Killer's Payoff

All this was long, long ago. When the war came and it was no longer an easy thing to get help to run the twenty-five-room houses, when it was no longer an easy thing to get fuel to heat the twenty-five-room houses and the indoor tennis courts, the owners began to sell the estates—and began to discover there were no buyers for them. And shortly after the war, the potato farmers discovered they were not sitting on potato land; they were sitting on gold. An industrious builder named Isadore Morris bought the first two hundred acres of potato land for a song and built a low-cost housing development for returning veterans, naming the development “Morristown.” Isadore Morris started a boom and a way of life. Other builders leaped onto the Morris bandwagon. Land that originally was priced high at two hundred dollars an acre was now going for ten thousand dollars an acre. The builders subdivided the acreage into sixty-by-a-hundred plots, and the exodus from the city to Sand’s Spit was on.

Today, Sand’s Spit was divided and subdivided and then divided again into small plots with small houses. The congregate Sand’s Spit was a middle-income slum area with clean streets and no juvenile delinquency.

Phil Kettering lived in a Sand’s Spit development known as Shorecrest Hills. There was no shore near Shorecrest Hills, nor was there the crest of a hill or even the suggestion of a hill. The development sat in almost the exact center of the peninsula on land that had once been as flat as a flapper’s bosom. It was still flat. It was treeless except for the spindly silver maples the builder had magnanimously planted in the exact center of each front lawn. Shorecrest Hills. It was like calling a grimy soot-covered tenement in the 87th “Ash-grey Towers.” Of such titles are million-dollar movies made.

The Kettering house was a ranch. Lest a Texan become confused, there was nothing even suggestive of a ranch about a Sand’s Spit ranch. Some architect, or perhaps some builder, or perhaps some real estate agent had decided to give the title “ranch” to any house that had all of its living space on one floor. The Sand’s Spit ranches did not have cattle or sheep or horses. They had, usually, three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a dining room, and a bathroom. Phil Kettering lived alone in one of these Sand’s Spit ranches in the development called Shorecrest Hills.

Phil Kettering, in an attempt to defy the sameness that pervaded each house in the development, had done something radical with the front yard of his house. Instead of the conventional manicured lawn, he had arranged the ground leading to the entrance doorway in a series of white gravel squares and alternating ground cover. The idea was entirely practical. Lawn mowers were going heatedly up and down the block when Carella and Hawes pulled up in the police sedan. But there was no lawn mower clicking away in Kettering’s front yard—and there never would be need for a lawn mower. You can’t mow gravel, and Pachysandra doesn’t need trimming. Kettering had successfully reduced his yard maintenance to zero. The only thing he had to do to it was enjoy it.

On Thursday morning, July eleventh, Phil Kettering was not around to enjoy his front yard. The house was locked tighter than a miser’s fist, the drapes drawn, the windows shut.

“He’s probably at work,” Carella said.

“Mmm,” Hawes replied.

They rang the front doorbell again. Across the street, a woman looked up from her lawn mower, studying the strangers with open interest.

“Let’s try the back door,” Hawes said.

Together, they went around to the back of the house. The yard there was arranged in the same gravel-and-ground-cover squares. The yard was clean and still. The back door had a buzzer instead of a bell. They could hear it humming inside the house when they pressed the button. No one answered the door.

“We’d better check his office,” Carella said.

“We don’t know where he works,” Hawes reminded him.

They came around to the front of the house again. The woman from across the street was now standing near the sedan, looking into the window. The radio was on, and the voices that erupted from it were unmistakably giving police calls. The woman listened intently, her hair in pincurls, and then backed away from the open window as the detectives approached.

“You cops?” she asked.

“Yes,” Hawes said.

“You looking for Phil?”

“Yes,” Hawes said.

“He ain’t home.”

“We know that.”

“He ain’t been home for quite a while.”

“How long?”

“Months,” the woman said. “We think he moved. Around here, we think he put the house up for sale and moved. He’s the only single fellow living in the development, anyway. It’s crazy for a single fellow to live here alone. Everybody else is married. The women pay too much attention to a single fellow, and the men don’t like it. It’s good he moved away.”

“How do you know he moved away?”

“Well, he hasn’t been here. So we figure he moved.”

“When was he here last?”

“The fall,” the woman said.

“When in the fall?”

“I don’t remember. He was always coming and going. Hunting trips. He’s a big hunter, Phil. He’s got heads all over his living-room walls. Animal heads, I mean.” She nodded. “He’s a sportsman all around. Hunting, tennis. He’s a good tennis player. He’s got balls all over his bedroom.” She looked at the detectives somewhat apologetically. “Tennis balls, I mean,” she added.

“You haven’t seen him since last fall?” Carella asked.

“Nope.”

He looked at Hawes.

“Has his car been here?”

“Nope.”

“The house has just been closed up like that?”

“Yes.”

“Has anyone been around to see it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you said you thought it was up for sale.”

“Oh. No. No one’s been to see it.”

“Was there a for-sale sign up?”

“No.”

“Then what makes you think it’s for sale?”

“Well, Phil hasn’t been here. What else would you think?”

“Is it possible Mr. Kettering has another place to live? An apartment in the city?”

“He never mentioned it.”

“Was he ever away for extended periods of time before? Except on his hunting trips, I mean.”

“No,” the woman said.

“What bank carries his mortgage?”

“He’s got no mortgage.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he told us. There’s only two people in the whole development who bought the house outright. Phil, and an old couple down the street. The rest of us put a down payment, and we make monthly payments to the bank. Not Phil. He put down the whole eighty-five hundred in one lump. Right after he got out of the Army. He came back from Germany with a lot of money.” She looked at the detectives as if she were about to say more.

“The statute of limitations covers him,” Carella said. “Besides, we’re civil authorities and can’t handle a military beef. Was he selling Government property on the black market?”

The woman nodded. “Sugar and coffee. He was an Army mess cook. A sergeant, I think. He used to order more than he needed and then sell it to the German people. He made a lot of money. Enough to buy this house cash, anyway.”

“You’re sure about that? That he has no mortgage on the house?”

“Positive.”

“Which bank handles your mortgage?”

“Greater Sand’s Spit Savings. There’s only two banks that gave mortgages in the development. Greater Sand’s Spit, and one in Isola. Banker’s Trust, I think.”

“We’ll check those,” Carella said. “Want to see what’s in the mailbox, Cotton? Look into his milk box, too, will you?”

“Sure,” Hawes said, and he walked toward the mailbox.

“What did you say his name was?” the woman asked.

“Whose?”

“That red-headed fellow. Your partner.”

“Cotton.”

“Oh,” the woman said.

“Would you know if Kettering has any relations in the city? In the area?”

“He’s from California originally,” the woman said. “He settled here after the war, when he got back from Germany. His parents are dead, and his sister lives in Los Angeles. I don’t think he gets along too well with her.”

“Do they correspond?”

“I don’t know. He never talks much about her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Susie something. He mentioned her only once. He said she was a…well…” The woman paused. “A witch. Only worse. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes,” Carella said. “Does Kettering have any lady friends?”

“He brought girls out every now and then, yes. Nice girls. Everybody in the development kept hocking him to get married. You know how it is.” The woman shrugged. “Misery loves company.”

Carella grinned. “Where does Kettering work?”

“In the city.”

“Where?”

“Isola.”

“What does he do?”

“He has his own business,” the woman said.

“What kind of business?”

“He’s a photographer.”

Carella was silent for a moment. “Commercial? Portrait? What?”

“Magazine work, I think.”

“How’d he drift into photography from cooking?”

“I don’t know. Besides, he cooked for the Army. That isn’t real cooking. I mean, my husband was in the Army. Did you ever eat Army food?”

“Yes,” Carella said.

“So there you are. I think Phil went to school for photography after he got out of the service.”

“Does he have a big business?”

“Not so. But he makes a living at it.”

“Would you know where his office is?”

“Someplace in Isola. It’s in the phone book. Phil Kettering.”

Hawes came back from the mailbox. “Nothing in it, Steve,” he said.

“Any milk?”

“Nope.”

“His milk delivery stopped a long time ago,” the woman said. “In fact, it was me who called the company and told them it was piling up on his back porch.”

“When was this?”

“In the fall. Around October.”

“Do you remember Kettering going on a hunting trip at the beginning of September?” Hawes asked.

“Is your name really Cotton?” the woman said.

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“Do you remember the hunting trip?”

“Yes. He was going up to the Adirondacks someplace.”

“When did he get back?”

“Well, he didn’t. That was when he moved, I figure.”

“He didn’t come back to this house after the trip?”

“If he did,” the woman said, “I didn’t see him.”

“Did a moving truck come around?”

“No. All his furniture’s still in there.”

“Who picks up his mail?”

“I don’t know.”

“There isn’t any in the box.”

“Maybe he left a forwarding address,” the woman said. She shrugged.

“Do you know the names of any of his girlfriends?”

“Alice was one. I don’t remember her last name. She was a nice girl. He should have married her. Then he wouldn’t all the time be moving around.” The woman glanced across the street. “I have to get back to my mowing. Did Phil do something?”

“You’ve been very helpful, Mrs.—”

“Jennings,” she said. “Did Phil do something?”

“Can you direct us to the local post office?” Carella asked.

“Sure. Just drive straight into town. You can’t miss it. It’s right on the main street as you come into town. Did Phil do something?”

“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Jennings,” Carella said. Both men got into the car. Mrs. Jennings watched them as they drove away. Then she went to her next-door neighbor and told her some cops were around asking about Phil Kettering.

“He must have done something,” she told her neighbor.

THE POST OFFICE CLERK was a harassed man trying to keep pace with the mushrooming developments on Sand’s Spit.

“No sooner do we get mail service going to one development, than another one springs up,” he said. “Where are we supposed to get all the mailmen? This isn’t like the city, you know. In the city, a mailman steps into one apartment building and he gets rid of half his bag. Just pulls down the boxes, zing, zing, zing, files in the letters. Here, the mailman has to walk up the block, and he’s got to go up each front walk and put the letters in the box, and then walk down the path, and then to the next house, and then up the path—and he picks up letters from the boxes, too, takes them back to the office for mailing. Half the time he’s battling dogs and cats and what-not. A dame in one of the developments has a pet owl, would you believe it? The damn thing flies at the mailman’s head every time he goes up that front path. It’s murder. And every day there’s a new damn development. We can’t keep up with it.”

“Do you deliver mail to a man named Phil Kettering?” Hawes asked.

“Yes.” The clerk’s face lighted up. “Did you come for his mail? Did he send you for his mail?”

“We—”

“Jesus, am I glad to see you,” the clerk said. “We’ve got mail for him stacked to the goddamn ceiling. We had to stop putting it in his box because it was falling all over the front stoop. We finally brought it all back to the office. We’re hoping the stupid bastard’ll contact us with a forwarding address. You should see that pile. We’re not crowded enough, we’ve got to keep stacking his damn mail for him. Did you come for it?”

“No. But we’d like to see it.”

“I can’t let you take it out of this office,” the clerk said. “It’s addressed to him. We can’t deliver it to nobody but him.”

“We’re cops,” Carella said, and he showed his identification.

“It don’t make any difference,” the clerk said. “This mail is Government property. You’ll need a court order to take it with you.”

“Can we look at it first?”

“Sure. You’ve got an afternoon’s work cut out for you. That stuff’s been piling up since last September.”

“Where is it?”

“Back there in Kettering’s Korner. That’s what we call it. We’re thinking of starting a substation just to take care of that damn pile of mail. Why don’t people leave forwarding addresses? It’s the simplest thing in the world, you know. All you do is fill out a card.”

“Maybe Kettering didn’t want anyone to know where he was going,” Hawes said.

“What reason could he have for that?”

Hawes shrugged. “Can we see the mail?”

“Sure. Come on back with me.” The clerk shook his head. “It’s murder. Absolute murder.”

“Which is one good reason for not leaving a forwarding address,” Hawes said.

“Huh?” the clerk asked.

TOGETHER, CARELLA AND HAWES went through the stack of mail. There were circulars, bills, magazines, personal letters. The earliest postmark was August twenty-ninth. Some of the personal letters were from a man named Arthur Banks in Los Angeles. Some of the personal letters were from a woman named Alice Lossing in Isola. They copied her address from the envelope flaps. At this stage of the game, it did not seem necessary to obtain a court order granting possession of the mail.

At this stage of the game, it seemed necessary to visit Kettering’s office in Isola. They thanked the clerk and went out to the automobile.

“What do you make of it?”

“You don’t think he could have planned a murder as far back as September, do you?” Carella asked.

“I don’t know. But why else would he disappear?”

“Maybe he hasn’t. Maybe he’s just changed his residence. I doubt if a guy’s going to pick up and leave his business just because he had a little argument over a dinner table. Does that sound likely to you, Cotton?”

“It depends on what kind of a guy Kettering is. A patient hunter might do it. Wipe out all trace of himself, and then plan to kill Kramer. Who knows, Steve? There’ve been weirder ones, that’s for sure.”

“He’s a photographer, you know. That’s interesting, isn’t it?”

“Yes. You thinking of the Mencken woman?”

“Um-huh.”

“A guy named Jason Poole took her pictures.”

“Sure. But she thinks they’re in somebody else’s hands now, somebody who took over from Kramer.”

“Kettering?”

“Who knows? I’ll tell you one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m very anxious to talk to this guy. I think he may have a lot of the answers.”

Hawes nodded. “There’s just one thing, though, Steve,” he said.

“Um? What’s that?”

“We’ve got to find him first.”

12.

PHIL KETTERING’S OFFICE was on one of the side streets of midtown Isola, off Jefferson Avenue. There were a good many big and prosperous firms with offices in the building. Phil Kettering’s was not one of them.

His office was at the end of the hall on the third floor, and his name was on the center of the frosted-glass door, and the word PHOTOGRAPHER was lettered in the lower right-hand corner just above the wooden portion of the door.

The office was locked.

Carella and Hawes found the superintendent of the building and asked him to open the door for them. The super had to check with the building management. It took forty-five minutes from the time of the request to the actual opening of the door.

The office was divided into three sections. There was a small room with a desk and filing cabinets in it. There was another room in which Kettering undoubtedly took his pictures. And there was a darkroom. The office did not carry the sweet smell of success. Neither did it carry any dust. Each night, the building’s cleaning woman came in to empty the waste baskets and wipe off the furniture. The office was spotlessly clean. If Kettering had been there recently, the cleaning woman had wiped away all traces of his visit.

There was no mail outside the entrance doorway. There was a pile of mail inside the door, just below the mail slot. Several printed postal forms in the pile informed Kettering that the post office was holding packages too large to put through the slot. In the silence of Kettering’s office, Carella and Hawes illegally opened his mail. There was nothing significant in the pile. All the letters had to do with his business. Even the manila envelopes contained photographs that were coming back from magazines. The photos were not of the cheesecake variety. Nor did any of Kettering’s mail indicate that he was fond of photographing girls. His forte, apparently, was do-it-yourself pictures. Most of the correspondence was from service magazines, and all of the photos in the manila envelopes dealt with subjects like “How to Put up a Hammock,” and “Refinish That Old Table!” The photos showed how to do it, step by captioned step. If there was a connection between Kettering and Lucy Mencken, it seemed rather remote at the moment.

There were some opened letters on the desk in the smallest room. The letters were dated the latter part of August. None of them had been answered. Evidently Kettering had opened these before he left for his hunting trip. Some of the new letters were letters wanting to know why a request made in August had not yet been answered.

A workbench had been set up under the lights in the studio room. A paint brush with a hole drilled through the center, a long stiff wire, and an empty coffee tin were on the center of the workbench. A plate was in the camera, loaded with film, ready to go. In the darkroom, there were negatives and prints of the first stages of the do-it-yourself project Kettering had been shooting. This one was teaching the reader how to keep a paint brush in good order by drilling a hole, putting the stiff wire through it and using the wire to support the brush over the coffee tin without bending the bristles. The photographic essay had not been finished. Apparently Kettering’s hunting trip had intruded upon its completion.

Apparently, too, Kettering had not been back to his office since last August.

Carella left the office with Hawes, and both men went down to see the building manager. The building manager was a well-groomed man in his thirties. He seemed unhurried and unruffled. His name was Colton.

“I’m going to dispossess him,” Colton said. “Hell, he hasn’t paid his rent for all these months. That office is losing revenue for me. I’m going to dispossess him, that’s all.”

