Heat

8

The drug bust was scheduled to go down at ten forty-five that Wednesday night. At a meeting in the lieutenant’s office at a little before noon, Byrnes offered the opinion that perhaps Meyer Meyer wasn’t yet physically fit enough to lead the team in. Meyer had been shot in the leg on Christmas Day, and although this was already August, he was still limping a little. “It’s the humidity,” he kept telling everyone in the squadroom. He told that to Byrnes now.

“I was thinking a position behind the others,” Byrnes said.

The lieutenant was a man with the compact head of a bullet, his iron-gray hair clipped short and parted on the left, his blue eyes moving first to Meyer’s left thigh and then to the area just below Meyer’s kneecap, drilling the leg in question as surely as the .38-caliber slugs had done last Christmas.

The “others” to whom he’d referred were draped around the lieutenant’s office in various postures of inattentiveness, Hal Willis half-sitting on the window ledge, Cotton Hawes sitting in a chair near the lieutenant’s bookcase with the bound law books he rarely consulted anymore, Arthur Brown leaning against the closed door, his arms folded across his chest. The four-man team, because they’d been conducting the six-month long stakeout, was supposed to enter the suspect apartment first, six patrolmen from the Eight-Seven behind their flying wedge, and two brave Narc cops bringing up the rear.

“How you gonna kick in the door?” Byrnes asked.

“With my right leg,” Meyer said. “I always use my right leg.”

“How’s your left leg gonna support you?”

“It’ll support me,” Meyer said. “It’s just the humidity, Loot.”

The lieutenant looked dubious.

“You miss that lock on the first kick, there’s gonna be a hail of bullets coming through the wood,” he said.

“How can I possibly miss the lock?” Meyer asked. “I’m not blind, Pete, it’s only my leg got shot.”

“I mean kick it open,” Byrnes said. “You don’t bring enough force against it, those guys inside’ll start shooting.”

“Have we got our warrant?” Willis asked.

He was the shortest man on the squad, measuring five-feet eight inches in his stockinged feet, and having barely cleared the Department’s height requirement at a time when inches used to count. That was before a five-foot-six former bartender brought suit against the city — for refusing even to look at his application for a job with the Police Department — on grounds that he was being discriminated against because of his size. After the man won his case, the joke running through all the precincts was that pretty soon there’d be jobs on the force for three-foot tall midgets, who could close any illegally opened fire hydrant without having to stoop over. Willis hadn’t found the joke comical.

“We’ve got the warrant?” Meyer said.

“With a No-Knock?”

“With a No-Knock.”

“Are we wearing vests?” Hawes asked.

He was six feet two inches tall, and his long legs were sprawled out halfway across the lieutenant’s small office. Sunlight streaming through the window touched his red hair, setting it aglow; the white streak of hair over his left temple resembled a puff of sifted ashes against a bed of embers. He was very hungry. As he waited for the lieutenant’s answer, his stomach grumbled, and he glanced at Brown as though accusing him of the indiscretion.

“Damn vests are more trouble then they’re worth,” Meyer said. “What do you think?”

“If there’s gonna be shooting...”

“There might be.”

“Then let’s use the vests,” Hawes said simply, and shrugged. His stomach growled again.

“I’m asking for a volunteer,” Byrnes said flatly.

“Pete, it’s my team,” Meyer said. “If anybody’s gonna kick in that door...”

“I’ll walk point,” Brown said.

He was the only black man on the squad, a detective 2nd/grade who was taller and broader than Hawes, measuring six feet four inches and weighing in at two hundred and twenty pounds. When Arthur Brown kicked in a door, it really got kicked in. When Arthur Brown kicked in a door over in Calm’s Point, it sailed over the bridge and landed in the river, near Bethtown.

“We put you on point, Caroline may become a widow,” Hawes said. “Let me take it, Pete.”

“Listen, what the hell is this?” Meyer said. “I’m all of a sudden a cripple? Maybe I should put in for a disability pension.”

“I don’t want to risk that door,” Byrnes said.

“You want me to demonstrate for you?” Meyer said heatedly. “Lock your fuckin’ door, Loot, I’ll kick it open for you.”

