Tricks

CHAPTER 4

Hawes had to keep telling himself this was strictly business.

Bermuda had been one thing, Bermuda was a thousand miles away, and besides he'd asked Annie to go along with him. This was another thing. This was the big bad city, and Annie lived here and besides he had a date with her tomorrow night, and furthermore Marie Sebastiani was married.

As of the moment, anyway.

The possibility existed that her husband had run off on his own to get away from her, though why anyone would want to abandon a beautiful, leggy blonde was beyond Hawes. If that's what had happened, though—Sebastian the Great tossing his junk all over the driveway and then taking off in the Citation—then maybe he was gone forever, in which case Marie wasn't as married as she thought she was. Hawes had handled cases where a guy went out for a loaf of bread and never was heard from since. Probably living on some South Sea island painting naked natives. One case he had, the guy told his wife he was going down for a TV Guide. This was at eight o'clock. The wife sat through the eleven o'clock news, and then the Johnny Carson show, and then the late movie, and still no hubby with the TV Guide. Guy turned up in California six years later, living with two girls in Santa Monica. So maybe Sebastian the Great had pulled the biggest trick of his career, disappearing on his wife. Who knew?

On the other hand, maybe the lady's concern was well-founded. Maybe somebody had come across Frank Sebastiani while he was loading his goodies in the car, and maybe he'd zonked the magician and thrown his stuff out of the car and took off with the car and the magician both. Dump the magician later on, dead or alive, and sell the car to a chop shop. Easy pickings on a relatively quiet Halloween night. It was possible.

Either way, this was strictly business.

Hawes wished, however, that Marie wouldn't keep touching him quite so often.

The lady was very definitely a toucher, and although Hawes didn't necessarily buy the psychological premise that insisted casual body contact was an absolute prerequisite to outright seduction, he had to admit that her frequent touching of his arm or his shoulder or his hand was a bit unsettling. True enough, the touching was only to emphasize a conversational point—as when she told him again how grateful she was that he was taking her to dinner—or to indicate this or that possible restaurant along the Stem. He had parked the car on North Fifth, and they were walking westward now, heading downtown, looking for a place to eat. At seven thirty-five on a Friday night there were still a lot of restaurants open, but Marie had told him she felt like pizza and so he chose a little place just south of the avenue, on Fourth. Red-checkered tablecloths, candles in Chianti bottles, people waiting in line for tables. Hawes rarely pulled rank, but now he casually mentioned to the hostess that he was a detective working out of the Eight-Seven and he hadn't had anything to eat since he came on at four o'clock.

"This way, officer," the hostess said at once, and led them to a table near the window.

As soon as the hostess was gone, Marie said, "Does that happen all the time?"

"Does what happen?"

"The royal treatment."

"Sometimes," Hawes said. "You sure you only want pizza? There's plenty other stuff on the menu."

"No, that's what I really feel like. Cheese and anchovies."

"Would you like a drink?" he asked. "I'm on duty, but…"

"Do you really honor that?"

"Oh, sure."

"I'll just have beer with the pizza."

Hawes signaled to the waiter, and then ordered a large pizza with cheese and anchovies.

"Anything to drink?" the waiter asked.

"A draft for the lady, a Coke for me."

"Miller's or Michelob?"

"Miller's," Marie said.

The waiter went off again.

"This is really very nice of you," Marie said, and reached across the table to touch his hand briefly. A whisper touch. There, and then gone.

"As soon as we get back to the squadroom," Hawes said, "I'll call Auto again, see if they turned up anything on either of the vehicles."

He had made a call to Auto Theft from the custodian's office at the high school, reporting both the Citation and the Econoline, but he knew what the chances were of finding either vehicle tonight. He didn't want to tell her that.

"That would be a start," she said. "If they found the cars."

"Oh, sure."

A pained look crossed her face.

"I'm sure he's okay," Hawes said.

"I hope so."

"I'm sure."

He wasn't at all sure.

