Ice

11

They had not been able to reach Allan Carter the night before, and when they called his apartment early this morning, they learned that he had already left for his office. They considered the delay a stroke of good luck; it gave them time to do a little homework on the subject they planned to broach with the producer. The sky was clear and the temperature was surprisingly mild on that Wednesday, February 17. This was bad news. If they knew this city, and they did, the springtime bonanza would be followed immediately by a howling blizzard; God gave with one hand and took away with the other. In the meantime, the snow and the ice were melting.

Carter’s office was in a building a block north of the Stem, in Midtown East territory. The building was flanked by a Spanish restaurant on one side and a Jewish delicatessen on the other. A sign in the restaurant window read: WE SPEAK ENGLISH HERE. A sign in the deli window read AQUI HABLA ESPAÑOL. Meyer wondered if the Spanish restaurant served blintzes. Carella wondered if the Jewish deli served tortillas. The building was an old one, with massive brass doors on the single elevator in the lobby. A directory opposite the elevator told them that Carter Productions, Ltd., was in room 407. The elevator was self-service. They took it up to the fourth floor, searched for room 407, and found it in the middle of the corridor to the left of the elevator.

A girl with frizzied blonde hair was sitting behind a desk immediately inside the entrance door. She was wearing a brown jumpsuit and she was chewing gum as she typed. She looked up from the machine, said, “Can I help you?” and picked up an eraser.

“We’d like to see Mr. Carter, please,” Carella said.

“We’re not auditioning till two o’clock,” the girl said.

“We’re not actors,” Meyer said.

“Even so,” the girl said, and erased a word on the sheet she’d typed, and then blew at the paper.

“You should use that liquid stuff,” Meyer said. “You use an eraser, it clogs the machine.”

“The liquid stuff takes too long to dry,” the girl said.

“We’re from the police,” Carella said, showing his shield. “Would you tell Mr. Carter that Detectives Meyer and Carella are here?”

“Why didn’t you say so?” the girl said, and immediately picked up the phone. As she waited, she leaned over the desk to study the shield more carefully. “Mr. Carter,” she said, “there’s a Detective Meyer and Canella here to see you.” She listened. “Yes, sir,” she said. She put up the phone. “You can go right in,” she said.

“It’s Carella,” Carella said.

“What did I say?” the girl asked.

“Canella.”

The girl shrugged.

They opened the door to Carter’s office. He was sitting behind a huge desk littered with what Carella assumed were scripts. Three walls of the office were covered with posters advertising his shows before Fatback, none of which Carella recognized. The fourth wall was a window wall streaming early-morning sunlight. Carter rose when they came into the room, indicated a sofa facing the desk, and said, “Sit down, won’t you?” The detectives sat. Carella got straight to the point.

“Mr. Carter,” he said, “what is ice?”

“Ice?”

“Yes, sir.”

Carter smiled. “What water becomes when it freezes,” he said. “Is this a riddle?”

“No riddle,” Carella said. “You don’t know what ice is, huh?”

“Oh,” Carter said. “You mean ice.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Theater ice, do you mean?”

“Theater ice,” Carella said.

“Well, certainly, I know what ice is.”

“So do we,” Carella said. “Check us and see if we’re right.”

“I’m sorry, but what—”

“Bear with us, Mr. Carter,” Carella said.

“I have an appointment at ten.”

“That’s fifteen minutes away,” Meyer said, glancing up at the wall clock.

“We’ll make it fast,” Carella said. “First we’ll talk, then you’ll talk, okay?”

“Well, I really don’t know what—”

“The way we understand this,” Carella said, “ice is a common practice in the theater—”

“Not in my theater,” Carter said.

“Be that as it may,” Carella said, and went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “A common practice that accounts for something like twenty million dollars a year in cash receipts unaccountable to either the tax man or a show’s investors.”

“That figure sounds high,” Carter said.

“I’m talking citywide,” Carella said.

“It still sounds high. Ice isn’t practical unless a show is a tremendous hit.”

“Like Fatback,” Carella said.

“I hope you’re not suggesting that anyone involved with Fatback—”

“Please listen, and tell me if I’ve got it right,” Carella said.

“I’m sure you’ve got it right,” Carter said. “You don’t seem like the sort of man who’d come in unprepared.”

“I simply want to make sure I understand it.”

“Uh-huh,” Carter said, and nodded skeptically.

“From what I can gather,” Carella said, “a great many show business people have become rich on the proceeds of ice.”

“There are stories to that effect, yes.”

“And the way it works — please correct me if I’m wrong — is that someone in the box office puts aside a ticket, usually a house seat, Mr. Carter, and later sells it to a broker for a much higher price. Am I right so far?”

“That’s my understanding of how ice works, yes,” Carter said.

“The going price for a choice seat to Fatback is forty dollars,” Carella said. “That was for sixth row center, the house seats you generously made available to me.”