“You sound as if you don’t want to,” Carella said.

“Well, Phil Kettering’s a nice fellow. I hate like hell to throw him out into the street. But what can I do? Can I continue to lose revenue? He’s skipped town, so I lose money. Is that fair?”

“How do you know he’s skipped town?”

“He’s not around, is he? I’m going to dispossess him, that’s all. I called the building’s lawyer already. We’re going to post a copy of the summons and complaint on the office door. We can stick it there with Scotch tape or with a tack, the lawyer said. That’s called ‘substitute service’ in this state.”

“Will you sue him for the back rent?” Hawes asked.

“How can I get a judgment for the back rent?” Colton asked. “He has to be served papers in person for that and who the hell knows where he is? But I can get a judgment evicting him. Substitute service. That’s what they call it in this state. I hate to do it to Phil, but can I lose revenue? You can bet your life the building doesn’t like to lose revenue.”

“Did Kettering give you any idea he was leaving?” Hawes asked.

“None whatever. How do you like that? Skips town. Doesn’t even have the decency to tell me he doesn’t want the office any more. What’s he hiding from? Is it the police? Is he hiding from you? Is he planning a bank robbery or something? A murder? What? Why does the man suddenly skip town like that? That’s what I’d like to know.”

Carella and Hawes nodded almost simultaneously.

Carella said it for both of them. “That’s what we’d like to know, too,” he said. Then they thanked him and left his office.

There was nothing to do but question the other men who had been on the hunting trip.

They divided the men between them, and then Carella and Hawes split up.

* * *

THE ADVERTISING AGENCY was called the Ruther-Smith Company. It was a going concern, with twenty employees. Frank Ruther was a partner in the firm, and the man who wrote most of the company’s copy.

“I’d rather be writing books,” he told Hawes. “The trouble is, I can’t.”

He was a man in his early forties, with dark hair and brown eyes. He did not dress at all like a Jefferson Avenue advertising man. He dressed, instead, like the stereotyped idea of an author, tweed jacket, soft-collared shirt, quiet tie, dark flannel trousers. Too, like someone’s stereotyped idea of a writer—perhaps his own—he smoked a pipe. He had greeted Hawes cordially and warmly, and they sat now in his tastefully furnished office, talking and smoking.

“My grandfather made a hell of a lot of money,” Ruther said. “He sold pots. He traveled from town to town selling his pots, and pretty soon he could afford to hire people to sell his pots for him. He left a lot of money to my dad.”

“What did your father do?” Hawes asked.

“He parlayed it into even more money. He was a dog fancier. He began importing French poodles. It doesn’t sound as if there could be much money in it, but he had the biggest kennel on Sand’s Spit. Quality dogs, Mr. Hawes. And my dad was a shrewd businessman. When he died, I inherited money earned by two generations of Ruthers.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I wanted to be a writer. I wrote dozens of novels, which I threw into the wastepaper basket. At the same time, I was living big. I’d always lived big when my father was alive, and I saw no reason to stop living big when he died. I went through quite a lot of money. In a little less than twenty years, I spent almost the entire fortune two generations had worked to build. I stopped writing novels when I had about fifteen thousand dollars left. I started this company with Jeff Smith. It’s earning its keep now. I’m beginning to feel as if I’m finally accomplishing something. It’s a bad feeling, Mr. Hawes, when you know you’re not accomplishing anything.”

“I suppose so,” Hawes said.

“A good copywriter could outline the history of my family in three words, if he wanted to. At least, the history of my family until I started this agency—when I was still fooling around writing books.”

“And what are those three words?” Hawes asked.

“My grandfather, my father, and me,” Ruther said. “Three generations and three occupations. The three words? A peddler, a poodler, and a piddler. I was the piddler.”

Hawes smiled. He had the feeling that Ruther had used these words many times before, and that his seeming originality was not at all spontaneous. He felt, nonetheless, that it was clever—and so he smiled.

“I’m not a piddler any more, Mr. Hawes,” Ruther said. “I write copy for my firm now. I write damned good copy. It sells the product. Jeff and I are making money at last. Not money I inherited. Money I worked for. Money I worked damned hard for. It’s a good feeling. It’s the difference between being a piddler—and a man.”

“I see,” Hawes said.

“I’m sorry,” Ruther said graciously. “I didn’t mean to take up your time with a family portrait.”

“It was very interesting,” Hawes said.

“But what did you want to know?”

“What do you know about Phil Kettering?”

“Kettering?” Ruther’s brow creased. He looked at Hawes in puzzlement “I’m sorry. I don’t think I know the name.”

“Phil Kettering,” Hawes repeated.

“Should I know him?”

“Yes.”

Ruther smiled. “Can you give me a clue?”

“Kukabonga Lodge,” Hawes said.

“Oh! Oh, for God’s sake, yes. Of course. Forgive me, please. I’m not good on names. Especially at that time…well, I was in something of a fog. I’m afraid nothing made a very clear impression on me.”

“What kind of a fog?”

“My wife and I were having trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Personal trouble. We thought we might split up.”

“Have you?”

“No. We’ve worked it out. Everything is fine now.”

“About Kettering. When did he leave Kukabonga?”

“Early one morning, I forget which day it was. He said he wanted to do a little shooting before hitting the road. He had his breakfast, and then left.”

“Anybody go with him?”

“No, he went alone.”

“Then what?”

“Well, we had our breakfast, and then we went out.”

“Who?”

“Me and the two other fellows who were there. I don’t remember their names.”

“There were three other fellows, weren’t there?”

“Kramer, you mean? Yes, he was the third fellow. But he didn’t come with us that morning.”

“Why not?”

“I’d had an argument with him the day before.”

“What about?”

“Clams.”

“You remember Kramer’s name, don’t you?”

“Yes. Because we had the argument.”

“Did you see anything about him in the papers recently?”

“No. Why?”

“He’s dead.”

Ruther was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said at last.

“Are you?”

“Yes. We’d had an argument, true, but that was a long time ago, and I was touchier than I should have been. Because of the trouble Liz and I were having. I certainly wouldn’t wish his death.” Ruther paused. “How did he die?”

“He was shot.”

“You mean accidentally?”

“Purposely.”

“Oh.” Ruther paused again. “You mean he was murdered?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“Who did it?”

“We don’t know. Have you seen Kettering since last year?”

“No. Why should I? He was a stranger. I only met him at the lodge.”

“Then you wouldn’t know where he is now?”

“No, of course not. Did he have something to do with Kramer’s death?”

“We understand Kettering took your part in the argument and that he and Kramer almost came to blows. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right. But that was a long time ago. You can’t believe he’d harbor a grudge all this time.”

“I don’t know what to believe, Mr. Ruther. Can you remember the names of the other two men who were on the trip?”

“No, I’m sorry, I can’t. One of them had a very strange name, but I don’t remember what it was.”

“I see. When did you leave the lodge?”

“On a Saturday, I think.”

“Do you remember the date?”

“The eighth or the ninth, I guess. This was the first week in September.”

“When did Kramer leave?”

“The same day, I think.”

“And the other men?”

“We all left at the same time, I believe. We’d only gone up there for a week. I’m a little hazy on all this because I was more concerned with my wife than with hunting. The only thing I shot all the while I was there was a crow.”

“Did Kettering threaten Kramer’s life?”

“No. He asked him to step outside with him. That was all.”

“Did he seem very angry?”

“Yes.”

“Angry enough to kill?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mmmm.”

“Why do you think Kettering killed Kramer?”

“We’re not sure he did, Mr. Ruther. But he did have a possible motive, and he seems to have vanished. There’s also one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Kettering was a good hunter, we’ve been told. Kramer was shot with a hunting rifle.”

“There must be hundreds of men in this city with hunting rifles,” Ruther said. “I have one myself.”

“Do you, Mr. Ruther?” Hawes asked.

Ruther smiled. “Or shouldn’t I have said that?”

“What kind of a gun do you own, Mr. Ruther?”

“A Marlin. Twenty-two caliber. Eight-shot.”

Hawes nodded. “Kramer was killed with a .300 Savage.”

“Would you like to see my gun?” Ruther asked.

“That won’t be necessary,” Hawes said.

“How do you know I’m not lying? I could own two guns, you know.”

“I know. But if you killed Sy Kramer, you’ve probably disassembled the Savage and buried it by now.”

“I suppose so,” Ruther said reflectively. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Hawes rose. “If you should happen to remember the names of the other two men, give me a call, won’t you? Here’s my card.” He took the card from his wallet and put it on Ruther’s desk.

Ruther looked at the card for a moment and then said, “You knew about the argument between Kramer and me. You knew we were at Kukabonga Lodge. You knew Kettering’s name, and you knew my name.” He smiled. “You’ve been to Kukabonga Lodge, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And you spoke with the owner, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then you already know the names of the other two men, don’t you?”

“Yes, Mr. Ruther,” Hawes said. “I already know their names.”

“Then why did you ask me?”

Hawes shrugged. “Routine,” he said.

“Do you think I had anything to do with Kramer’s death?”

“Did you?”

“No,” Ruther said.

Hawes smiled. “Then you have nothing to worry about, Mr. Ruther.” He started for the door.

“Just a second, Hawes,” Ruther said. There was something new in his voice, the unmistakable ring of command. The tone surprised Hawes. He turned sharply. Ruther had stood up and was coming around the desk.

“What is it, Mr. Ruther?”

“I don’t like being made a fool,” Ruther said. The dark eyes were darker now. The mouth was drawn into a thin line.

“Did someone make a fool of you?”

“You knew about those other two men. Were you trying to trap me?” Ruther asked.

“Trap you into what?”

For some reason the air in the office had become strained and tense. For a moment Hawes was confused, almost bewildered. The interview had gone well, smoothly. And yet, it was all changed now, and he looked at Ruther and saw a tightness about the man’s face. And looking into his eyes, he felt for the moment as if Ruther would spring at his throat.

“Trap me into saying something that didn’t jibe with your half-assed theories,” Ruther said.

“I have no theories,” Hawes said. Unconsciously he balled his fists. He expected Ruther to swing at him, and he wanted to be ready.

“Then why’d you try to trap me?”

“I didn’t,” Hawes said. “Mr. Ruther, you ought to know something every businessman in the world knows.”

“What’s that?” Ruther asked.

“How to stop when you’re winning.”

Ruther’s face went blank. For a moment he seemed undecided. And then he smiled.

“Forgive me,” he said. “It’s just…I thought you were trying to make a fool of me.”

“Let’s just forget it, shall we?” Hawes said.

“Fine,” Ruther said, extending his hand. “Let’s just both forget it.”

Hawes took the extended hand. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s just both forget it.”

13.

JOHN MURPHY looked like a Bengal Lancer.

He had a bald pate and a white mustache and a florid complexion and a pot belly. He looked like a retired colonel who had just come back from somewhere in the British Empire. He was not a retired colonel. He was a retired broker, and he spent his time clipping coupons within the walls of an old house in New Posquit, a suburb of the city. New Posquit was not Sand’s Spit. It was, as a matter of fact, in the opposite direction from Sand’s Spit. The houses in New Posquit were not new, nor did they cramp each other, elbows to buttocks.

Murphy’s old house rested on sixteen acres of rolling, wooded land. He was not a millionaire, but he would sooner move into an igloo than a Sand’s Spit development. New Posquit had golfing clubs and tennis clubs and yacht clubs. John Murphy belonged to all of them. Perhaps he belonged to them because he was a retired man who didn’t have a damned thing to do. Perhaps he belonged to them because he was a highly nervous man who couldn’t even hold a gin and tonic in his hands without causing the glass to tremble.

Or maybe he was nervous because he was being questioned by a cop.

Sitting opposite him that afternoon, Steve Carella noticed the tremble in the old man’s hands and wondered whether the old man could possibly hit the side of a barn on a hunting trip. Carella sat with his pad open in his lap, and he tried to take his notes effortlessly, calling as little attention to them as possible. With many people, the taking of notes became a hindrance to easy conversation. He had seen many people freeze up entirely as they watched the moving pencil. John Murphy was a highly nervous man, but Carella didn’t know whether he was habitually nervous or whether the presence of a cop had brought on the trembling.

“You just live here with your family, is that it?” Carella asked.

“Yes,” Murphy said. “That’s what I do. Yes.”

“How long have you been retired, Mr. Murphy?”

“Eleven years last month,” Murphy said. “Quit when I was fifty. I’m sixty-one now.”

“What do you do with your time?”

“Oh, I have things to do.”

“Like what?”

“I golf. I fish. I hunt.” Murphy shrugged. “I own a sports car. Raced it last year. I’m an excellent driver.”

“What kind of a car?”

“A Porsche.”

“Did you win the race?”

“I was in two races. Came in fourth in one, and second in the next.”

“Then you are a good driver.”

“Said so, didn’t I?” Murphy said. “You want a refill on that drink?”

“No, thank you. Are you a good hunter?”

“Lousy,” Murphy said. “My hands aren’t too steady. I’ve got ulcers. That’s how nervous I am.” He held out his hand. “Look at that,” he said.

“Mmm,” Carella said. “Mr. Murphy, can you tell me about a hunting trip you took last fall? A trip to Kukabonga Lodge?”

“Certainly,” Murphy said.

He began telling the story. Carella asked questions and took notes all the while. Murphy related the story of the argument over the clams, and the subsequent argument between Kramer and Kettering. His memory was excellent. He remembered all the men’s names, remembered details of clothing, even mimicked some of their voices. He told the story essentially the same way Jerry Fielding had told it to Hawes up at Kukabonga. When Carella later compared his notes with Hawes, he would learn that Frank Ruther had given the same story, too.

“Ever see Kettering since that morning?” Carella asked.

“Nope.”

“Been hunting since?”

“Nope.”

“What kind of guns do you have, Mr. Murphy?”

“I’ve got three guns. A shotgun, a twenty-two, and a big-game rifle.”

“What make is the big-game gun?”

“A Savage.”

“Caliber?”

“Three hundred.”

“May I see the gun?”

“Why?”

“I’d like to,” Carella said. “I’d also like to take it with me.”

“What for?”

“To hand over to our ballistics department.”

“Why?”

“Sy Kramer was shot with a .300 Savage.”

“I read about that in the papers,” Murphy said. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Yes.”

“You think I shot Kramer?”

“I didn’t say that, Mr. Murphy.”

“I couldn’t hit a grizzly bear at ten paces. You think I could have shot Kramer from a car on a dark, rainy night?”

“I didn’t say that, Mr. Murphy. But I would like to have the gun run through Ballistics, if you don’t mind.”

“Can’t you just sniff the barrel and tell it wasn’t fired recently?”

Carella smiled. “We like to get a little more precise than that, Mr. Murphy. We’d like to run a comparison test between a bullet fired from your gun and the bullet that killed Kramer.”

“Well, all right,” Murphy said reluctantly.

“I’ll give you a receipt for the gun,” Carella said. “It’ll be returned to you in good condition.”

“Good condition isn’t enough,” Murphy said. “It’s being turned over to you in excellent condition.”

“You’ll get it back the same way,” Carella said, smiling.

“Okay,” Murphy said, getting out of his chair. “It’s inside, in the gun rack.”

Carella followed him into the house. When Murphy had taken the Savage from the gun rack, he turned to Carella with the weapon in his hands.

“A good rifle,” he said.

“Yes,” Carella agreed.

“Can bring down an elephant with this,” he said. Inadvertently he had turned the gun’s barrel toward Carella.

“Ahhh…you wouldn’t mind turning that the other way, would you?” Carella said.

“Why?” Murphy asked.

“I’ve been taught never to point a gun at anyone unless I intend shooting him.”

For a moment the room went silent. Murphy stared at Carella. His finger was inside the trigger guard. His hand was trembling.

“Mr. Murphy,” Carella said. “Would you mind?”

“You don’t think I’d shoot you, do you, Mr. Carella?” Murphy asked. There was no smile on his face.

“No, but…”

“I mean, even if this were the rifle that killed Sy Kramer. Even then, do you think I’d be foolish enough to shoot you here in my own home?”

“If you’re not going to shoot me,” Carella said levelly, “then turn the gun away.”

“Mr. Carella,” Murphy said, smiling now, “I think I’ve made you nervous.” He paused. “The gun isn’t loaded.” He handed it to Carella. “And it isn’t the rifle that killed Kramer.”

