Kiss

14.

His beeper went off at a quarter to four. He was at the water cooler; the insistent piping voice of the instrument startled him. The call had to be from Lowell; no one in-house would be beeping him while he was right here in the squadroom. He called back at once. Someone picked up on the second ring.

"Hello?”

Lowell. The unmistakably British-sounding voice.

"Hello," Carella said, "what is it?”

"How fast can you get down here?”

"Twenty minutes. Have they ...?was "From what we can tell, it'll be any minute now.”

"I'm on my way," Carella said.

The men and women of the jury filed in at twenty minutes past four.

Carella tried to read what was on their faces.

Throughout the course of trial, when they were mere supporting players to the stars on and around the witness stand, he had paid scant attention to them.

But now, suddenly, they were center stage, walking into the spotlight as a group and solemnly taking their chairs in the jury box. The foreman had a mustache. He had not noticed that before. Two of the three women were wearing eyeglasses. One of the black jurors was wearing an outrageous tie.

All of the jurors, male or female, white or black, Hispanic or Asian, wore expressions that were completely blank.

Judge Di Pasco turned to them as soon as they were seated.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," he said, "have you agreed upon a verdict in this case?”

"We have," the foreman said. He was a tall black man wearing a dark suit, a white shirt, and a burgundy-colored tie. His hands were shaking.

"Please return the papers to the Court," the clerk said.

"Mr. Foreman," Di Pasco said, "what is the jury's verdict?”

Carella caught his breath.

"We find the defendant not guilty," the foreman said.

Carella felt as if he'd been hit in the face with a closed fist.

Lowell was immediately on his feet.

"Your Honor," he said, "may I respectfully request that the jury be polled?”

Di Pasco nodded to the court clerk. At the back of the courtroom, Sonny Cole's supporters, most of whom did not know him and many of whom would not have cared to meet him in a dark alley at midnight, were slapping each other on the back in congratulation.

"Juror number one," the clerk said, "Franklin Jonathan Miller, how do you find the defendant?”

"Not guilty," the foreman said.

"Juror number two, Maria Catalina Perez, how do you find the defendant?”

"Not guilty.”

And now Carella sat stunned and silent as the names were called and each member of the jury rose in turn to respond to the clerk's question, how do you find the defendant, the answers seeming to resound into that paneled chamber, rising to its vaulted ceiling, not guilty, cascading down onto the grinning faces at the back of the courtroom, not guilty, rushing down through the center aisle, not guilty, not guilty, and settling at last on Carella in a final fading roar where he sat feeling oddly embarrassed and utterly alone, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty.

The night could not be trusted, winter could not be trusted.

What had started as a bright and sunny day was now, at eight-forty P.M., bitterly cold.

Meyer and Carella stood in their heavy overcoats outside the Smoke Rise building where murder had been committed, talking to the Chief of Detectives, who had come all the way uptown on this one because he was afraid of what the media might make of it.

Blue-and-white radio cars were angle-parked into the curb across the street from the building.

Directly in front of the building's green canopy, an ambulance was backed into the curb, its rear doors open. Grayish-blue exhaust fumes floated up on the night. Uniformed cops with nothing to do stood around near the front door. Monoghan and Monroe, who had got here ten minutes before the chief arrived, were talking to the doorman, trying to appear actively essential to the investigation.

The Chief of Detectives was named Lou Fremont, and he had been appointed only recently by the new commissioner, an act of conciliation in that he was both white and a man who had come up through the ranks right here in this city and not in some little Southern town where the only action on a Saturday night was the blinking of a traffic light on Main and Cucumber. Both Meyer and Carella knew Fremont from when he'd been in command of the Seven-Three in Majesta. A gruff, no-nonsense man in his late fifties, he had a reputation for being short of temper and quick with his fists. But he knew what it was like to be a street cop, and they knew he would go to bat for them if this thing got out of hand. What they were all worried about was something called Prior K.

"Said somebody was trying to kill her, huh?”

Fremont asked.

"Well, someone pushed her off a subway platform," Carella said. "And later, he ...”

"What'd you find out about that?”

“It's a complicated story, Chief.”

"I'm not going anyplace," Fremont said.

"Are you going someplace?”

"No, sir.”

