Doll

Chapter 13

She had handcuffed both hands behind his back during one of his periods of unconsciousness, and then had used a leather belt to lash his feet together. He lay naked on the floor now and waited for her arrival, trying to tell himself he did not need her, and knowing that he needed her desperately.

It was very warm in the room, but he was shivering. His skin was beginning to itch but he could not scratch himself because his hands were manacled behind his back. He could smell his own body odors — he had not been bathed or shaved in three days — but he did not care about his smell or his beard, he only cared that she was not here yet, what was keeping her?

He lay in the darkness and tried not to count the minutes.

The girl was naked when she came into the room. She did not put on the light. There was the familiar tray in her hands, but it did not carry food any more. The Llama was on the left-hand side of the tray. Alongside the gun were a small cardboard box, a book of matches, a spoon with its handle bent back toward the bowl, and a glassine envelope.

‘Hello, doll,’ she said. ‘Did you miss me?’

Carella did not answer.

‘Have you been waiting for me?’ the girl asked. ‘What’s the matter, don’t you feel like talking?’ She laughed her mirthless laugh. ‘Don’t worry, baby,’ she said. ‘I’m going to fix you.’

She put the tray down on the chair near the door, and then walked to him.

‘I think I’ll play with you awhile,’ she said. ‘Would you like me to play with you?’

Carella did not answer.

‘Well, if you’re not even going to talk to me, I guess I’ll just have to leave. After all, I know when I’m not—’

‘No, don’t go,’ Carella said.

‘Do you want me to stay?’

‘Yes.’

‘Say it.’

‘I want you to stay.’

‘That’s better. What would you like, baby? Would you like me to play with you a little?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t you like being played with?’

‘No.’

‘What do you like, baby?’

He did not answer.

‘Well, you have to tell me,’ she said, ‘or I just won’t give it to you.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘You don’t know what you like?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you like the way I look without any clothes on?’

‘Yes, you look all right.’

‘But that doesn’t interest you, does it?’

‘No.’

‘What does interest you?’

Again, he did not answer.

‘Well, you must know what interests you. Don’t you know?’

‘No, I don’t know.’

‘Tch,’ the girl said, and rose and began walking toward the door.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked quickly.

‘Just to put some water in the spoon, doll,’ she said soothingly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be back.’

She took the spoon from the tray and walked out of the room, leaving the door open. He could hear the water tap running in the kitchen. Hurry up, he thought, and then thought. No, I don’t need you, leave me alone, goddamn you, leave me alone!

‘Here I am,’ she said. She took the tray off the seat of the chair and then sat and picked up the glassine envelope. She emptied its contents into the spoon, and then struck a match and held it under the blackened bowl. ‘Got to cook it up,’ she said. ‘Got to cook it up for my baby. You getting itchy for it, baby? Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. What’s your wife’s name?’

‘Teddy,’ he said.

‘Oh my,’ she said, ‘you still remember. That’s a shame.’ She blew out the match. She opened the small box on the tray, and removed the hypodermic syringe and needle from it. She affixed the needle to the syringe, and depressed the plunger to squeeze any air out of the cylindrical glass tube. From the same cardboard box, which was the original container in which the syringe had been marketed, she took a piece of absorbent cotton, which she placed over the milky white liquid in the bowl of the spoon. Using the cotton as a filter, knowing that even the tiniest piece of solid matter would clog the tiny opening in the hypodermic needle, she drew the liquid up into the syringe, and then smiled and said, ‘There we are, all ready for my doll.’

‘I don’t want it,’ Carella said suddenly.

‘Oh, honey, please don’t lie to me,’ she said calmly. ‘I know you want it, what’s your wife’s name?’

‘Teddy.’

Teddy, tch, tch, well, well,’ she said. From the cardboard box, she took a loop of string, and then walked to Carella and put the syringe on the floor beside him. She looped the piece of string around his arm, just above the elbow joint.

‘What’s your wife’s name?’ she asked.

‘Teddy.’

‘You want this, doll?’

‘No.’

‘Oooh, it’s very good,’ she said. ‘We had some this afternoon, it was very good stuff. Aren’t you just aching all over for it, what’s your wife’s name?’

