Take The Reason Prisoner Part 14

Bennington noted that Thornberry stayed with Judkins for about ten minutes before he joined the group around the map of Harrisburg in the Operations Office.

Personally, the warden was glad that his a.s.sistant was not present; the discussion would almost certainly have produced and explosion from the psychologist.

Scott began his gloomy a.n.a.lysis after both he and General Mosby had redirected their patrols to heavier concentrations in Harrisburg's dim-lit and winding side streets.

"I hate to hunt this kind," the chief said gloomily. "You just never know, never know anything, except that they're going to kill again.

"I just hope he has cooled off and that he wants to sleep a while."

Bennington noted with amused interest the startled glance General Mosby gave the Chief of Police. Mosby's greatest strength and greatest weakness, both in the field and garrison, was his complete refusal to accept or excuse aberration.

Scott had caught the glance, too, and continued. "I got a good lab, general, smart boys willing to pull extra duty. They've already told me that Clarens reached--after he killed the guy in the park--an emotional climax."

Bennington watched his former Division Commander's face harden as expected.

Scott continued: "That's why I said, I hope he's crawled off, wants to sleep a while. Every place he can get a bed in my town, I'll know the minute he wants to lie down.

"Then I'll take him, like this"--the big hand crushed upon itself--"dead or alive, and I hope I have to take him dead."

"Why _dead_?"

"General, sorry, _warden_--no, I'll go back to the way I know you best--General Bennington, Clarens simply isn't the business of any kind of normal living.

"You take a guy who cracked a safe, knocked off a payroll, robbed a bank, he's like any good business man taking a risk; he has insurance, he's got an out.

"He can buy me, he can talk to the D.A., he can get the court to go along if he's caught. He just says, I'll tell you where the stuff is if I get the minimum.

"O.K., we're wrong, we should go black-and-white, we should say no to any kind of deal, I shouldn't let a little guy go just because I'd rather grab the big one. Only, unconditional surrender doesn't work any better in my job than it does in yours on a battlefield."

"We've learned it doesn't work too well," Bennington agreed, "but what has this to do with Clarens?"

"General, you did the right thing up at Duncannon when you decided to talk to Musto. He was a man in business, with something to buy and something to sell. He could be dealt with.

"Now think this through: Suppose everybody in that Administration Building had been a Clarens. And I heard that you said this, General Bennington, that there has to be some sort of mutual trust for bargaining. You could deal with Mus...o...b..cause he is, and I'll make the point again, a sort of business man even though his business isn't legal.

"But Clarens...."

Chief Scott let the silence build while he lit a cigarette.

"But Clarens wants to be caught," Mosby said.

"He does?" Chief Scott pointed to the map. "General Mosby, you and I both know that all he has to do is sit down on the curb underneath any street light.

"Let me change that. We would have him ten minutes faster if he sat down on the curb of any dark street.

"No, he doesn't want caught, except maybe those first couple of minutes when he's almost human, those first couple of minutes after he's killed somebody. And if you have to kill someone to have human feelings yourself--that's not for most of us and that's why I hope he fights back and I have to take him--dead."

Chief Scott turned back to the map of Harrisburg. His forefinger ran down the river, pausing at each of the many bridges. Then he turned to the generals.

"Maybe we've got him pinned. We've had the bridges sealed tight and if Dr. Thornberry is right, he won't chase west because Pennsylvania land, especially around here, is selling real high and that's still very open country.

"And that's not for Clarens, he wants back into our little city, back where things feel close and he feels _inside_."

Bennington found himself looking at Mosby, with the glance returned.

Mosby spoke, reluctantly. "He could be through us, Chief Scott."

"_How?_"

"The same way my men come back to camp and it's a natural way that's rarely stopped."

"Clarens had no military experience!" Scott said.

"No, but he's read a lot--that came out at the trial--and he's under pressure, so he'll remember what he read," Bennington said.

"Tell me this way you can walk invisible across a lighted bridge," and Scott was still unconvinced.

"You don't walk over, you ride over," Mosby said. "I would work it this way.

"I would stop in a bar and buy a drink that made me smell five feet away. I would order and get rid of a couple more of them, very quickly, then I would tip the bartender to call me a cab.

"And by the way, of course I wouldn't be drinking any after the first one.

"But when the cabbie came, I'd offer him a drink, wave a big bill or two that meant a good tip, and give him a good address--for instance, the hotel that takes up the biggest s.p.a.ce in the yellow pages of the telephone book.

"I would get into the back seat of the cab still holding on to the biggest bill or two out of those we took from the cleaning truck and I would pretend to fall asleep.

"With that cab driver convinced that he's hauling a drunk just aching to give away a big tip--and any normal human being perfectly sure that a wanted killer would never walk into a bar, get loaded and order a cab to take him to the biggest hotel in town--what are my chances, Chief Scott?"

The chief did not answer directly. Instead, "And I'll bet he wins that appeal he's got going, too."

"What did you say, Chief Scott?" Bennington asked.

"We got the word a while ago from Delaware by teletype. Clarens has three good lawyers fighting an appeal from the conviction on every grounds you can think of, including that the confession was beaten out of him.

"That's why I hope he wants to fight when I catch up with him, and that's what Delaware hopes, too.

"But here comes Dr. Thornberry, General Mosby. Let's ask him why Clarens hides so well when he says he wants to be caught."

Thornberry pursed his lips so tightly that his face became a skull's head, then he answered.

"In some areas of human behavior...." he began.

"Dalton," Bennington interrupted, "does he make a game out of getting away when he's caught?"