Bread

1

It was August, and the temperature outside was ninety-six degrees, and the squadroom was not air-conditioned, and Detective Steve Carella was hot. The three rotating electric fans did little more than circulate air that was stale and moist, and there was a hole in one of the window screens (put there by some fun-loving, rock-throwing youngsters) that allowed the entrance of all kinds of flying vermin. A pusher was asleep in the detention cage in one corner of the room, and the phones on two vacant desks were ringing, and Cotton Hawes was talking to his girlfriend on another phone at another desk, and Carella’s shirt was sticking to his back and he wished he was still on vacation.

This was Wednesday, and he had come back to work on Monday, and half the 87th Squad (or so it seemed) had in turn gone on vacation, and here he was sitting behind a typewriter and a pile of paperwork, a tall, wide-shouldered man who normally looked athletic and lean and somewhat Chinese, what with brown eyes that slanted downward in his face, but who now looked wilted and worn and weary and beleaguered, like a man whose undershorts are slowly creeping up into the crack of his behind, which his were most surely and inexorably doing on this miserable hot day in August.

The man sitting opposite him was named Roger Grimm, no relation to the brothers Jakob and Wilhelm. He looked cool and crisp, albeit agitated, a dumpy little man in his late forties, conservatively dressed in a seersucker suit, pale blue shirt, blue tie of a deeper tint, and white shoes. He was holding a lightweight summer straw in his hands, and he demanded to know where Detective Parker was.

“Detective Parker is on vacation,” Carella said.

“So who’s handling my case?” Grimm asked.

“What case is that?” Carella said.

“The arson,” Grimm said. “My warehouse was burned down last week.”

“And Detective Parker was handling the case?”

“Yes, Detective Parker was handling the case.”

“Well, Detective Parker is on vacation.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” Grimm asked. “I had five hundred thousand worth of wooden goods in that warehouse. My entire stock was lost in the fire.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Carella said, “but I don’t know anything about the case because I just got back from vacation myself. Monday. I got back Monday, and this is Wednesday, and I don’t know anything at all about your warehouse.”

“I thought you people worked on cases in pairs,” he said.

“Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t.”

“Well, who was Detective Parker’s partner on the case, would you know that?”

“No, but maybe I can find out for you,” Carella said. He turned from his own desk to where Cotton Hawes was sitting not five feet away, still talking on the telephone. “Cotton,” he said, “have you got a minute?”

“Okay, Christine, I’ll see you at eight,” Hawes said, and then whispered something further into the mouthpiece, and hung up and began walking toward Carella’s desk. He was a big man, six-two and weighing 190 pounds, with a straight unbroken nose, a good mouth with a wide lower lip, and a square, clefted chin. His red hair was streaked with white over the left temple. He looked very mean this morning of August 14. He wasn’t particularly mean, he just looked that way.

“Yeah, Steve?” he said.

“This is Roger Grimm,” Carella said. “Detective Hawes.”

“How do you do?” Hawes said.

Grimm merely nodded.

“Parker was working on an arson for Mr. Grimm, and I’ve just explained that he’s on vacation now, and Mr. Grimm was wondering if anybody was on the case with Parker.”

“Yeah,” Hawes said. “Kling was.”

“Then may I please talk to Kling?” Grimm said.

“He’s on vacation,” Hawes said.

“Is the entire Police Department on vacation?” Grimm asked.

“No, we’re here,” Hawes said.

“Then how about giving me some help?” Grimm said.

“What kind of help do you want?” Carella asked.

“I’m having trouble with the insurance people,” Grimm said. “I want you to understand that my warehouse was protected with a burglar alarm system hooked into a central station, not to mention two night watchmen and an elaborate sprinkler system on every floor of the building...”

“What kind of burglar alarm?” Carella asked, and moved a pad into place and picked up a pencil.

“The best. Very sophisticated. Combination open- and closed-circuit. The arsonist cross-contacted one set of wires and cut the other.”

“How’d he get by your watchmen?” Hawes asked.

“Chloral hydrate. Drugged them both. He also smashed the water main in the basement of the building, so the sprinklers didn’t work when the fire got going.”

“Sounds like he knew the layout pretty well.”

