Heat

1

The five-year-old, unmarked sedan Steve Carella was driving to the scene was fitted with an air conditioner that had been repaired last summer and that now — when it was desperately needed — had perversely decided to malfunction. The windows front and back were open, but the air that flowed through the car was sodden and hot, the humidity in this city frequently accompanying the soaring temperature like a leaden ballet dancer lifting a fat partner. Bert Kling sat suffocating in silence beside Carella as the car moved uptown and crosstown.

The initial call had been received by Communications on High Street at 8:30 a.m., an Emergency 911 call that had been routed immediately to a dispatcher who’d radioed car Eight-Seven Frank to the scene. The responding patrolmen weren’t at all surprised to find a corpse: the woman who’d called 911 had reported that she’d just come home to find her husband dead in their apartment. The dispatcher had ended his radio message with “See the lady,” and the lady had indeed been waiting for the police in the lobby of the building. But they had not called back to the station house with a request for detectives until they’d entered the sixth-floor apartment and seen for themselves that there was, in fact, a body on the living-room floor.

The building was in a section of the precinct that was rather more elegant than many of the others, sitting in a semicircle of apartment houses that partially surrounded Silvermine Oval and overlooked Silvermine Park, the River Highway, and the river itself beyond. The buildings themselves had succumbed to the onslaught of the graffiti writers, a visual attack as numbing as a blackjack blow, but there were still doormen in livery here, and the security was presumably tight. A trio of radio motor patrol cars and an Emergency 911 van were all angle-parked in front of the building as Carella nosed the unmarked sedan into the curb. It was then that Kling, who had been silent all the way from the station house, said, “Steve, I think my wife is playing around with somebody.”

One of the patrolmen who’d responded to the dispatcher’s call was standing at the curb, waiting for the detectives. He recognized the faded maroon car as Carella cut the ignition, and then he recognized Carella and Kling as well, and moved toward the car as the doors on either side opened. Carella was staring at Kling over the roof of the car. Kling, his head ducked, began walking toward the patrolman. He had, until just recently, been the youngest man on the squad, blond and blue-eyed, with a boyish, clean-shaven face and an innocent gaze that belied his line of work. He was slightly taller than Carella, and broader in the shoulders; he was wearing a lightweight jacket, darker slacks, a white shirt, and — in keeping with the lieutenant’s recent dictum — a tie. Carella, a stunned look still on his face, came around the side of the car and stepped onto the curb. He walked with the casual stride of an athlete, a man with dark hair and dark eyes peculiarly slanted downward to give his face a somewhat Oriental look. The tropical suit he’d put on at a quarter to seven that morning had already wilted; it resembled an insulted dishrag.

“Where is it?” he asked the patrolman.

“Upstairs, apartment 6B. My partner’s in the hall outside. Lady’s in the lobby, with the doorman there. Came home and found the spouse dead.”

The lady was a tall brunette, her hair cut in the wedge an ice-skating star had made famous, looking fresh and cool in a cotton print dress and high-heeled pumps. Her face was narrow, almost lupine, dominated by startlingly green eyes and a wide mouth. She had been crying; her eyes still glistened with tears, and mascara was running down her cheeks. Carella hesitated before approaching her. This was the part he hated; this was the part that was always most difficult. He took a deep breath.

“I’m Detective Carella,” he said, “87th Squad. I’m sorry, ma’am, but I have to ask you some questions.”

“That’s all right,” she said. Her voice was low and throaty. She seemed numb as she blinked back the tears and nodded.

“Can you tell me your husband’s name, please?”

“Jeremiah Newman.”

“And your name?”

“Anne. Anne Newman.”

“I understand you came home to—”

“Yes.”

“When was that, Mrs. Newman?”

“Just before I called the police.”

“What time was that?”

“Around eight-thirty.”

“And you were coming home, did you say?”

“Yes.”

“Do you work nights?”

