Another Part of the City

11

From Nelson Hyde’s corner office in the World Trade Center, you could look down onto the construction site of Battery Park City and beyond that to the Hudson River and the Jersey shore. This was Tuesday morning, the twenty-third day of December, two days before Christmas, and the construction workers had erected a Christmas tree on the site below. There was no Christmas tree in Nelson Hyde’s office, and the carpeting here at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was a wear-guaranteed wool-nylon, and the furniture was metal, but the view was splendid. Rothstein and Phelps sat facing the view. Hyde had his back to it. He was a man in his late fifties, graying, soft-spoken. Phelps suspected his mild manner concealed a suspicious nature and a bear-trap mind. He watched as Hyde riffled casually through a sheaf of papers on his desk. Rothstein watched, too.

“How’s the traffic out there?” Hyde asked. “Pretty heavy?”

“We walked over,” Rothstein said. “We’re just around the corner.”

“I really appreciate your taking the time to see me,” Hyde said, and looked up, and smiled. “So,” he said, “how’s business?”

“Comme ci comme ça,” Phelps said.

“Flurry of activity, this time of year, I expect,” Hyde said, still smiling. “All those customers looking for tax losses, eh?”

“Plenty of buying and selling, that’s for sure,” Rothstein said.

“Reason I asked you to come by...” Hyde said, and began looking through the sheaf of papers again. “I got a call from Comex here in New York last week sometime — she never puts anything where I can find it — ah, here. December nineteenth, that would’ve been last Friday.”

A tugboat sounded on the river.

“Yes, last Friday,” Hyde said. “It seems you reported quite a bit of silver activity that week.” He began riffling through the papers again. “Three separate accounts buying... now where the devil... yes, here we are. General Business Ventures purchased... nine hundred lots, is it? Between Tuesday the sixteenth and Friday the nineteenth. Same time period, we have Quandax Corporation buying nine hundred and forty lots, and Vandam Investment buying nine twenty-five. That comes to...” He scribbled some figures on a pad, did his multiplication. “Two thousand, seven hundred and sixty-five lots. At five thousand ounces a lot, comes to...” More scribbling. More multiplication. “Thirteen million... uh... eight hundred and... uh... twenty-five thousand ounces. That’s a lot of silver.”

“We’re bullish on silver,” Rothstein said, smiling.

Mr. Outside, Phelps thought. Smooth as glass.

“Which at current silver prices...” Hyde said.

“Well, the prices fluctuate,” Phelps said at once.

“Yes, but at the close Friday...”

“Mr. Hyde, forgive me.” Rothstein said, and leaned forward in his chair, “but surely this isn’t an unusually high number of futures contracts for a firm our size. Actually, I imagine our silver purchases will go even higher before the end of the year. For some reason, silver always...”

“Comex saw fit to call me,” Hyde said.

“Meaning what?” Rothstein said. “If you’re suggesting that our firm has done anything illegal...”

“Innuendo isn’t my style,” Hyde said.

“Or even immoral...”

“Of course not,” Hyde said.

“Then... forgive me... but what’s this all about?”

“It would help if I could know the names of the officers and directors of these three corporations,” Hyde said. “I’m sure you have the necessary disclosure forms...”

“Yes, of course.”

“Do you think someone in your office could fill them in for me? And have them signed by the principals? I would appreciate it.”

“We’ll put someone on it right away,” Phelps said.

“There’s no great hurry,” Hyde said. “Christmas is almost here. I can imagine how busy you are.” He smiled, raised his eyebrows again. “But right after the holidays?”

“Yes, certainly,” Rothstein said.

“Well then, fine,” Hyde said, and glanced at his watch.

Phelps let out his breath.

On the sidewalk outside, he said, “So now we contact the Kidds.”

“No problem.” Rothstein said. “We’re still under the six-thousand-lot limit for any single principal.”

“Yes, but it makes me nervous.”

“A routine check,” Rothstein said. “Where are you headed now?”

“I’ve got to meet Kitty. We’re seeing a travel agent about that damn Caribbean trip. I should be back in an hour or so.”

The trouble with Lowell Rothstein was that he seemed to be lying.

Smooth and slick as ice, a pleasant smile on his handsome face — but nonetheless lying in his teeth.

“You’re sure you don’t know him, huh?” Reardon said.

“I’m afraid not.”

Reardon looked at him long and hard. Sometimes, when they were lying, a long, hard look was enough to turn them around. Not Rothstein. The pleasant smile lingered on his face. His eyes held Reardon’s unflinchingly.

“Your partner seems to think he was here last Monday.”

