The Big Bad City

12.

The girl's name was Tirana Hobbs and she told Ollie Weeks she'd never seen this Sonny character before Friday night, hadn't seen him since, and didn't care to see him ever again, thanks. So what was this all about? "Owner of the Siesta says you were sitting with Sonny Cole, is his full name, and a person named Julian Judell on Friday night, must've been around ten, ten-thirty, is that correct?”

"I just told you that's the first and onliest time I ever seed the man.”

They were in the Diamondback apartment the girl shared with her mother and her two younger brothers. The brothers were still asleep in one of the rooms at the rear. Mama was in church. The girl was wearing a red robe over cotton pajamas. No makeup. Frizzed blonde hair looking like straw that had got hit by lightning. They were sitting at an enamel-topped table in a window open to the backyard. It was a bright hot sunny Sunday, and church bells were calling to the faithful and anyone else who cared to enjoy their mellifluent clamor.

"How about Judell? He goes by Juju. What was your relationship with him?”

"Relationship? What kind of relationship ? I met him ten minutes before I met the other guy. What'd the two of them do, anyway?”

'tOne of them got hlrriseil killed," Ollie said, trying to look sorrowful, the way television newscasters do when they're reporting a tragedy they don't give a damn about. Ah yes, the bullshit of it all, he thought in his best W. C. Fields mode. "I was wondering did him and Sonny say where they might be going when they left the club?”

"For a walk.”

"A walk where?”

"Couldn't be far cause they said they'd be back in a few minutes)' "Way I understand it," Ollie said, "Sonny came back about twenty minutes later, looking for you.”

“I don't know nothing about that.”

"Owner told him you were gone.”

“Then I guess I must've been.”

"What time did they leave for their little walk, would you remember?”

“I got no idea)' "Ten-thirty? Around then?”

“I didn't look at my watch.”

"Did Juju mention some hot babe he was going to meet?”

"No, all Juju did was put the moves on me.”

"So you didn't get the impression they were leaving there to meet some woman.”

"No, Sonny said there were a few things him and Juju should talk about if he had a minute. That's what prompted him to say they should take a walk)' "Sonny?”

"No, was Juju who suggested it. Sonny was the one said it wouldn't take but a few minutes.”

"Okay, thanks a lot, miss," Ollie said. For nothing, he thought.

This could have been Santo Domingo on any given day of the week. The women dressed in their church finery, the men looking slender and sleek and clean-shaven, the people out for a Sunday morning stroll, the sun shining brightly overhead. Almost made you forget for a minute that this was one of the shittiest parts of the city, rife with drugs and teeming with people itching to get the hell out of here the minute they made enough money to go back home and start a little business or so Ollie conjectured. He'd probably have been surprised to learn that as many immigrants from Ireland went back home as did immigrants from the Dominican Republic. The Irish simply looked more American. But to Ollie, looks were ninety percent of the argument.

He figured the only route Sonny and Juju could have taken on Friday night was straight down to the river. Two black guys might've been mistaken for spies in this neighborhood, but only if they kept their mouths shut. Miracle was that they'd been in a Dominican club to begin with, but that's where the ass was, Ollie supposed. He automatically figured Tirana Hobbs was a bleached blonde black hooker peddling her wares to any spic came along. He didn't know she was a manicurist, and he wouldn't have believed her if she'd told him so. The nice thing about Ollie's beliefs was that they were unshakable.

So he guessed the two black gents out for a friendly little walk wouldn't have stopped in any local bar to sample the beer or the broads because Friday night could turn suddenly mean and dangerous in this neighborhood unless you were in a social club like the Siesta, where apparently Juju was well-known, according to the owner. Who'd also volunteered that he suspected Juju had connections with the drug people here in Hightown, though he didn't suggest which drug people, of whom there were only thousands. Ollie figured he was sucking up because he had a brother in jail or a sister in rehab. Around here, nobody offered information unless they were plea-bargaining. The man did not, however, mention that Juju was also a pimp who probably ran girls out of his little old Club Siesta here.

Kept that bit of information strictly to himself, lest a padlock appear on his front door one fine night.

So if Sonny and Juju were walking to a quiet place where they could talk, why not down to the river? Have a seat on the rocks in the shadow of the bridge, discuss this pressing matter that was on Sonny's mind. Not a bad surmise, ah yes, considering the fact that Juju's body with his face all gone had been found nudging the pilings under the dock on Hector Street, not too terribly far down river.

Ollie took a stroll down to the river himself, not expecting to find anything there, and not disappointed when he didn't. His thinking, of course, was good riddance to bad rubbish, a black dope-dealer pimp, who gave a shit? But it irked him that Sonny Cole was out there thinking the cops couldn't reach him. Bothered him further when he remembered that this was the guy Blue Wisdom said had put away Carella's father, which made it nice if Ollie could run into him in a dark alley some night and repay the favor.

Thing was, first he had to find him.

Sal Roselli all at once remembered that the guy who ran The Last Stand had fallen into the water dead drunk the very night they ended their engagement there.

"We didn't learn that until we were already up in Calusa," he said.

"That he'd fallen into the river behind the club ...”

“Yeah.”

"And drowned.”

"Yeah.”

"Is what Davey Fames told us," Brown said.

"We were long gone when it happened," Roselli said. "We didn't find out about it till the next day. Calusa cops came around, wanted to know if we'd seen anything, heard anything, you know how cops are.”

They were sitting not far from a small inflatable plastic pool behind Roselli's development house on Sand's Spit. His two little girls were in the water, splashing around. Brown was wondering why there had to be kids making noise every time they talked to somebody. Roselli's wife, a somewhat overweight brunette wearing wedgies and a brown maillot, had gone into the house to mix some lemonade.

Roselli was wearing one of those skimpy swimsuits that made it look like all he had on was a shiny black jockstrap. Brown wondered how he had the balls, so to speak, to wear such a suit in front of his two little girls, couldn't have been older than two or three. Roselli seemed oblivious. Black hair curling on his narrow chest, sweat beaded on his forehead under matching curly hair, he reclined in a lawn chair, smiling at the day. Brown wondered if he'd done a few lines just before they arrived. He had the look of a man serenely oblivious.