“I’m glad to hear both those facts,” Carella said. “May I have some cartridges for the Ballistics test, please?”

“Certainly,” Murphy said. He opened a drawer at the bottom of the gun rack. “I’ve got some full magazines here. Will they be all right?”

“Fine,” Carella said.

Murphy rummaged in the drawer. “There’s a pool table in the next room,” he said. “Do you play pool?”

“Yes.”

“Care for a game?”

“No.”

“I’m glad,” Murphy said. He slammed the drawer shut, and handed Carella a rotary magazine for the gun. “I’m a lousy pool player.” He paused. “My hands,” he explained. “They’re not too steady.”

And Steve Carella remembered Murphy’s trembling finger inside the trigger guard.

COTTON HAWES did not realize he was being followed until he left the home of Joaquim Miller that night. When he finally realized it, he did something about it—but he was blissfully ignorant up to the moment of realization.

He had called Miller’s home after leaving the office of Frank Ruther. Miller’s wife told Hawes that Joaquim worked as an electronics engineer for a company called Byrd Industries, Inc. Hawes called Miller at his office. Because Miller was an employee in a large firm and because questioning by the police can often cast suspicion of guilt upon the most innocent man, Hawes considerately asked Miller if he could see him at his home that night. Miller readily agreed.

The Miller home was in Majesta, an outlying section of the city.

Hawes had left the 87th at 6:30 P.M. He pulled up to the apartment building at 8:03. He did not as yet know he had been followed from the front steps of the 87th all the way to Majesta. The apartment building in which the Millers lived was on a tree-shaded street There was a small park across from the building. It was one of the best neighborhoods in Majesta. Hawes assumed that the Millers had chosen the location because of its proximity to the Byrd plant. And since they had chosen the best, he further assumed Miller was earning a good salary.

“Apartment Fifty-four,” Miller had told him on the phone. Hawes walked across the simple lobby to the self-service elevator. He took that up to the fifth floor, and then found the Miller apartment. Mrs. Miller answered the door. She was an attractive brunette with large blue eyes, but Hawes made a point of never falling in love with a woman who was already married.

“Are you Detective Hawes?” she asked immediately.

“Yes.” Hawes showed his identification.

“Is something wrong?”

“No. We’re just trying to locate a man your husband once met. We thought he might be able to help.”

“It’s nothing to do with Joaquim?”

“No, ma’am,” Hawes said.

“Come in, won’t you?” she answered, and he had the distinct impression that if this had had something to do with Joaquim, she’d have slammed the door in his face and then fired a machine-gun volley through it. The protective Mrs. Miller led Hawes into the living room. Joaquim Miller turned from the television set.

“This is Detective Hawes,” his wife said.

Miller rose, his hand extended. He was a thin man of about thirty-three, with a narrow face topped with a brown crew cut. His eyes were warm and intelligent. His grip on Hawes’s hand was firm.

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Hawes,” he said. “Have you found him yet?”

“No, not yet,” Hawes replied.

“They’re looking for a man named Phil Kettering,” Miller explained to his wife. “Mr. Hawes told me about it on the phone this afternoon.”

Mrs. Miller nodded. Her eyes did not leave Hawes’s face.

“Sit down, Mr. Hawes,” Miller said. “Can we get you something to drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Glass of beer? You’re allowed a glass of beer, aren’t you?”

“I’d rather not, thank you.”

“Okay, then,” Miller said. “What would you like me to tell you?”

“Everything you remember about Phil Kettering and Sy Kramer,” Hawes said.

Miller began talking, and while he talked Hawes took notes and thought, “Police work is simply getting everything in triplicate.” Miller was telling the same story Fielding had told, the same story Ruther had told, the same story Murphy had given to Carella earlier that day. It was getting a little boring, to tell the truth. Hawes wished for some outstanding deviation from the facts, something he could pounce on. There was no deviation. Miller told the story straight down the line.

“Have you seen Kettering since?” Hawes asked.

“Since the day he left the lodge?” Miller asked.

“Yes,” Hawes said.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Do you own a gun, Mr. Miller?”

“No.”

“You don’t?”

“No, sir.”

“Didn’t you hunt on that—”

“I rented that gun, Mr. Hawes. I’m not a real hunter, you see. Peg was visiting her mother in California. We don’t get along, Peg’s mother and me. She didn’t want Peg to marry me, but we got married, anyway.”

“She didn’t think Joaquim would amount to anything. But he’s amounted to a lot.”

“Please, Peg,” Miller said.

“Well, you have. He earns a very good salary, Mr. Hawes. We’ve been able to save quite a bit between his salary and the land.”

“Peg, can’t you—?”

“What land?” Hawes asked. “What do you mean?”

Miller sighed. “I speculate,” he explained. “I buy and sell land. With all these housing developments springing up all over the place, it’s been pretty profitable.”

“How do you work it?”

“Sheer speculation. I pick a spot I think the developers will eventually get to. I buy it fairly cheap, and then sell it high when they decide to build on it. It won’t last much longer, though. They’ve pretty much built everywhere they can build and still stay within reasonable commuting distance of the city.”

“How much have you made with such speculation?” Hawes asked.

“That’s our business,” Miller said.

“I’m sorry,” Hawes said. “I didn’t mean to get personal, but I would like to know.”

“We’ve made about thirty thousand,” Miller’s wife said.

“Peg—”

“Well, why shouldn’t we tell?”

“Peg, shut—”

“We’re saving it,” Mrs. Miller said. “We’re going to build a big house some—”

“Shut up, Peg!” Miller snapped.

Mrs. Miller fell into a resentful silence. Hawes cleared his throat.

“What kind of work do you do with Byrd, Mr. Miller?”

“I’m an electronics engineer.”

“I know. But what are you working on?”

Miller smiled as if his team had scored a point. “I couldn’t answer that one if I wanted to.”

“Why not?”

“Classified,” Miller said.

“I see. Just to reiterate—you do not own a gun, is that correct?”

“That’s absolutely correct.”

“What kind of a gun did you rent when you went away?”

“A twenty-two.”

“Would you remember what kind of a gun Kettering was using?”

“I’m not good on guns,” Miller said. “It was a big-game rifle—a powerful name. A name that sounded like a big-game gun.”

“A Savage?” Hawes asked.

“Yes,” Miller said. “Kettering was using a Savage.”

In the street again, Hawes glanced up at the apartment building. He saw Miller standing at the window, watching him. He ducked away from the window quickly when he realized Hawes had seen him. Hawes sighed and started for his car. It was then that he saw the man. The man moved behind a tree quickly, but not quickly enough. Hawes had caught a glimpse of him, and he walked to his car slowly now, opened the door, started the engine, and waited. The man did not move from behind the tree. Hawes set the car in motion. From the corner of his eye, he saw the man run for an automobile and enter it. The car was a Chevrolet, but Hawes could not distinguish the license-plate number in the darkness. Behind him, he heard the car starting.

He drove slowly. His pursuer did not know that Hawes knew he was being pursued. Hawes did not want the pursuer to lose him, nor did he wish to lose the pursuer. There was, of course, the added possibility that the man was not following him at all. Hawes would test this possibility in a moment.

He waited until he’d picked up the man’s headlights in the rear-view mirror. Up to that point, he had been driving slowly, as if unsure of which turn to take. Now he sped up, turned left, and watched the car behind him execute the same turn. He turned right. The Chevy turned right. He went straight for two blocks, and then made a left. The Chevy was still behind him. He executed a series of lefts and rights that eliminated all possibility of chance. The man in the Chevy was certainly following Hawes, and Hawes wondered why. He also wondered who. He could not see the front license plate in his rear-view mirror. He wanted to know who the hell was in that car.

He put on a sudden burst of speed, outdistancing the Chevy by a block, and then pulled over to the curb. He got out of the car and ducked into the nearest alley. Up the street, the Chevy braked suddenly and then pulled to the curb a distance behind Hawes’s car. The man got out of the car, looked up and down the street, and then began walking toward the alley.

The luxuriant summer growth on the trees shielded the street lamps so that the sidewalks were in almost total darkness. Hawes could hear the man’s footsteps as he approached, but he could not see the man’s face. The man had undoubtedly assumed that Hawes had gone into one of the apartment buildings. He stopped at each entrance and looked into the building, moving closer to the alleyway all the time.

The footsteps echoed in the hollow bowl of night.

Hawes waited.

They were closer now, very close, almost, almost…

Hawes reached out, swinging the man around.

The man moved with a reflexive action that caught Hawes completely by surprise. Hawes was no midget, and certainly bigger than the man who hit him. But he had reached out with one hand, grasping the man by the shoulder, and the man had swung around, partially pulled by Hawes, partially under his own power, so that the force of his blow was doubled.

He swung around with his fist clenched, and he threw the fist at Hawes’s midsection, catching him below the belt. The pain was excruciating. Hawes released the man’s shoulder instantly and dropped to the concrete. The man ran out of the alley mouth. Hawes had still not seen his face. Lying on the concrete, raw pain triggering through his groin, he could only think of a stupid joke he had once heard. He did not want to think of the joke. He wanted to get up off the concrete and chase his assailant, but the pain persisted in agonizing waves, and the joke ran over and over again in his mind, the joke about a man overhearing two women describing childbirth to each other. “Such pain,” one said. “Nobody ever had such pain as when I gave birth.”

“Pain? Don’t talk about pain,” the other woman said. “When my Lewis was born, it was unbearable. Such pain no one in the world has ever known.”

And the man walked over to them and said, “Excuse me, ladies, but did either of you ever get kicked in the balls?”

There didn’t seem to be anything funny about the joke now. Lying on the concrete, Hawes knew only pain, and the joke was not funny at all. Lying on the concrete, he could hear the Chevy’s motor starting. He dragged himself to the alley mouth, hoping to catch a glimpse of the license plate as the car went by.

The street was dark, and the car wasn’t observing any speed limits.

Hawes could not read the plate.

In a little while, the pain subsided.

STEVE CARELLA didn’t truthfully suspect John Murphy. He didn’t know whom he truthfully suspected at this stage of the game, but he did know that the man who’d fired the Savage at Kramer had been a dead shot. Only one shell had been fired, and that shell had blown away half of Kramer’s head. Whoever had killed Kramer had been driving an automobile not a minute before—or so it appeared. He had pulled the car to the curb, picked up the rifle, aimed, and fired. His aim had been unerring. The single shot had done it.

Carella doubted that John Murphy’s aim was unerring. The old man’s hands trembled even when he was sitting having a peaceful drink. If they trembled normally, how much more would they tremble when murder was about to be done? No, he did not truthfully suspect John Murphy.

He was not at all surprised, therefore, by the Ballistics report on the test bullet fired from Murphy’s .300 Savage.

The Ballistics report simply stated that the gun owned by John Murphy could not possibly have fired the bullet that had killed Kramer.

Steve Carella was not at all surprised—but he was disappointed, anyway.

14.

ALICE LOSSING lived in Isola.

Cotton Hawes had been hit uncompromisingly the night before, but on the evening of July twelfth he nonetheless went to visit Miss Lossing. The apartment building was on The Bluffs, overlooking the River Dix. The River Dix bounded Isola on the south, and from Alice Lossing’s building, Hawes supposed you could see the prison at Walker’s Island on a clear day.

He stopped at Apartment 8B and buzzed.

“Who is it?” a girl’s voice called from within the apartment.

Hawes hesitated. He could remember his indoctrination into the 87th Precinct. He had knocked on the door of a suspected murderer and then had said, “Police! Open up!” The man inside had opened up with a pistol, and a cop named Steve Carella had almost been killed that day. Even now, Hawes flushed slightly at his earlier stupidity. But Alice Lossing was not suspected of murder.

“Police,” he said.

“Who?”

“Police,” he repeated.

“Just a second,” the voice said. He heard footsteps approaching the door. The flap in the door swung back. An eye appeared in the circle.

“Who’d you say you were?”

“Police,” Hawes said. “Detective Hawes.”

“Have you got identification?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see it?”

Hawes held up his plastic-encased I.D. card.

“Haven’t you got a badge?”

Hawes held up his shield.

The girl looked at the I.D. card again. “You don’t look very much like the picture,” she said.

“It’s me. If you want further proof, call Frederick 7-8024. Ask for Detective Carella, and ask him if Detective Cotton Hawes did not leave the squadroom on his way to visit you.”

“It sounds convincing,” Alice said. “Just a second.”

Hawes listened while the girl unlatched the door. From the number of bolts being snapped back, it sounded as if he were being admitted to Fort Knox. He wondered why the girl was so damned cautious, and then the door opened and he knew why.

Alice Lossing was perhaps the most beautiful girl he’d seen all week long. If he were Alice Lossing and if he lived in an apartment building, he would surely have constructed a steel door to keep away the wolves.

“Come in,” she said. “You’d better be legit.”

“Why?”

“I keep a pistol, and I know how to shoot it.”

“Do you keep a rifle?” he asked, from force of habit.

“No, thanks. A pistol serves the purpose just dandy.”

“The best weapon for a woman is a hammer,” Hawes said.

“A what?”

“A hammer.”

“Come in, come in. If you’re going to discuss weapons, don’t stand there in the doorway.”

Together, they went into the apartment. Alice Lossing had brown hair and brown eyes. She was a tall girl, at least five-seven, and she walked with the regal splendor of a queen. Her figure was neatly curved beneath the tapered slacks and sweater she wore.

When they were in the living room, she asked, “Why a hammer?”

“Several reasons. One, the excitability of a woman. Faced with an intruder, she may not shoot straight. She’ll empty the pistol, and then be left holding an empty weapon, which makes a clumsy club.”

“I shoot straight,” Alice said.

“Two, an intruder seeing a gun may pull his own gun, if he’s carrying one. Chances are, he’ll shoot straighter than the woman.”

“I shoot straight,” Alice repeated.

“Three, if an intruder has rape on his mind, he’s got to come close to do it. A hammer is a good infighting weapon. If he’s just got robbery or burglary on his mind, the best thing to do is let him take what he wants and then call the police. A gun might start trouble where there wouldn’t have been any trouble. Nobody gets heroic with a hammer. A hammer is purely a weapon of defense.”

“Is that your case?”

“Yes,” Hawes said.

“It stinks,” Alice said. “I keep a pistol in my night table, and it’s loaded, and I’ll shoot any person who steps into this apartment without being invited. I’ll shoot him straight and true and probably dead.”

“A girl can’t be too careful,” Hawes said. “Especially a pretty girl. I’m glad I was invited.”

“What’s this about?” Alice asked. “I’m purposely ignoring your compliment.”

“Why?”

“You’re too attractive,” Alice said. “I might lose my head and shoot off my big toe by accident.” She grinned.

“Exactly my point,” Hawes said, returning the grin.

“What is this about?”

“Phil Kettering,” Hawes said.

“What about him? Where is he? Do you know?”

“We don’t know. He seems to have vanished.”

“Don’t I know it,” Alice said.

“When’d you see him last?”

“In August of last year.”

“Haven’t heard from him since?”

“No,” Alice said. “I wouldn’t give a damn, but he’s got something that belongs to me.”

“What?”

“A ring.”

“How’d he get it?”

“I gave it to him. We got drunk together one night, and we decided to exchange rings. He gave me this piece of cheese”—she held out her right hand—“and I gave him a damn expensive cocktail ring. He wore it on his pinky.”

“May I see that again?” Hawes said.

Alice extended her hand. The ring was a simple signet, the letters P.K. in gold scroll, with a small diamond chip near the K.

“I had it appraised,” Alice said. “Fifty bucks, the jeweler told me. My ring was worth five hundred. If you find him, tell him I want that damn ring back.”

“How well did you know Kettering?”

“Not very.”

“Well enough to give him a ring?”

“We were drunk. I told you.”

“How long did you know him?”

“About four months. I’m a receptionist at Milady. Do you know the magazine?”

“No,” Hawes said.

“The women of America only wake up and go to sleep with the damn thing,” Alice said.

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be. I thought cops were well-informed. Anyway, I’m the receptionist there. Phil came up one day to deliver some pictures. A photographic essay on how to keep nail-polish bottles in one place. He had this long piece of wood with spaces drilled into it—”

“Is that when you met?”

“Yes. He asked me out. I accepted. I went out with him about once a week after that.”

“Up until the time he went on his hunting trip?”

