Fuzz

Chapter 8

On Sunday morning, the visiting hours at Buena Vista Hospital were from ten to twelve. It was a busy day, busier than Wednesday, for example, because Saturday night encourages broken arms and legs, bloody pates and shattered sternums. There is nothing quite so hectic as the Emergency Room of a big city hospital on a Saturday night. And on Sunday morning it’s only natural for people to visit the friends and relatives who were unfortunate enough to have met with assorted mayhem the night before.

Steve Carella had met with assorted mayhem on Thursday night, and here it was Sunday morning, and he sat propped up in bed expecting Teddy’s arrival and feeling gaunt and pale and unshaven even though he had shaved himself not ten minutes ago. He had lost seven pounds since his admission to the hospital (it being singularly difficult to eat and breathe at the same time when your nose is taped and bandaged) and he still ached everywhere, seemed in fact to discover new bruises every time he moved, which can make a man feel very unshaven.

He had had a lot of time to do some thinking since Thursday night, and as soon as he had got over feeling, in sequence, foolish, angry, and murderously vengeful, he had decided that the deaf man was responsible for what had happened to him. That was a good way to feel, he thought, because it took the blame away from two young punks (for Christ’s sake, how could an experienced detective get smeared that way by two young punks?) and put it squarely onto a master criminal instead. Master criminals are very handy scapegoats, Carella reasoned, because they allow you to dismiss your own inadequacies. There was an old Jewish joke Meyer had once told him, about the mother who says to her son, “Trombenik, go get a job,” and the son answers, “I can’t, I’m a trombenik.” The situation now was similar, he supposed, with the question being altered to read, “How can you let a master criminal do this to you?” and the logical answer being, “It’s easy, he’s a master criminal.”

Whether or not the deaf man was a master criminal was perhaps a subject for debate. Carella would have to query his colleagues on the possibility of holding a seminar once he got back to the office. This, according to the interns who’d been examining his skull like phrenologists, should be by Thursday, it being their considered opinion that unconsciousness always meant concussion and concussion always carried with it the possibility of internal hemorrhage with at least a week’s period of observation being de rigueur in such cases, go argue with doctors.

Perhaps the deaf man wasn’t a master criminal at all. Perhaps he was simply smarter than any of the policemen he was dealing with, which encouraged some pretty frightening conjecture. Given a superior intelligence at work, was it even possible for inferior intelligences to secondguess whatever diabolical scheme was afoot? Oh, come on now, Carella thought, diabolical indeed! Well, yeah, he thought, diabolical. It is diabolical to demand five thousand dollars and then knock off the parks commissioner, and it is diabolical to demand fifty thousand dollars and then knock off the deputy mayor, and it is staggering to imagine what the next demand might be, or who the next victim would be. There most certainly would be another demand which, if not met would doubtless lead to yet another victim. Or would it? How can you second-guess a master criminal? You can’t, he’s a master criminal.

No, Carella thought, he’s only a human being, and he’s counting on several human certainties. He’s hoping to establish a pattern of warning and reprisal, he’s hoping we’ll attempt to stop him each time, but only so that we’ll fail, forcing him to carry out his threat. Which means that the two early extortion tries were only preparation for the big caper. And since he seems to be climbing the municipal government ladder, and since he multiplied his first demand by ten, I’m willing to bet his next declared victim will be James Martin Vale, the mayor himself, and that he’ll ask for ten times what he asked for the last time: five hundred thousand dollars. That is a lot of strawberries.

Or am I only second-guessing a master criminal?

Am I supposed to be second-guessing him?

Is he really preparing the ground for a big killing, or is there quite another diabolical (there we go again) plan in his mind?

Teddy Carella walked into the room at that moment.

The only thing Carella had to second-guess was whether he would kiss her first or vice versa. Since his nose was in plaster, he decided to let her choose the target, which she did with practiced ease, causing him to consider some wildly diabolical schemes of his own, which if executed would have resulted in his never again being permitted inside Buena Vista Hospital.

Not even in a private room.

Patrolman Richard Genero was in the same hospital that Sunday morning, but his thoughts were less erotic than they were ambitious.