“Yeah,” Carter said, and nodded sourly.

“How many house seats would you say are set aside for any performance of any given musical?” Carella asked.

“Are we talking about Fatback now?”

“Or any musical. Take Fatback as an example, if you want to.”

“We’ve got about a hundred house seats set aside for each performance,” Carter said.

“Who gets those house seats?”

“I get some of them as producer. The theater owner gets some. The creative people, the stars, some of the unusually big investors, and so on. I think we already discussed this once, didn’t we?”

“I just want to get it straight,” Carella said. “What happens to those seats if the people they’re set aside for don’t claim them?”

“They’re put on sale in the box office.”

“When?”

“In this city, it’s forty-eight hours before any given performance.”

“For sale to whom?”

“Anyone.”

“Some guy who walks in off the street?”

“Well, not usually. These are choice seats, you realize.”

“So who does get them?”

“They’re usually sold to brokers.”

“At the price printed on the ticket?”

“Yes, of course.”

“No, not of course,” Carella said. “That’s where the ice comes in, isn’t it?”

“If someone connected with a show is involved in ice, yes, that’s where it would come in.”

“In short, the man in charge of the box office—”

“That would be our company manager.”

“Your company manager, or someone on his staff, would take these unclaimed house seats and sell them to a broker — or any number of brokers — at a price higher than the established price for the ticket.”

“Yes, that would be the ice. The difference between the legitimate ticket price and whatever the iceman can get for it.”

“Sometimes twice the ticket price, isn’t it?”

“Well, I really wouldn’t know. As I told you—”

“Eighty dollars for a forty-dollar ticket, wouldn’t that be possible?”

“It would be possible, I suppose. For a tremendous hit.”

“Like Fatback.”

“Yes, but no one—”

“And the broker would then take this ticket for which he’s paid eighty dollars, and he’ll sell it to a favored customer for something like a hundred and fifty dollars, isn’t that so?”

“You’re talking about scalping now. Scalping is against the law. A ticket broker can legally charge only two dollars more than the price on the ticket. That’s his markup. Two dollars. By law.”

“But there are brokers who break the law.”

“That’s their business, not mine.”

“Incidentally,” Carella said, “ice is also against the law.”

“It may be against the law,” Carter said, “but in my opinion, it doesn’t really hurt anyone.”

“It’s just a victimless crime, huh?” Meyer said.

“In my opinion.”

“Like prostitution,” Meyer said.

“Well, prostitution is another matter,” Carter said. “The girls themselves are, of course, victimized. But with ice...” He shrugged. “Let’s assume someone in a show’s box office is doing ice. He doesn’t steal those house seats, you know. If the ticket costs forty dollars, he’ll put forty dollars in the cash drawer before he sells that ticket to a broker.”

“For twice the price,” Carella said.

“That doesn’t matter. The point is the show got the forty dollars it was supposed to get for the ticket. The show doesn’t lose any money on that ticket. The investors don’t lose any money.”

“But the people running the ice operation make a lot of money.”

“There’s not that much involved,” Carter said, and shrugged again. “I’ll tell you the truth, on some shows I was involved with, I’ve had general managers come to me proposing ice, but I always turned them down cold — no pun intended,” Carter said, and smiled. “Why risk a brush with the law when peanuts are involved?”

“Peanuts? You said there were a hundred house seats—”

“That’s right.”

“At a forty-dollar markup per seat, that comes to four thousand dollars a performance. How many performances are there a week, Mr. Carter?”

“Eight.”

“Times four thousand is thirty-two thousand a week. That comes to something like... what does it come to, Meyer?”

“What?” Meyer said.

“In a year.”

“Oh. Close to two million dollars a year. Something like a million six, a million seven.”

“Is that peanuts, Mr. Carter?”

“Well, you know, the ice on a show is usually split up. Sometimes four or five ways.”

“Let’s say it’s split five ways,” Carella said. “That would still come to something like two, three hundred thousand dollars a person. That’s a lot of money, Mr. Carter.”

“It’s not worth going to jail for,” Carter said.

“Then why are you doing it?” Meyer asked.

“I beg your pardon?” Carter said.

“Why are you taking ice on Fatback?”

“Is that a flat-out accusation?” Carter said.

“That’s what it is,” Carella said.

“Then maybe I ought to call my lawyer.”

“Maybe you ought to hear us out first,” Carella said. “You always seem to be in a hurry to call your lawyer.”

“If you’re accusing me of—”

“Mr. Carter, isn’t it true that Sally Anderson was a courier in your ice operation?”

“What ice operation?”

“We’ve been told Sally Anderson delivered house seats to various brokers, and collected cash for those seats, and then brought the cash back to your company manager. Isn’t that true, Mr. Carter? Wasn’t Sally Anderson, in effect, a bag lady for your ice operation?”

