The Frumious Bandersnatch

3

SOMETHING was covering her eyes.

She could not open her eyes because whatever it was—a cloth blindfold, duct tape, whatever—was so tight. Her first instinct was to reach up with her right hand to pull it free, whatever it was, but she discovered at once that her hands were bound behind her back. Her next instinct was to scream, but there was a gag in her mouth, as tight as the blindfold over her eyes. Run, she thought, run!, and tried to get to her feet, but her ankles were bound, too. She struggled for a moment, angrily, panicking in her helplessness, kicking out at nothing, and then lying still and silent, breathing hard, trying to figure out what was happening to her here.

All at once, she remembered.

Two men coming down the steps just as she was finishing the number. One of them hitting her. The other one clamping a sweet-smelling rag over her nose.

She lay still in the darkness.

Remembering.

She knew even before she began exploring with her legs, reaching out with her legs and her sandaled feet to touch the boundaries of the space she was in, knew somehow even before her feet touched the confining, defining walls, that she was in a closet. Lying on the hard wooden floor of a closet, her shallow breathing seeming to echo back at her in a small airless cubicle.

She almost panicked again.

She kicked out at the walls, tried to scream again, almost choked, tried to cough out the gag, tried to force her eyes open, her lids fluttering helplessly against the blindfold. She tried to calm herself. Sucked in great gulps of air through her nose. Lay still and silent for several moments, regaining her cool, telling herself to relax, be still.

She eased herself up into a sitting position, her back to what she supposed was the rear wall of the closet. Exploring with her feet, she located what she guessed was a hinge, the thin sole of her slightly heeled sandal catching on something that jutted from the otherwise flat surface, yes, it had to be a hinge, yes, she was indeed facing the closet door.

Bracing both feet hard against the floor, she inched her back slowly up the rear wall of the closet, banging her head on what was obviously a recessed horizontal shelf, but easing her way up and around it, and struggling to her feet at last. Her hands tied behind her back, her feet bound, essentially blind and mute, she used her head and her shoulder to explore the hinged side of the door, locating another hinge higher up. Using her nose as a pointer, she zeroed in on a small protruding knob at the top of the hinge.

The blindfold ended just above her cheekbone. She pressed the side of her face against the hinge, and tried to hook the edge of the blindfold over the knob. She was about to give up, when—on the eighth or ninth attempt—she finally snagged it. Yanking downward with a sharp jerk of her head, she pulled the blindfold loose, and opened her eyes.

A thin ribbon of light limned the lower edge of the closet door.

She waited for her eyes to adjust.

Duct tape.

It was duct tape.

The same thing that bound her ankles, and undoubtedly her hands, which she could not see.

She searched the closet floor and the shelf at eye level for any sharp object that might help her free her hands or her feet.

There was nothing.

She tried to hook the gag over the same hinge that had served her with the blindfold. But because it was a rag twisted an inch or so inside her mouth, and tied tightly at the back of her head, there was no slack to it at all, and she could not free it.

She did not know what to do next.

CARELLA wanted to know what they were supposed to do next.

He had waited till a respectable seven A.M. before phoning Lieutenant Byrnes, and now the two men were discussing whether or not they should drag the FBI into this.

“For all I know, Loomis has already called them,” Carella said.

“Who’s Loomis?” Byrnes asked.

In the background, Carella could hear a television set going. He imagined his boss at breakfast, sitting at his kitchen table over bacon and eggs, watching television as he ate. Byrnes was a compact man in his fifties, white-haired and blunt-featured. He had no particular fondness for the FBI.

“Barney Loomis,” Carella said. “He’s the CEO of Bison Records. He thinks the perps are going to ask him for the ransom.”

“Oh? How come?”

“Her parents are divorced, one in Mexico, the other in Europe. Also, neither of them has any money.”

“State line been crossed here?” Byrnes asked.

“We don’t know where the boat went after the snatch. Could’ve gone across the river, sure, docked someplace there. In which case, yes, a state line’s been crossed.”

“You say this girl’s a celebrity?”

“Personally, I never heard of her, Pete. According to Loomis, she’s the hottest thing around. But he owns the label, so what do you expect him to say?”

“You think he may have already called the Feds?”

“I have no idea. He wants that girl back.”

“What’d you say her name was?”

“Tamar Valparaiso.”