“Is that where he went? He didn’t tell me.”

“Did he ever discuss hunting with you?”

“Once in a while. He was pretty good, to hear him tell it.”

“How good?”

“Won a lot of shooting medals. Supposed to be a crack shot. That’s the way he told it, anyway.”

“Did you ever see any of those medals?”

“One. He carried it in his wallet. It was a shooting medal, all right. I guess he was a good hunter.”

“Did he call you when he got back from the trip?”

“I haven’t seen or heard from him since the end of August. I wrote him several letters asking for my ring back. He never answered them. I called his office, and I even went down there. The place was locked up. If I could remember where he lives, I’d go there, believe me.”

“Forget it,” Hawes said. “We’ve been.”

“Then he’s really gone?”

“Really gone,” Hawes said.

“Where?”

“We don’t know.”

“Well, I’d sure like to know. That ring was worth five hundred dollars.”

“Is he a good-looking man, Miss Lossing?”

“Phil? Not in the movie-star sense. But he’s very manly-looking.”

“Have a temper?”

“Not particularly violent, no.”

“Is he the kind of person who’d be likely to carry a grudge?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know him that well. We only dated for about four months, once a week. The only reason we exchanged rings is because we were drunk.”

“Did you go out to his home often?”

“I was there once. It’s a real suburban nothing. I ran for the hills.”

“Did he ever come here?”

“Of course.”

“Often?”

“To pick me up. Once a week. And to drop me off.” Alice Lossing studied Hawes for a moment. “What are you asking?”

“Only what I asked.”

“Are you trying to find out whether Phil and I—”

“No.”

“We didn’t.”

“Okay, but I didn’t ask.”

“You seemed like you wanted to.”

“Ask?”

“Yes.”

“About Phil? Or for myself?”

“One or the other,” Alice said.

“I’m not an asker,” Hawes said.

“No?”

“No. I have to report back to the squad when I leave here. I can do that by phone. Do you dance?”

“I dance.”

“Let’s.”

“Are you asking?”

Hawes smiled. Alice Lossing did not smile back.

“I’m a lady,” she said. “I like to be asked.”

“I’m asking. Would you like to go dancing with me?”

“You’re attractive,” she said. “I’d love to.”

“I keep wondering what a pretty girl like you is doing home all alone on a Friday night,” Hawes said.

“I was waiting for you,” Alice answered.

“Sure.”

“If you want to know the truth, I was stood up.”

“Okay.”

“You can call the squad from here, if you like. I’ll get changed.”

“Fine.”

“Are you off-duty once you make that call?”

“Technically, I’m never off-duty. But actually, yes, I am.”

“Then mix yourself a drink when you’re finished.”

“All right.”

Hawes made his call and mixed himself a drink. They left the apartment at nine-thirty. Alice thought Hawes was very attractive. She kept telling him so all night long. He thought she was very attractive, too. In fact, he fell in love with her while they were dancing.

They went for coffee afterward, and then he took Alice back to her apartment. It was still early, and so they sat and listened to records for a while. Her lips were very red and very inviting, and so he kissed her. It was too bright in the room, and so they turned off the lights.

And so…

15.

ARTHUR BROWN was tired of the virgins of Bali in full color. He was tired of the four wooden walls of the mock telephone-company shack. He was tired of the headset with which he monitored the tape. He was tired of the inane social drivel that passed back and forth between Lucy Mencken and her contacts in the world at large.

Arthur Brown was a most impatient man. He’d had the bad misfortune to be born with a name that emphasized his color. With Arthur Brown, the hatemongers had really had a field day. Because he was fair-minded and because he thought it might be better to give the haters an edge by giving himself a handicap, he had often thought of changing his name to Goldstein, thereby adding religion to color and offering the haters an opportunity to really flip their wigs. His impatience was born of expectation. Arthur Brown could look at a man and know instantly whether or not his color would be a barrier between them. And knowing, he would then expect the inevitable slur; and expecting it, he would then impatiently wait for it. He was a man sitting on a powder keg, the fuse of which had been lighted by the chance pigmentation of his skin.

The tap on Lucy Mencken’s phone had none of the characteristics of a powder keg, but it nonetheless filled Brown with itchy impatience. He could, by now, have told anyone interested exactly what the Mencken family would be having for dinner every night of next week, exactly what sniffles or sneezes the Mencken children had suffered during the past few days, the forthcoming social plans of the entire family, and even the bra size—a spectacular size, he admitted—of Lucy Mencken.

Arthur Brown was bored.

Arthur Brown was impatient.

He thought of his brothers of toil back at the 87th. Those lucky ones would be dealing with rapes and muggings and knifings and burglaries and robberies and homicides and all sorts of interesting lively criminal activities. He had to sit in a shack and listen to the proprietress of the women’s wear shop in Peabody—he knew her well by now; her name was Antoinette, and the shop was sickeningly called the Curve Corner—tell Lucy Mencken about the new line of bathing suits that had arrived, and wouldn’t she like to come down and try some on?

Brown devoutly wished she would go down and try some on. He wished she would take her son and daughter with her and allow them to try on some bathing suits, too. He hoped that Charles Mencken needed new swim trunks. He hoped the entire family would go down to the Curve Corner and enjoy an orgy of trying on svelte swimwear. Then the phone would be free for the afternoon. Then he would not have to listen to female gossip about a girl named Patricia Harper who danced too intimately with the husbands of Peabody; then he would not have to listen to plans for the next garden-club meeting (the club was called the Peabody Potters); then he would not have to listen to eight-year-old Greta’s telephone romance with a ten-year-old boy named Freckles.

In short, he would not have to invade the goddamn privacy of what seemed to be a normal, decent, clean-living family.

He knew, of course, that the telephone company itself maintained monitoring stations. The purpose of these stations was to keep a constant check on the efficiency of the almost entirely automatic equipment. There was no intention of maintaining a telephone tap in the strictest sense of the words. But there were loud-speakers, and men listened to those loud-speakers, and if anyone thought a telephone call was a private thing, he was sadly mistaken. Usually, the speaker was tuned down to a low mumble. Occasionally, and completely arbitrarily, it was turned up so that words became intelligible. A telephone call was about as private as a church auction, and this should have lessened the guilt Brown was feeling. Too, he was waiting for a call that might lead them to a criminal. But neither of these factors lessened the unpleasantness of his job, nor the impatience with which he attacked it.

When the call came, he girded himself for what he was certain would be another social exchange. The light flashed on the recording equipment as soon as the receiver was lifted from the cradle in the Mencken home. Brown put on his earphones. Before him, the tapes wound relentlessly. The bug in the base of the Mencken phone picked up every word.

“—wait a moment, I’ll see if she’s home.”

That was the Mencken maid. Brown knew her voice by heart. There was a long pause. Then…

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Mencken?”

Brown heard what could have been a short gasp from Mrs. Mencken.

“Yes?”

“You’ve had time to think over my last call, ain’t you?”

“Who is this?” Lucy asked.

“Never mind who this is. I told you this is a friend of Sy Kramer’s. I know all about the arrangement he had with you, and I’ve already told you there will be a few changes now that he is dead. Is that clear?”

“Yes, but…”

“You wouldn’t want that material released to the newspapers, would you?”

“What material?”

“Don’t bluff me, Mrs. Mencken. You know what material I’m talking about, so don’t try to bluff me.”

“All right,” she said.

“I want you to meet me tonight.”

“Why? Just give me your name, and I’ll send you the check.”

“You’ll send a policeman to pick me up, you mean.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that.”

“You’d be smart not to try anything like that. The material is with a friend of mine. If you try to call the police, if there’s even the smell of a cop with you when we meet tonight, that stuff gets mailed to the newspapers.”

“I understand. But why must we meet?”

“To get things set up.”

“You said it would be about the same as with Kramer.”

“I want to talk it over with you. I want to know just where we stand. I don’t want any mistakes.”

“All right,” Lucy said wearily. “Where shall I meet you?”

“Can you get in to the city?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know downtown Isola?”

“Yes.”

Brown picked up his pencil and moved his pad into writing position.

“There’s a place on Fieldover Street. Do you know where that is?”

“In the Quarter?”

“Yes. The place is called Gumpy’s. It’s right on Fieldover, near Marsten Square. I’ll meet you there.”

“What time?”

“Eight o’clock?”

“Yes,” Lucy said. “How will I know you?”

“I’ll be wearing a brown sharkskin suit.” The man paused. “I’ll be reading the Times. Remember, no cops. If there are any cops, the material gets mailed out before you can say Jack Robinson.”

“I’ll be there,” Lucy promised.

“Bring your checkbook,” the man said, and he hung up. The next call Lucy Mencken made was to her husband’s office. She told Charles Mencken that a college roommate of hers, a girl named Sylvia Cooke, was in town and wanted Lucy to join her for the evening. Would it be all right?

Charles Mencken was a trusting husband with a faithful wife. He told Lucy it would be perfectly all right. In fact, he would take the children to the country club for dinner. She told him she loved him, and then broke the connection.

Arthur Brown immediately called the 87th Squad.

GUMPY’S COULD JUST AS EASILY have been called Dumpy’s, because it was just that. Whoever had made the call to Lucy Mencken had shown considerable unconcern for the fact that she was a lady. The person who’d called her had even shown unconcern for the fact that she was a woman.

Gumpy’s was on Fieldover Street, close to Marsten Square. Gumpy’s catered to the trade in the Quarter. The trade did not care very much about the furniture in Gumpy’s, or the lighting, or the fact that the walls seemed ready to cave in. The trade was neither here nor there, and the trade was more or less protected by a state law that made a token show of force while actually overlooking the neither here nor there status of such people as composed the clientele of Gumpy’s. Many people from other places in the city came to ogle the steady clientele of Gumpy’s. It was good clean fun to howl at two men dancing together. It was excruciatingly comic to see a woman wearing a man’s suit and paying court to another woman. These sightseers, like the steady clientele, were too interested in what was happening around them to pay too much attention to the décor of the place. Even the fire inspector didn’t care very much. It was rumored about that Gumpy himself paid a considerable chunk each month to keep the place from being condemned as a fire trap. Such rumors always run rife when a man has a profitable enterprise going for him. Why, the fire inspector may have been the most honest man in the city, and far above taking any sort of bribe.

The detective who went to Gumpy’s in a sports shirt and slacks on the night of July thirteenth was a man who had no connection with the Kramer case at all. In debating who should make the collar, Carella and Hawes weighed in the fact that Hawes had been tailed not two nights before. It was possible, just possible, that the tail would turn out to be the person who had the assignation with Lucy Mencken. And if Hawes had been tailed, was it not likely that other members of the squad had likewise been tailed and could likewise be recognized? They did not want to lose a collar by being spotted for bulls. They chose a man who’d done no legwork on the Kramer case, a man in fact who’d just polished off a burglary and who was waiting for action.

The man’s name was Bob O’Brien. He was a Detective 2nd/Grade. He was Irish clear down to his belly button. Some of the bulls held that the only reason he’d joined the force was so that he’d be able to march in the St. Paddy’s Day parade down Hall Avenue. Actually, O’Brien had joined the force quite by accident. He’d applied for positions as postal clerk, fireman, and cop; he’d passed all three examinations. By pure chance, the police department had called him first, and he’d taken the job.

O’Brien was six feet one inch tall and he weighed two hundred and ten pounds. When you got hit by O’Brien, you sometimes suffered a fractured jaw. The hamhock-hands cliché had been invented to apply to the Irish mitts of Bob O’Brien. He’d been raised in Hades Hole, and had learned the art of street fighting (as opposed to the art of boxing) before he’d cut his second teeth. In those days, O’Brien had been on the opposite side of the law. When you saw a cop coming, you ran like hell. Now, and fortunately for the city, he was on the right side of the fence, using his fists for law enforcement, using his 20/20 vision and his .38 Police Special to excellent advantage.

Bob O’Brien had killed seven men in the line of duty.

He was not a trigger-happy cop. He never used his gun unless he had to. But there are cops who get the dirty end of the stick, cops who are forced to use their gun, and Bob O’Brien was one of those cops. He had killed his first man when he was still a rookie, and the first man he’d killed was a man he’d known. He had still been living in Hades Hole at the time. It was a Saturday morning in mid-August, and O’Brien was off-duty and wearing a pair of swimming trunks under his slacks and sports shirt. He was supposed to meet a few of the fellows on his front stoop. From there the boys would go to the beach. He was, of course, carrying a gun in his right hip pocket. The street was quiet with the hush of a hot summer. O’Brien loafed on the front stoop, waiting for the boys. It was then that Eddie the Butcher came out of his shop with the meat cleaver.

Eddie was chasing a woman. On his face was the crazed look of a man who has lost all touch with his surroundings. O’Brien came off the stoop as the woman rushed by. He stepped directly into Eddie’s path. He had no intention of shooting Eddie.

“What’s the matter, Eddie?” he said gently.

Eddie raised the meat cleaver over his head. “Get out of my way!” he shouted.

“This is Bobby,” O’Brien said. “Now put away that—”

Eddie lunged forward, knocking O’Brien flat to the pavement. With one hand holding O’Brien’s throat, he raised his other hand over his head, and the cutting edge of the meat cleaver gleamed in the morning sunlight. O’Brien twisted onto one hip. The crazed expression was still on Eddie’s face. The meat cleaver was poised above O’Brien’s head. And then it began its shimmering descent. O’Brien, acting reflexively, drew his revolver, and fired. The cleaver dropped from Eddie’s hand, six inches from O’Brien’s face. Eddie rolled over onto the scorching pavement—dead.

That night Bob O’Brien cried like a baby.

And since that time death had hung around his neck like an albatross. Since that time he had been forced to kill six more men in the line of duty. He did not know any of these men, but that was the only difference between them and Eddie the Butcher. Whenever he was forced to kill, Bob O’Brien still wept. Not openly. He wept inside, and that is where it hurts most.

Gumpy’s was jumping that Saturday night. In the space of twenty minutes, O’Brien was approached and propositioned five times. He turned down each proposition. He felt only pity for Gumpy’s clientele, and so he turned down each proposition with a simple shake of his head. The people he despised were those who came to watch the display.

At eight ten, Lucy Mencken arrived.

She seemed quite flustered, quite beyond her depth. She sat at a table in the corner and instantly surveyed the room. The man in the brown sharkskin suit had not yet arrived. She ordered a drink and waited. O’Brien ordered a drink, which he did not touch, and he, too, waited.

At eight twenty-five the man in the brown sharkskin suit entered the bar. A copy of the Times was rolled under his right arm. He looked around, his eyes passing over Lucy Mencken and then the rest of the room. Then he went to sit at her table. A few words passed between Lucy and the man.

O’Brien got off the bar stool. Casually he walked to the table. Casually he caught the man’s brown sharkskin sleeve with his right forefinger, twisting the sleeve, capturing the man’s wrist in a makeshift handcuff.

“Police,” he said flatly. “You’re coming with—”

The man started to get out of his chair. O’Brien very casually hit him. The clientele of Gumpy’s started an ungodly shriek.

“Go home, Mrs. Mencken,” O’Brien said. “We’ll take care of him.”

Lucy Mencken surveyed O’Brien with a hard, flat stare. “Thanks,” she said, “you’ve just ruined my life.”

THE MAN IN THE sharkskin suit was Mario Torr.

In the Interrogation Room of the 87th Precinct, he said, “This is false arrest. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

“We know why you’re here,” Carella said.

“Yeah? Then suppose you tell me why. I’m an honest citizen. I’m gainfully employed. I stop into a place for a brew, I see a pretty dame, I try to pick her up, and next thing I know I’m getting the rubber hose.”

“Has anybody laid a finger on you, Torr?” Hawes asked.

“Well, no, but—”

“Then shut your mouth and answer the questions!” Meyer snapped contradictorily.

“I am answering the questions. And somebody did lay a finger on me. That lousy big Irish bastard who put the collar—”

“You resisted arrest,” Carella said.

“I resisted, my ass. I just got out of the chair. He didn’t have to hit me.”

“What were you doing in Gumpy’s?” Meyer asked.

“I told you. I stopped in for a brew.”

“Do you always go to fag joints?” Carella asked.

“I didn’t know what kind of a joint it was. I passed it, so I stopped in for a brew.”

“You called Lucy Mencken this afternoon, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“We’ve got a tape of the whole telephone conversation.”

