Vespers

IV

The three who came into the squadroom on morning at the crack of dawn well, at minutes to eight, actually looked either like wandering band of twelfth-century minstrels or gypsy troupe out of Carmen, depending on perspective. The perspective from Cotton desk was sunwashed and somewhat hazy, the li slanting in through open windows to create almost prismatic effect of golden air afloat dancing dust motes. Out of this refracting mass there appeared the tentative trio, causing Hawes blink as if he were witnessing either a mirage or religious miracle.

There were two women and a man.

The man was between and slightly forward of the women, the point of a flying wedge, so to speak, for such it resembled as the three came through the gate in the slatted-rail divider and immediately homed in on the closest desk, which happened to be Hawes's.

perhaps his red hair had served as a beacon. Or perhaps he'd emanated a sense of authority that naturally attracted anyone seeking assistance.

Or perhaps they gravitated toward him because he was the only person in the squadroom at this ungodly hour of the morning.

The man was wearing bright blue polyester trousers and a rugby shin with a white collar and alternating red-and-blue stripes of different widths.

He was a hairy giant of a man, with long tawny tresses and a solid, muscular build. One of the women flanking him was tall and black and the other was blonde and not quite as tall, and both women were dressed as if to complement the synthetic glitz of the hirsute giant.

The blonde was wearing a wide, flaring red skirt and a turtleneck shin (no bra, Hawes noticed) that was the same color as the man's polyester trousers.

She was also wearing sandals, although it wasn't yet summertime. The black woman was wearing an equally wide, flaring skirt (hers was green) and a turtleneck shin (again, no bra, Hawes noticed) that was the color of the blonde's hair. She, too, was wearing sandals.

"There's a sign," Hawes said.

All three looked around.

Hawes pointed.

The hand-lettered sign just to the fight of the gate in the railing read: STATE YOUR BUSINESS BEFORE ENTERING SQUADROOM

"Oh, sorry," the man said.

"We didn't notice it.

Slight Hispanic accent.

"The desk sergeant said we should come up," blonde said. Little tiny voice. Almost a whisper. it compelled attention. Eyes as blue as the sky stretched beyond the squadroom windows. Voice flat as the plains of Kansas. Hawes visualize cornfields. "My name is Coral Anderson," she said.

Hawes nodded.

"I'm Stanley Garcia," the man said.

"Laramie Forbes," the black woman said.

"Is it all right to come in?" Coral asked.

"You're in already," Hawes said. "Please down.”

Stanley took the chair alongside the desk.

the gent, Hawes thought. The women dragged over for themselves. Sitting, they crossed their le under voluminous skirts. The movement Hawes of the days when hippies roamed the earth.

"How can I help you?" he said.

"I'm first deacon at the Church of the One," Stanley said.

The Church of the Bornless One. Devil-worshi Kristin Lund had said.

Hawes wondered if Coral Laramie were second and third He also wondered what their real names were.

"We're disciples," Laramie said, indicating the blonde with a brief sideward nod.

She had a husky voice. Hawes wondered if she sang in the church choir.

He wondered if there were choirs in churches that worshipped the Devil.

"We're here about the dead priest," Stanley said.

Hawes moved a pad into place.

"No, no," Stanley said at once. "Nothing like that.”

"Nothing like what?" Hawes said. His pencil was poised above the pad like a guillotine about to drop.

"We had nothing to do with his murder," Stanley said.

"That's why we're here," Coral said.

Let's get some square handles first," Hawes said.

They looked at him blankly.

"Your real names," he said.

"Coral is my real name," the blonde said, offended.

Hawes figured she was lying; nobody's real name was Coral.

Nor Laramie, either, for that matter.

"How about you?" he asked the other woman.

"I was born there," she said.

"Where's there?”

“Laramie, Texas," she said. Note of challenge in her husky voice. Dark eyes flashing.

"Does that make it your real name?" Hawes asked.

"How'd you like to be Henrietta all your life?”

Hawes thought Cotton was bad enough. legacy of a religious father who'd believed Cotton Mather was the greatest of the Puritan He shrugged, wrote "Henrietta Forbes" on the studied it briefly, nodded in agreement, and immediately asked the blonde, "How do you Anderson?”

"With an. "O,' "she said.

"Where are you from originally, Coral?”

"Indiana.”

"Lots of Corals out there, I'll bet.”

She hesitated, seemed about to flare, and smiled instead, showing a little gap between her tw upper front teeth. "Well, it was Cora Lucille, guess," she said, still smiling, looking very like a Cora Lucille in that moment. Hawes ima pigtails tied with polka-dot rags. He nodded, "Cora Lucille Anderson" on the pad, and then "And you, Stanley?”