“Cause here she is now,” Byrnes said, and got up to raise the volume on the television set. “Can you hear this?” he asked Carella.

“I can hear it,” Carella said, and nodded grimly.

“…from a luxury yacht in the River Harb last night,” a television newscaster was saying. “According to U.S. Coast Guard reports…”

“How’d they’d get in this?” Byrnes said into the phone.

“Harbor Patrol called them.”

“…two armed and masked men boarded the River Princess at about ten-fifteen, seizing the talented young singer as she was performing her debut album, Bandersnatch, for a hundred or more invited guests…”

“What channel is that?” Carella asked.

“Five,” Byrnes said.

“Four’s gonna sue the city.”

“…Barney Loomis, who says Bison has not yet received a ransom demand. In Riverhead this morning…”

“That’s it,” Byrnes said, and lowered the volume. “Sue the city? Why?”

“Cause I confiscated a tape of the kidnapping.”

“Ooops.”

“It was evidence. So what do we do here, Pete? Pursue this or phone the FBI?”

“Let me talk to the Commish. I’ll tell you the truth, I don’t know. What I don’t want is for the Feds to use us as errand boys. That’s the last thing I want. Nobody called from them yet, huh?”

“Not yet.”

“Let me see what the Commish advises. I know he won’t want heat later on, anybody saying we dropped the ball prematurely. You’re about out of there, anyway, aren’t you?”

Carella looked up at the clock.

“Half an hour,” he said.

“Get some sleep, you may have to come back in. I don’t know how this is gonna fall, Steve, we’ll have to play it as it lays. Call me later, okay?”

“You coming in today?”

“No, it’s supposed to be my day off. Call me at home.”

“There’s the other line,” Carella said.

“I’ll wait. Maybe it’s the Feds.”

Carella put Byrnes on HOLD, stabbed at a button on the base of his phone.

“Carella,” he said.

“Carella, this is Sandy McIntosh, HPU. You got a minute?”

“Yeah, hang on.” He switched over to Byrnes again. “It’s the Harbor Patrol. Am I on the job, or what?”

“Stay with it for now,” Byrnes said. “Call me later.”

Carella switched to the other line again.

“Okay, Sandy, I’m back,” he said.

“This may be nothing at all,” McIntosh said, “or maybe you can use it. Around nine-fifteen, nine-thirty last night…”

IT WAS NOT often that this precinct caught something as big as a celebrity kidnapping—if, in fact, Tamar Valparaiso was a celebrity and not some figment of a record label’s imagination.

Neither Bert Kling nor Meyer Meyer had ever heard of her. Perhaps this was not too surprising in Meyer’s case. His kids listened to rock, but he was tone deaf when it came to anything more recent than the Beatles. Kling, on the other hand, was familiar with all the new groups, and even listened to rap on occasion. He had never heard of Tamar Valparaiso, even though her face and her story were splashed all over that morning’s tabloids.

The two men signed in at seven-forty-five, were briefed by Carella and Hawes—who were exhausted after a long night on the water—and then headed out at eight-thirty, to pick up where the departing team had left off.

Sandy McIntosh had reported stopping a twenty-seven-foot Rinker at around nine-fifteen, nine-thirty last night, heading inbound toward Capshaw Boats, its home marina, at Fairfield and the river, just off Pier Seven. Three passengers aboard. Two men and a woman. Name on the boat’s transom was Hurley Girl. Serial number stenciled on each of her sides was XL721G. Capshaw Boats was where Meyer and Kling were headed on this misty Sunday morning.

Today was the fourth of May.

Meyer had celebrated his wife’s birthday the night before, ordering champagne for everyone in the small French restaurant where they’d dined—not an enormously big deal in that there’d been only half a dozen other patrons. He’d sure as hell impressed Sarah, though. Sarah Lipkin when he met her all those years ago. “Nobody’s lips kin like Sarah’s lips kin” was what the fraternity banter maintained, a premise Meyer was eager to test. Married all these years now, never tired of her lips. Married all these years now, he could still impress her with six bottles of champagne. Veuve Cliquot, though, don’t forget.

Clear-eyed this morning, despite the full bottle of bubbly he and Sarah had shared last night, he was at the wheel of the police sedan, wondering out loud if the Feds would be coming in on this one.