“If someone in my theater is making money on ice—”

“Someone is, Mr. Carter.”

“Not me.”

“Let’s take this a step further, shall we?” Carella said.

“No, let’s call my lawyer,” Carter said, and picked up the phone receiver.

“We have proof,” Carella said.

He was lying; they had no proof at all. Lonnie Cooper had hinted that Sally had been earning extra cash someplace. Timothy Moore had told them she’d been running ice money for Carter. None of that was proof. But Carella’s words stopped Carter dead in his tracks. He put the receiver back onto the cradle. He shook a cigarette free from the package on his desk and lighted it. He blew out a cloud of smoke.

“What proof?” he said.

“Let’s go back a bit,” Carella said.

“What proof?” Carter said again.

“Why’d you tell us you hardly knew Sally?” Carella asked.

“Here we go again,” Carter said.

“Once more ‘round the mulberry bush,” Meyer said, and smiled.

“We think it’s because she was involved in this ice operation with you,” Carella said.

“I don’t know anything about any ice operation.”

“And maybe wanted a bigger piece of the pie—”

“Ridiculous!”

“Or maybe even threatened to blow the whistle—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carter said.

“We’re talking about murder.”

“Murder? For what? Because you think Sally was somehow involved with ice?”

“We know she was involved,” Meyer said. “And not somehow. She was involved with you, Mr. Carter. She was your goddamn courier. She delivered tickets and she picked up—”

“Once!” Carter shouted.

The room went silent.

The detectives looked at him.

“I had nothing to do with her murder,” Carter said.

“We’re listening,” Meyer said.

“It was only once.”

“When?”

“Last November.”

“Why only once?”

“Tina was sick.”

“Tina Wong?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“She couldn’t make the rounds that day. She asked Sally to substitute for her.”

“Without your knowledge?”

“She checked with me first. She was sick in bed with the flu, she had a fever. I told her it would be okay. Sally was her closest friend, I figured we could trust her.”

“Is that why you denied knowing her?”

“Yes. I figured... well, if any of this came to light, you might think—”

“We might think exactly what we are thinking, Mr. Carter.”

“No. You’re mistaken. It was just that once. Sally never wanted anything more, Sally never threatened me with—”

“How much did she get for her services?” Meyer asked.

“Two hundred bucks. But that was the one and only time.”

“How much do you give Tina? Is she your regular bag lady?”

“Yes. She gets the same.”

“Two hundred for each pickup and delivery?”

“Yes.”

“Twelve hundred a week?”

“Yes.”

“And your end?”

“We’re splitting it four ways.”

“Who?”

“Me, my general manager, my company manager, and the box-office treasurer.”

“Splitting thirty-two thousand a week?”

“More or less.”

“So your end is something like four hundred grand a year,” Meyer said.

“Tax free,” Carella said.

“Weren’t the show’s profits enough for you?” Meyer asked.

“Nobody’s getting hurt,” Carter said.

“Except you and your pals,” Carella said. “Get your coat.”

“Why?” Carter said. “Are you wired?”

The detectives looked at each other.

“Let’s hear the proof,” Carter said.

“A man named Timothy Moore knows all about it,” Carella said. “So does Lonnie Cooper, one of your dancers. Maybe Sally wasn’t as trustworthy as you thought she was. Get your coat.”

Carter stubbed out his cigarette and smiled thinly. “Let me put it this way,” he said. “If there’s ice — and I don’t remember having this conversation today, do you? — and if Sally Anderson, once upon a time very long ago, really and truly delivered some tickets and picked up some cash, it seems to me you’d need more proof than... hearsay, do you call it? So let’s say you run over to my box office straight from here. Do you know what you’ll find? You’ll find that all of our brokers, from this minute on, are getting only their legitimate allotments of tickets, and anything we sell them beyond their usual quotas will be at box-office prices. Our top ticket sells for forty dollars. If we send a house seat to a broker, that’s what he’ll pay for it. Forty dollars. Everything open and honest. Now tell me, gentlemen, are you going to try tracking down whatever cash has changed hands since the show opened? Impossible.”

The detectives looked at each other.

“You can go to the attorney general with this,” Carter said, still smiling, “but without proof you’d only look foolish.”

Carella began buttoning his coat.

Meyer put on his hat.

“And, anyway...,” Carter said.

The detectives were already heading for the door.

“...a hot show always generates ice.”

In the corridor outside, Meyer said, “Nothing ever hurts anybody, right? Snow isn’t habit-forming, and ice is a time-honored scam. Marvelous.”

“Lovely,” Carella said, and pressed the button for the elevator.

“He knows we have no proof, he knows we can’t do a damn thing. So he walks,” Meyer said.

“Maybe he’ll clean up his act, though.”

“For how long?” Meyer asked.

