Eight Black Horses

CHAPTER EIGHT

Carella had been shot twice since he’d been a cop, one of those times by the Deaf Man. He did not want to get shot ever again. It hurt, and it was embarrassing. There was something even more embarrassing than getting shot, however, and the Deaf Man had been responsible for that, too.

Once upon a time, when the Deaf Man was planning a bank holdup for which he’d fairly and scrupulously prepared the Eight-Seven far in advance, two hoods jumped Carella and Teddy on their way home from the movies. The men got away with Teddy’s handbag and wristwatch as well as Carella’s own watch, his wallet with all his identification in it, and—most shameful to admit—his service revolver.

The most recent message from the Deaf Man depicted eleven Colt Detective Specials.

The pistol the Deaf Man had shown to Naomi Schneider had been a Colt Detective Special, probably the same one he’d photographed and then Xeroxed for his pasteup. The pistol Carella had been carrying for some little while now was also a Colt Detective Special. In fact, this was the pistol of choice for most of the cops on the squad.

Pinned to the bulletin board, slightly to the left of the picture of the eleven revolvers, was the picture of the six police shields.

Carella’s shield and his ID card had been used during the bank job the day alter they’d been stolen from him. The man who’d gone in claiming to be Detective Carella was also carrying the gun he had taken from Carella the night before.

Was there some connection between that long-ago theft of pistol and shield and the current messages depicting pistols and shields?

There were now seven messages in all, each posted to the bulletin board in ascending numerical order:

Two nightsticks.

Three pairs of handcuffs.

Four police hats.

Five walkie-talkies.

Six police shields.

Eight black horses.

Eleven Colt Detective Specials.

One thing Carella knew for certain about the Deaf Man was that he worked with different pickup gangs on each job, rather like a jazz soloist recruiting sidemen in the various cities on his tour. In the past any apprehended gang members did not know the true identity of their leader; he had presented himself once as L. Sordo, another time as Mort Orecchio, and—on the occasion of his last appearance—simply as Taubman. In Spanish el sordo meant ‘the Deaf Man.’ Loosely translated, mort’orecchio meant ‘dead ear’ in Italian. And in German der taube Mann meant ‘the Deaf Man.’ If indeed he was deaf. The hearing aid itself may have been a phony, even though he always took pains to announce that he was hard of hearing. But whatever he was or whoever he was, the crimes he conceived were always grand in scale and involved large sums of money.

Nor was conceiving crimes and executing them quite enough for the Deaf Man. A key element in his M.O. was telling the police what he was going to do long before he did it. At first Carella had supposed this to be evidence of a monumental ego, but he had come to learn that the Deaf Man used the police as a sort of second pickup gang, larger than the nucleus group, but equally essential to the successful commission of the crime. That he had been thwarted on three previous occasions was entirely due to chance. He was smarter than the police, and he used the police, and he let the police know they were being used.

Knowing they were being used but not knowing how, knowing he was telling them a great deal about the crime but not enough, knowing he would do what he predicted but not exactly, the police generally reacted like hicks on a Mickey Mouse force. Their behavior in turn strengthened the Deaf Man’s premise that they were singularly inept. Given their non-demonstrated ineffectiveness, he became more and more outrageous, more and more daring. And the bolder he became, the more they tripped over their own flat feet.

And yet, he always played the game fair.

Carella hated to think of what might happen if all at once he decided not to play the game fair.

What if those seven messages on the bulletin board had nothing whatever to do with the crime he was planning this time around? What if each of them taken separately had nothing to do with all of them as a whole? In short, what if he was cheating this time?

There seemed no question now—if ever there had been—that the man who’d dropped Elizabeth Turner’s corpse in the park across the street was the Deaf Man. Josie Sears hadn’t seen a hearing aid in the man’s ear, but she’d described him as tall and blond. Given the circumstances, that was close enough. No cigar, but damn close.

It was also clear that someone of the same description, and definitely wearing a hearing aid this time, had passed himself off to Naomi Schneider as Detective Steve Carella of the 87th Squad.

The Deaf Man had been driving a stolen blue Buick Century on the night Josie spotted him and a gray Jaguar sedan on the night he’d driven Naomi home. Even before Carella called Auto Theft, he suspected the Jaguar had been stolen, too.