“No, no. I’ve been away. I came here directly from the airport.”

“Away where?”

“Los Angeles. I caught the Red Eye last night at ten-thirty and was supposed to get here at six-thirty this morning. But the plane was late, and we didn’t land till almost seven-thirty.”

“Is that when you left the airport?”

“As soon as I’d picked up my luggage, yes.”

“And came immediately here?”

“Yes.”

“When you went upstairs, was the door locked?”

“Yes.”

“Did you touch anything in the apartment?”

“Nothing.”

“Not even the telephone?”

“I called from downstairs in the lobby. I couldn’t have stayed in that apartment another minute.”

The apartment was a malodorous oven.

The moment the detectives opened the door, they were assailed with a blast of heat and an accompanying stench that caused them to back off at once. Covering their noses with their handkerchiefs, they moved into the apartment as though it were the lair of a foul, fire-breathing dragon, and walked directly into the living room. The dead man lay on his back on the rug, his body cavities, tissues, and blood vessels bloated with gas, the skin on his hands, face, and throat — where it showed in the open neck of his bathrobe — discolored a brown that was almost black. The internal gaseous pressure had protruded his lips and forced his tongue out between his lips. His eyes were bulging. His nose had bled, and the blood was now caked beneath his nostrils and on his upper lip, where it had merged with a greenish fluid. He smelled of bacterial invasion and vomited stomach contents and expelled fecal matter.

“Jesus, let’s open some windows,” Kling said.

“Not till the techs get here.”

“Then how about the air conditioner?”

“The M.E.’ll want the temperature the way we found it.”

“So what do we do?”

“Nothing.”

There was, in fact, nothing they could do till the rest of the team arrived. It was almost a full hour before the Mobile Laboratory technicians finally dusted the apartment for latent prints, but even then Carella would not open any of the windows till the Medical Examiner got there. The assistant M.E., who’d been stuck in traffic on his way uptown, got there at twenty minutes past ten. He winced when he stepped into the apartment and then automatically checked the thermostat on the wall, and said to Carella, “If this thing’s right, the temperature in here is a hundred and two degrees.”

“Feels like a hundred and ten,” Carella said. “Can we turn on the air conditioner?”

“Not till I’m through,” the M.E. said, and knelt beside the body and went to work.

Anne Newman was waiting in the corridor outside. There were two expensive suitcases alongside the wall, apparently where she’d dropped them before unlocking the door. Her eyes were dry now, and she had wiped her face clean of the mascara stains. She still looked amazingly cool in her cotton print dress.

“If you feel up to it,” Carella said, “I’d like to ask a few more questions.”

“Yes, certainly,” she said.

“Mrs. Newman, can you tell me when you left for California?”

“On the first.”

“A week ago today?”

“Yes.”

“Just in time to miss the heat wave.”

“It was hot the morning I left.”

“What time would that have been?”

“I caught a ten o’clock plane.”

“What time did you leave the apartment here?”

“At about a quarter to nine.”

“Was your husband here when you left?”

“Yes.”

“I have to ask this, Mrs. Newman. Was he alive?”

“Yes. We had breakfast together.”

“What time would that have been?”

“At eight o’clock, I would guess.”

“Is that the last time you saw him alive?”

“When I left the apartment, yes.”

“What was he wearing?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Was it the robe he has on now?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Did you speak to him at any time after you got to California?”

“Yes, I called him last Friday, after I checked into the hotel. And I spoke to him again on Tuesday.”

“That would’ve been...”

“This past Tuesday.”

“The fifth. Three days ago.”

“Yes.”

“What’d you talk about?”

“Which time?”

“The last time you spoke.”

“I called to tell him I’d be catching a late plane out on Thursday night, and would be home this morning.”

“How did he sound?”

“Well... it was sometimes difficult to tell with Jerry.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was an alcoholic. He had his ups and downs.”

“Did he sound as if he’d been drinking when you talked?”