“My partner is wrong,” Rothstein said.

“A man named Peter Dodge did not come here to buy silver contracts?”

“He did not.”

“Then where’d your partner get the idea?”

Rothstein shrugged. “We’re a big firm with a great many customers,” he said, and shrugged again.

“Mr. Rothstein,” Reardon said. “I wonder if I could see your appointment calendar for Monday, December fifteenth.”

“Why would you want to do that?” Rothstein asked.

“Because your partner seemed certain a Peter Dodge was listed on it.”

“My appointment calendar is a personal record, Mr. Reardon. A stock broker’s business is as confidential as that of a doctor or a lawyer. If I were a doctor, for example, and you wished to see my appointment calendar in order to ascertain whether a seventeen-year-old girl had been here for an abortion, would you expect me to reveal such information? Of course not. Therefore, to protect the confidentiality between me and my...”

“Peter Dodge wasn’t here for an abortion,” Reardon said. “He was here to...”

“He wasn’t here at all.”

“He was here to buy silver contracts.”

“I’m sorry. I have no such recollection.”

“Do you know he’s dead?”

“Dead?” Rothstein said, looking genuinely surprised. “No. How would I know that?”

Reardon sighed.

“I can get a court order for that calendar.” he said. “Would you like me to do that?”

“Do as you see fit, Mr. Reardon,” Rothstein said. “I do not know Peter Dodge, and I did not see him on Monday, December fifteenth. You’re mistaken. Now, I’m sorry, but...”

“Thanks,” Reardon said.

He took the elevator down to the ground floor, and was just coming out of the building — starting for the curb, in fact, where Ruiz was waiting behind the wheel of an unmarked sedan — when he saw Phelps coming up the street, a newspaper under his arm, a briefcase in his right hand. He went to him at once.

“Mr. Phelps?” he said.

Phelps was startled for a moment. Then, recognizing Reardon, he said, “Oh, Detective Reardon, how are you? You’re back again, I see.”

“I just spoke to your partner,” Reardon said.

“Ah, good,” Phelps said. “Was he able to help you?”

“He doesn’t remember seeing Peter Dodge.”

“Oh?” Phelps said. The alert look came into his eyes again, the same one that had been there yesterday, when Reardon was asking about silver contracts. “That’s strange,” he said.

“But you got the information from his secretary, didn’t you? That Dodge was here?”

“Well, yes, but... we’re a big firm, you see...”

“With a great many customers, yes.”

“Yes. So perhaps...”

“And she got the information from his appointment calendar, didn’t she?”

“Well, I don’t really know where she...”

“You asked Alice, I believe it was, to have Jenny — wasn’t that her name? — check Mr. Rothstein’s appointment calendar. Do you remember that?”

“Yes, but...”

“And you were informed that Peter Dodge had indeed been in to see Mr. Rothstein on Monday afternoon... about buying silver.”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know why he was here, Mr. Reardon. If he was here. If Lowell says he wasn’t, I’m sure he’d know better than I. Perhaps his secretary misread the appointment calendar, or perhaps Lowell himself...”

“Ask him, would you?” Reardon said.

“Ask him what?”

“Whether he was in error about Peter Dodge coming here to buy silver.”

“Well, certainly. But if he’s already told you...”

“Ask him. anyway, would you? And get back to me on it.” He fished into his pants pocket, pulled out his wallet, and found a card. “Here’s my card,” he said.

Phelps looked at it.

“Part of it’s in Chinese, huh?” he said, smiling faintly.

“Sometimes all of it’s in Chinese,” Reardon said.

Phelps gave him a puzzled look.

“I’ll talk to you.” Reardon said, and walked to the waiting car. As he got in beside Ruiz, he could see Phelps going through the revolving doors into the building.

“Where to, your Honor?” Ruiz asked.

“Let’s stick around awhile,” Reardon said.

He had just worked Phelps the way he would have worked a partner in a holdup or a murder. Separate him from his pal, plant some seeds, wait to see if they take root. Phelps — if indeed the appointment calendar information was correct — now had reason to believe his partner had lied about a man coming here to buy silver. Whether this meant anything at all simply remained to be seen. Sometimes your seeds grew into a forest; sometimes they died on parched earth.

Phelps did not even say “Good morning” to the firm’s receptionist. He went immediately past her desk, and opened the door beyond it, and hurried down the hall to Rothstein’s office. He did not knock. Rothstein was dictating a letter to his secretary when Phelps barged in.

“Jenny, I’d like to talk to Mr. Rothstein privately,” he said.

The secretary looked at Rothstein. Rothstein nodded.