His call to Auto disclosed that a dozen Jaguars, apparently popular cars with thieves, had been stolen in this city since the beginning of November. Four of them had been sedans. One of those had been gray. It had not yet been recovered. Carella now had a license plate number for the car the Deaf Man might still be driving. If the same license plate was still on it. And if the car hadn’t already been dumped in some empty lot in the next state.

The Deaf Man was a one-man crime wave.

But what was he up to?

What was the goddamn significance of these pictures he kept sending them? Did the numbers themselves mean something? Why all this police paraphernalia, with eight black horses thrown in for good measure?

Come on, Carella thought, play it fair. Give us a break, willya?

* * * *

The next break in the case—if in retrospect it could be considered that—came on the third day of December, a Saturday. It came with a phone call from Naomi Schneider at twenty minutes past three.

‘Did you just call me?’ she asked Carella.

‘No,’ he said. And then at once, ‘Have you heard from him again?’

‘Well, somebody named Steve Carella just called me,’ she said.

‘Did it sound like him?’

‘I guess so. I’ve never heard his voice on the phone.’

‘What’d he want?’

‘He said he wants to see me again.’

‘Did he say when?’

‘Today.’

‘Where? Is he coming there?’

‘Well, we didn’t arrange anything actually. I thought I’d better call you first.’

‘How’d you leave it?’

‘I told him I’d call him back.’

‘He gave you a number?’

‘Yes.’

‘What is it?’

Naomi gave him the number.

‘Stay right there,’ Carella said. ‘If he calls again, tell him you’re still thinking it over. Tell him you’re hurt because you haven’t heard from him in such a long time.’

‘Well, I already told him that,’ Naomi said.

‘You told him...?’

‘Well, I really was hurt,’ Naomi said.

‘Naomi,’ Carella said, ‘this man is a very dangerous criminal. Don’t play games with him, do you hear me? If he calls again, tell him you’re still considering whether you want to see him again, and then call me here right away. If I’m not here, leave a message with one of the other detectives. Have you got that?’

‘Yes, of course, I’ve got it. I’m not a child,’ Naomi said.

‘I’ll get back to you later,’ he said, and hung up. He checked his personal directory, dialed a number at Headquarters, identified himself to the clerk who answered the phone, and told her he needed an address for a telephone number in his possession. The new hotline at Headquarters had been installed because policemen all over the city had been having trouble getting information from the telephone company, whose policy was not to give out the addresses of subscribers, even if a detective said he was working a homicide. Carella sometimes felt the telephone company was run by either the Mafia or the KGB. The clerk was back on the line three minutes later.

‘That number is for a phone booth,’ she said.

‘On the street or where?’ Carella asked.

‘Got it listed for something called the Corners on Detavoner and Ash.’

“Thank you,’ Carella said, and hung up. ‘Artie!’ he yelled. ‘Get your hat!’

* * * *

When the knock sounded on the door to Naomi’s apartment, she thought it might be Carella. He had told her he’d get back to her later, hadn’t he? She went to the door.

‘Who is it?’ she asked.

‘Me,’ the voice said. ‘Steve.’

It did not sound like the real Carella. It sounded like the fake Carella. And the real Carella had told her the fake Carella was a very dangerous man. As if she didn’t know.

‘Just a second,’ she said, and unlocked the door and took off the night chain.

There he was.

Tall, blond, handsome, head cocked to one side, smile on his face.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Long time no see,’ she said. She felt suddenly weak. Just the sight of him made her weak.

‘Okay to come in?’

‘Sure,’ she said, and let him into the apartment.

* * * *

The Corners at three-thirty that Saturday afternoon was—thanks to the football game on the television set over the bar—actually more crowded than it would have been at the same time on a weekday. Carella and Brown immediately checked out the place for anyone who might remotely resemble the Deaf Man. There was only one blond man sitting at the bar, and he was short and fat. They went at once to the men’s room. Empty. They knocked on the door to the ladies’ room, got no answer, opened the door, and checked that out, too. Empty. They went back outside to the bar. Carella showed the bartender his shield. The bartender nodded.

‘Tall blond man,’ Carella said. ‘Would have used the phone booth about forty minutes ago.’

‘What about him?’ the bartender said.

‘Did you see him?’

‘I saw him. Guy with a hearing aid?’

‘Yes.’

‘I saw him.’

‘He’s been in here before, hasn’t he?’

‘Coupla times.’

‘Would you know his name?’

‘I think it’s Dennis, I’m not sure.’

‘Dennis what?’

‘I don’t know. He was in here with a guy one night, I heard the guy calling him Dennis.’