“Yes.”

“Got any enemies in the wooden-goods business, Mr. Grimm?” Carella asked.

“I have competitors.”

“Did you tell Detective Parker about them?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Nothing.”

“What does that mean? Nothing?”

“In Parker’s opinion, nobody had a good enough reason for committing a crime that would net him forty years in jail.”

“How about personal enemies? Got any of those?” Hawes asked.

“Everyone has personal enemies,” Grimm said.

“Any who might be capable of something like this?”

“The only one I could think of was a man whose wife I began dating shortly after they were divorced. He’s since married again, and he has two children by his new wife. When Parker questioned him, he could barely remember my name.”

“Uh-huh,” Carella said, and nodded. “What kind of trouble are you having with the insurance company?”

“Companies. There’s a pair of them involved. $500,000 is a big risk; they shared it between them. Now they’ve gone to one of these giant adjustment bureaus and asked them to handle the claim. And the bureau told them to hold off settlement until the arsonist is caught or until the Police and Fire Departments are sure I didn’t set fire to my own damn place.”

“Did you set fire to it, Mr. Grimm?”

“Of course not,” Grimm said, offended. “There was $500,000 worth of merchandise in that building. I would have shipped it two days ago... that was the twelfth, am I right?”

“Right, Monday the twelfth.”

“Right, I was supposed to ship on the twelfth. So somebody set fire to the warehouse on the seventh, last Wednesday. I usually send out my bills the same day I ship, payable in ten days. If I’d have shipped Monday, when I was supposed to, I’d be getting paid sometime next week, you understand?” Grimm said.

“Not completely,” Carella said. “You paid $500,000 for the stuff that went up in the fire, is that it?”

“No, I paid about half that. Four Deutschemarks for each unit, about a buck and a quarter apiece, including the duty.”

“Then you paid approximately $250,000, is that right?”

“That’s right. And I insured it for $500,000 because that’s what I would have got from my customers ten days after I shipped the stuff. $500,000. That’s the fair market value, with firm orders to back it up, and that’s what I insured the stock for.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“I’ve got another batch coming from Germany on the twenty-eighth of this month. But I’ve got nothing to sell now, and if the insurance companies won’t reimburse me for my loss, how am I going to pay for the new stuff when it gets here?”

“This new stuff,” Carella said. “Is it the same as the old stuff?”

“These little wooden animals, right,” Grimm said. “Four hundred thousand little wooden animals that I’m supposed to pay half a million dollars for, cash on delivery. But if I haven’t got the money, how can I pay for the merchandise?”

“Why don’t you just cancel the order?” Hawes suggested.

“Cancel it?” Grimm asked, appalled. “I’m into a gold mine here, why would I want to cancel? Look, let me explain this to you, okay? Are you good with figures?”

“I got a ninety in algebra,” Hawes said.

“What?” Grimm said.

“In high school. A ninety in algebra.” Hawes was quite proud of the accomplishment, but Grimm seemed unimpressed. Grimm had money on his mind, and money and mathematics were only distant cousins.

“Here’s the history of it,” Grimm said. “I came into a little cash last year, and was looking for an investment that would give me a good return, you follow? So I happened to be in West Germany just before Christmas, and I spotted these little wooden animals — dogs, cats, rabbits, crap like that, about two inches high, all hand-carved. They were selling for a buck and a quarter each, so I took a gamble, I bought a hundred thousand of them.”

“Cost you a hundred twenty-five thousand,” Hawes said quickly, still determined to show Grimm that a ninety in algebra was a feat not to be dismissed so easily.

“Right, they cost me a hundred twenty-five thousand.”

“That’s quite a gamble,” Carella said, trying to figure how long it would take him to earn $125,000 on his salary of $14,735 a year.

“Not as it turned out,” Grimm said, smiling with satisfaction. “I sold them here for two hundred fifty thousand — doubled my money. And I began getting reorders like crazy. So I took the entire two hundred fifty thousand and bought another batch of little wooden animals.”

“With two hundred fifty thousand you were able to buy...”

“Two hundred thousand of them,” Grimm said.

“Two hundred thousand, right, right,” Hawes said uncertainly.

