Eight Black Horses

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Neither Carella nor Brown wanted to be working on Christmas Day.

They had both deliberately chosen to work the four-to-midnight on Christmas Eve so that they could spend the big day itself with their families. But at approximately seven last night a man named Charlie Henkins had inconsiderately held up Gruber’s department store, managing to kill two women in the process. Carella and Brown were catching when a frantic patrolman called in to say he’d just shot Santa Claus. The case was officially theirs, and that was why—at ten on Christmas morning—they were questioning Henkins in his room at Saint Jude’s Hospital.

‘I’m an innocent dupe,’ Henkins said.

He did look very innocent, Brown thought. In his white hospital tunic, his left shoulder bandaged, his blue eyes twinkling, his little potbelly round and soft under the sheet, he looked like an old Saint Nick without a beard and settling down for a long winter’s nap.

‘It was the other Santa Claus done it,’ Henkins said.

‘What other Santa Claus?’ Carella asked.

‘Arthur Drits,’ Henkins said.

Carella looked at Brown.

‘Let me get this straight,’ Carella said.

‘I’m an innocent dupe,’ Henkins said again.

‘What were you doing in that Santa Claus outfit?’ Carella said.

‘I was going to an orphanage to surprise the kiddies there.’

‘What orphanage?’ Brown said. ‘We don’t have any orphanages up here.’

‘I thought there was an orphanage up here.’

‘Were you taking a gun to the orphanage?’

‘That gun is not mine, officers,’ Henkins said.

‘Whose gun is it?’

‘Santa’s,’ Henkins said. ‘The other Santa.’

‘Let me get this straight,’ Carella said again. He was having a difficult time getting it straight. He knew only that Henkins had come out of Gruber’s with a sackful of zippered plastic bags containing—according to the count made before the cash was delivered to the property clerk’s office—eight hundred thousand, two hundred fifty-two dollars in cash plus a sizable number of personal checks. Henkins had drawn a gun —identified and tagged as a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson Regulation Police—and a silencer fitting that gun had been found in the cashier’s office at Gruber’s, alongside the body of one of the victims, a woman named Helen Ruggiero, who incidentally had four marijuana joints in her handbag. The police officer on duty had shouted the customary warning and then shot him. He was currently at Headquarters downtown, filling out all the papers that explained why he had drawn his service revolver in the first place and why he had fired it in the second place.

‘Let me explain it,’ Henkins said.

Brown knew he was about to tell a whopper.

‘I went in Gruber’s to use the facilities,’ Henkins said.

‘What facilities?’

‘I went up the sixth floor to take a leak.’

‘Then what?’

‘I ran into Drits in the men’s room.’

‘Arthur Drits.’

‘Arthur Drits, who I knew from long ago.’

‘Yeah, go ahead,’ Brown said.

‘Drits was dressed as Santa Claus. Also he had the gun you’re now saying was my gun.’

‘How’d you get the gun?’

‘Drits gave it to me.’

‘Why?’

‘He said, “Merry Christmas,” and gave it to me.’

‘So you took it.’

‘It was a present.’

‘So when you came out of Gruber’s you had the gun.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And you pulled the gun.’

‘Only to give it to the police officer, because by then I was having second thoughts about it.’

‘What kind of second thoughts?’

‘Who knew but what that gun may have been used in a crime of some sort?’

‘Who indeed?’ Brown said.

‘Where’d you get the sackful of money?’ Carella asked.

‘That was the Puerto Rican’s.’

‘What Puerto Rican?’

‘The one with all the wrist watches. He had the watches in the sack. When he bumped into me, the watches and the money fell out of the sack.’

‘So the gun belonged to Drits, and the sack belonged to the Puerto Rican.’

‘You’ve got it,’ Henkins said. I’m an innocent dupe’

Carella looked at Brown again.

‘There are barbarians in this city,’ Henkins said. ‘You should have seen all those people scrambling to pick up that money.’ He shook his head. ‘On Christmas Eve!’

‘Let’s talk about this Arthur Drits character,’ Brown said.

‘Yes, sir,’ Henkins said.

‘You say he was a friend of yours?’

‘An acquaintance, sir,’ Henkins said.

Brown knew from all the ‘sirs’ that he was onto something.

‘You said you knew him from long ago.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Oh, four or five years ago.’

‘And you ran into him accidentally in the men’s room at Gruber’s.’