‘There’s just this one room, huh?’ Brown said.

‘Just this one.’

‘No little side rooms or anything.’

‘Just this.’

‘Any other toilets? Besides the rest rooms back there?’

‘That’s all,’ the bartender said. ‘If you’re lookin’ for him, he already left.’

‘Any idea where he went?’

‘Nope.’

‘Did he leave right after he made his phone call?’

‘Nope. Sat at the bar for ten minutes or so, finishing his drink.’

‘What was he drinking?’ Carella asked.

‘Jim Beam and water.’

Carella looked at Brown. Brown shrugged. Carella went to the phone booth and dialed Naomi Schneider’s number.

* * * *

‘Let it ring,’ the Deaf Man said.

She was naked. They were on her bed. She would have let it ring even if it was the fire department calling to say the building was on fire. The phone kept ringing. Spread wide beneath him, her eyes closed, she heard the ringing only distantly, a faraway sound over the pounding of her own heart, the raging of her blood. At last the phone stopped.

All at once he stopped too.

‘Hey,’ she said, ‘don’t...’

‘I want to talk,’ he said.

‘Put it back in,’ she said.

‘Later.’

‘Come on,’ she said.

‘No.’

‘Please, baby, I’m almost there.’ she said. ‘Put it back in. Please.’

He got off the bed. She watched him as he walked to the dresser, watched him as he shook a cigarette free from the package on the dresser top. He thumbed a gold lighter into flame, blew out a wreath of smoke. Everything was golden about him. Gold watch, gold lighter, golden hair, big magnificent golden...

‘There’s something we have to discuss,’ he said. ‘Something I’d like you to do for me.’

‘Bring it here, I’ll show you what I can do for you.’

‘Later,’ he said, and smiled.

* * * *

They were in the unmarked sedan, heading back toward the precinct. The heater, as usual, wasn’t working. The windows were frost-rimed. Brown kept rubbing at the windshield with his gloved hand, trying to free it of ice.

‘I told her to stay home,’ Carella said. ‘I specifically told her to...’

‘We don’t own her,’ Brown said.

* * * *

‘Who owns you?’ the Deaf Man said.

‘You do.’

‘Say it.’

‘You own me.’

‘Again.’

‘You own me.’

‘And you’ll do anything I want you to do, won’t you?’

‘Anything.’

* * * *

‘You think we ought to stop by there?’ Brown asked. ‘It’s on the way back.’

‘What for?’ Carella said.

‘Maybe she just went down for a newspaper or something.’

‘Pull over to that phone booth,’ Carella said. ‘I’ll try her again.’

The phone was ringing again.

‘You’re a busy little lady,’ the Deaf Man said.

‘Shall I answer it?’

‘No.’

The phone kept ringing.

* * * *

Carella came out of the booth and walked back to the car. Brown was banging on the heater with the heel of his hand.

‘Any luck?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘So what do you want to do?’

‘Let’s take a spin by there,’ Carella said.

* * * *

‘I need you on Christmas Eve,’ the Deaf Man said.

‘I need you right now,’ Naomi said.

‘I want you to be a very good little girl on Christmas Eve.’

‘I promise I’ll be a very good little girl,’ she said, and folded her hands in her lap like an eight-year-old. ‘But you really owe me an apology, you know.’

‘I owe you nothing,’ he said flatly.

‘I mean for not calling me all this...’

‘For nothing,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever forget that.’

She looked at him. She nodded. She would do whatever he asked her to do, she would wait forever for his phone calls, she would never ask him for explanations or apologies. She had never met anyone like him in her life. She almost said out loud, ‘I’ll bet you’ve got girls all over this city who’ll do anything you want them to do,’ but she caught herself in time. She did not want him walking out on her. She did not want him disappearing from her life again.

‘I want you to dress up for me,’ he said. ‘On Christmas Eve.’

‘Like a good little girl?’ she said. ‘In a short skirt? And knee socks? And Buster Brown shoes? And white cotton panties?’

‘No.’

‘Well, whatever,’ she said. ‘Sure.’

‘A Salvation Army uniform,’ he said.

‘Okay, sure.’

That might be kicks, she thought, a Salvation Army uniform. Nothing at all under the skirt. Sort of kinky. Little Goodie-Two-Shoes tambourine-beating virgin with her skirt up around her naked ass.

‘Where am I supposed to get a Salvation Army uniform?’ she asked.

