Mischief

14.

THEY DROVE ACROSS THE BRIDGE in the rain because listening to the morning news on the radio, Brown had heard about a motel shooting in the town of Red Point over in the next state. Three garbage men’s uniforms had been found in the motel bathroom. They called the Red Point P. D. and spoke to a detective named Roger Newcastle, who said they were welcome to come on out, but whoever’d got shot was long gone. At first, they thought he was using a euphemism, telling them the victim was dead.

But, no, when they met Newcastle at the Hamilton Motel, as it was called because of its proximity to the bridge, they learned from him that the victim—who had to’ve bled gallons of blood, judging from the looks of the bedclothes here—had somehow got himself loose…

“He must’ve been tied to the bed here with these here leather thongs,” Newcastle said.

…and gone out of here leaving a trail of blood that led straight to where a car must’ve been parked.

“Wasn’t his car, though, cause we got the registration on that from when he checked in. We figure it was somebody else’s car, but not nobody’s who was checked in at the time, cause none of them says their vehicle was stolen. So we guess it was somebody’s car who was with him there in the room, maybe the person who tied him to the bed that way. Either a woman or a man, this might’ve been a homosexual thing, they can sometimes get kinky and fierce. There’s blood all over one of the thongs, he must’ve made his hand bleed tryin’ a work loose, like some animal gnawing off his own paw to get free of a trap.”

“Find any narcotics?” Carella asked.

“Not a trace. Why? You think this was some kinda dope party?”

“Not exactly,” Brown said.

“We dug out two slugs went on through and buried themselves in the wall behind the headboard,” Newcastle said. “There was also a pair of nine-millimeter cartridge cases on the floor near the dresser, they’re with Ballistics, too. Nobody heard any shots, this is a place guys bring girls over from the city, nobody wants to hear nothing. Half of them, if they did hear anything, they prolly got in their cars and ran for the hills. The lab’s going over everything else right this minute, champagne bottles, glasses, the uniforms, who knows what they’ll come up with? The car he drove in with was a Chevy, by the way, gone now, we figure whoever dusted him went off in it later on.

With thirty million dollars’ worth of stolen narcotics, Carella thought.

“We checked the license-plate number he wrote on the motel registration card, it was a rented car,” Newcastle said. “Hertz. Name he used when he rented it was the same one he registered under here at the motel.”

Had to’ve shown a driver’s license, Brown thought, probably a phony. Wouldn’t have given him a car without a license.

“What name was that?” he asked.

“Sonny Sanson,” Newcastle said. “That’s not Samson , it’s Sanson —with an n .”

“Yeah,” Carella said, and sighed. “We know.”

IN THE sunday afternoon gloom of the squadroom, they explored the possibilities.

If the person who’d been tied to that bed was whoever had been with the Deaf Man in the motel room, then the Deaf Man had done the shooting and gone on his merry way with thirty million dollars’ worth of stolen narcotics.

If, on the other hand, the Deaf Man himself was the person who’d been tied to that bed, then whoever was with him had shot him and stolen the already stolen narcotics. Honor among thieves, so to speak.

Either way, the Deaf Man—or Sonny Sanson, as he’d called himself this time around—was once again gone with the wind.

“Maybe he’ll turn up dead and bleeding in some ditch along-side the road,” Brown said.

“Maybe,” Carella said.

He did not think so.

He knew in his bones that the Deaf Man was still alive and that one day he’d be back to plague them again.

“Sarah has a theory about the name he used,” Meyer said.

Sarah was his wife.

Nobody really wanted to hear Sarah’s theory. Rain was pouring down outside, and the squadroom lights were on in defense against it, and all they could think was they’d lost him again. He’d made fools of them yet another time.

“She thinks it’s a combination of Italian and French. She goes to Berlitz,” Meyer explained. “When I retire, she wants to go live in Europe.”

Rain drops trailed down the windowpanes. On the street below, there was the hiss of automobile tires on slick asphalt. It felt like the dead of winter, but it was the fifth of April and spring was here.

“She thinks the Sonny stands for ‘Son’io.’ That means ‘I am’ in Italian.Io sono is the formal way of saying it.Son’io is more casual. That’s what Sarah thinks.”

Carella was listening now. So was Brown.