‘That is exactly what happened, sir,’ Henkins said. ‘I swear on my mother’s eyes.’

‘Leave your mother out of this,’ Brown said.

‘My mother happens to be dead,’ Henkins said.

‘So are two people in Gruber’s cashier’s office,’ Brown said. ‘Who were killed with the gun you were carrying.’

‘Drits’s gun,’ Henkins said.

‘Who you met long ago.’

‘Four, five years ago.’

‘Where?’ Brown said.

‘Where what, sir?’

‘Where’d you meet him?’

‘Well, sir, that’s difficult to remember.’

‘Try,’ Brown said.

‘I really couldn’t say.’

Brown looked at Carella.

‘You understand,’ Carella said, ‘that we’re talking two counts of homicide here, don’t you? Plus…’

‘Drits must have killed those two people,’ Henkins said.

‘Where’d you meet this Drits?’ Carella said. ‘If he exists.’

Henkins hesitated.

‘Forget it,’ Brown said to Carella and then turned to Henkins. ‘You’re under arrest, Mr. Henkins. We’re charging you with two counts of homicide and one count of armed robbery. In accordance with the Supreme Court ruling in Miranda-Escobedo...’

‘Hey, hold it just a minute,’ Henkins said. ‘I’m a fuckin’ innocent dupe here.’

‘It was Drits and the Puerto Rican, right?’ Carella said.

‘It was Drits gave me the gun. I don’t know where the Puerto Rican got all that money those animals were scrambling for.’

‘Where’d you meet him?’ Brown said.

‘On the sidewalk outside. He crashed into me on...’

‘Not the Puerto Rican,’ Brown shouted, ‘Drits! Where the fuck did you meet him? Was he in on this with you? Did the two Santa Claus outfits have something to do with... ?’

‘I told you once, I’ll tell you again. I was taking a leak in the men’s room when Drits...’

‘The first time!’ Brown shouted. ‘Where’d you meet him the first time?’

‘Well...’

‘Make it fast,’ Brown said. ‘My Christmas is waiting.’

‘Castleview, okay?’ Henkins said.

‘You did time at Castleview?’

‘A little.’

‘How much?’

‘I grossed twenty.’

‘For what?’

‘Well ... I got thirsty one night.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I went in this liquor store.’

‘Where?’

‘Calm’s Point.’

‘And?’

‘I asked the guy for a fifth of Gordon’s.’

‘And?’

‘He didn’t want to give it to me.’

‘So?’

‘I had to persuade him.’

‘How’d you persuade him? With a gun?’

‘Well, I suppose you could call it a gun.’

‘What would you call it?’

‘I suppose I would call it a gun.’

‘What did the judge call it?’

‘Well, a gun.’

‘So this was an armed robbery.’

‘That’s what they said it was.’

‘And you drew twenty for it.’

‘I only done eight.’

‘So now you’re back at the same old stand again, huh?’

‘I keep tellin’ you it was Drits’s gun. It must’ve been Drits who shot those two ladies. If I’da known the gun was hot, I’d never have taken it.’

‘Who said they were ladies?’ Brown asked.

‘What?’

‘Who said the two dead people in the cashier’s office were ladies?’

Henkins blinked.

‘You want to tell us about it?’ Carella said.

The room went silent. The detectives waited.

‘Dennis must’ve shot those two ladies,’ Henkins said.

‘Dennis who?’

‘Dennis Dove. He must’ve been the one who went in the cashier’s office and shot those two ladies. I was nowhere near the place when the robbery went down. I was waiting on the ground floor. I didn’t even know a robbery was happening. All I was supposed to do was wait for Dennis and take the gun and the sack...’

‘Wait a minute,’ Carella said, ‘let me get this straight.’ He was having difficulty getting it straight again.

‘Dennis asked me to do him a favor, that’s all,’ Henkins said. His twinkling blue eyes were darting frantically. ‘What he asked me to do was wait downstairs and take this sack he wanted me to bring to the orphanage...’

‘The orphanage again,’ Brown said.

‘... to give to the little kiddies there on Christmas Eve.’

‘And the gun?’

‘I don’t know how Drits got the gun. Maybe he was in on it, too. An ex-con, you know?’ Henkins said, and shrugged.

‘Is that why he was in Castleview? For armed robbery?’

‘No, he digs kids.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Short eyes, you know?’

‘A child molester?’

‘Yeah.’ Henkins shrugged again.