The chief nodded. He was anticipating the media saying the police had known there was murder in the air, the woman had come to them after a murder attempt, and now there was an actual murder, never mind attempted murder. Twist this around a bit, it could look like they'd been negligent in their investigation. Thank God it didn't involve race. All they needed was another goddamn racially motivated incident in this city.

Carella was telling him how the guy who'd shoved her off the platform had tried to run her down later on and had finally ended up dead himself, the victim of a shooting. This was- "What shooting?" Fremont asked. "Where?”

He told the chief all about Roger Turner Tilly hanging from the ceiling in a Diamondback basement- "Hanging? I thought you said he was shot.”

"Shot first, hanged later," Carella said.

"In Diamondback? That's the Eight-Three, isn't it?”

"Yes, sir.”

"Then how'd you get ...?was "First Man Up, sir.”

"Because the woman came to see you on the murder attempts?”

"Yes, sir.”

"Two of them, I'm now hearing. I don't like this, I can tell you that.”

"Yes, sir. We were looking for Tilly because she'd identified him as the man who'd tried to run her down. So when Tilly turned up dead, there was some question about whether or not FMU applied here.”

"I would say it did.”

"Well, Lieutenant Byrnes wanted to check that. But meanwhile, he advised us to stay on the case.”

"Do you think this might be the same person?”

"Sir?”

"Who killed Tilly and did this one?”

"Oh. No, sir. No, we've already got Tilly's murderer. He was arraigned Monday, and the judge denied bail. It couldn't possibly be the same person.”

“Good work," Fremont said.

"Thank you, sir.”

"But I'm still worried about Prior Knowledge here.”

"Yes, sir.”

"I know it's a stretch ...”

"Well, yes, sir, I think actually it might be.”

"But the media has ways of making something out of nothing, you know that.”

"Yes, sir.”

"She did come to you ...”

"Yes, sir ...”

"And now ...”

Fremont shook his head.

"What's it look like upstairs?" he asked.

Meyer filled him in on what it looked like upstairs. The safe broken into, tool marks around the dial and the edge of the door, victim lying on the- "Where is this? The safe?”

"In the master bedroom, sir," Meyer said.

"Closet in the master bedroom.”

-victim lying on the floor just inside the bedroom door, shot in the face at close range. Three spent cartridge cases recovered, as well as two bullets that went right on through, exiting at the back of the head, the other bullet presumably still someplace inside the head.

"Anything left in the safe?”

"Dry as a bone, sir.”

"Any idea what was in it?”

"We found a list in the desk drawer, yes, sir.”

"How about the casings and bullets? What do they look like?”

"Forty-fives," Meyer said. "Clearly stamped on the casing. Remington forty-five Auto Colt.”

"Better run them down to Ballistics right away.”

"Yes, sir.”

"Because what I want here is immediate action.

Immediate. Before those television assholes get on our backs.”

"Yes, sir," Carella said.

"What we were thinking, sir," Meyer said, "is that the perp may be someone we've had under investigation.”

"Oh?”

“Yes, sir.”

"Let me hear it.”

They told him about Andrew Denker, alias Andrew Darrow, who'd presented himself to Emma Bowles as a man her husband had hired to protect her- "I don't like that," Fremont said, shaking his head. "That brings us right back to Prior Knowledge again.”

"Well, we don't know for sure that this man was actually hired to kill her, sir. What we do know is he bought a Colt forty-five when he got here ...”

"What do you mean got here?”

"From Chicago?”

"Any record on him there?”

"No, sir.”

"Do you know where to find this guy?”

"Well, we have him at an address on Lewiston, but his answering machine says he's back in Chicago.”

"Doesn't mean a thing, nowadays you can change a message long-distance.”

"Yes, sir, that's what we ...”

"All you have to do is push a few buttons on your phone and then do the recording.”

"Yes, sir.”

"Get a search warrant, go ...”

"We were turned down on a wiretap, sir, we figured we'd wait till we get the Ballistics report.”

"Hell with Ballistics. You've got your stamped casings, you know the gun was a forty-five.”

"Yes, sir.”

"So get your warrant, and then go toss this guy and his apartment. Because I'll tell you, the sooner we wrap this one, the happier I'll be.”

"Yes, sir.”

