Romance

11

MARVIN MORGENSTERN CALLED EARLY THE NEXT MORNING TO tell Carella his stage manager had jumped out a window the night before.

This was the first Carella had heard of it.

The incident had occurred downtown, in the Two-One Precinct, and none of the detectives there had made any immediate connection between the apparent suicide they’d caught, and the murder that had been all over everywhere for the past four days.

“How could they be so dumb?” Morgenstern asked on the phone, though in all fairness the detectives who’d caught the squeal downtown hadn’t learned that the victim was stage-managing the same play the slain actress had been in until a thorough search of his apartment turned up a loose-leaf binder he’d kept listing the names, addresses, telephone numbers and schedules of anyone connected with the show. That was how they got Morgenstern’s number.

“It’s getting to be a regular epidemic here,” Morgenstern told Carella.

Carella tended to agree.

A stabbing on the sixth.

A murder on the seventh.

A suicide — or what certainly looked like one — on the tenth.

The old hat trick.

The reason the detectives of the Two-One shrewdly suspected suicide was the fact that a note was in the roller of the typewriter on Chuck Madden’s desk, and the note read:

They did not know that Michelle was Michelle Cassidy until they found her name listed in the loose-leaf binder under ACTORS. From the naked broken parts on the sidewalk, the building’s superintendent had identified “Mr. Madden in 10A,” but until they leafed through that binder, they hadn’t known that he was Mr. Charles Williams Madden, STAGE MANAGER of this play called Romance. That was when they called Marvin Morgenstern, PRODUCER.

Now Morgenstern was reporting all this to Steve Carella, DETECTIVE, even though Madden hadn’t defenestrated himself anywhere near the confines of the Eight-Seven. Carella did not envy whoever in the department would have to determine jurisdiction on this one. Meanwhile, he told Morgenstern he would go talk to the detectives downtown.

They were still at the scene when Carella and Kling got there at nine-thirty that morning of the eleventh. So were Monoghan and Monroe from the Homicide Division.

“Well, well, well.” Monoghan said. “look what the cat dragged in.”

“Well, well, well,” Monroe repeated.

The two were dressed in black, as befitted their station and calling. The weather being seasonably mild, each was wearing a tropical-weight black suit, a white pima cotton shirt, a black tie, black shoes and socks, and a rakishly tilted black fedora with a narrow snap brim. They thought they looked quite elegant. In fact, they resembled two portly morticians whose mutual bad habit was hooking thumbs into jacket pockets. They were both grinning as if pleased to see Carella and Kling.

“What brings the Eight-Seven to the scene of this morbidity?” Monoghan asked.

“This chamber of death and desolation,” Monroe said, beaming and opening his arms wide to encompass the entire apartment. At the far end of what appeared to be the living room, a technician was dusting the sill of the window through which Madden had presumably leapt to his death. The window was still open. The curtains on either side of it rustled in a mild breeze. It was a spectacularly beautiful Saturday in April.

“Who’s this?” a big, burly black man asked, and walked in from the other room. He was wearing a loud plaid sports jacket and brown slacks, and white cotton gloves. He was also in need of a shave, a sure sign that he was the cop who’d caught the squeal.

“You in charge here?” Carella asked.

“I’m in charge here,” the man said.

“No, we’re in charge here,” Monoghan said.

Carella ignored him.

“Carella,” he said, introducing himself. “Eighty-seventh Squad.”

“Oh, yeah,” the man said matter-of-factly. “I’m Biggs, the Two-One. My partner’s in the bedroom.” Neither of them offered his hand. Cops on the job rarely shook hands, perhaps because none of them was hiding a dagger up his sleeve. “I figured you’d be turning up sooner or later. The possible connection,” he said.

“What connection?” Monroe asked.

“There’s a connection?” Monoghan asked.

“To what?” Monroe said.

Both of them looked suddenly perturbed, as if this possible connection, whatever it turned out to be, might mean more work for them. In this city, the appearance of homicide cops was mandatory at the scene of any murder, but the precinct detective catching the squeal always followed the case to its conclusion. Most of the time, Homicide served in a purely supervisory — some skeptics might have said superficial — capacity. Quick to find fault, quicker to take credit, the cops from Homicide were not particularly adored by other members of the force, least of all those who were on the front lines of any investigation. Biggs’s distaste showed on his round open face. Carella’s expression ran a close second. Kling simply walked away.

“Michelle Cassidy,” Carella said.

“The actress who’s been all over television,” Biggs said, figuring he’d shove a hot poker up their asses.

“This is connected to that?” Monroe said.

“That is connected to this?” Monoghan said.

“Just a possible connection,” Biggs said. “You see this note, Carella?”

They all moved to where the typewriter sat on a desk facing the same window through which Madden had presumably jumped. Except for Kling — who was in the bedroom now, talking to Biggs’s partner, another black man — they all leaned over the typewriter to look at the note:

“Just what he said it said,” Carella said.

“Just what who said?” Monroe asked,

“Morgenstern.”

“Who the fuck is Morgenstern?” Monoghan asked.

“I read it to him on the phone,” Biggs said.

“Who?”

“Morgenstern.”

“Why?”

“He’s the producer,” Biggs said, and shrugged. “What do we do here, Carella?” he asked. “Whose case is this?”

“I think the chain goes back to us. But let’s work it together till rank decides,” Carella suggested.

“We’re the ones decide here,” Monroe said.

“I don’t think so,” Carella said.

“Me, neither,” Biggs said.

“We’re Homicide,” Monoghan said, looking offended.

Biggs ignored him.

“You shoulda seen what he looked like on the sidewalk,” he told Carella.

“Am I the only one here just had breakfast?” Monoghan asked.

“Where’s he now?” Carella asked.

“Parkside General. What’s left of him. They had to scrape him off the sidewalk.”

