Heat

4

If every cop on the force had the same days off, then there’d be nobody out there in the streets on those days, and the bad guys would run amok. That was only logical. That was why cops had different days off on a rotating schedule. That was why Kling’s two successive days off did not always coincide with Carella’s. A Police Department duty schedule looked like a scroll dredged from the Dead Sea. Night Watch only complicated matters; Night Watch was a footnote, in Sanskrit, to an already complicated chart. The amazing thing about the schedule was that any cop giving it even a casual glance could tell you in a minute exactly which days off he had in any given month. It was considered a stroke of extreme good fortune when a cop’s two days off fell on a Saturday and a Sunday, like any normal human being’s. This happened only once a month. This week, Kling had been off on Monday and Tuesday, and now it was Sunday, and he was off again. So was Augusta. That is to say, she was off visiting a model named Consuela Herrera, who had come down with hepatitis and who was at the moment languishing in the city’s posh Physicians’ Pavilion. Kling didn’t mind; he planned to work today anyway.

The work he had in mind was detective work of a sort, but it had nothing to do with the 87th Squad. The moment Augusta left the apartment, Kling opened the Isola telephone directory and searched out an address for a restaurant called Ah Wong’s. Wearing blue jeans, loafers, and a blue T-shirt with the numeral thirteen across its back, a souvenir of the interdepartmental baseball game in which he’d represented the Eight-Seven as a second baseman last summer, he went downstairs, hailed a taxi, and told the driver to take him to 41 Boone Street, down in Chinatown. The moment the cabbie threw his flag, Kling looked at his watch. It was precisely eleven minutes past noon.

“Hot enough for you?” the cabbie asked.

Kling grimaced.

“I hear it’s gonna be the whole week,” the cabbie said.

“I hope not,” Kling said.

“The whole fuckin’ week,” the cabbie said. “You know where my wife and kids are today? They’re at the beach today, that’s where they are. You know where I am today? I’m pushin’ a fuckin’ hack is where I am today.”

“Yeah,” Kling said.

The traffic on a Sunday — especially on a Sunday in August when those people who weren’t away on vacation were most certainly out at the beaches with the cabbie’s wife and kids — was so light as to be almost nonexistent. Augusta had told him that the cab ride to Ah Wong’s last night had taken a half hour; she’d left the restaurant at ten-thirty and did not walk into the apartment until eleven. That had been Saturday night, though, the busiest night of the week, and given the number of people out on the town howling, and the attendant vehicular congestion, Kling figured he’d have to add maybe ten, fifteen minutes to however long it took him to get downtown now.

The cabbie dropped him off in front of the restaurant at exactly twelve twenty-six by Kling’s watch. Fifteen minutes. So okay, it could have taken Augusta a half hour last night. On the other hand, with him or without him, she’d probably taken taxis to and from Chinatown at least a dozen times this year; she knew how long the trip took, she wouldn’t have come up with something absurd like ten minutes on a Saturday night. Kling paid and tipped the cabbie, and then walked toward the front door of the restaurant.

Ah Wong’s was sandwiched between a Chinese five-and-ten and the station house for the Chinatown Precinct, one of the oldest in the city, in fact about to celebrate its centennial this year. He was tempted to stop inside, say hello to Frank Riley, who’d gone through the Academy with him and who was now a detective/second working out of the squadroom on the second floor of the ancient building. Instead, he stood for a moment on the pavement outside the restaurant, and looked up the street, trying to visualize it as it had been last night, when Augusta said she was here.

Silken banners lettered in Chinese hung lifelessly on the leaden air, crossing the street at intervals overhead, fastened to the buildings on either side. The street was thronged with restaurants similar to Ah Wong’s, their neon signs dead in the brilliant sunshine; last night, the street would have been alive with oranges, blues, and greens. It was almost deserted now, the garbage cans overflowing into the sidewalks in front of the restaurants, green plastic bags squatting beside them like bulky sentinels. A meter maid’s motor scooter was chained to one of the metal posts flanking the steps to Ah Wong’s basement. Kling thought it ironic that even the cops had to chain up their bikes in this city, outside their own damn station house.

Even so, the Chinatown Precinct was not an “A” house, like the Eight-Seven or some of the other high-crime houses in the city. It encompassed The Straits of Napoli (as the Italian section of the precinct was called) as well as the city’s mile-long strip of sleazy hotels and shabby bars (known familiarly as The Vineyard, for its collection of vagrant winos), and its boundaries also enclosed several pockets of blacks and Hispanics, mostly in the Governor James L. Grady Housing Project bordering the River Dix and in that end of the precinct where The Stem joined Dallas Avenue. The biggest crime in the precinct these days was the extortion committed by the Chinese youth gangs, many of whom were suspected of having connections with the older Chinese who ran the basement gambling houses, where Mah-Jongg was the favored game. The gamblers, tired of getting ripped off by itinerant holdup artists, had only several years back begun hiring these kids to protect their premises. The minute the kids tipped to how much money was being wagered at the tables, they began demanding higher fees and threatening mayhem if the demands weren’t met. From the gambling dens, they had branched out to the restaurants and stores, and now held the honest merchants in terror of their organized power.