‘Teddy.’

‘Has she got tits like mine?’

Carella did not answer.

‘Oh, but that doesn’t interest you, does it? All that interests you is what’s right here in this syringe, isn’t that right?’

‘No.’

‘This is a very high-class shooting gallery, baby. No eyedroppers here, oh no. Everything veddy veddy high-tone. Though I don’t know how we’re going to keep ourselves in junk now that little Sweetass is gone. He shouldn’t have killed her, he really shouldn’t have.’

‘Then why did he?’

‘I’ll ask the questions, doll. Do you remember your wife’s name?’

‘Yes.’

‘What is it?’

‘Teddy.’

‘Then I guess I’ll go. I can make good use of this myself.’ She picked up the syringe. ‘Shall I go?’

‘Do what you want to do.’

‘If I leave this room,’ the girl said. ‘I won’t come back until tomorrow morning. That’ll be a long long night, baby. You think you can last the night without a fix?’ She paused. ‘Do you want this or not?’

‘Leave me alone,’ he said.

‘No. No, no, we can’t leave you alone. In a little while, baby, you are going to tell us everything you know, you are going to tell us exactly how you found us, you are going to tell us because if you don’t we’ll leave you here to drown in your own vomit. Now what’s your wife’s name?’

‘Teddy.’

‘No.’

‘Yes. Her name is Teddy.’

‘How can I give you this if your memory’s so good?’

‘Then don’t give it to me.’

‘Okay,’ the girl said, and walked toward the door. ‘Good-night, doll. I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘Wait.’

‘Yes?’ The girl turned. There was no expression on her face.

‘You forgot your tourniquet,’ Carella said.

‘So I did,’ the girl answered. She walked back to him and removed the string from his arm. ‘Play it cool,’ she said. ‘Go ahead. See how far you get by playing it cool. Tomorrow morning you’ll be rolling all over the floor when I come in.’ She kissed him swiftly on the mouth. She sighed deeply. ‘Ahh,’ she said, ‘why do you force me to be mean to you?’

She went back to the door and busied herself with putting the string and cotton back into the box, straightening the book of matches and the spoon, aligning the syringe with the other items.

‘Well, good night,’ she said, and walked out of the room, locking the door behind her.

Detective Sergeant Tony Kreisler of the Los Angeles Police Department did not return Meyer’s call until nine o’clock that Monday night, which meant it was six o’clock on the Coast.

‘You’ve had me busy all day long,’ Kreisler said. ‘It’s tough to dig in the files for these ancient ones.’

‘Did you come up with anything?’ Meyer asked.

‘I’ll tell you the truth, if this hadn’t been a homicide you’re working on, I’d have given up long ago, said the hell with it.’

‘What’ve you got for me?’ Meyer asked patiently.

‘This goes back twelve, thirteen years. You really think there’s a connection?’

‘It’s all we’ve got to go on,’ Meyer said. ‘We figured it was worth a chance.’

‘Besides, the city paid for the long-distance call, right?’ Kreisler said, and began laughing.

‘That’s right,’ Meyer said, and bided his time, and hoped that Kreisler’s city was paying for his call, too.

‘Well, anyway,’ Kreisler said, when his laughter had subsided, ‘you were right about that arrest. We picked them up on a violation of Section 11500 of the Health and Safety Code. The girl’s name wasn’t Sachs then, we’ve got her listed as Tina Karin Grady, you suppose that’s the same party?’

‘Probably her maiden name,’ Meyer said.

‘That’s what I figure. They were holed up in an apartment in North Hollywood with more than twenty-five caps of H, something better than an eighth of an ounce, not that it makes any difference out here. Out here, there’s no minimum quantity constituting a violation. Any amount that can be analyzed as a narcotic is admissible in court. It’s different with you guys, I know that.’

‘That’s right,’ Meyer said.

‘Anyway, the guy was a mainliner, hit marks all over his arms. The Grady girl looked like sweet young meat, it was tough to figure what she was doing with a creep like him. She claimed she didn’t know he was an addict, claimed he’d invited her up to the apartment, got her drunk, and then forced a shot on her. There were no previous marks on her body, just that one hit mark in the crook of her el—’

‘Wait a minute,’ Meyer said.