“This has nothing to do with—”

“What has it got to do with, okay?” Meyer said. “Tell me what—”

“It has to do with risking the team, okay?” Byrnes said.

“Then why don’t I stay home in bed? I mean, what the hell is this?” Meyer said.

“He wants to be a hero,” Willis said.

“Let the man be a hero,” Brown said.

“I’m a hero already,” Meyer said. “I’ve been shot already, I deserve a medal.”

“Give the man a medal,” Hawes said.

“Let the man kick in the door,” Willis said.

“In a minute, I’ll kick in the man’s ass,” Byrnes said.

“Maybe I ought to transfer to the Sanitation Department,” Meyer said angrily. “You think I can lift a garbage can, Loot?”

“Meyer...”

“Don’t ‘Meyer’ me. It’s my team, I lead it in.”

“Let’s get one of the Narcs to lead it in,” Willis said.

“Yeah, fat chance,” Brown said.

Byrnes sighed. “With a vest,” he said.

“With a vest, all right,” Meyer said.

“What time’s it going down?”

“Ten-forty-five.”

“Why so early?”

“They’ve been assembling right after dinner, nine, nine-thirty. We hit them a little before eleven, they’ll all be there, we should find the dope and the money all laid out for us.”

“Will the Frenchman be there?”

“Both of them, we hope.”

“You’ve seen them at the building?”

“Not since last month. But Artie’s been sitting a wire...”

“They called?”

“Two days ago,” Brown said. “They’ll be there tonight, Loot, no question.”

“Did they talk money?”

“The one with the deep voice said he was prepared.”

“In English?”

“In English.”

“Was that the exact word he used?”

“Prepared,” Brown said, and nodded. “That’s the word he used last month, too. Prepared.”

“Meaning to make the sale,” Meyer said.

“We hope,” Byrnes said.

“What else could he have meant? Prepared to dance the tango?”

“Who knows with thieves?” Byrnes said philosophically. “Have you picked your patrolmen?”

“The captain’s giving us six of his best men.”

“Six of the city’s finest,” Hawes said dryly.

“Who’s the Narc Squad sending?”

“Miller and Gerardi,” Meyer said. “I don’t know them.”

“I don’t, either,” Byrnes said, and shrugged. “What time will they be here?”

“I told them an hour before the bust.”

“Good,” Byrnes said, and nodded. “Okay, anything else?”

“Nothing I can think of.”

“I still wish—”

“And I wish I was a millionaire,” Meyer said.

“I thought you were already,” Willis said.

“All that graft,” Brown said, and winked.

“Maybe you can rip off some of that shit tonight,” Hawes said. “You’re so eager to go in first, maybe you can grab a kilo and stick it in your pocket.”

“Stick it up your ass,” Meyer said cheerfully.

The meeting was over.

Dr. James Brolin’s office was in a part of the city affectionately dubbed Shrink City, a stretch of real estate running for two blocks from the southern rim of Grover Park at Hall Avenue, past Jefferson, and terminating at Garden. The street, lined with analysts’ offices, was the unofficial dividing line between the still-posh apartment buildings to the west and a Puerto Rican slum to the east. On the Puerto Rican side of the line, Carella could see fire hydrants open and wasting the city’s precious water supply, kids in swim trunks doing their Gene Kelly numbers under the spray, stomping their feet in the puddles, grinning broadly, shouting to each other. Carella wished he could join them.

He had made the appointment for 1:50 p.m., to take advantage of Brolin’s ten-minute break between patients. He was there five minutes early. A man with an umbrella was sitting in Brolin’s small waiting room. He was wearing gray flannel trousers, and a heavy wool overcoat under which Carella could see a tweed sports jacket and a V-neck sweater. The man looked exceedingly cool. Carella wondered if he’d tipped to some kind of secret way to beat the heat. A woman came out of Brolin’s inner office at exactly ten minutes to one. She looked at the man in the overcoat, looked at Carella, and then went into what Carella assumed was a small toilet off the waiting room. He heard the lock on the door click.

“Peeing,” the man in the overcoat said. “She always pees.”

“Mr. Carella?”