"How come you didn't mention it when we were here?" he asked.

"I didn't think it was important," Roselli said, and shrugged.

"Man drowns, you didn't think it was important?”

"It had nothing to do with us. We were transients. Play the music, take the money, go our merry way.”

"How many places you been where a man drowned?" Brown asked.

"Not very many. Not any, in fact.”

"But you didn't think it was important enough to mention?”

"I'm sorry. I just didn't think of it.”

"Did the drowning have anything to do with Katie's decision?" Carella asked.

There was a slight edge to his voice; he didn't like Roselli's choice of swim wear either. "What decision was that?”

“To leave the band.”

“To call it quits.”

"To go back to the order.”

"I have no idea what prompted her decision," Roselli said "Josie!" he called. "No splashing, honey.”

His wife was coming out of the house, carrying a tray with a pitcher and several glasses on it. The screen door slammed shut behind her.

She put the tray down on the table, said, "Help yourselves, please,”

and then went to sit in a plastic folding chair near the pool where her daughters splashed and squealed. Occasionally, she glanced back to where the detectives and her husband were sitting, a concerned look on her face. They figured their presence here a second time was making her nervous. The daughters seemed a little skittish, too. Altogether, Brown and Carella sensed an almost palpable air of tension around the pool.

But four years ago a man had drowned.

And a week ago Friday a nun had been strangled in the park.

"You said you were long gone when it happened," Carella prompted. "Can you tell us ... ?”

"I'll try to remember the sequence," Roselli said. Odd choice of language, Carella thought. Sequence. "We played three shows that Thursday night," Roselli said. "That was because Charlie ran some ads.

And also because we were damn good, he said modestly, but we were, truly. After that tour, if Katie hadn't left the band ... but that's another story. What's done is done, what's gone is gone.”

He lifted the pitcher, poured lemonade for all of them. From the pool, Mrs. Roselli and the little girls watched. Brown felt the way he had in Dr. Lowenthal's office, when the woman in the green hat kept staring at them.

"The last show ended at two in the morning. We'd planned to drive up to Calusa the following day, sometime in the afternoon, set up when we got there. This was the Friday before Labor Day, we were scheduled to play that whole long weekend in Calusa, and then head north again. But we were all so high none of us could sleep," Roselli said. "Well, except for Tote, he could sleep through World War III. He went back to his cabin, but the rest of us couldn't stop jabbering. Have you ever felt that way? Where everything was so exciting, you just couldn't calm down afterward?”

Like after a shoot-out in a bank, Brown thought. You answer a 10-30, and there are six guys in masks holding Uzis on the tellers, and all hell breaks loose. Like after that. When you're drinking saloon beer with the other guys and you can't go home, you can't even think of going home, this is where it is, this is what you shared. Like that.

"It was Davey who suggested that we pick up our pay, pack the van, and drive up to Calusa right then. Two-thirty, three in the morning, drive the hundred and fifty miles, whatever it was, go straight to sleep when we got there. We all thought it was a terrific idea. So Alan and I started packing the van ... he's dead now, you know. Died last month.

Of AIDS. We all went to the funeral. Not Katie, of course, who the hell knew where she was? Disappeared from the face of the earth. Well, sure, a nun. Sister Mary Vincent. But who knew that?”

"So you and Alan were packing the van," Brown said. "Yeah. Carrying the instruments out while Davey and Katie went to get our pay. What a lot of these club owners did, they paid the musicians in cash. We'd been there a full week, there was a sizable amount of money due. This was now close to three in the morning, the parking lot was empty, you could hear the night insects racketing down by the water ...”

From where he and Alan are loading the instruments into the van, Sal can see Davey and Katie going into Charlie Custer's office. The air here in the Everglades is always laden with moisture; the two musicians are sweating heavily as they carry gear from the bandstand to the van.

Down here in Florida, they've been performing in blue slacks and identical T-shirts with alternating blue and white stripes. Katie wears a blue mini and the T-shirt without a bra, the better to demonstrate her singing prowess. They are wearing the uniforms now, the trousers wrinkled, the T-shirts stained with perspiration as they pack for the trip north.

Over the past several months, they have learned how to pack the van most efficiently, fitting in the drums, the speakers, the amps, the guitar cases, and the keyboard like pieces in a Chinese box. Davey's drums are the biggest problem, of course. They take up the most room.

Besides, he is enormously fussy about how they are handled and usually insists that he himself be the one to pack them. Back and forth the pair of them go, Alan and Sal, from bandstand to van, Sal and Alan, to the rooms for the suitcases, Alan and Sal knocking on Tote's door to wake him up, and lastly going to the kitchen to make sandwiches for the long drive north. Out on the water, they can hear the splash of an alligator.

It takes them perhaps half an hour to finish all they have to do. Alan gets behind the wheel and honks the horn. In the stillness of the night, it sounds like the cry of one of Charlie Custer's swamp critters. Tote comes running out of his cabin and tosses his suitcase into the back of the van. A moment later, Davey and Katie come out of Custer's office. Alan starts the car. Climbing onto the back seat, Davey says, "Got the bread, let's go." Katie sits beside him and pulls her T-shirt away from her body, encouraging the cool flow from the air conditioner.

"We made it to Calusa in an hour and forty minutes," Roselli tells them now. "That afternoon, we found out Charlie had fallen in the river and drowned. And got eaten by alligators?”

They did not reach Davey Fames again until nine o'clock on Monday morning. He explained that he'd been at the beach all day yesterday, and had gone directly to dinner afterward "I like to check on the competition," he said. "Didn't get home till around ten. Were you trying to reach me?”

"On and off," Carella said. "I wonder if we can stop by now.”

"Oh?" Fames said. "Something come up?,”

"Just a few questions we'd like to ask.”

"I have to leave for the restaurant at ten-thirty. Will that give you enough time?”