‘But you think he was in on this robbery with Dove, huh?’

‘Musta been, don’t you think?’ Henkins said. ‘Otherwise, how’d he get the gun?’

‘But you were on the ground floor.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Nowhere near the cashier’s office.’

‘That’s right.’

‘The cashier’s office is on the sixth floor,’ Brown said.

‘So’s the men’s room,’ Carella said.

‘Coincidence, pure and simple,’ Henkins said.

‘Bullshit, pure and simple,’ Brown said.

‘Who’s Dennis Dove?’ Carella asked.

‘Guy I met a while back. Asked me to do him this favor on Christmas Eve.’

‘Is that his full name? Dennis Dove?’

‘Far as I know.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What does he look like?’

‘He’s a big tall blond guy,’ Henkins said. ‘Wears a hearing aid.’

Both detectives looked at each other at exactly the same moment.

‘A while back when?’ Brown asked.

‘Huh?’ Henkins said.

‘When you met him.’

‘October sometime. When Lizzie was filling us in.’

‘Lizzie who?’ Carella asked. He had the sinking feeling that Henkins was not talking about Lizzie Borden.

‘Some broad he was banging. Crazy about him. She used to work at Gruber’s. Not that I knew what they were planning. I was only there because they wanted me to do them a favor, you see. Whatever else...’

‘Lizzie who?’ Carella asked again.

‘Turner,’ Henkins said.

* * * *

So there they were.

And where they were...

They didn’t know where they were.

It seemed as though the Deaf Man had been behind the armed robbery at Gruber’s. It further seemed that Elizabeth Turner had worked at Gruber’s—they would check to see if she had worked in the cashier’s office, a likelihood considering her past employment—and that she had been intimate with the Deaf Man. They did not know how she had met the Deaf Man. They knew for certain that Henkins was lying through his teeth about the robbery itself—the murder weapon had been in his possession, and only his fingerprints were on the gun—but they didn’t know if he was also lying about this person named Dennis Dove, whose description fit the Deaf Man’s. He could not have pulled the name Lizzie Turner out of a hat, though. And on the night of her murder a man fitting the Deaf Man’s description had been seen carrying a woman fitting Elizabeth Turner’s description. It seemed to make sense. Sort of.

But what did the Gruber’s job have to do with the notes the Deaf Man had been sending them?

Nothing that they could see.

Two nightsticks.

Three pairs of handcuffs.

Four police hats.

Five walkie-talkies.

Six police shields.

Seven wanted flyers.

Eight black horses.

Nine patrol cars.

Ten D.D. forms.

Eleven Detective Specials.

Twelve roast pigs.

And then, at eleven on Christmas morning, while Carella was typing up the report on their interview with Henkins, and Brown was on the phone with a parole officer seeking a last-known address for Arthur Drits, a delivery boy arrived at the slatted wooden railing that separated the squadroom from the corridor outside. He was carrying a package wrapped in green paper. It was a rather bulky package, and he was having difficulty holding it in both arms.

‘Is there a Detective Stephen Louis Carella here?’ he asked.

‘I’m Carella,’ Carella said.

‘Di Fiore Florist,’ the delivery boy said.

‘Come in,’ Carella said.

‘Well ... somebody wanna help me with the latch here?’ the delivery boy said.

Carella helped him with the latch. The delivery boy struggled the package into the squadroom, looked around for a place to put it, and set it down on Genero’s vacant desk. Carella wondered if he was expected to tip the delivery boy. He dug in his pocket and handed him a quarter.

‘Can you spare it?’ the delivery boy said. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he added sourly and walked out.

Carella tore the green wrapping from the package.

He was looking at what he expected was supposed to be a pear tree. He didn’t know if it was a real pear tree, but at any rate there were pears hanging on it. They weren’t real pears, but they were clearly pears. Little wooden pears hanging all over the tree.

There was also an envelope hanging on the tree.

The envelope was addressed to Detective Stephen Louis Carella.

He tore open the envelope.

The card inside read:

Carella searched the tree for a partridge.

A little package wrapped in red foil was hanging on the tree. Carella unwrapped the package. Something decorated with feathers was inside it. It was not a partridge, but it looked like a bird of some sort, feathers glued all over it. Chicken feathers, they looked like. But it was not a chicken either, too small for a chicken. He took a closer look.

The thing was a severed human ear.

Carella dropped it at once.