"Did you talk to the doorman here?”

"Yes, sir.”

"What'd he have to say?”

"Nothing much, sir.”

"A man gets in here, pumps three slugs in a person's face, he had to get in one way or another.”

"Yes, sir.”

"So did he see anyone going in or out?”

"No, sir.”

"Did you describe your man to him?”

“Yes, sir.”

"And he didn't see him, huh?”

"No, sir. But he was ...”

Monoghan and Monroe came wandering over, hands in their pockets, hats tilted low like gunslingers.

"Evening, Chief," Monroe said.

"Evening," Monoghan said.

"Uhm," Fremont said, and nodded curtly.

"Doorman didn't see anybody suspicious going in or out," Monoghan said.

"But he says he was ...”

He fell silent all at once.

The ambulance attendants were coming out with a stretcher.

The men all turned to watch them.

The resident intern followed the stretcher out of the building. He was wearing a black overcoat over his hospital whites, a stethoscope hanging out of his pocket.

There was a black body bag on the stretcher.

Carella's application for a search warrant read: 1. I am a detective of the Police Department, currently assigned to the 87th Detective Squad.

2. I have in my possession several bullets and spent cartridge cases recovered at the scene of a murder that took place in apartment 12A at 907 Butler Street, this night of January 17 inst.

3. The stampings on the cartridge cases indicate that the bullets were manufactured for use in a Colt .45-31liber automatic pistol.

4. I have information based upon my personal knowledge and belief, and facts supplied to me by a normally reliable source, that a man named Andrew Denker, alias Andrew Darrow, now residing in apartment 4C at 321 South Lewiston Street did sometime at the end of December, illegally purchase a pistol of the same caliber and description as the pistol used to fire the aforesaid cartridges.

5. Based upon the foregoing normally reliable information and upon my personal knowledge, there is probable cause to believe that a pistol in possession of Andrew Denker may constitute evidence in the crime of murder.

Wherefore, I respectfully request that the court issue a warrant in the form annexed hereto, authorizing a search of the person of Andrew Denker and the premises at 321 South Lewiston Street, apartment 4C. No previous application in this matter has been made in this city or any other court or to any other judge, justice, or magistrate.

This time, the warrant was granted.

They decided that the best time to hit the apartment was immediately. They further decided that if Denker was the man who'd committed the murder, then it would be risky if not foolhardy to go in with insufficient numbers. Cops were heroes only on television. In real life, they had wives and children and they wore bulletproof vests when they were about to take a door.

Meyer called Inspector John Di Santis, the Emergency Service commander, and told him they needed a six-man backup on a No-Knock warrant. Di Santis asked him when. Meyer said right now-which was already a quarter past ten-and they arranged to meet around the corner from Lewiston at eleven-thirty that night. The plan was to go in silently and undetected, the E.S. cops assaulting the door in ceramic vests and armed with riot guns, the detectives and their search warrant immediately behind them.

At twenty past eleven, Meyer and Carella were parked at the curb on Geurtz Avenue, in front of a bar named Ballantine's, waiting for the E.S. team to arrive. A leggy young girl wearing a short blue coat over blue stockings and a pleated blue mini came out of the bar and waved back to someone inside. "So long, Daisy!" a man called, and the girl went off up the street, humming softly to herself. The night was silent again.

They waited. Carella looked at his watch.

There were sirens in the city. There were always sirens in this city, but there seemed to be a great many of them now, shrieking to the night. On the radio, they heard Molly O dispatching cars and ambulances to the airport.

"Must be something," Meyer said.

A moment later, Di Santis radioed them.

"This is Inspector Di Santis," he said. "A plane coming in from Baltimore - just crashed at Franklin, we need The Truck out there and every available Emergency Service unit. Can this thing wait till later tonight?”

"We'll get back to you," Meyer said.

The two men sat in the car, talking it over.

Carella blew his nose.

Meyer said, "We wait till later, he may be gone. If he isn't gone already.”

"Yeah.”

"Never mind Chicago, he could've moved to anyplace else in this city.”

"Except he doesn't know we've got the address here.”

"Yeah, but ...”

"I'm saying he doesn't know we're onto him. He's got no reason to run.”

"Except murder.”

"Which is sometimes a reason to stay put. Till it all blows over.”