“Yes?” Carella said, turning from the man in the overcoat. “Dr. Brolin?”

“Won’t you come in, please?”

“I thought I was next,” the man in the overcoat said.

“Yes, Mr. Garfield, this won’t take a moment,” Brolin said.

“You’re not supposed to use names,” the man in the overcoat said, and turned his back to Brolin. The doctor smiled pleasantly, led Carella into his office, and closed the door behind them.

He was a man of about Carella’s height, give or take a few inches, perhaps an even six feet, perhaps six-one. He was heftier than Carella, though, with broader shoulders and a thicker neck. The hair on his head was white, as was the small Vandyke beard that decorated his chin. Carella guessed he was somewhere in his late forties or early fifties.

“So,” Brolin said. “This is about Mr. Newman?”

“Yes,” Carella said. He still hadn’t taken a seat. There was a leather couch angled out from a single chair beside the desk, and there was also a leather armchair facing the desk.

“The armchair,” Brolin said.

Carella sat.

“What did you want to know?” Brolin asked. “I’m sorry this has to be so brief, but I have a full caseload...”

“I understand,” Carella said. “Dr. Brolin, I know it would be unethical to discuss anything a patient says here in this office...”

“It would,” Brolin said.

“But what I have to ask today doesn’t concern Anne Newman, per se, except as it relates to her husband.”

“Uh-huh,” Brolin said.

“So if you can answer some of my questions...”

“I’d have to hear the questions first.”

“Of course,” Carella said. “First, can you tell me whether Mrs. Newman ever mentioned the possibility of her husband committing suicide.”

“Yes,” Brolin said.

His immediate response surprised Carella; he had half-expected a lengthy discourse on confidentiality. Taken aback, he blinked, and then said, “She did?”

“Yes,” Brolin said again.

“When was this, Dr. Brolin?”

“On several occasions.”

“Said she was afraid her husband might commit suicide.”

“Said he had threatened suicide.”

“Did she say why?” Carella asked.

“Well, the man had a drinking problem,” Brolin said, and rested his elbows on the desk, and tented his hands in front of his face, and peered over them. His eyes were an intense blue, Carella noticed. “He was finding it increasingly difficult to cope. His occupation didn’t help much, I’m sure. He was a commercial artist, freelancing out of the apartment, and was alone much of the time. Without the normal give-and-take of a so-called community relationship — the sort of camaraderie one might normally enjoy in the atmosphere of a business office or a shop or what-have-you — his problems must have appeared insurmountable. I’d suggested to Mrs. Newman, on more than one occasion, that he seek help. But apparently—”

“By help...?”

“Psychiatric help.”

“What was his reaction to this?”

“He refused. He told her he was perfectly capable of handling his own life. And now...” Brolin sighed. “The way he handled his own life was to end it.”

Carella nodded, and then said, “Dr. Brolin, these suicide threats, would they have predated the drawing of his will?”

“What will is that?” Brolin asked.

“Mr. Newman had a new will drawn last month.”

“Oh my, he’d been threatening suicide for almost as long as I’ve been treating Mrs. Newman.”

“Then this wasn’t something new.”

“Not at all.”

“Dr. Brolin, had Mrs. Newman ever discussed divorce with you?”

“I’m not sure I wouldn’t be breaching a patient’s confidence if I answered that question.”

“Then again,” Carella said, “you just answered it, didn’t you?”

“I suppose so,” Brolin said, and smiled. “Yes, she explored the possibility of divorce.”

“What did you advise her?”

“It’s not a psychiatrist’s role to advise, Mr. Carella. I’m here to help my patients find a way of dealing realistically with their problems.”

“When did she first discuss the possibility of divorce?”

“Last month sometime.”

“Dr. Brolin... do you believe Mrs. Newman had any knowledge of her husband’s new will?”

“The first I’ve heard of any will is when you mentioned it a few minutes ago.” His reference to time seemed to alert him to the patient waiting outside. He glanced at his watch.

“Just a few more questions,” Carella said, and looked at his own watch. “When Mrs. Newman discussed divorce with you, did she indicate it might have had anything to do with her husband’s will?”

