Romance

4

THE TWO BLUES SEARCHING THE ALLEY WERE COMPLAINING that nobody in this city would’ve gave flying fuck about a stabbing if the victim hadn’ta been a celebrity.

“Also,” one of them said, “the only perp tosses a weapon is the pros. They use a cold piece, they throw it down a sewer afterwards, we find it, we can shove it up our ass. A person ain’t a contract hitter, he don’t throw away no weapon. Even a knife costs money, what d’you think? A person’s gonna throw it away cause he just juked somebody with it? Don’t be ridiculous. There’s switchblades cost fifty, a hundred bucks, some of them. He’s gonna throw it away cause it’s got a little blood on it? Gimme a break, willya?”

“Who’s the vic, anyway,” the other one asked, “we’re searchin this fuckin alley in the rain?”

“The fuck knows,” the other one said. “I never heard of her.”

It was really raining quite hard again.

Both of the blues were wearing black ponchos, and rain covers on their hats, but their shoulders and heads were dripping wet, anyway, and the drilling rain made it difficult to see in the dark alley here at close to two o’clock in the morning, even though they were industriously fanning every inch of it with their torches. Although they hadn’t expressed it quite this way, they were right about fame in that a stabbing in this city — especially so soon after there’d been so many stabbings in Grover Park last Saturday — was a relatively insignificant occurrence that might have gone virtually unnoticed if the victim hadn’t been an actress who once upon a time had played the lead in a road show production of Annie. Instead, here they were in a fuckin dark alley looking for a knife that had given some unknown “star” a scratch on the shoulder.

Well, something more than a scratch maybe, but according to what each of them had seen separately on television before they’d come on tonight, Michelle Cassidy’s shoulder wound had been truly superficial. How bad could it have been if they’d released her from the hospital within several hours of her admission to the emergency room? So if this was just a scratch here, then it couldn’t possibly be the required “serious” physical injury for Attempted Murder or even Assault One. What they had here was an Assault Two, maybe, where there’d been just a plain physical injury by means of a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument. Which is why they were looking for a knife in the rain, they guessed.

“A fuckin Class D felony,” one of the blues said.

“Seven years max,” the other one said.

^“Get a sharp lawyer in there, he’ll bargain it down to Assault Three.”

“A Class A mis.”

“Is what we’re wastin our time on.”

“This country, anything happens to you,” the first blue said, “you automatically become a star and a hero. All these shmucks came back from the Gulf War, they were all of a sudden heroes. I can remember a time when a hero was a guy who charged a fuckin machine-gun nest with a hand grenade in each hand and a bayonet between his teeth. That was a hero! Now you’re a hero if you just went to the fuckin war.”

“Or if you get yourself stabbed,” the other one said. “It used to be if you defended yourself against the perp, and grabbed the knife away from him, and shoved it down his fuckin throat, then you were a hero. Now you’re a hero if you just get stabbed. The TV cameras come in on you, this is the person got stabbed on the subway tonight, folks, he’s a hero, look at him, he got himself stabbed, give him a great big hand.”

“A hero and a celebrity, don’t forget,” the first one said.

“Yeah, but this one here is really supposed to be a celebrity, though.”

“You ever hear of her?”

“No.”

“Neither did I. Michelle Cassidy? Who the fuck’s Michelle Cassidy?”

“She’s a Little Orphan Annie.”

“She’s bullshit is what she is. Anybody gets hurt in this country, he becomes a hero and a celebrity, they give him a fuckin ticker tape parade. You notice how everybody knows exactly how to be interviewed on television? There’s a tenement fire and the television cameras are there, and all at once this spic in her nightgown, she just got here from Colombia the night before, she’s standin in the street can hardly speak English, she’s giving an interview to the reporter, she sounds as if she’s the guest star on The Tonight Show. ‘Oh, si, it wass so terrible, my baby wass in huh creeb in dee odder room, I dinn know wah to do!’ An illegal from Colombia is all at once a fuckin celebrity givin interviews.”

“She’ll be doin hair commercials next week.”

“Commercials for fire extinguishers,” the first blue said, and both of them burst out laughing.

The rain kept pouring down, sobering them.

“You see any fuckin knife in this alley?” the first one asked.

“I see rain in this alley, is what I see.”

“Let’s try the sidewalk.”

“The gutter.”

“Maybe he threw it in the gutter.”

“Maybe he took it home and tucked it under his pillow, fifty-dollar switchblade knife.”

“What time you got?”

“Almost two.”