“Please,” Monoghan said.

“This typewriter been dusted yet?” Monroe asked.

“No, the techs just got here a few minutes ago.”

“How about the note?”

“That neither.”

“You’ll want to get both of those to the lab,” Monoghan suggested.

“No shit,” Biggs said.

“Henry? You want to come in here a minute?”

They all turned to where Biggs’s partner was standing in the doorway with Kling. He was wearing jeans, loafers, a blue cotton turtleneck sweater and white cotton gloves. His name was Akir Jabeem. He introduced himself to Carella and the homicide dicks and then turned to Kling as if wondering who was going to break this to the others. Both men had obviously discussed this between them already. Kling nodded.

“We’re not sure the guy was actually living here,” Jabeem said.

“Then who was living here?” Monoghan asked. “If not him.”

“What we’re saying,” Jabeem said, “is there doesn’t seem much evidence of habitation here,”

“I still don’t know what the fuck you’re saying,” Monoghan said.

“Take a look in his clothes closer,” Kling said.

They all walked over to the closet and looked inside. There were two pairs of pants hanging in the closet. One sports jacket. One pair of shoes on the floor. Loafers. Black.

“So?” Monroe said. “The guy didn’t own too many clothes.”

“Take a look in the dresser,” Jabeem advised.

They all went over to the dresser. Kling and Jabeem had already opened the drawers. They looked in. The two bottom drawers were empty. In the top drawer, there were three pairs of undershorts, three pairs of socks, three handkerchiefs, and a blue denim shirt.

There was a night table on either side of the bed. An empty glass was on the table closest to the window. The one on the other table was half-full. Jabeem picked up the glass in one of his gloved hands, held it first under his nose, sniffing, and then under Carella’s.

“Scotch?” Carella asked.

“Or something mighty like it.”

Lying on the floor beside the bed was a heap of clothing that included a pair of undershorts, a pair of socks, a pair of workman’s coveralls, a pair of high-topped workman’s shoes, and a blue woolen watch cap. Presumably, these were the clothes Madden had been wearing before he’d stripped naked to jump out the window. The window in this room was sealed shut around an air-conditioning unit. Which may have been why he’d gone into the other room to do his high-diving act.

“Let’s check the other room,” Monroe said.

It was his smartest suggestion today.

The other room undoubtedly had served Madden as a sort of combined living room/work area. Not much larger than the bedroom, it was furnished only with a desk, a chair in front of it, a sofa upholstered in a black-and-white-check fabric, an easy chair done in the same fabric, and an open cabinet on top of which there was a shaded lamp. Sitting on the one shelf inside the cabinet were four tumblers and a bottle of Black & White Scotch that appeared to be about a quarter full.

“There she is,” Jabeem said.

Inside the top drawer of the desk near the window, they found a stapler, a small box of staples, several pencils, a box of paper clips, and a sheaf of paper for a three-ringed loose-leaf binder of the sort Madden had used for his stage manager’s records. Two of the drawers on the right side of the kneehole were empty. In the bottom drawer there was a boxed ream of typewriter paper. Biggs removed the lid. Inside the box, there were twenty typed pages of the manuscript for a play. The title page read:

The typescript seemed to match that on the note in the typewriter.

“This other name mean anything to you?” Biggs asked.

“He’s in the play they’ve been rehearsing,” Carella said.

“One of the bit players,” Kling said.

“What play?” Monoghan asked.

“Romance.”

“The dead girl was starring in it.”

“I don’t know what the hell’s going on here,” Monoghan said.

“Let’s check the kitchen,” Monroe said.

This was his second smartest suggestion today.

The small refrigerator in the kitchen had nothing in it but a container of milk that had gone sour, a wilted head of lettuce, half a tomato growing mold, a partially full quart bottle of club soda, and an unopened package of sliced white bread. In the freezer compartment, there were three ice cube trays. Two of them were empty. The last contained ice cubes that were shrinking away from the sides of their separate compartments.

“Who’s in charge here?” a voice from the entrance door bellowed, and Fat Ollie Weeks barged into the apartment.

“I am,” Biggs said, and walked over to him, and glanced at the ID card clipped to his lapel. “What’s the Eight-Eight doing all the way down here?” he asked.

“We caught the prior,” Ollie said, smiling pleasantly.

“What prior?”

“Michelle Cassidy.”

“You, too?” Biggs said.

“Oh, did somebody else catch that squeal?” Ollie asked innocently. “The girl’s murder? Because if so, this is the first I’m hearing.”

“Carella here caught the stabbing.”

“Apples and oranges,” Ollie said. “This is a clear case of FMU.”

He was referring to Section 893.7 of the rules and regulations governing internal police matters in this city. The section was familiarly called the First Man Up rule since it dealt with conflicts involving priority and jurisdiction, detailing the circumstances and situations in which a police officer who’d been investigating a prior crime was mandated to investigate a seemingly related subsequent crime.

“Look, Ollie…” Carella started.

“I already dealt with you and the blond kid here,” Ollie said, “I got nothing further to say to either one of you. In fact, I don’t appreciate everybody I go talking to on this case, they tell me, ’Oh, gee, Detective Weeks, Carella’s already been here, Kling’s already been here.’ You got no excuse investigating my homicide, so just…”

“Try Nellie’s people going to the Chief of…”

“Try this,” Ollie said, and held up the middle finger of his right hand. Nodding in dismissal, he turned immediately to Biggs and said, “You can go home, too.”

“Oh, is that right?” Biggs said.

“Yes, Henry,” Ollie. said, reading his first name from the ID card clipped to his jacket pocket. “The guy who killed the girl is already in jail, so your services are no longer needed. Whatever this is here…”

“Did you see what’s in the typewriter?” Biggs asked.

“No, what’s in the typewriter?”