"Sure," Carella said. "See you in half an hour." They got to Fames's building at a quarter to ten. He lived in a part of the city not far from his restaurant, an area undergoing intensive urban renewal. Where once there'd been shabby tenements housing illegal aliens, there were now four- and five-story elevator buildings, many of them with doormen.

Fames's apartment was on the fifth floor of a building renovated a year or so ago. l There was no ttooxa, ,. themselves via the intercom over the downstairs buzzer, and then took the elevator up.

Fames led them into a living room modestly furnished with a teakwood sofa and two matching easy chairs upholstered in bleached linen. There was a teak coffee table in front of the sofa. A pair of standing floor lamps with glass shades, one blue, one orange, flanked the sofa. An open door led to a small kitchen. A closed second door led to what they supposed was the bedroom. Another closed door beside it probably opened onto a bathroom. The apartment was pleasantly air-conditioned, the windows closed to the noise of the traffic below and the incessant rise and fall of police and ambulance sirens.

"Something to drink?" he asked.

"Thanks, no," Carella said. "We're sorry to bother you again, Mr. Fames ...”

"Hey, no problem.”

" .... but I wonder if you can tell us again what happened on that last night in Boyle's Landing.”

“The night Charlie drowned, you mean.”

"Yes.”

"You don't think that had anything to do with Katie's murder, do you?”

"No, but we were wondering if it influenced her decision.”

"To quit the band, you mean?”

"Yes. You told us on Saturday that she broke the news right after Labor Day. That would've been immediately after the tour ended. So it's possible ...”

"Yeah, I see where you're going. Well, I guess it might have been upsetting to her. The thing is, we didn't find out about it until the next day. It wasn't as if we witnessed the drowning, or anything. I mean, we didn't actually see any alligators tearing him apart. So I don't know. I just don't know.”

"Maybe we can try reconstructing what happened that night.”

"Well... sure.”

"You finished playing at two, is that right?”

"Two A.M." correct. We did three shows that night.”

“Tote went to sleep ...”

"Man would sleep around the clock if you let him.”

“The rest of you were up talking ...”

“Talking, drinking.”

"You, Alan, Katie, and Sal, is that right?”

“Charlie joined us a little bit later.”

“When was that?”

"Before he paid us. I was the one who suggested we pick up our pay, pack the van, and drive up to Calusa right then, instead of waiting till tomorrow. Well, it already was tomorrow, this was two-thirty, three in the morning. I suggested that we drive the hundred and fifty miles or so, go straight to sleep when we got there. They all thought it was a terrific idea. So Alan and I started packing the van ...”

"Wait a minute," Brown said. "It was Alan and Sal who packed the van, wasn't it?”

"Not the way I remember it. Who told you that?”

“Sal did. That's the way he remembers it.”

"No, he's mistaken. I wouldn't let anyone touch my drums.”

"So the way you remember it, it was Alan and you who packed the van, is that right?”

"Packed the van and you all drove off.”

"Yes. Around three-thirty, something like that.”

“And the Calusa cops came around the next day.”

“Yes.”

"Asked you did you know anything about what happened the night before.”

"That's right.”

"But. nobody could tell them anything.”

“Nobody?”

"Cause none of you were there when Charlie Custer drowned.”

"None of us were there?”

"Well, thanks a lot, Mr. Fames," Carella said. "We appreciate your time?”

"And got eaten by alligators," Brown added. "None of us," Fames repeated.

It was almost twelve noon in Calusa, Florida, when Cynthia Huellen buzzed Matthew Hope and told him that a detective named Steve Carella was on line five. "Hey," Matthew said, surprised. "How are you?”

"Fine. How's the weather down there?”

“Hot.”

"Here, too. What are you doing these days? You still out of the crime business?”

"Planning a trip to the Czech Republic, in fact," Matthew said.

"Why there?”

"Prague's there.”

"When are you leaving?”

"Got to find a woman first.”

-/-'lenty of women mere, 1-11 DEE, t..arclla salo.

"Can't chance it. I'm getting old, Steve.”

“So am I. I'll be forty in October.”

“Now that's old, man.”

“Tell me about it.”

They chatted on for another five minutes or so, two old friends who had never met, one a lawyer in the sleepy Florida town of Calusa, the other a detective in a noisy northern city, strangers when first they'd met on the telephone, strangers still, perhaps, though each felt a kinship they could not explain.

"So what occasions this call?" Matthew asked at last. "Well, if you're really out of the crime business ...”

“I am.”

"Then you can't tell me what the Calusa police learned from four musicians and a girl singer who were down there around this time four years ago.”

"Why were the Calusa cops interested in them?" Matthew asked "Because a man named Charlie Custer drowned and got eaten by alligators.”

"Piece of cake," Matthew said.

The man Murchison put through to the squad room told Meyer that he knew the Leslie Blyden they were looking for.

"I saw the Chief of Detectives on television Saturday night," he said, "talking about a Leslie Blyden. I said to myself, What? Then yesterday's papers said he had a pinkie missing, the Blyden you're looking for. I said to myself, That has to be the Les I knew in the Gulf. What I want to know now ...”

"Is there a reward?”

"No, sir, there is not.”

"Then thanks a lot," the man said and hung up. Meyer guessed he didn't know that police departments had Caller ID capability and that his name was already displayed on Meyer's desktop LED panel. FRANK GIRARDI was what it read, with a telephone number directly above it.

Meyer didn't think they'd be calling ahead.

"So what we've got," Brown said, "is a piano player and a drummer who each say they were packing instruments in a van with a person who's now dead of AIDS. And we've got the piano player saying he saw the drummer, together with a lady who later got strangled in the park, go in the office of a man who later got eaten by alligators. And we've got the drummer saying the same thing about the piano player.”

“That's what we've got," Carella said. "So one of them's got to be lying.”

"Not necessarily. Four years was a long time ago. They may not be remembering clearly.”

"They remembered every other detail about that night, though, didn't they?" Brown said. "Drummers lie a lot, Steve. So do piano players.

In fact, been my experience most musicians do. Specially when there's nobody alive can contradict them.”