“I just told you—”

“I’m referring to the fact that Mr. Newman left all of his estate to an art dealer named Louis Kern.”

“That name has never been mentioned here in this office.”

“What I’m trying to learn, Dr. Brolin, is whether Mrs. Newman may have felt any resentment—”

“Resentment?”

“Yes, over the fact that her husband named her as beneficiary of a relatively small insurance policy, whereas in his will—”

“If she knew about such a will, she never mentioned it here.”

“Dr. Brolin, in your...?”

“Mr. Carella, I’m really very sorry, but I have a patient waiting.”

“Just this one last question.”

“Please.”

“In your professional opinion, would someone with a severe aversion to medication of any kind have willingly ingested a fatal dose of Seconal?”

“I have no way of answering that without knowing the case history of the person in question.”

“The person in question, I’m sure you realize—”

“Yes, is Mr. Newman. But I know nothing more about him than what his wife has told me in this office. That’s not sufficient empirical evidence upon which to base a professional judgment.”

“I see,” Carella said, and rose. He extended his hand across the desk. “Thank you, Dr. Brolin,” he said, “I appreciate your time.”

“Glad to be of help,” Brolin said.

The man in the overcoat was still sitting in the small waiting room outside. As Carella passed him, he looked up and said, “Are you going to pee now?”

“Later,” Carella said.

The men on the team had all gone down the hall to pee.

The clock behind the muster-room desk read 10:10 p.m. as they came downstairs to pick up their equipment in the small supply room to the right of the iron-runged steps. The hand-held, battery-powered radios were Police Department property, and marked as such. The vests had been privately purchased and were privately owned by any detective who thought he might have cause to need one. In this city, only Emergency Squad cops were issued bulletproof vests; any other cop who wanted one had to pay for it with his own hard-earned bucks. The vests bore the names of the various cops stenciled across their backs. The cops often loaned their vests to other cops less affluent than themselves when something heavy was going down and they would be sitting the back of a liquor store instead. Not all of the detectives on the Eight-Seven owned bulletproof vests, but normally there were always more than enough to go around.

The vests were bulky and uncomfortable and often limited movement to such an extent that many detectives preferred taking their chances without them. There wasn’t a cop in the world who thought he was faster than a speeding bullet, but mobility was sometimes vital in a shootout, and if a vest caused you to move too clumsily, a bullet in the head might easily result; there was no vest that covered a cop’s head. Tonight, the men would not put on their vests until they were approaching the building on Culver Avenue; this would have been normal procedure even when it wasn’t so damn hot. The two detectives from the Narcotics Squad hadn’t brought along any vests. They wanted to know now if they could borrow a couple from the Eight-Seven.

There were four 87th Precinct detectives and six 87th Precinct patrolmen working the bust. There were only eight vests. Willis decided he didn’t want to wear one. The six patrolmen, as part of the family, drew straws to see who would get to wear the remaining five vests. One of the patrolmen and both Narcs were left out in the cold. Gerardi, the older of the Narc Squad cops, complained that the Eight-Seven ought to learn some common courtesy. Miller, the other Narc, said this wasn’t even their bust; the Eight-Seven would get credit for the bust, and they’d be risking their asses without vests. Meyer told them both to go home to their knitting. The men all went to pee again before leaving the station house.

The police van posing as a bakery truck was parked across the street from 1124 Culver when the unmarked sedans pulled up. The men had put on their vests when they were three blocks away from the building, and had sat in silent, cramped discomfort on the approach. The moment the cars angled into the curb, they piled out gratefully onto the sidewalk, and moved swiftly toward the front door of the building, guns drawn. Meyer was in the lead. Immediately behind him in the triangular wedge were Brown and Hawes, and behind them Willis and a patrolman named Roger Higgins, who was scared out of his wits. The men went up the steps as quietly as they possibly could, considering the number of them. Their main interest was speed. Get up to the third floor, kick in the door, nail them cold with the dope and the money, make the arrest. On the second-floor landing, one of the Narc cops tripped and muttered “Shit,” and one of the patrolmen shushed him, and then suddenly all of them were on the third floor, and Higgins wasn’t the only one who was scared. As Meyer approached the door to the suspect apartment, he felt a familiar pounding in his chest, the anticipated reaction to fear of the unknown. He thought he knew who would be behind the door he was about to kick in, but he didn’t know what kind of arsenal was inside there.