“Take a look.”

Ollie looked:

“Don’t mean a shit,” Ollie said.

“Sort of lets Milton off the hook, though, don’t you think?” Carella said pleasantly.

“Who’s Milton?” Monoghan asked.

“A poet,” Monroe said.

“A what?”

“An English poet.”

“I never heard of him.”

“He wrote Paradise Falls.”

“He’s the fuckin agent who killed her,” Ollie said, not so pleasantly.

“How about that note, Ollie?” Carella asked.

“How about it? It ain’t even signed. How do I know who typed that note?”

“Milton sure as hell didn’t. He’s already in jail, remember?”

“Anybody coulda typed it. A friend of Milton’s coulda typed it! A friend of his coulda shoved this guy out the window and then typed a phony suicide note. To get Milton off the hook. It don’t mean a shit, that note.”

“Nothing means anything…”

“That note doesn’t!”

“…just so you get the collar…”

“I know when somebody did something!”

“…on the big case that’s all over television!”

“I just want to make sure the guy who did it…”

“You just want to make sure you get famous.”

“Come on,” Biggs said. “We’re working a homicide here.”

“That’s exactly why we’re in charge here,” Monoghan said.

“Exactly,” Monroe said.

“Because it’s a homicide,” Monoghan said.

“Two homicides, if you count the broad got juked,” Monroe said.

“No, that’s why I’m in charge here,” Ollie said. “Because the broad got juked first. You still here, Henry?” he asked, making the name sound like a racial slur. “Take your partner and go home. This is your partner, ain’t it?” he said, jerking a thumb at Jabeem, who stood glowering at him now. “He sure looks like he might be your partner,”

“You want to sort out whose case this is,” Biggs said calmly, shooting Jabeem a glance that clearly said Cool it, “then go downtown and talk to the Chief of Detectives. Meanwhile, while you and him’re debatin eight ninety-three seven, somebody jumped out a window right here in the Two-One, and that gives us a clear mandate to investigate the occur…”

“The note in that typewriter…”

“But like you said…”

“…mentions the girl…”

“Yes, but…”

“…who got killed in my precinct!”

“But the note don’t mean a shit, remember?”

“We’ll see what the Chief has to say about that,” Ollie said.

“Good, go talk to him.”

“That’s just what I’m gonna do. Right this fuckin minute!”

“Good,” Biggs said. “Go.”

“We’ll go with you,” Monoghan said.

“Straighten out this mess,” Monroe said.

“Good, go,” Biggs said. “All three of you.”

All three of them flapped out of the apartment.

“Shouldn’t one of us talk to the super again?” Carella asked.

The superintendent was standing on the sidewalk outside the building, his hands on his hips, watching a pair of moving men struggling a huge sofa off a truck parked at the curb. He was a trim little man with graying hair, wearing blue polyester slacks and a long-sleeved blue sports shirt, the sleeves rolled up onto his forearms.

He had previously informed Biggs that his name was Siegfried Seifert, and that he had come to America from his native town of Stuttgart some twenty years ago. He still spoke with a marked German accent as he told the moving men to use the elevator on the left, which he advised them had been padded in anticipation of their arrival. Both moving men were black. Kling noticed. Mr. Seifert was white.

“I am standing here on the sidewalk,” he told the four assembled detectives now, two of them white, two of them black, “when up from there he comes flying down,” gesturing with his head to the ten stories above them. “He is almost falling on my head,” he said, touching it in wonder and awe. His speech began sounding somewhat less accented — a phenomenon perhaps bred of familiarity — as he explained what a shock it was to see this nice young man splattered all over the sidewalk that way, “Naked, too,” he added, as if Madden’s state of undress had been more impressive than his plunge from the window above. Sounding more and more like a professor of English literature at Oxford (but such are the benefits of a second language, dollinks), he went on to say that he had recognized the man at once the moment he rushed over to the body. “His face,” he added, not wishing the detectives to think he had checked out any other part of the poor fellow’s anatomy, which he wouldn’t have recognized in any case, never having seen him naked before.

What the detectives wanted to know was whether Madden lived in the apartment full-time.

“Because he don’t seem to have too many clothes up there,” Jabeem said, using the same head gesture Seifert had earlier used to indicate the ten floors above them. Or eleven if you counted ground level as ground zero. Some buildings in this city numbered apartments on the ground floor with only the letters A, B, C and so on, no numbers.

“What is it you mean?” Seifert asked.

“Clothes,” Jabeem explained, beginning to wonder all over again if this fuckin Nazi understood English. “In his closet, in his drawers.”

“Not many clothes,” Biggs translated.

“I see him always wearing the same thing,” Seifert said, shrugging. “Workman’s overalls, tall shoes, a blue wool hat. No shirt.”

“How about in the winter?” Carella asked.

“He is only living here since January,” Seifert said.

“That’s winter,” Kling said.

“Well, a jacket sometimes. He sometimes wears a brown leather jacket.”

“See anything like that up there?” Jabeem asked Kling.

Kling shook his head.

“What else have you seen him wearing?” Carella asked.

“I don’t watch so much what he wears.”

“Past four months, huh?” Biggs said.

“Three and a half,” Seifert said.

“Some very cold weather during those months,” Carella said. “Ever see him wearing an overcoat?”

“He was a healthy young fellow,” Seifert said, shaking his head.

“Even healthy young fellas can catch pneumonia,” Jabeem said.

The moving men kept going past with furniture. A woman living in the building came out to where they were standing in the sunshine and complained to Seifert that she’d had to wait ten minutes for the elevator. She told him that either people were always moving in or out or else one or another of the damn elevators was always out of order. She told him she was going to complain to the maintenance company. Seifert listened patiently, sympathetically clucking his tongue, explaining that this was an old building, and the elevators didn’t always work proper how they should.

