Different Seasons - Stephen King [60]
'Huh?' Todd looked shocked and startled, then contemptuous. 'No! What do you think I am, stupid? My dad's got a darkroom. I've been developing my own pictures since I was nine.'
Dussander said nothing, but he relaxed a little and some colour came back into his face.
Todd handed him several glossy prints, the rough edges confirming that they had been home-developed. Dussander went through them, silently grim. Here he was sitting erect in a window-seat of the downtown bus, with a copy of the latest James Michener, Centennial, in his hands. Here he was at the Devon Avenue bus stop, his umbrella cocked under his arm and his head cocked back at an angle which suggested De Gaulle at his most imperial. Here he was standing on line just under the marquee of the Majestic Theatre, erect and silent, conspicuous among the leaning teenagers and blank-faced housewives in curlers by his height and his bearing. Finally, here he was peering into his own mailbox.
'I was scared you might see me on that one,' Todd said. 'It was a calculated risk. I was right across the street Boy oh boy, I wish I could afford a Minolta with a telephoto lens.
Someday ' Todd looked wistful.
'No doubt you had a story ready, just in case.'
'I was going to ask you if you'd seen my dog. Anyway, after I developed the pix, I compared them to these.'
He handed Dussander three Xeroxed photographs. He had seen them all before, many times. The first showed him in his office at the Eatin resettlement camp; it had been cropped so nothing showed but him and the Nazi flag on its stand by his desk. The second was a picture that had been taken on the day of his enlistment The last showed him shaking hands with Heinrich Clucks, who had been subordinate only to Himmler himself.
'I was pretty sure then, but I couldn't see if you had the harelip because of your goshdamn moustache. But I had to be sure, so I got this.'
He handed over the last sheet from his envelope. It had been folded over many times. Dirt was grimed into the creases. The corners were lopped and milled-the way papers get when they spend a long time in the pockets of young boys who have no shortage of things to do and places to go. It was a copy of the Israeli want-sheet on Kurt Dussander.
Holding it in his hands, Dussander reflected on corpses that were unquiet and refused to stay buried.
'I took your fingerprints,' Todd said, smiling. 'And then I did the compares to the one on the sheet.'
Dussander gaped at him and then uttered the German word for shit 'You did
not!'
'Sure I did. My mom and dad gave me a fingerprint set for Christmas last year. A real one, not just a toy. It had the powder and three brushes for three different surfaces and special paper for lifting them. My folks know I want to be a PI when I grow up. Of course, they think I'll grow out of it' He dismissed this idea with a disinterested lift and drop of his shoulders. 'The book explained all about whorls and lands and points of similarity. They're called compares. You need eight compares for a fingerprint to get accepted in court 'So anyway, one day when you were at the movies, I came here and dusted your mailbox and doorknob and lifted all the prints I could. Pretty smart, huh?' Dussander said nothing. He was clutching the arms of his chair, and his toothless, deflated mouth was trembling. Todd didn't like that. It made him look like he was on the verge of tears. That, of course, was ridiculous. The Blood Fiend of Patin in tears? You might as well expect Chevrolet to go bankrupt or McDonald's to give up burgers and start selling caviar and truffles.
'I got two sets of prints,' Todd said. 'One of them didn't look anything like the ones on the wanted poster. I figured those were the postman's. The rest were yours. I found more than eight compares. I found fourteen good ones.' He grinned. 'And that's how I did it.'
'You are a little bastard,' Dussander said, and for a moment his eyes shone dangerously. Todd felt a tingling little thrill, as he had in the hall. Then Dussander slumped back