Read Online The Eye: A Novel of Suspense by Bill Pronzini, John Lutz - Free Book Online Page B

assailant, protected by the law, had gotten off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
    From that time on, he had fallen into the habit of looking at things through the eyes of the victim, or through the eyes of the horrified bystander. A cop shouldn’t do that. A cop couldn’t do that and keep on being a good cop.
    Or, hell, maybe he could; Oxman just didn’t know anymore. He didn’t know anything anymore, he thought as he unlocked and opened his car door. Maybe the city had finally begun to wear him down. Or maybe his marriage had, because it had stopped being a good marriage a long time ago. A combination of things, probably, burdens accumulated by time and growing heavier by the year.
    I’m getting old , he thought. Old and tired .
    When he arrived at his house in Queens he saw that the windows were dark. It was eleven thirty; Beth would no doubt be in bed asleep. He let himself in, moving as quietly as the burglars he had sought over the years. He made his way through the dark living room to the kitchen, switched on the overhead light. There were dirty dishes in the sink. Water from the faucet dripped steadily into one of the dishes with a rhythmic plink, plink, plink .
    He gave the faucet handle a twist and the dripping stopped. He got a glass down from the cupboard, poured some milk, drank it in three long gulps. Then he set the glass in the sink along with the other dishes, turned off the light, and went into the bedroom.
    Beth was lying on her side: mound of hip, fan of tousled blond hair splayed over her pillow. The portable TV she used as a nightlight was tuned soundlessly to the Tonight Show . While he removed his clothes he thought about waking her, but only fleetingly. He knew that if he did, the result would be rejection and dissatisfaction along with guilt that he couldn’t pity her for her sexually debilitating headaches that puzzled even the best of doctors.
    As he placed his holstered service revolver on the dresser, he saw Beth’s vials of pills on the table by the bed and wondered how many of them were placebos. More than one doctor had suggested that her headaches were a mental as well as physical affliction and might have to do with impending menopause. But no psychiatry for Beth, oh no. Twice she was to begin psychoanalysis and each time she had stomped out on the first visit.
    One of the psychiatrists had confided to Oxman that she might in some way enjoy suffering, as if that idea might be a revelation for him. But it wasn’t. Everyday he saw unconscious motives compel people to destroy their own and others’ lives.
    Stepping into his pajama bottoms, he glanced at Johnny Carson moving in his curiously marionettelike way before his studio audience. If it hadn’t been for Beth, Oxman would have turned up the volume; he just wasn’t ready for sleep yet. As it was, he switched off the TV just as Ed McMahon appeared cradling a box of dog food, beaming down at a scottie eagerly lapping the product from a bowl.
    He was careful not to disturb Beth as he crawled into bed. He lay curled on his side, facing away from her, toward the deeper darkness of the wall. His eyes were wide open. The homicides on West Ninety-eighth Street were still heavy on his mind, but they weren’t the only things that were keeping him awake.
    In spite of himself, he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Jennifer Crane.
    THE COLLIER TAPES
    Slip of darkness, blackest patch of night, shadow in smooth motion among shadows—how futile! The Eye has observed the evil ones come and go, seen them through the windows of their apartments. Though they don’t know it, they live only on my whim. I must confess that I enjoy that. Any time I choose I can cancel all their debts and favors owed, put an end to their petty lives and send them into the depths of hell. Heed the Book of Common Prayer, evil ones: “Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery.”
    Only a matter of time. Only a matter of