* * * *

On December 26, the second day of Christmas, two nightsticks arrived at the squadroom. They were wrapped in Christmas paper, and they were addressed to Carella.

The detectives looked at the nightsticks.

They did not appear to be new ones. Both of them were scarred and battered.

‘Still he could’ve bought them,’ Kling said.

In this city a police officer was responsible for the purchase of every piece of equipment he wore or carried, with the exception of his shield, which came free with the job—the pin used to hold the shield to the uniform cost him fifty cents. Each officer was given a yearly allowance of three hundred and seventy dollars for his uniform. He bought his own gun—usually a Colt .38 or a Smith & Wesson of the same caliber—and his own bullets—six in the gun and twelve on his belt—and his own whistle, which these days was selling for two dollars. He also bought his own shoes. A foot patrolman wore out at least two pairs of shoes a year. A two-foot-long wooden nightstick cost the police officer two dollars and fifty cents, plus another forty cents for the leather thong. His short rubber billy cost three dollars and fifty cents with—again—another forty cents for the thong. Handcuffs were currently selling for twenty-five dollars.

Most policemen bought their gear from the Police Equipment Bureau downtown near the Police Academy, but there were police supply stores all over the city. Kling himself was wearing a Detective Special he had bought in one of those stores. He’d had to identify himself when purchasing the pistol, but he’d bought uniform shirts and even handcuffs when he was a patrolman, and no one had even asked him his name. He was also wearing, at the moment, one of the ties Eileen Burke had bought him for Christmas. It was a very garish tie, but no one was looking at it. They were still looking at the nightsticks.

‘Better run them through for latents,’ Meyer said.

‘Won’t be any on them,’ Brown said.

‘I don’t get it,’ Carella said. ‘He sends us a note with two pictures of a nightstick on it, and then he sends us two nightsticks. Do you get it?’

He was addressing all of them, but only Hawes answered.

‘He’s crazy,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t have to make sense.’

‘So tomorrow we get three pairs of handcuffs, right? And the day after that...’

‘Let’s see what happens tomorrow,’ Meyer said.

* * * *

On December 27 they caught up with Arthur Drits.

Carella and Brown talked to him in the Interrogation Office.

Drits had been inside interrogation offices before. He knew that the mirror he faced was a one-way mirror, and he suspected that someone was sitting in the adjoining office, watching his every move. Actually the adjoining office was empty.

Brown laid it flat out.

‘What were you doing in Gruber’s department Store the night it was held up?’

‘This is the first I’m hearing of any holdup,’ Drits said.

‘You don’t read the papers?’ Carella said.

‘Not too often,’ Drits said.

What he read were the advertisements for children’s clothing, the ones showing little girls in short dresses.

‘You watch television?’ Brown asked.

‘I don’t have a television,’ Drits said.

‘So you don’t know Gruber’s was held up on Christmas Eve, is that right?’

‘I just heard it from you a minute ago.’

‘You know anybody named Elizabeth Turner?’

‘No.’

‘She used to work in the cashier’s office at Gruber’s.’

They had already confirmed this with the personnel manager. Elizabeth Turner had begun working there on August 8 and had left the job on October 7—seventeen days before her murder.

‘Never heard of her,’ Drits said.

‘How about Dennis Dove?’

‘Him neither.’

‘Charlie Henkins?’

Drits blinked.

‘Ring a bell?’ Brown said.

‘Yeah,’ Drits said.

‘Met him at Castleview, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where you were doing time for First-Degree Rape.’

‘So they said.’

‘See him again since you got out?’

‘No.’

‘How about Christmas Eve? Did you see Henkins on Christmas Eve?’

‘No.’

‘Were you in the sixth-floor men’s room at Gruber’s on Christmas Eve?’

‘Yeah?’ Drits said, looking puzzled.

‘Did you see a Santa Claus in the men’s room?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Did he look like Henkins?’

‘No, he looked like Santa Claus.’

‘That was Henkins.’

‘Coulda fooled me,’ Drits said.

‘What were you doing in the men’s room at Gruber’s?’ Brown asked.

‘Washing my face. This guy come out of the booth, the stall there, he was wearing a Santa Claus suit same as me. I nearly shit.’

‘You were wearing a Santa Claus suit, too?’ Carella said.

‘Well, sure.’

The detectives looked at each other. They thought Charlie Henkins had been lying about Drits and the Santa Claus suit, but now...

‘As part of the job?’ Brown asked.

‘Sure.’