Both men fell silent, listening to the elevator as it lumbered slowly up the shaft. Through a window at the far end of the corridor, they could see that the sunshine was waning, the day was turning gray again.

“What do you think about the other?” Carella asked.

“The dead girl?”

“Yes.”

“I think he’s clean, don’t you?”

“I think so.”

The elevator doors slid open.

“There ain’t no justice in this world,” Meyer said.

Years ago, when Brother Anthony was spending a little time at Castleview State Penitentiary on that manslaughter conviction, his cellmate was a burglar. Guy named Jack Greenspan. Big Jack Greenspan, they used to call him. Jewish guy. You hardly ever ran into any Jewish burglars. Big Jack taught him a lot of things, but Brother Anthony never figured any of them would help him on the outside.

Until today.

Today, all the things Big Jack had told him all those years ago seemed of immense value to Brother Anthony because what he planned to do was break into the Anderson girl’s apartment. This was not a sudden whim. He had discussed it thoroughly with Emma yesterday, after he’d learned that the Anderson girl had been killed. The reason he had gone to see her in the first place was because Judite Quadrado had told them she was the source from which the sweet snow flowed. It was one thing to have a list of customers, but customers weren’t worth beans without what to sell them. So he had gone there yesterday hoping to strike up a business relationship with the girl, only to discover she wouldn’t be doing business as usual no more, someone had seen to that.

The reason he wanted to get into her apartment — well, there were two reasons, actually. The first reason was that maybe the girl had stashed away a whole pile of dope the cops hadn’t found. He didn’t think that was likely, but it was worth a shot. Cops were as careless as anybody else in the world, and maybe she’d stashed away a couple of kilos someplace, which would be like found money with a key going for something like sixty grand before it was stepped on. The second reason was that if the girl was an ounce dealer, which Judite Quadrado had said she was, then she was sure as hell getting those ounces from somebody else, unless she was in the habit of running down to South America every other weekend, which Brother Anthony doubted. The super of the building had told him she was a dancer in a hit show, right? Well, dancers couldn’t go running off whenever they wanted to. No, the way he figured it, she was being supplied by somebody else.

So...

If she was getting her stuff from somebody else, then wouldn’t there be something in the apartment that might tell him where she was getting it? If he could learn where she was getting it, why then he would just go to the man and tell him he’d bought out Sally, or some such bullshit, and would the man care to do business with him instead? Unless the man turned out to be the one who’d killed her, in which case Brother Anthony would make the sign of the cross, pick up his skirts, and disappear like an Arab in the night. One thing be didn’t want was any heavy action from a guy who lived in Baby Bogotá.

He was carrying in the pouch at the front of his cassock two things that were essential to a successful break-in, again according to Big Jack, and assuming that the lock on the dead girl’s door was a Mickey Mouse lock. If the lock looked like something Brother Anthony couldn’t handle, he’d find some other way of getting in — like maybe climbing up the fire escape and smashing a window, although Big Jack said that was Amateur Night in Dixie, smashing windows, something only junkie burglars did. The two things Brother Anthony had in his pouch were a box of toothpicks and a strip of plastic he had torn from one of those milk bottles with a handle and a screw-top cap.

The toothpicks were his own portable burglar alarm.

The strip of plastic was to open the door.

The way Big Jack explained it, a credit card was the best way to loid a Mickey Mouse lock, but any thin strip of plastic or celluloid would do. That was where the expression loid had come from: before credit cards were even invented, the old-time burglars used to use strips of celluloid to work open a lock. Brother Anthony didn’t have any credit cards, and he wasn’t sure the plastic he’d torn from the milk bottle would work; still, Big Jack had said any strip of plastic, right?

He had checked out the lobby downstairs before entering the building; no security, and the old fart superintendent was nowhere in sight. He had been up to the girl’s apartment yesterday, when he’d knocked and got no answer, so he knew she was in apartment 3A, but he checked the mailboxes in the lobby just to make sure, and then he took the steps up to the third floor, and stepped out into an empty corridor, not a sound anywhere, Big Jack was right about apartment buildings being mostly empty during the daytime. If he played this right, according to Big Jack’s rules, he should be inside the apartment in maybe a minute and a half.

It took him half an hour.

He kept sliding the plastic shim into the crack where the door met the jamb, working it, jiggling it, trying to find purchase on the bolt, turning it this way and that, beginning to sweat, removing it from the crack, inserting it again, worrying it, pushing at it, glancing over his shoulder down the hallway, coaxing it, whispering to it (Come on, baby, come on), positive some lady would come out of her apartment down the hall and start screaming at the top of her lungs, jerking the plastic shim, catching the bolt, losing the bolt, sweating more profusely now, the heavy cassock clinging to his body, his hands working feverishly, a full half hour before he finally felt the latch beginning to yield (Careful, don’t lose it now!), felt it beginning to slide back as the plastic insinuated itself between the steel of the bolt and the wood of the jamb, twisting the shim slowly now, feeling the bolt give and then surrender entirely. He seized the knob and turned it, and the door was open.