“Thing I don’t like about working with them,” he said, “is they have this superior…”

“Way I understand it, it’s a dead cinch they’ll come in,” Kling said.

“Then why are we shlepping all the way downtown?”

“Way the Loot wants it. Guess he’d like a heads up, case there’s static later on.”

“What’s her name again?” Meyer asked.

“Tamar Valparaiso.”

“Never heard of her.”

This was the third time he’d said this.

“Me, neither,” Kling said.

Third time for him, too.

The two made a good pair.

Both men were some six feet tall, but Meyer presented a burlier look, perhaps because he was entirely bald, perhaps because he was possessed of a steady, patient demeanor that made him seem somewhat plodding in contrast to Kling’s more open, enthusiastic country-boy style. Born and bred in this city, Kling nonetheless looked like he’d been found in a basket in a corn field. He was the perfect Good Cop to Meyer’s Bad Cop, although often they switched roles for the fun of it, blond, hazel-eyed, fuzzy-cheeked Kling suddenly snarling like a pit bull, steely blue-eyed big bald Meyer purring like a pussy cat.

The man who owned Capshaw Boats and its adjoining marina was a one-eyed former Navy SEAL who called himself Popeye, not to anyone’s great surprise. He had opened the marina at a little before six this morning…

“Lots of skippers like to get out on the water before all the river traffic begins. That’s a nice calm time of day, you know,” he said, “that time just before sunrise. It’s called morngloam, not many people know that.”

Meyer certainly didn’t know it.

Neither did Kling.

“I think it’s a Scottish word,” Popeye said. “Morngloam. The opposite of it is evengloam. That’s the time just before sunset. Evengloam. I think it comes from the word ‘gloaming.’ I think that’s a Scottish word. The derivation, I mean. I think it’s Scottish.”

“Tell you what we’re looking for,” Kling said. “Harbor Patrol stopped a boat from your marina last night…”

“Oh?” Popeye said, his one good eye widening in surprise.

“Name’s Hurley Girl, serial number’s…”

“Oh, sure, the Rinker. She was already back in this morning, when I got here.”

“Whose boat is she?” Meyer asked.

“Mine. Well, Capshaw’s. I rent her out.”

“Then she doesn’t belong to one of your customers, is that it?”

“No, she’s mine. I just told you. She’s a rental boat. I sell boats, and I store boats, and I service boats, but I also rent them.”

“Who’d you rent this one to? Would you remember?”

“Oh, sure. Nice young feller. I’ve got his name inside.”

“Can you let us know who he was?” Kling asked.

“Oh, sure. Just let me finish here a minute, okay?”

He was washing down one of the boats. Soaping it, hosing it. Meyer watched him with interest. Kling looked upriver where early morning traffic was already moving steadily across the bridge to the next state.

“When you say she came back in…” Meyer said.

“She was tied up at the dock when I got in this morning.”

“When did she go out?”

“Evengloam last night. Nice time of day.”

“You rented her out last night at sundown…”

“Just before sundown. Twilight. Evengloam.”

“When was she due back in?”

“Well, she was a twenty-four-hour rental. Actually, she wasn’t due back till this evening sometime. I was surprised to find her here this morning.”

“We’d like that name, if you can get it for us,” Kling said.

“Oh, sure,” Popeye said, and turned off the hose. “Come on in.”

They followed him inside. The office was hung with lobster pots and fishing nets. Through the windows facing the river, Meyer and Kling could see racks and racks of stacked boats. Popeye went behind the counter, vanished from sight for a moment as he knelt beneath it. He emerged again, plunked a long narrow black book onto the counter top, and began riffling through its pages.

“Name was Andy Hardy,” he told them.

“Andy Hardy, huh?” Meyer said.

“There it is, right there,” Popeye said, and turned the registry log so they could see the name.

“That’s Mickey Rooney,” Meyer said. “A character he played in the movies. Andy Hardy.”

“You know, you’re right,” Popeye said, opening his one good eye wide in surprise.

“Never occurred to you, huh?” Kling said. “While this guy was renting the boat?”

“Well, the name did sound familiar, but we get a lot of people in here, you know. Sometimes too many damn people, you ask me.”

“How’d he pay for the rental?”

“Credit card.”

“Showed you a credit card with the name Andy Hardy on it?”