“It must have been three other guys,” Torr said.

“Where are the pictures?”

“What pictures?”

“The pictures you were using to extort money from Lucy Mencken.”

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

“Did you follow me the other night?” Hawes asked.

“I didn’t follow nobody any night.”

“You followed me and hit me. Why?”

“I hit you? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Where are the pictures?”

“I don’t know anything about pictures.”

“Were you and Kramer partners?”

“We were friends.”

“Did you kill him to get him out of the set-up?”

“Kill him! Holy Jesus, don’t tie me into that rap!”

“Which rap do you want, Torr? We’ve got a lot of them.”

“I had nothing to do with the Kramer kill. So help me Jesus.”

“We can make it look pretty good, Torr.”

“You ain’t got a chance.”

“Haven’t we? Try us. What’ll you go for? Extortion or homicide?”

“I stopped for a brew,” Torr insisted.

“We’ve got your voice on tape.”

“Try to make that stick in court.”

“Where are the pictures?”

“I don’t know anything about pictures.”

“Why’d you follow me?” Hawes asked.

“I didn’t follow you.”

“The tape said you’d be wearing a brown sharkskin suit. It said you’d be reading the Times. Guess what you’re wearing, and guess what you were carrying.”

“It ain’t admissible in court,” Torr said.

“Who were the big marks?” Meyer hurled.

“I don’t know.”

“Kramer’s bank account had forty-five grand in deposits. Was that only half of it, Torr? Did the total amount to ninety grand?”

“Forty-five grand?” Torr said. “So that’s—”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s what?”

“Nothing.”

“Was Lucy Mencken paying more than the five bills a month?”

“Is that all she—?” Torr stopped abruptly.

“Hold it,” Hawes said.

The other men looked at him.

“Hold it a minute.” The light of pure inspiration was on his face. “This son of a bitch doesn’t even know how much Lucy Mencken was paying! I’ll bet he doesn’t even know for what she was paying. You didn’t know there were pictures, did you, Torr?”

“I told you already. I don’t know nothing about it.”

“You son of a bitch,” Hawes said. “You’ve been conducting your own little investigation, haven’t you? You’ve been following the bulls of this squad to get onto Kramer’s marks!”

“No, no, I—”

“The only thing you knew was that there were marks. And with Kramer dead, you figured to latch onto them. But you didn’t know who or how much.”

“No, no, I told you—”

“You followed us to Lucy Mencken and then called her to say you were taking over from Kramer. She was so scared she automatically assumed you knew all about the pictures. That was when she began snooping around, trying to locate them. Kramer was something she knew how to deal with. But you told her there’d be changes, and she didn’t know how far you were planning to go—and so she made a last try to get those photos.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“When you followed me the other night, you were looking for more of Kramer’s marks.”

“You’re crazy.”

“How does this sound, Torr? You knew Kramer had a sweet deal, and you wanted it. You were tired of being a laborer, earning whatever the hell you earned a week. You wanted the big loot. Kramer probably talked a lot about big living. You were green with envy. You got a rifle, and you got a car. And then you—”

“No!”

“You killed him,” Hawes said.

“I swear—”

“You killed him,” Carella shouted.

“No, for Christ’s sake, I—”

“YOU KILLED HIM!” Meyer bellowed.

“No, no, I swear to God. I followed you, yes, almost every one of you, yes, I hit you the other night, yes, I tried to get in on the Mencken squeeze, yes, yes, but Jesus Christ, I didn’t kill Kramer. I swear to God, I didn’t kill him.”

“You tried to extort money from Lucy Mencken?” Hawes asked.

“Yes, yes.”

“You hit me the other night?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Book him for extortion and felonious assault,” Hawes said.

Torr seemed happy it was all over.

16.

IT SEEMED EVIDENT at this point that Lucy Mencken and Edward Schlesser, the soda-pop man, had no further worries. Neither did the third, eleven-hundred-dollar mark who had contributed monthly to Kramer’s checking account. Extending this further, now that Kramer was dead and the sham extortionist Torr exposed, the big mark had nothing to fear, either. The big mark who had furnished Kramer’s apartment, bought his cars, and paid for his clothes, and then swelled his bank account to $45,000 was off the hook. Kramer was dead. No one had inherited his lucrative racket.

Everybody should have been extremely happy, and perhaps they all were. Everybody but the cops.

Kramer was dead, and someone had killed him, and that spelled homicide. And the cops still didn’t know who or why.

Every post office in the city had been checked, as well as every bank. Unless Kramer had kept a box under an unknown alias, it seemed fairly certain the documents were being kept elsewhere. Kramer was a precise man who kept bills going back as far as last September. It did not seem likely that he would have been sloppy in the matter of keeping important papers and photographs. But where?

His apartment had been searched by a crew of four detectives who worked for two days going over every inch of the place. Nancy O’Hara’s presence did not help the search. She was a mighty pretty girl, and cops are human. But the search was nonetheless a thorough one, and it turned up neither the missing documents nor a key to a possible deposit box somewhere in the city.

“I don’t know,” Carella said to Hawes. “The whole goddamn thing seems to have bogged down.”

“He’s got to have them someplace,” Hawes said.

“Where? He doesn’t belong to any clubs.”

“No.”

“He hasn’t got a summer place, just that one apartment.”

“Yes.”

“So where?”

Hawes thought for a moment. “How about the cars?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“The cars. The Caddy and the Buick.”

“You mean maybe he’s got the stuff in the trunk, or the glove compartment? Something like that?”

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t sound like Kramer,” Carella said, shaking his head. “I get the impression he was neat, careful. I don’t think he’d leave important stuff in the trunk of a car.”

“It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

Carella sighed heavily. “Anything’s worth a goddamn try,” he said. “Let’s hit the garage.”

GEORGE’S SERVICE CENTER in Isola was located three blocks away from the late Sy Kramer’s apartment. It was there that Kramer had had his cars serviced. It was also there that he had boarded them. George was a wiry little man with grease on his face.

“Let’s see your badges,” was the first thing he said.

Carella and Hawes showed their shields.

“Now we can talk,” George said.

“We want to look over Kramer’s cars,” Hawes said.

“You got a search warrant?”

“No.”

“Go get one.”

“Let’s be reasonable,” Carella said.

“Let’s,” George answered. “Is it illegal to conduct a search without a search warrant?”

“Technically, yes,” Carella said. “But it won’t take us—”

“Is it illegal to be doing thirty miles an hour in a twenty-five-mile-per-hour zone?” George asked.

“Technically, yes,” Carella said.

“Technically or otherwise, would you call it speeding?”

“I suppose so.”

“All right. I got stopped in a speed trap the other day. I’ve never sped in my life. I’m a careful driver. I was doing thirty miles an hour. Technically, I was speeding. The cop who stopped me gave me a ticket. I asked him to be reasonable. He was reasonable, all right. He gave me a ticket. You want to search those cars, go home and get a warrant. Otherwise, it’s an illegal search. I’m being as reasonable as your pal was.”

“A speeding ticket makes you a cop hater, huh?” Carella said.

“If you want to put it that way.”

“I hope nobody ever tries to hold up your gas station,” Carella answered. “Come on, Cotton. Let’s get the warrant.”

“Good day, gents,” George said, smiling.

His revenge had been sweet. It delayed a murder investigation by almost four hours.

THEY CAME BACK with the warrant at four in the afternoon on Monday, July fifteenth. George looked at the paper, nodded, and said, “The cars are inside. They’re both unlocked. The keys are in the dashes in case you want to open the trunks or the glove compartments.”

“Thanks,” Carella said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“One hand washes the other,” George said. “Tell that to your traffic cops.”

“Do you know what impeding the progress of an investigation is?”

“All I know is you had to have a warrant,” George said. He shrugged. “If you’re in such a hurry, now that you got your warrant why don’t you go look at the damn cars?”

“We will,” Carella said.

Together, he and Hawes went into the garage. The Caddy and the Buick were parked side by side. The Caddy was white, the Buick black. Together, they looked like an ad for good Scotch. Carella took the Caddy, and Hawes took the Buick. They searched the interiors of the cars with patient scrutiny. They removed the seats and looked under them. They felt along the material covering the roofs of the cars, in the hope that Kramer had inserted something between the cloth and the metal. They lifted the floor pads. They took everything out of the glove compartments and everything out of the trunks. The search of both cars took three quarters of an hour.

They found nothing.

“Well, that’s that,” Carella said.

“Mmm,” Hawes said disgustedly.

“At least I’ve been inside a Caddy,” Carella said. “That’s the closest I’ll ever get to owning one.” He studied the white convertible. “Look at that baby, will you?”

“It’s a beauty,” Hawes agreed.

“And it’s got power,” Carella said. “Have you ever seen the engine on a Caddy? It looks as if it could power a destroyer. Here, take a look at it.”

He went to the front of the car, unclasped the hood, and raised it. Hawes went over to where he was standing.

“It’s something, all right,” he said.

“Kept it clean, too,” Carella said. “A neat guy, Kramer.”

“Yeah.”

Carella was closing the hood when Hawes said, “Hold it. What’s that?”

“Huh?”

“There.”

“Where?”

“Stuck to the engine block.”

“What?”

“Lift that hood all the way up, Steve.”

Carella raised the hood, and then looked at the engine. “Oh,” he said, “that’s his extra key. It’s just a little magnetized box you stick somewhere on the car. An extra key fits into it. In case you lock yourself out of the car by accident.”

“Oh,” Hawes said, disappointed.

“Sure.” Carella reached for the commercially marketed device. “See? The key fits right into this little—” He stopped. “Cotton,” he said softly.

“What is it?”

“That’s no car key,” Carella said. “Holy God, cross your fingers!”

THE KEY STUCK to the engine of Kramer’s Cadillac convertible had the round, unmistakable yellow, numbered top of a key to a railroad-station locker. There were two big railroad stations in the city, several smaller ones, and several subway stops in which there were pay lockers. It was not necessary to visit each location in an attempt to match the key with the correct locker. Carella put in a call to the company supplying the lockers to the various spots. He gave them the number of the key on the phone, and the locker was pinpointed within five minutes. Within the half hour, Carella and Hawes were standing in front of the locker.

“Suppose there’s nothing in it?” Hawes said.

“Suppose the roof of the station caves in right this minute?” Carella said.

“It’s possible,” Hawes answered.

“Bite your tongue,” Carella said, and he inserted the key into the locker and twisted it.

There was a suitcase in the locker.

“Old clothes,” Hawes said.

“Cotton, my friend,” Carella said, “do not joke. Seriously, my friend, do not joke. I am a very high-strung nervous-type fellow.”

“A bomb, then,” Hawes said.

Carella pulled the suitcase out of the locker.

“Is it locked?”

“No.”

“Well, open it.”

“I’m trying to,” Carella said. “My damn hands are shaking.”

Patiently Hawes waited while Carella unclasped the bag. There were four big manila envelopes in it. The first envelope contained a dozen photostated copies of the letter to Schlesser from the lawyer of the man who’d drunk the mousy sarsaparilla.

“Exhibit A,” Carella said.

“Tells us nothing we don’t already know,” Hawes answered. “Open the next envelope.”

The second envelope contained two pages from the ledger of a firm called Ederle and Cranshaw, Inc. Both pages were signed by a C.P.A. named Anthony Knowles. A comparison of the ledger pages showed that the second page was a revision of the first page, and that the first page did not exactly balance. It did not exactly balance to the tune of $30,744.29. The second page balanced very neatly, thank you. Mr. Knowles, whoever he was, had robbed the firm of Ederle and Cranshaw of thirty grand, and then balanced the books to cover the deficit. Sy Kramer had, in his own mysterious way, managed to get a copy of both the original entry and the fraudulent one—and had been using both to extort money from Knowles, who was undoubtedly the $1,100-a-month mark.

“Larceny rears its ugly head,” Carella said.

“The skeleton in every closet,” Hawes said.

“We’ll have to pick up this Knowles.”

“Damn right, we’ll have to,” Hawes said. “He may be the one who done in our friend Kramer.”

But, of course, they had not yet opened the remaining two envelopes.

Envelope number three contained six negatives and prints of Lucy Mencken in an attitude close to nudity. Hawes and Carella studied them with something unlike mere professional interest.

“Nice,” Hawes said.

“Yes,” Carella answered.

“You’re a married man,” Hawes reminded him.

“She’s a married woman,” Carella said, grinning. “That makes us even.”

“Do you think she killed Kramer?”

“I don’t know,” Carella said. “But that last envelope better have a lot of answers.” He lifted it out of the suitcase. “I think it’s empty,” he said, with astonishment.

“What? You haven’t opened it. How can you—?”

“It feels so light,” Carella said.

“Open it, will you? For God’s sake!”

Carella opened the envelope.

There was a sheet of onion-skin paper in the envelope, and that was all. The sheet of paper carried a very faint typewritten carbon impression of three words. The three words were:

I SAW YOU!

17.

YOU CAN CARRY DEDUCTION only so far.

You can add two and two, and get four. And then you can subtract two from four, and get two. You can square two, and get four again. And then you can take the square root of four, and get two again—and you’re right back where you started.

There comes a time when your personal mathematics don’t mean a damn.

There comes a time, for example, like immediately after the arrest of Anthony Knowles. There comes a time when Knowles admits to the theft and the fraudulent entry in the ledger, and then comes up with a perfect alibi for the night Sy Kramer was killed.

There comes a time when you’re right back where you started, and no matter how you add the facts you always get the same answer, and the same answer is no damn good at all.

When that time comes, you play a hunch.

If you’re a cop who isn’t particularly intuitive, you’re up the creek without a paddle. Because then you can only add up the facts, and the facts come out like this: Kramer was extorting money from three known victims in various amounts, the amounts arbitrarily decided by Kramer in an attempt to make the punishment fit the crime. Three hundred bucks for putting out sarsaparilla that had flavor and body—the body of a mouse. Five hundred bucks for getting undressed—before a photographer. Eleven hundred bucks for making an erasure—to cover a theft.

Kramer had had another source of income. This unknown source had furnished his apartment, bought his cars and clothes, and filled his bank account with $45,000. The first three manila envelopes in the suitcase had dealt with Kramer’s low-income marks. The fourth envelope contained a note saying “I SAW YOU!” and this was the carbon of a note that had possibly been mailed to someone. Was the fourth envelope the clue to the big-money mark? If so, to whom had the note been mailed? And what had Kramer seen?

Facts, facts, more facts.

A man named Phil Kettering had vanished. Poof, into thin air. Why? Where was he now? Had he killed Kramer? Was he the man to whom Kramer had sent the “I SAW YOU!” note? And what, what, what the hell had Kramer seen?

Facts.

Add them up.

Two and two make four.

Or sometimes zero.

* * *

COTTON HAWES played a hunch.

He played the hunch on his own time, on one of his off duty days. If he was wrong, he didn’t want to waste the city’s time and money. If he was right, there was plenty of time to act. And even if he was right, there would still be unanswered questions. He was beginning to wish he’d signed re-enlistment papers when the war had ended. He was beginning to wish he was on the deck of a seagoing tug somewhere in the Pacific, where there was no guesswork, no suspects, no bodies.

On Wednesday morning, July seventeenth, Hawes hopped into his automobile. He did not tell anyone on the squad where he was going. He had made a fool of himself once before, when he’d first joined the Squad, and he did not wish to compound the felony by proving himself wrong another time.

Hawes crossed the River Harb. He drove on the Greentree Highway. He passed the town in which he and an anthropology student named Polly had enjoyed an evening together. The memory was sweet. He drove past Castleview Prison’s impenetrable, forbidding walls. He drove up into New York State, and he headed for the Adirondacks and Kukabonga Lodge.

Jerry Fielding recognized the car as Hawes pulled up. He came down the steps to greet him, his hand extended.

“Been hoping you’d come back,” he said. “Have any luck with Kettering yet?”

“No,” Hawes said, taking Fielding’s hand. “We can’t find him.”

“That looks bad for him, doesn’t it?”

“It looks very bad for him,” Hawes said. “Do you know these woods pretty well?”

“Like the back of my hand.”

“Want to guide me through them?”

“Going to do a little hunting?” Fielding asked.

“In a sense, yes,” Hawes said. He went to the car and took out a small travel case.

“What’s in that?”

“A pair of swimming trunks,” Hawes said. “Could you take me around the edge of the lake first?”