“Wanna call in a pee break?”

“Too early.”

“Ain’t you hungry?”

“I could go for a slice a’pizza.”

“So let’s give it a shot.”

“We only been on two hours.”

“More than two.”

“Two and a quarter.”

“In the fuckin rain, don’t forget.”

“Even so.”

“Lookin for a knife don’t exist.”

“He coulda tossed it in the gutter.”

“Knife we’ll never find.”

“Let’s check the gutter.”

Twenty minutes later, they were eating pizza in an all-night joint just off Mapes Avenue.

Seven hours after that, Carella and Kling were sitting in the squadroom going over the notes they’d taken at the theater last night. The rain had tapered a bit, but not enough to keep them from feeling that winter was still here. This was the seventh day of April. Spring had been here for two weeks and three days already, but it had been a rotten winter, and it was still a rotten winter as far as anyone in this city was concerned.

“The way it looks to me,” Kling said, “everybody had already left the theater when she came out into that alley.”

“Except the costume designer,” Carella said. “According to Kendall, she stayed behind for a fitting with the costume designer.”

“Woman named Gillian Peck,” Kling said, and yawned. “Stage manager gave me her address and phone number, too.”

“Late night?” Carella asked, and stifled the urge to yawn himself.

“I got home around three. We talked a lot.”

“You and Sharon?”

“Sharyn.”

“She finally agreed to let you come all the way out to C.P., huh?”

“No, she met me here in the city. Anyway, how’d you…?”

“Small squadron.”

“Big ears.”

“I muri hanno orrecchi,“ Carella said.

“What’s that mean?”

“The walls have ears. My grandmother used to say that all the time. So who is she?”

“Your grandmother?”

“Yes, my grandmother.”

“Sharyn, you mean?”

“Sharon, I mean.”

“Sharyn.”

“Must be an echo in this place.”

“No, it’s Sharyn. With a ‘y.’ ”

“Ahh, Sharyn.“

“Sharyn, yes.”

“So, who is she?”

“A cop,” Kling said.

He guessed it was reasonable to call a one-star chief a cop.

“Anyone I know?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Where’d you meet her?”

“On the job.”

Which was also true, more or less.

“If all of them had already left the theater,” he said, changing the subject, “any one of them could have been out in the alley stabbing her. So…”

“Are you changing the subject?” Carella asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“I just don’t want to talk about it yet,” Kling said.

“Okay,” Carella said, but he looked hurt. “Where do we start here?”

“Steve…”

“I know.”

“How long are we gonna beat this thing to death? She was out of the hospital a minute and a half after she checked in. She’ll be back at rehearsal today, the show will go on. I’ve got three backed-up murders and a dozen…”

“I know.”

“This isn’t that important, Steve.”

“You know it’s not important, and I know it’s not important, but does Commissioner Hartman know it’s not important?”

“What are you saying?”

“Pete called me at home this morning.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Said he’d just got off the phone with Hartman. The Commish and the Mayor both wanted to know what the Eight-Seven was doing about this big star who got stabbed right outside the theater. Said they understood she’d been up here previously to report…”

“Three hours previously!”

“But who’s counting? Said it didn’t look good that we knew about threatening phone calls and still allowed…”

“Allowed?”

“… the vic to get stabbed…”

“Oh yes, we allowed her to get stabbed.”

“Is what the Commish told Pete. Which Pete repeated to me on the phone this morning at seven-thirty. The media’s making a big deal out of this, Bert. Another feeding frenzy. Pete wants the knifer. Fast.”

A uniformed black doorman asked Carella who he was here to see, please, and Carella showed him his shield and gave him Morgenstern’s name. The doorman buzzed upstairs, announced Carella, and then told him he could go right up, it was Penthouse C, elevator just to the right there. A uniformed black maid opened the door for Carella and told him that Mr. Morgenstern was in the breakfast room, would he care to follow her, please? He followed her through a sumptuously decorated apartment with windows facing the park everywhere.

Marvin Morgenstern was sitting in a bay window streaming midmorning sunlight, wearing a blue silk robe with a blue silk collar and a blue silk sash. Silk pajamas of a paler blue hue showed below the hem of the robe and in the open V of its front. He was munching on a piece of toast as the maid led Carella into the room. “Hello,” he said, “nice to see you,” and then rose and wiped either butter or jelly from his hand, and offered it to Carella. They shook hands, and then Morgenstern said, “Sit down, sit down. Have some coffee. Some toast? Ellie, bring some hot toast and another cup. You want some orange juice? Ellie, bring him a glass of juice, too. Sit down. Please.”