“He sounded depressed.”

“What time was this, Mrs. Newman? When you made the call?”

“It was after dinner, around nine California time.”

“That would have made it midnight here.”

“Yes.”

“Was he awake when you called?”

“Yes. He told me he’d been watching television.”

“How old was he, Mrs. Newman?”

“Forty-seven.”

“Can you tell me your age?”

“I’m thirty-six.”

“How long had you been married?”

“Fifteen years. Well, it would’ve been fifteen years in October.”

“Was this a first marriage for both of you?”

“No. Jerry was married before.”

“Would you know his first wife’s name?”

“Yes. Jessica.”

“Jessica Newman, would it be?”

“I don’t know if she’s still using her married name.”

“Would you know her maiden name?”

“Jessica Herzog.”

“Does she live here in the city?”

“I believe so.”

“Did your husband have any living relatives?”

“His mother. And a brother in San Francisco.”

“Can you tell me their names?”

“Susan and Jonathan.”

“Both Newman?”

“Yes.”

“Does your mother-in-law live here in the city?”

“Yes.”

“I assume you have her address.”

“Yes.”

“I’d like it before we leave, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

“Mrs. Newman, can you tell me where you were staying in Los Angeles?”

“The Beverly Wilshire.”

“Were you there on business or pleasure?”

“Business.”

“What sort of work do you do?”

“I’m an interior decorator. There was a trade show out there this week.”

“Did you call your brother-in-law while you were out there?”

“Jonathan? No. He’s in San Francisco.”

“Well, that’s relatively close to Los Angeles, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t call him.”

“When did the show start?”

“What?”

“The trade show.”

“Oh. Monday.”

“But you went out the Friday before.”

“Yes. I thought I’d relax a bit over the weekend.”

“Mrs. Newman, you told me the door was locked when you got home...”

“Yes, it was.”

“Would anyone but you or your husband have a key to the apartment?”

“No.”

“Do you have a housekeeper?”

“A cleaning woman. But she doesn’t have a key.”

“Do you know where I can reach her?”

“She’s in Georgia just now, her mother—”

“When did she leave for Georgia?”

“The middle of July. Her mother’s very sick.”

“Can you tell me her name, please?”

“Bonnie Anderson.”

“Where does she live?”

“I don’t know her address. Someplace in Diamondback.”

“Do you know her phone number?”

“It’s in the book. Bonnie Anderson.”

“You the investigating detective?” a voice at Carella’s elbow asked.

He turned to find a pair of uniformed cops, their hands on their hips, and he knew before seeing their arm patches that they were Emergency 911 cops. There was something about this all-volunteer arm of the Police Department that telegraphed itself from miles away: a swagger, a bravado, an attitude that told all other cops they were only mere mortals.

“Carella,” he said, nodding. “The Eight-Seven.”

“I hear we got a real blob inside there,” the 911 cop said. “You want us to bring up a body bag?”

“This is the man’s wife,” Carella said.

“Nice to meet you,” the 911 cop said obliviously, and then gallantly touched the peak of his cap. “Yes or no?”

“I think we’ll need one,” Carella said, and turned away from him.

Tears were forming in Anne Newman’s eyes again.

“Where will you be staying tonight?” Carella asked gently.

“I thought with my mother-in-law. She doesn’t know about Jerry yet, I’ll have... I’ll have to call her.”

“If you’d like someone to take your bags downstairs, and hail a taxi...”

“Yes, I’d appreciate that, thank you,” she said.

“Just one other thing, Mrs. Newman. If we find any good latents in the apartment—”

“Latents?”

“Fingerprints, we’d want to compare them against your husband’s, and yours, and your cleaning woman’s when she gets back from Georgia. Have you ever been fingerprinted? I’m certain there’s no criminal record in your past...”

“None.”

“But have you ever held a governmental position? Or were you in the armed forces?”

“No.”

