
        Ethan said, “I’m going to have to take extra measures to protect Manheim, and just hope Kesselman finds Mina’s killer quickly.”
        “If the preliminary OIS opinion doesn’t move me off the Reynerd case,” Hazard said, “I’ll turn this city inside out to find Dunny Whistler. I’ve got to believe he’s the key to all this.”
        “I think Dunny will find me first.”
        “What do you mean?”
        “I don’t know.” Ethan hesitated, sighed. “Dunny was there.”
        Hazard frowned. “There where?”
        “At the hotel bar. I only noticed him when he left. I went after him, lost him in the crowd outside.”
        “What was he doing there?”
        “Drinking. Maybe watching