Hotline to Murder by Alan Cook Page A

not dangerous. He was thin and his slouch made him look
short. Tony couldn’t see his hair because of the cap. He was too
far away, and it was too dark for Tony to get a look at his
face.
    It was time for Tony to execute his plan,
what plan he had. He pulled out his cell phone. The dial lit up, in
response to his touch, and he entered the number Fred had given to
Shahla. He pressed the Send button. The phone rang in his ear. The
man on the corner gave no indication that his cell phone was
ringing, and Tony couldn’t hear another ring, if there was one,
even though his window was cracked open.
    After several rings, an answering service
came on the line. A male voice said, “This is…” and gave the
telephone number Tony had attempted to enter. “You know what to
do,” the voice continued. Then there was a beep.
    Tony pressed the button to end the call. The
man on the corner hadn’t moved. Either he had ignored the call or
he didn’t have his cell phone with him. The third alternative, of
course, was that Fred had given Shahla a bogus number. Was the
voice on the phone Fred’s voice? Possibly. But Tony wasn’t certain.
It didn’t sound quite the same as the voice he had heard at the
Hotline. And not only did Fred have many different voices,
according to the Green Book, but the reception on this phone and
the office phones also had some built-in distortion.
    Tony had done all he could. It was time for
him to leave. But he didn’t want to start his engine with the man
standing there. The man would know that Tony had been watching him
and might be startled into doing—what? Now the man was smoking a
cigarette. Tony looked at his watch and thought he read the time as
12:20.
    His anxiety level grew. He couldn’t wait
here forever. And he had the uncomfortable feeling that he should
be doing more, with the man still in sight. He made a decision. He
quietly opened his car door, just as another car went through the
intersection and masked the noise. He stepped out as his heartbeat
accelerated. He left the door ajar so that the sound of it closing
wouldn’t alert the man.
    However, Tony also didn’t want to sneak up
on him. He stepped up onto the sidewalk and started to approach the
man, deliberately making noise with his sneakers slapping the
pavement, trying to give the effect that he had been walking for
some time. The man couldn’t fail to hear him.
    The man didn’t turn around as Tony
approached, but he did raise his head. A frightened animal,
listening. He dropped his cigarette on the ground and stamped on
it. Then he abruptly started walking across the street. Fast. Still
slouching, but his hands weren’t in his pockets. As he reached the
other side, he turned around and took one quick look at Tony. Then
he redoubled his pace, along the street at right angles to the one
on which Tony was parked. He didn’t look back again.
    Tony watched him, trying to picture his
face. His cap brim had shielded it from the streetlight. All Tony
could remember was a black void. He walked slowly back to his car,
wondering how he was going to get enough sleep to stay awake at
work that day.
    It wasn’t until he was almost home that he
remembered he had told Shahla he would call her. He didn’t want to
wake her up, but he had promised. This time he stopped directly
under a streetlight and turned on his dome light for good measure
so that he could see to press the buttons.
    After two rings a sleepy voice said,
“Hello.”
    “Did I wake you?”
    “Tony? No, I was awake. What happened? Are
you okay?”
    “Yeah, I’m fine. A guy showed up, but I
couldn’t get him on the cell phone. I’m not sure he’s the one.”
    “Oh. Well, we can talk more about it
tomorrow.”
    “I’m going to pass the information on to
Detective Croyden.”
    “Tony. You can’t!”
    “I have to. It’s the right thing to do. Go
back to sleep. Goodnight.” He quickly pressed the button to end the
call so that he couldn’t hear her