The interviewer then had asked about Schoenstein, and Leland had said that Schoenstein was a professional and an example of the better-educated, more sophisticated man advancing in police departments across the country. Now Leland was looking at himself, the heaviness in his eyes, the apparent colorlessness of his skin. Perhaps some of it was the result of the telecasting; the scar in his brow looked more obvious than it did in the bathroom mirror. For a second he seemed to be able to see the image on the screen as if it belonged to someone else, and for reasons not entirely related to his appearance, he was frightened. He had been looking at men’s pictures this week and he could remember what he had thought about destiny and statistics. Normally you pitted your age against the ages of movie stars, and because you held actors in contempt anyway, you always came up a winner. This was different. The sadness he felt over what he had imagined for the other men spilled onto him. Something inside him resisted and wanted to celebrate having outlasted MacIver.

“For example, Dave has a Master’s degree in criminology. There’s no compensation for that. The way the Civil Service Law is written, the Department can only note it on his record. The important thing—aside from that inequity—is that men like Schoenstein are still electing careers in police work. It would be tragic if these good men drifted away because of our indifference.”

“Do you miss the Department? You’ve given it a lot of thought.”

“Do you think about your first girl friend?”

“Sometimes,” the interviewer said, and laughed.

“That’s all I’ll admit to, too. Sometimes.”

The crowd that had been around, about a dozen men, had laughed loudly. The scene cut to the studio announcer, who was looking into the monitor and smiling. He turned to the camera. “For those who might not know, that was Joseph Leland, whose career as a cop in Port Smith was interrupted by a war, in which he fought with some distinction. He resigned from the Police Department a few years ago for personal reasons, and now he operates a very successful private detective agency in Manitou upstate.

“The search for Mary Shoftel covered five states—”

Roberts turned the set off and looked to Leland. “Did you know that you would be on?”

“Oh, no, they grabbed me and said that they wanted to use the film. I didn’t even know what station they were from.”

“Perhaps that was their way of keeping you at ease,” Roberts said.

“I don’t think so. There were two more questions they didn’t show, and then the cameraman said, ‘That’s it,’ and that was it, don’t doubt it. They were in a hell of a hurry.”

“Norma, you haven’t said anything.”

“I’m just floored. He comes in and sits down and never says a word. I would have been all over the place—‘Hey, I was on television!’ I don’t think I’ll talk to him.”