“Then I wonder if I could ask you to stop in at the station house, at your convenience, when you’ve had a chance to—”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’ll just take a few minutes, the stuff washes off with soap and water, and it’ll be a great help to us.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re required to investigate any apparent suicide exactly like a homicide.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, ma’am. Before we can close it out.”

“Oh. Well, then, certainly.”

“Thank you,” Carella said.

He asked the patrolman on duty outside the apartment to take the lady’s bags down for her, and then — as they walked together toward the elevator bank — turned to examine the lock on the front door. It was a double-cylinder deadlock, which meant that it could only be unlocked by key on either side, inside or out. Anne Newman had just told him that only she and her husband had keys to the apartment. He could see no visible jimmy marks on the outside cylinder or doorjamb. He was still studying the lock when Kling and one of the lab technicians came out of the apartment.

“Better take a look at this,” Kling said. “Found it on the bathroom floor.”

“I was just about to tag it,” the tech said. He was wearing white cotton gloves, and holding a small plastic bottle in his right hand. There was only one gelatin capsule in the bottle. He held it up so that Carella could read the label:

Carella jotted down the name and telephone number of the dispensing pharmacy and beneath that the name of the doctor. He was putting his notebook back in his pocket when the M.E. came out of the apartment.

“You can ventilate whenever you want to,” he said.

“What’ve we got?” Carella asked.

“No visible wounds, cause of death’ll have to wait till we open him up.”

“Fucking temperature in there,” the tech said, “I wouldn’t be surprised he died of heat stroke.”

It was almost noon when they started back for the station house. In this city, homicides and suicides were treated in exactly the same way, and so — still lacking evidence of either — they had made their drawings of the scene, and talked to the other tenants on the sixth floor and the doorman on duty in the lobby, and had learned only that Anne Newman had indeed left for someplace on the first of August, and that no one had seen her husband, Jerry, for the past week or so. According to the tenants and the doorman, this wasn’t particularly unusual: Jerry Newman was a freelance commercial artist who worked out of his own apartment and who sometimes locked himself in for days while trying to meet an illustration deadline.

The car windows were open, the heat ballooned around the two men as Carella edged the vehicle through the heavy lunch-hour traffic. He glanced sidelong at Kling, who was staring straight ahead through the windshield, and then said, “Tell me.”

“I’m not sure I want to talk about it,” Kling said.

“Then why’d you bring it up?”

“’Cause it’s been driving me crazy for the past month.”

“Let’s start from the beginning, okay?” Carella said.

The beginning, as Kling painfully and haltingly told it, had been on the Fourth of July, when he and his wife, Augusta, were invited out to Sands Spit for the weekend. Their host was one of the photographers with whom Augusta had worked many times in the past. Carella, listening, remembered the throng of photographers, agents, and professional models, like Augusta, who had been guests at their wedding almost four years ago. He preferred not to dwell too often on that day because it had culminated in the abduction of Augusta by a lunatic who’d fanatically followed her career over the years and who had made a virtual shrine of the apartment in which he’d kept her captive for three days.

“...on the beach out there in Westphalia,” Kling was saying. “Beautiful house set on the dunes, two guest rooms. We went out on the third, and there was a big party the next day, models, photographers... well, you know the crowd Gussie likes to run with. That was when I got the first inkling, at the party.”

He had never felt too terribly close to his wife’s friends and associates, Kling said; they had, in fact, had some big arguments in the past over what he called her “Tinsel Crowd.” He supposed much of his discomfort had to do with the fact that as a detective/3rd he was earning $24,600 a year, whereas his wife was earning $100 an hour as a top fashion model; the joint IRS return they’d filed in April had listed their combined incomes as a bit more than $100,000 for the previous year. Moreover, most of Augusta’s friends were also earning that kind of money, and whereas she felt no qualms about inviting eight or ten of them for dinner at any of the city’s most expensive restaurants and signing for the tab afterward (“She keeps telling me they’re business associates, it’s all deductible,” Kling said), he always felt somewhat inadequate at such feasts, something like a poor relative visiting a rich city cousin, or — worse — something like a kept man. Kling himself preferred small dinner parties at their apartment with friends of his from the police force, people like Carella and his wife, Teddy, or Cotton Hawes and any one of his dozens of girlfriends, or Artie and Connie Brown, or Meyer Meyer and his wife, Sarah, people he knew and liked, people he could feel relaxed with.