"I just keep thinking something terrible has happened to him. I keep thinking whoever stole the car…"

"Well, you don't know that for a fact," Hawes said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, that the car was stolen."

"It's gone, isn't it?"

"Yes, but…"

He didn't want to tell her that maybe her husband had driven off on his own, heading for the wild blue yonder. Let the lady enjoy her pizza and her beer. If her husband had in fact abandoned her, she'd learn it soon enough. If he was lying dead in an alley someplace, she'd learn that even sooner.

He didn't bring up Jimmy Brayne again until after they'd been served.

She was digging into the pizza as if she hadn't eaten for a week. She ate the way that woman in the Tom Jones movie ate. Licked her lips, rolled her eyes, thrust pizza into her mouth as if she were making love to it. Come on, he thought. Strictly business here.

"He's normally reliable, is that right?" he said.

"Who?"

"Jimmy Brayne."

"Oh, yes. Completely."

"How long has he been working for you?"

"Three months."

"Started this July?"

"Yes. We did the act at a big Republican picnic on the Fourth. That was the first time Jimmy helped us."

"Carrying the stuff over in the van…"

"Yes."

"Picking it up later."

"Yes."

"Did he know where he was supposed to pick you up tonight?"

"Oh, sure. He dropped the stuff off at the school, of course he knew."

"Helped you unload it?"

"Yes."

"When was that? What time?"

"We got there about three-fifteen."

"Drove into the city together?"

"Frank and I were following the van."

"And Jimmy left the school at what time?"

"As soon as everything was on stage."

"Which was when?"

"Three-thirty, a quarter to four?"

"And he knew he was supposed to come back at five-thirty?"

"Yes."

"Is it possible he went someplace with your husband?"

"Like where?"

"For a drink or something? While you were changing?"

"Then why was all the stuff on the sidewalk?"

"It's just that… well, both of them disappearing…"

"Excuse me," the waiter said. "Officer?"

Hawes looked up.

"Officer, I hate to bother you," the waiter said.

"Yes?"

"Officer, there's somebody's arm in one of the garbage cans out back."

It was ten minutes to eight on the face of the clock on the locker-room wall.

They could have been teenagers swapping stories about their boyfriends.

Nothing in their conversation indicated they were going out hunting for a killer.

"Maybe I should've gone down later," Annie said. "The trial ended on Wednesday, I could've gone down then." She stepped into her short skirt, pulled it over her blouse and pantyhose, zipped up the side, fastened the button at the waist. "Trouble is, I wasn't sure I wanted to go."

"But he asked you, didn't he?" Eileen said.

"Sure, but… I don't know. I got the feeling he was just going through the motions. I'll tell you the truth, I think he wanted to go down there alone."

"What makes you think so?" Eileen asked.

She was wearing a low-cut blouse, and a wraparound skirt as short as Annie's, fastened on the right-hand side with a three-inch-long ornamental safety pin. The pin would be a last-ditch weapon if she needed it. If she needed it, she would poke out his eyes with it.

She was sitting on the bench in front of the lockers, pulling on high-heeled boots with floppy tops. A holster was strapped to her ankle inside the right boot. The pistol in the holster was a .25-caliber Astra Firecat automatic, with a two-and-a-half-inch barrel. It weighed a bit less than twelve ounces. Six-shot magazine, plus one in the firing chamber. She would pump all seven slugs into his face if she had to. There was a six-shot, .44-caliber Smith & Wesson hammerless revolver in her handbag. Plus a switchblade knife. Rambo, she thought. But it won't happen to me again. She was wearing two pairs of panties under her pantyhose. Her psychological weapons.

"I just… I don't know," Annie said. "I think Cotton's trying to end it, I just don't know."

She reached into the locker for her handbag, took out her cosmetics kit.

Eileen was standing now, looking down into the boots.

"Can you see this gun?" she asked.

Annie came over to her, lipstick in her hand. She looked down into the floppy top of the boot on Eileen's right foot.