There were no whorehouses, as such, in the precinct and no massage parlors, either, an oddity in a city that for the past ten years had been sprouting them like venereal lesions. But there was a large contingent of streetwalkers (none of them Chinese) working the area between Aqueduct and Clancy, and occasionally a pimp would decide to exercise his authority by slashing a breast or a pretty face, and — even more often — a visiting fireman in search of a cheap thrill would get mugged and rolled and left in an alley that stank of stale urine and sour wine. The continuing feud between the Dominicans and the Puerto Ricans up around Dallas was a headache to the cops, and since the Criminal, Family, Municipal, and City Court buildings were clustered within the precinct, farther downtown on High Street, there was a steady parade of offenders moving through the precinct to and from the corridors of the law. But for the most part, the precinct was a quiet one.

Riley, who had once worked out of the Marine Tiger Precinct in Riverhead, named after the ship that presumably had carried the first Puerto Ricans here from San Juan, had described his new job as “a month in the country,” this despite the twenty or so homicides committed here annually, and a fair share besides of burglaries, robberies, and grand larcenies. But Riley had come from a precinct where the life of an unpartnered foot-patrol cop wasn’t worth a plugged nickel. The Chinatown Precinct wasn’t a cop-killing precinct like either the Marine Tiger or the city’s notorious Vale Street Precinct. Nor was its crime rate as high as the Eight-Seven’s, where, thank God, the populace had not yet taken to stoning policemen. Kling thought he might have liked working here; he loved Chinese food.

He realized how hungry he was the moment he stepped into the restaurant and a swarm of exotic aromas assailed his nostrils. He took a table near the wall, ordered a gin and tonic and an assortment of fried shrimp, egg rolls, barbecued spare ribs, dumplings, and then — still hungry — ordered the moo goo gai pan, with which he drank a bottle of Heineken beer. When the waiter came back to the table to ask him if there would be anything else, Kling debated flashing the tin before asking his questions, and decided against it.

“That was delicious,” he said. “My wife told me about this place — she was here last night with some friends.”

“Yes?” the waiter said, smiling.

“Big party. About a dozen people.”

“Ah, Miss Mercier party,” the waiter said, nodding.

Miss Mercier was Bianca Mercier, who only last month had adorned the cover of Harper’s Bazaar, a dark-haired beauty with a Nefertiti look that was currently driving the city’s fashion editors wild.

“Yes, that’s the one,” Kling said.

“But no dozen,” the waiter said. “Only ten.”

“Eleven, I guess,” Kling said.

“No, ten. Only one big table here,” he said, pointing to a round table across the room. “Seat ten people. Was only ten last night, Miss Mercier party.”

“My wife thought it was eleven,” Kling said.

“No, only ten. Which one you wife?”

“The redhead,” Kling said.

“No redhead,” the waiter said.

“Tall redhead,” Kling said. “Wearing a green jumpsuit.”

“No redhead,” the waiter said again, shaking his head. “Only three lady. Miss Mercier, black hair, another lady black hair, and one lady yellow hair. No redhead.”

“Did you serve the party?” Kling asked him.

“I am Ah Wong,” he said, drawing himself up proudly. “Miss Mercier very good customer, I wait on her myself last night.”

“This would’ve been around eight o’clock, maybe a little earlier,” Kling said.

“Reservation for eight o’clock,” Ah Wong said, nodding. “Ten people. But no redhead.”

“What time did it break up?”

“Late.”

“How late.”

“Finish eat, sit around drink. Leave here eleven o’clock.”

“Eleven o’clock,” Kling said. Eleven o’clock was when Augusta had walked into their apartment. “Well, listen, thanks,” he said, “that was really delicious.”

“Come back soon,” Ah Wong said.

Kling paid the check and left the restaurant. The meter maid’s scooter was gone; its chain was still wrapped around the iron post and locked with a huge padlock. He debated going crosstown and uptown to where Bianca Mercier lived in The Quarter, ask her whether Augusta had indeed been at that predinner cocktail party last night. He decided against it. Whether she’d been there or not was a matter of small concern. She’d left their apartment uptown at 6:00 p.m. (or so the note on the refrigerator door had said) and had presumably been at Bianca’s party till a little before seven-thirty. (“I left Bianca’s at seven twenty-two and fourteen seconds, okay?”) An hour and a half didn’t matter too much when there were a missing three hours to account for — the time between when she said she’d left Bianca’s and, later on, the restaurant. Three hours, Kling thought. He had known Augusta to climax in three minutes.

He took a deep breath and walked toward the subway kiosk on Aqueduct.