“Andy Hardy was what it said. Same as on his driver’s license. Picture matched his face, too. You rent a boat, it’s the same as when you rent a car, you know. You’re responsible for it. There’s more boating accidents, ratio of boats to cars, than there are automobile accidents, you know. Anything happens to the boat—theft, fire, accident—I’ve got the man’s credit card.”

“And you got Andy Hardy’s credit card for the little Hurley Girl out there, is that it?”

“You betcha,” Popeye said.

“Think we can get a line on Mr. Hardy?” Kling asked Meyer.

“Fat Chance Department,” Meyer said.

“I saw his driver’s license, too, I just told you,” Popeye said. “He seemed legit to me.”

“Maybe he is,” Kling said. “We’ll hit the computers when we get back to the office.”

“We’ll want our people to look over that boat, too,” Meyer said.

He was already on his cell phone.

“Why?” Popeye asked.

“It may have been used in a crime,” Kling said.

Meyer was dialing a number he knew by heart.

“How’d this Andy Hardy get here?” Kling asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Did he walk up? Drive up in his own car? Arrive in a taxi? How’d he get here?”

“In a black Ford Explorer. Two other people with him. They waited in the van while he filled out the rental papers.”

“Can I take a look at those papers?” Kling asked.

“Sure,” Popeye said, and went digging under the counter again. Meyer was just telling the Mobile Crime Unit where to find them.

“Man and a woman, right?” Kling said. “These two other people with him?”

“How’d you know that?” Popeye asked.

“Happen to see the license plate number?”

“Didn’t look. Here you go,” Popeye said, and put the rental folder for the Rinker on the counter top. Kling leafed through it. Andy Hardy, sure enough. Gave an address in Connecticut.

“Was the driver’s license issued in Connecticut?” Kling asked.

“Yep.”

“This address match the one on the license?”

“Yep. That’s why I asked to see it.”

Meyer pressed the END button on his cell phone, looked over at the papers Kling had spread on the counter top.

“They’re on the way,” he said.

“Did they leave the van here when they went out on the boat?” Kling asked.

“Unloaded it and left it, yes.”

“Unloaded it?”

“Took a carton from it.”

“What kind of carton?” Meyer asked.

“This cardboard carton. Not very big.” He showed the size with his hands.

“Think the masks might’ve been in it?” Meyer asked.

“You talking to me?” Popeye said.

“My partner.”

“Could be,” Kling said. “Any writing on the carton?”

“Didn’t see any.”

“And you say they left the van here?”

“In the parking lot, yes.”

“Was it gone this morning?”

“Didn’t notice.”

“When you came in, I mean.”

“Didn’t notice,” Popeye said again.

They were trying to pinpoint the exact time the suspects might have dropped off the boat and departed in the van.

“Do renters usually return boats in the middle of the night?” Kling asked.

“No, when their time’s up, usually. The rental period.”

“Are all your rentals for twenty-four hours?”

“No, we sometimes rent for a week. Sometimes longer.”

“But this one was for twenty-four hours.”

“Yes.”

“Evengloam to evengloam,” Meyer said.

“Supposed to be.”

“But Hardy brought it back early.”

“Yes.”

“Anybody here to receive a boat in the middle of the night?”

“We’ve got a night watchman, but he doesn’t check boats in, nothing like that.”

“So they just leave them at the dock, is that it?” Kling said.

“With nobody here to check them in,” Meyer said.

“We don’t have too many people bringing boats back before they’re due,” Popeye said.

“But Andy Hardy did.”

“What’d this guy do, anyway?” Popeye asked.

“Maybe nothing,” Kling said. “Is your watchman here now?”

“Left when I opened up this morning.”

“How do we find him?”

“Let me get you his address,” Popeye said, and went over to a desk under a calendar of a girl wearing a sailor hat and hardly anything else.

“Phone number, too, please,” Meyer said.

THREE DETECTIVES from the MCU arrived at Capshaw Boats at twenty to eleven that morning. Meyer and Kling were waiting dockside for them. They hadn’t yet boarded the Hurley Girl because they didn’t know how many, if any, rampant prints the perps may have left aboard her, and they didn’t want to mess up anything for the technicians. The chief tech, a Detective/First named Carlie…

“For Charles,” he explained.

…Epworth listened attentively while Kling told him that a Harbor Patrol Unit vessel had stopped two males and a female on the boat right here an hour or so before the abduction last…

“What’s her name again?” Epworth asked. “The vic?”