“And that’s what went up in the warehouse fire,” Grimm said.

“The problem as I see it,” Hawes said, “is that you had all these little wooden animals ready to ship...”

“Right.”

“For which your customers would have paid you $500,000...”

“Right, right.”

“Which money you would have used to pay for another batch coming in on the twenty-eighth of this month.”

“Four hundred thousand of them,” Grimm said.

“Four hundred thousand,” Hawes said. “That’s a lot of little wooden animals.”

“Especially when you realize I can sell the little mothers for a million dollars.”

“Well, you’ve certainly got a problem,” Hawes said.

“Which is why I came up here today,” Grimm said. “To put a little pressure on Parker. I’ve got a desperate situation here, and he’s sitting on his ass in the sun someplace.”

“What do you want us to do, Mr. Grimm?” Carella asked.

“Catch the arsonist. Or at least vouch for me. Tell the adjustment bureau I’m clean, I had nothing to do with the fire.”

“I don’t know any police officer in his right mind who’d do that, Mr. Grimm. Too many people do set fire to their own businesses. Your stock was insured for $500,000. That’s a lot of money. I’m sure Detective Parker was considering the possibility that you did the job yourself.”

“Why would I? I had firm orders for the entire stock. It was waiting to be shipped!”

“I’m merely trying to explain why Detective Parker wouldn’t go out on a limb.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” Grimm asked, and wet his lips and looked suddenly thoughtful. “How long will Parker be gone?”

“Two weeks.”

“And his partner, whatever his name is?”

“Kling. Two weeks also.”

“That’s impossible. Look, you’ve got to help me.”

“We’re helping you, Mr. Grimm,” Carella said.

“We’re helping you,” Hawes echoed.

Grimm looked at them skeptically. “I know if I put a little pressure on the insurance companies, they’ll pay me in three, four weeks, maybe a month the latest. But that’s not soon enough. I need the money in fourteen days, when the boat gets here from West Germany. Otherwise they won’t release the cargo, and I’m up the creek. You’ve got to catch this guy before my shipment arrives.”

“Well, it’s Parker’s case,” Carella said.

“So what? Don’t you ever help each other out on cases?”

“Sometimes. But usually, we’ve got our own case loads, and we...”

“This is unusual,” Grimm said, and then repeated it, as though the detectives had not heard him the first time. “This is unusual. There’s a time element involved here. I’ve got to get that insurance money before the boat gets here. Can’t you help me? Are you so damn busy up here that you can’t give a little help to an honest citizen who’s been victimized, and who’s trying to get back on his feet again? Is that too much to ask of the Police Department?”

“You don’t understand the way it works,” Hawes said.

“I don’t care how it works. You’re supposed to protect the innocent, too, you know. Instead of running around the streets busting teenagers for smoking pot, why don’t you earn your salaries?”

“I haven’t busted a teenager in at least two hours,” Hawes said dryly.

“All right, all right, I’m sorry,” Grimm said. “I know you guys work hard, I know you’ve got to have some sort of organization up here, or the job would get overwhelming. I realize that. But I’m begging you to please help me with this. Bend the rules a little, take Parker’s case while he’s away. Help me find the son of a bitch who burned down my place. I’d go to a private detective, but I simply haven’t got the money. Please. Will you please help me?”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Carella said. “We’ll check the files, see what Parker’s got on it. If there’s anything we can follow up, we will.”

“Thank you,” Grimm said. “Thank you very, very much.” He reached into his wallet. “Here’s my card,” he said. “Office number and home number. Please call me if you need any more information. And, of course, if you come up with something...”

“We’ll let you know,” Carella said.

“Thank you,” Grimm said again, and put on his straw hat and went out through the gate in the slatted wooden railing that separated the squadroom from the corridor outside.

Both men waited until they were sure he was out of earshot. Then Hawes said, “Are you really going to pick this up for Parker?”

“Well, I’ll take a look at what he’s got on it, anyway.”

“Far as I’m concerned,” Hawes said, “Parker can handle his own damn cases.”

“Yeah, well,” Carella said, and shrugged.

Hawes looked up at the clock. “You mind if I leave a little early?” he asked. “I’ve got a date tonight.”

