At the end of the block, Grip leaned against an elm tree, smoking a cigarette and waiting for someone to come out of the town house Westermann had entered earlier. Something about shadowing his boss made Grip feel sordid. But Ed Wayne had planted suspicion in Grip’s mind and he needed to see this through, if only to prove Westermann’s guiltlessness to himself. Grip found his flask and considered a nip before deciding that he didn’t feel like whiskey on top of the heat and his fatigue.
A hell of a lot of pedestrians were out at this time of the evening. They’d probably been waiting for the temperature to drop only to be rewarded with this stifling night in which to walk their dogs, venture to the grocer’s, or whatever it was they were doing. Grip drew a few glances from people not used to a tough-looking stranger loitering on this block. Grip smiled absently, keeping his attention on the town house.
A month ago, he would have considered letting Morphy in on this. But Grip was increasingly reluctant to confide in Morphy. It wasn’t necessarily that Grip distrusted him, more that he was growing to increasingly believe that he didn’t understand his partner. It was possible, he thought, that Morphy was genuinely unfathomable, that he didn’t have a stable enough personality to get a fix on. Whom could Grip trust? He would have said the lieut, but here he was staking the man out. Shit.
He was dismayed to find that he was down to three cigarettes. He lit one, figuring he’d deal with getting more when the time came. Hopefully the night would pick up and he wouldn’t be smoking out of boredom. He wondered who was inside with Westermann; classy neighborhood like this, near the Tech. Maybe he had a girl here, Grip thought. The lieut must have a girl—or girls—somewhere. With his looks …
The door to the town house opened and two men and a woman emerged. They paused briefly on the sidewalk, exchanging a few words. The lieut was there, of course, and two others who looked familiar. Westermann left the other two, walking away from Grip. The other two headed toward him. He pushed away from the tree and strode for the corner, realizing now who the two were: Frank Frings and Carla Bierhoff. Not only was Bierhoff a known communist, but just a couple of nights before he’d seen those two exact people at Floyd Christian’s place, where he felt sure he’d just missed Mel Washington. Now they were meeting with the lieut.
Washington.
Frings.
Red Carla.
The lieut.
Grip cursed Ed Wayne.
He hurried down a parallel block and took a right, moving quickly so that he could get within sighting distance of Westermann. Sweat flowed down his face with the effort. Halfway down the second block he saw Westermann step out from the corner in front of him. Grip slowed down abruptly and moved to the side, getting closer to the row of houses. Westermann didn’t seem to glance in his direction, instead crossing the road and continuing down the block to Grip’s left. Grip stopped for a second, giving his heart a chance to recover and Westermann time to put some distance between them.
Grip followed Westermann for close to a half hour through exhausted neighborhoods. Westermann’s size made him an ideal tail, easily followed from a block behind. Keeping up was still a bitch, though, because Westermann’s stride was so much longer than Grip’s. He had to work hard to keep up the pace. The effort and the temperature wore him down.
Five blocks from Morphy’s row house, Grip sussed out Westermann’s destination. He felt strange, as if he were being left out of something. Why would the lieut be visiting Morphy at home? He’d never visited Grip at home. Was this a frequent occurrence, and if so, why didn’t either of them ever mention it to Grip—especially Morphy?
Grip continued to tail Westermann for another block, preoccupied with these thoughts, until he remembered that Morphy wasn’t home, which meant that he had followed Westermann all this way for essentially nothing—other than the disquieting knowledge that Westermann and Morphy were meeting behind his back.
They arrived at Morphy’s block and Westermann paused on the sidewalk, smoothing his hair with both hands. Grip stood in the shadow of a stoop and watched Westermann knock on Morphy’s door. They both waited. The door opened, and from that distance, Grip caught a glimpse of Mrs. Morphy. He waited for her to tell the lieut that Morphy wasn’t home, but the body language didn’t jibe with that particular conversation. Westermann stepped in, and Grip was fairly sure that he saw the lieut touch Morphy’s wife’s hip with his open hand before the door closed. He was watching this over a distance, but he felt sure that was what he had seen.
He sat down on the steps, his mind racing. Only one thing could really be happening in that house. It seemed in some ways a betrayal, and in other ways it just seemed crazy. It was one thing to sleep with another man’s wife—immoral, courting trouble. But Morphy’s wife? It was like Russian roulette—the best possible luck got you nothing; anything less got you killed. And why would Westermann, who Grip assumed would have no trouble pulling birds, take this kind of risk? Morphy’s wife was paralyzingly sexual—at least to Grip—but still …
Grip sat on the steps for a half hour, until there was no possibility that he had misread the situation. Satisfied that he understood, Grip walked to a nearby liquor store, picking up a bottle and a pack of cigarettes for the walk home.