“So he’s saying ‘I am Sanson,’” Meyer said. “Or, more casually, just ‘I’m Sanson.’ You get it?”

“No,” Brown said.

“He’s telling us he’s deaf,” Meyer said.

“He is, huh?” Brown said.

“How does Sarah figure that?” Carella asked.

“Because of what Sanson means in French.”

“What does it mean in French?”

“It means he’s deaf.”

“Sanson means somebody’s deaf ?” Brown asked.

“No, it’s two words. That’s what Sarah thinks, anyway.”

“What are the two words?” Carella asked patiently.

“Sansand son . I’m not sure I’m pronouncing them right. I can call Sarah, if you like, put her on the speaker…”

“No, that’s fine,” Carella said. “What do those words mean ?”

“Sansmeans ‘without.’ And son means ‘sound.’ He was saying ‘I’m without sound.’ He was telling us he’s deaf.”

Carella looked at Brown.

Brown looked back at him.

Outside, the rain kept falling.

PARKER MADE his call from a pay phone on the locker-room wall because he wasn’t so sure what kind of reception he’d get from Catalina Herrera and he didn’t want any wise-ass remarks from the squadroom clowns in case he got turned down. This was Sunday, after all, and he was just now calling to report on the case they’d closed out Friday .

She sounded as if she’d been asleep.

“Cathy?” he said.

“Sí?”

He wished to fuck she’d speak English.

“This is Detective Parker,” he said. “Andy.”

“Oh, hello, Andy.”

“How you been?”

“Oh, fine.”

Her voice sort of low-key. As if she was still waking up. Either that or the rain had got to her. Not the same way it had got to him, though. Rainy days always made him horny. Which was why he was calling her.

“I guess you heard we cracked the case.”

“Yes,” she said. “That was good.”

“Yeah, I thought so,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, but there was a lot of paper work to do, wrap it all up, you know.”

“Yes,” she said.

“So how you been?”

“You didn’t call since four days,” she said. “Wednesday night, I saw you. This is Sunday.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right,” he said. “But I been out chasing the man killed your son,” he reminded her. In fact, busting my balls trying to catch him, he wanted to say. “Which, of course, we finally done. As you know.”

“Wednesday we go to bed,” she said. “Sunday you call.”

“Yeah, well.”

There was a silence on the line.

“But I’m calling now, right?” he said.

Silence.

“I thought maybe I’d come over,” he said.

The silence lengthened.

“Cathy? What do you say?”

The silence became almost unbearable.

He thought Hey, fuck you, sister, there’s plenty other fish in the sea, huh? But he hung on, anyway, hoping he wouldn’t have to put another fuckin quarter in the phone.

She was thinking that maybe a little house in a Los Angeles suburb wasn’t for the Catalinas of this world, maybe in America, California dreaming was only for the Cathys. She was thinking that maybe Parker wasn’t quite the decent hard-working man she dreamed about, the one who’d cook barbecues for her when she finished a day’s work on her screenplay, maybe he wasn’t that man at all. But it was raining, and her son was dead, and she was lonely.

“Sure, come over,” she said, and hung up.

KLING MADE his call from a pay phone, too, and for much the same reason Parker had. He didn’t want to be turned down in a place as public as the squadroom. He didn’t want to risk possible derision from the men with whom he worked day and night, the men to whom he often entrusted his life. Nor did he want to make the call from anyplace at all in the station house. There were pay phones on every floor, but a police station was like a small town, and gossip traveled fast. He did not want anyone to overhear him fumbling for words in the event of a rejection. He felt that rejection was a very definite possibility.

So he stood in the pouring rain a block from the station house, at a blue plastic shell with a pay phone inside it, dialing the number he’d got from the police directory operator, and which he’d scribbled on a scrap of paper that was now getting soggy in the rain. He waited while the phone rang, once, twice, three times, four, five, and he thought She isn’t home, six, sev…

“Hello?”

Her voice startled him.

“Hello, uh, Sharon?” he said. “Chief Cooke?”

“Who’s this, please?”

Her voice impatient and sharp. Rain pelting down everywhere around him. Hang up, he thought.

“This is Bert Kling?” he said.

“Who?”

The sharpness still in her voice. But edged with puzzlement now.

“Detective Bert Kling,” he said. “We…uh…met at the hospital.”

“The hospital?”