“Are you hot?” Fielding asked, puzzled.

“Maybe,” Hawes said. “And maybe I’m cold. We’ll know in a little while, I guess.”

Fielding nodded. “Let me get my pipe,” he said.

IT TOOK THEM AN HOUR to find the spot. The spot was close to the road and close to the lake. The new summer growth had already come in, but it was possible to see the faint traces of deep tire tracks beneath the vegetation. Hawes went to the edge of the lake and looked down into the water.

“Anything down there?” Fielding asked.

“A car,” Hawes said. He was already unbuttoning his shirt and trousers. He changed into his trunks and stood poised on the edge of the lake for a moment.

“This is a pretty deep spot,” Fielding said.

“It would have to be,” Hawes answered, and he plunged into the water. The lake closed around him. The water was very cold for July. The animal and insect sounds of the woods were suddenly cut off. He was in a silent, murky world as he dove closer to the bottom of the lake. The automobile rested on the lake bottom like the hulk of a sunken ship. Hawes seized the door handle and pulled himself to the floor of the lake. Standing erect, clinging to the handle, he tried to see into the car. It was impossible. The lake bottom was too dark. He was beginning to feel the need for air. He pushed himself off and started for the surface again.

When he came up, Fielding was waiting for him.

“Anything?”

Hawes waited while he caught his breath. “What kind car did Phil Kettering drive?” he asked.

“A Plymouth, I think,” Fielding said.

“The car down there’s a Plymouth,” Hawes said. “I can’t see into it. We’ll need an underwater light and maybe a crowbar to pry open the doors, if they’re locked. Do you swim, Fielding?”

“Like a shark.”

“Good.” Hawes came out of the water. “How many phones do you have?”

“Two. Why?”

“While you’re phoning for the gear, I’d like to call the city. I want to get a positive identification on that car. You can start with your calls, if you will. I have to go down and take a look at the license plate.”

“If you can’t see into the car, how you going to read a license plate?” Fielding asked.

“That’s a good question,” Hawes said. He nodded. “Okay, let’s get our light.”

* * *

IT OCCURRED TO HAWES while they were making the call to Griffins that they could use a lot more than a light and a crowbar. And so he ordered skin-diving equipment, complete with face masks and oxygen tanks. The equipment did not arrive until late that afternoon. He and Fielding went down to the lake again, equipped themselves, and went into the water.

Again there was the silence. Again the waters closed around the diving figures, shutting out the sounds of the real world. Hawes held the light, and Fielding held the crowbar. As they dove, Hawes kept thinking, If this is Kettering’s car, if this is Kettering’s car….

And then a new thought came to him.

If this was indeed Kettering’s car, his hunch would have been a solid one. The hunch had been simple. He had assumed that Kettering had been killed up here at Kukabonga, which was why they could find no trace of him in the city. He had never returned from the Adirondacks. He had been killed here by someone, and his body had been disposed of. The second half of the hunch was equally simple. Sy Kramer had witnessed the killing, hence the “I SAW YOU!” note. And the murderer of Phil Kettering was the person who had been paying Kramer exorbitant sums of money to protect himself—and this person had had strong motivation for the second murder, the murder of Kramer himself.

The new thought that came to Hawes was somewhat frightening.

For if Kettering had been killed at Kukabonga, and if his murderer was also the man who’d murdered Kramer, what would stop him from killing a third time?

And had not Jerry Fielding been present at Kukabonga when Phil Kettering was killed? And did not Jerry Fielding now hold a crowbar in his hands, and were both men not diving toward the bottom of a dark lake?

If the car was Phil Kettering’s, if Kettering had been killed, couldn’t Jerry Fielding—as well as any of the other men who’d been present—have killed him?

Was Hawes in the water with a murderer?

The idea chilled him. There was nothing to do but wait. He swam toward the rear end of the car. Fielding swam close behind him, the crowbar in his hands. Hawes flashed the light at the license plate. The number was 39X-1412. He repeated it silently several times, burning it into his memory. Then he motioned for Fielding to come to the door of the car. Fielding swam closer. His face behind the mask looked grotesque, evil. He did not seem to be the mild, gently speaking man Hawes had known on the surface. The crowbar in his hands seemed like a deadly weapon. Hawes flashed the light into the car. He could see nothing. He realized, though, that if Kettering were in the car, his body could be on the floor and not visible from the window. He signaled to Fielding again.

Fielding did not seem to understand. He stood motionless, the crowbar in his hands. Hawes swam around the car, trying each door. They were all locked. Then he came back around and pointed to the door near the driver’s seat.

Fielding understood and nodded. Together, they applied the crowbar into the space where door met frame. Together they tugged. Together, they pried open the door. Hawes went into the automobile. It occurred to him while he was in the car that Fielding need only slam the door shut on him, wedging it into place again. He would die inside the car as soon as his oxygen ran out. Fielding stood just outside the door now, waiting.

Hawes flashed the light over the floor, before the front seat and the back seat. The car was empty. He backed out of it, and signaled Fielding to the trunk.

Together, they attacked the lock with the crowbar, and then forced open the trunk.

The trunk was empty.

Even if this was Kettering’s car, the body of Phil Kettering was not in it.

Together, Hawes and Fielding surfaced.

Hawes wondered if he owed Fielding an apology. He said nothing. Instead, he went back to the house and called the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. They returned his call ten minutes later, telling him that the vehicle bearing the license number 39X-1412 was registered to a man named Philip Kettering who made his residence in Sand’s Spit.

Hawes thanked them and hung up. He was not a man to keep things hidden. He would need Fielding’s further help, and he wanted to know where he stood at once.

“Don’t get sore at me,” he said.

“You think I did it?” Fielding asked.

“I don’t know. Kettering’s car is at the bottom of the lake, and we can’t find Kettering or his body. My hunch is that it’s buried someplace in those woods, somewhere near where the car entered the lake. My hunch is that somebody at this lodge killed Kettering and was seen by Kramer. Kramer began his extortion and signed his own death warrant. Those are my hunches.”

“And I was here when Kettering got it—if he got it. Right?”

“Right.”

“It’s your job,” Fielding said. “I understand.”

“Okay. Where were you on the morning Kettering went into those woods alone—the morning he allegedly left the lodge?”

“I was here until all the men had had their breakfast,” Fielding answered. “Then I drove into Griffins.”

“What for?”

“Groceries.”

“Will they remember your being there?”

“I was there all morning, stocking up. I’m sure they’ll remember. If they don’t, they can check the carbon of their bill. It’ll tell them what date I made the purchases. I always go into Griffins in the morning. If they’ve got a copy of the bill, they’ll know I was there that morning, all morning. I couldn’t possibly have had the time to kill Kettering, shove his car into the lake and then bury him.”

“Will you make the call?” Hawes asked.

“I’ll dial it. You can talk to the proprietor. His name’s Pete Canby. Just tell him what it’s all about.”

“What date did Kettering leave here?” Hawes asked.

“It was a Wednesday morning,” Fielding said. “Let me check my records.”

When he came back from his office, he said, “September fifth. I’ll call Pete, and you can talk to him.”

Fielding called the grocery store, and Hawes talked to the owner. Canby looked up his bills. Jerry Fielding had indeed been in Griffins all morning on the morning of September fifth. Hawes hung up.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay,” Fielding said. “It’s your job. A man’s got to do his job. Shall we go look for that grave now?”

They looked hard, but they did not find a grave.

Cotton Hawes drove back to the city with another idea, an idea that would almost cost his life.

HIS MURDERER WAS one of three men, that much he knew.

Frank Ruther, Joaquim Miller, or John Murphy.

He did not know which one nor, with Kramer dead and Kettering’s body probably irretrievably buried in the Adirondack wilds, was he likely to find out which one unless he tried a gamble. He was basing his gamble on Lucy Mencken’s reactions to the fake extortionist Torr. Torr had called her with nothing but a threat, and Lucy Mencken had been willing to do business, accepting the lie that someone else had taken over from Kramer.

Hawes hoped the murderer would react in much the same way that Lucy Mencken had reacted. If his gamble worked, he would have his man. If it didn’t, he had lost nothing and he’d find another way to pinpoint him—he hoped. He made several mistakes in reasoning, however, and those mistakes were what almost cost him his life. One of the mistakes was not letting the rest of the squad in on his plan.

He did not get back to the city until four in the morning. He checked in at the Parker Hotel in midtown Isola, using the false name of David Gorman. From the hotel, and using the phone in the hotel room, he sent three identical wires. One wire went to Ruther, one to Miller, and one to Murphy. The wires read:

I KNOW ABOUT KETTERING. AM READY TO TALK BUSINESS. COME TO PARKER HOTEL, ISOLA, ROOM 1612, AT TWELVE NOON TODAY. I WILL BE THERE. COME ALONE.

DAVID GORMAN

The wires went out at 4:13 A.M. At 4:30 A.M., in all fairness to Hawes, he did call the squad on the off-chance that Carella might be catching. He was not. Meyer Meyer answered the phone.

“Eighty-seventh Squad,” he said. “Detective Meyer.”

“Meyer, this is Cotton. Steve around?”

“No,” Meyer said. “He’s home. What’s up?”

“Will he be coming in this morning?”

“Eight o’clock, I think. Want me to give him a message?”

“Tell him to call me at the Parker Hotel as soon as he gets in, will you?”

“Sure,” Meyer said. “What’s the broad’s name?”

“I’m in Room 1612,” Hawes said.

“I’ll tell him.”

“Thanks,” Hawes said, and he hung up.

There was nothing to do now but wait.

In his mind, Hawes stacked up the attributes of the three suspects. None was an expert shot, but you didn’t have to be an expert shot to hit a man at eight feet with a hunting rifle. Murphy was possibly the least likely suspect for a man with a deadly aim—but Murphy was an excellent driver, and the man who’d shot Kramer had been driving a car. Each of the suspects could possibly have paid Kramer the huge sum of money he’d received before his death. Ruther had inherited money, which he said he’d piddled away. He could just as easily have paid it to Kramer. Miller was a land speculator who said he’d made a thirty-thousand-dollar profit. He could easily have made more. Murphy was a retired broker with a fine home and money to throw away on every club in sight, not to mention the upkeep of a Porsche kept in racing condition. He, too, could afford to pay Kramer.

They all looked fairly good.

They all had been in the woods on the morning Kettering allegedly left Kukabonga Lodge.

Any one of the three could have killed Kettering and Kramer.

There was nothing to do but wait. Eventually a knock would sound on the door, and Hawes would open it on the murderer. It was only a matter of time. He had set twelve noon as the appointed hour. He looked at his watch now. It was 5:27 A.M. There was lots of time. He took his gun out of his shoulder rig and put it on the table alongside an easy chair. Then he curled up in the chair and fell asleep.

The knock came sooner than he expected.

He came up out of sleep, rubbed his fists into his eyes, and then looked at his watch. It was 9:00 A.M. The room was flooded with sunlight. There were still three hours to go.

“Who is it,” he asked.

“Bellhop,” the voice answered.

He went to the door and opened it, leaving his gun on the table.

The door opened on his murderer.

All three of them.

18.

EACH OF THE THREE MEN was holding a gun.

“Inside,” Ruther said.

“Quick!” Murphy said.

“Don’t make a sound,” Miller warned.

The expression on Hawes’s face was one of complete shock. The men moved into the room swiftly and soundlessly. Miller locked the door. Murphy went to the window and pulled down the shade. Ruther’s eyes flicked to Hawes’s empty shoulder holster.

“Where’s your gun?” he asked.

Hawes gestured to the table with his head.

“Get it, John,” Miller said to Murphy. The old man walked to the table and picked up the gun. He tucked it into his waistband.

“We didn’t expect you, Mr. Hawes,” Ruther said. “We thought there really was a man named David Gorman. Does anyone know—?”

The telephone rang. Hawes hesitated.

“Answer it,” Ruther said.

“What shall I say?”

“Does anyone know you’re here?” Miller asked.

“No,” Hawes lied.

“Then it’s probably the desk. Just speak normally. Answer whatever they ask. No nonsense.”

Hawes lifted the receiver. “Hello?” he said.

“Cotton? This is Steve,” Carella said.

“Yes, this is Room 1612,” Hawes answered.

“What?”

“This is Mr. Hawes speaking,” he said.

Carella paused for a moment. Hawes could almost feel a mental shrug on the line. Then Carella said, “Okay, this is Room 1612, and this Mr. Hawes speaking. Now, what’s the gag?”

“Yes, I did order breakfast,” Hawes said. “Not ten minutes ago.”

“What?” Carella asked. “Listen, Cotton—”

“I’ll repeat the order if you like,” Hawes said, “but I don’t see why…All right, all right. I ordered juice, coffee, and toast. Yes, that was all.”

“Is this Cotton Hawes?” Carella asked, completely bewildered.

“Yes.”

“Well, what—?”

Hawes covered the mouthpiece. “They want to send up the breakfast I ordered,” he said. “Is it all right?”

“No,” Ruther said.

“Let them,” Murphy suggested. “We don’t want them to think anything strange is going on up here.”

“He’s right, Frank,” Miller said.

“All right, tell them to send it up. No tricks.”

Hawes uncovered the mouthpiece. “Hello?” he said.

“Cotton,” Carella said patiently, “I just got in to the office. I had a stop to make first, so I just got in. Meyer left a message on my desk. He said to call you at the Parker Hotel and—”

“Come right up,” Hawes said.

“Huh?”

“Bring it right up. The room is 1612.”

“Cotton, have you—?”

“I’ll be waiting,” Hawes said, and he hung up.

“What did he say?” Ruther asked.

“He said they’d send it right up.”

“How soon?”

Quickly Hawes calculated how long it would take a car with its siren blasting to get to the hotel from the squad. “No more than fifteen minutes,” he said, and then immediately wished he had made it a half hour. Suppose Carella had not understood him?

“I only expected one of you,” Hawes said. He had quickly reasoned that he was safe until after the alleged bellhop arrived with his alleged breakfast. But if the bellhop did not arrive, how long would these men wait? The thing to do was to keep them talking. When a man is talking, he is not conscious of the time.

“We should have figured that,” Ruther said. “The ‘come alone’ in your wires was very puzzling. If you knew about Kettering, you should have known there were three of us. Why, then, the ‘come alone’ line? We assumed you meant the three of us alone, no cops. We assumed wrong, didn’t we?”

“Yes,” Hawes said.

“Do you know about Kettering?”

“I know his car is at the bottom of the lake at Kukabonga, and I figure he’s buried in the woods someplace. What else is there to know?”

“There’s a lot more to know,” Miller said.

“Why’d you kill him?” Hawes asked.

“It was an—” Miller started, and Ruther turned to him sharply.

“Shut up, Joaquim!” he warned.

“What difference does it make?” Miller asked. “Are you forgetting why we came here?”

“He’s right, Frank,” Murphy said. “What difference does it make?” The old man looked ludicrous with one gun in his hand and another tucked into his waistband. He looked somewhat like the senile marshal of a cleaned-out once-tough Western town.

“Why’d you kill Kettering?” Hawes repeated.

Miller looked to Ruther for permission. Ruther nodded.

“It was an accident,” Miller said. “He was shot accidentally.”

“Who shot him?”

“We don’t know,” Miller said. “The three of us were hunting together. We spotted what we thought was a fox, and we all fired simultaneously. The fox turned out to be Kettering. We heard him scream. He was dead when we got to him. We didn’t know whose bullet had hit him.”

“It wasn’t mine,” Murphy said flatly.

“You don’t know that, John,” Ruther said.

“I do know it. I was shooting a .300 Savage, and you were both using twenty-twos. If my shot had hit him, it would have torn a—”

“You don’t know, John,” Ruther repeated.

“I do know, damnit. Kettering was killed by one of those twenty-twos.”

“Why didn’t you say so at the time?”

“I couldn’t think straight. You know that. None of us could.”

“What happened?” Hawes asked.

“We were in the middle of the woods with a dead man,” Miller said. His upper lip was beaded with perspiration now. Caught in the grip of total recall, his words came haltingly, with difficulty. “The woods were still; there wasn’t a sound. We were hardly breathing. Do you remember, Frank? Do you remember how quiet the woods went after Kettering’s scream?”

“Yes,” Ruther said. “Yes.”

“We stood around the body, the three of us, in those silent woods.”

