Sadie When She Died

10

Paddy’s Bar & Grille was on the Stem, adjacent to the city’s theater district. Carella and Fletcher got there at about nine o’clock, while the place was still relatively quiet. The action began a little later, Fletcher explained, the operative theory behind a singles operation being that neither bachelor nor career girl should seem too obvious about wanting to make each other’s acquaintance. If you began to prowl too early, you appeared eager. If you got there too late, however, you missed out. The idea was to time your arrival just as the crowd was beginning to reach its peak, wandering in as though casually looking for a phone booth instead of a partner.

“You seem to know a lot about it,” Carella said.

“I’m an observant man,” Fletcher said, and smiled. “What are you drinking?”

“Scotch and soda,” Carella said.

“A scotch and soda,” Fletcher said to the bartender, “and a Beefeater’s martini, straight up.”

He had drunk whiskey sours the day they’d had lunch together, Carella remembered, but he was drinking martinis tonight. Good. The more potent the drinks, the looser his tongue might become. Carella looked around the room. The men ranged in age from the low thirties to the late fifties, a scant dozen in the place at this early hour, all of them neatly dressed in city weekend clothes, sports jackets and slacks, some wearing shirts and ties, others wearing shirts with ascots, still others wearing turtlenecks. The women, half in number, were dressed casually as well—pants suits, skirts, blouses or sweaters, with only one brave and rather ugly soul dressed to the teeth in a silk Pucci. The mating game, at this hour, consisted of sly glances and discreet smiles; no one was willing to take a real gamble until he’d had an opportunity to look over the entire field.

“What do you think of it?” Fletcher asked.

“I’ve seen worse,” Carella said.

“I’ll bet you have. Would it be fair to say you’ve also seen better?” Their drinks arrived at that moment, and Fletcher lifted his glass in a silent toast. “What kind of person would you say comes to a place like this?” he asked.

“Judging from appearances alone, and it’s still early . . .”

“It’s a fairly representative crowd,” Fletcher said.

“I would say we’ve got a nice lower-middle-class clientele bent on making contact with members of the opposite sex.”

“A pretty decent element, would you say?”

“Oh, yes,” Carella answered. “You go into some places, you know immediately that half the people surrounding you are thieves. I don’t smell that here. Small businessmen, junior executives, divorced ladies, bachelor girls—for example, there isn’t a hooker in the lot, which is unusual for a bar on the Stem.”

“Can you recognize a hooker by just looking at her?”

“Usually.”

“What would you say if I told you the blonde in the Pucci is a working prostitute?”

Carella looked at the woman again. “I don’t think I’d believe you.”

“Why not?”

“Well, to begin with, she’s a bit old for the young competition parading the streets these days. Secondly, she’s in deep conversation with a plump little girl who undoubtedly came down from Riverhead looking for a nice boy she can bed and eventually marry. And thirdly, she’s not selling anything. She’s waiting for one of those two or three older guys to make their move. Hookers don’t wait, Gerry. They make the approach, they do the selling. Business is business, and time is money. They can’t afford to sit around being coy.” Carella paused. “Is she a working prostitute?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Fletcher said. “Never even saw her before tonight. I was merely trying to indicate that appearances can sometimes be misleading. Drink up, there are a few more places I’d like to show you.”

He knew Fletcher well enough, he thought, to realize that the man was trying to tell him something. At lunch last Tuesday, Fletcher had transmitted a message and a challenge: I killed my wife, what can you do about it? Tonight, in a similar manner, he was attempting to indicate something else, but Carella could not fathom exactly what.

Fanny’s was only twenty blocks away from Paddy’s Bar & Grille, but as far removed from it as the moon. Whereas the first bar seemed to cater to a quiet crowd peacefully pursuing its romantic inclinations, Fanny’s was noisy and raucous, jammed to the rafters with men and women of all ages, wearing plastic hippie crap purchased in head shops up and down Jackson Avenue. If Paddy’s had registered a seven on the scale of desirability and respectability, Fanny’s rated a four. The language sounded like what Carella was used to hearing in the squadroom or in any of the cellblocks at Calcutta. There were half a dozen hookers lining the bar, suffering severely from the onslaught of half a hundred girls in skin-tight costumes wiggling their behinds and thrusting their breasts at anything warm and moving. The approaches were blatant and unashamed. There were more hands on asses than Carella could count, more meaningful glances and ardent sighs than seemed possible outside of a bedroom, more invitations than Truman Capote had sent out for his last masked ball. As Carella and Fletcher elbowed their way toward the bar, a brunette, wearing a short skirt and a see-through blouse without a bra, planted herself directly in Carella’s path and said, “What’s the password, stranger?”

“Scotch and soda,” Carella said.

“Wrong,” the girl answered, and moved closer to him.

“What is it then?” he asked.

“Kiss me,” she said.

“Some other time,” he answered.

“That isn’t a command,” she said, giggling, “it’s only the password.”

“Good,” he said.

“So if you want to get to the bar,” the girl said, “say the password.”