"You might want to lower the holster," she said. "I'm getting a glimpse of metal."

Eileen sat again, rolled down the boot top, unstrapped the holster, lowered it, strapped it tight again.

"Maybe you should've gone down there, had it out with him," she said.

"Well, that would've ended it for sure. A man doesn't want a showdown on his vacation."

"But if he wants to end it…"

"I'm not sure of that."

"Well, what makes you think he might want to?"

"We haven't made love in the past two weeks."

"Bert and I haven't made love since the rape," Eileen said flatly, and stood up and looked down into the boots again.

"I'm… sorry," Annie said.

"Maybe that'll change tonight," Eileen said.

And Annie suddenly knew she was planning murder.

The old lady's name was Adelaide Davis, and she had seen the kids going into the liquor store on Culver and Twelfth. She was now standing outside on the sidewalk with Carella and Meyer. Inside the store, two ambulance attendants were hoisting the body of the owner onto a stretcher. Monroe was watching the operation, his hands in his jacket pockets. A tech from the Mobile Lab unit was dusting the register for fingerprints. The M.E. was kneeling over the second body. One of the attendants said, "Up," and they both lifted the stretcher and then stepped gingerly around the M.E. and the other body.

A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. This was still only eight o'clock on a balmy Friday night, a lot of people were still in the streets. The ambulance attendants went past Mrs. Davis and the two detectives. Mrs. Davis watched them as they slid the stretcher into the ambulance. She watched them as they carried another stretcher back into the store. Patrolmen were shooing back the crowd now, making sure everyone stayed behind the barriers. Mrs. Davis felt privileged. Mrs. Davis felt like a star. She could see some of her neighbors in the crowd, and she knew they envied her.

"I can't believe this," she said. "They looked so cute."

"How many were there, ma'am?" Carella asked.

Mrs. Davis liked Carella. She thought he was very handsome. The other detective was bald, she had never favored bald men. Wait'll she told her daughter in Florida that she'd witnessed a murder—two murders—and had talked to detectives like on television.

"Oh, just a handful of them," she said.

"How many would you say?" Meyer asked.

"Well, they went by very fast," she said. "But I'd say there were only four or five of them. They all jumped out of the station wagon and ran into the store."

"It was a station wagon, huh? The vehicle?"

"Oh, yes. For certain."

"Would you know the year and make?"

"I'm sorry, no. A blue station wagon."

"And these kids ran out of it with guns in their hands, huh?"

"No, I didn't see any guns. Just the shopping bags."

"No guns," Carella said.

"Not until they got inside the store. The guns were in the shopping bags."

"So when they got inside the store, these little boys pulled the guns and…"

"No, they were little girls."

Meyer looked at Carella.

"Girls?" he said.

"Yessir. Four or five little girls. All of them wearing these long dresses down to their ankles and little blonde wigs. They looked like little princesses."

"Princesses," Carella said.

"Yes," Mrs. Davis said. "They had on these masks that covered entire faces, with sort of Chinese eyes on them—slanted, you know—well, maybe Japanese, I guess. Well, like your eyes," she said to Carella. "Slanted, you know?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And rosy cheeks painted on the masks, and bright red lips, and I think little beauty spots near the mouth. They were absolutely beautiful. Like little Chinese princesses. Or Japanese. Except that they were blonde."

"So they had on these Chinese-looking masks…"

"Or Japanese…"

"Right," Meyer said, "and they were wearing blonde wigs…"

"Yes, curly blonde wigs. Like Little Orphan Annie, except she's a redhead."

"Curly blonde wigs, and long dresses."

"Yes, like gowns. They looked like darling little princesses."

"What kind of shoes, ma'am?" Carella asked.

"Oh. I don't know. I didn't notice their shoes."

"They weren't wearing sneakers, were they?"

"Well, I really couldn't see. The gowns were very long."