The moment she was gone, Phelps said, “Why are you lying to the police about this Dodge person?”

“What? What Dodge person?”

“Peter Dodge. Why’d you say he wasn’t here?”

“Because he wasn’t,” Rothstein said. “What’s the matter with you, Joe?”

“The matter with me... Lowell, his name was in your appointment calendar, Jenny gave me his name. Now why did you tell that detective he...?”

“If he was here.” Rothstein said, “I forgot, plain and simple.”

“There’s not much you forget, Lowell.”

“I forgot this.”

“A silver deal? A man coming here to buy silver contracts? Long? When we’re involved with the Kidds in a big...”

“I really don’t see the importance of someone calling for an...”

“Oh, did someone call?”

“If his name was in my appointment calendar, then I’m assuming he called for an appointment.”

“Let’s look at your appointment calendar, okay, Lowell? Let’s see if Peter Dodge’s name is in it.”

“Assume it’s in it,” Rothstein said. “Assume he came here, and I forgot he was here. What the hell difference does it make?”

“Why did you lie to a detective investigating a homicide?”

“I didn’t lie to him. I honestly forgot that Dodge was here.”

“But now you remember he was here, huh?”

“I guess he was here. If you insist he was here, then he was here.”

The two men looked at each other. There was a long silence.

“Then why’d you lie to Reardon?” Phelps asked. “If Dodge did come here...”

“I didn’t lie. We get a lot of customers in here, I simply forgot...”

“No,” Phelps said.

“Well, listen,” Lowell said, shrugging, “what can I tell you?”

“You can tell me why you lied.”

Rothstein said nothing.

“How did Olivia know he’d been here?”

“Reardon? Olivia knows Reardon was...?”

“No, Dodge. Peter Dodge. She mentioned his name. She said he’d taken a position. How’d she know that, Lowell?”

Rothstein said nothing.

“And you can tell me something else, Lowell, while you’re at it. Something else that’s been bothering me.” He looked across the desk and nodded, as though silently agreeing with what he was about to say. He nodded again. He kept nodding. “When Olivia was here last week, she mentioned that you’d already seen the purchasing schedule. How come you saw it, Lowell, when I didn’t?”

“Joe...”

“No, don’t ‘Joe’ me. What the hell is going on? Did you see that schedule before I did?”

“No.”

“Then why did Olivia think you’d seen it?”

“I told you. She has a lot on her mind, she...”

“I don’t believe you about that, either,” Phelps said, and shook his head. “I thought we were partners, I thought...”

“We are.”

“I’m into this up to my ears...”

“So am I.”

“The CFTC is asking questions...”

“Don’t worry about them.”

“I worry about my partner lying to me!” Phelps said.

“Joe,” Rothstein said, “trust me.”

Phelps looked at him, nodding. He kept nodding for a long time. Then he said, “Lowell, whenever anyone says, ‘Trust me,’ do you know what I do?”

“What do you do, Joe?” Rothstein said, and smiled.

“I hide the family silver,” Phelps said.

The two men stared at each other.

Rothstein sighed heavily.

“Okay,” he said at last.

“Okay what?”

“This is what happened.” Rothstein said.

They’d been waiting outside the building for less than twenty minutes when Phelps came out.

“There he is,” Reardon said.

Phelps was carrying a briefcase. He stepped to the curb, and immediately hailed a taxi.

“Stay with him,” Reardon said.

The taxi pulled away from the curb. Ruiz pulled the Plymouth sedan out after it.

“Heading uptown,” he said.

“Don’t lose him, Alex.”

The traffic got heavier as they reached the midtown area. This was two days before Christmas and the city was thronged with shoppers. The taxi kept moving slowly and steadily uptown. Santa Clauses rang their bells on street corners. Salvation Army ladies played their trombones and said “God bless you” to anyone who dropped a coin in their kettle. On Fifty-seventh Street, the taxi made a right turn and headed east. The light on the corner turned red just as Ruiz approached it.

“Run it.” Reardon said.

Ruiz made the right turn.

The traffic cop on the corner yelled at the car.

“Heading for the bridge, you think?” Ruiz asked, ignoring him.

“I don’t know,” Reardon said.

On Sutton Place, the taxi made another right, and then began slowing.

“Back off,” Reardon said.

Ruiz slowed the car.

The taxi stopped in front of an apartment building. Phelps got out, nodded to the doorman, and then swiftly entered the building.

“What now?” Ruiz asked.

“We wait,” Reardon said.