Despite a rather tight official security lid on the murders, an enterprising newspaperman had only this morning speculated on a possible connection between Genero’s leg wound and the subsequent killing of Scanlon the night before. The police and the city officials had managed to keep all mention of the extortion calls and notes out of the newspapers thus far, but the reporter for the city’s leading metropolitan daily wondered in print whether or not the detectives of “an uptown precinct bordering the park” hadn’t in reality possessed foreknowledge of an attempt to be made on the deputy mayor’s life, hadn’t in fact set up an elaborate trap that very afternoon, “a trap in which a courageous patrolman was destined to suffer a bullet wound in the leg while attempting to capture the suspected killer.” Wherever the reporter had dug up his information, he had neglected to mention that Genero had inflicted the wound upon himself, due to a fear of dogs and criminals, and due to a certain lack of familiarity with shooting at fleeing suspects.

Genero’s father, who was a civil service employee himself, having worked for the Department of Sanitation for some twenty years now, was not aware that his son had accidentally shot himself in the leg. All he knew was that his son was a hero. As befitted a hero, he had brought a white carton of cannoll to the hospital, and now he and his wife and his son sat in the semi-private stillness of a fourth floor room and demolished the pastry while discussing Genero’s almost certain promotion to Detective 3rd/Grade.

The idea of a promotion had not occurred to Genero before this, but as his father outlined the heroic action in the park the day before, Genero began to visualize himself as the man who had made the capture possible. Without him, without the warning shot he had fired into his own leg, the fleeing Alan Parry might never have stopped. The fact that Parry had turned out to be a wet fuse didn’t matter at all to Genero. It was all well and good to realize a man wasn’t dangerous after the fact, but where were all those detectives when Parry was running straight for Genero with a whole lunch pail full of God-knew-what under his arm, where were they then, huh? And how could they have known then, while Genero was courageously drawing his pistol, that Parry would turn out to be only another innocent dupe, nossir, it had been impossible to tell.

“You were brave,” Genero’s father said, licking pot cheese from his lips. “It was you who tried to stop him.”

“That’s true,” Genero said, because it was true.

“It was you who risked your life.”

“That’s right,” Genero said, because it was right.

“They should promote you.”

“They should,” Genero said.

“I will call your boss,” Genero’s mother said.

“No, I don’t think you should, Mama.”

“Perche no?”

“Perchè … Mama, please don’t talk Italian, you know I don’t understand Italian so well.”

“Vergogna,” his mother said, “an Italian doesn’t understand his own tongue. I will call your boss.”

“No, Mama, that isn’t the way it’s done.”

“Then how is it done?” his father asked.

“Well, you’ve got to hint around.”

“Hint? To who?”

“Well, to people.”

“Which people?”

“Well, Carella’s upstairs in this same hospital, maybe …”

“Ma chi è questa Carella?” his mother said.

“Mama, please.”

“Who is this Carella?”

“A detective on the squad.”

“Where you work, sì?”

“Sì. Please, Mama.”

“He is your boss?”

“No, he just works up there.”

“He was shot, too?”

“No, he was beat up.”

“By the same man who shot you?”

“No, not by the same man who shot me,” Genero said, which was also the truth.

“So what does he have to do with this?”

“Well, he’s got influence.”

“With the boss?”

“Well, no. You see, Captain Frick runs the entire precinct, he’s actually the boss. But Lieutenant Byrnes is in charge of the detective squad, and Carella is a detective/2nd, and him and the lieutenant are like this, so maybe if I talk to Carella he’ll see how I helped them grab that guy yesterday, and put in a good word for me.”

“Let her call the boss,” Genero’s father said.

“No, it’s better this way,” Genero said.

“How much does a detective make?” Genero’s mother asked.

“A fortune,” Genero said.

Gadgets fascinated Detective-Lieutenant Sam Grossman, even when they were bombs. Or perhaps especially when they were bombs. There was no question in anyone’s mind (how much question could there have been, considering the evidence of the demolished automobile and its five occupants?) that someone had put a bomb in the deputy mayor’s car. Moreover, it was mandatory to assume that someone had set the bomb to go off at a specific time, rather than using the ignition wiring of the car as an immediate triggering device. This aspect of the puzzle pleased Grossman enormously because he considered ignition-trigger bombs to be rather crude devices capable of being wired by any gangland ape. This bomb was a time bomb. But it was a very special time bomb. It was a time bomb that had not been wired to the automobile clock.

How did Grossman know this?

Ah-ha, the police laboratory never sleeps, not even on Sunday. And besides, his technicians had found two clock faces in the rubble of the automobile.

One of the faces had been part of the Cadillac’s dashboard clock. The other had come from a nationally advertised, popular-priced electric alarm clock. There was one other item of importance found in the rubble: a portion of the front panel of a DC-to-AC inverter, part of its brand name still showing where it was stamped into the metal.