Carella sat.

He’d had breakfast at eight this morning, and it was now a little past ten. Morgenstern hadn’t yet shaved, but he’d combed the sleep out of his hair, sweeping it back from his forehead without a part. He had shaggy black brows to match the hair, though the hair was so black it looked dyed. Maybe the brows were dyed, too. Narrow thin-lipped mouth, bright blue eyes, mouth and eyes seeming to join in secret amusement, though Carella could find nothing funny about assault.

“So do you know who did it yet?” Morgenstern asked.

“Do you?” Carella said.

“Who knows, the bedbugs in this city? What ideas do you have?”

“We’re still investigating,” Carella said vaguely.

“Is that why you’re here?”

“Yes.”

“You think I did it?” Morgenstern said, and burst out laughing.

“Did you?”

“I’m sixty-seven years old,” he said, his laughter subsiding. “I had a triple bypass three years ago, my knee from when I had the cartilage removed twenty years ago is finally beginning to tell me when it’s going to rain, and you think I stabbed my own star in an alley? Have a heart, willya? Ah, here’s Ellie,” he said. “Fresh coffee, too, terrific. Just set it down, Ellie. Thank you.”

The maid put down a tray bearing a teaspoon, a fork, a knife, a napkin, a glass of orange juice, an empty cup and saucer, a rack of toast, and a fresh pot of coffee. Carella guessed she was no older than twenty-three, a pretty woman with sloe eyes and a cafe au lait complexion. He guessed Haitian only because so many of the new black immigrants were Haitian. Without uttering a word, she left the room again.

Morgenstern poured coffee, passed the cream pitcher and the sugar bowl. Carella drank his orange juice, and then reached for a piece of toast. He buttered it and put strawberry jam on it, and then bit into it. The bread was fresh and the toast was crunchy and still warm. The coffee was good and strong, too. He made himself at home.

“So tell me about the theater business,” he said.

“You want to know if it was worth my while stabbing her, right?” Morgenstern said.

He still seemed secretly amused by all this.

“Something like that,” Carella said.

“Like what do I stand to gain now that my star has been stabbed and everybody in town knows the name of my play,” he said, and this time he smiled openly, never mind any secrets.

“And the date it’s going to open,” Carella said.

“Right, the sixteenth,” Morgenstern said. “A Thursday night. The day before Passover and Good Friday. That should bring us luck, don’t you think? A double whammy? So let me tell you just what I’ll earn if this play is a hit, okay? Which, I’ll admit, seems a good possibility. We’re getting the cover of Time next week, you know. It’ll be on the stands Monday.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. But this has become a continuing television drama, anyway. You can’t tune in a news broadcast without seeing and hearing some mention of Michelle Cassidy, Michelle Cassidy, Michelle Cassidy. Nothing television likes better, right? Beautiful girl with big tits gets stabbed, they eat it up. Wring their hands in public, but in private they’re licking their chops. I won’t be surprised if they make the story a miniseries. Not that I’m any different. In fact, if you want to do me a big favor, you’ll arrest somebody before we open. Keep the story going, you know?”

“You were about to tell me…”

“Right, my finances. What do I stand to gain? Why did I stab Michelle, right?”

“I didn’t say you’d stabbed her.”

“I know you didn’t. I’m just kidding. I didn’t say I stabbed her, either. Because I didn’t.”

“I’m relieved to hear that,” Carella said, and sipped at his coffee, and then buttered and jammed another piece of toast.

“Although my piece of the show would seem to justify it,” Morgenstern said.

“Justify what?”

“Murder.”

“Uh-huh. What exactly is your piece of the show?”

“Which is what you asked in the first place.”

“And which you still haven’t answered.”

“In a nutshell, I get two percent of the gross, fifty percent of the profits, and office expenses.”

“What’s the gross expected to be?”

“At capacity?”

“Yes.”

“If we move it downtown, you mean. Which is what we’d do with a hit. So let’s say we move it to a five-hundred-seat theater on the Stem. Your top ticket would go for fifty bucks on a straight play, which this is. As opposed to a musical. The top on a musical is sixty-five, seventy, it depends. So let’s say a top of fifty, an average of… listen I’ve got this all broken down, what’s the sense of doing it in my head?”

“Got what all broken down?”

“My business manager made an estimate for me. In case we move to the Stem.”

“I guess you’re anticipating that.”

“Well, now I am, yes.”