It was twenty minutes past eleven when Rothstein discovered his partner had left the office. He had called Phelps’s secretary to ask if Mr. Phelps was busy for lunch today, figuring he’d take him to a good place, smooth his ruffled feathers. Alice told him there was nothing on Mr. Phelps’s appointment calendar, but she couldn’t check with him because he was in the vault just now.

“What do you mean?” Rothstein said. “Our vault?”

“Yes, sir. I was carrying some papers to Mr. Donahue’s office, and I saw Mr. Phelps going into the vault.”

“When was that?” Rothstein asked.

“Oh, about twenty minutes ago.”

“And he’s still there?”

“Well, I don’t know that for sure, sir, but he’s not in his office.”

“Thank you,” Rothstein said, and immediately dialed the vault’s extension.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said.

“Who’s this?” Rothstein asked.

“Donahue.”

“Mike, this is Lowell,” he said. “Is Joe there in the vault?”

“Nobody here but us chickens,” Donahue said.

“You sure he’s not in there?”

“Not unless he’s hiding in one of the lock boxes,” Donahue said.

“Thanks,” Rothstein said, and put the receiver back on its cradle. Frowning, he came around his desk, went out of his office, walked past his secretary, went down the hall past Phelps’s office, and then turned right at the end of the corridor, heading for the vault. Donahue was just coming out, swinging the heavy steel vault door shut.

“That’s okay, leave it,” Rothstein said.

Donahue nodded, and went off down the hallway.

The vault was lined with safety deposit lock boxes in various sizes, each containing securities for the firm’s customers. Two keys were necessary to open any box: the customer’s individual key and the firm’s master key. The customer keys were held by the firm’s individual brokers, to facilitate the clipping of coupons on a quarterly basis. Each of the brokers had a master key as well. Except in its design, this was not like a bank vault, where a box holder had to sign in each time he wanted access. The only people using this vault were people employed by Rothstein-Phelps, all of them carefully screened before they were hired, all of them presumably honest.

There was only one lock box that concerned Rothstein at the moment.

If his partner hadn’t made that comment about hiding the silver...

If his partner hadn’t turned absolutely white when Rothstein told him about Dodge’s visit...

If his partner hadn’t seemed on the thin edge of panic when Rothstein told him about the phone call he’d made after Dodge’s visit...

If his partner wasn’t running so goddamned scared...

Then maybe Rothstein wouldn’t have been so concerned about that particular lock box.

That particular box belonged to a widow named Phyllis Katzman.

It contained close to three and a half million dollars in bearer bonds.

Rothstein went directly to that box.

He took his keys from his pocket, searched for the Katzman key and the master key, and unlocked the box.

The box was empty.

Three million four hundred and eighty thousand dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds, payable on demand to the bearer, were gone.

Rothstein broke out in a cold sweat.

He went immediately to the wall phone and dialed the Park Lane hotel.

In the Plymouth sedan parked outside the apartment building on Sutton Place, Ruiz asked, “What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” Reardon said.

“Does he live here, or is he visiting somebody?”

“Could be either one.”

Ruiz looked at his watch.

“I’m getting hungry,” he said.

Reardon looked at his watch.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Want to check with the doorman, see he’s got a Phelps here?”

“He might call upstairs, blow the tail.”

“Maybe we oughta go upstairs,” Ruiz said.

“Without a warrant?”

“What do we want with this guy. anyway?” Ruiz said.

“I’m not sure.”

“So we just sit here?”

“See where he’s going next,” Reardon said.

“Where do you expect him to go?”

“I don’t know,” Reardon said.

“Your Honor,” Ruiz said, “I beg your pardon, but I never been on a dumb fuckin’ stakeout like this in my life. You don’t know what the fuck you want with the man, you don’t know why we’re sitting here...”

“He ran in one hell of a hurry, Alex. I tell him his partner’s lying, and the next thing you know he’s on his bicycle. Don’t you think that’s interesting, Alex?”

“Yeah, very interesting,” Ruiz said drily.

They kept watching the front of the building.

Ruiz looked at his watch again.

“I know a great Italian joint near here,” he said.

Reardon said nothing.

People walked past the car.

A lady in a mink coat came out of the building and looked up at the sky.

The doorman looked at his watch.

Ruiz looked at his watch.

“You looking forward to Christmas?” he asked Reardon.

“No,” Reardon said.

“Me, neither,” Ruiz said. “I hate Christmas.”

A kid went by on roller skates.

The doorman took off the glove on his right hand and began picking his nose.

“Pick me a winner,” Ruiz said.

“Hey!” Reardon said, and sat bolt upright.

Ruiz followed his glance.

“Well, hello,” he said.