“Tamar Valparaiso.”

“Never heard of her,” he said. “Is she supposed to be famous or something?”

“Supposed to be,” Meyer said.

“Never heard of her,” Epworth said again.

“Anyway, it was only the two males who boarded the River Princess, is the name of the launch she was taken from. So we figure the female stayed behind on the boat here, at the wheel. And maybe she left some latents. On the wheel, is what I’m saying. The two males were wearing gloves, but they were up to no good. So maybe the female was more relaxed and got careless.”

“Okay,” Epworth said.

“Is just a suggestion,” Kling said.

“Wearing gloves when they boarded the launch, you mean, right?”

“Yeah, right, when they did the deed.”

“But maybe they took them off when they were on their way home, is another possibility,” Epworth said.

“Opportunities are running rife,” Meyer said.

“Might turn out to be my lucky day,” Epworth said, grinning. “What’d you say that launch was called?”

“The River Princess. ”

“I think I saw a file on her back at the office.”

“Anybody get anything yet?”

“I don’t know. It was on another desk.”

“Cause this case is getting a lot of play, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“The papers, the media.”

“You gonna need us here?” Kling said.

“Leave me your card. I’ll get back one way or another.”

“We won’t be back in the office for a few hours,” Kling said. “Possible witness we’ve got to see.”

“To what? The snatch?”

“We’ve got a hundred and twelve of them.”

“Bold mother-fuckers, weren’t they?”

“Depends how you define it.”

“I didn’t say ‘brave,’ I said ‘bold.’ ”

“That they were. So when do you think you’ll be done here?”

Epworth looked at his watch.

“One, two o’clock, in there,” he said. “Depends on how clean she is.”

“We should be back home by then.”

“I’ll find you, don’t worry,” Epworth said. “Are the Feds in this yet?”

“Not yet,” Kling said.

“But you said it’s getting a lot of play, right?”

“Right.”

“They’ll come sniffing, you can bet on it,” Epworth said, and opened the gate on the Hurley Girl’s transom entry, and signaled to his crew. “Anybody been aboard her yet?” he asked.

“Just the possible perps,” Meyer said.

“Makes it easy then, don’t it?” Epworth said, and grinned.

CARELLA was sound asleep when Lieutenant Byrnes called him at twelve-thirty that Sunday. He waited a respectable four rings before remembering that this was Fanny’s day off and Teddy was taking the twins to the park, and then hastily yanked the receiver from its cradle.

“Carella,” he said.

“Steve, it’s Pete.”

“Yes, Pete.”

“I spoke to the Commish. First off, you’d better get that tape back to Honey Blaine…”

“Blair.”

“Whoever, before the city lands a very big law suit. Channel Four has already contacted the Mayor, who is not particularly known for courageous stands, anyway, and he got on his lawyerly high horse and lectured the Commish about illegal search and seizure and all that bullshit…”

“Yeah,” Carella said wearily.

“So you’d better…where is it, anyway, that tape?”

“In my bottom desk drawer.”

“I’ll call in, have a uniform run it over to the…”

“No, the drawer’s locked. I’ve got the key here.”

“This Blaine woman…”

“Blair.”

“…is sitting down there in the Channel Four offices with a battery of network lawyers, waiting for us to deliver that tape. We’ve got till three o’clock. Otherwise, they file. Can you get the tape over there by then?”

“Yes. But I still think it’s evidence.”

“The network thinks it’s a scoop worth forty million dollars…”

“More than I make in a week,” Carella said.

“…which is what they’ll sue for if they don’t get that tape by three o’clock. Can you run down to the squadroom? Messenger the tape over?”

“Sure,” Carella said, and yawned. “What time is it?”

“Twelve-thirty-five.”

“Shall I wake Cotton? Are we still on this case, or what?”

“Far as I know. Nobody’s heard a peep from the Feds, so I guess it’s still ours. Ain’t we lucky?”

“Oh my yes.”

“I guess this singer isn’t very important, huh? Did Meyer and Bert get anything on the boat?”

“I’ve been asleep, Pete.”

“Right, I’m sorry. Stick with it, the four of you. Call Loomis, see if there’s been a ransom demand yet. If this is really ours…”

“You just said it was, Pete.”

“Well, it is.”

“But you sound dubious.”