‘Yeah, what’s the matter?’

‘The girl claimed he’d forced the shot on her?’

‘That’s right. Said he got her drunk.’

‘It wasn’t the man who alibied her?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did the man claim he was a pusher and that he’d forced a fix on the girl?’

Kreisler began laughing again. ‘Just catch a junkie who’s willing to take a fall as a pusher. Are you kidding?’

‘The girl told her doctor that the man alibied her.’

‘Absolute he,’ Kreisler said. ‘She was the one who did all the talking, convinced the judge she was innocent, got off with a suspended sentence.’

‘And the man?’

‘Convicted, served his time at Soledad, minimum of two, maximum of ten.’

‘Then that’s why she kept sending him money. Not because she was indebted to him, but only because she felt guilty as hell.’

‘She deserved a break,’ Kreisler said. ‘What the hell, she was a nineteen-year-old kid. How do you know? Maybe he did force a blast on her.’

‘I doubt it. She’d been sniffing the stuff regularly and using pot since she was seventeen.’

‘Yeah, well, we didn’t know that.’

‘What was the man’s name?’ Meyer asked.

‘Fritz Schmidt.’

‘Fritz? Is that a nickname?’

‘No, that’s his square handle. Fritz Schmidt.’

‘What’s the last you’ve got on him?’

‘He was paroled in four. Parole Office gave him a clean bill of health, haven’t had any trouble from him since.’

‘Do you know if he’s still in California?’

‘Couldn’t tell you.’

‘Okay, thanks a lot,’ Meyer said.

‘Don’t mention it,’ Kreisler said, and hung up.

There were no listings for Fritz Schmidt in any of the city’s telephone directories. But according to Dr Levi’s casebook, Tinka’s ‘friend from California’ had only arrived here in September. Hardly expecting any positive results, Meyer dialed the Information operator, identified himself as a working detective, and asked if she had anything for a Mr Fritz Schmidt in her new listings.

Two minutes later, Meyer and Kling clipped on their holsters and left the squadroom.

The girl came back into the room at nine-twenty-five. She was fully clothed. The Llama was in her right hand. She closed the door gently behind her, but did not bother to switch on the overhead light. She watched Carella silently for several moments, the neon blinking around the edges of the drawn shade across the room. Then she said, ‘You’re shivering, baby.’

Carella did not answer.

‘How tall are you?’ she asked.

‘Six-two.’

‘We’ll get some clothes to fit you.’

‘Why the sudden concern?’ Carella asked. He was sweating profusely, and shivering at the same time, wanting to tear his hands free of the cuffs, wanting to kick out with his lashed feet, helpless to do either, feeling desperately ill and knowing the only thing that would cure him.

‘No concern at all, baby,’ she said. ‘We’re dressing you because we’ve got to take you away from here.’

‘Where are you taking me?’

‘Away.’

‘Where?’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘We’ll give you a nice big fix first.’

He felt suddenly exhilarated. He tried to keep the joy from showing on his face, tried not to smile, hoping against hope that she wasn’t just teasing him again. He lay shivering on the floor, and the girl laughed and said, ‘My, it’s rough when a little jolt is overdue, isn’t it?’

Carella said nothing.

‘Do you know what an overdose of heroin is?’ she asked suddenly.

The shivering stopped for just a moment, and then began again more violently. Her words seemed to echo in the room, do you know what an overdose of heroin is, overdose, heroin, do you, do you?

‘Do you?’ the girl persisted.

‘Yes.’

‘It won’t hurt you,’ she said. ‘It’ll kill you, but it won’t hurt you.’ She laughed again. ‘Think of it, baby. How many addicts would you say there are in this city? Twenty thousand, twenty-one thousand, what’s your guess?’

‘I don’t know,’ Carella said.

‘Let’s make it twenty thousand, okay? I like round numbers. Twenty thousand junkies out there, all hustling around and wondering where their next shot is coming from, and here we are about to give you a fix that’d take care of seven or eight of them for a week. How about that? That’s real generosity, baby.’