“Ever see him moving any of his stuff out?” Biggs asked. Carella was about to ask the same thing, all this activity.

“Well, even when he first moves in, there is not much furniture,” Seifert said.

“I mean clothes,” Biggs said. “Ever see him leaving with a suitcase? Or a trunk? Putting a trunk in a taxi? Anything like that?”

Carella was thinking along the same lines. Man comes through a bitter winter with nothing but the clothes on his back and a few things in his closet?

“I have never seen him moving things,” Seifert asked.

“Been any burglaries in the building recently?” Kling asked.

He was thinking maybe somebody had stolen Madden’s clothes.

“Not since before last September,” Seifert said. “This is remarkable,” he added, “a building without a doorman.”

The detectives were inclined to agree with him.

“What kind of hours did he keep?” Jabeem asked.

“He is always coming and going,” Seifert said. “He worked in the theater, you know, this is not like an honest job.”

Carella smiled.

None of the other detectives did. Perhaps they agreed with Seifert’s observation.

“Ever see any of the people he worked with?”

“Any of them ever come here?”

“The men or women he worked with? Ever see any of them?”

“I don’t know who he worked with,” Seifert said.

“If we showed you pictures, could you tell us whether any of them were here last night?”

“I wasn’t here myself last night,” Seifert said.

The detectives looked at him.

“I thought you said…”

“I was at a movie,” Seifert said.

“You said you were standin here on the sidewalk…”

“Yes, after.”

“After what?”

“The movie.”

“Let me get this…”

“I came home from the movie, and I was on the sidewalk taking the air, when Mr. Madden comes down.”

“What time was this?”

“Twenty-five minutes past eleven.”

“How do you…?”

“I looked at my watch.”

“He came flying out the window…”

“Naked.”

“Almost hit you…”

“Almost. But not.”

“At twenty-five past eleven.”

“Exact.”

“You looked at your watch.”

“Yes.”

“What time did you leave for the movie?”

“It started at nine.”

“So from nine till…”

“No, we left before nine. To get there. The movie house is just around the corner. We left here at about a quarter till nine. Me and my wife.”

“What time did you get back here?”

“About a quarter past eleven.”

“Just in time for him to almost hit you on the head.”

“Well, a little before. Klara went inside, I stayed out to take some air.”

“So from a quarter to nine till a quarter past eleven, you couldn’t have seen anyone going in or coming out of the building.”

“That’s right.”

So what the fuck good are you? Jabeem wondered.

“How about afterward?” Carella asked. “Did you see anyone coming out of the building after Mr. Madden’s fall?”

“There was a lot of confusion. Police, ambulances…”

“Before the confusion,” Carella said. “What’d you do right after the body came down?”

“I went inside to phone the police.”

“Nine-one-one clocked the call at eleven-thirty,” Biggs told Carella.

“Then what?”

“I came out again to wait for them.”

“Blues responded at eleven thirty-seven,” Biggs told Carella. “We got here ten minutes after that.”

“So you weren’t out here for a good seven, eight minutes,” Carella said.

“That’s right,” Seifert said.

“So during that time, you couldn’t have seen anyone leaving the building.”

“That’s right.”

So what the fuck good are you? Jabeem wondered again.

“But there were other persons here,” Seifert said. “When I came out again, there was already a big crowd.”

All of them staring at the mess on the sidewalk here, Jabeem figured, none of them noticing anybody coming out of the building. All four detectives were silent for a moment.

Carella was wondering why Madden had taken off all his clothes before jumping out the window.

Biggs was wondering the same thing

Kling was wondering if Madden had been dragged into the living room, and hoisted up onto the windowsill, and then shoved out the window.

Jabeem was wondering — just supposing now — if somebody had shoved Madden out that window, would who — ever’d done it come marching out the front door of the building?

“Any other way out of the building?” he asked.

“Yes,” Seifert said.

“Where?”

“There’s a door in the basement. Near the laundry room.”

“Where does it go?”

“To the backyard.”

And clear into the big bad city, Jabeem thought.

Two technicians from the mobile crime unit were working the apartment when they got back upstairs. They had found dried stains on the sheets and one of them was taking sample cuttings which would be sent to the lab for analysis. Biggs asked if they might be semen stains.

“That’s a possibility, who knows?” the tech said.

The other tech was on his hands and knees, going over every inch of the floor.

“You get lots of guys knock off a quickie before they do the Dutch,” he said.

“Why’s that?” his partner asked.

“Cause it’s always nice to knock off a quickie.”

“Those two glasses look like there might’ve been a girl in here with him,” Biggs said.

“We’ll be takin them with us, too,” the first tech said.

The other tech was approaching the bed now, still on his hands and knees.

“Could be his hand was the girl,” Jabeem said.

“They’ll be testing those stains for her, too, won’t they?” Biggs asked.

“If there was a her,” Jabeem insisted.

“Yeah, the usual vaginal shit,” the second tech said, and poked his head under the bed.

“Maybe that’s why all his clothes were off,” Kling suggested. “A girl.”

“Sure would account for those glasses either side the bed,” Biggs said.

“Could be a party happened last week,” Jabeem said pessimistically.

“Hello, hello, hello,” the second tech said from under the bed.

They all turned to him as he backed himself out.

He was holding in his gloved right hand a ruby-red earring that glowed like a werewolf’s eye.

The assistant stage manager, a young black man who introduced himself as Kirby Rawlings, told them the only people here right now were him and the understudies, who he was running through the second act. In show business, apparently, everything was business as usual — even if your stage manager had thrown himself out a window the night before.

“We’re all on a lunch break right now, though,” Rawlings said.

“When’s Josie Beales coming in?” Carella asked.

“Not till two o’clock.”

“Know where we can find Mr. Greenbaum?”

“I think he went next door for a sandwich.”