These three parts lay on the counter in Grossman’s laboratory like three key pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. All he had to do was fit them together and come up with a brilliant solution. He was feeling particularly brilliant this Sunday morning because his son had brought home a 92 on a high-school chemistry exam only two days ago; it always made Grossman feel brilliant when his son achieved anything. Well, let’s see, he thought brilliantly. I’ve got three parts of a time bomb, or rather two parts because I think I can safely eliminate the car’s clock except as a reference point. Whoever wired the bomb undoubtedly refused to trust his own wrist watch since a difference of a minute or two in timing might have proved critical — in a minute, the deputy mayor could have been out of the car already and on his way into the synagogue. So he had set the electric clock with the time showing on the dashboard clock. Why an electric clock? Simple. He did not want a clock that ticked. Ticking might have attracted attention, especially if it came from under the hood of a purring Cadillac. Okay, so let’s see what we’ve got. We’ve got an electric alarm clock, and we’ve got a DC-to-AC inverter, which means someone wanted to translate direct current to alternating current. The battery in a Cadillac would have to be 12-volts DC, and the electric clock would doubtless be wired for alternating current. So perhaps we can reasonably assume that someone wanted to wire the clock to the battery and needed an inverter to make this feasible. Let’s see.

He’d have had to run a positive lead to the battery and a negative lead to any metal part of the automobile, since the car itself would have served as a ground, right? So now we’ve got a power source to the clock, and the clock is running. Okay, right, the rest is simple, he’d have had to use an electric balsting cap, sure, there’d have been enough power to set one off, most commercial electric detonators can be fired by passing a continuous current of 0.3 to 0.4 amperes through the bridge wire. Okay, let’s see, hold it it now, let’s look at it.

The battery provides our source of power.… which is in turn set for a specific time, about eight, wasn’t it? He’d have had to monkey around with the clock so that instead of the alarm ringing, a switch would close. That would complete the circuit, let’s see, he’d have needed a lead running back to the battery, another lead running to the blasting cap, and a lead from the blasting cap to any metal part of the car. So that would look like …

And that’s it.

He could have assembled the entire package at home, taken it with him in a tool box, and wired it to the car in a very short time — making certain, of course, that all his wires were properly insulated, to guard against a stray current touching off a premature explosion. The only remaining question is how he managed to get access to the car, but happily that’s not my problem.

Whistling brilliantly, Sam Grossman picked up the telephone and called Detective Meyer Meyer at the 87th.

The municipal garage was downtown on Dock Street, some seven blocks from City Hall. Meyer Meyer picked up Bert Kling at ten-thirty. The drive down along the River Dix took perhaps twenty minutes. They parked on a meter across the street from the big concrete and tile structure, and Meyer automatically threw the visor sign, even though this was Sunday and parking regulations were not in force.

The foreman of the garage was a man named Spencer Coyle.

He was reading Dick Tracy and seemed less impressed by the two detectives in his midst than by the fictional exploits of his favorite comic strip sleuth. It was only with a great effort of will that he managed to tear himself away from the newspaper at all. He did not rise from his chair, though. The chair was tilted back against the tiled wall of the garage. The tiles, a vomitous shade of yellow, decorated too many government buildings all over the city, and it was Meyer’s guess that a hefty hunk of graft had influenced some purchasing agent back in the Thirties, either that or the poor bastard had been color-blind. Spencer Coyle leaned back in his chair against the tiles, his face long and gray and grizzled, his long legs stretched out in front of him, the comic section still dangling from his right hand, as though he were reluctant to let go of it completely even though he had stopped lip-reading it. He was wearing the greenish-brown coveralls of a Transportation Division employee, his peaked hat sitting on his head with all the rakish authority of a major in the Air Force. His attitude clearly told the detectives that he did not wish to be disturbed at any time, but especially on Sunday.

The detectives found him challenging.

“Mr. Coyle,” Meyer said, “I’ve just had a telephone call from the police laboratory to the effect that the bomb …”

“What bomb?” Coyle asked, and spat on the floor, narrowly missing Meyer’s polished shoe.

“The bomb that was put in the deputy mayor’s Cadillac,” Kling said, and hoped Coyle would spit again, but Coyle didn’t.

“Oh, that bomb,” Coyle said, as if bombs were put in every one of the city’s Cadillacs regularly, making it difficult to keep track of all the bombs around. “What about that bomb?”