“Earlier this week. The hostage cop shooting. Georgia Mowbry.”

“Yes?”

Trying to remember who he was. Unforgettable encounter, he guessed. Lasting impression.

“I was with Detective Burke,” he said, ready to give up. “The redheaded hostage cop. She was with Georgia when…”

“Oh, yes, I remember now,” Sharyn said. “How are you?”

“Fine,” he said, and then very quickly, “I’m calling to tell you how sorry I am you lost her.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“I know I should have called earlier…”

“No, no, it’s appreciated.”

“But we were working a difficult case…”

“I quite understand.”

Georgia Mowbry had died on Wednesday night. This was now Sunday. Sharyn suddenly wondered what this was all about. She’d been reading the papers when her phone rang. Reading all about yesterday’s riot in the park. Blacks and whites rioting. Blacks and whites shooting each other, killing each other.

“So…uh…I know how difficult something like that must be,” he said. “And I…uh…just thought I’d offer my…uh…sympathy.”

“Thank you,” she said.

There was a silence.

Then:

“Uh…Sharon…”

“By the way, it’s Sharyn,” she said.

“Isn’t that what I’m saying?”

“You’re saying Sharon.”

“Right,” he said.

“But it’s Sharyn .”

“I know,” he said, thoroughly confused now.

“With a y, ” she said.

“Oh,” he said. “Right. Thank you. I’m sorry.Sharyn, right.”

“What’s that I hear?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“That sound.”

“Sound? Oh. It must be the rain.”

“The rain? Where are you?”

“I’m calling from outside.”

“From a phone booth?”

“No, not really, it’s just one of these little shell things. What you’re hearing is the rain hitting the plastic.”

“You’re standing in the rain?”

“Well, sort of.”

“Isn’t there a phone in the squadroom?”

“Well, yes. But…”

She waited.

“I…uh…didn’t want anyone to hear me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I…I didn’t know how you’d feel about…something like this.”

“Something like what?”

“My…asking you to have dinner with me.”

Silence.

“Sharyn?”

“Yes?”

“Your being a chief and all,” he said. “A deputy chief.”

She blinked.

“I thought it might make a difference. That I’m just a detective/third.”

“I see.”

No mention of his blond hair or her black skin.

Silence.

“Does it?” he asked.

She had never dated a white man in her life.

“Does what?” she said.

“Doesit make a difference? Your rank?”

“No.”

But what about the other? she wondered. What about whites and blacks killing each other in public places? What about that, Detective Kling?

“Rainy day like today,” he said, “I thought it’d be nice to have dinner and go to a movie.”

With a white man, she thought.

Tell my mother I’m going on a date with a white man. My mother who scrubbed white men’s offices on her knees.

“I’m off at four,” he said. “I can go home, shower and shave, pick you up at six.”

You hear this, Mom? A white man wants to pick me up at six. Take me out to dinner and a movie.

“Unless you have other plans,” he said.

“Are you really standing in the rain?” she asked.

“Well, yes,” he said. “Doyou?”

“Do I what?”

“Have other plans?”

“No. But…”

Bring the subject up, she thought. Face it head on. Ask him if he knows I’m black? Tell him I’ve never done anything like this before. Tell him my mother’ll jump off the roof. Tell him I don’t need this kind of complication in my life, tell him…

“Well…uh…do you think you might like to?” he asked. “Go to a movie and have dinner?”

“Why do you want to do this?” she asked.

He hesitated a moment. She visualized him standing there in the rain, pondering the question.

“Well,” he said, “I think we might enjoy each other’s company, is all.”

She could just see him shrugging, standing there in the rain. Calling from outside the station house because he didn’t want anyone to hear him being turned down by rank. Never mind black, never mind white, this was detective/third and deputy chief. As simple as that. She almost smiled.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but do you think you could give me some kind of answer? Cause it’s sort of wet out here.”

“Six o’clock is fine,” she said.

“Good,” he said.

“Call me when you’re out of the rain, I’ll give you my address.”

“Good,” he said again. “Good. That’s good. Thank you, Sharyn. I’ll call you when I get back to the squadroom. What kind of food do you like? I know a great Italian…”

“Get out of the rain,” she said, and quickly put the phone back on the cradle.

Her heart was pounding.

God, she thought, what am I starting here?