“Kiss me,” he said, and was moving past her when she threw her arms around his neck and delivered a wet, open-mouthed, tongue-writhing kiss that shook him to his socks. She held the kiss for what seemed like an hour and a half, and then, with her arms still around his neck, she moved her head back a fraction of an inch, touched her nose to his, and said, “I’ll see you later, stranger. I have to go to the Ladies.”

At the bar, Carella wondered when he had last kissed anyone but his wife, Teddy. As he ordered a drink, he felt a soft pressure against his arm, turned to his left, and found one of the hookers, a black girl in her twenties, leaning in against him and smiling.

“What took you so long to get here?” she said. “I’ve been waiting all night.”

“For what?” he said.

“For the good time I’m going to show you.”

“Wow, have you got the wrong number,” Carella said, and turned to Fletcher, who was already lifting his martini glass.

“Welcome to Fanny’s,” Fletcher said, and raised his glass in a toast, and then drank the contents in one swallow and signaled to the bartender for another. “You will find many of them on exhibit,” he said.

“Many what?”

“Many fannies. And other things as well.” The bartender brought a fresh martini with lightning speed and grace. Fletcher lifted the glass. “I hope you don’t mind if I drink myself into a stupor,” he said.

“Go right ahead,” Carella answered.

“Merely pour me into the car at the end of the night, and I’ll be eternally grateful.” Fletcher lifted the glass and drank. “I don’t usually consume this much alcohol,” he said, “but I’m very troubled about that boy . . .”

“What boy?” Carella said immediately.

“Listen, honey,” the black hooker said, “aren’t you going to buy a girl a drink?”

“Ralph Corwin,” Fletcher said. “I understand he’s having some difficulty with his lawyer, and . . .”

“Don’t be such a tight-ass,” the girl said. “I’m thirsty as hell here.”

Carella turned to look at her. Their eyes met and locked. The girl’s look said, What do you say? Do you want it or not? Carella’s look said, Honey, you’re asking for big trouble. Neither of them exchanged a word. The girl got up and moved four stools down the bar, to sit next to a middle-aged man wearing bell-bottomed suede pants and a tangerine-colored shirt with billowing sleeves.

“You were saying?” Carella said, turning again to Fletcher.

“I was saying I’d like to help Corwin somehow.”

“Help him?”

“Yes. Do you think Rollie Chabrier would consider it strange if I suggested a good defense lawyer for the boy?”

“I think he might consider it passing strange, yes.”

“Do I detect a note of sarcasm in your voice?”

“Not at all. Why, I’d guess that ninety percent of all men whose wives have been murdered will then go out and recommend a good defense lawyer for the accused murderer. You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m not. Look, I know that what I’m about to say doesn’t go over very big with you . . .”

“Then don’t say it.”

“No, no, I want to say it.” Fletcher took another swallow of his drink. “I feel sorry for that boy. I feel . . .”

“Hello, stranger.” The brunette was back. She had taken the stool vacated by the hooker, and now she looped her arm familiarly through Carella’s and asked, “Did you miss me?”

“Desperately,” he said. “But I’m having a very important conversation with my friend here, and . . .”

“Never mind your friend,” the girl said. “I’m Alice Ann, who are you?”

“I’m Dick Nixon,” Carella said.

“Nice to meet you, Dick,” the girl answered. “Would you like to kiss me again?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have these terrible sores inside my mouth,” Carella said, “and I wouldn’t want you to catch them.”

Alice Ann looked at him and blinked. She reached for his drink then, apparently wishing to wash her possibly already contaminated mouth, realized it was his filthy drink, turned immediately to the man on her left, pushed his arm aside, grabbed his glass, and hastily swallowed a mouthful of disinfectant alcohol. The man said, “Hey!” and Alice Ann said, “Cool it, Buster,” and got off the stool, throwing Carella a look even more scorching than her kiss had been, and swiveling off toward a galaxy of young men glittering in a corner of the crowded room.

“You won’t understand this,” Fletcher said, “but I feel grateful to that boy. I’m glad he killed her, and I’d hate to see him punished for what I consider an act of mercy.”

“Take my advice,” Carella said. “Don’t suggest this to Rollie. I don’t think he’d understand.”

“Do you understand?” Fletcher asked.

“Not entirely,” Carella said.

Fletcher finished his drink. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said. “Unless you see something you want.”

“I already have everything I want,” Carella answered, and wondered if he should tell Teddy about the brunette in the peekaboo blouse.

The Purple Chairs was a bar farther downtown, apparently misnamed, since everything in the place was purple except the chairs. Ceiling, walls, bar, tables, curtains, napkins, mirrors, lights, all were purple. The chairs were white.

The misnomer was intentional.

The Purple Chairs was a Lesbian bar, and the subtle question being asked was: Is everybody out of step but Johnny? The chairs were white. Pure. Pristine. Innocent. Virginal. Then why insist on calling them purple? Where did perversity lie, in the actuality or in the labeling?

“Why here?” Carella asked immediately.

“Why not?” Fletcher answered. “I’m showing you some of the city’s more frequented spots.”