"Stanley," Stanley said. "But in Spanish.”

"Which is?”

"Estaneslao.”

“Thanks," Hawes said. "Now what about priest?”

"We're here about the gate, actually," Coral uncrossing her legs and leaning forward e skirt tented, hands clasped, elbows resting on thighs, the Sixties again. Hawes was swept with sudden wave of nostalgia.

"What gate?" he said.

"The churchyard gate.”

"What about it?”

"What's painted on the gate," Coral said.

"The pentagram.”

"The star," Stanley said.

"Inverted," Laramie said.

"Uh-huh," Hawes said.

Let them run with it, he thought.

"We know what you must be thinking," Stanley said. His accent sounded more pronounced now.

Hawes wondered if he was getting nervous. He said nothing.

"Because of the star," Laramie said.

"And its association to Satanism," Coral said.

"Uh-huh," Hawes said.

"Which many people misunderstand, of course," Coral said, and smiled her gap-toothed smile again.

"In what way?" Hawes asked. "Is the pentagram misunderstood?”

"Yes.”

"In that it's upside down," Stanley said.

"Inverted," Laramie said.

"May I borrow your pencil?" Coral said.

"Sure," he said, and handed it to her.

"And f'll need a piece of paper.”

He tore a page from the back of the pad and handed it to her.

"Thanks," she said.

He noticed that she was holding the pencil in her left hand. He wondered if left-handedness had anything to do with Devil worship. He wondered they were all left-handed.

"This is what a star looks like," she said, and began drawing. "The star we see on the American flag, a sheriff's star, they all look like this.”

Hawes watched as the star look shape.

"There," she said.

"Uh-huh," he said.

"And this is what a star looks like when you it upside down," she said.

"When you invert it," Laramie said.

"Yes," Coral said, her head bent over the sheet paper, her left hand moving. "There," she said a and showed the page to Hawes again. Side by the stars looked like a pair of acrobats cartwheels: "Uh-huh," Hawes said.

"Do you see the difference?”

"Yes, of course.”

"What's the difference?" Coral asked.

"The difference is that the one on the left...”

"Yes, the so-called pure pentagram...”

"Whatever, has only one point on top, whereas the other has two.”

"Yes," Coral said. "And whereas the pure pentagram stands on two points, the symbol of Baphomet...”

"The inverted star...”

"... stands on only one point.”

"Indicating the direction to Hell," Laramie said.

"I see," Hawes said. Though he didn't really.

"If you look at the pure pentagram..." Coral said.

"The one on the left," Stanley said.

"Yes," Hawes said.

"You can imagine, can't you," Coral said, "a man standing with his legs widespread.., those are the two lower points of the star.., and his arms outstretched.., those are the two middle points. His head would be the uppermost point.”

“I see," Hawes said again, trying hard to visualize a man inside the upright star.

"In ancient times..." Coral said.

"Oh, centuries ago," Stanley said.

"The white magicians...”

"This has nothing to do with their color," Laramie said.

"No, only with the kind of magic they performed," Coral said. "White magic.”

"Yes," Hawes said.

"As opposed to black magic," Stanley said.

"Yes.”

"These white magicians," Coral said, "used the pentagram to symbolize the goodness of man...”

"... because it showed him standing upright," Laramie said.

"But in the church of the opposite..." Coral said.

"Where good is evil and evil is good...”

"In the church of the contrary..." Coral said.

"Where to lust is to aspire...”

"And to achieve is to satisfy all things carnal...”

"The pentagram has been turned upside down...”

Coral said.

"Inverted," Laramie said.

"So that the horns of the goat...”

"... the Satanic symbol of lust...”

"... fit exactly into the two upper points...”

"... which represent Good and Evil...”

. the universal duality in eternal conflict...”

“And the three other points," Coral said, "represent in their inverted form a denial of the trinity...”

"... the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost," Stanley said.

"... doomed to burn eternally in the flames of Hell..." Laramie said.

"... as indicated by the single point jutting directly downward,” Stanley said.

"An upside-down star," Coral said.

"Inverted," Laramie said, and all three fell silent.

"What about it?" Hawes asked.

"Detective Hawes." Coral said, "we are aware...”

He wondered how she knew his name.

"... that the star painted on St. Catherine's gate might link us in the minds of the police...”

Sergeant Murchison had probably given it to her downstairs.

"... to the murder of the priest there.”

"But," Laramie said.

"But," Coral said, "we want you to know that we plan to question our congregation tonight and find out whether somebody if anybiady painted that star on the churchyard gate.”