“The lab says it was a pretty complicated bomb, but that it couldn’t have taken too long to wire to the car’s battery, provided it had been assembled beforehand. Now, what we’d like to know …”

“Yeah, I’ll bet it was complicated,” Coyle said. He did not look into the faces of the detectives, but instead seemed to direct his blue-eyed gaze at a spot somewhere across the garage. Kling turned to see what he was staring at, but the only thing he noticed was another yellow tile wall.

“Would you have any idea who installed that bomb, Mr. Coyle?”

“I didn’t,” Coyle said flatly.

“Nobody suggested that you did,” Meyer said.

“Just so we understand each other,” Coyle said. “All I do is run this garage, make sure the cars are in working order, make sure they’re ready to roll whenever somebody up there wants one, that’s all I’m in charge of.”

“How many cars do you have here?” Meyer asked.

“We got two dozen Caddys, twelve used on a regular basis, and the rest whenever we get visiting dignitaries. We also got fourteen buses and eight motorcycles. And there’s also some vehicles that are kept here by the Department of Parks, but that’s a courtesy because we got the space.”

“Who services the cars?”

“Which ones?”

“The Caddys.”

“Which one of the Caddys?” Coyle said, and spat again.

“Did you know, Mr. Coyle,” Kling said, “that spitting on the sidewalk is a misdeameanor?”

“This ain’t a sidewalk, this is my garage,” Coyle said.

“This is city property,” Kling said, “the equivalent of a sidewalk. In fact, since the ramp comes in directly from the street outside there, it could almost be considered an extension of the sidewalk.”

“Sure,” Coyle siad. “You going to arrest me for it, or what?”

“You going to keep giving us a hard time?” Kling asked.

“Who’s giving you a hard time?”

“We’d like to be home reading the funnies too,” Kling said, “instead of out busting our asses on a bombing. Now how about it?”

“None of our mechanics put a bomb in that car,” Coyle said flatly.

“How do you know?”

“Because I know all the men who work for me, and none of them put a bomb in that car, that’s how I know.”

“Who was here yesterday?” Meyer asked.

“I was.”

“You were here alone?”

“No, the men were here too.”

“Which men?”

“The mechanics.”

“How many mechanics?”

“Two.”

“Is that how many you usually have on duty?”

“We usually have six, but yesterday was Saturday, and we were working with a skeleton crew.”

“Anybody else here?”

“Yeah, some of the chauffeurs were either picking up cars or bringing them back, they’re in and out all the time. Also, there was supposed to be an outdoor fishing thing up in Grover Park, so we had a lot of bus drivers in. They were supposed to pick up these slum kids and take them to the park where they were going to fish through the ice on the lake. It got called off.”

“Why?”

“Too cold.”

“When were the bus drivers here?”

“They reported early in the morning, and they hung around till we got word it was called off.”

“You see any of them fooling around near that Cad?”

“Nope. Listen, you’re barking up the wrong tree. All those cars got checked out yesterday, and they were in A-number-One shape. That bomb must’ve been put in there after the car left the garage.”

“No, that’s impossible, Mr. Coyle.”

“Well, it wasn’t attached here.”

“You’re sure of that, are you?”

“I just told you the cars were inspected, didn’t I?”

“Did you inspect them personally, Mr. Coyle?”

“No, I got other things to do besides inspecting two dozen Caddys and fourteen buses and eight motorcycles.”

“Then who did inspect them, Mr. Coyle? One of your mechanics?”

“No, we had an inspector down from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.”

“And he said the cars were all right?”

“He went over them from top to bottom, every vehicle in the place. He gave us a clean bill of health.”

“Did he look under the hoods?”

“Inside, outside, transmission, suspension, everything. He was here almost six hours.”

“So he would have found a bomb if one was there, is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“Mr. Coyle, did he give you anything in writing to the effect that the cars were inspected and found in good condition?”

“Why?” Coyle asked. “You trying to get off the hook?”

“No, we’re …”

“You trying to pass the buck to Motor Vehicles?”

“We’re trying to find out how he could have missed the bomb that was undoubtedly under the hood of that car, that’s what we’re trying to do.”

“It wasn’t that’s your answer.”

“Mr. Coyle, our lab reported …”

“I don’t care what your lab reported or didn’t report. I’m telling you all these cars were gone over with a fine-tooth comb yesterday, and there couldn’t have been a bomb in the deputy mayor’s car when it left this garage. Now that’s that,” Coyle said, and spat on the floor again, emphatically.

