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sincere sense of guilt about what he had done, then the guilt subsequently
could be relieved through classic therapy. A cure might then be possible.
Chase returned the material to the plain brown envelope. He tucked the
envelope under the passenger seat.
He was shaken by the realization that he had spent so much time in the care
of a physician who neither understood him nor possessed the capacity to
understand. For too long, Chase had trusted in others to save him, but the
only salvation was to be found in God and in himself. And after his
experiences in Southeast Asia, he still was not entirely sure of God.
* * *
In the Metropolitan Bureau of Vital Statistics, in the basement of the
courthouse, three women hammered away at typewriters with a rhythmic swiftness
that seemed to have been arranged and conducted with all the care of a
symphony-orchestra performance.
Chase stood at the reception counter, waiting for service.
The stoutest and oldest of the three women - her desk plate read NANCY
ONUFER, Manager - typed to the end of a page, pulled the page from her
typewriter, and placed it in a clear-plastic tray full of similar forms. "May
I help you?"
He had already figured what tact Judge must have used when asking to search
the files here, and he said, "I'm doing a family history, and I was wondering
if I could be permitted to look up a few things in the city records."
"Certainly," said Nancy Onufer. She popped up from her chair, came to the
gate at the end of the service counter, and opened it for him.
The other two women continued to type with machine-gun rapidity. There was
a high degree of efficiency in the Bureau of Statistics that was unusual for
any government office, no doubt because Nancy Onufer would accept no less. Her
brisk but not unfriendly manner reminded Chase of the better drill sergeants
whom he had known in the service.
He followed her through the office area behind the counter, past desks and
worktables, and through a fire door into a large concrete-walled chamber lined
with metal filing cabinets. More cabinets stood in rows down the center of the
room, and to one side was a scarred worktable with three hard chairs.
"The cabinets are all labeled," Nancy Onufer said crisply. "The section to
the right contains birth certificates, death certificates there, then
health-department records over there, bar and restaurant licenses in that
corner. Against the far wall we keep carbons of the draft-board records, then
the minutes and budgets of the city council going back thirty years. You get
the idea. Depending on the contents, each drawer is primarily organized either
alphabetically or by date. Whatever you remove from the files must be left on
this table. Do not attempt to replace the material yourself. That's my job,
and I do it far more accurately than you would. No offense."
"None taken."
"You may not remove anything from this room. For a nominal fee, one of my
assistants will provide photocopies of documents that interest you. If
anything should be removed from this room, you will be subjected to a
five-thousand-dollar fine and two years in prison."
"Ouch."
"We enforce it too."
 "I've no doubt. Thanks for your help."
"And no smoking," she added.
"I don't."
"Good."
She left the room, closing the door behind her.
It had been this easy for Judge too. Chase had hoped that the city would
require a sign-in procedure by which those who wanted to use the files were
identified. Considering Nancy Onufer's efficiency and the law against removing
documents, Chase was surprised that she didn't keep a meticulous log of
visitors.
He looked up his own birth certificate and also found the minutes of the
city-council meeting during which a vote had been taken to hold an awards
dinner in his honor. In the carbons of the selective-service records, he
located the pertinent facts regarding his past eligibility for the draft and
the document calling him for service in the United States Army.
Easy. Too easy.
When he left the storage vault, Nancy Onufer said, "Find what you were
looking for?"
"Yes, thank you."
"No trouble, Mr. Chase," she said, immediately turning back to her work.
Her reply stopped him. "You know me?"
She glanced up and flashed a smile. "Who doesn't?"
He crossed the open office area to her desk. "If you hadn't known who I
was, would you have asked for a name and ID before I went into the file room?"
"Certainly. No one's ever taken any records in the twelve years I've been
here, but I still keep a log of visitors." She tapped a notebook on the edge
of her desk. "I just put your name down."
"This may sound like an odd request, but could you tell me who was here
this past Tuesday?" When Mrs. Onufer hesitated, he said, "I'm being bothered a
lot by reporters, and I don't care for all the publicity. They've said
everything about me there is to be said, after all. It's getting to be
overkill. I've heard there's a local man working on a series for a national
magazine, against my wishes, and I was wondering if he'd been here Tuesday."
He thought that the lie was transparent, but she trusted him. He was a war
hero, after all. "It must be a pain in the butt. But journalists - they can
never leave anyone alone. Anyway, I don't see the harm in telling you who was
here. There's nothing confidential about the visitors' log." She consulted the
notebook. "Only nine people came around all Tuesday. These two are from an
architectural firm, checking some power-and-water easements on properties
they're developing. I know them. These four were women, and you're looking for
a man, so we can rule them out. That leaves three - here, here, and here."
As she showed him the names, Chase tried to commit them to memory. "No ...
I guess ... none of them is him."
"Anything else?"
"Do you ordinarily just take names - or ask for ID?"
"Always ID, unless I know the person."
"Well, thanks for your help."
Acutely conscious of all the work on her desk, Nancy Onufer shut the
notebook, dismissed Chase with a quick smile, and returned to her typing.
When he left the courthouse, it was a quarter till noon, and he was
starving. He went to a drive-in restaurant - Diamond Dell - that had been a
favorite hangout when he'd been in high school.
He was surprised by his appetite. Sitting in the car, he ate two
cheeseburgers, a large order of fries, and cole slaw, washing it all down with
a Pepsi. That was more than he had eaten in any three meals during the past
year.
After lunch, at a nearby service station, he used the phone-booth directory
to find numbers for the men who were possibles in Nancy Onufer's log. When he
called the first, he got the guy's wife; she gave him a work number for her
husband. Chase dialed it and spoke to the suspect - who sounded nothing
whatsoever like Judge. The second man was at home, and he sounded even less
like Judge than the first.
The directory had no number for the third man - Howard Devore which might
only mean that his telephone was unlisted. Or it might mean that the name was
phony. Of course, Mrs. Onufer always asked for ID, so if Judge was using a
phony name, he also must have access to a source of false identification.
Because he didn't trust himself to remember every clue and to notice links
between them, Chase went to a drugstore and purchased a small ringbound
notebook and a Bic pen. Inspired by Mrs. Onufer's efficiency, he made a neat
list:
Alias - Judge
Alias - Howard Devote (possible)
Aryan Alliance
No criminal record (prints not on file)
Can pick locks (Fauvel's office)
May own a red Volkswagen
Owns a pistol with sound suppressor
Sitting in his car in the drugstore parking lot, he studied the list for a
while, then added another item:
Unemployed or on vacation
He could think of no other way to explain how Judge could call him at any [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]