The hooker who picked up Halloran in a bar near Playhouse Square, farther uptown, told him she was from Minnesota. She wasn’t really from Minnesota, she was from the city’s Calm’s Point section, and the distinctive way in which she abused the King’s English should have informed Halloran of that fact in a minute. But Halloran was drunk for the first time in his life, and the girl’s story went down without a ripple. She had been telling prospective customers she was from Minnesota ever since the hookers from that state started getting so much free publicity in the papers and on television. To be from Minnesota meant you were a helpless victim in the clutches of an evil black pimp, selling yourself against your will, corn-fed and wholesome before the big bad city corrupted you. Men liked to think they were sticking it in some kind of technical virgin, and all those innocent-looking hookers from Minnesota were stars in this city.

Kim — whose real name was Louise Marschek — had been a blonde since she was fifteen, when a white pimp took her under his wing and turned her out with promises of unimagined riches and glamour, meanwhile buying her a three-dollar bottle of commercial bleach. It was he who suggested she change her name, professionally, to Kim — “You look a lot like Kim Novak,” he told her. With the new blonde hair, she did in fact believe she looked a lot like Kim Novak, except with smaller breasts. For the past year or so, ever since she’d begun telling customers she was from Minnesota, she’d been bleaching herself below as well, the better to promote the image of country-girl inviolability. The first words she said to Halloran when she took the stool next to his at the bar were, “Hi, I’m Kim — from Duluth, Minnesota.” She did not have the faintest idea where Duluth was, or even where Minnesota was, for that matter. Neither did Halloran, so they were even.

Sitting beside him, Kim thought how thrilled he probably was to have someone who looked so much like Kim Novak putting her widespread hand on his thigh and asking “Want to have a party?” Halloran had begun drinking at noon, when the city’s bars were allowed to open after everybody got out of church (and headed for the bars) and by one-thirty, when she sat down beside him, he had consumed three whiskey-sodas and was feeling a bit sick, to tell the truth. He was Irish, and the Irish were supposed to be big drinkers, but his grandfather had died young of cirrhosis of the liver, and his father had never touched a drop in his life, and he’d have beaten Halloran silly if ever he’d caught him lifting so much as a beer. He was just sober enough to recognize that the girl sitting there beside him with her hand close to his groin was maybe seventeen, eighteen years old, and he was drunk enough, more than enough, to think she looked just like his wife, Josie, when she was that age, or his daughter, Moira, the way she’d looked yesterday when she’d given him his walking papers. He said to the girl on the stool beside him, “You shouldn’t have done that, Moira.”

“Let’s go have a party, huh?” she whispered in his ear, her hand moving closer to his groin.

Halloran had been in prison for twelve years, and he wouldn’t have understood the expression even if he’d been sober enough to hear it correctly. He simply nodded.

“Okay?” she said. “Let’s go, okay? Pay for your drinks, and let’s get out of here.”

He said, “Sure,” and nodded again, and took a ten-dollar bill from his wallet, and put it on top of the bar. Kim noticed that there was a sheaf of greenbacks in the bill compartment of the wallet. She had already noticed that he was bombed out of his mind, and she figured if she played her cards right this big jerk could be the only trick she’d have to turn this afternoon. Throw him a quickie, walk off with the billfold, thanks a lot, mister. The money in the wallet, minus the ten-dollar bill, actually totaled hundred and sixty dollars, all that Halloran had left of the two hundred he’d managed to borrow from an old friend who used to work at the telephone company with him. That was before the trouble, when Halloran had been one of the best linemen in the city. He got off the stool now, and the girl looped her arm through his. Together, they went out of the air-conditioned bar and into the afternoon blaze of the street outside.

By the time they got to the hotel on one of the side streets off Lassiter, he realized that the girl wasn’t his daughter, Moira, nor was she his wife, Josie, either, which she couldn’t have been anyway since Josie had been dead for a long time now, he had killed Josie with a hatchet twelve years ago. He realized, too, that the girl was a hooker, but he thought, What the hell, so what? It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. In prison, your women were the young boys. You put a shank to a kid’s throat, some dumb fish just inside the walls, you told him what you wanted and he either gave it to you or his pretty little face got messed up. If he went to The Man to complain about it, you got him alone someplace, more places to ambush a man in prison, and this time a dozen guys put it to him, and then he was yours forever, walked by your side, shaved his legs for you if that was what you wanted, let you paint tits on his back, that’s what it was like in prison. Take or be taken. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.

“You live here?” he asked her.

“No, no, just rentin’ a room for now,” Kim said.

“What’s this gonna cost me?” he asked.

“We’ll talk about that upstairs, okay?” she said, and winked at the clerk behind the desk when he handed her the key.

The room was on the fourth floor, a shabby cubicle that looked like a cell at Castleview, bed against the wall, dusty Venetian blinds hanging crooked on the single window, scarred dresser against the other wall, open door leading to a toilet where somebody’s vomit had dried on the bowl. He closed the door to the toilet, and then parted the slats on the blinds and looked down to the street below. Everybody was walking like in a slow-motion movie, afraid to exert any energy in this goddamn heat. The room was stifling. He raised the blinds, and opened the window. When he turned, the girl was sitting on the bed.