"Yeah.”

"So what do you think?”

"Let's go do it," Meyer said. "Get it over with.”

Carella looked at his watch.

"Yeah, let's go do it," he said, and sighed.

"You all right?" Meyer asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay.”

His father's murderer had walked out of a courtroom a free man, but he guessed he was okay.

They went around the corner to Denker's building and looked up the facade to the row of fourth-floor front windows. Not a light was burning. They went into the building then, and stood in the entrance hallway downstairs, trying to warm up a little.

The temperature outside was four degrees Fahrenheit, which Carella figured was about minus sixteen degrees Celsius. That was cold in any language. He and Meyer were both wearing bulletproof vests under their coats. The vests made them look bulkier than they actually were.

These weren't the virtually foolproof ceramic vests that you wore when some lunatic was shooting down from a rooftop with a high-powered rifle. These paneled Kevlar-and-cotton vests weren't nearly as effective, and many cops refused to wear them because they hampered movement. But Carella and Meyer had good reason to believe that the man upstairs-if there was a man upstairs had committed murder. They were here, in fact, with a warrant that authorized them to search for the .45-31liber Colt automatic that had been the murder weapon. They would have felt happier with the Emergency Service backup they'd been promised, but that was ancient history.

They had taken off their gloves. Meyer was blowing on his hands. Carella had his hands in his pockets.

The glass panel in the upper half of the building's entrance door was frosted over except for an uneven circle at its center. Through the clear patch of glass, the detectives could see an occasional automobile passing by, its headlights cutting through the darkness outside. It was almost midnight. They hoped Denker would be in bed, asleep, secure in the knowledge that everyone thought he'd already vacated the apartment. Their warrant came equipped with a No-Knock provision. They had fought like hell to get it, finally and in desperation showing the supreme court magistrate an eight-by-ten black-and-white photo of what the .45 had done to the victim's face. The judge finally agreed that a No-Knock might be advisable in this instance.

"How you doing?" Meyer asked.

"My fingers are still a bit stiff.”

"Take your time," Meyer said. "If he's still here, we're okay.”

He was wearing a woolen watch cap over his bald head. His cheeks were still red from the bitter cold and the wind outside. His blue eyes seemed brighter against the rawness of his face. This had been the coldest winter he could remember, starting early in November it seemed, and bludgeoning the city with on-and-off single-digit temperatures ever since. Carella was wearing a pea coat and blue jeans over long underwear. No hat. L. L. Bean boots. Outside, a traffic light changed. The clear patch on the frosted-glass panel segued from green to yellow to red. Meyer kept blowing on his hands. Vapor plumed from his mouth. The patch of clear glass turned green again.

"Ready when you are," Carella said.

The guns came out.

It had taken them half an hour to drive here from the Eight-Seven. When they left the station house, Sergeant Murchison said from his perch behind the muster desk, "Be careful out there." He'd been watching too many television reruns. Life imitating art. Though most often art imitated life, and occasionally art imitated art-all too successfully.

They did not need to be told to be careful.

They went up those steps like wayward husbands sneaking home after a night on the town. Gun hands hanging loose at their sides, no need for a state of extreme alertness yet, not until they reached the fourth floor, Denker's floor.

Denker didn't know they were coming, it wasn't likely he'd be out in the hallway in his pajamas. So the climb to the fourth floor was cautious but not timid, quiet but not altogether still.

Denker lived in apartment 4C.

For all he knew, he was home free. Tonight would be surprise time; they had him cold. If he was still here.

Apartment 4A dead ahead now, at the top of the stairwell.

A nod from Meyer.

An acknowledging nod from Carella.

They peeled off to the right. Guns up now.

Muzzles pointing toward the ceiling, butts close to their shoulders. Moving silently down the hallway, gliding past apartment 4B, Johnny Carson inside cracking jokes with Ed McMahon, 4C at the end of the hall. Both men moved up close to the door.

Meyer put his ear to the wood.

Not a sound in there.

He kept listening.

Carella raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Meyer shook his head.

From apartment 4B down the hall came the sound of The Tonight Show's orchestra. Doc Severinsen in his funny clothes playing expert trumpet. Big-band sound behind him. Meyer kept listening.

Still nothing.

