“Was she alone?”
Frank’s head moved jerkily up and down. “She’d come to Dugan’s to pick up her brother, the lush. But he wouldn’t leave. He told her to go home alone. On the street I saw her walking toward that little car she drives. The little gray job with the wire wheels. It was parked on the other side of Vernon, halfway down the block. All the other spaces were taken up by trucks. So she hadda do some walking to get to the car. That gave me plenty of time to follow her. I was shivering real good then, nice and cold. She looked so slim and trim and neat, so clean and shining, like something you see in a dream. That’s it. In a dream. And I’d been there before. The same moon. The same street. Everything the same except for one thing. Her name. It wasn’t Loretta.”
It seemed to Kerrigan that the walls were liquid, forming waves that rolled slowly toward him. He begged himself to get up from the chair and run out of the room. But he couldn’t budge. He heard himself saying, “All right, you saw her walking to the car. Then what?”
“Nothing,” Frank said. “She drove away in the car.”
“You’ve pulled this stunt before? You’ve followed women down the street?”
Frank didn’t answer.
“Tell me,” Kerrigan said. He was up from the chair, moving toward the bed. He grabbed Frank’s shoulders. “You’re gonna tell me.”
“Tell you what?” Frank uttered a soundless laugh. “Something you know already?”
He dropped his hands to his knees. He backed away from Frank, his eyes riveted to his brother’s face. And yet his inner vision didn’t show a face at all. It showed a dark alley, with the moonlight coming down and spraying brightly on dried bloodstains.