"You'll get letters.”

"I hope not," Brown said, and turned to look over his shoulder. "Am I dreaming," he asked, "or has that Honda been with us the past half hour?”

"What are you talking about?”

“Behind us. Little green Accord?”

Carella looked in the rearview mirror. "I hadn't noticed," he said.

"Black man at the wheel.”

"Makes him a wanted desperado, right?" Carella said.

"It's the next left," Brown said.

"I know.”

He made the turn at the next corner. Brown's apartment building was three doors in. He pulled up in front of it. The little green Accord drove right on by.

Brown gave it a hard look, and then got out of the car. "See you tomorrow," Carella said. "Want to come up for a drink?”

"Got to go pick up the dope money from Riverhead.”

"Tell them to mail mine.”

"The protection we give, they should messenger it.”

“No respect anymore," Brown said, and grinned, and closed the door on his side.

Carella returned the grin and drove off.

Frank Girardi had lost both legs in George Bush's television war, which featured surgical strikes and hardly any deaths on either side, to hear the generals and the politicians tell it. Girardi had been wounded in the First Cavalry Division feint up the Wadi al Batin, and now he worked at a computer in his small Calm's Point apartment, addressing envelopes for any firm that was willing to pay him for this onerous task.

"Reason you get so many letters with handwritten addresses on tlaem is oecause a lot of I,- u,. know how to do the envelopes on their computers. I make address files for these various companies, and then I run off the envelopes on my printer and send them back by messenger. I get ten cents an envelope. It's not bad work.”

Girardi looked to be in his late twenties. Each of the detectives had a good ten years on him. They were each suddenly aware of their legs, the fact that they had legs and Girardi didn't. They were here to pry Leslie Blyden's.address from him, but it was a little difficult to put the muscle on a man who was sitting in a wheelchair.

"Reason I asked if there was a reward," Girardi said, "is I figure I got one coming, don't you? I get all shot up in what was basically an oil war, I think my country owes me something, don't you?”

Meyer did not think it appropriate to inform Girardi that the city's police department was not his country. They had come here prepared to offer what they would have given any police informer, a sum ranging from a hundred to a thousand, depending on the value of the information. They took this money from a squad room slush fund, the origins of which were obscure, but in police work petty detail often fell between the cracks and the point was to get the job done. Just before he and Kling left the squad room Meyer signed out a thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. If this money had originally belonged to a dope dealer and it was now being used to buy information that would lead to a killer, that was justification enough not to ask questions.

he trouble here, though, vcas that Girardi wasn't a sleazy two bit informer who'd sell his ax-murderer brother for a cup of coffee and a donut. Girardi was a war hero. A man with both the Purple Heart and the Medal of Honor. You couldn't offer a war hero a dope dealer's dirty money in exchange for information. You couldn't pressure him, either. You couldn't say, Okay, Frank, you want us to take another look at the open file on that grocery store holdup? You couldn't bargain. You couldn't say, So long, Frank, this shit isn't worth more than a hundred. The man was a war hero.

"Look," Meyer said, "we don't want to insult “

you ... "I've been insulted by experts," Girardi said.

"As I told you on the phone, there's no reward on this thing. But we're prepared to give you money out of our own pockets...”

"Bullshit," Girardi said.

"Whatever. It embarrasses me, believe me. A man who did so much for his country, I wish I could offer more. But all we can go is a thousand.”

I'll take it," Girardi said.

The problem was all the background.

Blyden's land-lady had told them that she'd seen him leaving the building at around six-thirty '.M. What he Usually did, she told them, was walk up to the McDonald's on the next block, catch himself a bite there. Did it every night, far as she could tell. A creature of habit was Mr. Leslie Blyden.

The sign out front was claiming billions and billions of hamburgers sold, but Meyer figured that was an underestimate. The place at a quarter to seven that Monday night was packed with diners inside and cars outside. They had no clear picture of what Blyden looked like because the Feebs hadn't yet sent along his army ID photo. All they had was the description of him from when he'd entered the service nine years ago. They also knew he'd lost the pinkie on his right hand since then.

This same information hadn't helped them much when they killed the Leslie Blyden who now turned out to be a man named Lester Blier, who was wanted in the state of Arizona for mail fraud, and who'd been living here in the city under a touch-close alias for nearly two years which perhaps explained his panicky reaction on Saturday. The new data somewhat lessened the public hue and cry over four armed and armored police detectives nailing an innocent man in his own kitchen. But only somewhat. Mail fraud was perceived in the public imagination as some sort of gentlemanly crime, far distant from armed robbery or rape. You didn't go gunning down a man who had a mail fraud warrant chasing him from Wee Mesa, Arizona. This was a sophisticated city, man, and it did not expect its police officers to behave like barbaric goons.

There was a good possibility that public misapprehension might escalate on this muggy Monday evening. The cars lined up at the drive-thru window, the crowd inside waiting on line to place orders or sitting at tables happily munching away, constituted what was known in the trade as "background". In this city, the presence of background was one of the conditions that defined when a police officer might draw or fire his weapon. If Leslie Blyden, aka The Cookie Boy, was indeed inside this fast-food joint enjoying his usual evening repast, and if indeed he had killed two people, then it could not unreasonably be assumed that he was certainly dangerous and possibly armed. Two guideline conditions already satisfied. He was also a fugitive. Chalk off a third condition. Going in was another matter.

The presence of background severely limited their choice of engagement.

This was not a matter of the English and French deciding like proper gentlemen to settle their ancient dispute on the level though muddy field of Agincourt. The guidelines clearly stated that if you anticipated shooting, then you made your arrest where there wasn't no background, kiddies. The Gang of Four, as the media had immediately dubbed Meyer, Kling, Parker, and Willis, congregated on the sidewalk outside, working out a game plan.

They decided that two of them would go in to scout the joint, see if they could spot a guy with the pinkie missing on his right hand. Even though Willis and Parker had caught the murder of the lady and her teenybopper lover boy, Meyer and Kling had caught the initial Cookie-Boy burglary. The cases were now irrevocably joined at the hip, but the doctrine of First Man Up prevailed, and Meyer and Kling caught the brass ring.