‘Thanks,’ Carella said. ‘What do you think,’ he started, and stopped because his teeth were chattering. He waited. He took a deep breath and tried again. ‘What do you think you’ll… you’ll accomplish by killing me?’

‘Silence,’ the girl said.

‘How?’

‘You’re the only one in the world who knows who we are or where we are. Once you’re dead, silence.’

‘No.’

‘Ah, yes, baby.’

‘I’m telling you no. They’ll find you.’

‘Uh-uh.’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘The same way I did.’

‘Uh-uh. Impossible.’

‘If I uncovered your mistake—’

‘There was no mistake, baby.’ The girl paused. ‘There was only a little girl playing with her doll.’

The room was silent.

‘We’ve got the doll, honey. We found it in your car, remember? It’s a very nice doll. Very expensive, I’ll bet.’

‘It’s a present for my daughter,’ Carella said, i told you—’

‘You weren’t going to give your daughter a used doll for a present, were you? No, honey.’ The girl smiled. ‘I happened to look under the doll’s dress a few minutes ago. Baby, it’s all over for you, believe me.’ She turned and opened the door. ‘Fritz,’ she yelled to the other room, ‘come in here and give me a hand.’

The mailbox downstairs told them Fritz Schmidt was in apartment 34. They took the steps up two at a time, drawing their revolvers when they were on the third floor, and then scanning the numerals on each door as they moved down the corridor. Meyer put his ear to the door at the end of the hall. He could hear nothing. He moved away from the door, and then nodded to Kling. Kling stepped back several feet, bracing himself, his legs widespread. There was no wall opposite the end door, nothing to use as a launching support for a flat-footed kick at the latch. Meyer used Kling’s body as the support he needed, raising his knee high as Kling shoved him out and forward. Meyer’s foot connected. The lock sprang and the door swung wide. He followed it into the apartment, gun in hand, Kling not three feet behind him. They fanned out the moment they were inside the room. Kling to the right, Meyer to the left.

A man came running out of the room to the right of the large living room. He was a tall man with straight blond hair and huge shoulders. He looked at the detectives and then thrust one hand inside his jacket and down toward his belt. Neither Meyer nor Kling waited to find out what he was reaching for. They opened fire simultaneously. The bullets caught the man in his enormous chest and flung him back against the wall, which he clung to for just a moment before falling headlong to the floor. A second person appeared in the doorway. The second person was a girl, and she was very big, and she held a pistol in her right hand. A look of panic was riding her face, but it was curiously coupled with a fixed smile, as though she’d been expecting them all along and was ready for them, was in fact welcoming their arrival.

‘Watch it, she’s loaded!’ Meyer yelled, but the girl swung around swiftly, pointing the gun into the other room instead, aiming it at the floor. In the split second it took her to turn and extend her arm, Kling saw the man lying trussed near the radiator. The man was turned away from the door, but Kling knew instinctively it was Carella.

He fired automatically and without hesitation, the first time he had ever shot a human being in the back, placing the shot high between the girl’s shoulders. The Llama in her hand went off at almost the same instant, but the impact of Kling’s slug sent her falling halfway across the room, her own bullet going wild. She struggled to rise as Kling ran into the room. She turned the gun on Carella again, but Kling’s foot struck her extended hand, kicking the gun up as the second shot exploded. The girl would not let go. Her fingers were still tight around the stock of the gun. She swung it back a third time and shouted, ‘Let me kill him, you bastard!’ and tightened her finger on the trigger.

Kling fired again.

His bullet entered her forehead just above the right eye. The Llama went off as she fell backward, the bullet spanging against the metal of the radiator and then ricocheting across the room and tearing through the drawn window shade and shattering the glass behind it.

Meyer was at his side.

‘Easy,’ he said.

Kling had not cried since that time almost four years ago when Claire was killed, but he stood in the center of the neon-washed room now with the dead and bleeding girl against the wall and Carella naked and shivering near the radiator, and he allowed the hand holding the pistol to drop limply to his side, and then he began sobbing, deep bitter sobs that racked his body.

Meyer put his arm around Kling’s shoulders.

‘Easy,’ he said again. ‘It’s all over.’

The doll,’ Carella whispered. ‘Get the doll.’