He was drenched with sweat.

He stepped quickly into the apartment, closed the door immediately behind him, and leaned against it, breathing hard, listening, pouring sweat. When he had caught his breath, he fished in his pouch for the box of wooden toothpicks, opened the box, took a toothpick from it, and then carefully opened the door just a crack and peered out into the hallway, looking, listening again. Nothing.

He opened the door wider.

He wedged the toothpick into the keyway on the lock, and then broke it off flush with the cylinder. He closed the door again, and turned the thumb-bolt, locking it. The way Big Jack had explained it, if anybody came to the apartment with a key, they’d try to put the key in the lock, not knowing a toothpick was wedged there in the keyway, and they’d keep fumbling with the key, trying to get it in there, and the guy inside the apartment would hear all the clicking noise of metal against metal and would go out the window or whatever he’d chosen for his escape route. Your kitchen was a good escape route, Big Jack had told him. Some kitchens had service doors, and most kitchens had fire escapes. He didn’t know why so many kitchens had fire escapes, they just did. Brother Anthony went into the kitchen now.

He leaned over the kitchen sink and looked through the window. No fire escape. He began roaming through the apartment, looking out over the windowsills for a fire escape. The only fire escape was outside the bedroom window. He turned the latch on the window, opened the window just a trifle so he could throw it all the way open in a second if anybody came in here, and then walked into the living room. This was a nice place. Carpet on the floor, nice furniture, he wished Emma and him could live in a place like this. Posters on all the walls, nice black leather sofa with pillows. There were some framed pictures of a girl wearing tights and one of those little short frilly skirts ballet dancers wore. He figured she was the dead girl. Good-looking broad. Blonde hair, nice figure, but a little on the thin side. He wondered where you could buy those little skirts ballet dancers wore. There were probably places in the city you could buy them. He’d like to buy one of them for Emma, have her run around the apartment naked except for the little skirt.

There was a poster for some ballet company hanging on the wall outside the bathroom. He figured he’d start with the bathroom first because Big Jack had told him lots of people stashed their valuables in the toilet tank, in the water inside the tank. He lowered the toilet seat and lifted the top of the toilet tank and put it down on the seat. He looked inside there. A lot of rusty water. He stuck his hand down into the water, felt around. Nothing. He pulled his hand back, wiped it on a towel hanging on a rod across from the toilet bowl, and then put the top of the tank back on again, trying to remember where else Big Jack said a person should look.

Well, let’s try the bedroom, he thought. Big Jack had told him that a lot of bedroom dressers, the bottom drawer rested just on the frame of the dresser itself. There wasn’t a shelf or anything under the bottom drawer. This meant there was a space of about two, three inches between the drawer and the floor of the room. What a lot of people did, they pulled out the drawer, and then put their valuables right on the floor itself before they put the drawer back in. An inexperienced burglar would go through the drawer, but he wouldn’t think of pulling out the drawer to look on the floor.

Brother Anthony pulled out the bottom drawer. It was full of the girl’s panties and brassieres. Little nylon bikinis in all colors. Tiny little brassieres, she must’ve had small tits. He tried to visualize her in just her panties. She was really too skinny, but some of those skinny ones, the closer the bone, the sweeter the meat. He picked up a pair of panties, the purple ones, and held them in his hands for several moments before throwing them back into the drawer. He was here to find two things: either a stash of cocaine, or something that would tell him where the girl was getting her stuff.

He got down on his hands and knees and looked into the empty space where the drawer had been. He couldn’t see a thing. He stood up, turned on the lamp on the dresser, and got down on his hands and knees again. He still couldn’t see anything. He reached into the dresser and began feeling around with both hands. There was nothing on the floor. He picked up the drawer from where he had left it on the floor, carried it to the bed — nice big bed with a patchwork quilt — and dumped the contents on the bed. Nothing but brassieres and panties, damn girl must’ve changed her underwear three times a day. He guessed maybe dancers did that. Worked up a sweat, changed their underwear a lot.

He took out all the other drawers in the dresser and dumped them on the bed, too. Nothing but clothes. Blouses and sweaters and tights and T-shirts, a whole pile of girl stuff. No cocaine. Not a scrap of paper with anything written on it. The cops had probably fine-combed the place, taken anything that looked interesting. They probably sold whatever dope they confiscated, the cops. Worse crooks than the honest crooks in this city. He put his hands on his hips, and looked around. Now where? he wondered.