‘The holdup called for two guys in Santa Claus suits?’

‘What?’ Drits said.

‘What the fuck were you doing in a Santa Claus suit?’ Brown asked.

‘I worked for the store,’ Drits said. ‘I was the store’s Santa Claus.’

Both detectives looked at him.

‘I was a very good Santa,’ Drits said with dignity.

‘And you never heard of anyone named Elizabeth Turner? Never met her?’

‘Never.’

‘Or Dennis Dove?’

‘Never.’

‘Did you hand Charlie Henkins a gun in the men’s room at Gruber’s?’

‘I didn’t hand him anything. I didn’t even know he was Henkins till you told me. I was surprised to see another guy in a Santa Claus suit, is all. He looked surprised, too. He just ran out.’

‘What’d you do?’

‘I dried my face, I put on my beard again, and I left the store.’

‘To go where?’

‘Home.’

‘Which is where?’

‘I live in a hotel on Waverly.’

‘Were you outside the store when Henkins got shot?’

‘I didn’t know Henkins got shot.’

‘Didn’t see the shooting, huh?’

‘No.’

‘What did you see? When you came out of the store?’

‘Who remembers what I saw? People. I saw people.’

‘Who? What people?’

‘People. Some guy selling watches, another guy selling scarves, some nutty Salvation Army guy...’

‘What do you mean by “nutty”?’

‘Nuts, you know? He told me, “Here.”’

‘He told you what?’

‘Here.’

‘H-e-a-r?’

‘No, h-e-r-e. I think. Who knows with nuts?’

‘Here? What’d he mean?’

‘I don’t know what he meant.’

‘What’d you think he meant?’

‘I think he was nuts. He asked me where the bag was.’

‘What’d he look like?’ Carella asked at once.

‘Tall guy in a Salvation Army uniform. Nuts.’

‘What color was his hair?’

‘I don’t know. He was wearing a hat.’

‘Was he wearing a hearing aid?’

‘He had ear muffs on.’

Carella sighed. Brown sighed, too.

‘All right, keep your nose clean,’ Brown said.

‘I can go?’ Drits said.

‘Why?’ Brown said. ‘Did you do something?’

‘No, no, hey,’ Drits said.

‘See that you don’t,’ Carella said.

* * * *

That afternoon three pairs of handcuffs arrived.

They had already questioned George Di Fiore, the proprietor of Di Fiore Florists, about the man who’d ordered the pear tree, and he’d told them first of all that it wasn’t a real pear tree, it was in fact a Ficus Benjamina, but they were all out of pear trees when the man came in asking for one. Di More had also told them that the man had personally picked out the little wooden pears to fasten to the tree, and then had personally affixed the card and the little wrapped package to the tree. Di Fiore hadn’t known what was in the little wrapped package, and did not consider it his business to ask. Carella wanted to ask if Di Fiore—which meant ‘of the flowers’ in Italian—had chosen his profession because of his name. He knew an anesthesiologist named Dr. Sleepe—although he pronounced it Slehpuh—and a chiropractor named Hands. Instead he asked what Di Fiore’s pear-tree customer had looked like.

‘Tall blond man wearing a hearing aid,’ Di Fiore told him.

So now the three pairs of handcuffs.

They all looked brand-new.

They could have been purchased, as Kling again suggested, at any police-supply store in town.

December 27, the third day of Christmas, and three pairs of handcuffs.

Tomorrow, Carella knew for certain, four police hats would arrive.

* * * *

And they did.

Arrived by United Parcel delivery, all boxed and wrapped in festive Christmas paper.

The hats were definitely not new.

Their sweat bands were greasy, and their leather peaks were cracked with age. Moreover, they had police shields pinned to them. And unlike the pictures they’d received earlier, these shields had numbers on them.

There were four different numbers on the shields.

Carella called Mullaney at Personnel and asked him to identify the shields for him.

‘This Coppola again?’ Mullaney said.

When he came back onto the line, he told Carella that those shields, and presumably the hats to which they were pinned, belonged to four different police officers at four different precincts. He asked Carella if he wanted the patrolmen’s names—one of them, actually, was a female cop, but in Mullaney’s world all police officers were patrolmen. Carella took down the names and then called each precinct. The desk sergeant on duty at each precinct told Carella that yes, indeed, such and such an officer worked out of this precinct, but he—or, in the case of the woman, she—had not reported having lost his, or her, hat. One of the sergeants asked Carella if this was a joke. Carella told him he guessed it wasn’t a joke.