He backed away from the door.

Nodded to Carella again.

Carella nodded back.

What they were about to do was called Taking the Door. It was the most dangerous thirty seconds in any policeman's life. The most frightening, too, though the men here in the hallway merely seemed serious and apprehensive. Meyer was standing to the right of the door now, the gun in his right hand tucked in against his shoulder, ready to roll himself around the doorframe and into the room behind Carella the moment he kicked the door in.

Carella was standing some three feet away from the door, arms widespread like a diver bouncing on a board, gun in his right hand, eyes on the knob and strikeplate, a nod to Meyer, knee coming back like a coiled spring, foot lashing out to hit the door flat and just to the right of the knob, a grunt when his foot made contact, and then the door splintered and the lock tore loose and metal screws and slivers of wood sprinkled the air.

Carella followed his own momentum into the room, gun fanning the midnight air, Meyer immediately behind him and to his right, a wedge of light from the hallway spilling into the darkness.

"Police!" they shouted simultaneously, and four shots came crashing out of the black.

They both threw themselves headlong onto the floor, and then rolled away in opposite directions because the guy in here was a killer who knew the tricks of the trade. Unsurprisingly, his next shots chewed wood out of the floor, where he'd guessed they'd be this time around-five, six, seven, and silence. Not exactly where he'd guessed, but close enough to cause Carella to break out in a cold sweat. Another shot, a muzzle flash deep in the blackness ahead.

Silence again. Eight slugs gone. Your typical Colt .45 carried seven in the magazine. Add another one in the chamber and that came to eight. That's all there'd been, goodbye, Charlie. And now the solid click of a new magazine being shoved into the gun butt. And silence. Carella scrambled to his knees behind what he now discerned was a stuffed easy chair.

He could not see Meyer in the darkness. He did not call out to him, nor did he shout a police warning again. Denker knew they were here and he knew they were policemen. What he didn't know was where they were. Neither of them had fired yet.

No muzzle flashes to reveal their location. The light spilling from the hallway came only so far into the room. Beyond that, blackness. And Denker waiting with seven more bullets in the gun now, all stacked up in the magazine.

Outside on the street, an ambulance siren.

Doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah.

The bridge to "Over the Rainbow," ask any musician. Carella scarcely dared breathe.

He was waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Problem was, Denker's eyes were already - adjusted to the darkness, and now he was waiting for them to make just a single move, show so much as a fingernail and he'd empty his gun in their faces.

A doorframe took shape.

Denker was in the room beyond that doorframe. A bedroom most likely.

Carella could see nothing in that room.

Pitch-black in that room, Denker waiting with the gun in his hand. Or were there two guns? Or even more. He'd reloaded, but that didn't necessarily discount the possibility of more than one gun. Count seven shots, rush the room, and discover he's also got an Uzi in his lap.

Problems, problems. Meanwhile, there wasn't anything to count. Denker wasn't firing again, not just yet. Didn't want to reveal his position.

Mexican standoff here. Two cops pinned down in the darkness, Denker afraid to fire for fear they'd locate him. The trouble was they didn't have all night here. If there was a window in that room- "Denker!" he shouted.

Silence.

Had he already split? Out the window, down the fire escape, lost to the night?

"Denker!" he yelled again.

Two shots came out of the blackness, the first one almost tearing off Carella's head, the second one knocking plaster out of the wall behind him. From somewhere across the room on Carella's left, Meyer immediately opened fire, zeroing in on the muzzle flashes, although Denker was smart enough not to be where he'd been only seconds earlier. Neither was Carella where he'd been.

In the time it took Meyer to snap off four rapid shots, Carella was on his feet and racing to the doorframe. He stood to the right of the bedroom door now, flattened against the wall, wondering if Meyer could see him there.

"Meyer!" he yelled.

"Here!”

"We go on three!" he shouted.

"Got it!”

Silence.

Denker waiting in the dark. Five cartridges left in the automatic, was there another gun in there? Waiting for them to rush the room on the count of three, not knowing that these men had worked together for years and years and that when one of them yelled "We go on three!" it meant nobody was going anywhere, everybody was sitting tight right where he was, the words we go negating the whole damn thing. They were not going to storm that door on the count of three, they were merely hoping Denker would begin firing on three and would shoot himself out of yet another magazine.