A brown Mercedes-Benz sedan was pulling up in front of the building.

The door of the Mercedes opened. Three dark-skinned men stepped out of the car and began moving swiftly toward the entrance door. Reardon threw open the door on the curb side of the Plymouth, his gun in his hand. “Police!” he shouted. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” Ruiz came around the other side of the car in that instant, running in a low crouch, gun drawn.

The three men stopped dead on the sidewalk, not four feet from where the doorman was holding open the door for them. One look was enough to tell Ruiz they weren’t Latinos. He didn’t know what they were, but you could cross off Puerto Rican, Colombian, Cuban, Mexican, whatever. Reardon didn’t know what they were, either. But Sadie had labeled them Puerto Ricans, and he was willing to go along with her appraisal, especially since two of them had little flamenco-dancer mustaches. Actually, he didn’t care what they were. They had arrived in a brown Mercedes-Benz. They had gotten out of the Benz and had started walking toward a building Joseph Phelps had entered not forty minutes ago. Joseph Phelps. Whose firm had sold silver to a man named Peter Dodge. Who’d been killed by three men who’d been seen in a brown Mercedes-Benz. Three men who were here now. That was all that mattered. They were here. Except—

They were no longer here.

In the three seconds it took for all those scrambled thoughts to rocket through Reardon’s head, the three men were gone. Zip, zap, easy come, easy go, now you see ’em, now you don’t.

The two guys with the mustaches had taken a quick look at Reardon’s gun and a quicker look at Ruiz’s and split for the Fifty-fifth Street corner of Sutton Place. The cleanshaven guy hadn’t looked at anything. He’d ducked his head like a bull charging a red flag and began running uptown toward the Queensboro Bridge, arms and legs pumping.

Reardon took off after him.

Ruiz took off after the ones with the mustaches.

This was not a good day for chasing suspects.

Actually, not very many days were good days for chasing suspects because detectives — except in movies — were normally not in very good physical shape, whereas suspects were guys who’d maybe just got out of prison where they’d been lifting weights when they weren’t buggering cellmates. Ruiz, being a little younger than Reardon, was in better condition, but First Avenue was packed virtually curb to curb with Christmas shoppers and the two guys with the mustaches had a sizable lead on him. It suddenly occurred to Ruiz that the two guys might be Arabs. This was a brilliant deduction, considering the fact that he was pounding along the pavement and trying to keep sight of them, and deductions do not come too easily in the midst of a movie chase. But the guy on the plane had been an Arab, right? It seemed to make sense.

So he concentrated on not losing them.

On East Fifty-ninth Street, Reardon was concentrating on the same thing, but he was considerably more breathless than Ruiz. Reardon didn’t like chasing people. Cop movies were a pain in the ass because they made your average citizen think cops went around chasing people in alleyways and over fences and in subway tunnels and Christ knew where, when what a cop liked to do instead was have a beer and watch some television. Times like this, Reardon wished he could quit smoking. Times like this, Reardon wished he was nineteen again. God, how he could run when he was nineteen! That guy up ahead there, running now in the shadow of the bridge, had to be in his early twenties. Puffing, Reardon pounded along behind him.

On First Avenue, Ruiz got stopped by a traffic light. Or rather, he got stopped by the goddamn crowd standing on the corner waiting for the light to change. The crowd and a Santa Claus.

“Something for the needy, sir?” Santa said.

“Fuck off, Santa!” Ruiz said, and started shoving his way through the crowd. “Police officer!” he shouted. “Move it, move it!”

A truck came around the corner.

Ruiz swore he would never buy Budweiser beer again.

The truck moved.

Across the street, the two Arabs were halfway up the block.

“Shit!” Ruiz said, and sprinted after them.

It’s now or never, Reardon thought. Close on him now, tackle him or shoot him, but take him out either way. ’Cause, man, he is running your ass off, and he’s gonna get away if you don’t make your move.

He made his move.

He came within an ace of throwing up, running as hard as he was, came that close to it, but didn’t. He couldn’t fire because there were pedestrians on the sidewalk, parting like the Red Sea as he came galloping up with the pistol in his hand, the little cleanshaven, dark-skinned man turning the corner, make your move, he’s gonna disappear, make your fuckin’ move, and he turned the corner and hurled himself into the air like a tackle for the Jets and whammo, he hit the little fucker in the middle of the back, knocking him flat to the sidewalk, throwing the gun on him as the man rolled over, starting to rise, arms stiff behind him to shove himself off the sidewalk, legs already braced to run again.

“No, don’t,” Reardon said breathlessly.

The man looked at the gun.