Big Jack had told him you could sometimes find heroin in a person’s sugar bowl, that’s if you got lucky enough to bust into some dealer’s apartment. You found a stash of dope, it was better than finding cash or credit cards or even coin collections. He went back into the kitchen again, looked for the sugar bowl, found it on the bottom shelf of one of the cabinets, took off the lid, and discovered that the bowl was full of pink Sweet ‘N’ Low packets. So much for that, may God have mercy on your soul. He went through all the cereal boxes in the cabinet, figuring she might have hidden a plastic-wrapped kilo inside one of the boxes, dumping out cornflakes and wheat germ and whatever, but he couldn’t find a thing. He went through the refrigerator. Nothing but an open container of yogurt and a lot of wilted vegetables. He went through every drawer in the living room, and felt under every tabletop, figuring the stuff might be taped under one of them. Nothing. He went back into the bedroom, and opened the door to the closet.

Girl had more clothes than a Hall Avenue department store. Even a fur coat. Raccoon, it looked like. Must have been making a bundle selling the snow, so where the hell was it? He began pulling dresses and coats from the hangers, patting down all the coat pockets, throwing everything on the floor behind him. Nothing. He opened all her shoe boxes. Sexy whore shoes, some of them, with high heels and ankle straps. He thought of her panties again. Nothing but shoes in any of the boxes. So where was it? He dug deeper into the closet.

He found a man’s clothes hanging on the rod, pushed to the far corner of the closet. Well, sure, it figured. Little whore with her sexy panties and her high-heeled shoes, of course there had to be some guy putting it to her. Nice cardigan sweater, brown, Brother Anthony would have taken it with him except that it looked too small. Pair of checked slacks, wouldn’t be caught dead in them even if they did fit him. A black silk robe with the monogram TM over the breast pocket. Little kinky sex, T. M.? You put on your black silk robe, she puts on her silk panties and her high-heeled hooker shoes, you sniff a little blow, and it’s off to the races! Very nice, T. M. Nice clothes you got here, T. M. But not too many of them, so you couldn’t have been living here with her, could you? Maybe you just dropped in every now and then, maybe you’re some married stockbroker who was knocking off an uptown piece every Wednesday afternoon when the market closed. No more nookie, T. M. The lady’s dead and gone.

Nice cashmere jacket, soft, tan. Another pair of pants. Green! Who would wear green pants except an Irishman on St. Patrick’s Day? A down ski parka. Blue. A small one, though. Must’ve been the girl’s, with one of those zipper collars that had a hood folded up inside it, in case you got cold on the ski lift at St. Moritz, my dear. He wouldn’t strap a pair of skis to his feet if you paid him $1 million! Yeah, here was the guy’s parka, a black one, like the robe. Are you a skier, T. M.? Did you take your little sweetheart skiing every now and then? He patted down all the pockets in the cashmere jacket, and then threw it on the floor behind him. He patted down the girl’s ski parka, the blue one. Nothing. He was about to toss it on the floor with all the other clothes when he felt something strange about the collar.

He took it in both hands and twisted it.

Something felt a little stiff in there.

He twisted the collar again. There was a faint crackling sound. Something was zipped up inside that collar, something in addition to the hood. He carried the parka to the bed. He sat on the edge of the bed, the panties and brassieres scattered everywhere around him. He felt the collar again. Yes, there was definitely something in there. Quickly, he unzipped it.

At first, he was only disappointed.

What he was holding in his hands was an envelope folded lengthwise, once and then again, so that it formed a narrow oblong that had easily fitted inside the zipped-up collar of the parka. He unfolded the envelope once. He unfolded it again. The letter was addressed to Sally Anderson. He looked at the return address in the upper left-hand corner. The name there meant nothing to him, but the place triggered an instant reaction, and he suspected at once that whereas he hadn’t found the coke itself, he might have found the primary source of the coke. He reached into the envelope and took out the handwritten letter. He began reading it. He could hear the ticking of his own watch. He realized he was holding his breath. Suddenly, he began giggling.

Now we move, he thought. Straight up into the big time, man, Cadillacs and Cuban cigars, champagne and caviar, man! Still giggling, he tucked the letter into his pouch, considered whether it was safe to go out the way he had come in, decided it was, and headed uptown to share the wealth with Emma.

Alonso Quadrado was naked when they walked in on him at 4:00 that afternoon. They considered this an advantage. A naked man feels uncomfortable talking to a person who is fully dressed. This was why burglars had an edge whenever they surprised some guy asleep in his bedroom, and he jumped out of bed naked and stood there with everything hanging out, facing an intruder who was wearing an overcoat and holding a gun in his hand. Alonso Quadrado was taking a shower in the locker room at the YMCA on Landis Avenue when the two detectives walked in. The two detectives were both wearing overcoats. One of them was wearing a hat. Quadrado was wearing nothing but a thin layer of soapsuds.

“Hello, Alonso,” Meyer said.