But if it wasn’t a joke, then what the hell was it?

Carella grunted and picked up one of the police hats.

The man or woman who’d worn it had dandruff.

* * * *

‘Those are police walkie-talkies,’ Miscolo said. ‘Standard issue.’

Miscolo was a clerk and not a detective, but it didn’t take a detective to see that each of the walkie-talkies that arrived by United Parcel delivery on the fifth day of Christmas, December 29, were marked with plastic labeling tape of the sort you printed up yourself with a lettering gun. Each of the walkie-talkies had two strips of tape on it. The first strip was identical in each case. It read:

RETURN TO CHARGING RACK

The second strips differed. One read:

PROPERTY OF 21ST PRECINCT

Another read:

PROPERTY OF 12TH PRECINCT

And so on:

PROPERTY OF 61ST PRECINCT

PROPERTY OF MIDTOWN EAST

PROPERTY OF 83RD PRECINCT

Five different walkie-talkies from five different precincts.

‘Those were stolen from five different precincts,’ Miscolo said. ‘This man is entering police precincts all over town.’

* * * *

The six police shields that arrived on December 30, a Friday and the sixth day of Christmas, similarly belonged to police officers from six different precincts. None of the officers had reported his shield missing or stolen; a cop does not like to admit that somebody ripped off his goddamn potsie. Moreover, the six precincts from which the shields had been stolen—Carella was sure by now that they’d been stolen—were not any of the precincts from which the walkie-talkies or the police hats were stolen. In short, fifteen precincts had been entered—four police hats, five walkie-talkies, and six shields for a total of fifteen—and police equipment had been removed from them under the very eyes of the police themselves. There were twenty precincts in Isola alone. Some of the police equipment had been stolen from precincts in Calm’s Point and Majesta. None had been stolen from either Bethtown or Riverhead. But someone had been very busy indeed, even assuming that neither the nightsticks nor the handcuffs were similarly stolen, which would have brought to twenty-four the number of precincts whose security had been breached.

For what purpose? Carella wondered.

Toward what end?

* * * *

The seventh day of Christmas was New Year’s Eve, a Saturday.

Naturally seven wanted flyers arrived in that morning’s mail.

And naturally there was a power failure at three-thirty that afternoon, fifteen minutes before the eight-to-four was scheduled to be relieved. It would not have been New Year’s Eve unless something happened to prevent the out-going shift from leaving when it was supposed to. The day shift detectives, eager to get the hell out of the squadroom to start the festivities, knew only that somehow the Greater Isola Power & Light Company (formerly the Metropolitan Light & Power Company) had screwed up yet another time, and they would not be able to complete their paperwork before four o’clock. What they did not know was that Greater Isola Power & Light—known to its millions of dissatisfied customers as the Big (for Greater) Ipple (for I. P. L.)—was totally innocent of any malfeasance this time around.

Gopher Nelson had caused the power failure.

The power failure lasted exactly one minute.

Gopher caused it by throwing a switch pinpointed on the ‘Composite Feeder Plate Map’ the Deaf Man had provided. The map was one of four the Deaf Man had given Gopher, explaining that he’d acquired them—along with several others—years ago, when he was planning to place a bomb under the mayor’s bed. Gopher wondered why the Deaf Man planned such peculiar things, but he didn’t ask; the money was good.

The first map was stamped ‘Property of Metropolitan Light & Power Company’ and was titled ‘60-Cycle Network Area Designations and Boundaries Upper Isola.’ It showed the locations of all the area substations in that section of the city. The area in which the 87th Precinct station house was located was designated as ‘Grover North.’ Into this substation ran high-voltage supply cables, also called feeders, from switching stations, elsewhere on the transmission system.

The second map, similarly stamped, was titled ‘System Ties,’ and it was a detailed enlargement of the feeder system supplying any given substation. The substation on the first map had been labeled ‘No. 4 Fuller.’ By locating this on the more detailed map, Gopher and the Deaf Man were able to identify the number designation for the feeder: 85RL9.

Which brought them to the third map, titled simply ‘85RL9’ and subtitled ‘Location Grover North Substation.’ This was a rather long, narrow diagram of the route the feeders, or supply cables, traveled below the city’s streets, with numbers indicating the manholes that provided access to the cables themselves. The cable-carrying manhole closest to the 87th Precinct station house was three blocks way on Grover Avenue and Fuller Street. On the ‘Composite Feeder Plate Map’ it was numbered ‘R2147-120’ESC-CENT.’