“Really,” Reardon said.

The man did not run.

On First Avenue, the Arabs were tangled in a knot of Hare Krishna kids banging their tambourines and singing “Oh My Lord.” The Arabs tried to push through, flailing out at bald pates and top knots, saffron robes and sandals, but Ruiz was on them now, and he grabbed the closest one by the lapels of his suit and threw him against the brick wall of a building behind him, and then whirled as the other one rushed him. Ruiz was just turning, his gun hand was blind-sided. He drew back his left hand, fingers straight, palm flat, and unleashed a backhanded karate-chop at the Arab’s head.

The Arab had a head made of granite.

“Ow!” Ruiz yelled, pulling back his hand, but the Arab fell like a fucking stone, anyway, and Ruiz turned toward the one he’d thrown against the wall, who was now off the wall and ready to run again.

Ruiz leveled his gun.

“Don’t make me shoot you just before Christmas,” he said.

The three Arabs — if they were Arabs — spoke in what the detectives guessed was Arabic or something. Ruiz was the one who said Arabs spoke Arabic. If they were Arabs. The detectives didn’t know what they were because none of them would answer any questions, either in English or Arabic, if that was the language they were speaking. It was Lieutenant Farmer who broke the deadlock.

“What are we fuckin’ around here for?” he said. “Book ’em for murder.”

The three Arabs looked at one another.

“Who’d you send to watch the Phelps building?” Farmer asked Reardon.

“The Pope.”

“Alone? He’ll be saying his fuckin’ beads, ‘steada payin’ attention.”

“Samuels is with him.”

“Okay, get these scumbags outa here, take ’em over to Headquarters, make it Murder One.” He looked at the three Arabs as if just discovering them in his squadroom. “Unless you feel like tellin’ us what you were doin’ on Sutton Place,” he said.

“We have friends in that building there,” the cleanshaven one said. He addressed his answer to Reardon, as though Reardon — who had knocked him ass over teacups — was the one he belonged to.

“What friends?” Reardon said.

“A friend.”

“Named Joseph Phelps?”

“We do not know a Joseph Phelps.”

“Do you know a Ralph D’Annunzio?”

No answer.

“Do you know- a Peter Dodge?”

No answer.

“We’ve got a positive make on the car you were driving,” Farmer said. “It was spotted outside the Luna Mare last Monday night. What were you doing there?”

“We do not know this restaurant,” the Arab said.

“Who said it was a restaurant?” Hoffman said.

“Get on the phone,” Farmer said to Ruiz. “I want Sadie picked up and brought here.”

“We’ve got a witness who saw you go in that restaurant with guns,” Hoffman said. Ruiz was already dialing. “You want to tell us all about it, or you want to make it tough for us?”

“Sarge,” Ruiz said into the phone, “can you get one of the blues to pick up Sadie the bag lady?”

“You make it tough for us,” Gianelli said, shrugging philosophically, “we’ll make it tough for you.”

“We want her up here right away,” Ruiz said into the phone. And then, for the benefit of the Arabs, “We’ve got the three goons who killed D’Annunzio.”

He put the phone back on the cradle.

“They’ll bring her up here as soon as they find her,” he told Farmer.

“So what do you say?” Farmer asked the cleanshaven Arab, and to his great surprise, one of the mustached ones answered.

“It was not our idea to...” he started to say, but then the second mustached guy yelled something at him in Arabic, if it was Arabic, probably a warning to keep his fucking Arab mouth shut, and the two guys with the mustaches shouted at each other in whatever language it was — it certainly wasn’t English — until Reardon yelled for them both to shut up. The squadroom went silent again.

“What’s your name?” he asked the Arab who’d been about to say something when the other one shut him up.

“Anwar Biswas,” the Arab said.

“What were you about to say before your pal interrupted you, Anwar?”

The other one with the mustache shouted something in the foreign language again, and Anwar shouted “No, Zahir, I will not be silent!” and then turned to Reardon. “It was not our idea to do this,” he said.

“It was for our country,” the cleanshaven one said suddenly.

“What’s your name?” Reardon asked.

“Fazal Omara.”

“And you say you did this for your country?” Farmer said.

“For our leader,” Fazal said.

“What leader?” Hoffman said.

“Prince Ahmad Mo...”

The third Arab erupted again, verbally and physically. He popped out of his chair spewing a torrent of Arabic or whatever, and simultaneously grabbing for Fazal’s throat, his intention undoubtedly being to throttle him, which Hoffman discouraged by kneeing him in the balls.