Quadrado got soap in his eyes. He said, “Damn it!” and began splashing water onto his face. He was an exceptionally thin man, with narrow bones and a pale olive complexion. The Pancho Villa mustache over his upper lip was almost bigger than he was.

“Few more questions we’d like to ask you,” Carella said.

“You picked some time,” Quadrado said. He rinsed himself off, turning this way and that under the needle spray. He turned off the shower, picked up a towel, and began drying himself. The detectives waited. Quadrado wrapped the towel around his waist and walked into the locker room. The detectives followed him.

“I just got done playing handball,” he said. “You play handball?”

“I used to,” Meyer said.

“Best game there is,” Quadrado said, and sat on the bench, and opened the door to one of the lockers. “So what now?” he said.

“Do you know your cousin’s dead?” Meyer asked.

“Yeah, I know it. The funeral’s tomorrow. I ain’t going. I hate funerals. You ever been to a Spanish funeral? All those old ladies throwing themselves on the coffin? Not for me, man.”

“She was cut, do you know that?”

“Yeah.”

“Any idea who did it?”

“No. If Lopez was still alive, I’da said it was him. But he’s dead, too.”

“Anybody else you can think of?”

“Look, you know what she was into, it coulda been anybody.”

He was drying his feet. He reached into the locker, took out a pair of socks, and began putting them on. It was interesting the way people dressed themselves, Meyer thought. It was like the different ways people ate an ear of corn. No two people ate corn the same way, and no two people got dressed the same way. Why was Quadrado starting with his socks? Black socks, at that. Was he about to audition for a porn flick? Meyer wondered if he would put on his shoes next, before he put on his Jockey shorts or his pants. Another of life’s little mysteries.

“What was she into?” Carella said.

“Well, not exactly into it, not yet. But working on it, let’s say.”

“And what was that?”

“The only thing she inherited from Lopez.”

“Spell it out,” Carella said.

Quadrado reached into the locker again. He took a pair of boxer shorts from where they were hanging on a hook, and pulled them on. “Lopez’s trade,” he said, and reached into the locker for his pants.

“His dope trade?”

“Yeah, she had the list.”

“What list?”

“Of his customers.”

“How’d she get that?”

“She was living with him, wasn’t she?”

“Is this a real list you’re talking about? Names and addresses? Written down on a piece of paper?”

“No, no, what piece of paper? But she was living with him, she knew who his customers were. She told me she was gonna move on it, get the coke the same place he was getting it, make herself a little extra change, you know?”

“When did she tell you this?” Meyer asked.

“Right after he got shot,” Quadrado said, and put on his shirt.

“Why didn’t you mention this the last time we talked?”

“You didn’t ask me.”

“Did this sound like a new thing for her?” Carella asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Dealing.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“She wasn’t working with him before he got killed, was she? They weren’t partners or anything?”

“No, no. Lopez? You think he’d share a good thing with a chick? No way.”

“But he told her who his customers were.”

“Well, he didn’t say, ‘This guy takes four grams, and this guy takes six grams,’ nothing like that. I mean, he didn’t hand her the list on a platter. But when a guy’s livin’ with somebody, they talk, you know what I mean? He’ll say, ‘I got to deliver a coupla three grams to Luis today,’ something like that. They’ll talk, you know?”

“Pillow talk,” Meyer said.

“Yeah, pillow talk, right,” Quadrado said. “That’s a good way of putting it. Judite was a smart girl. When Lopez talked, she listened. Look, I’ll tell you the truth, Judite didn’t think this thing was gonna last very long, you know what I mean? After the guy hurt her... I mean, how much can a chick put up with? He was a crazy bastard to begin with, and he still had other women, never mind just Judite. So I guess she listened a lot. She had no way of knowing he was gonna get killed, of course, but I guess she figured it wouldn’t hurt to—”

“How do you know that?”

“How do I know what?”

“That she didn’t know he was going to get killed?”

“I’m just assuming. You guys mind if I smoke?”

“Go right ahead,” Meyer said.

“ ‘Cause I like a little smoke after I finish playing,” Quadrado said, and reached into the bag on the floor of the locker, and pulled out a Sucrets tin. They knew what was in the tin even before he opened it. They were surprised, but not too surprised. Nowadays, people smoked grass even on the park bench across the street from the station house. They watched as Quadrado fired the joint. He sucked on it. He let out a stream of smoke.

“Care for a toke?” he asked, blithely extending the joint to Meyer.

“Thanks,” Meyer said drily. “I’m on duty.”

Carella smiled.

“Who were these other women?’ he asked.

“Jesus, who could count them?” Quadrado said. “There’s this one-legged hooker he was putting it to, you know Anita Diaz? She’s gorgeous, but she’s got only one leg, they call her La Mujer Coja in the neighborhood, she’s the best lay in the world, you ever happen to run into her. Lopez was making it with her. And there was... you know the guy who owns the candy store on Mason and Tenth? His wife. Lopez was making it with her, too. This was all while he was living with Judite, who knows why she put up with it for so long?” He sucked on the joint. “I figure she was scared of him, you know? Like, he was all the time threatening her, and finally he burned her with the cigarette, so that must’ve really scared her. So I guess she figured she’d just keep her mouth shut, let him run around with whoever he wanted to.”

