Lady, Lady, I Did It!

Chapter 7

Teddy Carella was talking.

She said:

“Yes?” Carella said.

“I’m beginning to get the message,” Carella said.

“Is that the best you can do?” Carella asked. “That’s not very original. So you love me, huh?”

Teddy repeated the three words, her hands rapidly spelling the message. He took her into his arms and kissed the tip of her nose briefly, and then his mouth dropped to hers and he kissed her completely and longingly, holding her in his arms after the kiss, her head cradled against his cheek. He released her at last and took off his jacket and then took his service revolver from his right rear pocket, unclipping the holster and putting the gun down on the end table. Teddy frowned and a torrent of words spilled from her hands.

“All right, all right,” Carella answered. “I won’t leave it around where the kids can get at it. Where are they, anyway?”

In the yard, her hands told him. What happened today? Did you talk—

But Carella had picked up the revolver and gone into the bedroom of the old Riverhead house, and he could no longer see her hands. She came into the room after him, turned him around to face her, and completed the sentence.

— to Kling? How is he?

Carella unbuttoned his shirt and threw it over one of the chairs. Teddy picked it up and carried it to the hamper. In the backyard he could hear the twins chasing each other, shouting their childish gibberish.

“I talked to Kling, yes,” he said. “He’s working on the case with us.”

Teddy frowned and then shrugged.

“I felt the same way, honey,” Carella answered. He took off his T-shirt, wiped perspiration from his chest and under his arms, and then fired the wadded shirt at the hamper, missing. Teddy cast him a baleful glance and picked up the shirt. “But he wants in on it, and we can’t very well refuse him.” He had turned his back, heading for the bathroom, thoughtlessly. He stopped in his tracks, turned to her, and repeated his words so that she could read his lips. “We can’t very well refuse him.”

Teddy nodded, but she still seemed troubled by the concept. She followed Carella into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub while he washed. Through a layer of suds and water, Carella said, “We figure the killer was after one of the four he got, Teddy. Maybe we’re wrong, but that’s the way we read it.” His hands had covered his mouth on the last two words as he rinsed away suds. “Read it,” he repeated, and Teddy nodded. He dried his face and then began speaking again while she watched his lips intently. “We’ve been questioning relatives of the deceased. Meyer and I spoke to Mrs. Land out on Sands Spit this morning, and Bert went to see Mrs. Wechsler this afternoon. So far, there’s nothing we can go on. There’s Claire’s father, of course, and Meyer and I thought we’d go see him tomorrow...”

Teddy frowned instantly.

“What is it?” Carella asked.

The folks are coming tomorrow, she told him.

“What time?”

In the afternoon. One or two. For lunch.

“Then Meyer and I... well, we’ll make it early in the morning. He’s got to be talked to, Teddy.”

Teddy nodded.

“We haven’t been able to get a line on the third man who was killed in the shop. His name’s Anthony La Scala, and his driver’s license gave an address in Isola for him. But Meyer and I checked there a little while ago, and the super told us he’d moved about a month ago. The post office doesn’t have a forwarding address for him.”

That might be something, Teddy said.

“It might. I want to do some homework with the phone book later.”

Teddy shook her head.

“Why not?”

He moved a month ago. The phone book...

“That’s right,” Carella said, nodding. “His new address and number wouldn’t be listed yet. How come you’re so smart?” He grinned and held out his hands to her. She took them, and he pulled her from her sitting position and held her close to his naked chest. “Why don’t we have Fanny feed the kids and put them to bed?” he said. “Then we can go out to dinner and a movie.”

Teddy wiggled her eyebrows.

“Well, yeah, that, too. But I thought later.”

She ran her tongue over her lips and then pulled away from him. He reached out for her, missed, and slapped her on the behind as she went out of the bathroom, laughing soundlessly. When he came into the bedroom, she was taking off her clothes.

“What are you doing?” he asked, puzzled. “The kids are still awake.”

Teddy let her hands dangle loosely from the wrists and then waggled the fingers.

“Oh, you’re gonna take a shower,” he said.

She nodded.

“I think you’re just trying to tease me, that’s all.”

Teddy shrugged speculatively and then went past him, half naked, into the bathroom. She closed the door, and he heard the lock clicking shut. The door opened again. She cocked her head around the door frame, grinned mischievously, and then brought her right hand up suddenly. Quickly her fingers moved.