The party out there on the beach in Westphalia, some hundred and thirty miles from the city in Sagamore County, was pretty much the same as all the parties Augusta dragged him to in the city. She’d get through with a modeling job at four, five in the afternoon, and if he’d been working the Day Tour, he’d be off at four and would get back to the apartment at about the same time she did, and she’d always have a cocktail party to go to, either at a photographer’s studio or the offices of some fashion magazine, or some other model’s apartment, or her agent’s — always someplace to go. There were times he’d be following some cheap hood all over the city, walking the pavements flat and getting home exhausted and wanting nothing more than a bottle of beer, and the place would be full of flitty photographers or gorgeous models talking about the latest spread in Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar, drinking the booze Augusta paid for out of her earnings, and wanting to know all about how it felt to shoot somebody (“Have you ever actually killed a person, Bert?”), as if police work was the same kind of empty game modeling was. It irked him every time Augusta referred to herself as “a mannequin.” It made her seem as shallow as the work she did, a hollow store-window dummy draped in the latest Parisian fashions.

“Well, what the hell,” Kling said, “you make allowances, am I right? I’m a cop, she’s a model, we both knew that before we got married. So, okay, you compromise. If Gussie doesn’t like to cook, we’ll send out for Chink’s whenever anybody from the squad’s coming over with his wife. And if I’ve just been in a shootout with an armed robber, the way I was two weeks ago when that guy tried to hold up the bank on Culver and Third, then I can’t be expected to go to a gallery opening or a cocktail party, or a benefit, or whatever the hell, Gussie’ll just have to go alone, am I right?”

Which was just the way they’d been working it for the past few months now, Augusta running off to this or that glittering little party while Kling took off his shoes, and sat wearily in front of the television set drinking beer till she got home, when generally they’d go out for a bite to eat. That was if he was working the Day Tour. If he was working the Night Watch, he’d get home bone weary at nine-thirty in the morning, and maybe, if he was lucky, catch breakfast with her before she ran off to her first assignment. A hundred dollars an hour was not pumpkin seeds, and — as Augusta had told him time and again — in her business it was important to make hay while the sun was shining; how many more years of successful modeling could she count on? So off she’d run to this or that photographer’s studio, rushing out of the apartment with a kerchief on her head and her shoulder bag flying, leaving Kling to put the dishes in the dishwasher before going directly to bed, where he’d sleep till six that night and then go out to dinner with her when she got home from her usual cocktail party. After dinner, maybe, and nowadays less and less frequently, they’d make love before he had to leave for the station house again at twelve-thirty in the morning. But that was only on the two days a month he caught the Night Watch.

In fact, he’d been looking forward to going out to Sands Spit, not because he particularly cared for the photographer they’d be visiting (or any of Augusta’s friends, for that matter) but only because he was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to collapse on a beach for two full days — his days off. Nor was he due back at work till Saturday afternoon at 1600 — and that’s where the trouble started. Or, at least, that’s where the argument started. He didn’t think of it as trouble until later that night, when he got into a conversation with a twerpy little blonde model who opened his eyes for him while their photographer-host was running up and down the beach touching off the fireworks he’d bought illegally in Chinatown.