‘I’ll get it for you. You don’t have to worry about that.’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘You know my size?’

‘You can give me that before I leave.’

’Leave?’ she said, alarmed. ‘I’ll kill you if you walk out of here without...’

‘I’m not walking out of here. Not until we discuss this fully.’

‘And not until you...’

‘Be quiet,’ he said.

She nodded. She had to be very careful with him. She didn’t want to lose him, not ever again.

‘Where do you want me to wear this uniform?’ she said. ‘Will you be coming here?’

‘No.’

‘Then where? Your place?’

‘Uptown,’ he said. ‘Near the precinct.’

‘Uh-huh,’ she said, and looked at him. ‘Is that where you live? Near the precinct?’

‘No, that’s not where I live. That’s where you’ll be wearing the uniform. On the street up there. A few blocks from where I work.’

‘We’re gonna do it on the street?’ she asked, and smiled.

‘You have a very evil mind,’ he said, and kissed her. She felt the kiss clear down to her toes. ‘This is a stakeout,’ he said. ‘Police work. Both of us in Salvation Army uniforms.’

‘Oh, you’re gonna be wearing one, too.’

‘Yes.’

‘Sounds like fun,’ she said. ‘But what do you really have in mind?’

‘That’s what I have in mind,’ he said.

‘A stakeout, huh?’

‘Yes, a stakeout.’

‘Even though you’re not a cop, huh?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, I know you’re not a cop.’

‘I’m not, huh?’

‘I know you’re not Steve Carella.’

He looked at her.

‘And how do you know that?’ he said.

‘‘Cause I know the real Steve Carella,’ she said.

He kept looking at her.

‘I do,’ she said, and nodded. ‘I called the station house,’ she said. ‘I called the Eighty-seventh Precinct.’

‘Why’d you do that?’

“Cause you told me you worked there.’

‘You spoke to someone named Carella?’

‘Steve Carella, yes. In fact, I met him. Later.’

‘You met him,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘He told me you’re not him. As if I didn’t know. I mean, the minute I saw him I knew he wasn’t...’

‘What else did he tell you?’

‘He said you’re very dangerous,’ Naomi said, and giggled.

‘I am,’ he said.

‘Oh, I know,’ she said, and giggled again.

‘And what’d you tell him?’

‘Oh ... how we met... and what we did ... and like that.’

‘Did you tell him where we met?’

‘Oh, sure, the Corners,’ she said.

He was very silent.

‘What else did you tell him?’ he asked at last.

* * * *

A good way for a statistician to discover how many policemen are on duty in any sector of the city is to put a 10-13 call on the radio. Every cop in the vicinity will immediately respond. Sometimes even cops from other precincts will respond. That is because the 10-13 radio code means assist police officer, and there is no higher priority.

Carella and Brown were a block from Naomi’s apartment when the 10-13 erupted from the walkie-talkie on the seat between them. Neither of the men discussed or debated it. The cop in trouble was ten blocks from where they were, in the opposite direction from the one they were traveling. But Brown immediately swung the car around in a sharp U-turn, and Carella hit the siren switch.

* * * *

The Deaf Man sat up straight the moment he heard the siren. Like an animal sensing danger, Naomi thought. God, he is so beautiful. But the siren was moving away from her street, and as it faded into the distance, he seemed to relax.

‘What else did you tell him?’ he asked again.

‘Well ... nothing,’ she said.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Well ... I told him what you looked like and what you were wearing ... he was asking me questions, you see.’

‘Yes, I’m sure he was. How did he react to all this information?’

‘He seemed interested.’

‘Oh, yes, I’m sure.’

‘He told me to keep in touch.’

‘And have you kept in touch?’

‘Well...’

‘Have you?’

‘Look, don’t you think you should tell me who you really are?’ she said.

‘I want to know whether you and Steve Carella have kept in touch.’

‘He said you’re a dangerous criminal is what he actually said. Are you a criminal?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Tell me whether you’ve stayed in touch.’

‘What kind of criminal are you?’

‘A very good one.’

‘I mean ... like a burglar ... or a robber ... or ...’ She arched her eyebrows, the way her magazines had taught her. ‘A rapist?’

‘When did he tell you I was a criminal?’ he asked.

‘Well, when I saw him, I guess. At his house.’

‘Oh, you went to his house, did you?’

‘Well, yeah.’

‘When was that?’

‘On Thanksgiving Day.’

‘And that was when he told you I was a criminal?’