“Sit down,” Hoffman said. “You got anything to say, say it in English. Otherwise shut the fuck up and let your pals here explain the situation. You think you got that? Or would you like another nut-shot?”

“Your heads will be cut off,” the Arab said, glaring at his compatriots, his hands clutched between his legs.

“If that’s all you got to say. don’t say anything at all,” Hoffman warned.

“You are both fools,” he said to the other two.

“Then you remain silent if you wish,” Fazal said. “This is the police here! You are the fool, Zahir.”

“Let’s hear it,” Farmer said.

Another silence.

Reardon thought for a moment they’d lost it.

Then Fazal said. “A messenger from our prince was killed last Sunday.”

“Where?” Reardon said at once.

“At the airport,” Fazal said. “Coming off the plane from Washington.”

“What was his name, this messenger?”

“Amin Abbas.”

“Get on the phone,” Farmer said to Gianelli. “How do you spell that?” he asked Fazal.

“A-M-I-N,” Fazal said. “A-B-B-A-S.”

“Have you got that?” Farmer said. “Amin Abbas, run an airlines check.”

“Who killed him?” Reardon said.

“Enemies within our government,” Anwar said.

“Who?” Reardon said. “Give me names.”

“I have no individual names. It was a group called Order of the Holy Crusade.”

“What were you doing at the airport?” Hoffman asked.

“We were there to meet him,” Fazal said.

“We saw him fall...” Anwar said.

Zahir was shaking his head. And massaging his groin.

“Detective Gianelli, Fifth Squad,” Gianelli said into the phone. “Run this through your computer for me, will you?”

“So many policemen,” Fazal said.

“We could not get to him.”

“Guy named Amin Abbas.” Gianelli said. “Where he was coming from, where he was headed, the complete ticketing. I’ll wait.”

“We followed the ambulance...”

“First to one hospital, then to another...”

“And finally took possession of his body.”

“Why’d you want his body?” Farmer asked.

“He was carrying the timetable,” Fazal said.

“What timetable?” Reardon asked.

“He should have had it in his possession. But it was gone. There was nothing in his pockets.”

“What timetable?” Reardon asked again.

Zahir erupted in Arabic again. This time he didn’t come up off the bench. He simply said the words softly and menacingly, a short warning meant to silence his pals once and for all. He accompanied this with a stare designed to turn their blood to shit. Neither the words nor the stare worked.

“A timetable that fell into the wrong hands,” Fazal said.

“Whose hands?” Reardon asked at once.

“A man named Peter Dodge.” Fazal said.

“Marvelous, tell them everything,” Zahir suddenly said in English.

“Shut up,” Hoffman said. “What about Dodge?”

“I just told you,” Fazal said. “He got possession of the timetable.”

“What damn timetable?” Reardon said.

“An important timetable,” Anwar said.

“For what?” Farmer asked.

“I don’t know,” Fazal said. “We were only told to get it back.”

“From Dodge?”

“Yes,” Fazal said.

“Who told you to get it back?”

“He did,” Fazal said, and nodded at Zahir, whose balls were better now, but who still had a scowl on his face.

“You the boss here?” Reardon asked him.

No answer.

Gianelli put down the phone. “Abbas was ticketed Phoenix-Washington-New York, connecting the next day with the Concorde to Rabat.”

“Where the fuck is Rabat?” Hoffman said.

“Morocco.” Ruiz said.

“What was he doing in Phoenix?” Reardon asked Zahir.

No answer.

“Is that where you guys are from?” Farmer asked. “Morocco?”

No answer. The two friendlies were now having second thoughts, Reardon guessed. In a police station, people always had second thoughts. First they spilled their guts, and then they wondered whether they’d said too much. The bossman’s intransigence wasn’t helping much, either. Still setting a bad example. Mouth compressed in a tight little line, eyebrows pulled down, all the curses he could think of glowering in his dark eyes.

“Mister, you’re the one who’s gonna take the fall here, you know that, don’t you?” Reardon said.

“Sure, these other jerks are just accomplices,” Gianelli said, immediately picking up on Reardon’s drift.

“They already said he’s the one told them to go get that timetable,” Hoffman said. “That makes him...”

“I was only following orders,” Zahir said.

“What orders?”

“To recover the timetable.”

“How’d you get these orders?”

“I received a phone call.”

“Who from?” Reardon said.

“I don’t know.”

“Hold it,” Farmer said, “let’s take this from the top, okay? What you’re saying is that somebody sent you to Dodge’s apartment to get this timetable — whatever the hell kind of timetable it is — but you don’t know who this person is, or was, this person who called you, is that about it?”

“I know the person who called me,” Zahir said. “But he was only relaying a message from someone else.”