“What’d you say your name was?” he asked.

“Kim.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Don’t you like that name?” she asked, smiling.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” he said.

“You think I look like Kim Novak?”

“Now that you mention it,” he said. She looked about as much like Kim Novak as he did.

“People say I look a lot like Kim Novak.”

“Yeah, you do. So what’s this gonna cost me?” he asked.

“How about fifty?” she said.

“How about we go back to the bar?” he said.

“Forty?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Okay,” she said. She was still smiling. She was thinking of all those bills she’d seen in his wallet. “But I have to take it now, okay? Before we start, I mean. That’s a general rule.”

“Sure,” he said. He took his wallet from his pocket, and handed her two tens and a five.

“Thanks,” she said.

“How old are you, anyway?” he asked.

“Seventeen,” she said. She was twenty-two, and she’d been hooking for seven years, and she had a heroin habit as long as her arm. “People say I look even younger, though.”

“Yeah, you do,” he said. Now that he was beginning to sober, he thought she looked twenty-eight or — nine.

“So what’ll it be?” she asked.

“Let’s talk a little first, okay?”

“Sure,” she said, “whatever you like.”

She was still thinking about the money in his wallet, and wondering whether she could talk him into sending down for a bottle. The room clerk would find somebody to go out for a bottle if you tipped him a couple of bucks. She didn’t like the way he seemed to be sobering up so fast. Only way she could get at that wallet was to have him as drunk as he’d been just a little while ago.

“Would you like me to get us something to drink while we talk?”

“I don’t drink,” he said.

“Oh-ho,” she said, “he doesn’t drink.”

“I mean it.”

“You don’t look like a man who doesn’t drink,” she said, “big man like you?” and allowed her glance to drop shyly to the front of his trousers.

“That was the first time in my life I ever had any hard liquor,” he said. “This afternoon. First time. Hit me like a ton of bricks.”

“I’ll bet,” she said.

“It’s the truth.”

“I never drink, either,” she said, figuring she’d give him a bit more of the Lily-White Virgin routine. “Back in Minnesota, drinking is considered a sin.”

“Yeah, Minnesota,” he said.

“Duluth,” she said.

“Where’s that?”

“In Minnesota,” she said.

“This is the first time I’ve been with a woman in twelve years,” he said.

“Really? Then I’ve got something good coming, huh?”

“First time I’ve even really talked to a woman in all that time.”

“How come? You been on the wagon or something?”

“No, I—”

“You give it up for Lent or something?” she said, and laughed the way she thought Kim Novak laughed, from way back in her throat, deep and husky.

“I’ve been in jail,” he said.

“Oh?” she said, and shrugged. Half the people she knew had spent at least some time behind bars. Even her old man, the one who’d first told her she looked like Kim Novak, had once done two years for Promoting Prostitution, a Class C felony.

“Up there at Castleview,” he said. “You know Castleview?”

“I heard of it. Listen, are you sure you wouldn’t like me to send out for a bottle? The room clerk—”

“No, I don’t want anything else to drink.”

“’Cause, you know, we could sort of take it easy, talk awhile, drink awhile, do whatever you’d like, you know?”

“What I don’t want to do is drink any more,” he said.

“Okay, whatever you say,” she said, and in that instant lost all interest. If she couldn’t get him drunk again, then all she wanted was to get it over with fast.

“So what’ll it be?” she said. There was a harder tone to her voice now, a business edge he missed entirely.

“Spent twelve years up there,” he said, “twelve long years.”

“Listen,” she said, “if you don’t mind, I’d really like to—”

“Went to see my daughter yesterday,” he said. “She’s eighteen now, married to a nigger. All I wanted to do was see her, you know? Talk to her a bit.” He shook his head. “Told me to get lost. Sent me on my way.”

“Yeah, kids,” she said, hoping that would be the end of it. “Mister, what is it you’d like? Because, you see I’m—”

“It’s not her I blame,” he said.

But neither could he blame himself for what he’d done twelve years ago, when he’d learned that Josie was having an affair with another man. Arguing in the living room of the Marien Street house, his two young sons asleep in the end bedroom, his daughter, Moira, in the room closest to where he and Josie were yelling at each other, Josie finally shouting that it was true, yes, she was seeing another man, she was in love with another man, and naming him, hurling the name at him, and then bursting into tears.

“—a working girl, you know?”

“What?” he said.

“I said I’m a working girl. So what do you say? What’ll it be?”

“You know what I did time for?”

“No, what?” she said, and sighed.

“Murder,” he said.

She looked at him.

“I killed my wife,” he said.

She kept looking at him.

“With a hatchet,” he said.

He used to keep the hatchet on a shelf just inside the basement door, above the steps, he remembered moving away from her wordlessly, and opening the basement door, and taking the hatchet from where it was resting on the shelf, and then going back into the living room and hitting her with it, hitting her repeatedly, opening her skull and her face, and continuing to hit her even after she was dead and gushing blood onto the pale-green living-room rug.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he said, and turned to look at the girl where she was still sitting on the bed, watching him.