And all at once, Hawes was there with them, standing over a man one of them had shot, standing over a dead man, with the woods gone suddenly still, as still as the man at their feet. And he realized, too, that the men were back there in the Adirondacks, playing out a scene they had lived, playing it with fresh emotion, as if it were happening to them for the first time.

“We didn’t know what to do,” Miller said.

“I wanted to report it to the authorities,” Murphy said.

“But how could we do that?” Ruther asked. “He was dead! Goddamnit, you knew he was dead.”

“But it was an accident.”

“What difference does that make? How many men get hanged because of accidents?”

“We should have reported it.”

“We couldn’t!” Miller said. “Suppose they didn’t believe us? Suppose they thought we shot him purposely?”

“They’d have believed us.”

“And even if they did,” Ruther said, “what would a scandal have done to my business?”

“And my job,” Miller said.

“Our pictures would have been in every tabloid. And there’d always be the doubt, and the knowledge that one of us had killed a man. How could we have lived with that?”

“We should have reported it,” Murphy insisted.

“We did the right thing,” Miller said. “No one had seen us. There was no one to know.”

“It wasn’t murder. We should have—”

“He was dead, damnit, dead! Did you want policemen and reporters barging in on your life? Did you want a living hell? Did you want everything you’d worked for ruined because of a goddamn senseless accident? If the man was dead, how were we harming him further? We knew he was single, we knew his only family was a sister he didn’t get along with. What else was there to do? Ruin our own lives because of a dead man? Take a chance that the law would be lenient? We did the right thing. We did the only thing. It was the only way.”

“I suppose,” Murphy said, and perhaps the argument in the woods had ended the same way, ended with the same false logic, the logic of three panic-stricken men faced with a problem that seemed to have but one solution.

“We buried him,” Miller said. “And then we released the brake on his car, locked the doors, and rolled it into the lake. We didn’t think anyone had seen us. We were sure we were alone in the woods.”

“You should have reported it,” Hawes said. “At worst, it was second-degree manslaughter, punishable by not more than fifteen years or a fine of one thousand dollars, or both. At best, it was excusable homicide. An accidental shooting. You might have got off scot-free.”

“There wasn’t time to consult a lawyer, Mr. Hawes,” Rather said. “There was only time for action, and we acted the way we thought best. I don’t know what you would have done.”

“I’d have reported it,” Hawes said.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. It’s easy for you to coldly say you would have reported it. You were not standing there with the rifle in your hand, and the dead man at your feet—the way we were. Decisions are always easy to make from armchairs. We had a decision to make, and we had to make it fast. Have you ever killed a man, Mr. Hawes?”

“No,” Hawes said.

“Then don’t make statements about what you’d have done or not done. We did what seemed like the only thing to do at the time.”

“We thought it was murder, don’t you understand?” Miller said.

“I told you we should report it,” Murphy said. “I told you. No! You both insisted. Cowards! I shouldn’t have listened to cowards! I shouldn’t have listened to frightened men!”

“You’re in this, so shut up!” Miller snapped. “How could we have known we were being watched?”

“Kramer,” Hawes said.

“Yes,” Ruther answered. “Kramer, the bastard.”

“When did you get his ‘I SAW YOU!’ note?”

“The day we got back home.”

“What then?”

“He followed it with a phone call. We met him in Isola one day last September. He said he considered us equally guilty of murder. He had seen the shooting, seen the burial, and seen the disposal of Kettering’s car. And since he held us equally guilty and since, he said, we were equally guilty in the eyes of the law, he expected equal payments from each of us. He demanded thirty-six thousand dollars—twelve thousand from each of us.”

“That explains the buying spree in September. What then?”

“In October he came to us with another demand,” Ruther said. “He wanted an additional ten thousand from each of us, thirty thousand in all. He said that would be the last demand he would make. We couldn’t raise the money all at once, so he agreed to take it in two payments, one in October and the next in January. We raised twenty-one thousand in October, and we paid the remaining nine thousand in January.”

“We should have known,” Hawes said. “Every damn deposit in that bankbook was an odd number divisible by three. We should have realized. What about that April deposit? The fifteen-thousand-dollar one?”

“We didn’t hear from him all through the winter. We really began to believe his thirty-thousand-dollar demand was the last one,” Murphy said. “Then, in April, he called again. He wanted another fifteen thousand. He swore this would be the last payment. We raised the fifteen thousand.”

“Was it the last payment?”

“No,” Miller said. “If it had been, Kramer would still be alive. He called again in June, the beginning of June. He wanted another fifteen thousand. That was when we decided to kill him.”

“He was bleeding us!” Ruther shouted. “I’ve just begun to get my agency on its feet. I was pouring every damn cent I’d earned into Kramer’s bank account!”

“If homicide is ever considered justifiable,” Miller said, “the murder of Sy Kramer was justifiable.”

Hawes did not comment. “How’d you do it?” he asked.

“Where’s that breakfast?” Ruther wanted to know.

“It’ll be here. Tell me how you got Kramer.”

“We followed him for a month,” Murphy said. “We took shifts. We worked out a timetable. We knew exactly where he went at what hours. We knew his life better than he did.”

“We had to,” Ruther explained. “We were planning to take it from him.”

“Then?” Hawes said.

“On the night of June twenty-sixth we bought a .300 Savage.”

“Why that gun?”

“First, because we had some silly notion of disfiguring Kramer beyond recognition. Second, because I own a Savage,” Murphy said. “We thought if you ever got around to checking guns we owned, you’d eliminate mine and eliminate me as a suspect at the same time.”

“Who fired the gun?” Hawes asked.

The men remained silent.

“You were acting in concert,” Hawes said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“The best shot among us fired the gun,” Ruther said. “Let’s leave it that way.”

“Did Murphy drive the car?”

“Yes, of course,” Murphy said. “I’m an excellent driver.”

“What did the third man do?”

“He was at the back window with an auxiliary rifle. We didn’t want to fire from two different guns unless the first shot missed. We wanted it to appear as if one person had done the killing.”

“You damn near succeeded,” Hawes said.

“We have succeeded,” Ruther answered.

“Maybe, and maybe not. A lot of people are on this case. Adding another homicide to it isn’t going to help your chances any.”

“Will it hurt them any? First-degree murder is first-degree murder. You can only burn in the electric chair once.”

“Where’s the breakfast?” Miller asked.

“What did you do with the rifle you used?” Hawes asked back. A good twenty minutes had passed since Carella’s call. Facing the possibility that Carella would never arrive, Hawes began sizing up the men in the room.

“We did just what you thought we did,” Ruther said.

“We disassembled it and buried the parts in separate locations.”

“I see,” Hawes said. Murphy was obviously the weakest link. He was an old man who couldn’t shoot straight, and he was carrying two guns. Hawes noticed for the first time that the only gun in the room that was not carrying a silencer was his own gun, the gun tucked into Murphy’s waistband.

“Did you just buy these guns?” Hawes asked.

“They’re part of my collection,” Murphy said. “We’ll bury them, too, after we use them.”

“For a guy who’s innocent all the way down the line,” Hawes lied, “you’re sure joining a sucker’s game, Murphy.”

“You just finished saying we had acted in concert when we killed Kramer,” Murphy said. “I’m an old man, mister. Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes.”

“You must be old,” Hawes said.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You’re covering me with an automatic that has the safety on!”

“What?” Murphy said. His eyes flicked downward only momentarily, but that was all the time Hawes needed. He flung himself across the room at Murphy, his left hand crashing down onto Murphy’s right wrist.

He heard the puffing whisper of a silenced gun being triggered as he hit the old man full in the face, knocking him to the floor. He saw the chunk of wood erupt from the floor not six inches from his head. And then Murphy’s gun was in his hand, and Hawes threw himself flat on the floor and fired. The gun made hardly any sound at all. The scene was being played with deadly cold ruthlessness, but it was being played in paradoxical whispers. His first shot dropped Ruther. There were two down now, and one to go.

Miller backed off against the door, leveling his pistol.

“Drop it, Miller!” Hawes shouted. “I’m shooting to kill!”

Miller hesitated a moment, and then dropped the gun. Hawes kicked the gun to one side and then whirled on Murphy. The old man was unconscious, incapable of drawing the fourth gun from his waistband.

Frank Ruther, sitting on the floor clutching his bleeding shoulder, shouted, “Why didn’t you shoot him, you fool? Why didn’t you shoot him?”

And Miller, standing wearily and dejectedly, answered, “I’m a lousy shot. You know that, Frank. I’m a lousy shot.”

It was then that the door burst inward.

Steve Carella lowered his leg from the flat-footed kick that had sprung the lock. His service revolver was in his right hand. He looked around the room quickly. Then he shrugged.

“All over?” he asked.

“Including the shooting,” Hawes said.

“These our birds?”

“Um-huh,” Hawes said.

“The Kramer kill?”

“Um-huh.”

“Um,” Carella said.

“You sure must have broken a lot of traffic regulations getting here,” Hawes said. “Boy, what speed!”

“I thought you were nuts when I first spoke to you on the phone,” Carella said. “It took me about five minutes to realize you were in trouble. I thought my call had broken in on you and a girl.”

“You’ve got an evil mind.”

“Turns out you didn’t need me, anyway,” Carella said. Again he shrugged.

“If you’d got to the squad at eight, when you were supposed to,” Hawes said, “you could have been here in time for the party.”

“I had a stop to make first,” Carella said. “I went there from my house, and then I went to the squad.”

“Where was that?”

“Lucy Mencken’s place.”

“What for?” Hawes asked suspiciously.

“I gave her half a dozen pictures and negatives. I didn’t like the idea of somebody living in fear for the rest of her life.”

“Was she appreciative?” Hawes asked.

“We cooked hot rum toddies over the fire the stuff made. It was very cozy.”

Hawes raised one eyebrow.

“Now who has the evil mind?” Carella asked.

Hawes made a rule of never replying to accusations that were true. He walked to the phone, lifted the receiver, and waited for an operator. When the operator came on, he said, “Frederick 7-8024, please.”

Carella was busily handcuffing Miller to Murphy.

All at once, Hawes felt very sleepy. He yawned.

“Don’t go to sleep on us, Cotton,” Carella said. “There’s a lot of work to be done.”

Hawes yawned again and then watched Carella as he walked to the window and lifted the shade. Sunlight spilled into the hotel room.

“Eighty-seventh Precinct, Sergeant Murchison,” a voice said.

“Dave, this is Cotton. I’m at the Parker Hotel in Isola. I’ll need a meat wagon and some…”

Murchison listened patiently, taking notes. Across the street from the station house, he could hear the kids playing in Grover Park. He wished he were a park attendant on a day like this. When Hawes finished talking, Murchison cut the connection. He was about to order the ambulance and the uniformed cops Hawes had requested when the lights on the switchboard began blinking again.

Murchison sighed and plugged in his socket.

“Eighty-seventh Precinct,” he said, “Sergeant Murchison.”

Another day had started.

SIMON & SCHUSTER PROUDLY PRESENTS

FAT OLLIE’S BOOK

ED McBAIN

Coming soon in hardcover from Simon & Schuster

Turn the page for a preview of Fat Ollie’s Book….

1

RESPONSE TIME —from the moment someone at the Martin Luther King Memorial Hall dialed 911 to the moment Car 81, in the Eight-Eight’s Boy sector rolled up—was exactly four minutes and twenty-six seconds. Whoever had fired the shots was long gone by then, but a witness outside the Hall had seen someone running from the alleyway on its eastern end and he was eager to tell the police and especially the arriving TV crew all about it.

The witness was very drunk.

In this neighborhood, when you heard shots, you ran. In this neighborhood, if you saw someone running, you knew he wasn’t running to catch a bus. This guy wasn’t running. Instead, he was struggling to keep his balance, wobbling from one foot to the other. Nine, ten in the morning, whatever the hell it was already, and he could hardly stand up and he stunk like a distillery. He finally sat on one of the garbage cans in the alley. Behind him, rain water from a gutter dripped into a leader and flowed into an open sewer grate.

Slurring his words, the drunk immediately told the responding officers from Car 81 that he was a Vietnam vet, mistakenly believing this would guarantee him a measure of respect. The blues saw only a scabby old black drunk wearing tattered fatigue trousers, an olive-drab tank top, and scuffed black penny loafers without socks. He was having trouble not falling off the garbage can, too. Grabbing for the wall, he told them he’d been about to go into the alley here, yessir, when he saw this guy come bustin out of it…

“Turned left on St. Sab’s,” he said, “went runnin off uptown.”

“Why were you going in the alley?” one of the blues asked.

“To look inna garbage cans there.”

“For what?”

“Bottles,” he said. “Takes ’em back for deposit, yessir.”

“And you say you saw somebody running out of the alley here?” the other blue asked. He was wondering why they were wasting time with this old drunk. They’d responded in swift order, but if they wasted any more time with him, their sergeant would think they’d been laggard. Then again, the TV cameras were rolling.

“Came out the alley like a bat out of shit,” the drunk said, much to the dismay of the roving reporter from Channel Four, a pretty blonde wearing a short brown mini and a tan cotton turtleneck sweater. The camera was in tight on the man’s face at that moment, and the word “shit” meant they couldn’t use the shot unless they bleeped it out. Her program manager didn’t like to bleep out too many words because that smacked of censorship instead of fair and balanced reporting. On the other hand, the drunk was great comic relief. The Great Unwashed loved drunks. Put a drunk scene in a movie or a play, the audience still laughed themselves to death. If they only knew how many battered wives Honey had interviewed.

“What’d he look like?” the first blue asked, mindful of the TV cameras and trying to sound like an experienced investigator instead of a rookie who’d just begun patrol duty eight months ago.

“Young dude,” the witness said.

“White, black, Hispanic?” the first blue asked, rapping the words out in a manner that he was sure would go over big with TV audiences, unmindful of the fact that the camera was on the witness and not himself.

“White kid,” the witness said, “yessir. Wearin jeans and a whut chu call it, a ski parka, an’ white sneakers an’ a black cap with a big peak. Man, he was movin fast. Almost knocked me down.”

“Did he have a gun?”

“I dinn see no gun.”

“Gun in his hand, anything like that?”

“No gun, nosir.”

“Okay, thanks,” the first blue said.

“This is Honey Blair,” the Channel Four reporter said, “coming to you from outside King Memorial in Diamond-back.” She slit her throat with the forefinger of her left hand, said, “That’s it, boys,” and turned to her crew chief. “Get him to sign a release, will you?” she said. “I’m heading inside.” She was walking toward the glass entrance doors when the Vietnam vet, if indeed that’s what he was, asked, “Is they a reward?”

Why didn’t you say that on the air? Honey thought.

THIS WAS, and is, and always will be the big bad city.

That will never change, Ollie thought. Never.

And never was it badder than during the springtime. Flowers were blooming everywhere, even in the 88th Precinct, which by the way was no rose garden.

Detective/First Grade Oliver Wendell Weeks had good reason to be smiling on this bright April morning. He had just finished his book. Not finished reading it, mind you, but finished writing it. He was still rereading the last chapter, which was back at the apartment. He didn’t think it would need any more work, but the last chapter was often the most important one, he had learned, and he wanted to make sure it was just right. He was now transporting the positively perfect portion of the book to a copying shop not far from the Eight-Eight.

He wondered if the sun was shining and the flowers were blooming next door in the 87th Precinct. He wondered if it was springtime in the Rockies, or in London, or in Paris or Rome, or in Istanbul, wherever that was. He wondered if flowers bloomed all over the world when a person finished his first work of fiction. Now that he was a bona fide writer in his own mind, Ollie could ponder such deep imponderables.

His book, which was titled Report to the Commissioner, was securely nestled in a dispatch case that rested on the back seat of the car Ollie drove hither and yon around this fair city, one of the perks of being a minion of the law, ah yes. The windows of the Chevy sedan were open wide to the breezes that flowed from river to river. It was 10:30 on a lovely sunlit Monday morning. Ollie had signed in at 7:50 (five minutes late, but who was counting?), had taken care of some odds-and-ends bullshit on his desk, and was now on his way to the copying shop on Culver Avenue, not four blocks from the station house. So far, the day—

“10-40, 10-40…”

The dash radio.

Rapid mobilization.

“King Memorial, St. Sebastian and South Thirtieth, man with a gun. 10-40, 10-40, King Memorial…”

Ollie hit the hammer.

