Suspension Read Online Free PDF Page B

it,” Tom said slowly, knowing it as if he’d seen it done. Sam just nodded.
    â€œSays something about the kind of man we’re looking for, don’t it?” Tom grunted. Whoever had done it was not going to like it when he caught up with him. It was both decision and promise.
    C aptain Sangree lowered his field glasses and, with the corner of his shirt, rubbed the dust from the lenses. It wasn’t dust that clouded his vision, though there was a bit of it, catching the light like smudgy stars. It was remembrance. Watching the sergeant and what appeared to be a detective examine the body
of Terrence Bucklin put him in mind of another body nearly twenty years before. Unlike Mr. Bucklin, there was no mystery about that death.
    He stood a few feet back from his office window, nestled in shadow. The body was inconveniently close, with a clear sight line from his third story window to the alley where Bucklin lay. It was nearly impossible not to watch. Considering the man had been killed on his orders, it seemed wise to observe what he could. He was going to have to have a serious talk with his man about his sense of timing and locale. The man was an expert, and as calculating and cold-blooded a hunter as he’d ever seen. He was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, with all due deference to his skill, but killing Bucklin almost on his doorstep was something else, and he had better have a damn good reason for it. The captain raised his glasses again. At this distance he almost didn’t need them. Bucklin’s sprawled body was barely a block away. There wasn’t much to see, just the cops standing above the body, mouths moving occasionally in mute conversation. He made careful note of the two, their demeanor and appearance, the way they acted and related to each other. The big one was the man to watch, he could see that immediately. The breadth of shoulder and trimness of waist gave him an air of physical power. He looked like a boxer. The smaller of the two was unremarkable. They appeared to know each other and seemed on friendly terms. There was no stiffness between them like he had seen in the young cop who got there first. They had worked together before, a factor to be taken into account. It wouldn’t do to underestimate them, he decided.
    Bucklin had been an unexpected threat to his plans. He had, by chance, come to stand in the way of Sangree’s mission. His life was forfeit—a casualty of war, one in a long line, counting no more than any other. True, it was a shame, as all casualties are, but it was necessary nonetheless. The field glasses saw the body once again. It looked no different from countless bodies that populated his dreams. The well-worn pair of brass field glasses caught a glint of the sun as they were lowered. Tom and Sam might have seen it if they had been looking that way. A scarred hand lowered the shade and snapped the binoculars closed.

Chapter Two
    Take in the import of the quiet here—
The after-quiet—the calm full fraught;
Thou too wilt silent stand—
Silent as I, and lonesome as the land.
    â€”HERMAN MELVILLE
    B raddock and Halpern sat at the bar in Paddy’s drinking cold beer. They had sent Jaffey off to the coroner to get a wagon down there to haul the body away. It seemed like a good plan to wait just where they were till the wagon arrived. They counted on it taking some time. They were both quiet, lost in their own thoughts, while Bob the crippled veteran sang snippets of “Lorena” and some other songs that had been popular during the war. It always gave Tom strange, mixed feelings to hear those songs. They conjured memories, some warm, some cold and brittle, as if some part of him might break if he held onto them too long. That kind could leave him feeling empty for hours, his head aching where a bullet had creased his skull in ’63. Tom slowly sipped his beer, remembering his years with the Twentieth New