MILLER, IN THE MIDDLE of a Monday, looked far less jaunty than he'd sounded on the phone the day before.
“Don't even ask,” he said as I sat across from him.
But I'd had a good morning. “I wouldn't believe what's been going on inside IPD, right?”
“Damn right you wouldn't.”
I laughed for a moment, but he seemed to think I was about as amusing as an ayatollah.
I said, “You got to think about the good things in life, Jer. You got to remember there can't be flowers without rain.”
“What's the deal here? You going to order, or what?”
We ordered.
But I persisted. “Cheer up,” I said. “I've got a favor to ask, just like the old days.”
He narrowed his eyes and tried to see inside my brain. That was like the old days too. It constituted an advance of mood.
“It's a license plate number. I want to know the name and address of the owner.”
“Oh yeah? What's that about?”
“It's a hot lead to finding the Scum Front.”
“Oh,” he said.
I wrote the number on a napkin.
“Yeah, all right. If I get a chance,” he said. He put the napkin in his pocket.
I said, “One day you're practically humping the phone with jokes and the next day I can't hardly get no civil word outta ya. Is something up? Janie come home early? Did the fair Wendy tell you about her other boyfriend, or her girlfriend?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.”
“Well, what is it like?”
He stirred the sugar bowl. “I went into work today.”
“That'll do it every time.”
“See, the politicians are fuckin'-A bitched off because we haven't caught the Scummies yet. We were all pulling together there for a while, but now guys that patched up arguments are back fighting for territory. The whole thing's shit.”
“So what is happening with the Scum Front?”
He looked at me. “Happening? Nothing's happening, that's what's happening.”
“So there wasn't a bomb?”
“They called one in. Merchants Bank Building. Did I tell you?”
“Yeah. But you said when your guys went to collect it no one was home.”
“Right.”
“So there really wasn't one?” I asked. “It's not that they found it but decided to say they hadn't? To cut off the publicity?”
“That was considered a few weeks ago,” he said.
“Was it?”
“Nobody wanted to take the responsibility, in case it made the Scummies angry and pushed them into blowing someplace up.”
“I can see that,” I said.
“But the same nobodies are happy to put thumbscrews on everybody else. And when pressure is applied to people who are already busting their guts to catch the bad guys, all that happens is they begin to think about protecting their butts.”
That too I could see.
“So by screaming blue murder the politicians make it less likely they're going to get what they want.”
Our food came.
Miller and I have had more entertaining conversations. I might have done his mood some good by changing the subject to childhood or Vice President jokes. But I had my own problems. I asked him whether IPD had any serious leads on the Scum Front.
“Leads?” He laughed, but it wasn't for fun. “They got nothing and they spend all day looking at it. They go through every place they know the Scummies have been and pick up every scrap of paper and piece of fingerprint and bit of dust and they fill the labs with it. They got a whole computer full of information. But they got no knowledge whatsoever.”
“You sound like a fortune cookie.”
“Yeah,” he said. A little smile. “You know what I think?” he said. “You want to know what I think?”
“What do you think?”
“I think we're not going to catch them till they do goddamned blow something up. That's what I think.”
“Oh.”
“I just hope it's themselves. Or the goddamned people protecting them.”
“Protecting them?”
“Come on, Al! Somebody knows who they are. Got to. But in the last four weeks we haven't had a tenth the phone calls we had at the beginning. That's because the bombs don't go off. The public likes them now. It's crazy, because they're fucking dangerous. But people aren't worried the way they used to be. And if they don't make a mistake, it's going to take somebody getting killed.”
I nodded with sympathy.
“Meanwhile the Department goes from bad to worse. Used to be merely the troops not getting support from the top. Now the whole thing's coming to pieces.”
I waited for him; he had more to say.
“Hey, you know what the psycho guys say?”
“What psycho guys? I thought all you guys were psycho.”
“The Criminal Psychological Profile Consultants, Albert. You don't think in a major investigation we're not going to take advantage of the brainy gentlemen who think they can close their eyes and mental up a picture of our perpetrators. Just pass them a sketch pad and a set of fucking crayons.”
“What do they say?”
“You'll like this,” he said.
“Promise?”
“They say the Scum Front is made up of people who aren't normal.”
I laughed for him.
“Not normal. Good stuff, huh? See, they don't fit the `typical terrorist profile.’ ”
“Oh.”
“Most terrorists set off bombs, see. These don't.”
“Got it.”
“They think we're dealing with `disaffected middle-class sociopaths.' Maybe guys who lost their jobs at one of the big companies, and maybe went nuts being at home with their wives.”
“Oh.”
“Ever since we got this high-powered analysis there have been guys doing nothing but working through lists of people that lost their jobs in this city the last couple of years. Think about the phone calls: `Hello. You lose your job last year? Still out of work? Too bad. You haven't been leaving bombs around by any chance?’ ”
I smiled.
“You want to know how much the psycho-ologists charge to come up with crap like that?”
“Yeah. What?”
“I wish I knew. I'd go to fuckin' night school. I really would.”