“When did he make this estimate for you?”

“Yesterday. Right after Michelle got stabbed.”

“I see.”

“Yeah. If you want a copy of it, I’ll give it to you before you leave.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“My pleasure,” Morgenstern said.

“So what does your business manager estimate the profits will be if you move to the Stem?”

“In a five-hundred-seat house? At capacity? Seventy grand a week.”

“In other words, Mr. Morgenstern, if this show is a hit, you’ll be taking home quite a bit of money.”

“Quite a bit, yes.”

“How long do you figure it’ll take to recoup?”

“At capacity? Thirteen weeks.”

“After which you start getting your fifty-percent share of the profits.”

“Yes.”

“Who gets the other fifty percent?”

“My investors.”

“How many of those are there?”

“Twenty. I’ll give you a list of them, too, if you like.”

“How much does your playwright get?”

“Freddie? Six points.”

“Before or after recoupment?”

“Pre and post, all the way through. A straight six percent of the gross.”

“Nice business,” Carella said.

“Except that for every play that makes it, you’ve got a dozen that flop. Frankly, you’re better off putting your money in mutual funds.”

“I’ll remember that,” Carella said.

“Have another piece of toast.”

“Thanks. Few more questions and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Here comes the rubber hose,” Morgenstern said, and smiled again.

“As I understand this,” Carella said, “last night…”

“See? What’d I tell you?

Carella smiled. He picked up another piece of toast, buttered it, put jam on it, bit into it. Chewing, he said, “Last night, Michelle was delayed at the theater some fifteen, twenty minutes. The others all broke for dinner, but she…”

“Yes, that’s my understanding, too.”

“You weren’t there?”

“No. Who says I was there?”

“I thought…”

“Earlier maybe. But not when they…”

“I thought you were there during the rehearsal.”

“I got there at five and left around six, six-fifteen. Right after the fight.”

“Oh? What fight?” Carella asked.

“The usual bullshit.”

“What usual bullshit is that?”

“The actress wanting to know why she’s. doing this or that, the director telling her to just do it.”

“Then this fight was between Michelle and Kendall, is that it?”

“Yes. Anyway, it wasn’t a fight, it was just the usual bullshit. You know the famous story about the phone ringing, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“There’s this scene in a play where the phone is ringing, and the actor is supposed to answer it and have a conversation with the person on the other end. So this Method actor wants to know what his motivation is, why does he answer the phone? The director tells him, `Because it’s ringing, goddamn it!’ This goes on all the time, the bullshit between the actors and the director. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Who else was there? Was Freddie Corbin there?”

“No. Just the actors and the crew.”

“Were they all still there when you left?”

“Yes.”

“But they left the theater before Michelle did, is that right?”

“Yes, she had a costume fitting. The costume designer needed her for fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“So the others all. broke for dinner at six-thirty…”

“I think that’s what Ashley was planning. Yes, I’m sure he said six-thirty.”

“Which left just Michelle and the costume designer alone in the theater.”

“Well, Torey would’ve been there, too.”

“Torey?”

“Our security guard. At the stage door.”

“That’s his name? Torey?”

“Well, it’s Salvatore Andrucci, actually. But he used to fight under the name Torey Andrews. Do you remember Torey Andrews? Good middleweight some twenty, twenty-five years ago. That’s Torey.”

“Know where I can reach him?”

“At the theater. You want some more coffee? I’ll get the shwartzer to bring some.”

“Thank you no,” Carella said. “I’ve taken enough of your time.”

“Then let me get that estimate for you. If you still want it.”

“I still want it,” Carella said.

Gillian Peck lived in a doorman building on the city’s upper south side. Kling had called ahead, and when he was announced over the intercom, he could hear a British voice answering, “Yes, do send him up, please.”

The woman who opened the door seemed to be in her mid-fifties, a petite, mop-topped brunette wearing a green silk-brocade tunic over matching bell-bottomed pajama pants and green slippers with a gold crest. She told him at once that she had a meeting downtown at noon — this was now ten past eleven — and she hoped this would be short. Kling promised that it would.

She led him into a living room hung with framed drawings of the costumes she’d done for what appeared to be a hundred different shows, but which she explained had been only ten. “My favorite was the Twelfth Night I did for Marvin,” she said, beaming, and walked Kling past a series of framed sketches of figures in brightly colored costumes, the name of each character penciled in at the bottom of the drawing: Sir Toby Belch. Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Malvolio. Olivia. Viola…

“I love the names he gave them,” she said. “Do you know what the full title of the play is?”