The ambulance attendants were coming out with the second body now. The M.E. was still inside, talking to Monroe. Mrs. Davis looked down at the body as it went past. Before tonight, she had never seen a dead body except in a funeral home. Tonight, she'd just seen two of them close up.

"So they ran into the store," Carella said.

"Yes, yelling 'Trick or treat.' "

"Uh-huh," Carella said. "And pulled the guns…"

"Yes. And shot Mr. Agnello and the man who was in the store with him."

"Shot them right off?" Meyer said.

"Yes."

"Didn't say it was a stickup or anything, just started shooting."

"Yes. Mr. Agnello and the man with him."

"What happened next, ma'am? In the store. Did you keep watching?"

"Oh, yes. I was scared to death, but I kept watching."

"Did you see them clean out the cash register?"

"Yes. And one of them took a bottle of whiskey from the shelf."

"Then what?"

"They came running out. I was standing over there, to the left, over there, I'm not sure they saw me. I guess maybe they would've shot me, too, if they'd seen me."

"You were lucky," Carella said.

"Yes, I think I was."

"What'd they do then?" Meyer asked.

"They got back in the station wagon, and the woman drove them off."

"There was a woman driving the car?"

"Yes, a blonde woman."

"How old, would you know?"

"I really couldn't say. A sort of heavyset woman, she might've been in her forties."

"By heavyset…"

"Well, sort of stout."

"What was she wearing, would you remember?"

"I'm sorry."

Monroe was coming out of the liquor store.

"This the witness here?" he asked.

"A very good witness," Carella said.

"Well, thank you, young man," Mrs. Davis said, and smiled at him. She was suddenly glad she hadn't told him she'd wet her pants when she saw those little girls shooting Mr. Agnello.

"So what've we got here?" Monroe said. "An epidemic of kindergarten kids holding up liquor stores?"

"Looks that way," Carella said. "Where's your partner?"

"Who the hell knows where he is?" Monroe said. "Excuse me, lady."

"Oh, that's perfectly all right," she said. This was just like cable television, with the cursing and all. She couldn't wait to phone her daughter and tell her about it.

"Same kids, or what?" Monroe asked.

"What?" Mrs. Davis said.

"Excuse me, lady," Monroe said, "I was talking to this officer here."

"Little girls this time," Meyer said. "But it sounds like the same bunch. Same blonde driving the car."

"Nice lady, that blonde," Monroe said. "Driving kids to stickups. What kind of car, did you find out?" He turned to Carella. "What it is, the fart at the other store couldn't… excuse me, lady."

"Oh, that's perfectly all right," she said.

"A blue station wagon," Meyer said.

"You happen to know what year and make, lady?"

"I'm sorry, I don't."

"Yeah," Monroe said. "So all we got is the same big blonde driving four kids in a blue station wagon."

"That's about it," Meyer said.

"There wasn't homicides involved here, I'd turn this over to Robbery in a minute. You better give them a buzz, anyway."

"I already did," Meyer said. "After the first one."

One of the techs ambled out of the store.

"Got some bullets here," he said. "Who wants them?"

"What do they look like?" Monroe asked.

The technician showed him the palm of his hand. A white cloth was draped over it, and four spent bullets rested on it.

"Twenty-twos maybe," he said, and shrugged.

Mrs. Davis leaned over to look at the technician's palm.

"So, okay, lady," Monroe said, "you got any further business here?"

"Cool it," Carella said.

Monroe looked at him.

"I'll have one of our cars drop you home, Mrs. Davis," Carella said.

"A taxi service, they run up here," Monroe said to the air.

"Cool it," Carella said again, more softly this time, but somehow the words carried greater menace.

Monroe looked at him again and then turned to Meyer.

"Bag them bullets and get them over to Ballistics," he said. "Call Robbery and tell them we got another one."

"Sounds like good advice," Meyer said.

Monroe missed the sarcasm. He glared again at Carella, and then walked to where his car was parked at the curb.

Wait'll I tell my daughter! Mrs. Davis thought. A ride in a police car!