“Mr. Coyle,” Kling said, “did you personally see the deputy mayor’s car being inspected?”

“I personally saw it being inspected.”

“You personally saw the hood being raised?”

“I did.”

“And you’d be willing to swear that a thorough inspection was made of the area under the hood?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you actually see the inspector checking the area under the hood?”

“Well, I didn’t stand around looking over his shoulder, if that’s what you mean.”

“Where were you, actually, when the deputy mayor’s car was being inspected?”

“I was right here.”

“On this exact spot?”

“No, I was inside the office there. But I could see out into the garage. There’s a glass panel in there.”

“And you saw the inspector lifting the hood of the deputy mayor’s car?”

“That’s right.”

“There are two dozen Caddys here. How’d you know that one was the deputy mayor’s car?”

“By the license plate. It has DMA on it, and then the number. Same as Mayor Vale’s car has MA on it for ‘mayor,’ and then the number. Same as the …”

“All right, it was clearly his car, and you definitely saw …”

“Look, that guy spent a good half-hour on each car, now don’t tell me it wasn’t a thorough inspection.”

“Did he spend a half-hour on the deputy mayor’s car?”

“Easily.”

Meyer sighed. “I guess we’ll have to talk to him personally,” he said to Kling. He turned again to Coyle. “What was his name, Mr. Coyle?”

“Who?”

“The inspector. The man from Motor Vehicles.”

“I don’t know.”

“He didn’t give you his name?” Kling asked.

“He showed me his credentials, and he said he was here to inspect the cars, and that was that.”

“What kind of credentials?”

“Oh, printed papers. You know.”

“Mr. Coyle,” Kling asked, “when was the last time a man from Motor Vehicles came to inspect?”

“This was the first time,” Coyle said.

“They’ve never sent an inspector down before?”

“Never.”

Slowly, wearily, Meyer said, “What did this man look like, Mr. Coyle?”

“He was a tall blond guy wearing a hearing aid,” Coyle answered.

Fats Donner was a mountainous stool pigeon with a penchant for warm climates and the complexion of an Irish virgin. The complexion, in fact, overreached the boundaries of common definition to extend to every part of Donner’s body; he was white all over, so sickly pale that sometimes Willis suspected him of being a junkie. Willis couldn’t have cared less. On any given Sunday, a conscientious cop could collar seventy-nine junkies in a half-hour, seventy-eight of whom would be holding narcotics in some quantity. It was hard to come by a good informer, though, and Donner was one of the best around, when he was around. The difficulty with Donner was that he was likely to be found in Vegas or Miami Beach or Puerto Rico during the winter months, lying in the shade with his Buddha-like form protected against even a possible reflection of the sun’s rays, quivering with delight as the sweat poured from his body.

Willis was surprised to find him in the city during the coldest March on record. He was not surprised to find him in a room that was suffocatingly hot, with three electric heaters adding their output to the two banging radiators. In the midst of this thermal onslaught, Donner sat in overcoat and gloves, wedged into a stuffed armchair. He was wearing two pairs of woolen socks, and his feet were propped up on the radiator. There was a girl in the room with him. She was perhaps fifteen years old, and she was wearing a flowered bra and bikini panties over which she had put on a silk wrapper. The wrapper was unbelted. The girl’s near-naked body showed whenever she moved, but she seemed not to mind the presence of a strange man. She barely glanced at Willis when he came in, and then went about the room straightening up, never looking at either of the men as they whispered together near the window streaming wintry sunlight.

“Who’s the girl?” Willis asked.

“My daughter,” Donner said, and grinned.

He was not a nice man, Fats Donner, but he was a good stoolie, and criminal detection sometimes made strange bedfellows. It was Willis’ guess that the girl was hooking for Donner, a respectable stoolie sometimes being in need of additional income which he can realize, for example, by picking up a little girl straight from Ohio and teaching her what it’s all about and then putting her on the street, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. Willis was not interested in Donner’s possible drug habit, nor was Wilis interested in hanging a prostitution rap on the girl, nor in busting Donner as a “male person living on the proceeds of prostitution,” Section 1148 of the Penal Law. Willis was interested in taking off his coat and hat and finding out whether or not Donner could give him a line on a man named Dom.

“Dom who?” Donner asked.

“That’s all we’ve got.”