“No,” Kling said.

“Shakespeare called it Twelfth Night; Or What You Will. I took that as a cue for the costumes. I went for an uninhibited, anything-goes look.”

“I think you succeeded,” Kling said.

“Yes, quite,” Gillian said pensively, studying the drawings. “Well, then,” she said, turning away abruptly and walking toward a seating group that consisted of a sofa done in red velvet and two side chairs done in black. She sat in one of the black chairs, perhaps because she didn’t wish to appear too Christmasy in a green costume against a red background. Kling suddenly wondered if she designed her own clothes.

“Sit down, won’t you?” she said, and gestured to the sofa.

He sat.

She looked at her watch.

“About Miss Cassidy,” he said.

“Oh dear, that poor child,” Gillian said.

“You were with her last night, I understand. Just before she got stabbed.”

“Yes. I fitted her for one of her costumes.”

“How many are there?”

“She has three changes. This was for the one in the first act. It’s white, very virginal, it’s when she’s supposed to be a young girl, when she first becomes infatuated with the theater. Do you know the play?”

“Not really.”

“It’s a dreadful stinker,” Gillian said. “Quite frankly, Marvin should be grateful for all this publicity.”

“I’m sure he is,” Kling said.

She looked at him.

“Mm,” she said. “Well, yes, I shouldn’t wonder. In any case, there are three changes, the virgin white one, and then the gray one, when she sort of loses her innocence… it’s all such rot, really… and then the red one after she’s been stabbed, when God knows who or what she’s supposed to be. Or even who’s stabbed her, for that matter. It’s rather a matter of life imitating art, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“Do you have any idea who did it?”

“Not yet.”

“Life imitating art exactly,” she said. “In the play, nobody knows who stabbed her, either.”

“Well, we’re still investigating.”

“It’s frightening to think the person who stabbed her is still loose, isn’t it? And may remain loose. Which wouldn’t be too uncommon in this city, would it?”

“Well,” Kling said.

“No offense meant.”

“Where did this fitting take place, Miss Peck?”

“In Michelle’s dressing room.”

“At what time?”

“Six-thirty. Six thirty-five.”

“How long did it last?”

“Oh, ten minutes at most.”

“Till twenty to seven?”

“I’d say a quarter to.”

“Then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“What did you do after the fitting?”

“Well, we left.“

“The theater?”

“No, the dressing room.”

“Together?”

“No. I went to the wardrobe room to hang the costume up again, and Michelle went to the loo.”

“Did you see her again that night?”

“Yes, just before I left the theater.”

“Where’d you see her?”

“There’s a phone just inside the stage door, on the wall there. A pay phone. She was standing there as I was leaving the theater.”

“Talking?”

“No. She was just dialing a number, in fact.”

“What time would this have been?”

“Oh… ten to seven?”

“What happened then?”

“I said goodnight to Torey, and went out.”

“Who’s Torey?”

“The security guard.”

“Where was he?”

“Sitting just inside the stage door. Where he always sits. There’s a stool there.”

“How far from the phone?”

“Five feet? Six feet? I really couldn’t say.”

“Did you see anyone in the alley when you came out?”

“No one.”

“You weren’t still in the alley when Michelle left the theater, were you?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Then you didn’t see her actually leaving?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“And I’m sure you didn’t see anyone stab her.”

“That’s correct.”

“Where’d you go after you left the theater?”

“To meet a gentleman friend of mine.”

“Where would that have been?”

“A restaurant downtown. I caught a cab just outside the theater.”

“At what time would that have been?”

“At five minutes to seven.”

“You know the exact time, do you?”

“Yes, I looked at my watch. I was supposed to meet my friend at seven-thirty, and I was wondering if I’d be late. The restaurant is all the way downtown.”

“Which restaurant is that, Miss Peck?”

“Da Luigi. On Mersey Street.”

“Were you late?”

“No, I got there right on the Dorothy.”

Kling looked at her.

“The dot,” she said.

Torey Andrews né Salvatore Andrucci studied the shield in the palm of Carella’s hand, and then looked at his ID card again, and then said, “Is this about Michelle?”

“Yes, it is,“ Carella said.

“I was hoping you caught the guy by now.”

“We’re still investigating.”

“Long as I ain’t a suspect, huh?” Torey said, and grinned, showing a mouthful of missing teeth.