“Have I got time to make a call?” Kling asked.

“Sure, go ahead,” Carella said.

He phoned Sharyn from the pay phone near the stage door entrance. The former boxer, Torey Andrews, sitting on his high stool, watched him as he dialed. This was one of Sharyn’s days in the Diamondback office. The woman who answered the phone said she was in with a patient.

“This is Detective Kling,” he told her, turning his back to Torey.

“Is this police business?” she asked.

“No, it’s personal,” he said.

He liked that. Saying it was personal.

“Just a minute, please.”

Sharyn came on the line a moment later.

“Hi,” she said.

“We’ve got to talk to a guy here,” he said, “and then I can come uptown if you’re free for lunch.”

“It’ll have to be a quick one,” she said, “I’m really jammed today.”

“I have to be back down here by two, anyway.”

“I’ll be waiting,” she said.

They found Jerry Greenbaum sitting against the whitewashed brick wall in the alley where Michelle had first been stabbed. He was eating a sandwich he’d bought at the deli opposite the theater, washing it down with Pepsi-Cola he sipped through a straw. He looked up when they approached, brown eyes alert in a narrow face, curly black hair giving him the look of a dark cherub. They told him they’d found a manuscript for a play titled…

“Wench, yeah,“ he said.

“Actually, The Wench Is…“

“Dead, yeah,” he said. “It’s from Marlowe.”

“Philip?” Kling asked.

“Christopher,” Jerry said, and quoted, “ ‘But that was in another country, and besides the wench is dead.’ The Jew of Malta, 1589.”

“We gather from the title page…”

“Yeah, Chuck and I were writing it together.”

“How come?”

“We started tossing around ideas during rehearsal one day, and decided we ought to write a play,” Jerry said, and shrugged. “We figured if Freddie can get his shit produced, then anybody can.”

“When was this?”

“That we decided to do it? A few weeks ago.”

“Wrote twenty pages since then, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s easy.”

“Where’d you work?” Kling asked.

“Chuck’s place mostly.”

“The apartment on North River?”

“Yeah.”

“Were you there last night?”

“No.”

“When were you there last?”

“Wednesday night, I guess it was.”

“This past Wednesday?”

“Yes.”

“The eighth, is that right?”

“Whenever.”

One of the few nights this past week when someone wasn’t getting stabbed or shoved out a window, Kling thought.

“Did Madden live in that apartment?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I think he just kept it as a place to work.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“No, it was just the impression I got.”

“What gave you that impression?”

“Hardly anything in the fridge.”

“You noticed that, huh?”

“Oh sure. I always wondered why he never offered me anything, you know? Then I realized he had practically nothing to offer. To eat or drink, I mean. It was Mother Hubbard’s cupboard up there.”

“Any idea where he was actually living?”

“With some woman, I think.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He was going over there one night.”

“Going over where?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“Then how do you know he was…?”

“He said we had to wrap early because his old lady was home waiting for him.”

“Were those his exact words? Old lady?”

“Exact.”

“You don’t think he meant his mother, do you?“

“I really don’t think so, fellas.”

“And he said she was home waiting for him, right?”

“Home waiting, yes.”

“He used the word ’home.’ ”

“Yes. Home.”

“Did you ask him where home might be?”

“Nope. None of my business.”

“Where else did you work? You said mostly his…”

“My place a couple of times.”

“Did he ever make any phone calls? Either from his apartment or yours?”

“Couple of times, I guess.”

“Any to this ‘old lady’ he mentioned?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Who did he call, would you know?”

“Well, people in the cast mostly. About theater business, you know. Changes in rehearsal time, new pages, whatever. I wasn’t really listening that hard.”

“Did he ever call Josie Beales, would you know?”

“Yes, I’m sure he did.”

“How’d he address her?”

“Address her?”

“Use any terms of endearment with her?”

“No, no. Just called her Josie, I guess.”

“Just theater business, huh?”

“Yes, that’s what it sounded like.”

“Ever call her honey or darling or anything like that?”

“No, not that I heard.”

“Was there a regular pattern to when you worked on the play?”

“Just whenever was convenient for both of us.”

“No set pattern? Like Monday, Wednesday and Friday, or Tuesday, Thursday…”

“Nothing like that.”

“Were you working with him on Tuesday night?”

Tuesday night. The night someone had stabbed Michelle Cassidy to death.

“This past Tuesday?” Jerry said. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Did you happen to talk to him that night?”

“No.”

“Any idea where he might have been that night?”

“None at all.”

“Where were you last night, Mr. Greenbaum?” Kling asked.

“At around eleven-thirty,” Carella said.

“Home asleep,” Jerry said.

“Alone?” Kling asked.

“More’s the pity.”

“Mr. Greenbaum, as soon as the lab finishes with that manuscript…”

“The lab?”

“Yes, sir, they’ll be checking it for latents, bloodstains, any other kind of…”

“Jesus.”

“Yes, sir. In any case, we’ll be having copies made…”

“Why? You going to produce it?”

“We just want to see what’s in it.”

“In it?”

“Is there anything in it we shouldn’t see?”

“Like what?”

“You tell us.”

“Like a character planning to shove another character out a ten-story window?” Jerry asked.

“Any characters like that in it?”

“No,” Jerry said. “The only person who gets killed is a woman. The Wench Is Dead, remember?”

“The guy is dead, too,” Carella reminded him.

There was no such thing as a melting pot anymore, that was the tragedy. We were supposed to take them all in, welcome them all with a warm embrace, hold them close and dear, cherish them as our precious own, forge from a thousand tribes a single strong and vital tribe. That had been the idea. Not a bad one, actually. One people. One good and decent, brave and honorable tribe.