The manhole was a hundred and twenty feet east of the southern curb of Fuller in the center of the street—hence the designation ‘120’ESC-CENT’—just opposite the bronze statue of John G. Fuller, the noted balloonist. The cables were five feet below the surface of the street, protected by a three-hundred-pound manhole cover. Gopher set up a Big Ipple manhole stand, raised the manhole cover with a crowbar, went down into the manhole, found the cable switch, opened it, and then closed it a minute later. The lights in the 87th Precinct station house—and indeed in all the surrounding residential houses—were out for only that amount of time. But that was all the time Gopher needed for his purposes.

It was four-fifteen when he arrived at the muster desk, wearing a G. I. P. & L tag pinned to his coveralls. He presented his phony credentials to the desk sergeant and told him he was here to see about the power failure. The sergeant looked across the desk at this little guy with the floppy brown mustache and the blue watch cap and told him there hadn’t been any real power failure, lights just went out for a minute or so, that was all. Gopher said, ‘A minute or so is a power failure to us.’

‘So what do you want to do?’ the sergeant asked. He was thinking that a sergeant from the Eight-Four was having a big bash at his house tonight, and he was hoping it’d still be going strong when he got there. He’d be relieved at a quarter to twelve. Figure fifteen minutes to change in the locker room, another half hour to get crosstown...

‘I gotta put a voltage recorder on the line,’ Gopher said.

‘What’s the big fuss?’ the sergeant said. ‘We got lights, don’t we?’

‘For now? Gopher said. ‘You want them to go out again when you got some big ax murderer in here?’

The desk sergeant didn’t even want them to go out when they had some little numbers runner in here. The desk sergeant was thinking about pulling on a funny hat and blowing a horn.

“That your voltage recorder there?’ he asked, peering over the top of the desk to the wooden box at Gopher’s feet. Gopher hoisted the box onto the desk. It was about the size of a small suitcase. It looked like a larger version of the sort of box one might use to carry roller skates, with metal edges and a handle and clasps to open the lid. But on the lace of the box there was a rectangular dial with a yellow band, a red band, and a green band. The yellow band was marked at the end farthest left with a stamped metal tag reading ‘60 volts.’ The green band was marked at its center point with a similar tag reading ‘120 volts.’ The red band was marked at the end farthest right with a tag reading ‘200 volts.’ A needle was behind the glass covering the dial. Three knobs were under the dial.

‘So what’s that for?’ the sergeant asked.

‘It’s got a tape disc and graph paper inside it,’ Gopher said. ‘It monitors the incoming voltage, lets us know we’re getting any surges or fluctuations in the...’

‘I’m sorry I asked,’ the sergeant said. ‘Go do your thing.’

Gopher started up the iron-runged steps to the squadroom.

There was no graph paper or tape disc inside the wooden box.

The dial was real enough—Gopher had taken it from a genuine voltage recorder—but it was connected to nothing, and the knobs beneath it, used on a genuine recorder to calibrate the meter, had absolutely no function.

Inside the box there was a timer with a seven-day dial. The timer was normally used for programming heating, air-conditioning, and ventilating equipment, as well as lights, pumps, motors, and other single-phase to three-phase loads. Seven sets of trippers, supplied with the timer, enabled its user to set a different on/off program for each day of the week. The timer looked like this:

When the swing-away cover was moved to the left, the terminals looked like this:

This was December 31, a Saturday. The timer was already programmed for next Thursday, which would be January 5.

It was set for 8:15 p.m., at which time it would turn on whatever electrical appliance its wires were connected to.

Its wires were not connected to any electrical appliance.

There was a five-pound charge of dynamite inside the box. There was a plastic bag of black powder inside the box. One of the wires from the terminal led to a ground. The other wire was loosely twisted around the first wire. At 8:15 p.m. next Thursday, when the timer triggered the on switch, a surge of electricity would arc through the loosely twisted wires and cause a spark, which would ignite the black powder and subsequently the fuse leading to the dynamite charge. All Gopher had to do now was plug his phony voltage recorder into an ordinary 110-volt outlet and set the present time on the timer.

The rest would take care of itself.

In the squadroom upstairs the detectives were discussing the wanted flyers that had arrived in that day’s mail.