‘Yes. And again today. A dangerous criminal is what he...’

‘Today?’ the Deaf Man said. ‘You spoke to him today?’

‘Well, yes, I did.’

‘When?’

‘Right after you called.’

* * * *

Four patrol cars were already angled into the curb when Carella and Brown got to the scene. At least a dozen patrolmen with drawn guns were crouched behind the cover of the cars, and more patrolmen were approaching on foot, at a run, their guns magically appearing in their hands the moment they saw what the situation was. Again neither Carella nor Brown discussed anything. They immediately drew their guns and stepped out of the car.

A sergeant told them a cop was inside there. ‘Inside there’ was a doctor’s office. The cop and his partner had responded to a simple radioed 10-10—INVESTIGATE SUSPICIOUS PERSON—and had walked into the waiting room to find a man holding a .357 Magnum in his hand. The man opened fire immediately, missing both cops, but knocking a big chunk of plaster out of the waiting room wall and scaring the patients half to death. The point-cop had thrown himself flat on the floor. The backup-cop had managed to get out the door and radio the 10-13. The sergeant figured the man inside there was a junkie looking for dope. Doctors’ offices were prime targets for junkies. Carella asked the sergeant if he thought he needed them there. The sergeant said, ‘No, what I think I need here is the hostage team.’

Carella and Brown holstered their guns and went back to the car.

* * * *

The Deaf Man was putting on his clothes. Naomi watched him from the bed.

‘I didn’t tell him you were coming here, if that’s what’s bothering you,’ she said.

‘Nothing’s bothering me,’ he said.

But he was tucking the flaps of his shirt into his trousers. He sat again, put on his socks and shoes, and then went to the dresser for his cuff links. He put on the cuff links and then picked up the gun in its holster. He slipped into the harness and then came back to the chair for his jacket.

She kept watching him, afraid to say anything more. A man like this one, you could lose him if you said too much. Instead, she opened her legs a little wider, give him a better look at her, he was only human, wasn’t he? He went to the closet, took his coat from a hanger, and shrugged into it.

He walked back to the bed.

He smiled and reached under his coat, and under his jacket, and pulled the gun from its holster.

Naomi returned his smile and spread her legs a little wider.

‘Another game with the gun?’ she asked.

* * * *

It took Carella and Brown five minutes to clear the immediate area around the doctor’s office. The police had cordoned off the scene, so they had to slop at the barricade to identify themselves. It took them another ten minutes to get uptown to Naomi’s apartment.

They were twelve minutes too late.

The door to Naomi’s apartment was wide open.

Naomi was lying on the bed with a bullet hole between her eyes.

The pillow under her head was very red.

Well, now they had a bullet.

The bullet had entered Naomi Schneider’s skull just above the bridge of her manicured nose, and angled up slightly and exited at the back of her head, and had gone through the down pillow under her head to lodge in the mattress, where the lab technicians dug it out.

The bullet told them that the murder weapon was a Colt Detective Special—similar to any one of the eleven on the picture the Deaf Man had sent I hem

But that was all they had.

And until they were in possession of an actual weapon they could test-fire for comparison purposes, the bullet was virtually useless to them.

* * * *

On Monday morning, December 12, another message from the Deaf Man arrived in the mail:

They were looking at seven wanted flyers.

‘Beautiful people, each and every one of them,’ Meyer said.

‘Maybe he’s telling us who the gang is,’ Brown said.

‘He wouldn’t be that crazy, would he?’ Carella said. ‘To name them for us?’

‘Why not?’ Brown said. ‘If these guys are still loose, their pictures are in every precinct in town.’

Which was just the problem.

Even before they tacked the latest message to the bulletin board, the pictures were already there. All seven of them. Plus a dozen more like them. The detectives looked at all the Deaf Man’s messages now, marching across the bulletin board in a single, inscrutable horizontal line:

Two nightsticks. Three pairs of handcuffs. Four police hats. Five walkie-talkies. Six police shields. Seven wanted flyers. Eight black horses, Eleven Colt Detective Specials.

‘What’s missing?’ Carella asked.

‘Everything’s missing,’ Brown said.

‘I mean ... there’s no one, right? Nothing for the number one. And nothing for nine or ten either.’

‘Assuming he plans to stop at eleven,’ Meyer said. ‘Suppose he plans to go to twenty? Or a hundred and twenty? Suppose he plans to keep sending these damn things forever?’