She studied him silently, trying to figure out whether or not he was putting her on. Lots of guys tried to impress you with their big macho bullshit, tried to show you what men they were — some kind of men, all right, who had to pay to get laid. He was maybe six feet three inches tall, something like that, weighing more than two hundred, she guessed, bigger than her old man, broad shoulders and thick forearms and huge hands. He had black hair and dark-brown eyes and a big nose, and he was frowning now, his thick eyebrows pulled into a scowl. She had never in her life been afraid of any john. Hooking for seven years now, and never been afraid, even with the real weirdos who sometimes you got stuck with even though you tried to spot them in advance and steer clear of them. But all at once, when it sank in that she was in this room alone with a man who’d maybe really killed somebody, she was afraid.

“Listen,” she said, “maybe we oughta just forget it, you know what I mean?”

He kept staring at her. She wondered if she should yell for help. She wondered if she should try to get past him to where she’d put her bag on the dresser. There was a single-edged razor blade in her bag, insurance against situations like this one. He seemed not to know she was in the room with him. He kept staring at her, but not seeing her.

“I mean, I... really, I’m a working girl, you know? I...” She wet her lips. Her hands were beginning to shake. “It’s just... you know... we’ve been here awhile now. If you... if you’re not interested, you know, in doing anything, then why don’t I just give you back the twenty-five, no hard feelings, and I can—”

“No, you can keep it,” he said.

“I don’t want to take money for something I didn’t—”

“Keep it!” he said.

“Well... well, okay, thanks, but I feel rotten taking your money when I—”

“Just get out of here, okay? Just leave me alone.”

“Well, okay,” she said, getting off the bed quickly and moving toward the dresser. She picked up her bag. “Will you be here awhile or what?” she asked. “’Cause what I do, the clerk lets me have the room for a half hour, you know? I give him five for a half hour. So if you’re gonna be longer than that...”

“That’s all right,” he said.

“That’s only, like you know, just another fifteen minutes or so.”

“That’s all right,” he said again.

“I’m sorry about your daughter,” she said, and opened the door.

He did not answer her.

“Well... so long,” she said, and went out, closing the door behind her.

He went to the bed, and sat on it where she’d been sitting, sat there for a long while without moving, and then lay back against the pillow, his hands behind his head, and stared up at the ceiling.

The night he’d killed her (well, it hadn’t been his fault) he’d driven downtown afterward to search for the man Josie had named. Found him standing outside a sleazy hotel on Culver Avenue, chased him down the street with the bloody hatchet in his hand, finally caught up with him and yanked him to the sidewalk and was about to do to him what he had already done to Josie when a car pulled up to the curb, and a young guy in plain-clothes jumped out waving a gun and yelling.

Staring at the ceiling, tears forming in his eyes, burning there with anger and regret and a sense of loss that made him feel powerless (“Big man like you,” and her eyes dropping to his crotch), he remembered that son of a bitch coming out of the car, waving his pistol in the air, “Police! Stop or I’ll shoot!” remembered telling him stupidly and in tears all about what had happened in the clapboard-and-brick house on Marien Street, “It wasn’t my fault,” repeating the words again and again, “It wasn’t my fault.” And the cop had answered, the son of a bitch had answered, “It’s never anybody’s fault, is it?” Those words echoed in his head for twelve long years — “It’s never anybody’s fault, is it?” — as if a man was supposed to ignore the fact that his wife was fucking somebody else, as if it was the man’s fault instead of...

That son of a bitch, he thought.

Twelve years in prison, he thought.

Twelve years of making love to young boys instead of Josie.

You son of a bitch.

The tears running down his face, his fists clenched, he knew whose fault it was, all right, never mind it never being anybody’s fault, never mind that fucking shit! Knew just who was responsible for all those years in prison, knew who to blame for the way his only daughter had treated him yesterday, exactly who to blame for all of it (“It’s never anybody’s fault, is it?”).

Detective 3rd/Grade Bertram A. Kling, he thought.

And nodded grimly.

Detective 3rd/Grade Richard Genero was Carella’s partner that Sunday. It could have been worse; Carella could have been partnered with Andy Parker. Genero, after months of trying, had finally given up on the spelling of “perpetrator.” In coping with that enormously difficult word and its accomplice “surveillance,” Genero had imaginatively come up with spellings like “perpetuater” and “sirvellance,” which sounded like the name of a medieval French knight, and “survillance” and even “perpitraitor,” which sounded like someone who might logically commit a crime of heinous proportion. He had settled for typing the abbreviations “perp” and “surv” in all of his reports, a practice that had since gained common currency in the squadroom, elevating Genero to the celebrity of a pacesetter.