The argument was about whether or not Augusta should stay at the beach for the entire long weekend, instead of going back to the city with Kling on Saturday. They’d been married for almost four years now; she should have realized by this time that the Police Department respected no holidays, and that a cop’s two successive days off sometimes fell in the middle of the week. He was lucky this year, in fact, to have caught the Glorious Fourth and the day preceding it, and he felt he was within his rights to ask his own wife, goddamn it, to accompany him back to the city when he left at ten tomorrow morning. Augusta maintained that the Fourth of July rarely was bracketed by an entire long weekend, as it was this year, and it was senseless for her to go back to what would be essentially a ghost town when he had to go to work anyway. What was she supposed to do while he was out chasing crooks? Sit in the empty apartment and twiddle her thumbs? He told her she was coming back with him, and that was that. She told him she was staying, and that was that.

They barely spoke to each other all through dinner, served on their host’s deck overlooking the crashing sea, and by the time the fireworks started at 9:00 p.m., Augusta had drifted over to a group of photographers with whom she’d immediately begun a spirited, and much too animated, conversation. The little blonde who sat down next to Kling while the first of the fireworks erupted was holding a martini glass in her hand, and it was evident from the first few words she spoke that she’d had at least four too many of them already. She was wearing very short white shorts and an orange blouse Kling had seen in Glamour (Augusta on the cover) the month before, slashed deep over her breasts and exposing at least one of them clear to the nipple. She said, “Hi,” and then tucked her bare feet up under her, her shoulder touching Kling’s as she performed the delicate maneuver, and then asked him in a gin-slurred voice where he’d been all afternoon, she hadn’t seen him around, and she thought sure she’d seen every good-looking man there. The fireworks kept exploding against the blackness of the sky.

The girl went on to say that she was a junior model with the Cutler Agency (the same agency that represented Augusta) and then asked whether he was a model himself, he was so good-looking, or just a mere photographer (she made photographers sound like child molesters), or did he work for one of the fashion magazines, or was he perhaps that lowest of the low, an agent? Kling told her he was a cop, and before she could ask to see his pistol (or anything else) promptly informed her that he was here with his wife. His wife, at the moment, was ooohing and aaahing over a spectacular swarm of golden fish that erupted overhead and swam erratically against the sky, dripping sparks as they fell toward the ocean. The girl, who seemed no older than eighteen or nineteen, and who had the largest blue eyes Kling had ever seen in his life, set in a pixie face with a somewhat lopsided chipmunk grin, asked Kling who his wife might be, and when he pointed her out and said, “Augusta Blair,” the name she still used when modeling, the girl raised her eyebrows and said, “Don’t shit me, man, Augusta’s not married.”

Well, Kling wasn’t used to being told he wasn’t married to Augusta, although at times he certainly felt that way. He explained, or started to explain, that he and Augusta had been married for — but the girl cut him off and said, “I see her all over town,” and shrugged and gulped at her martini. She was just drunk enough to have missed the fact that Kling was a cop, which breed (especially of the detective variety) are prone to ask all sorts of pertinent questions, and further too drunk to realize that she didn’t necessarily have to add, “with guys” after she’d swallowed the gin and vermouth, two words which — when coupled with her previous statement and forgiving the brief hiatus — came out altogether as “I see her all over town with guys.”

Kling knew, of course, that Augusta went to quite a few cocktail parties without him, and he also knew that undoubtedly she talked to people at those parties, and that some of those people were possibly men. But the blonde’s words seemed to imply something more than simple cocktail chatter, and he was about to ask her what she meant, exactly, when a waiter in black trousers and a white jacket came around with a refill, apparently having divined her need from across the wide expanse of the crowded deck. The blonde deftly lifted a fresh martini glass from the tray the waiter proffered, gulped down half its contents, and then — compounding the felony — said, “One guy especially.”

“What do you mean, exactly?” Kling managed to say this time.

“Come on, what do I mean?” the blonde said, and winked at him.

“Tell me about it,” Kling said. His heart was pounding in his chest.

“Go ask Augusta, you’re so interested in Augusta,” the blonde said.