Go talk to your children, she said.

Then, at the end of the sentence, she waved goodbye, her head and hand disappeared, the door clicked shut, the lock snapped. In a moment, Carella heard the shower going. He smiled, put on a fresh T-shirt and went downstairs to find the twins and Fanny.

Fanny was sitting on a bench under the single huge tree in the Carella backyard, a big Irish woman in her early fifties who looked up the moment Carella came out of the house.

“Well,” she said, “it’s himself.”

“Daddy!” Mark yelled, his fist poised to sock his sister in the eye. He ran across the yard and leaped into Carella’s arms. April, a little slower to respond, especially since she’d expected a punch just a moment before, did a small take and then shot across the lawn as if she’d been propelled from a launching pad. The twins were almost two and a half years old, fraternal twins who had managed to combine the best features of their parents in faces that looked similar but not identical. Both had Carella’s high cheekbones and slanting oriental eyes. Both had Teddy’s black hair and full mouths. At the moment, Mark also had a strangle hold on Carella’s neck, and April was doing her best to climb to a sitting position on his waist by clambering up his legs.

“It’s himself,” April said, mimicking Fanny, from whom she heard most of her English during the day.

“It’s himself indeed,” Carella said. “How come you weren’t waiting at the front door to greet me?”

“Well, who knows when you minions of the law will come home?” Fanny asked smiling.

“Sure, who knows when the minnows,” April said.

“Well, Daddy,” Mark said seriously, “How was business today?”

“Fine, just fine,” Carella said.

“Did you catch a crook?” April asked.

“No, not yet.”

“Will you catch...” She paused and rephrased it. “Will you catch...” Apparently the rephrasing didn’t satisfy her either. “Will you catch...” she said, paused again, gave it up, and then completed the sentence. “Will you catch one tomorrow?”

“Oh, if the weather’s good, maybe we will,” Carella said.

“Well, that’s good, Daddy,” Mark said.

“ ‘If the weather’s good,’ he said,” April put in.

“Well, if you catch one, bring him home,” Mark said.

“Those two are gonna be G-men,” Fanny said. She sat in bright, redheaded splendor under the bold autumn foliage of the tree, grinning approval at her brood. A trained nurse who supplemented the meager salary Carella could afford by taking night calls whenever she could, she had been working for the Carellas ever since the twins were brought home from the hospital.

“Daddy, what do crooks look like?” Mark asked.

“Well, some of them look like Fanny,” Carella said.

“That’s right, teach them,” Fanny said.

“Are there lady crooks?” April asked.

“There are lady crooks and men crooks, yes,” Carella said.

“But no chi’drun,” Mark said. He always had difficulty with the word.

“Children,” Fanny corrected, as she invariably did.

“Chi’drun,” Mark repeated, and he nodded.

“No, no children crooks,” Carella said. “Children are too smart to be crooks.” He put the twins down and said, “Fanny, I brought you something.”

“What?”

“A swear box.”

“What in hell is a swear box?”

“I left it in the kitchen for you. You’ve got to put money in it every time you use a swear word.”

“Like hell I will.”

“Like hell she will,” April said.

“See?” Carella said.

“I don’t know where they pick it up,” Fanny answered, shaking her head in mock puzzlement.

“You feel like giving us the night off?” Carella asked.

“It’s Saturday, ain’t it? Young people have to go out on Saturday.”

“Good,” Mark said.

“Huh?” Carella asked.

“We’re young people.”

“Yes, but Fanny’s going to feed you and put you to bed, and Mommy and Daddy are going to a movie.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Go see a monster fimm,” Mark said.

“A what?”

“A monster fimm.”

“Film?”

“Yeah.”

“Why should I? I have two monsters right here.”

“Don’t, Daddy,” April said. “You’ll scare us.”

He sat with them in the yard while Teddy showered and dusk claimed the city. He read to them from Winnie the Pooh until it was time for their dinner. Then he went upstairs to change his clothes. He and Teddy had a good dinner and saw a good movie. When they got home to the old Riverhead house, they made love. He leaned back against the pillow afterward and smoked a cigarette in the dark.

And somehow Kling’s loss seemed enormously magnified.