Like a messenger working in the garment center, Genero never went anywhere without his portable radio. While he typed all those perps and survs in triplicate, his radio sat on the corner of his desk, blaring the latest rock and roll tune. Lieutenant Byrnes had informed him that the squadroom was not a ballroom (“This is not a ballroom up here, Genero, we are not ballroom dancers up here, Genero”) and had warned him that he would be back in uniform, walking a beat in Bethtown, if he did not get rid of that “noisy piece of nonregulation equipment forthwith.” But Lieutenant Byrnes was off today, and Genero’s radio, tuned to the rock station Carella’s ten-year-old twins listened to, was going full blast as Carella dialed the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles.

The assistant manager who spoke to him was courteous, polite, and eager to assist. Out there in Los Angeles, everybody tried to be as courteous, polite, and eager to assist as were the LAPD cops themselves. Carella could visualize an armed robber and a uniformed cop out there, bowing from the waist to each other before shooting it out in one of the canyons.

“I’m calling about a recent guest of yours,” Carella said.

“Yes, sir?”

“A woman named Mrs. Jeremiah Newman, she may have registered as Anne Newman. That would’ve been on August first, according to our information.”

“Yes, sir,” the assistant manager said. “Could you hold one moment while I check with Reservations?”

“I need some other information as well,” Carella said.

“I might be saving you time if I gave it all to you up front.”

“Yes, sir, happy to help.”

“I’ll want to know when she checked in — I’d like you to confirm that August first date for me — and also when she checked out. And then I’d like to know whether she made any long-distance telephone calls, the number she called, and the dates and duration of those calls.”

“I’d have to transfer you to the Cashier’s Office on the calls, sir,” the assistant manager said. “But let me check with Reservations first.”

“Thank you,” Carella said.

There was a click on the line; he hoped he had not been cut off. Across the room, Genero’s radio was spewing a song with the repeated lyric “If I love you, how come you don’t love me?” He wondered why Genero didn’t get himself one of those little things you stuck in your ear. He would suggest it to him, as soon as he got off the phone.

“Mr. Carella?” the assistant manager said.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“I have those dates for you, sir. We do indeed show an Anne Newman registering on the first of August and checking out late Thursday night, August seventh.”

“Thank you,” Carella said. “Could you put me through to someone who’d know about the phone calls?”

“It might take a few minutes for them to find the charge slips,” the assistant manager said. “Would you like us to call you back?”

“No, I’ll wait, thanks,” Carella said.

“Fine, it shouldn’t take too very long. Please hold on, won’t you?”

There was another click on the line. Carella waited. The rock singer still wanted to know how come the recipient of his lament didn’t love him. “Genero?” Carella called over the din.

“What?” Genero called back.

“Can you hear me?”

“What?” Genero said. He was a wiry man with curly black hair, dark-brown eyes, and a strong Neapolitan nose. He sat hunched over his typewriter, pecking at the keys with the forefingers of both hands.

“I said, can you hear me?” Carella shouted.

“Of course I can hear you,” Genero said, “I’m not deaf,” and then immediately added “Sorry” when he remembered Carella’s wife was a deaf-mute.

“Why don’t you get one of those little ear things?” Carella said.

“What do you mean, one of those little ear things?”

“One of those little things you stick in your ear. So you can hear the radio without the rest of us having to listen.”

“No, they’re no good,” Genero said. “They distort the sound. The acoustics in this room are very good, I like to get the full acoustics.”

“You know what’ll happen if the Loot walks in, don’t you?”

“No, he’s at the ball park,” Genero said.

“How do you know that?” Carella asked, surprised, and thinking maybe Genero was a better detective than he realized.

“He told me he had two tickets for today’s game.”

“Well, could you lower it a little, please?”

“I don’t want to tamper with the acoustics,” Genero said.

“Mr. Carella?” a woman on the phone said.

“Yes, this is Detective Carella.”

“This is the Cashier’s Office,” she said, “I have those telephone charges. Would you like to jot them down?”

“Yes, go ahead,” Carella said.

“I have four long-distance calls charged to Anne Newman’s account during her stay with us. She made one at eight p.m. on the night she checked in, that was August first, the call was made to 765-3811 in Isola, and it lasted for three minutes and seventeen seconds.”

“Go ahead,” Carella said, writing.

“The second call was made on Monday afternoon, August fourth, at four-thirty p.m., to 531-8431, also in Isola. She spoke for twenty-seven minutes and twelve seconds.”

“Go on, I’m listening.”

“She called the 765 number again on Tuesday night, August fifth, at nine-twelve p.m. and spoke for—”

“That would be the 765-3811 number?”

“Yes. She spoke for twelve minutes and seven seconds.”

“And the last call?”

“To 332-0295, also in Isola, on August seventh, at five p.m.”

“Would all those times be local?”

“Yes, sir, California time.”

“Thank you very much,” Carella said.

“Have a nice day,” the woman said, and hung up.

“Genero, turn off that radio!” Carella shouted. “I have some more calls to make.”

“Why don’t you get one of those little things you stick in your ear?” Genero said. “Those little rubber things that block out sound.”

“Genero...” Carella said warningly.