Parker was delighted. All that background in there made him very nervous. Suppose The Cookie Boy spotted fuzz on the premises and decided to shoot his way out? Guidelines applied only to law-enforcement officers. The rest of the population could fire at will. So Parker took up a position in the parking lot outside the side door, and Willis planted himself outside the front doors, and Meyer and Kling went in looking for a man some six feet tall, with black hair and blue eyes, weighing around two hundred pounds, and missing the pinkie finger on his right hand.

The air conditioning provided a welcome oasis of relief after the soggy atmosphere outside. Meyer and Kling fanned out, one heading for the service counter on the right, the other moving toward the seating area on the left. Each cop looked like any of the other customers in the place. Not many men here were wearing jackets, but Meyer and Kling were wearing them only to hide the hardware, and their clothing was wrinkled and limp from the weather outside. No one in the place gave them a second look.

Meyer got on the line closest to the door, scoping the crowd, alternately glancing at the menu on the wall above the counter and the customers waiting to place orders. Kling was doing the same thing on the other side of the room, peering around like a guy looking for his wife and three little kids. First came height, weight, color of hair and eyes. They were easier to check at a glance. Searching for a missing pinkie demanded a scrutiny of hands. Nobody ever looked at another person's hands unless he was some kind of pervert. The missing pinkie came only after all the other criteria were met.

Kling was the one who spotted him.

He was sitting silhouetted in a western window, drinking a cup of coffee, the sun dipping lower on the horizon behind him. He looked a lot like John Travolta, but what would John Travolta be doing in a McDonald's in Calm's Point? For a moment, Kling felt like going over to the table and asking him if he was John Travolta, but then he noticed the missing pinkie on the hand holding the coffee cup, and any thought of getting an autograph went straight out of his mind. He walked swiftly toward the utensil counter, turned sideways so he could keep an eye on Blyden while at the same time shielding the walkie-talkie that came out of his pocket and up to his mouth.

"Got him," he said. "Third table on the western wall. Sitting alone, looks like he's finished his meal and is ready to go.”

There was a silence.

Then Meyer's voice said, "I see him.”

"What do we do?" Parker asked.

"um “

"Let him j p, Kling said.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Meyer moving off the line and heading toward the dining room. In that same instant, Blyden put down his coffee cup, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, picked up his tray, and started for where Kling was standing. Kling moved away at once. Blyden went to the trash container at the end of the counter, scraped his tray clean, stacked it, and again moved toward where Kling was now standing near the side exit door. "Moving out," Meyer said. "Side exit.”

“I'm here," Parker said.

Willis, hearing this out front, began moving toward the parking lot.

Blyden walked past Kling without looking at him. He shoved open the exit door, walked past Parker without looking at him. Meyer and Kling came out immediately behind him. Parker fell in on Blyden's left.

Willis, spotting their approach, took up position ahead of him. The classic three points of a moving-target triangle. If he'd come here in a car, they'd have to close in before he entered it. Either that, or lose him. Plenty of background out here, too, but not as closely packed as it was inside. No one dared use a walkie-talkie again, not just yet. One false move and he'd bolt.

Somebody made that false move.

They would later debate who it might have been. Maybe the entire setup was the false move, the short guy in a jacket moving some ten feet ahead of Blyden, the guy needing a shave and also wearing a jacket moving parallel to Blyden some twelve feet on his left, the two guys in jackets behind Blyden, maybe all at once there were too many guys in jackets on a hot summer night, and maybe all at once Blyden smelled cop.

Whatever it was, he suddenly darted to his right, the open side of the surveillance triangle, and began racing up the avenue Willis was closest to him when he made the break He started after him at once, and shouted the initial warning mandated by the guidelines, "Police! Stop!”

but Blyden kept running because he knew he was looking at a positive burglary and two possible felony murders "Police! Stop!" The second warning. But a different voice this time. Parker's voice Coming up fast on Willis's left, his legs longer than Willis's, pounding past him and closing on Blyden, who would have thought it? Andy Parker? None of the detectives dared open fire. There was simply too damn much background on this hot August night with everybody out for a walk, the sky purple now as Blyden fled westward into it. Moreover, they were literally gun shy, having been lambasted in the press and on television, having been severely chastised by a publicly defensive but privately furious Chief of Detectives. So they followed Blyden down the avenue into the setting sun, four of them in a Keystone Kops opera, echoing one after the other, "Police! Stop!," the choruses overlapping, the crowds parting, but not one of them firing the weapon that would have decisively stopped Blyden in his tracks.

It was Parker Andy Parker? who finally took a headlong dive at Blyden, throwing himself in the air like a Ioottali nero, wmcn he'd never been, grabbing for Blyden's churning legs and pounding feet, making a tackle he'd never before made in his lifetime, and bringing Blyden and himself crashing to the sidewalk in a sprawling tangle of arms and legs. The other detectives came thundering up, nobody yelling "Stop" anymore because Parker ... Andy Parker? had finally stopped Blyden.

So all there was to say now was "Police.”

Which Meyer said.

And breathlessly added, "You're under arrest." And began reciting the Miranda rigmarole.

"You have the right to remain silent, you have the right ...”

And so on.

This was America.

Nellie Brand wondered why it was that every time she was on homicide call there was a murder in the Eighty-seventh Precinct. Her home phone rang at seven-thirty P.M. She and her husband were just about to leave the apartment. She was wearing a pretty white summer frock with a yoke neck and pale blue French-heeled pumps. Simple silver and turquoise pendant on a peach-colored silk cord. Sand-colored hair swept back and caught in a ponytail. Jeff Canard was the cop calling from the D.A."s Office downtown "Hello, Jeff," she said.

"Nellie," he said, "they caught The Cookie Boy.”