“All right, who called you, let’s start there.”

“One of my countrymen.”

“A Moroccan?”

“We are not Moroccans.”

“Whatever the fuck you are,” Hoffman said, “what’s this countryman’s name?”

“I don’t know his name,” Zahir said. “Only his voice.”

The detectives all looked at each other. Farmer sighed.

“Okay, this man whose voice you know but whose name you don’t,” he said, “calls you. What did he say?”

“He said that a man named Peter Dodge was in possession of a valuable timetable, and we should recover it from him.”

“And that’s all he said?”

“That’s all he said.”

Now it was the turn of the other two Arabs to jump up and start yelling in Arabic. The detectives listened to it, not understanding a word. Ruiz scratched his head. Farmer was wondering if anybody on the uniformed force was of Syrian or perhaps Iraqi extraction. Now and then, a few English words came through.

“Our orders...”

More Arabic.

“You know what...”

Arabic again.

And finally, from Anwar, in a burst of angry English, his forefinger under Zahir’s nose as if he were about to skewer him. “Our orders were to kill him!”

Zahir was off the bench again, exploding in Arabic.

Hoffman wondered if he should kick him in the balls again.

Reardon signalled to let them play out the string.

“Or anyone else who had seen the timetable!” Fazal shouted.

Silence.

The three Arabs looked at one another.

Gianelli wondered if they were going to kiss and make up.

“You two got the right idea,” Reardon said, and wondered how much they knew about American law. “If you were acting on orders, there’s no sense you taking the rap.”

“But we were!” Anwar said.

“Sure,” Reardon said, and turned again to Zahir. “Is that true?” he asked.

Zahir nodded.

“You had orders to kill Dodge?”

“To recover the timetable,” Zahir said.

“And to kill him,” Fazal said. “Why are you being such a stubborn fool? Do you want to be hanged?”

“Orders to kill him, yes.” Zahir said softly, and sighed.

“Because he’d seen this timetable, is that right?”

“He’d seen it, yes.”

Marvelous fucking reason to kill a man, Reardon thought, he sees a timetable.

“Let me get this straight,” Farmer said. “I’m having trouble keeping this damn thing straight. Your man Abbas...”

“Messenger to the Eternal Prince,” Zahir said with dignity.

“... is carrying a timetable with him when he gets off the plane at La Guardia. But he gets shot, and the timetable disappears, and it turns up in Dodge’s apartment?” He looked at his detectives. “Is that what you guys get?” He turned to Zahir again. “How’d this timetable end up in Dodge’s hands?”

“A man named Ralph D’Annunzio gave it to him,” Zahir said.

“What?” Hoffman said.

Reardon nodded. It was beginning to fall into place.

“He gave it to Dodge at lunch that day,” Zahir said. “This is what Dodge told us. He took possession of the timetable in D’Annunzio’s restaurant. The Luna Mare.”

Silence.

Reardon was putting it all together.

Or at least trying to.

“So you had to kill D’Annunzio, too,” Reardon said, nodding.

“Yes,” Zahir said.

“Because he’d seen the timetable.”

“Yes.”

“Important fuckin’ timetable,” Hoffman said.

“What were you doing on Sutton Place?” Ruiz asked. “Somebody there see this timetable?”

“We were sent there,” Zahir said.

“Who the fuck keeps sending you to these places?” Hoffman said.

“We received a call.”

“From your pal again?” Farmer asked. “The one who you know his voice but you don’t know his name and you don’t know who calls him and tells him to give you these fuckin’ mysterious messages, is that the one?”

“Yes,” Zahir said, exactly as if Farmer had just spoken a simple English sentence.

“And?”

“I was told only that a man named Joseph Phelps had stolen some negotiable securities, and that I was to get to him before the police did.”

“What kind of negotiable securities?” Reardon asked.

“I have no idea,” Zahir said.

“This guy on the phone just gives you orders, huh?” Farmer said. “And you run out and do whatever the fuck...”

“Sounds like the police department,” Gianelli said.

“We do it for our country,” Zahir said.

Reardon, who’d been quiet for several moments, suddenly said, “You didn’t know what was on this timetable, huh?”

Zahir shook his head.

“Then how’d you know what you were looking for?”

Silence.

“You tore up Dodge’s apartment, what the hell were you looking for?”

Silence.

Zahir looked at the others.

None of them said a word.

“What’s on that timetable?” Reardon said.

Silence.

“Who’s gonna tell us what’s on that timetable?” Farmer asked.

Stone faces.

End of the road.

“All right, get them out of here,” Farmer said.