“No, go ahead,” Carella said. He, too, looked up at the clock. “Meyer and Brown ought to be relieving soon, anyway.”

“See you tomorrow, then,” Hawes said.

“Right.”

Hawes pulled up his tie, put on his jacket, and left the squadroom. Carella glanced at his scribbled notes, rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter, and began typing:

It was always clarifying to see things in chart form.

Grimm had come into a little cash last year ($125,000 wasn’t exactly a little cash in Carella’s neighborhood, and Carella wondered precisely how Grimm had come into it) and had invested the money in little wooden animals that he had resold here for $250,000. He had then reinvested in a second wooden menagerie for which he had firm orders totaling $500,000. He had planned to use this money to pay for a third shipment of miniature beasts on the twenty-eighth of the month, reselling them in turn and making himself a millionaire. That was nice work if you could get it. But there are spoilsports everywhere, and apparently someone was determined to see that Grimm didn’t get it.

A million dollars, Carella thought. For buying and selling little wooden animals. When he got home tonight, he would tell his nine-year-old son Mark that there was no percentage in the crime biz, not on the cop side of it and certainly not on the crook side of it. The thing to get into, he would say, is the little wooden animals. That’s where the future lies, son. Little wooden animals. And April, Mark’s twin sister, would listen wide-eyed, wondering whether Carella was joking, and wondering why she had not been advised to undertake a similar professional pursuit. Was it possible her father was a male chauvinist pig? (Or as she was wont to pronounce it, after having heard the expression on television, “a male show-business pig”). Teddy, the mother of his children, his wife, would listen by watching, her eyes never leaving his lips, a secret, silent, amused expression on her face. And then perhaps she would answer with her hands, using the deaf-mute language her entire family understood, and she would tell the children that their father was joking, the future was not in little wooden animals, it was instead in compressed garbage, which she had read could be made virtually indestructible after treatment with radioactive isotopes, and could then be sawed, planed, molded, hammered, and used for all sorts of things. The only problem was how to get rid of the indestructible things made from this specially treated waste. Garbage, she would tell them. Wooden animals, he would insist.

Smiling, he went to the files.

Cotton Hawes, who was a bachelor, had no children (that he knew of) to advise on future career possibilities. His own father, who had proudly named him after Cotton Mather, the Puritan priest, had once told Hawes that the only god worth serving was God Himself. Hawes had pondered this for a long time. He had pondered it all through adolescence, when the only god worth serving seemed to be hidden somewhere beneath the skirts of every high school girl who wandered tantalizingly into his field of vision. He had pondered it during his hitch in the Navy, when the only god worth serving seemed to be survival, a not always certain prospect aboard a PT boat. And he had pondered it when he joined the police force, where the god was justice (he thought at first) and where the god later became retribution (until he learned otherwise) and where the god after his transfer to the 87th seemed embodied in the person of Steve Carella (who he later learned was only a mere mortal, like himself). He was no longer a boy listening to his father, a good and decent man (although a bit of a fanatic when it came to religion), advising him on how to live his life. He had, in fact, needed no better advice than the example his father had set simply by being what he was. Hawes tried to be a good and decent man. He didn’t know whether he was or not, but that’s what he tried to be.

He did not get back from his evening and night with Christine Maxwell, whom he had met many years ago while investigating a multiple murder in a bookshop, until 3:00 A.M. He called his answering service, and learned that Steve Carella had phoned while he was out and left a message for him to return the call no matter what time it was. He immediately dialed Carella’s home in Riverhead.

“Hello?” Carella said. His voice was edged with sleep.

“Steve, this is Cotton. I’m sorry I woke you, but your message said...”

“Yeah, that’s all right,” Carella said. He was coming awake. He paused for a moment, and then said, “Roger Grimm called the squadroom at a little past midnight. Meyer took the call.”

“What’s up?” Hawes asked.

“While he was out tonight, somebody burned his house to the ground. I’m going over to take a look at the warehouse tomorrow. How’d you like to drive up to Logan and see what they did to his house?”

“Sure thing, Steve. What time do you want me there?”

“Ten o’clock too early?”

“No, no, fine,” Hawes said, and looked at the clock and sighed.