Nellie didn't know who The Cookie Boy was. She figured he was a sex offender who lured kiddies into his car. Canard told her who he was. She said she was all dressed up to go out to dinner with her husband. “

Canard said he was sorry, but this was August, and to s half the world was on vacation. She told him her star husband would divorce her.

divi "That's okay," Canard said, "I'll marry you." She "At went into the bedroom to change her clothes.

Les When she got uptown at eight-fifteen, she was wearing simple tailored slacks, a tailored shirt, and a sai fawn-colored linen jacket. Her hair was still in a ponytail. She was expecting Carella, but the desk sergeant told her he'd already gone home. He told her su, The Gang of Four had made the arrest here. She didn't know who The Gang of Four was, either, the Working for the District Attorney's Office did not leave much time for watching television. She liked Carella, and was a little disappointed that he hadn't been the arresting officer.

The Gang of Four was waiting upstairs. Meyer and Kling, she knew. Kling introduced her to the other two detectives, Willis and Parker, and then told her Blyden's lawyer hadn't yet arrived, so they had a little time to talk here. Blyden was The Cookie Boy. Full name was Leslie Talbot Blyden.

Gulf War veteran, lost his pinkie in an accident overseas. Admitted to the burglary, but said he had nothing to do with killing two people.

"We're looking at a Burg Two and two counts of felony murder," Meyer said.

"He looks like John Travolta," Parker said.

"Does anyone know Marilyn Monroe's real name?”

Kling asked.

"Is this agame show't- 1Nellie sma.

"Who's in charge here?" a voice asked. They turned to see a rather corpulent man in a pinstriped suit standing just outside the slatted wooden railing that divided the squad room from the second-floor corridor. "Attorney Marvin Meltzman," he said, "representing Leslie Blyden. Where's my client?”

"Assistant District Attorney Nellie Brand," Nellie said, and walked to the railing and extended her hand. Meltzman took it. "Sorry I'm late," he said.

'"Just got here myself," she said. "Where's the suspect?," she asked Meyer.

"Interrogation Room down the hall," he said, and then to Meltzman, "I'll take you there, counselor." The two of them walked off.

"Who questioned him?" Nellie asked Kling.

"Me and Meyer.”

"And you say he admitted the burglary?”

"Said maybe he did the burglary, but not the murders?”

“Only maybe, huh?”

"Better than no?”

"Who'd he say did the murders?”

"The woman, Shot the kid and then herself. Accidentally.”

"Any prints on the weapon?”

"Only hers.”

"So maybe he's telling the truth.”

“Maybe I'm Robert Redford.”

“You kind of look like him.”

"I know, it's a curse. You kind of look like Meg Ryan.”

"Let's go talk to Travolta. Maybe we can all make a movie together.”

They didn't actually get started until a little past. nine o'clock that night. That was when Blyden and Meltzman finished their private conversation. By that time, the detectives had also given Nellie everything they had on the crimes. The Q and A started in the Interrogation Room at 9:07 P.M. Meyer and Kling were present, as were Willis and Parker, and Lieutenant Byrnes, and the D.A."s Office technician who was videotaping the session. Nellie read Blyden his rights again, got his lawyer's consent to proceed, elicited Blyden's name, address, and pedigree, and then got down to brass tacks.

"Mr. Blyden," she said, "I want you to tell me everything you remember about the afternoon of August twenty-fifth.”

His resemblance to John Travolta was a little unnerving. He did not seem to possess Travolta's cool, however. Instead, he seemed shy, almost timid, not unlikely traits for a burglar. Nellie suddenly wondered if she really did look like Meg Ryan. All at once, the video camera made her feel self-conscious, even though it was trained on Blyden.

Q: Mr. Blyden?

A: Yes, I'm thinking.

Q: This would've been a Tuesday.

A: Yes

Q: Do you remember where you were that afternoon? This would've been around three-thirty, four o'clock, can you recall?

Blyden seemed to be having a little difficulty here.

He had already told the arresting detectives that maybe he'd committed the burglary, but not the murders. His lawyer had probably asked him without advising him to lie, of course to think about whether he hadn't been someplace else entirely on the day of the burglary.

"Mr. Blyden?" she said. "Would you answer the question, please?”

"I was home baking cookies," Blyden said.

Okay, he was opting to lie. Though in a singularly stupid way. If the cops thought you were The Cookie Boy, why admit to baking cookies? Listen, Nellie would take whatever she could get.

"Anyone with you, Mr. Blyden?”

"I was alone.”

"Anyone see you baking these cookies?”

"The window was open. Maybe somebody saw me.”

“But you can't say for certain that anyone saw you.”

“No, I can't.”

"What kind of cookies were you baking, Mr. Blyden?”

He hesitated. Admit to baking chocolate chip cookies and he was reaching out for The Cookie Boy's hand. "I forget," he said. "I bake all kinds of cookies.”

“Like to bake, do you?”

“Oh, yes.”

"Ever bake chocolate chip cookies?”

“Sometimes.”

"Were you baking chocolate chip cookies on August twenty-fifth?"

A: I don't remember.

Q: Have you ever baked chocolate chip cookies?

A: I don't particularly care for them.

Q: But have you ever ... ?

A: Chocolate chip cookies.

Q: I understand. But have you ever baked them?

A: I don't think so.

Q: Never baked chocolate chip cookies in your life?

A: I don't think so.

Q: Yes or no, Mr. Blyden?

"He's already answered the question," Meltzman said.

"Not to my satisfaction.”

"You'll be satisfied only when he says Yes, he has baked chocolate chip cookies.”

"No, I'll be satisfied when he gives me a straight yes or no answer.”

Q: Mr. Blyden, have you ever baked chocolate chip cookies in your life?

A: Yes. Maybe. Once or twice.

It was not uncommon for a person being interrogated to reverse direction, especially when he wasn't under oath. Blyden was probably thinking they knew somehow that he baked chocolate chip cookies. Maybe one of the neighbors could tell by the smell that they were chocolate chip cookies. Or maybe they'd entered his apartment since they'd arrested him, and found his recipe. Or maybe they could later confiscate his pots and pans, do tests on them, find out he'd baked chocolate chip cookies in them. So it was better to admit he'd baked them once or twice.