HE PARKED ILLEGALLY at the curb outside the Martin Luther King Memorial Hall, flipped down the visor on the driver’s side to show the card announcing Police Department authorization, locked the car, flashed the blue-and-gold tin at a uniformed grunt who was already approaching with a scowl and an attitude, said, “Weeks, Eighty-eighth Squad,” and barged right past him and the roaming television teams that were already thrusting microphones at anyone within range. He kept using his detective’s shield like a real warrior’s shield, holding it up to any barbarian who rose in his path, striding through the glass doors at the front of the building, and then into the marble entrance lobby, and then into the auditorium itself, where a handful of brass were already on the scene, had to be something important went down here.

“Well, well, if it isn’t The Large Man,” a voice said.

Once upon a time, Ollie’s sister Isabelle had referred to him as “large,” which he knew was a euphonium for “obese.” He had not taken it kindly. In fact, he had not bought her a birthday present that year. Ollie knew that there were colleagues in this city who called him “Fat Ollie,” but he took it as a measure of respect that they never called him this to his face. “Large Man” came close, though. He was ready to take serious offense when he recognized Detectives Monoghan and Monroe of the Homicide Division, already on the scene, and looking like somewhat stout penguins themselves. So someone had been aced. Big deal. Here in the Eight-Eight, it sometimes felt like someone got murdered every ten seconds. Monoghan was the one who’d called him “The Large Man.” Monroe was standing beside him, grinning as if in agreement. A pair of bookends in black—the color of death, the unofficial color of Homicide—the two jackasses were the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of law enforcement. Ollie wanted to punch them both in the mouth.

“Who got it?” he asked.

“Lester Henderson.”

“You kidding me?”

“Would we kid a master detective?” Monoghan said.

“A super sleuth?” Monroe said, still grinning.

“Stick it up your ass,” Ollie explained. “Anybody else from the Eight-Eight here?”

“You’re the first.”

“Then that puts me in charge,” Ollie said.

In this city, the appearance of Homicide detectives at the scene of any murder was mandatory if not necessary. Presumably, they were here in an “advisory and supervisory capacity,” which meant they only got in the way of the precinct detectives who caught the squeal. Since Ollie was the so-called First Man Up, the case was his. All he had to do was file his reports in triplicate with Homicide, and then go his merry way. He did not think he needed to remind the M&Ms that this was a fact of police life in this fair metropolis, ah yes. They knew full well that except on television, the glory days of Homicide were long gone.

The dead man lay on his back in a disorganized heap alongside a podium draped with red, white, and blue bunting. A sign above the podium read LESTER MEANS LAW. Ollie didn’t know what that meant. The dead man was wearing blue jeans, brown loafers without socks, and a pink crewneck cotton sweater. The front of the sweater was blotted with blood.

“So what happened?” Ollie asked.

“He got shot from the wings,” Monroe said. “They were setting up for the big rally tonight…”

“Who was setting up?”

“His people.”

“All these people here?”

“All these people.”

“Too many people,” Ollie said.

“Is right.”

“What rally?”

“Big fund raiser. Putting up lights, American flags, cameras, bunting, the whole shmear.”

“So?”

“So somebody fired half a dozen shots from the wings there.”

“Is that an accurate count, or are you guessing?”

“That’s what his aide told us. Five, six shots, something like that.”

“His aide? Who’s that?”

“Guy with all those reporters over there.”

“Who let them in?”

“They were already here when we responded,” Monroe said.

“Terrific security,” Ollie said. “What’s the aide’s name?”

“Alan Pierce.”

The corpse lay in angular disarray, surrounded now by the Mobile Lab techs and the Medical Examiner, who was kneeling beside the dead man and delicately lifting his pink cotton sweater. Not fifteen feet from this concerned knot of professionals, a man wearing blue jeans similar to the dead man’s, and a blue denim shirt, and black loafers with blue socks stood at the center of a moving mass of reporters wielding pencils and pads, microphones, and flash cameras. A tall, slender man, who looked as if he jogged and swam and lifted weights and watched his calories—all the things Ollie considered a waste of time—Pierce appeared pale and stunned but nonetheless in control of the situation. Like a bunch of third graders waving their hands for a bathroom pass, the reporters swarmed around him.

“Yes, Honey?” Pierce said, and a cute little blonde with a short skirt showing plenty of leg and thigh thrust a microphone in Pierce’s face. Ollie recognized her as Honey Blair, the roving reporter for the Eleven O’Clock News.

“Can you tell us if it’s true that Mr. Henderson had definitely decided to run for the Mayor’s office?” she asked.

“I did not have a chance to discuss that with him before…before this happened,” Pierce said. “I can say that he met with Governor Carson’s people this weekend, and that was the main reason we flew upstate.”

“We’ve heard rumors that you yourself have your eye on City Hall,” Honey said. “Is that so?”

“This is the first I’m hearing of it,” Pierce said.

Me, too, Ollie thought. But that’s very interesting, Mr. Pierce.

Honey would not let it go.

“Well, had you planned on running for Deputy Mayor? Assuming Mr. Henderson ran for Mayor?”

“He and I never discussed that. Yes, David?”

A man Ollie had seen a few times here and there around City Hall shoved a microphone at Pierce.

“Sir,” he said, “can you tell us where you were when Mr. Henderson…?”

“That’s it, thank you very much,” Ollie said, and strolled into the crowd. Flashing his shield like a proud father exhibiting a photograph of his firstborn, he said, “This is all under control here, let’s go home, okay?” and then signaled to one of the blues to get this mob out of here. Grumbling, the reporters allowed themselves to be herded offstage. Ollie stepped into Honey’s path just as she was turning to go, and said, “Hey, what’s your hurry? No hello?”

She looked at him, puzzled.

“Oliver Weeks,” he said. “The Eighty-eighth Precinct. Remember the zoo? The lady getting eaten by lions? Christ-mastime?”

“Oh yes,” Honey said without the slightest interest, and turned again to go.

“Stick around,” Ollie said. “We’ll have coffee later.”

“Thanks, I have a deadline,” she said, and followed her tits offstage.

Ollie showed Pierce his shield. “Detective Weeks,” he said, “Eighty-eighth Squad. Sorry to interrupt the conference, sir, but I’d rather you told us what you saw and heard.”

“Yes, of course,” Pierce said.

“You were here when Mr. Henderson got shot, is that it?”

“I was standing right alongside him.”

“Did you see the shooter?”

“No, I did not.”

“You told the other detectives the shots came from the wings.”

“That’s what it seemed like, yes.”

“Oh? Have you changed your mind about that?”

“No, no. I still think they came from the wings.”

“But you didn’t see the shooter.”

“No, I did not.”

“Guy fired five, six shots, you didn’t see him.”

“No.”

“How come?”

“I ducked when I heard the first shot.”

“I woulda done the same thing,” Ollie said understandingly. “How about the second shot?”

“Lester was falling. I tried to catch him. I wasn’t looking into the wings.”

“And all the other shots?”

“I was kneeling over Lester. I heard someone running off, but I didn’t see anything. There was a lot of confusion, you know.”

“Were you planning to run for Deputy Mayor?”

“I wasn’t asked to do so. I was only Lester’s aide.”

“What does that mean, anyway?” Ollie asked. “Being an aide?”

“Like his right hand man,” Pierce said.

“Sort of like a secretary?”

“More like an assistant.”

“So you don’t have any political aspirations, is that correct?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then you do?”

“I wouldn’t be in politics if I didn’t have political aspirations.”

“Excuse me, Alan,” a voice said.

Ollie turned to see a slight and narrow, precise little man wearing a blue blazer, a red tie, a white shirt, gray slacks, gray socks, and black loafers. Ever since the terrorist bombing at Clarendon Hall, everybody in this city dressed like an American flag. Ollie figured half of them were faking it.

“We’re having a conversation here,” he said.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I wanted to ask…”

“You know this man?” Ollie asked Pierce.

“Yes, he’s our press rep. Josh Coogan.”

“Excuse me, Alan,” Coogan said, “but I was wondering if I should get back to headquarters. I know there’ll be hundreds of calls…”

“No, this is a crime scene,” Ollie said. “Stick around.”

Coogan looked flustered for a moment. He was maybe twenty-four, twenty-five years old, but he suddenly looked like a high school kid who hadn’t done his assignment and had got called on while he was trying to catch a nap. Ollie didn’t have much sympathy for politicians, but all at once this seemed very sad here, two guys who all at once didn’t know what to do with themselves. He almost felt like taking them out for a beer. Instead, he said, “Were you here in the hall when all this happened, Mr. Coogan?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Where in the hall?”

“In the balcony.”

“What were you doing up there?”

“Listening to sound checks.”

“While you were listening to these sound checks, did you happen to hear the sound of a gun going off?”

“Yes.”

“In the balcony?”

“No.”

“Then where?”

“From somewhere down below.”

“Where down below?”

“The stage.”

“Which side of the stage?”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“Right or left?”

“I really couldn’t tell.”

“Was anyone with you up there in the balcony?”

“No, I was alone.”

“Incidentally, Mr. Pierce,” Ollie said, turning to him, “did I hear you tell those reporters you went upstate with Mr. Henderson?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Where upstate?”

“The capital.”

“When?”

“We flew up together on Saturday morning. I’m his aide. I was his aide,” he said, correcting himself.

“Did you fly back together, too?”

“No. I left on Sunday morning. Caught a seven A.M. plane.”

“So he spent all day Sunday up there alone, is that it?”

“Yes,” Pierce said. “Alone.”

“You the detective in charge here?” the ME asked.

“I am,” Ollie said.

“Your cause of death is gunshot wounds to the chest.”

Big revelation, Ollie thought.

“You can move him out whenever you like. We may find some surprises at the morgue, but I doubt it. Good luck.”

Monoghan was walking over with a man wearing a red bandana tied across his forehead, high-topped workman’s shoes, and bib overalls showing naked muscular arms, the left one tattooed on the bicep with the words SEMPER FIDELIS.

“Weeks, this is Charles Mastroiani, man in charge of decorating the hall here, you might want to talk to him.”

“No relation to Marcello,” Mastroiani promptly told Ollie, which was a total waste since Ollie didn’t know who the hell he was talking about. “My company’s called Festive, Inc.,” he said, exuding a sense of professional pride and enthusiasm that was all too rare in today’s workplace. “We’re listed in the city’s yellow pages under ‘Decoration Contractors.’ What we do is we supply everything you need for a special occasion. I’m not talking about a wedding or a bar-mitzvah, those we leave to the caterers. Festive operates on a much larger scale. Dressing the stage here at King Memorial is a good example. We supplied the bunting, the balloons, the banners, the audio equipment, the lighting, everything. We would’ve supplied a band, too, if it was called for, but this wasn’t that kind of affair. As it was, we dressed the hall and wired it, made it user-friendly and user-ready. All the councilman had to do was step up to the podium and speak.”

All the councilman had to do, Ollie thought, was step up to the podium and get shot.

“Will you get paid, anyway?” he asked.

“What?” Mastroiani said.

“For the gig. Him getting killed and all.”

“Oh sure. Well, I suppose so.”

“Who contracted for the job?”

“The Committee.”

“What committee?”

“The Committee for Henderson.”

“It says that on the contract?”

“That’s what it says.”

“Who signed the contract?”

“I have no idea. It came in the mail.”

“You still got it?”

“I can find it for you.”

“Good. I’d like to see who hired you.”

“Sure.”

“All these people who were onstage with you when he got killed,” Ollie said. “Were they regulars?”

“What do you mean, regulars?”

“Have you worked with them before?”

“Oh sure. All the time.”

“All of them reliable?”

“Oh sure.”

“None of them strangers to you, is that right? What I’m driving at, would any of these guys have come in here with a concealed…”

“No, no.”

“…weapon and popped Henderson, is what I’m asking.”

“None of them. I can vouch for each and every one of them.”

“Cause what I’ll have to do, anyway, I’m gonna have to send some of my colleagues from up the Eight-Eight around to talk to them individually, just in case one of them got a bug up his ass to shoot the councilman.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

“Yeah, well, I worry about such things. Which is why I’ll need a list of all your people here on the job.”

“Sure. But they’re all bonded, so I’m sure you won’t find anything out of the way.”

“Why are they bonded?”

“Well, we sometimes do these very big affairs where there’s jewelry and such laying around…”

“Uh-huh.”

“Precious antiques, things like that, on these big estates, you know…”

“You’re saying these men are honest individuals, is what you’re saying.”

“That’s right.”

“Wouldn’t harm a fly, is what you’re saying.”

“Is basically what I’m saying.”

“We’ll have to talk to them anyway,” Ollie said. “So what I’m saying, after you give me all their names, you might advise them not to leave the city for the next couple of days, till my people have a chance to talk to them.”

“I’ll be happy to do that.”

“Good. So tell me, Mr. Master-yonny…”

“It’s Mastroiani.”

“Ain’t that what I said?”

“No, you said…I don’t know what you said, but it wasn’t Mastroiani.”

“You know, have you ever thought of changing your name?”

“No.”

“To something simpler?”

“No. Like what?”

“Like Weeks, for example. Short and sweet and easy to say. And people would think you’re related to an American police detective.”

“I don’t think I’d like to do that.”

“Entirely up to you, my friend, ah yes,” Ollie said.

“And I am American,” Mastroiani said.

“Of course you are,” Ollie said. “But tell me, Charles, may I call you Charles?”

“Most people call me Chuck.”

“Even though most Chucks are fags?”

“I’m not.”

“You’re not Chuck?”

“I’m not a fag.”

“Then should I call you Charles?”

“Actually, I’d prefer being called Mr. Mastroiani.”

“Sure, but that don’t sound American, does it? Tell me, Chuck, where were you exactly when the councilman got shot?”

“I was standing near the podium there.”

“And?”

“I heard shots. And he was falling.”

“Heard shots from the wings there?”

“No. From the balcony.”

“Tell me what happened, Chuck. In your own words.”

“Who else’s words would I use?” Mastroiani asked.

“That’s very funny, Chuck,” Ollie said, and grinned like a dragon. “Tell me.”

The way Mastroiani tells it, the councilman is this energetic little guy who gets to the Hall at about a quarter to nine, dressed for work in jeans and a crewneck cotton sweater, loafers, real casual, you know? He’s all over the place, conferring with his aide and this kid he has with him looks like a college boy, giving directions to Mastroiani and his crew, arms waving all over the place like a windmill, running here, running there, going out front to check how the stage looks every time a new balloon goes up, sending the college kid up to the balcony to hear how the sound is, then going up there himself to listen while his aide talks into the mike, then coming down again and making sure the podium is draped right and the sign is just where he wants it, and checking the sound again, waving up to the kid in the balcony who gives him a thumbs-up signal, and then starting to check the lights, wanting to know where the spot would pick him up after he was introduced…

“That’s what he was doing when he got shot. He was crossing the stage to the podium, making sure the spot was following him.”

“Where were you?”

“At the podium, I told you. Looking up at the guy in the booth, waiting for the councilman to…”

“What guy in the booth?”

“The guy on the follow spot.”

“One of your people?”

“No.”

“Then who?”

“I have no idea. My guess is he works here at the Hall.”

“Who would know?”

“You got me.”

“I thought you supplied everything. The sound, the lighting…”

“The onstage lighting. Usually, when we do an auditorium like this one, they have their own lighting facilities and their own lighting technician or engineer, they’re sometimes called, a lighting engineer.”

“Did you talk to this guy in the booth? This technician or engineer or whatever he was?”

“No, I did not.”

“Who talked to him?”

“Mr. Pierce was yelling up to him—Henderson’s aide—and so was the councilman himself. I think the college kid was giving him instructions, too. From up in the balcony.”

“Was the kid up there when the shooting started?”

“I think so.”

“Well, didn’t you look up there? You told me that’s where the shots came from, didn’t you look up there to see who was shooting?”

“Yes, but I was blinded by the spot. The spot had followed the councilman to the podium, and that was when he got shot, just as he reached the podium.”

“So the guy working the spot was still up there, is that right?”

“He would’ve had to be up there, yes, sir.”

“So let’s find out who he was,” Ollie said.

A uniformed inspector with braid all over him was walking over. Ollie deemed it necessary to perhaps introduce himself.

“Detective Weeks, sir,” he said. “The Eight-Eight. First man up.”

“Like hell you are,” the inspector said, and walked off.

THE END