‘These have got to be the real article,’ O’Brien said.

‘Could’ve got ‘em from a post office,’ Fujiwara said.

‘Beautiful crowd, ain’t they?’ Willis said. ‘Rape, arson, armed robbery, kidnapping...’

‘You don’t think he’s pinpointing them, do you?’

‘Pinpointing who?’

‘The ones who did the Gruber’s job with him.’

‘What he’s doing,’ O’Brien said, ‘he’s telling us he can go into any goddamn squadroom in this city and do whatever the fuck he wants inside them.’

‘If he got them from a squadroom,’ Fujiwara said.

‘That’s where he got them, all right,’ Willis said.

Gopher stopped at the slatted rail divider separating the squadroom from the corridor outside.

‘Electric company,’ he said. ‘Got to put a voltage recorder on your line.’

‘Come on in,’ O’Brien said.

‘Where’s your fuse box?’ Gopher asked.

‘Who knows?’ Willis said.

Gopher had no reason to locate the fuse box. He simply wanted an excuse to look the place over. He set the box down near one of the desks and began poking around. Plenty of outlets all over the room, but he needed someplace to plant his incendiaries.

‘What’s in here?’ he asked, his hand on a doorknob.

‘Supply closet,’ Fujiwara said.

A naked light bulb with a pull chain was hanging inside the closet. Gopher pulled the chain. A 40-watt bulb, amazing these guys could see anything in here.

‘Mind if I smoke?’ he asked.

‘Long as you don’t set fire to the joint,’ O’Brien said.

Gopher laughed.

He checked the closet baseboard for outlets. Usually you didn’t find an outlet in a closet, but some of these old buildings, they divided a big room by throwing up walls wherever they felt like. He found a double outlet on the rear wall of the closet. Good. He could plug in his box right here, where there was plenty of flammable shit. Give it a roaring start with his incendiaries, should have a nice little blaze in minutes flat. Nice old wood all around the room. Oh, this would be a very pretty fire.

‘I’ll be through in a minute here,’ Gopher said. ‘You got an ashtray?’

‘Just grind it out on the floor,’ O’Brien said.

It took Gopher a minute and a half to carry his box into the closet, set it on the floor under a shelf at the rear, and plug it in.

It took him three minutes to set the timer with the present time, which he read off the squadroom clock.

‘I have to bring some other stuff up here,’ he said. ‘Some chemicals to keep the closet dry. Otherwise, the recorder won’t give us a true reading. I’ll stack them on the shelves, out of your way.’

He went downstairs for his incendiaries.

He stacked three innocent-looking cardboard cartons in the supply closet, one on each of three shelves above the box. As he worked, he listened to the detectives.

‘So why’s he trying to tell us he can get into squadrooms?’ Fujiwara said. ‘If that’s what he’s trying to tell us.’

‘‘Cause he’s crazy,’ Willis said.

* * * *

Over the past several years it had become a ritual. On New Year’s Eve, before they left the house for whatever party they were going to, Carella and Teddy made love. And when they returned to the house again, in the New Year this time, they made love again.

Once a long time ago Carella had been told by a detective of Scottish ancestry that in the northern parts of Great Britain the custom of first-footing is still honored on the first day of the New Year. A dark-eyed, dark-haired person—presumably because Britain’s enemies in days of yore were fair-haired and light-eyed—carries a symbolic gift, usually a piece of coal and a pinch of salt, over the doorsill of a friend’s house. The gift bearer is the first person to set foot in the house in the New Year: hence, first-footing. His or her gift is a wish for health and prosperity throughout the coming year.

Carella didn’t know whether he was recalling the story faithfully or even if the Scotsman had been idling the truth. He suspected, however, that one doesn’t kid around when it comes to custom. He liked the story, and he wanted to believe that such a custom, in fact, existed. In a world where too many people came bearing death, it was comforting to know that in some remote little village far to the north, someone—on the very first day of the bright New Year—came bearing the gift of life: a piece of coal for the grate, a pinch of salt for the pot. In a sense, the Scotsman had said, the custom was a reaffirmation of life.

For Carella love making was a similar affirmation of life.

He loved this woman completely.

This woman was his life.

And holding her in his arms on New Year’s Day—dark-eyed, dark-haired people both, no enemies here in this bed—he silently wished her the best that life could afford.

But New Year’s Day was also the eighth day of Christmas.

And someone would come bearing tidings of death.

* * * *