Q: How about August twenty-fifth? Did you bake chocolate chip cookies that day?

A: No.

Q: What did you bake? What kind of cookies?

A: I don't remember.

Q: Well, that was only six days ago. Don't you remember what kind of cookies you baked six days ago?

A: No, I don't.

Q: Then how do you know they weren't chocolate chip cookies? AI rarely bake chocolate chip cookies.

"Excuse me, counselor," Mettzman said. "Where's this going?”

"Excuse me, counselor," Nellie said, "but this isn't a courtroom, and I really must ask you to refrain from interjecting.”

"I realize ...”

"This is a simple Q and A, Mr. Meltzman. No objections, no rules of evidence, nothing to constrain me from getting at the truth.”

"Just which truth are you seeking?”

"You do know that your client is thought to be a burglar the media has nicknamed The Cookie Boy, don't you?”

"That is the allegation, yes.”

"You know, too, that The Cookie Boy leaves chocolate chip cookies at the scene of all his burglaries.”

"A singular idiosyncrasy, to be sure. But, Miss Brand ...”

"Mrs. Brand.”

"Forgive me. We're dealing here, Mrs. Brand, with a specific burglary and a specific pair of murders committed during this burglary. My client has no prior criminal record of any kind, and he has just told you that he's only baked chocolate chip cookies on one or two occasions in his lifetime. Why he was arrested at all is beyond my comprehension.

Are you planning to charge him with these murders?”

"We are.”

"Then why don't you do so?”

"I'd like a few questions answered first," Nellie said.

"I think you've asked enough questions for now," Meltzman said. "If you're going to charge him, do it. If not, we're out of here.”

"Is that your client's decision?”

"Mr. Blyden?" Meltzman said, turning to him. "Do you wish to answer any further questions?”

"I do not wish to answer any further questions," Blyden said.

"Can we put it any more plainly?”

"That's it then," Nellie said, and signaled to the video guy. "Have a seat, counselor. I'd like to discuss this with the officers here.”

"Five minutes," Meltzman said, and looked at his watch.

Together, she and the detectives went down the hall to Byrnes's office.

"This makes it tough," she said. "We were weak going in. Now that he won't tell us anything, what've we got? Nothing that'll stick.”

"We've got blood in the apartment," Parker said.

"If it's his. We won't know that without a DNA test.

And we can't take a sample without a court order.”

“So let's get one,”

Byrnes said.

"I'm sure we can. We've got probable cause coming out of our ears. But meanwhile, he'll run to China.”

"Not if we charge him with the burg," Meyer said. "That'd give us six days to chase the murders.”

"Get our court order and our blood sample in that time," Willis said.

"He just recanted the burglary," Nellie said.

"So what?" Kling said. "We've got cookie crumbs found at the scene.

Chocolate chip.”

"That only means someone in the apartment was eating chocolate chip cookies and left a mess. It didn't have to be Blyden.”

"The lab's running tests right this minute," Byrnes said. "If the crumbs match the other cookies he left behind ...”

"Then maybe we've got him in the apartment," Nellie said, "but only maybe. Anyway, defense'll bring in ten thousand different chocolate chip cookies that all tested basically the same.”

"Tasted?”

"Tested. Tasted, too, I'll bet.”

"We've also got his prints on the ladder going up," Meyer said.

"Places him behind the building, but not necessarily in the apartment.

And not necessarily on the day of the murders. Have we got his prints in the apartment?”

"No.”

"What else have we got?”

Nobody answered.

"Have we got anything else?" she asked.

They were all looking at her now.

"It's weak," she said.

"You've got no idea the flak on this one," Byrnes said. "You're saying hit him with the burg, anyway," Nellie said, "take our chances. Okay, I'm saying there's a huge risk of flight here. The judge sees a weak burg, he's liable to order low bail or no bail, Blyden's on his way.”

For a moment, she wished this was a movie. Wished she really was Meg Ryan in a movie. In a movie, everything always worked out all right.

In real life, killers sometimes walked.

"So what do you want to do, Nell?" Byrnes asked, and sighed heavily.

"What else can we do?" she said. "I'll tell Meltzman we're charging his man with Burg Two, and asking for a court order to draw blood for a DNA test. At tomorrow morning's arraignment, it's the judge's call.”

"Too bad chocolate chip cookies ain't DNA," Parker said.

"Too bad," Nellie agreed.

"Don't worry about any of this," Meltzman said. You'll be out on bail tomorrow, I promise you. It'll take weeks before they get the DNA results. But even if they get a match ...”

"They will' Blyden said. "My blood was all over the place. I had a nosebleed.”

"Don't worry about it," Meltzman said. "But I am worried about it.”

"Don't be.”

"Because I didn't kill them," Blyden said.

"Of course you didn't.”

"I mean, really. I didn't kill them. I really am innocent.”

"Don't worry about it," Meltzman said.

Matthew Hope called Carella at home that Monday night, just as he was about to turn on the ten o'clock news. Carella's routine was more or less fixed whenever he was working the day shift. He got home at around four-thirty, five o'clock, depending on traffic, spent some time relaxing and reading the paper, had dinner with Teddy and the kids around six-thirty, read again after dinner his taste ran to nonfiction . watched the news on television, and was in bed by eleven for a six A.M. alarm-clock wakeup. He usually left the house by seven and drove down to the station house, getting there at seven-thirty, seven-forty, again depending on traffic. During the winter months, he allowed himself more time. Now, in August, with the city relatively quiet, he could even leave the house at seven-fifteen and still be in the squad room by a quarter to eight.

Matthew called at five to ten.

"It's not too late, is it?" he asked at once.

"Not at all," Carella said. "Let me take this in the other room.”

The other room was a spare room they had fitted out as an office for whoever in the family chose to use it. The kids' computer was in there, as was Teddy's and Carella's. There were bookshelves and a battered desk they had picked up in a consignment shop. Two lamps from the same shop. Their housekeeper, Fanny, called the room The Junk Shop. Maybe it was.