In the state for which these men worked, it was necessary to obtain a search warrant from either a Criminal Court judge, or a Superior Court judge — a justice of the Supreme Court, as it applied to Isola — in order to enter any suspect premises. The form and content of the search warrant were defined by law. If the investigating officers felt there might be contraband materials on the premises, they would also request that the warrant carried a No-Knock provision, which would allow them to enter without announcing themselves. Meyer’s warrant, signed downtown at the Criminal Courts building yesterday, contained just such a provision. But being legally sanctioned to go in unannounced did not dissipate that persistent fear of the unknown, the possible sudden death that lurked behind an alien door. He was sweating as he braced himself against the wall opposite the door, and then jackknifed his right leg and released a flat-footed kick at the lock.

The jamb splintered, the door sprang open.

“Police!” Meyer shouted. “Don’t move!”

There were two people in the room.

They both sat at a long table.

One of them was a woman wearing only a slip. The other was a man in his undershorts. The woman was white, the man was black. The woman was thin to the point of emaciation. The man looked relatively robust, but his eyes were as glazed as hers, and there was a syringe on the tabletop, and a book of matches, and a soot-blackened tablespoon, and two torn, empty glassine packets. The man and the woman looked up as the detectives and the uniformed policemen swarmed into the room. Neither of them said a word. The cops fanned out, throwing open doors to other rooms, closets, a small toilet. The apartment was empty except for the man and the woman who sat at the table, stoned, watching them silently.

“Anybody else here?” Meyer asked.

The woman shook her head.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Mary,” she said.

“Mary what?”

“What’s my name?” she asked the black man.

The black man shrugged.

“How about you?” Meyer asked him.

“Jefferson Hill.”

“Where’d you get this shit?” one of the Narc cops asked, picking up an empty glassine packet.

“Mary?” Hill said. “Where we get this?”

“Good shit,” Mary said, and nodded.

“Where’re the guys running this place?” Brown asked.

“Where’re the guys, Mary?” Hill asked.

“Yeah,” Mary said, and shrugged.

“All this for a couple of fuckin’ junkies,” the other Narc cop said.

Some you win, some you lose.

Augusta had told him they’d be shooting outdoors tonight, at Long General downtown, something to do with juxtaposing the new line of ski fashions with the stark, monolithic architecture of the hospital and the starched white uniforms of the staff nurses they’d be using as background extras. The commercial would not appear on television till December sometime, Augusta explained, they worked very far in advance. She was not looking forward to the assignment. Modeling ski parkas, in the stifling heat under bright lights, was not her idea of an ideal way to spend a summer night.

Kling hadn’t believed a word of it.

A call to the senior security officer at the hospital informed him that no plans had been made for anyone to take pictures in or around the place that night. “This is a hospital,” the security man said somewhat testily, “there are sick people here, we don’t allow such shenanigans here.”

Marveling at the blatancy of her lie, Kling thanked the man politely, and then sat at his desk in the squadroom, staring at the windows, listening to the lost sounds of summer outside. In a little while, he said good night to Carella, and went downstairs, and told Murchison on the muster desk that he was checking out, and then walked the two blocks to the kiosk on Grover, and took the subway downtown.

The lights on the first floor of the building on Hopper Street, in the apartment occupied by the painter Michael Lucas, were out. So were the lights on the second floor; Martha and Michelle were most likely prowling the town, and God knew where Franny the possible hooker was. He expected the photographers’ studios on the third and fourth floors to be dark, and they were. But the fifth-floor apartment — the one rented or owned by the man who modeled “mostly fashion, occasional beefcake,” the man named Bradford Douglas with his bulging muscles and his flowing blond hair — his apartment was ablaze with light across the entire top floor of the building. Kling was tempted to go up there and kick in the door, no search warrant with a No-Knock provision, just kick the damn thing in and find Augusta there.