Carella strenuously doubted that this was one of the city’s more frequented spots. It was now a little past eleven, and the place was only sparsely populated, entirely by women—women talking, women smiling, women dancing to the jukebox, women touching, women kissing. As Carella and Fletcher moved toward the bar, tended by a bull dagger with shirt sleeves rolled up over her powerful forearms, a rush of concerted hostility focused upon them like the beam of a death ray. The bartender verbalized it.

“Sightseeing?” she asked.

“Just browsing,” Fletcher answered.

“Try the public library.”

“It’s closed.”

“Maybe you’re not getting my message.”

“What’s your message?”

“Is anybody bothering you?” the bartender asked.

“No.”

“Then stop bothering us. We don’t need you here, and we don’t want you here. You like to see freaks, go to the circus.” The bartender turned away, moving swiftly to a woman at the end of the bar.

“I think we’ve been invited to leave,” Carella said.

“We certainly haven’t been invited to stay,” Fletcher said. “Did you get a good look?”

“I’ve been inside dyke bars before.”

“Really? My first time was in September. Just goes to show,” he said, and moved unsteadily toward the purple entrance door.

The cold December air worked furiously on the martinis Fletcher had consumed, so that by the time they got to a bar named Quigley’s Rest, just off Skid Row, he was stumbling along drunkenly and clutching Carella’s arm for support. Carella suggested that perhaps it was time to be heading home, but Fletcher said he wanted Carella to see them all, see them all, and then led him into the kind of joint Carella had mentioned earlier, where he knew instantly that he was stepping into a hangout frequented by denizens, and was instantly grateful for the .38 holstered at his hip. The floor of Quigley’s Rest was covered with sawdust, the lights were dim, the place at twenty minutes to midnight was crowded with people who had undoubtedly awoken at 10 P . M . and who would go till ten the next morning. There was very little about their external appearances to distinguish them from the customers in the first bar Fletcher and Carella had visited. They were similarly dressed, they spoke in the same carefully modulated voices, they were neither as blatant as the crowd in Fanny’s nor as subdued as the crowd in The Purple Chairs. But if a speeding shark in cloudy water can still be distinguished from a similarly speeding dolphin, so were the customers in Quigley’s immediately identified as dangerous and deadly. Carella was not sure that Fletcher sensed this as strongly as he, himself, did. He knew only that he did not wish to stay here long, especially with Fletcher as drunk as he was.

The trouble started almost at once.

Fletcher shoved his way into position at the bar, and a thin-faced young man wearing a dark blue suit and a flowered tie more appropriate to April than December turned toward him sharply and said, “Watch it.” He barely whispered the words, but they hung on the air with deadly menace, and before Fletcher could react or reply, the young man shoved the flat of his palm against Fletcher’s upper arm, with such force that he knocked him to the floor. Fletcher blinked up at him, and started to get drunkenly to his feet. The young man suddenly kicked him in the chest, a flatfooted kick that was less powerful than the shove had been but had the same effect. Fletcher fell back to the floor again, and this time his head crashed heavily against the sawdust. The young man swung his body in preparation for another kick, this time aiming it at Fletcher’s head.

“That’s it,” Carella said.

The young man hesitated. Still poised on the ball of one foot, the other slightly back and cocked for release, he looked at Carella and said, “What’s it?” He was smiling. He seemed to welcome the opportunity of taking on another victim. He turned fully toward Carella now, balancing his weight evenly on both feet, fists bunched. “Did you say something?” he asked, still smiling.

“Pack your bag, sonny,” Carella said, and bent down to help Fletcher to his feet. He was prepared for what happened next, and was not surprised by it. The only one surprised was the young man, who threw his right fist at the crouching Carella and suddenly found himself flying over Carella’s head to land flat on his back in the sawdust. He did next what he had done instinctively since the time he was twelve years old. He reached for a knife in the side pocket of his trousers. Carella did not wait for the knife to clear his pocket. Carella kicked him cleanly and swiftly in the balls. Then he turned to the bar, where another young man seemed ready to spring into action, and very quietly said, “I’m a police officer. Let’s cool it, huh?”

The second young man cooled it very quickly. The place was very silent now. With his back to the bar, and hoping the bartender would not hit him on the head with a sap or a bottle or both, Carella reached under Fletcher’s arms and helped him up.

“You okay?” he said.

“Yes, fine,” Fletcher said.

“Come on.”

He walked Fletcher to the door, moving as swiftly as possible. He fully recognized that his shield afforded little enough protection in a place like this, and all he wanted to do was get the hell out fast. On the street, as they stumbled toward the automobile, he prayed only that they would not be cold-cocked before they got to it.

A half-dozen men came out of the bar just as they climbed into the automobile. “Lock that door!” Carella snapped, and then turned the ignition key, and stepped on the gas, and the car lurched away from the curb in a squeal of burning rubber. He did not ease up on the accelerator until they were a mile from Quigley’s, by which time he was certain they were not being followed.

“That was very nice,” Fletcher said.

“Yes, very nice indeed,” Carella said.

“I admire that. I admire a man who can do that,” Fletcher said.

“Why in hell did you pick that sweet dive?” Carella asked.

“I wanted you to see them all,” Fletcher said, and then eased his head back against the seat cushion, and fell promptly asleep.