But somewhere along the way, the idea began to dissipate. It had lasted longer than most ideas in America, where everything is in a state of incessant change. In America, there’s always a new president or a new war or a new television series or a new movie or a new talk show or a new hot writer. In view of the overwhelming wealth of ideas flooding America all the time, day and night, night and day, it wasn’t too surprising that people began thinking maybe the idea of mixing all those separate colors and languages and cultures hadn’t been such a hot one all along. That was probably when the flame burning bright and hot under the gigantic kettle that was this port-of-entry city began to dwindle until it burned too low for liquefaction.

The current hot idea was to keep sacred and separate the heritage of distant lands and foreign tongues. Not to contribute these treasures to the solitary tribe, not to share this wealth with the other members of this great tribe, but instead to protect this private hoard from all other hordes, to keep this fortune ever and always apart.

Where once “separate but equal” was a reviled notion, it was now viewed as something to which an entire people might actually aspire. Hey, separate, man, I can dig it! Long as it’s equal, too. Where once the noble idea of a “rainbow coalition” conjured an image of bands of different colors riding the sky together in a bonded arch that led to a shared pot of gold, the impoverished expression “gorgeous mosaic” now conjured a restricted vision of tiny chips of colors separated by boundaries, each unit secure in its own brilliance and beauty, none contributing to the grander concept of a unique and remarkable whole.

Where once people pounded on the doors of opportunity and shouted, “Forget we’re black, forget we’re Hispanic, forget we’re Asian,” these same people were now shouting, “Don’t forget we’re black, don’t forget we’re Hispanic, don’t forget we’re Asian!” Where once there was pride and honor and dignity and hope in being American, now there was only despair at what America had become. Small wonder that immigrants remembered their native lands as being more serene and stable than they ever were. Small wonder that they chose to cling to an ethnic identity that seemed eternally unchanging to them, rather than to fall for the bullshit of one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The city for which Bert Kling worked was a city of tribal enclaves poised on the edge of ethnic warfare similar to that erupting all over the world. The riot in Grover Park last Saturday had been caused by a criminal intent on personal gain through planned mischief. But his scheme would not have succeeded if this city had not already been so divided along ethnic lines.

Ethnic.

The most obscene word in any language.

Sharyn Cooke’s office was in Diamondback, where everyone in the entire world was black. Certainly everyone in her waiting room was black. That was when Kling realized he’d never seen a black doctor treating a white patient.

Sharyn’s receptionist was black, too.

“Detective Kling,” he told her, and from the corner of his eye caught heads turning, eyes swiveling. Everybody here was figuring the only business a honkie cop could have in a doctor’s office was looking for some brother or sister got shot. “I have an appointment,” he said. The appointment was for lunch, but he didn’t mention that.

Sharyn came out a moment later.

She was wearing a white smock over a dark skirt. Stethoscope sticking out of a pocket. White Reeboks. He wanted to kiss her.

“I’ll just be a second,” she said. “Have a seat. Read a magazine.”

He grinned like a schoolboy.

They had lunch in a diner off Colby. Everyone in the diner was black, too. This was the heart of Diamondback. He reminded her that he had to be downtown again at two, talk to a woman who might have had something to do with last night’s excitement.

“Guy jumped out a window,” he told her.

“Or was pushed,” she said knowingly.

“Or was pushed,” he agreed, nodding.

“Who’s doing the autopsy?” she asked.

“He was taken to Parkside.”

“That’d be Dwyer. Good man.”

“How long have you been practicing up here?” he asked.

“Always,” she said, and shrugged.

He hesitated a moment, and then asked, “Do you have any white patients?”

“No,” she said. “Well, at Rankin, yeah, white cops come in all the time. But not here, no.”

“Have you ever had a white patient?”

“In private practice? No. Why?”

“I just wondered.”

“Have you ever gone to a black doctor?”

“No.”

“Case closed,” she said, and smiled.

“Who are you going out with tonight?” he asked.

“None of your business.”

“Woman tells me she can’t see me cause she’s got other plans…”

“That’s right.”

“…then it becomes my business.”

“Nope.”

“How about lunch tomorrow?”

“Busy then, too.”

“Who with?”

“My mother.”

“How come your mother’s not none of my business?”

“That’s a double negative.”

“Busy twice in a row is a double negative. Why don’t I join you and your mother?”

“I don’t think that’d be such a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Cause Mama don’t ’low no saxophone playin here.”

“What does that mean?”

“Mama don’t know you white, man.“

“Time she found out, don’t you think?”

“Three dates and we’re getting married already?”

“Four counting today.”

“Four, right.”

“All of them wonderful.”

“Not the first one.”

“First one doesn’t count. Who’s this guy tonight?”

“I told you, that’s none…”

“Is this your first date with him?”

“Nope.”

“Is he black?”

“Sho nuff, honey chile.”

“Does Mama know him?”

“She do.”

“Does she allow you to play his saxophone?”

“Mama thinks I’m still a virgin. Mama don’t ’low me to play nobody’s saxophone nohow.”

“Good for Mama,” Kling said, and blinked in mock surprise. “You mean you’re not a virgin?”

“Sullied through and through,” she said,

“Well, when can we get together? Artie…”

“We’re together now.”

“Yes, but Artie wants to meet you.”

“Who’s Artie?”

“Brown. Who suggested Barney’s, remem…?”

“Right. Whose grandmother was a slave.”

“Great-great-grandmother. He wants to have dinner with us and his wife.”

“Good, I’d like to.”

“Sure, but you’re busy all the goddamn time.”

“Not all the time.”

“You’re busy tonight, you’re busy…”

“I made tonight’s date a long time ago.”

“How about tomorrow night?”

“I’d love to.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Good, I’ll tell Artie. Chinese okay?”

“Chinese is fine.”

“Who’s this guy tonight?”

“None of your…”

“Sharyn?”