“Are you saying she’s been seeing some guy?”

“Who cares? Listen, would you like to go inside with me? Don’t fireworks bore you to death? Let’s go inside and find someplace, okay?”

“No, tell me about Augusta.”

“Oh, fuck Augusta,” the blonde said, and untangled her legs from under her bottom and got unsteadily to her feet, and then said, “And you, too,” and tossed her hair and went staggering into the house through the French doors.

The last time he saw her that night, she was curled up, asleep in the master bedroom, her blouse open to the waist, both cherry-nippled breasts recklessly exposed. He was tempted to wake her and question her further about this “one guy especially,” but his host walked into the room at that moment, and cleared his throat, and Kling had the distinct impression he was being suspected of rape or at least sexual molestation. The blonde later disappeared into the night, as suddenly as she had materialized. But before leaving the next day (Augusta stayed behind, as she had promised, or perhaps threatened) Kling asked some discreet questions and learned that her name was Monica Thorpe. On Monday morning he called the Cutler Agency, identified himself as Augusta’s husband, said they wanted to invite Monica to a small dinner party, and got her unlisted number from them. When he called her at home, she said she didn’t know who he was, and didn’t remember saying anything about Augusta, who was anyway her dearest friend and one of the sweetest people on earth. She hung up before Kling could say another word. When he called back a moment later, she said, “Hey, knock it off, okay, man? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and hung up again.

“So that’s it,” Kling said.

“That’s it, huh?” Carella said. “Are you telling me...?”

“I’m telling you what happened.”

“Nothing happened,” Carella said. “Except some dumb blonde got drunk and filled your head with—”

“She said she saw Augusta all over town. With guys, Steve. With one guy especially, Steve.”

“Uh-huh. And you believe her, huh?”

“I don’t know what to believe.”

“Have you talked to Augusta about it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

‘What am I supposed to do? Ask her if there’s some guy she’s been seeing? Suppose she tells me there is? Then what? Shit, Steve...”

“If I were in a similar situation, I’d ask Teddy in a minute.”

“And what if she said it was true?”

“We’d work it out.”

“Sure.”

“We would.”

Kling was silent for several moments. His face was beaded with sweat, he appeared on the verge of tears. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbed at his forehead. He sucked in a deep breath, and said, “Steve... is it... is it still good between you and Teddy?”

“Yes.”

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean.”

“In bed, I mean.”

“Yes, in bed. And everywhere else.”

“Because... I, I don’t think I’d have believed a word that blonde was saying if, if I, if I didn’t already think something was wrong. Steve, we... these past few months... ever since June it must be... we... you know, it used to be we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, I’d come home from work, she’d be all over me. But lately...” He shook his head, his voice trailed.

Carella said nothing. He stared through the windshield ahead, and then blew the horn at a pedestrian about to step off the curb against the light. Kling shook his head again. He took out his handkerchief again, and again dabbed at his brow with it.

“It’s just that lately... well, for a long time now... there hasn’t been anything between us. I mean, not like before. Not the way it used to be, when we, when we couldn’t stand being apart for a minute. Now it’s... when we make love, it’s just so... so cut and dried, Steve. As if she’s... tolerating me, you know what I mean? Just doing it to, to, to get it over with. Aw, shit, Steve,” he said, and ducked his face into the handkerchief, both hands spread over it, and began sobbing.

“Come on,” Carella said.

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay, come on.”

“What an asshole,” Kling said, sobbing into the handkerchief.

“You’ve got to talk to her about it,” Carella said.

“Yeah.” The handkerchief was still covering his face. He kept sobbing into it, his head turned away from Carella, his shoulders heaving.

“Will you do that?”

“Yeah.”

“Bert? Will you talk to her?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will.”

“Come on now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Kling said, and sniffed, and took the handkerchief from his face, and dried his eyes, and sniffed again, and said, “Thanks,” and stared straight ahead through the windshield again.