Silence.

Outside on the street, another ambulance siren. Busy night tonight. Carella was hoping they wouldn't need an ambulance here. Or a body bag. Especially not for Denker. Better to take him out of here without any leaky holes in him.

Carry him out of here on a stretcher and some shyster lawyer would start the Wheels of Technicality rolling even before the ambulance attendants got down to the second floor. As it was, the detectives would have to justify the use of deadly force, convince the people downtown that they hadn't used the gun as a means of apprehension but had opened fire only in self-defense. This city, you sometimes felt everybody was trying to make the job more difficult than it actually was. All they were trying to do here was arrest a killer.

Meanwhile, they waited in the darkness, hoping the trick that had worked for them a hundred times before would work again for them now. Knowing, too, that even if it did work, even if they managed to fool Denker into emptying his gun at an empty doorframe, he might reload before they'd moved a foot into the room, or-worse yet-he might cut them down with a second gun.

"Stand by!" Carella shouted.

Denker had to know he was just outside the room, standing to the right of the door. Denker had to be waiting to blow him away the moment he stepped into the frame. But nobody would be there.

"One!" Carella shouted.

Silence.

"Two!" he shouted.

More silence.

"Three!" he shouted, and Denker opened up.

He was taking no chances. He fired two shots to the right of the jamb, where he knew Carella had to be, another shot straight down the middle, where the other cop might be, and the last two to the left, where the other cop might also be. Five shots altogether, plus the two he'd fired at Carella's head earlier, which made seven for an empty magazine. There was a click and then another click and then Denker yelled "Shit!”

because nobody'd been counting but us chickens, boss, and now he was in it up to his nostrils. Nobody had to yell go, nobody had to give any kind of signal to storm that room right this minute, both cops knew this was it, there'd be no second chance if they blew this one. Denker was starting to slide a fresh magazine into the gun when they rushed him. Meyer kicked him in the balls, and Carella rabbit-punched him at the back of his head. The magazine fell to the floor, but Denker swung out backhanded with the empty gun, catching Carella just below his right ear and sending him reeling back across the room.

"Freeze!" Meyer shouted, but nobody was freezing.

Denker whirled on him with the gun, the barrel clutched in his fist now, wielding the gun like a hammer, its butt in striking position, moving up fast on Meyer who stood in the gunfighter's crouch they'd taught him at the Academy all those many years ago, and who said again, very softly this time, looking down the length of the gun directly into Denker's eyes, "Freeze," and this time the single word stopped Denker in his tracks because maybe he'd seen what was in Meyer's eyes and figured he'd rather take his chances with twelve good men and true. Or women, for that matter.

He dropped the gun.

Carella snapped the cuffs on him.

They were all breathing very hard.

Nellie Brand had been to a late party and had just fallen into a deep sleep when her boss phoned. Her boss was the district attorney.

He told her the Eight-Seven had made an arrest in the Bowles case, and she'd better get uptown right away because it looked like real meat. This was at a quarter to two in the morning. Mumbling, Nellie lumbered out of bed, stumbled to the bathroom, and stood under the shower for a full ten minutes before she began feeling moderately alive again.

An assistant D.A. was no less an authority figure than a doctor; both had to look well-dressed even when making a house call in the middle of the night. Nellie wore her sand-colored hair in a breezy flying wedge; all she had to do was use the dryer on it, and run a comb through it. She put on black pantyhose and bra, a pale pink long-sleeved blouse, a gray woolen pants suit, - and black pumps with low heels. No jewelry but her wedding band. She inspected herself in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door. All things considered, she looked reasonably representative of The Law. She kissed her sleeping husband goodbye, put on a down overcoat, took from one of its pockets a blue woolen hat that matched her eyes, and pulled it down over her ears. She locked both locks on the apartment door, and then went downstairs to look for a taxi.

When she got to the 87th Precinct that morning, it was almost two-thirty.

Miscolo offered her a cup of coffee he'd personally brewed in the Clerical Office, but she'd been up here before and she politely declined. Carella diplomatically suggested that perhaps they should send out for some Danish, and while they were at it get some coffee delivered, too. He called the order in to a deli on Culver Avenue. The food got there half an hour later.