The voice was deep and mellow, originating at Kling’s right elbow, and causing him to turn at once in surprise. The man standing there was tall and black and elegantly dressed in a suit several shades lighter than the color of his skin. Unless King was mistaken, the key hanging on a chain across his vest was a Phi Beta Kappa key, and unless he was further mistaken, the little plastic ID tag clipped to the lapel of the man’s jacket had the words MOUNT PLEASANT HOSPITAL printed across its top.

“Jamie, hi,” she said, and then immediately, “Bert, this is Jamie Hudson…”

“How do you…?”

“Bert Kling,” she concluded.

“Nice to meet you.”

The men shook hands. Kling, big detective that he was, had already scanned the plastic identification tag and discovered that this handsome guy looming over the table was Dr. James Melvin Hudson, and that his department at Mount Pleasant Hospital was ONCOLOGY.

“Sit down a minute,” Sharyn said.

Hudson — Dr. James Melvin Hudson, Oncology — immediately sat next to Sharyn, Kling noticed, and not him. The pair of them immediately fell into a lively conversation about a patient Sharyn had referred to Hudson — Dr. James Melvin Hudson — several months back, and who, as fate would have it, had got shot dead on the street last night.

“Bert’s a detective,” Sharyn said.

“Oh, really?” Hudson said.

Kling wondered why she had thought it necessary to mention that he was a detective, whereas she hadn’t thought it necessary to mention that Hudson was a doctor. Perhaps she was informing Hudson that her relationship with Kling was a professional one, both of them being cops and all. In which case, why hadn’t she informed Kling that the relationship with Hudson was a professional one, both of them being doctors and all. He suddenly wondered if Dr. James Melvin Hudson was the guy she was dating tonight. He suddenly felt like kicking him under the table.

“The irony is the man was dying of cancer, anyway,” Hudson said. “I figure he had two, three months at most.”

“Also, the man was such a square…”

“Letter carrier, wasn’t he?”

“Straight as an arrow.”

“Takes two in the head.”

“Was it a drive-by?”

“No, he was at home in bed, that’s the thing of it! These two guys came in and dusted him while he was asleep in bed.”

“How do they know it was two guys?”

“Landlady saw them going out.”

“Was it a mistake?”

“Looks that way. The building he lived in is full of dope dealers.”

“What a break, huh?”

“Awful. I’ve got to run,” Hudson said, and rose, and shook hands with Kling again, and said, “Nice meeting you,” and then turned to Sharyn and said, “See you at eight.”

“Eight, Jamie,” she said, and waggled her fingers at him as he rushed off.

They were both silent for several moments.

“A mutual patient,” she said.

“Uh-huh,” Kling said.

He was thinking he didn’t stand a chance against Dr. James Melvin Hudson.

“Another thing I hate about doctors,” he said.

He and Carella were standing under the theater marquee, waiting for Josie Beales to arrive. The clock in front of the hot-bed hotel across the street read ten minutes to two. Carella’s watch read eight minutes to two. Either way, she wasn’t here yet.

“…is they think their time is more valuable than anyone else’s,” Kling said. “Have you ever noticed that if you’re going to a hospital for the least little thing, they always get you there two hours beforehand? That’s so the doctor won’t waste any of his time, he can finish one lobotomy and rush next door to do another one. Meanwhile, you’re waiting there since noon for a two o’clock removal of a cyst on your ass…”

“Did you ever have a cyst on your ass?” Carella asked.

“No. On my hand once. The point is, you haven’t had anything to eat since the night before, even though this is going to be local anesthesia, and they drag you in two hours before to sit and wait for the doctor’s convenience. It doesn’t matter who you are, how important you may be, the minute you’re in a doctor’s office or a hospital, the doctor reigns supreme. You can be working a case where a homicidal maniac has killed fourteen people with an ice pick and he’s working on number fifteen right that minute, but the doctor’s time is more important than yours, and you can just sit there reading last year’s magazines, pal, until he’s damn good and ready to sec you. I hate doctors.”

“Boy,” Carella said.

“I hate nurses, too. I go to a doctor’s office, the nurse right away calls me Bert. I never met her in my life, we’re all of a sudden on a first-name basis. President of the United States goes into a doctor’s office, the nurse says, ’Have a seat, Bill, doctor will be with you shortly.’ The only time I use anybody’s first name is if I know him or if he’s a thief. Nurses call anybody who walks in the office by his first name. Sit down, Jack. Sit down, Helen. Does she call the doctor by his first name? Does she buzz him and say, ’Mel, Bert is here.’ No. It’s ’Doctor will see you shortly, Bert.’ I hate doctors and nurses.”

“But how do you really feel about them?”

“This guy doing the autopsy is supposed to be good, though,” Kling said. “Dwyer.”

“How do you know?”

“Sharyn told me.”

“Who’s…oh, Sharyn. How does she know?”

“She’s a doctor.”

“I thought you said she’s a cop.”

“She’s a doctor cop.”

“I thought you hated doctors.”

“Not Sharyn.”

“You’re a very complicated person, Bert,” Carella said. “If I may call you Bert.”

A yellow cab was pulling into the curb. The way the sun was hitting the windows, they couldn’t tell who was inside paying the driver. They watched, waited. The door opened, and Josie Beales swiveled on the seat, reaching with one leg for the sidewalk. She was wearing jeans, a tangerine-colored, cotton tank-top shirt with no bra, and brown sandals. Her strawberry-blond hair was pulled hack in a ponytail, held with a brown ribbon that matched her eyes. A brown leather tote bag was slung over her shoulder, a blue-bound copy of Romance jutting up out of it. She glanced at her watch as she stepped out of the cab, looked up, and saw Carella and Kling approaching her. She appeared startled for a moment. Sunlight struck the single ruby-red earring in her left ear.