“How many Doms you suppose are in this city?” Donner asked. He

turned to the girl, who was puttering around rearranging food in the refrigerator, and said, “Mercy, how many Doms you suppose are in this city?”

“I don’t know,” Mercy replied without looking at him.

“How many Doms you know personally?” Donner asked her.

“I don’t know any Doms,” the girl said. She had a tiny voice, tinged with an unmistakable Southern accent. Scratch Ohio, Willis thought, substitute Arkansas or Tennessee.

“She don’t know any Doms,” Donner said, and chukled.

“How about you, Fats? You know any?”

“That’s all you’re giving me?” Donner asked. “Man, you’re really generous.”

“He lost a lot of money on the chamionship fight two weeks ago.”

“Everybody I know lost a lot of money on the championship fight two weeks ago.”

“He’s broke right now. He’s trying to promote some scratch,” Willis said.

“Dom, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“From this part of the city?”

“A friend of his lives in Riverhead,” Willis said.

“What’s the friend’s name?”

“La Bresca. Tony La Bresca.”

“What about him?”

“No record.”

“You think this Dom done time?”

“I’ve got no idea. He seems to have tipped to a caper that’s coming off.”

“Is that what you’re interested in? The caper?”

“Yes. According to him, the buzz is all over town.”

“There’s always some buzz or other that’s all over town,” Donner said. “What the hell are you doing there, Mercy?”

“Just fixing things,” Mercy said.

“Get the hell away from there, you make me nervous.”

“I was just fixing the things in the fridge,” Mercy said.

“I hate that Southern accent,” Donner said. “Don’t you hate Southern accents?” he asked Willis.

“I don’t mind them,” Willis said.

“Can’t even understand her half the time. Sounds as if she’s got shit in her mouth.”

The girl closed the refrigerator door and went to the closet. She opened the door and began moving around empty hangers.

“Now what’re you doing?” Donner asked.

“Just straightening things,” she said.

“You want me to kick you out in the street bare-assed?” Donner asked.

“No,” she said softly.

“Then cut it out.”

“All right.”

“Anyway, it’s time you got dressed.”

“All right.”

“Go on, go get dressed. What time is it?” he asked Willis.

“Almost noon,” Willis said.

“Sure, go get dressed,” Donner said.

“All right,” the girl said, and went into the other room.

“Damn little bitch,” Donner said, “hardly worth keeping around.”

“I thought she was your daughter,” Willis said.

“Oh, is that what you thought?” Donner asked, and again he grinned.

“Willis restrained a sudden impulse. He sighed and said, “So what do you think?”

“I don’t think nothing yet, man. Zero so far.”

“Well, you want some time on it?”

“How much of a sweat are you in?”

“We need whatever we can get as soon as we can get it.”

“What’s the caper sound like?”

“Maybe extortion.”

“Dom, huh?”

“Dom,” Willis repeated.

“That’d be for Dominick, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, let me listen around, who knows?”

The girl came out of the other room. She was wearing a miniskirt and white mesh stockings, a low-cut purple blouse. There was a smear of bright red lipstick on her mouth, green eyeshadow on her eyelids.

“You going down now?” Donner asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Put on your coat.”

“All right,” she said.

“And take your bag.”

“I will.”

“Don’t come back empty, baby,” Donner said.

“I won’t,” she said, and moved toward the door.

“I’m going too,” Willis said.

“I’ll give you a buzz.”

“Okay, but try to move fast, will you?” Willis said.

“It’s I hate to go out when it’s so fucking cold,” Donner answered.

The girl was on the hallway steps, below Willis, walking down without any sense of haste, buttoning her coat, slinging her bag over her shoulder. Willis caught up with her and said, “Where are you from, Mercy?”

“Ask Fats,” she answered.

“I’m asking you.”

“You fuzz?”

“That’s right.”

“Georgia,” she said.

“When’d you get up here?”

“Two months ago.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“What the hell are you doing with a man like Fats Donner?” Willis asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. She would not look into his face. She kept her head bent as they went down the steps to the street. As Willis opened the door leading outside, a blast of frigid air rushed into the hallway.

“Why don’t you get out?” he said.

The girl looked up at him.

“Where would I go?” she asked, and then left him on the stoop, walking up the street with a practiced swing, the bag dangling from her shoulder, her high heels clicking along the pavement.

At two o’clock that afternoon, the seventeen-year-old girl who had been in the convertible that crashed the river barrier died without gaining consciousness.

The Buena Vista Hospital record read simply: Death secondary to head injury.