They sat drinking coffee and eating cheese Danish at three o'clock in the morning. There was something almost cozy about it. The squadroom was piping hot, radiators hissing, windows melting frost now that someone had turned up the thermostat.

They'd worked together before, these three. They knew each other and liked each other. Carella had poured his coffee from its cardboard container into his personal squadroom mug, marked in red nail polish with the initials S.C. Meyer's mug was marked M.M. Nellie drank from a plain white guest mug. They sat around Carella's desk as if it were a kitchen table. The coffee was very hot and very good. The Danish was good, too. This was nice. Three people here or there in their thirties, all of them more or less in the same business, all of them just sitting here eating and drinking at three o'clock in the morning while Andrew Denker cooled his heels in a holding cell downstairs.

"So what've we got?" Nellie asked.

"Everything but the ballistics report,”

Carella said. "We're waiting for that now. I was promised a quick comeback.”

"Which means next month," Nellie said.

"Usually, but I said we had a prisoner here we were waiting to question.”

"When was this?”

"When I messengered the stuff downtown. Twelve-thirty, a quarter to one. As soon as we got back here.”

"What'd you send them?”

"Denker's gun, and some spent cartridge cases and bullets.”

"That his name? Denker?”

"Andrew Denker," Meyer said, nodding.

"Andrew, not Andy. He doesn't like to be called Andy.”

"A contract player from Chicago," Carella said.

"Very expensive hit men there," Nellie said.

"We've got expensive ones here, too,”

Meyer said.

"Why don't you give Ballistics another call?" Nellie said, turning to Carella.

"Goose them along.”

Carella looked up at the clock.

"I just don't want some shyster saying we held him too long before questioning," Nellie said.

"Sure, but ...”

"So if we can speed them along ...”

"Well, there's only one guy working this time of night," Carella said, and looked up at the clock again. "And he promised me.”

"What time did he say?”

"Three-thirty, four o'clock.”

"I sure would like that make before we start the Q and A.”

"I think we're okay even without it," Meyer said.

"Because then we can go in blazing. Without it ...”

"I think we're okay even without it," Meyer said again.

Nellie turned to him.

Meyer figured she hadn't heard him the first time around.

"How do you figure?" she asked.

"Long story," Carella said.

"You got a taxi waiting?" Nellie said.

"Better get the file," Meyer said, and eased himself off the corner of Carella's desk, and went across the room to where a row of green metal filing cabinets stood against the wall. He pulled one of the hanging file folders from the second drawer, carried it back to the desk, and took from it a thick manila folder. Hand-lettered onto the front of the folder was the name BOWLES, EMMA. Carella opened the folder. He took a single sheet of paper from it and handed it to Nellie. She was looking at a standard Complaint Report form, the likes of which she'd seen at least a thousand times before. This one was dated December 28. Since midnight, today was the eighteenth day of January.

"She came in three weeks ago," Carella said.

Nellie nodded.

She was reading through the vital statistics on the form. White female, full name Emma Katherine Bowles, maiden name Emma Katherine Darby. Married to a man named Martin Bowles.

Lived right here in the Eight-Seven, on the outer fringes, up near Smoke Rise. Age thirty-two, weight one-twenty, height five-seven. Blonde hair, brown eyes.

No visible scars, birthmarks, or tattoos.

No regional accent or- "Anybody named Carella up here?" someone said from the slatted wooden railing that divided the squadroom from the corridor outside. A uniformed cop was standing there, holding a manila envelope in his gloved hands.

Carella signaled to him. "I'm Carella,”

he said.

The cop fiddled with the catch on the gate, came into the squadroom, and walked directly to Carella's desk.

"I need your signature," he said.

The printing across the face of the manila envelope read IDENTIFICATION SECTION- BALLISTICS. Carella signed the receipt slip fastened to the envelope. The cop tore off the top yellow copy, waved vaguely, and went out.

The room was suddenly very still.

Carella unlooped the little red string from around the little red cardboard button, lifted the flap of the envelope, and pulled out several typewritten forms. He was looking at the report on Denker's gun and the cartridges and bullets fired from it. Meyer was standing on his right, Nellie on his left, both of them slightly behind where he was sitting. All three silently read the report.

"Let's go get him," Nellie said.