The patrolmen riding Charlie Four were approaching the corner of Rachel and Jakes, just cruising by, making another routine run of the sector when the man riding shotgun spotted it.

"Slow down, Freddie," he said.

"What do you see, Joe?"

"The van there. Near the corner."

"What about it?"

Joe Guardi opened his notebook. "Didn't we get a BOLO on a Ford Econoline?" He snapped on the roof light, scanned the notebook. "Yeah, here it is," he said. In his own handwriting, he saw the words "BOLO tan 79 Ford Econoline, RL 68-7210. Blue '84 Citation, DL 74-3681." The word BOLO stood for Be On the Lookout.

"Yeah," he said again. "Let's check it out."

The two men got out of the car. They flashed their torches over the van. License plate from the next state, RL 68-7210.

They tried the door closest to the curb.

Unlocked.

Freddie slid it all the way open.

Joe came around to the passenger side of the van. He slid the door open there, leaned in, and thumbed open the glove compartment.

"Anything?" Freddie asked.

"Looks like a registration here."

He took the registration out of a clear-plastic packet containing an owner's manual and a duplicate insurance slip.

The van was registered to a Frank Sebastiani whose address was 604 Eden Lane in Collinsworth, over the river.

The movie had let out at seven o'clock, and they had stopped for a drink on the Stem later. They had begun arguing in the bar, in soft, strained voices, almost whispers, but everyone around them knew they were having a fight because of the way they leaned so tensely over the small table between them. At first, the fight was only about the movie they'd seen. She insisted it had been based on a novel called Streets of Gold, by somebody or other, and he insisted the movie'd had nothing whatever to do with that particular novel, the movie was an original. "Then how come they're allowed to use the same title?" she asked, and he said, "They can do that 'cause you can't copyright a title. They can make the shittiest movie in the world if they want to, and they can call it From Here to Eternity or The Good Earth or even Streets of Gold, like they did tonight, and nobody in the world can do a damn thing about it." She glared at him for a moment, and then said, "What the hell do you know about copyright?" and he said, "A hell of a lot more than you know about anything," and by now they were really screaming at each other in whispers, and leaning tensely over the table, eyes blazing, mouths drawn.

They were still arguing on the way home.

But by now the argument had graduated to something more vital than an unimportant little novel called Streets of Gold or a shitty little movie that hadn't been based upon it.

They were arguing about sex, which is what they almost always argued about. In fact, maybe that's what they'd really been arguing about back there in the bar.

It was almost eight-thirty but the streets were already beginning to fill with teenagers on the prowl. Not all of them were looking for trouble. Many of them were merely seeking to let off adolescent energy. The ones out for fun and games were wearing costumes that weren't quite as elaborate as those the toddlers and later the teenyboppers had worn. Some of the teenage girls, using the excuse of Halloween to dress as daringly as they wished, walked the streets looking like hookers or Mata Haris or go-go dancers or sexy witches in black with slits up their skirts to their thighs. Some of the teenage boys were dressed like combat marines or space invaders or soldiers of fortune, most of them wearing bandoliers and carrying huge plastic machine guns or huge plastic death-ray guns. But these weren't the ones looking for trouble. The ones looking for trouble weren't dressed up for Halloween. They wore only their usual clothing, with perhaps a little blackening on their faces, the better to melt into the night. These were the ones looking to smash and to burn. These were the ones who had caused Lieutenant Byrnes to double-team his detectives tonight. Well, almost double-team them. Seven men on instead of the usual four.

The arguing couple came up the street toward the building where they lived, passing a group of teenage girls dressed like John Held flappers, sequined dresses with wide sashes, long cigarette holders, beaded bands around their foreheads, giggling and acting stoned, which perhaps they were. The couple paid no attention to them. They were too busy arguing.

"What it is," he said, "is there's never any spontaneity to it."

"Spontaneity, sure," she said. "What you mean by spontaneity is jumping on me when I come out of the shower…"

"There's nothing wrong with…"

"When I'm all clean."