He stood across the street, in the shadows, thirty feet or more away from the single lamppost on the corner. The shops and restaurants lining the street were closed for the night; this was now a little past eleven, and Augusta had left for her imaginary shoot at a quarter to nine. He looked up at the lighted windows. In his mind, they became multiple screens flashing pornographic movies, Augusta scantily clad, Douglas bare-chested, Augusta in his arms, Augusta accepting his embrace and his kisses, Augusta opening herself to—

The first shot took him completely by surprise.

He heard the roar of the gun somewhere off to his left, beyond the circle of light cast by the street-corner lamppost, heard the slug as it whacked home against the brick of the building, saw from the corner of his eye the brick a foot away from his head shatter with the impact of the bullet, throwing flying pieces of soot-stained red into the air. By the time the second shot came, he was flat on his belly on the sidewalk, his pistol in his hand, his heart beating wildly, his eyes scanning the darkness beyond the circle of light. There was a third shot, triggered off in haste, and then the sound of footsteps pounding away into the darkness. As he scrambled to his feet, he saw the running man cross a pool of light under another lamppost. Dark windbreaker and fedora. Gun flailing in his right hand as he pumped the air like a track star. He disappeared around the corner just as Kling began chasing him, and was gone when Kling reached the lamppost.

Out of breath, he walked back to where he thought the shots had come from. On his hands and knees, he began searching the pavement, touching, feeling with his palms and his fingers, looking for spent cartridge cases. All he got was dirty hands. Either this wasn’t the exact spot or else the man had been firing a revolver rather than an automatic. He went back to where he’d been standing when the shooting started. The hole in the brick wall was at least six inches in diameter; his assailant had been using a high-powered gun. The area was dark. He looked up and down the street, hoping to find a radio motor-patrol car; the patrolmen would be carrying torchlights. The street was empty of traffic. Never a cop around when you needed one. He got down on his hands and knees again, in the dark, and began feeling the sidewalk, searching for bullets. He found only one, in pretty good shape, not too badly deformed. He pocketed the slug, debated phoning this in to the local precinct, and decided against it. Instead, he walked up to the lighted avenue two blocks away, hailed a taxi, and told the driver to take him to Long General. There were no photographers and no models outside the hospital. He gave the driver his home address, and then nervously took a cigarette from the package he’d bought that morning, and lighted it, his hands trembling. The last time he’d smoked was on his wedding night, almost four years ago, when Augusta, his bride, was abducted by a lunatic who’d then held her captive for three days.

The cabbie said, “Would you mind putting that out, please? I’m allergic to cigarette smoke.”

“What?” Kling said.

“There’s a sign back there, can’t you see the sign?” the cabbie said.

Kling put out the cigarette.

Back at the ranch, they were discussing the abortive raid.

“They must’ve been tipped,” Gerardi, the older of the Narc Squad cops said.

“I don’t think so,” Meyer said.

“Then how come we find only two junkies with track marks running from their shoulders to their assholes?”

“It must’ve been called off,” Brown said. “Maybe the shipment was delayed.”

“Delayed, my ass,” Miller, the other Narc said. “Somebody tipped them.”

“You should tighten your security up here,” Gerardi said.

“What’ve you got up here?” Miller asked. “Some cop on the take?”

Brown glared at him and said nothing. Brown’s glares were often more meaningful than a thousand words.

“Where’s the son of a bitch sitting that bakery truck?” Gerardi asked. “I thought he was supposed to come up here.”

“He’s clearing it with Photo,” Willis said.

“What?” Gerardi said.

“He’s with Photo, he’s got to clear it with his command.”

“Clear what with his command? Coming up here to tell us what the hell happened tonight?”

“He’ll be here,” Willis said.

“When? It’s half past eleven already.”

“As soon as he clears it.”

“He’s trying to save his ass, is what he’s trying to do,” Miller said. “How come we weren’t tipped?”

“What do you mean?” Hawes asked.

“How come the guy in that van, who’s sitting there day and night taking pictures, didn’t radio in to say there was nobody up there but a coupla hopheads?”

“You want my opinion,” Gerardi said, “he’s the one on the take.”