“How’d she plan to supply these people?”

“What do you mean?”

“Lopez’s customers. Where’d she plan to get the stuff?”

“Same place Lopez got it.”

“And where was that?”

“From the Anglo ounce dealer.”

“What Anglo ounce dealer?”

“The one Lopez used to live with. The way Judite figured it, bygones are bygones, and business is business. If the chick was supplying Lopez, why couldn’t she also supply Judite?”

“This was a woman, huh?”

“The blonde he used to live with, yeah.”

Carella looked at Meyer.

“What blonde?” he said.

“I told you. The Anglo chick he used to live with.”

“A blonde?” Meyer said.

“Yeah, a blonde,” Lopez said. “What is it with you guys? You’re hard of hearing?”

“When was this?” Meyer said.

“A year ago? Who remembers? Lopez had them coming and going like subway trains.”

“What’s her name, would you know?”

“No,” Quadrado said, and took a last draw on the roach before dropping it on the floor. He was about to step on it when he realized he was still in his stocking feet. Meyer stepped on it for him. Quadrado sat, pulled on a pair of high-topped black sneakers, and began lacing them.

“Where’d they live?” Carella asked.

“On Ainsley. We still got a handful of Anglos living up here... the rent’s cheap, they’re mostly people trying to make it, you know? Like starving painters, or musicians, or these guys who make statues, you know?”

“Sculptors,” Meyer said.

“Right, sculptors,” Quadrado said. “That’s a good way of putting it.”

“Let me get this straight,” Carella said. “You’re saying that a year ago—”

“Around then.”

“Lopez was living with a blonde cocaine dealer—”

“No, not then.”

“He wasn’t living with her?”

“He was living with her, but she wasn’t dealing coke. Not then.”

“What was she doing?”

“Trying to make it. Same as anybody else.”

“Trying to make it how?”

“I think she was a dancer or something.”

Carella looked at Meyer again.

“I think she finally moved away because she got a part in a show,” Quadrado said. “Last summer sometime. Moved back downtown, you know?”

“And surfaced again dealing coke,” Carella said.

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“The coke? Musta been last fall sometime. October, sometime.”

“Began supplying Lopez with coke.”

“Yeah.”

“Who told you this?”

“Judite.”

“Are you sure the girl wasn’t coming up here to buy coke?”

“No, no. She was an ounce dealer, she was selling it. That’s how come Judite figured she could pick up the trade now that Lopez was dead and gone. Same customers, same ounce dealer.”

“How often did she come up here?”

“The blonde? Every week.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“I know it because that’s what Judite told me.”

“And this started in October sometime?”

“Yeah, that’s when Lopez went into business. Again, this is all according to Judite. I got no personal knowledge of it myself.”

“When did she come up?”

“On Sundays, usually.”

“To deliver the coke.”

“And maybe a little something else besides.”

“What do you mean?”

“Renew old times, you know? In the sack.”

“With Lopez?”

“According to Judite. Who knows if it’s true or not? You get a chick taking all kinds of shit from a guy, she begins to imagine things, you know? She starts finding panties that ain’t hers under every pillow, you know what I mean? She starts smelling other women on her sheets. It gets to her. Listen, my cousin was a little nuts, I’ll tell you the truth. You have to be a little nuts to take up with a guy like Lopez.”

“But you don’t know the girl’s name, huh?”

“No.”

“Do you know the name of the show she was in?”

“No.”

“But you’re sure she used to live with Lopez.”

“Positive. Not at first. She had an apartment in this building where there’s a couple other Anglos. But then she moved in with him. Yeah, I’m sure of that. I mean, that I seen with my own eyes.”

“What did you see?”

“Him and her coming in and going out of the building together, all hours of the day and night. Look, it was common knowledge Lopez had himself a blonde chick from downtown.”

“What building was this?” Meyer asked.

“The building he was living in.”

“When he got shot?”

“No, no. That’s where he was living with Judite. That was on Culver. This was on Ainsley.”

“Do you know the address?”

“No. It’s near the drugstore there. On the corner of Ainsley and Sixth, I think it is. The Tru-Way drugstore.”

“Would you recognize the girl if you saw her again?”

“The blonde? Oh, sure. Nice-looking chick. What she saw in Lopez is another mystery, right?”

“Alonso, would you do us a favor?” Meyer said. “Would you come over to the station house with us? For just a minute?”

“Why? What’d I do?” Quadrado said.

“Nothing,” Meyer said. “We want to show you some pictures.”