* * * *

‘Fun is fun,’ Lieutenant Byrnes said, ‘but we happen to have two dead bodies.’

He was sitting behind a desk in his corner office, the blinds open to the parking lot behind the police station. Inside the cyclone fence with its barbed wire frosting, pale December sunlight glanced off the white roofs of the patrol cars parked below. Carella thought the lieutenant looked tired. His hair seemed a bit grayer, his blue eyes a bit more faded. Am I going to look that way in a few years? he wondered. Is that what the job does to you? Burns you out, grinds you down to graying cinders?

‘Technically,’ Carella said, ‘the Schneider murder...’

‘It’s linked, it’s ours,’ Byrnes said flatly. ‘Wherever the hell it actually...’

‘The Four-One,’ Carella said.

‘So? Are they working it?’

‘No, Pete. They were happy to turn it over.’

‘Sure. Christmas coming up...’

He let the sentence trail. He was thinking, Carella knew, that there’d be enough headaches ahead in the next two weeks. All the bad guys doing their Christmas shopping. The bad guys didn’t need cash or credit cards or charge accounts. The bad guys only needed nimble fingers. He wondered if the bad guys ever got to look as gray and as pale as Byrnes did. Send them to jail, they complained that the swimming pool wasn’t properly filtered. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. They laughed at the old police adage and did their time standing on their heads, laughing. Came out looking healthier than when they went in, all that weight lifting in the prison gym. Came out ready to victimize again. Laughing all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride...

‘So what’ve you got?’ Byrnes asked.

‘Nothing,’ Carella said.

‘Don’t tell me nothing, Byrnes said, ‘I’m starting to get heat on this. The cops in New York, they get a dead Harvard graduate, they wrap it in forty-eight hours. We got two dead girls, and you tell me nothing’

‘Well, we know it’s the Deaf Man, but...’

‘Then find him.’

‘That’s the trouble, Pete. We...’

‘What’s all this crap he keeps sending us? What’s any of it got to do with the victims?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘According to this ...’ He picked up the D.D. report on his desk. ‘According to this, the second girl knew him, is that right?’

‘Yes, sir. But only as Steve Carella. That’s the name he gave her.’

‘Used your name.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Why’d she let him in that apartment? You told her he was dangerous, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So why’d she let him in? Was she crazy or something? Man like that, she lets him in her apartment?’ He shook his head. ‘What about the first victim? Did this ... what’s her name?’ He began leafing through the other D.D. reports.

‘Elizabeth Turner, sir.’

‘Did she know him, too?’

‘We don’t know, Pete. We’re assuming she did.’

‘Still don’t know where she worked, huh?’

‘No, sir.’

‘But you’re assuming it was a bank.’

‘That’s the line we’re taking, yes.’

‘Which would tie in. His M.O., I mean.’

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe planning an inside job, is that what you figure?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Use the girl.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you don’t know which bank.’

‘We’ve checked them all, Pete.’

‘If he planned to use her, why’d he kill her?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘Same gun?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘This picture of the guns ... the one he sent. All Colt Detective Specials, huh?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And the Schneider girl was killed with a Colt Detective Special, huh?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Eleven of them, huh? In the picture.’

‘Eleven, yes, sir.’

‘You think he plans to kill eleven girls?’

‘We don’t know, sir.’

‘What the hell do you know?’ Byrnes said, and then immediately said, ‘I’m sorry, Steve,’ and washed his open hand over his face and sighed heavily. ‘I got a call from Inspector Cassidy this morning,’ he said. ‘The girl’s father—the Schneider girl—her father’s a big wheel at some temple in Calm’s Point, he’s yelling like it’s the Holocaust all over again. You think there’s an anti-Semitic angle here?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘The other girl wasn’t Jewish, was she?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Yeah, well... also the Schneider girl worked for CBS, which the newspapers figure to be a glamour job...’

‘She was a receptionist there, Pete.’

‘You think he’s planning a heist at CBS?’

‘Well ... I’ll tell you the truth, that never occurred to us.’

‘I don’t know, do they have cash laying around there?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Anyway, you get a girl working for a television network, the media automatically makes a big deal of it. Well, you’ve seen the papers, you’ve seen television.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What I’m saying is we’re getting a lot of heat on this, Steve. From departmental rank and the media. I’d like to be able to tell somebody something. And soon.’

‘We’re doing our best, Pete.’

‘Yeah, I know, I know. It’s just ... with Christmas coming...’

He let the sentence trail again.

* * * *