“Almost broke my neck on those fuckin’ stairs,” Miller said.

“Two junkies stoned out of their minds. Place as empty as a hooker’s heart,” Gerardi said. “Somebody tipped them, I’m telling you.”

“Here he is,” Meyer said, and walked swiftly to the slatted rail divider. “Al,” he said, “come on in. You clear it okay?”

“Don’t know why I needed clearance in the first place,” the man said. He was wearing a brightly patterned, short-sleeved sports shirt, pale-blue cotton trousers, and sandals. He had clipped his plastic-encased I.D. card to his shirt pocket before coming into the muster room downstairs, as though he were entering Headquarters or something.

“This is Al Rodriguez,” Meyer said. “Gerardi and Miller from the Narc Squad. I think you know the others.”

“Yeah, hi,” Rodriguez said.

“You the guy been sitting that van?” Gerardi asked.

“Yeah,” Rodriguez said.

“So what happened tonight?”

“What do you mean?”

“We go up there, there’s only two junkies. Where’s the guys in all those pictures you took?”

“How the hell do I know?”

“You been sleepin’ inside that fuckin’ truck?”

“I been takin’ pictures,” Rodriguez said.

“So what pictures did you take tonight? Two junkies going up there for a private little party?”

“I don’t know who went up there or who didn’t go up there,” Rodriguez said. “I focus the camera on the front door, the camera takes the pictures. The camera clicks empty, I change the reel. I don’t know what’s on that film till it’s developed downtown. I sometimes don’t even know what’s on it after it’s developed.”

“Who turns on the camera?”

“I turn it on.”

“When?”

“Whenever somebody goes near that front door.”

“So who went near that front door tonight?”

“Lots of people.”

“Did lots of people go inside that building?”

“Sure,” Rodriguez said.

“So where’d they disappear to?”

“How the fuck do I know? Maybe they went up the roof to fly pigeons. I ain’t supposed to tail them, I’m only supposed to photograph them.”

“You recognize any of the people who went in that building?”

“Some of them looked familiar.”

“Did the two Frenchmen go in?”

“How the fuck do I know which of them is French or which of them ain’t?”

“You can tell a Frenchman,” Gerardi said.

“You shoulda called,” Miller said.

“What for?”

“To tell us what was happening there.”

“How the fuck do I know what was happening there? It looked the same as it does every month. Whole stream of guys going in, same guys as usual. I’m supposed to call to tell you it’s business as usual?”

“You shoulda called,” Miller said again.

“Listen, I’m tired,” Rodriguez said. “Is this why you dragged me up here? To hear a lot of bullshit about what I shoulda done or shouldn’ta done? I mean, tell it to my lieutenant, okay? You got a beef, go bend his ear. I’m goin’ home to sleep.”

“We’re gonna be looking at that film,” Gerardi warned.

“So look at it,” Rodriguez said heatedly. “Have a good time.”

“Take it easy,” Meyer said.

“Fuckin’ Narcs got nothing to do but squawk all the time,” Rodriguez said. “Why don’t you go find an honest job?” he said to Gerardi. “So long, Meyer,” he said, “you know where to reach me.” He walked to the railing, shoved his way through the gate, and went angrily downstairs, his footsteps sounding heavily on the iron-runged steps.

“So what now?” Miller asked.

“We try again next month,” Meyer said.

“Those guys’ll be in China by next month,” Gerardi said. “I’m telling you somebody tipped them. They know we’re bringing heat to bear, and they’re smart enough to stay far, far away from it. We can forget this bust, it’ll never come off.”

“We’ll call you when it won’t be coming off,” Meyer said.

“That’s supposed to be humor,” Gerardi said to his partner.

She came into the apartment at a little after midnight. He was sitting before the television set watching the beginning of an old movie.

“Hi,” she said from the front door, and then took her key from the lock, and came into the living room, and kissed him on top of his head.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“It was called off,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Some trouble with the hospital. They didn’t want us shooting outside. Said it would disturb the patients.”

“So where’d you end up shooting?” Kling asked.

“We didn’t. Had a big meeting instead. Up at Chelsea.”

“Chelsea?”