“I’m just surprised. I thought the Feds would’ve come knocking by now. Anyway, call Loomis. Is his office open today?”

“I have no idea.”

“You said he thought the perps might ask him for the money.”

“That’s what he told me, yes.”

“So how will they know where to reach him? Did you get his home number?”

“Yes, Pete.”

“Do you think they have his home number?”

“I doubt it.”

“So they’ll call at his office tomorrow, right? So let’s get our Tech Unit to set up some stuff for us. We won’t need a court order for a Tap and Trap, Loomis is a friendly, it’s his own phone. But you’ll need one for a Trap and Trace, maybe more than one. Try to get the equipment set up today, ready for when they call tomorrow, if they call.”

“I’ll get on it right away.”

“I hate kidnappings,” Byrnes said, and sighed.

Both men fell silent.

“I sure would like a look at that tape,” Carella said.

“I have a feeling you’ll be seeing it on television. Over and over again. But you’ve got till three o’clock. Play it before you take it back. Who’s to know?”

“Is that an order?”

“It’s a suggestion,” Byrnes said.

THE WATCHMAN’S name was Abner Carmody.

He was asleep when Detectives Meyer and Kling knocked on his door at one that afternoon. He complained that he hadn’t got to bed till eight this morning, time he got home from the marina and all, and he usually slept till three or four, had a late lunch (or early dinner, depending how you looked at it), and went to work again at six, putting in a twelve-hour day (or night, depending how you looked at it), from six P.M. to six A.M.

“ ‘A man works from sun to sun,’ ” he quoted out of the blue, “ ‘but a woman’s work is never done.’ So why are you waking me up?”

Carmody was in his sixties someplace, the detectives guessed, wearing striped pajamas and eyeglasses he’d put on when he came to answer the door. He hadn’t invited the detectives in yet. They didn’t care to go in, either. The man wasn’t a suspect, there was nothing they wanted to see in his apartment.

“Sometime last night, maybe eleven-thirty, twelve o’clock,” Meyer prompted. “Twenty-seven-foot Rinker came in, passengers tied her up and drove off in a black Ford Explorer. Happen to see them?”

“What’s this about?”

“Maybe nothing.”

“So why’re you waking me up the crack of dawn, it’s nothing?”

“We can come back later, if you like,” Kling said. With a warrant, he almost added, but didn’t.

“Well, I’m up now,” Carmody said.

“Did you see the boat come in?”

“No, I must’ve been making rounds, other end of the marina. But I saw them carrying the box to the van, and driving off in it.”

“What box, sir?”

“This carton, maybe yay big,” he said, using his hands. “Two by two, three by three, no bigger’n that.”

“Heavy box? Did it seem to be heavy?”

“Not especially. Woman was carrying it. Couldn’t have been too heavy, could it?”

“The masks,” Meyer said.

Kling nodded.

“What’d they look like?” he asked.

“Was only one of them. Just a plain cardboard box. Brown, you know. What they call corrugated.”

“I mean the people who got in the van. Did you happen to get a look?”

“Oh, yeah, the van was parked right under one of the sodium lights.”

“Two men and a woman, were they?” Kling asked.

“Yessir, two men and a woman. All of them wearing black all over—jeans, sweatshirts, jogging shoes. One of the men had curly black hair, the other one straight blond hair. The girl was a redhead.”

“How old would you say?”

“The girl? Early twenties.”

“And the men?”

“I’d say late twenties, early thirties.”

“I don’t suppose you happened to notice the license plate on that van, did you?” Kling asked.

Carmody looked offended.

“I’m a watchman,” he said. “That’s my job. To watch.”

And reeled off what he’d seen on that plate, letter for letter, numeral for numeral.

A PATROLMAN with his back to them was sleeping on a cot in the swing room when Carella and Hawes came in to play the Channel Four tape. The television set down here in the basement of the old building was a relic of the eighties, with a screen much smaller than either of the men had at home, but it had a VCR attachment, and it would serve the purpose. They kept the volume low, so as not to awaken the sleeping patrolman.

Watching the tape was an odd experience.

They had heard this crime reported a hundred different ways by a hundred and twelve different people, so in a sense it was familiar to them. In a sense, they were seeing it all over again. But they were also seeing it for the very first time, objectively, no one telling them whether the men were short or tall or wearing black or blue or green, no one describing the action in often erroneous detail. There it was for them to see and to hear. It was rather like witnessing an actual address to the nation, rather than watching a bunch of talking heads commenting on it minutes later.