“Italians are supposed to like music,” Genero said, but he turned off the radio.

Only one of the telephone numbers sounded familiar to Carella, and only because he’d called it yesterday, before going to visit Anne Newman at the apartment she was presently sharing with her mother-in-law. He checked his notebook just the same, and verified that the 332-0295 number was indeed Susan Newman’s and wondered why Anne had called her just before she’d left California last Thursday night.

The 765-3811 number was undoubtedly Anne’s home phone number; she’d told Carella that she’d called her husband on Friday night when she checked in, and again on Tuesday night, both calls corroborated by the Beverly Wilshire, if that was the number. He checked the Isola directory and found a listing for Jeremiah R. Newman on Silvermine Oval; the number checked out.

But the last number was still a mystery.

He looked over his notes again.

She had called 531-8431, here in the city, on Monday afternoon, August the fourth, and had spoken to someone there for twenty-seven minutes and twelve seconds. Carella pulled the phone to him and dialed “O” for operator. When she came on the line, he said, “This is Detective Carella at the 87th Squad, I need assistance on a police matter, the callback number is 377-8024, extension four. Can your supervisor get back to me, please?”

“In a moment, sir,” the operator said.

He hung up. He would have to call Mrs. Newman to ask what she and her daughter-in-law had talked about on the night of the seventh. It seemed odd to him that the last call Anne Newman had made before leaving the Coast was to her mother-in-law. She had already phoned home on the fifth to tell her husband she’d be catching the Red Eye back on the seventh, so why another call East? The phone rang. He snatched the receiver from its cradle.

“87th Squad, Carella,” he said.

“Yes, Detective Carella, this is Marjorie Phillips, telephone company.”

“How do you do, Miss Phillips? I need assistance on a telephone listing. I have the number, and I’d like the name and address of the subscriber, please.”

“Here in the city, is it?”

“Yes. It’s an Isola listing.”

“And the number?”

“531-8431.”

“Just a moment, please.”

Carella waited. Canned music floated from the ear-piece. If it wasn’t Genero, then it was the goddamn phone company. A shlock orchestra was playing a string arrangement of “Penny Lane” designed to cause any listening rock fan to jump up and down in rage.

“Mr. Carella?”

“Yes, Miss Phillips.”

“I have that listing for you. Have you got a pencil?”

“Right here in my hand.”

“The number — that’s 531-8431 — is listed to a Dr. James Brolin at 493 Courtenay Plaza in Isola.”

“Thank you,” Carella said. “Miss Phillips, while I have you on the line, I wonder if you can help me with another matter?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“I’d like a record of all the telephone calls made from—”

“I’m sorry,” Miss Phillips said, “you’d have to call the Business Office for that.”

“Yes, but this is Sunday, and I—”

“They’ll be open at eight tomorrow morning.”

“No way you can help me meanwhile?”

“I’m afraid not. I wouldn’t have such records here. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, thanks anyway,” Carella said.

“Glad to be of assistance,” Miss Phillips said, and hung up.

Dr. James Brolin, Carella thought, and opened his notebook again. Beneath the name of the pharmacy that had dispensed the Seconal capsules to Anne Newman, he had jotted the name of the doctor who’d written the prescription: Dr. James Brolin. He picked up the receiver again, and dialed the number. A woman answered the phone.

“Dr. Brolin, please,” he said.

“Who’s calling, please?”

“Detective Carella of the 87th Squad.”

“Just a moment,” she said, “I’ll see if he’s in.”

Which in English meant he was very definitely in and she was checking to see if he wanted to talk to a detective. Carella waited. He heard muted voices in the background, and then the receiver being picked up from wherever it had been dropped.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said.

“Dr. Brolin?” Carella asked.

“Yes?”

“This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad. I’m investigating an apparent suicide, and I wonder if I may ask you some questions, sir.”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Have you got a few moments?”

“Well, we have guests just now...”

“This won’t take long.”

“Certainly,” Brolin said.

“Dr. Brolin, you are the physician who prescribed a month’s supply of Seconal capsules for Anne Newman, are you not?”

“I am.”

“Is that usual, Dr. Brolin? Such a large supply of barbiturate, I mean?”

“Mrs. Newman is an insomniac. As part of her treatment, I’ve been prescribing Seconal. There’s nothing unusual about the quantity of the drug, no.”

“She came to see you on July twenty-ninth, is that correct? The date on the prescription...”

“Was that a Tuesday?” Brolin asked.

“Yes, sir, I believe it was.”

“Then, yes, she was here. I see her every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.”

“Sir?” Carella said. “Every...?”

“I’m a psychiatrist,” Brolin said.

“Oh, I see,” Carella said, and nodded.

“Yes,” Brolin said.

“And you’re treating her for insomnia, is that it?”

“Insomnia is one of her symptoms, yes. I don’t feel I’m obliged to discuss the exact nature of her problem, Mr. Carella.”

“Of course not,” Carella said. “Dr. Brolin, did Mrs. Newman call you from California last Monday night?”