“Chelsea TV, Inc. Would you like a sandwich or something? I’m famished,” she said, and walked out to the kitchen.

He watched her as she went, kept watching her as she unwrapped a loaf of sliced bread at the kitchen counter. He could remember the first time they’d met, could remember all of it as if it were happening here and now, the call from Murchison on the desk downstairs, a Burglary Past at 657 Richardson Drive, Apartment 11D, see the lady.

The lady had long red hair and green eyes and a deep suntan.

She was wearing a dark-green sweater, a short brown skirt, and brown boots. Her legs were crossed, she was staring bleakly at the wall. His first impression of her was one of total harmony, a casual perfection of color and design, russet and green, hair and eyes, sweater and skirt, boots blending with the smoothness of her tan, the long sleek grace of crossed legs, the inquisitively angled head, the red hair cascading in clean vertical descent.

She had high cheekbones, the lady, eyes slanting up from them, fiercely green against the tan, tilted nose gently drawing the upper lip away from partially exposed, even white teeth. Her sweater swelled over breasts firm without a bra, the wool cinched tightly at her waist with a brown, brass-studded belt, hip softly carving an arc against the nubby sofa back, skirt revealing a secret thigh as she turned.

He had never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.

“Who are they?” he asked.

“What?” Augusta said from the kitchen.

“Chelsea TV.”

“The ad firm shooting the commercial.”

“Oh,” he said. “So what was the meeting about?”

“Rewriting, rescheduling, picking a new location — the same old jazz.” She licked the knife with which she’d been spreading peanut butter and said, “Mmm, you sure you don’t want some of this?”

“They needed you for that, huh?”

“For what?”

“Rewriting, and rescheduling, and—”

“Well, Larry wants me for the spot.”

“Larry?”

“Patterson. At Chelsea. He wrote the spot, and he’s directing it.”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

“So we had to figure out my availability and all that.”

He found himself staring at her as she came back into the living room, the sandwich in her hand, just the way he’d stared at her on their first date so long ago, couldn’t stop staring at her. When finally she’d told him to stop it, he was forced to admit he’d never been out with a girl as beautiful as she was, and she simply said he’d have to get over it, he could still remember her exact words.

“Well, you’ll have to get over it. Because I think you’re beautiful, too, and we’d have one hell of a relationship if all we did was sit around and stare at each other all the time. I mean, I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, and I’d like to think I’m permitted to sweat every now and then. I do sweat, you know.”

Yes, Gussie, he thought, you do sweat, I know that now, and you belch and you fart, too, and I’ve seen you sitting on the toilet bowl, and once when you got drunk with all those flitty photographer friends of yours, I held your head while you vomited, and I put you to bed afterward and wiped up the bathroom floor, yes, Gussie, I know you sweat, I know you’re human, but Jesus, Gussie, do you have to... do you have to do this to me, do you have to behave like... like a goddamn bitch in heat?

“...thinking of going down to South America to do it,” Augusta said.

“What?” Kling said.

“Larry. Shoot the spot down there. There’s snow down there now. Forget the symbolic mountain, do it on a real mountain instead.”

“What symbolic mountain?”

“Long General. Have you ever seen it? It looks like—”

“Yeah, a mountain.”

“Well, you know what I mean.”

“So you’ll be going to South America, huh?”

“Just for a few days. If it works out.”

“When?”

“Well, I don’t know yet.”

“When do you think it might be?”

“Pretty soon, I guess. While there’s still snow. This is like their winter, you know.”

“Yeah,” Kling said. “Like when? This month sometime?”

“Probably.”

“Did you tell him you’d go?”

“I don’t get many shots at television, Bert. This is a full minute, the exposure’ll mean a lot to me.”

“Oh, sure, I know that.”

“It’ll just be for a few days.”

“Who’ll be going down there?” he asked.

“Just me, and Larry, and the crew.”

“No other models?”

“He’ll pick up his extras on the spot.”

“I don’t think I’ve met him,” Kling said. “Have I met him?”

“Who?”

“Larry Patterson.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Augusta said, and looked away. “You sure you don’t want me to fix you something?”

“Nothing,” Kling said. “Thanks.”