He was perhaps five feet ten inches tall, weighing in at two-forty or thereabouts these days, no longer the middle-weight he’d once been. His left eye was partially closed by scar tissue, and his nose roamed all over the center of his face, and he sounded like any of the punch-drunk pugs Carella had ever met. But there was intelligence in his lively green eyes and Carella figured he’d quit the ring before they’d managed to scramble his brains.

He was wearing what Carella had always called a “bakery-shop sweater,” because this was the kind of sweater Carella’s father had worn to work each morning. In Torey’s case, the sweater was a collarless brown cardigan, a bit frayed at the cuffs, one of the buttons missing. He wore this with thick-waled corduroy trousers and brown loafers. He was sitting on his stool just inside the stage door. The pay phone on the brick wall painted black was some seven or eight feet away from the stool. From the stage, Carella could hear what sounded like two or three actors rehearsing a scene. The clock on the wall read twelve-thirty.

“Torey, can you tell me anything about what happened last night?” Carella asked.

“Oh, sure. It was me who called the police. I heard her screaming, I ran out there, she was laying on the ground, screaming.”

“You didn’t see anyone else in the alley, did you?”

“No. Just her. You mean the one who stabbed her? No. I wished I did.”

“What’d you do?”

“I left her laying there. You ain’t supposed to move anybody’s hurt. I learned that when I was still in the ring. Somebody gets hit bad, you move him, it could make him worse. So I left her out there, and I come inside again and called nine-one-one. From the phone right there. They got here right away. Which is a miracle, this city.”

“Can you remember seeing anyone suspicious before Miss Cassidy left the theater?”

“I wasn’t outside.”

“I meant inside the theater. After everyone else left.”

“You mean after Miss Peck went out, too.”

“Yes. You didn’t see anyone suspicious in the theater, did you? Anyone who shouldn’t have been here?”

“No, I didn’t. Miss Peck left, and a few minutes later Michelle came up to use the phone, and…”

“Miss Cassidy made a phone call?”

“Yeah. From the phone right on the wall there.”

“Did you hear what she said while she was on the phone?”

“Well, it was a very quick call.”

“But did you hear it?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did she say?”

“She said… well, you want this exact? Because I’m not sure I can remember it exact.”

“As close as you can remember.”

“Well… she said like uh This is me, I’m just about to leave, something like that. And then she listened, and I guess she just said Okay, and hung up.”

“Did she mention anyone’s name?”

“No.”

“What did she do then?”

“She came over here and we talked for a while.”

“How long a while?”

“Five minutes? She kept looking at her watch… I figured she had to go meet somebody. But we talked for a few minutes, and then she looked at her watch again, and said, `Well, so long, Torey,’ something like that, and off she went.”

“What time was this?”

“Few minutes after seven.”

“How do you know?”

“Clock hanging right there on the wall,” he said, and gestured with his head. “I look at it all the time. It’s funny,” he said. “You’re in the round three minutes, it seems like forever. But here, in the theater here, I sit on my stool, I look at the clock, and I remember the old days, and it’s like a movie going by too fast. Sometimes I think I won’t have enough time to play all the movies inside my head. You think I’ll have time to play them all?”

“I hope so,” Carella said gently.

The clock on the squadroom wall read twenty minutes past one. They had sent out for lunch, and now, as they ate, they recapped what each of them had separately learned.

“Who’d she call?” Kling asked.

“Big question.”

“Let me see that estimate Morgenstern gave you,” he said, and Carella shoved it across the desk to him.

“Scale actors get a big one a week, huh?”

“Wanna be an actor?”

“Nope.”

“What’s A.E.A.?”

“Don’t know.”

“T. W.A. U.?”

“Some kind of union, I’ll bet.”

“MU? HS?”

“Don’t know.”

“Guess they don’t believe in the power of the tube, huh?”

“Guess not.”

“What’s a three-sheet?”

“Beats me.”

“As the monkey said while peeing into the till…”

“This is running into a lot of money,” Carella said, and both men began giggling like schoolboys.

“You can skip over the rest of the administrative and general expenses,” Carella said. “Look down to the next section.”

Kling looked:

“Michelle isn’t getting a piece of the action, I see.”

“None of the actors are.”

“Big winner is the author.”

“Bigger winner is Morgenstern.”

“Not according to this.”

“He also gets fifty percent of the profits.”

“Nice. Does he own the theater, too?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So what’ve we got here?”

“Add it up.”

“Morgenstern gets half of that,” Carella said. “Plus his two percent and his office expenses.”

“You think he did it?”

“No.”

“Then who did?”

“Whoever Michelle phoned before she left the theater