“Yes, she did.”

“For what reason?”

“She’d missed her Friday session because of the trip. She was suffering a severe attack of anxiety out there, and she wanted to talk to me.”

“How long did you talk, Dr. Brolin, would you remember?”

“Twenty minutes? A half hour? I really couldn’t say.”

“Did she call you at any time after that?”

“No, she did not.”

“That was the last time you spoke to her.”

“Yes. I’ll be seeing her this Tuesday, of course.”

“Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, you said.”

“Yes.”

“Dr. Brolin, did you know Mr. Newman?”

“No, I did not.”

“Did you know he was found dead last Friday morning, by Mrs. Newman when she returned from California?”

“Yes, I did.”

“How did you learn about his death, sir?”

“Mrs. Newman informed me.”

“Oh, I thought you hadn’t spoken to her since—”

“I’m sorry, I thought you meant from California. She called me yesterday. She was quite upset, we had a long talk on the phone.”

“I see. Well, Dr. Brolin, I know you have guests. I won’t keep you. Thanks for your time.”

“Good-bye then,” Brolin said, and hung up.

Across the room, Genero was standing with his hands on his hips, looking at the street below through the metal grille covering the open window.

“Come look at these two,” he said.

“I’m busy,” Carella said, and picked up the receiver again.

“Tits out to here,” Genero said.

Carella dialed Susan Newman’s home. She picked up the phone on the third ring. “Hello?” she said.

“Mrs. Newman? This is Detective Carella, how are you?” he asked.

“We just got back from the cemetery,” Mrs. Newman said. “All things considered, I suppose I’m all right.”

“Is this an inconvenient time for you?”

“There are people here,” she said. “But, please, what is it?”

“Mrs. Newman, from what I’ve been able to learn, your daughter-in-law called you from California last Thursday night, is that correct?”

“Yes, she did.”

“The call was placed at five p.m. in Los Angeles, that would’ve made it eight o’clock here. Can you tell me what you talked about?”

“Well... yes. But why do you want to know?”

“Just as a matter of course.”

“I’m not sure what that means, ‘a matter of course.’”

“There are certain avenues we’re obliged to investigate in any traumatic death.”

“Traumatic?”

“Yes, ma’am. Such as a suicide or a homicide.”

“I see. Then you do suspect my son’s death was a homicide.”

“I don’t suspect anything, Mrs. Newman. I’m simply assembling the facts so I can make an informed judgment.”

“And what does Anne’s call to me have to do with this informed judgment?”

“She’d spoken to her husband... your son... on Tuesday night. So far as I can tell, she didn’t speak to him again after that. But she called you on Thursday, just before she left for home. I’m curious as to why.”

“Do you suspect Anne had something to do with Jerry’s death?”

“No, ma’am, I’m not saying that.”

“Then I’m not sure what the purpose of your call is, Mr. Carella.”

Carella looked up at the wall clock. He had been on the phone with her for close to three minutes already, and she still hadn’t told him why her daughter-in-law had called on Thursday night. Normally, he would have had nothing but respect for such tight familial security. But considering the circumstances — Tell her about the heat in that apartment, he thought. Tell her there’s something mighty fishy about an apartment with the air conditioner turned off when the temperature outside is in the nineties. Tell her, yes, goddamn it, I’m not eliminating the possibility of homicide.

“Mrs. Newman?” he said.

“Yes?”

“You’re under no obligation to reveal the contents of the telephone conversation you had with your daughter-in-law. I was hoping, however—”

“Anne had nothing to do with my son’s death.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because you don’t kill someone you’re planning to divorce, Mr. Carella.”

“Was she planning to divorce your son?”

“That’s what she called about Thursday night.”

“To discuss divorce?”

“To tell me she was going to ask for a divorce as soon as she got back East.”

“I see. Did your son know this?”

“No.”

“She hadn’t mentioned it to him, is that it?”

“She was going to tell him when she got home. She called to ask my advice.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her to go ahead and do it. My son became a worthless drunk the moment my husband killed himself. I’m a registered nurse, you know, he’d call me every time he’d had too much to drink, ask me to come over and take care of him. I sat through more nights with him, helping him to ward off his imaginary bats and mice... well, a mother is supposed to do that, I guess. But I was amazed that Anne was able to bear it as long as she did.”

“What was her mood when she called?”

“Troubled, concerned. She was in tears all the while we talked.”

“And when the conversation ended?”

“Determined. She planned to tell him the next morning. I believe I gave her the courage to go ahead with it. And then, of course, when she got home...”

“It was too late.”

“Yes, she found him dead.”

“Why were you so reluctant to tell me this, Mrs. Newman?”

“Simply because it’s none of your business, Mr. Carella.”

“Maybe it isn’t,” he said. “Thank you. I appreciate your candor.”

“He killed himself, that’s the long and the short of it,” Mrs. Newman said. She hesitated, and then added, “It runs in the family, you see,” and hung up.