The Birthday Present

4:45 p.m.

It was a quarter to five by the time that Scarlett and Spann returned to Headquarters. The place was alive with activity as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police prepared for next day's roundup. There were computer printouts everywhere, sweep sheets being distributed, each with a mug-shot photo attached for each suspect and a key word to open the software circuits printed at the side. Bulletin boards around the parade room were pinned with lists of assignments. As Scarlett went to check on the role that the two of them would be playing, Spann found the nearest free telephone and dialed Corporal Tipple at Commercial Crime. This time she made contact.

"You're a hard man to get hold of, sir. My name's Katherine Spann."

"Good," Tipple said. "I've been waiting for your call. You working the Hardy angle?"

"Yes."

"And you want to see the transcripts?"

"Very much so."

"Okay. How about tomorrow morning before you go out on the sweep? I've been reassigned to your squad and right now I'm in the process of putting the Damballah ones together. I'll have 'em for tomorrow."

"Damballah?" Spann asked, knowing the word had a voodoo connection.

"Damballah Enterprises. That's Rackstraw's holding company. You'll see what I mean tomorrow."

"When and where shall we meet?"

"Roll call's set for seven a.m. So how 'bout six-fifteen? In the parade room?"

"We'll be there."

"Right. Bring your reading glasses. These guys are very busy dudes."

11:56 p.m.

"Is it lonely up at the top, Robert?" Avacomovitch asked.

"Oh hello, Joseph," DeClercq said, turning from the window. "I was just turning tomorrow over in my mind."

"Okay if I interrupt?"

"Of course. I'd like the company."

It was closing on midnight and the room was filled with shadows cast off by the desk lamp. The surface of the desk was piled high with computer sheets and projections, police files and copious notes in DeClercq's even hand. On the edge of the desk closest to Avacomovitch a space had been reserved for a picture in a silver frame. It had not been there the last time that the scientist was in here. The Russian picked it up and looked at the woman in the photo.

"She has very intelligent eyes," he said, "set in a beautiful face."

"Yes, doesn't she," the Superintendent replied. "I'm a lucky man."

There was something in his voice that arrested Avacomovitch's attention. For more than half a minute he took a long close look at the man. DeClercq did not look well. There were now heavy bags under his eyes and lines of tension radiating out to the edge of his face. Though he tried hard to mask it there was also a nervous tic to his mouth. It appeared as though he had been robbed of sleep and left utterly exhausted. He looked as if the weight of the investigation upon his shoulders might buckle his legs at any moment. But strangely, more than anything else, it was a sense of irony that the Russian picked up from this man.

His heart went out to DeClercq.

Carefully, Avacomovitch replaced the photograph on the edge of the desk. He turned it so that the woman could watch DeClercq when he sat in his chair. He thought: In the currency of friendship there is only a single test. Will your friend be at your side if you should ever need hint?

"May I be blunt?"

"By all means do."

"You're too hard on yourself."

"Funny. That's the same thing Genevieve said this morning."

"I think you're taking too much on your shoulders. I want this guy as much as you, you know?"

"I believe you do."

"So share the burden. Spread the load around. The Head-hunter is taunting you because you're the figurehead among his adversaries. It builds him up by having a rival equal to himself. It could be anyone, sitting in your chair.

"The trouble is, I think, you take it personally. Don't you see that lets him get to you? And that's just what he wants. If this were chess, he's making you play the defensive game."

"Perhaps."

"Robert, please understand. When the Headhunter throws barbs at you, he spikes me too. I'm a policeman also, albeit the civilian kind. This Force means a lot to me, just as it does to you. You mean a lot to me, you're one of my few friends. Remember all those years ago when I was totally adrift? I burned every bridge by defecting and there I was alone. Isolated. Well, you helped me though, helped me assimilate. Robert, I owe you a debt. Hell, I owe myself a debt. And I want to pay it off. So let me work this with you. And I mean really work it. I want half the load."

For several minutes the Superintendent said nothing. It was obvious he was moved. Finally he walked over and put his hand on the other man's shoulder and pointed at the cork-board. The operations visual now covered every bit of wall-space with many overlaps.

"Okay, Joseph. You're on. What do you suggest we do?"

Avacomovitch smiled.

"First, two things," he said, "to help us tighten the net. One: let's request every distributor of Polaroid film in this city and the outskirts get the name from identification of customers making a purchase. If anyone balks, they take a description and call the Headhunter Squad."

"Good idea. And the second."

"I give you a birthday present, and you tell me what you think."

DeClercq's brow rose. He looked at his watch and saw it was after twelve. What a memory, he thought.

"Come on," Avacomovitch said. "I've got it down in the lab."

The Superintendent followed him down the stairs to the makeshift laboratory. Except for a light on the Russian's desk, the room was now in darkness. The light was shining on a large bifocal microscope and a note-covered pad beside it.

"Take a look," the scientist said. "Happy birthday."

When DeClercq looked down the barrel of the instrument and adjusted it into focus, what was magnified before his eyes was a dull black sliver. Behind him Avacomovitch said, "When I examined the bones of Liese Greiner kicked up by that little girl, I found that lodged in a hairline fracture in her front pubic bone. It could have been debris from the area and of no forensic value. But it's not. It's foreign to the scene and has some sort of significance, though what I have no idea. It took me quite a while to get it identified."

"What is it?" DeClercq asked.

"A splinter of ebony."