Esther’s apartment was just ahead. He had called her after Heider’s call to tell her that they were coming over. He had not spoken to her in two weeks and she sounded like a puppy, overjoyed to hear from him, anxious to know why he had not called. When he told her that he was bringing the district attorney with him, she had become frightened, but he had soothed her by promising to visit her that evening.

“We’re here,” Shindler said, edging the car into the curb.

“Did you bring the flashlight?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah. Here,” Gary said, handing it to Toller. “Don’t be so nervous, will ya? It’s startin’ to get to me.”

“I ain’t nervous. I just wanted to make sure we had everything.”

“Well, I had it.”

Eddie zipped up his jacket and turned his collar up to obscure his face. There weren’t supposed to be any security guards in the place, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

Gary had parked in the rear of the Cameron Street Medical Building. Eddie looked at his watch for the third time in the last two minutes and licked his lips nervously. It was three in the morning and there was no moon. They had cruised the street for a few nights running to check the area for police patrols. The Medical Building was located in a quiet residential area and there was no one about at this hour of the morning.

Gary slipped on his gloves and grabbed the pillow cases they had brought along for the drugs. The rear parking lot was deserted and the car was parked next to the rear door. The back of the building was dark, but Eddie had misgivings, because the pharmacy, which fronted the street, was lit. He had remarked on this to Gary, but Barrick had explained that the room where the drugs were kept was in the rear of the pharmacy and was difficult to see from the street.

Gary took the duplicate keys from his pocket and tested one in the rear door. The door opened easily and Gary smiled as he preceded Eddie into the dark interior of the empty building.

“This is gonna be cake, Eddie,” he whispered.

Eddie looked around cautiously. It was bad luck to talk about how easy a job was going to be. Something about this one had made him nervous from the start.

The corridor ended and Gary turned to the right. Eddie could see the street through the glass front door. Gary made a small jog to the left and stopped in front of a heavy, solid wooden door. While Gary tried the keys in the lock, Eddie flashed his light nervously up and down the corridor. He heard Gary curse and he turned to see what was the matter.

“The goddamn key don’t fit.”

“What?”

“It don’t work.”

“Let me try.” He handed Gary the flashlight and tried both keys in the lock. Neither worked.

“What is this?” Eddie asked, a tinge of panic in his voice.

“I don’t know. It was supposed to open the door to the pharmacy.”

“What do you mean, supposed to? Didn’t you try it out?”

“Jesus, Eddie, someone mightta seen me.”

“Oh, shit. You mean you…Why did you think it would open the goddamn door?”

“I heard Laura say once that this one opened the street door and this one opened all the offices.”

“Oh, no. She probably meant her offices, you dumb…”

Gary held up his hand for silence.

“Don’t get excited, Eddie. This ain’t no big thing. I got this place all cased. I know where they keep a pry bar. It’ll just mean some extra work, is all. Just wait here.”

Eddie started to say something, but Gary was gone, down the hall and up a flight of stairs by the sound of the echoes. Eddie knew he should get out now. The vibes were bad. He thought he heard a noise in the darkness and turned out the flashlight and tried to squeeze into a corner near the door.

“Turn on the goddamn flash, Eddie, it’s me,” Gary whispered. He had returned with his arms loaded with tools. He dumped them in front of the door and selected a pry bar. Eddie sat on the floor with his back to the wall and told himself “I told you so” over and over while Gary worked on the door. There was grunting and puffing for a few minutes, then Gary signaled him and the door swung open. Gary crouched down and Eddie followed him in.

He straightened up for a second, then realized the reason for Gary’s crouch. The inside of the pharmacy was as bright as day and the front of the pharmacy was all glass. If they straightened up, anyone outside could see them easily.

Gary moved behind some couches to a door in the side of a small room. The lower half of the room was opaque, but the top half was glass. The walls of the room were lined with shelves stocked with drugs. There was a refrigerator in the back.

“Let’s start movin’,” Gary said as he straightened up and began shoving drugs into one of the pillow cases.

“Wait a minute,” Eddie said. “What is this stuff? This stuff ain’t worth anything.”

“Sure it is,” Gary said, moving to the next shelf.

While Gary rummaged through the shelves, Eddie picked up a few boxes and bottles and looked at them. They were pain killers, tranquilizers, cough syrups. No narcotics.

“This guy is gonna pay you for this shit?” Eddie asked unbelievingly.

“Yeah. Sure. Look, Eddie, stop talkin’ and get movin’.”

“Jesus, Gary. This is worthless.”

Gary threw down the pillow case he was holding in a rage.

“Shut up, shut up,” he yelled. “You done nothin’ but complain since we left tonight. I asked you along because of all that talk in the joint on how you are this big-time burglar. You ain’t shit, Eddie. Now get these fuckin’ pillow cases full or…”

Gary froze and his eyes bugged out. Eddie whirled around and heard Gary make for the rear door. He headed after him. There were two cops staring at them through the front window.

Eddie could only think of the car. He dashed around a corner and realized that he had lost Gary. Well, fuck him. He wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for that dumb…

He skidded to a halt at a dead end. Damn. He couldn’t remember where the back corridor was. He raced around another corner and spotted the rear door. He could hear footsteps behind him. The cops were in the building. He dashed for the door and there was a policeman suddenly framed in it, gun pointed at him in a classic pistol range pose. The footsteps behind were gaining. “Freeze, you fucker,” the policeman said through the glass. Eddie sank to the floor and clasped his hands behind his head.

Norman Walters watched his office door remove Shindler from view and wished that the man could be made to vanish that easily.

“Hold my calls,” he said into his intercom. He felt very old and very tired. He wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep for a long time, but he knew that, instead, he would have to call on emotional reserves, which had grown smaller and smaller since his son’s death and go home to tell Carla.

Carla. To tell her. He felt drained by the thought of it. In the six months following Richie’s death he had watched her grow old. The spark that seemed to keep her eternally youthful had been extinguished by Shindler’s visit. She had recovered, of course. Time heals, etc. But never fully recovered. She was quieter now. More tired.

He had changed too. A lot of the self-confidence had gone out of his grip. The things he used to care about so much, his law practice, his cars, his golf game, didn’t interest him as much. There was a dimension missing from both their lives.

Still, they had coped and the intervening years had helped to dull the memory of the healthy, loving boy who had been his son. Until now. Until Shindler had made him feel the pain again, just as strongly as he had felt it that first time. And soon-when he could muster the courage-he would have to go home and make Carla feel that same pain.

Detective Avritt slammed the car door on the driver’s side and Shindler glanced over at the marked patrol car that had followed them from the courthouse. Heider had called him as soon as the Grand Jury had returned the indictments and he had rushed to the courthouse to get a judge to sign the warrants. On the way he had remembered the shame and frustration he had felt when he was relieved of the case. No one in the department knew about his weekly visits to Dr. Hollander. His investigation had been carried out on his own time. When he had the evidence he needed, he had taken it to the captain. He still savored the apology the captain had made when he returned the case to him.