"When do you want to make love?" he asked. "When you're all dirty?"

"I sure as hell don't want to get all sweaty again after I've just taken a shower."

"Then how about before you take your shower?"

"I don't like to make love when I feel all sweaty."

"So you don't like to do it when you're sweaty and you don't like to do it when you're not sweaty. When do you…?"

"You're twisting what I'm saying."

"No, I'm not. The point I'm trying to make…"

"The point is you're a sex maniac. I'm trying to cook, you come up behind me and shove that humongous thing at me…"

"I don't see anything wrong with spontaneous…"

"Not while I'm cooking!"

"Then how about when you're not cooking? How about when I get home, and we're having a martini, how about…?"

"You know I like to relax before dinner."

"Well, what the hell is making love? I find making love relaxing, I have to tell you. If you think making love is some kind of goddamn strenuous obstacle course…"

"I can't enjoy my cocktail if you're pawing me while I'm trying to re…"

"I don't consider fondling you pawing you."

"You don't know how to be gentle. All you want to do is jump on me like a goddamn rapist!"

"I do not consider passion rape!"

"That's because you don't know the difference between making love and…"

"Okay, what's this all about? Tell me what it's all about, okay? Do you want to quit making love entirely? You don't want to do it before your shower, you don't want to do it after your shower, you don't want to do it while we're drinking or while you're cooking or while we're watching television, or when we wake up in the morning, when the hell do you want to do it, Elise?"

"When I feel like doing it. And stop shouting!"

"I'm not shouting, Elise! When do you want to do it? Do you ever want to do it, Elise?"

"Yes!" she shouted.

"When?"

"Right now, Roger, okay? Right here, okay? Let's do it right here on the sidewalk, okay?"

"Fine by me!"

"You'd do it, too, wouldn't you?"

"Yes! Right here! Anywhere!"

"Well, I wouldn't! You'd have done it at the goddamn movies if I'd let you."

"I'd have done it in the bar, too, if you hadn't started arguing about that dumb movie!"

"You'd do it in church!" she said. "You're a maniac, is what you are.

"That's right, I'm a maniac! You're driving me crazy is why I'm a maniac!"

They were entering their building now. He lowered his voice.

"Let's do it in the elevator, okay?" he said. "You want to do it in the elevator?"

"No, Roger, I don't want to do it in the goddamn elevator."

"Then let's take the elevator up to the roof, we'll do it on the roof."

"I don't want to do it on the goddamn roof, either."

He stabbed angrily at the elevator button.

"Where do you want to do it, Elise? When do you want to do it, Elise?"

"Later."

"When later?"

"When Johnny Carson goes off."

"If we were on television," he said, "and Johnny Carson was watching us," he said, "and he had a big hard-on…"

"We happen to live here, Roger."

"… do you think Johnny Carson would wait till we were off to do it? Or would Johnny Carson… ?"

"I don't care what Johnny Carson would do or wouldn't do. I don't even like Johnny Carson."

"Then why do you want to wait till he's off?"

The elevator doors opened.

At first they thought it was a stuffed dummy. The lower half of a scarecrow or something. Blue pants, blue socks, black shoes, black belt through the trouser loops. A Halloween prank. Some kids had tossed half a stuffed dummy into the elevator.

And then they realized that a jagged, bloody edge of torn flesh showed just above the dummy's waist, and they realized that they were looking at the lower torso of a human being and Elise screamed and they both ran out of the lobby and out of the building and up to the pay phone on the corner, where Roger breathlessly dialed 911.

The cruising cops in Boy Two responded within three minutes.

One of the cops got on the walkie-talkie to the Eight-Seven.

The other cop, although he should have known better, went through the stiff's trousers and found a wallet in the right hip pocket.

Inside the wallet, which he also shouldn't have touched, he found a driver's license with a name and an address on it.

"Well, here's who he is, anyway," he said to his partner.