"Still there?" Carella asked. "Still here. How are you?”

“Good.

You?”

"Good. I'm enjoying this. Practicing law again instead of running around after bad guys?”

"I'm still running around after bad guys," Carella said.

"So I see. I've got that information for you, if you've got a pencil.

I can fax the newspaper stuff later if you like ... have you got a fax there?”

"Yes, I have.”

"Good. But I also spoke to Morrie Bloom, and he sent me his report.

He's a detective on the Calusa P.D., he was the one who talked to the kids the day after the accident.”

"Is that what they called it? An accident?”

"Yeah. The police down there in Boyle's Landing figured Custer was drunk when he fell in the water. Blood tests were inconclusive the alligators did a good job .. but the kids told Bloom he was drinking heavily before they went up to get paid.”

"Was their word the only evidence the police had?”

“That he was drunk? No, there were also half a dozen empty beer bottles in his office. So apparently he'd been drinking hard liquor with the kids, and then continued drinking beer after they were gone.”

“That could do it.”

"It could. Railing on the deck behind his office was about four feet high. Police figure he fell over into the river and the alligators got him right away. They're fast. Have you ever seen an alligator run? Man, watch out.”

"Who went up to the office with him?”

"To get paid? I don't know. Let me take another look here.”

Carella could hear Matthew turning pages on the other end. Either looking at a photocopy of the newspaper story or else a copy of Bloom's D.D. report.

"Newspaper says they were the last ones to see him alive?”

"Who?”

"Mentions all the band members by name.”

“Which two went up to the office?”

"How do you know it was two?" Matthew asked. Good question, Carella thought.

"I'm getting conflicting stories up here," he said. "I'm looking,”

Matthew said.

"What's the date on Bloom's report?" Carella asked. "Let me see.”

Carella waited.

"Here it is. September second. That would've been the Friday before Labor Day.”

"And the newspaper story?”

"Next day.”

"Bloom give it to them?”

“Reliable police sources', it says. There's another story on Sunday, a review of the band.”

"Good? Bad?”

“Derivative rock', it says. But apparently the kids drew a big crowd on Saturday night. Because of all the publicity?”

"Say anything about who went up for the money?”

“I'm still looking.

There's nothing in the paper, I'm checking Fan Bloom's report. I'll FedEx this to you if you like. It's too long to fax.”

Carella waited.

"Kid named Totobi Hollister was asleep while they packed the van,”

Matthew said. "He tell this to Bloom?”

“Yes.”

"Who was packing the van?”

“Nothing here about it.”

“Who went up to the office?”

Bloom had to have asked that question. Because the last persons to see Custer alive were the ones who'd gone up to get paid. "Here we go,”

Matthew said. "Here's the girl's story. Q and A format, shall I read it to you?”

"Please.”

"The Q is Bloom, the A is Katherine Cochran.”

“I'm listening.”

Q: You understand, Miss Cochran, we're following up on this as a courtesy to the Boyle's Landing police.

A: Yes, I do.

Q: Because, from interviews they had with employees of the club, the band was still there when everyone else left. Which means the five of you were the last ones to see Mr. Custer alive.

A: That's true.

Q: One of the waiters told the police he said goodnight to all of you when he left. He said Mr. Custer and the band were sitting near the bar drinking. Is that true?

A: Not all of us. Tote had already gone to bed.

Q: Tote?

A: Tote Hollister. Totobi Hollister. Our bass guitarist. We woke him up later. After the van was packed and we were ready to go.

Q: So the four of you ... let me consult this a moment, please. That would've been you, and David Fames, and Alan Figgs, and Salvatore Roselli, is that correct?

A: Yes. The four of us.

Q: Were sitting, and drinking with Mr. Custer.

A: Yes, that's right.

Q: How much did he drink?

A: Charlie? I think he had two or three drinks.

Q: Which? Would you remember?

A: Three, I think.

Q: Do you remember what he was drinking?

A: Scotch, I believe. He had a bottle of beer later.

Q: Later?

A: In his office. He opened a bottle of beer and was drinking it when he went to the safe for our money.

Q: So, in your presence, then, he drank three scotches and a bottle of beer.

A: Yes, that's right.

Q: Did he go out onto the deck while you were up there in the office?

A: No, sir, he didn't. He paid us our money, said he enjoyed our being there, and hoped we'd come back real soon. We were a big hit, you know. People came from all over.

Q: You left after he paid you?

A: Yes, we did.

Q: What time was that, would you remember?

A: Around three, three-thirty.

Q: And what did you do then? A: In the morning, that is. Three-thirty in the morning.

Q: Yes, I understand. What did you do then?

A: We went to the van and drove off. We were coming up here to Calusa, you see. We had a long drive ahead.

Q: Was Mr. Custer still alive when you left the club? AI would hope so. He was certainly alive when we left his office.

Q: And you say you drove off immediately after leaving the office?

A: Well, within minutes. The van was running, it was already cool when I climbed inside. So, yes, we were on our way maybe five minutes after we said goodbye to Charlie.

Q: He didn't come out of his office to say goodbye or anything, did he?

A: No. He told us he was going to have another beer and then go to bed. There were lots of empty beer bottles around. He drank a lot of beer.

Q: So he'd finished the first beer already? The one he'd opened?

A: He was just finishing it.

Q: And he opened another bottle?

A: I didn't see him opening it.

Q: But he said ...

A: Not while I was there.

Q: He said he was going to have another beer ...

A: Yes.

Q: ... and then go to bed?

A: Yes.

Q: And you went out to the van ...

A: Yes.

Q: ... and left.

A: Yes. The others were already in the van. They were all set to leave when we came down to join them.

Q: What you say the others ...

A: In the van.

Q: There were three of them in the van, is that correct?

A: Yes. Waiting for us to come down with our money.

Q: So it was just two of you who went up to the office, is that right?

A: Yes. Just two of us.

Q: You, of course ...

A: Yes.

Q: ... and who else? Who went with you to Mr. Custer's office?

A: Sal Roselli.