Hawes and Carella immediately agreed that the girl was a star.

Hawes voiced it first.

“She’s good,” he said.

But they weren’t talent scouts.

Nonetheless, she was good.

“Very good,” Carella agreed.

They were watching the part of the tape where Tamar Valparaiso was standing in uffish thought under the Tumtum tree, all unaware that she was about to be attacked. There he came now, big and muscular, the Bandersnatch, or the Jabberwock, or whoever her father had just warned her about a couple of seconds ago, suddenly leaping from behind a screen on the left side of the dance floor, looking menacing as hell in a scary clay-colored mask, the kind of guy neither of the detectives would choose to run into in a dark alley.

The ensuing rape, the attempted rape, was all too realistic.

Neither Carella nor Hawes had ever witnessed a rape in progress, but they had heard the testimony of far too many vics, and they knew damn well what the crime was all about. The dancer playing the rapist—there was no way this video could be considered anything but a choreographed visualization of a rape—seemed to understand completely that rape had nothing to do with sex (however sexy Tamar looked as her clothes kept shredding away) but instead had only to do with power. This creature, this thing, this animal seemed resolute in his rage to overwhelm this young girl half his size and weight, determined to prove by sheer force of strength that he was the superior being here, he was in control, he was the master, he would dominate, he would conquer, he would enter and invade and eventually humiliate and disgrace and demean and dishonor and utterly destroy. That was the whole thing about rape. It wasn’t about getting laid. It was about showing just who owned who, babe.

They almost felt like intervening.

Jumping up and yelling, “Police! Stop!”

Probably wake up the sleeping uniform.

But the tape was that real and that frightening.

Then, of course, it all came out all right. Unlike rapes in real life, this one had a happy ending. The girl reached up for some imaginary kind of weapon and slashed out at her assailant…

Helpless female becomes powerful male in order to defeat another powerful male. Where was the message there?

The rap ended.

The beast in its enraged crimson mask lay dead on the floor at Tamar’s feet.

Now there was only the B-flat note again, that single repeated bass note, and Tamar fluidly moving the tune into the bluesy figure of its opening melody.

Tamar’s eyes shone, her voice rang out. She was home, baby, she was home.

“She’s terrific,” Hawes said.

“A star,” Carella agreed.

“Don’t nobody fucking move! ”

“Here they come,” Hawes said, and leaned forward.

And here they came.

The detectives watched the screen intently.

This was a professional tape, recorded by skilled technicians. This wasn’t something some passing motorist had shot from his car window because he’d happened to notice it occurring as he drove by. Nor was this something recorded on a bank or a supermarket camera, all fuzzy and grainy and virtually worthless for identification purposes. This was clear and sharp and focused and detailed and in full living color. This was the chronicle of a crime in progress and it would stand up in any court in the land.

You could not see the men’s faces because of the masks, Saddam Hussein and Yasir Arafat, two gents intent on a little mischief. They were wearing black long-sleeved sweatshirts and black leather gloves. Black denim trousers. Black socks. Black running shoes.

“Reeboks,” Hawes said.

He had just made out the label.

Carella nodded.

Weapons were AK-47s, no question about it.

The shorter of the two was left-handed. Saddam Hussein. At least, he was carrying the rifle in his left hand. Pointing it up at the ceiling, like the real Hussein about to fire at the sky. Right hand on the mahogany banister.

“Ouch!” Hawes said when Hussein slammed the black dancer with the stock of the rifle.

They kept watching.

“Son of a bitch,” Hawes said, when Hussein slapped Tamar.

The other one, the taller one, Yasir Arafat, clapped a wet rag over her face.

“You move, she dies!” Hussein yelled.

“He sound black to you?” Carella asked.

“I don’t know. Kind of muffled under that mask.”

“Witnesses all seemed to think they were black. I’m not getting that, are you?”

“Let’s take another look,” Hawes said, and got up to rewind the tape.

“What’s going on?” the sleeping patrolman asked, raising his head.

“Nothing, man, cool it,” Hawes said.

“I was up all fuckin night,” the patrolman said, and rolled over on the cot again.

They played the tape two more times.

They both felt they were missing something.

But they didn’t know what.