The Wolfen by Whitley Strieber Read Free Book Online Page B

TPF can’t deal with.” His face was getting blotchy; this was almost too much for his temper. “Nothing we can’t deal with! Unlike you! You two can’t seem to put this case together! Dogs indeed —that’s ludicrous. It isn’t even a good excuse, much less a solution. Here I’ve got this whole town screaming at me for a solution and you give me bullshit!” Suddenly he glared at Becky. “And another thing, sweetheart. I’ve heard the rumors about your sweet husband. This DA ought to be doing a little investigating into the Neff family instead of trying to dig up some kind of organized crime links to supply motive for the killers of DiFalco and Houlihan. We’ve got a bent cop’s wife right here—or is it a family affair, dear?”
    The Assistant DA remained tight-lipped, staring like a statue at the Oriental rug. At the Chief’s words the whole room seemed to sway; Becky felt her head tightening, the blood rushing, her heart thundering. What in the name of God was he implying! Was Dick in trouble? She knew that she herself was an honest cop. And Dick had to be too. Had to be. Like Wilson. He had to be as honest as Wilson.
    “You think we’re incompetent,” Wilson said mildly, “why not convene a Board of Inquiry? Present your facts.”
    “Shut up and get out. Your superior officers will handle this from now on.”
    “Which means there’s going to be a Board?”
    “Shut up and get out!”
    They left, even Wilson perceiving that the meeting was terminated. “I’m going home,” Becky said to her boss as the elevator dropped toward the garage. “Want a lift?”
    “Nah. I’m gonna go over to Chinatown, get some supper. I’ll see you in the morning.”
    “See you.”
    That was that for today. Another charming day in the life of a lady cop.
    Traffic was heavy and she had missed the evening news by the time she got home. No matter, the Chief’s statement wouldn’t make it on the air until eleven o’clock.
    When she arrived at their small upper East Side apartment, Becky was disappointed that Dick wasn’t there. Mechanically she ran the Phone-Mate. Dick’s voice said he’d be in about three
a.m. Great. A lonely night just when you need it the most.
    At eleven the Chief appeared with his terse statement—carbon monoxide, wild dogs, TPF roundup of dogs, case closed in one day.
    The hell it is, she thought, the hell it is.

The Wolfen
    Chapter 3
    Mike O’Donnell hated this part of his daily journey. The streets around here were sullen, dangerous and empty. Openings in the ruined buildings exhaled the stench of damp rot and urine. O’Donnell liked the bustling crowds a few blocks away, but on the money a blind man made you couldn’t take cabs through these areas, you had to walk. Over the years the deadly stillness had grown like a cancer, replacing the noisy, kindly clamor that Mike remembered from his childhood. Now it was almost all like this except the block where Mike lived with his daughter and the block near the subway station a twenty-minute walk away.
    Those twenty minutes were always bad, always getting worse. Along this route he had encountered addicts, muggers, perverts—every kind of human garbage. And he had survived. He let them shake him down. What could he lose, a few dollars? Only once had he been struck, that by some teenagers, children really. He had appealed to their manhood, shamed them out of their plan to torture him in one of the empty buildings.
    Mike was tough and resilient. Sixty sightless years in the Bronx left him no other choice. He and his beloved daughter were on welfare, home relief. She was a good girl with bad taste in husbands. God knows, the kind of men… smelling of cologne and hair grease, moving around like cats through the apartment, voices that sneered every word… actors, she said. And she was an actress, she said… he groped his way along with his cane trying to put trouble out of his mind, not wanting to bring his feelings home, start an