Strange Sisters (18 page)

"Look, Sergeant. You've been in this game long enough to know better than to bleed for something that can't be helped. You'd better forget it."

"Sure. You're right, of course."

Tromp stood up. He felt that Ridley was holding back, and it made him sore. Ridley knew what it was all about, no question of that. That hair stuff. Why all this had happened. He'd known from the first, right from the moment he'd sniffed the scent over the telephone, but he wasn't putting out. That was pretty apparent by now. All right, Goddamn him. Let the smart bastard stay buttoned up. To hell with all of it.

"I think I'll get along home," he said.

"Sure. See you tomorrow."

Tromp left, and Ridley began to think that maybe it would have been better, on the whole, if he'd married and established a home himself. It might be pretty nice, having a wife. Maybe a kid or two. Of course he was comfortable enough in his room. He had all the books there that he'd read and liked well enough to keep, and he had a lot more that he wanted to read and had never got around to. There were so many things a man never got around to.

How did it start? How did it grow? How did a pretty girl a man could have loved come in such a twisted way to such a bad end?

He wasn't thinking about murder. Murder was incidental.

He told himself that he'd better quit thinking about it at all. He'd better follow his advice to Tromp and forget it. He'd better get out of here and go to his room and read a book. Maybe he'd read Ecclesiastes. He didn't read the Bible much any more, and he hadn't read Ecclesiastes for a long time. Pretty soon he'd go get a drink and go to his room and read it again:
The words of the Preacher, the son of David...

In the meantime, he watched the sparrows.

THE END