“Hi,” she said, and smiled.

Something about the smile and the way she said that single word told them they had her.

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

“Rehearsal starts at two,” she said, and looked at her watch again.

“Won’t take a minute.”

“Is this about Chuck last night?”

“Yes. Few other things, too.”

“Why would he have done such a thing?” she asked, and shook her head and sighed heavily. Carella had the feeling she’d done just that in a play sometime before. Maybe several plays.

“This is the note he left,” he said, and took from his pocket a folded scrap of paper on which he’d copied the note in Madden’s machine.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I thought you already had the…”

“Yes, we thought so, too,” Carella said.

Or at least Ollie thought so, and Nellie Brand thought so, and even Lieutenant Byrnes thought so. But they’d just found the twin to Josie’s ruby-red earring under the bed in Madden’s apartment.

“This would make it seem he’d…well…done something to her,” Josie said.

Carella was thinking it sometimes worked if you opened the garden gate and led them down the path.

“It would make it seem he’d killed her, in fact,” he said.

“Well…yes. But I thought…”

She looked at the note again.

“How do you know he wrote this?” she said. “It isn’t signed.”

“It was in his typewriter.”

“This isn’t even his handwriting,” she said.

“That’s right, it’s mine,” Carella said. “I copied it from…”

“How do you know what his handwriting looks like?” Kling asked.

“He was our stage manager. Stage managers write notes about rehearsal calls or costume fittings or whatever. Everybody on the show knows Chuck’s handwriting. Knew it. Whatever. I think this is awful, him killing himself.”

“How about him killing Michelle?” Kling asked. “If that’s what he did.”

“Well, he doesn’t actually say that’s what he…”

“No.”

“In fact, the lines could be given any number of readings.”

“Lines?”

“In his note. What he says in his note. If it is his note. You don’t really know he wrote it for a fact, do you?”

“No, we don’t,” Carella admitted. “But if he did…”

“Then it would seem he killed Michelle,” Josie said, and did the head-shaking, heavy-sighing bit again.

“How well did he know her?” Carella asked.

“I don’t think he knew her at all well. I mean, she was living with her agent, I didn’t think…why would Chuck have killed her? What did he have to do with her?”

“It does seem odd, doesn’t it?”

Gently down the garden, he thought.

“I mean, he only seemed to know her casually,” Josie said. “I can’t believe there was anything between…”

“How well did he know you, Miss Beales?”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” she asked, and looked suddenly wary.

“You said he only knew Josie casually…”

“Yes?”

“So how well did he know you?”

“The only place I ever saw him was here in the theater,” she said, and jerked her head toward the marquee.

“Do you know where he lived?” Kling asked.

“No.”

“Never mentioned where he lived?” Carella said.

“Not to me.”

“Ever been to his apartment?”

“Never. I just told you, the only place I ever saw him was in the goddamn theater,” she said, and jerked her head toward the marquee again, sharply this time.

“How long have you known him?”

“Two months or so.”

“When did you first meet him?”

“When l read for the part.”

“When was that?”

“Beginning of March.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“Where were you last night at eleven-thirty?”

“What?”

“Where were…”

“I heard you. Am I going to need a lawyer here?”

“Why would you need a lawyer? All we’re doing is investigating a suicide.”

“Why are you investigating a suicide to begin with? A man throws himself out the goddamn window…”

“We treat homicides and suicides in exactly the same way.”

“But homicide’s the operative word here, isn’t it? You show me a note you say Chuck left…”

“That’s right…”

“And it says he did something to Michelle. Well, what somebody did to Michelle was murder her. That’s homicide, isn’t it? What you’re trying to do here is implicate me in a goddamn homicide! Somebody writes a note, you don’t even know if Chuck himself wrote it, so you automatically think Ah-ha, we’ve caught the Mad Stabber! She’s the one who got Michelle’s part, so naturally she’s the one who put him up to killing her!”

“There’s nothing in his note about that, Miss Beales.”

“No, that’s in your heads, is where it is,” she said, and glanced furiously at her watch. “Are we done here?”

“Not yet. Where were you last night at eleven-thirty?”

“Asleep.”

“Where?”

“Home.”

“Alone?”

“Good title for a movie,” she said.

“Miss Beales, we don’t find anything comical about this.”

“Neither do I!” she snapped.

“So where were you?”

“Home in bed. Alone.”

“What time did you go to bed?”

“Around ten.”

“Anyone with you before that time?”

“No,”

“Talk to anyone on the phone before that time?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Ashley.”

“Ashley Kendall?”

“Yes.”

“What time was that?”

“Around eight-thirty.”

“What’d you talk about?”

“What do you think we talked about? We’ve got a play opening in five days.”

“Talk to anyone else before ten?”

“No.”

“How about after ten^?“

“I told you…”

“Yes, but did your phone ring at any time after you went to bed?”

“No.”

“What time did you wake up this morning?”

“Eight-thirty. I had a voice lesson at ten.”

“When did you learn Mr. Madden was dead?”

“I saw it on Good Morning America.”

“Talk to anyone about it after that?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Freddie Corbin. He’d seen it on television, too.”

“Miss Beales,” Carella said, “the last time we talked to you…”

“I know. I said I was sorry for what happened to Michelle, but happy for myself. That doesn’t mean…”

“Yes, you said that, too. But you also mentioned losing the mate to the earring you’re wearing right this minute…”

“My good-luck earrings, yes.”

“Recognize this?” he asked, and took from his jacket pocket a sealed plastic bag marked with the word EVIDENCE and containing the ruby-red earring they’d found in Madden’s apartment.

“Is that mine?” she asked.

“Looks like it.”

“I don’t understand…where’d you…?”

“Under Chuck Madden’s bed,” Carella said.

“Goodbye, fellas,” she said at once, “I’m calling my lawyer.”