“And if they did..." Stanley said.

"... we'll make damn sure that person comes right over here to tell you about it his own self. So you can question them and see we had nothing to do with it.

The murder. Even if someone, if anyone, is guilty of painting that gate.”

“Guilt is innocence," Laramie said.

"We'll let you know," Stanley said, and all three rose in many-splendored radiance and disappeared into the sunlight and through the gate at which they had originally materialized.

Hawes wondered how Carella was doing out there on the street.

On a bright spring morning, it was difficult to think of the street as a slum. There seemed no visible evidence of poverty here. The people walking by a leisurely pace were not dressed in tatters. There were flowerpots with blooms in them on fire escapes and windowsills. The window curtains flapping in the early morning breeze seemed clean and fresh did the laundry hanging on backyard clotheslines.

The sanitation trucks had been through early, and garbage cans were lined up empty alon wrought-iron railings that flanked recently front stoops. As Carella came up the street, a truck was sprinkling the gutters, giving the asphalt a sheen of rain-washed freshness. This not be a slum.

But it was.

The endless crush of winter had departed, and in its place there was now the false hope of spring. the people living in these tenements true, the brick did seem brighter in sunshine than it did beneath a grey and leaden sky knew that hope was the thing with feathers, as elusive and as rare as happiness. This stretch of 87th Precinct territory was almost exclusively black. And here, despite the illusion of spring, there was indeed grinding poverty, and illiteracy, and drug addiction and malnutrition and desperation. The black man in America knew where it was at. And where it was at was not here, not in these mean streets. Where it was at was uptown someplace, so far uptown that the black man had never been there, could not even visualize it there, knew only that uptown was a shining city somewhere high on a hill, a promised land where everyone went to Choate and Yale and a thousand points of light glistened in every cereal bowl.

Read my lips, Carella thought.

Nathan Hooper lived in a tenement two blocks south of The Stem.

At eight-thirty that Saturday morning, Carella found him asleep in a back bedroom he shared with his older brother and his thirteen-year-old sister.

Hooper was sixteen. The brother, dressed and out of the house already, was eighteen. The sister was wearing a white cotton slip. Hooper was wearing white Jockey undershorts and a white tank top undershirt. He was annoyed that his mother had let the police in while he was still asleep.

He told his sister to cover up, couldn't she see there was SOMEBODY here? The sister shrugged into a robe and per's mothei was having her morning coffee. She had already told Carella that she had to be at work at nine; on Saturdays and Sundays, she cleaned offices downtown. Rest of the week, she cleaned white people's houses uptown.

Hooper pulled oo a pair of jeans and went out into the narrow hallway barefooted, Carella following.

The bathroom was a six-by-eight rectan containing a sink, an ancient yellowing claw-foo bathtub with a jerry-built shower over it, and incessantly gurgling toilet bowl. A plastic was drawn half-closed over the tub. The of the curtain rod was hung with bikini t Hooper stepped in, and closed the door behind Standing in the hallway, Carella could hear him urinating and then washing at the sink. When door opened again, Hooper was drying his hands a peach-colored towel.

Wordlessly, scowling, he went back into bedroom again, Carella still following him. opened the middle drawer of the only dresser in room, took out a black T-shirt, and pulled it on his head. He sat on the edge of the bed, pulled pair of white socks, and laced up a pair of high-topped sneakers. He was wearing his hair what was called a High Top Fade, currently the ra among young black men in this city. The resembled a fez sitting on top of the head, with lower oart of the skull shaved almost clean, and Ir required very little maintenance other than an occasional bit of topiary. Hooper passed a pick comb through it, and walked out into the kitchen, still wordlessly, still scowling, Carella still patiently following. Hooper's sister was sitting at the table, a mug of coffee between her hands. She was staring through the open kitchen window at the clothes flapping on the backyard lines, watching them in fascination, as if they were brightly colored birds.

Hooper's mother was just about to leave. She was a woman in her fifties, Carella guessed. Actually, he was high by about ten years.

"Offer the man some coffee," she said, and went out.

"You want some coffee?" Hooper asked grudgingly.

"I could use some," Carella said.

"You always come see people in the middle of the night?" the sister asked.

"Sorry I got here so early," Carella said, and smiled.

The girl did not smile back. Hooper was rummaging in the cupboard over the drainboard, searching for clean cups. He made a great show of exasperation, finally banged two cups down on the counter top, miraculously unscathed, and poured them three-quarters full. A container of milk was on the table. He poured from it into his own cup, and then shoved it across to where Carella had taken the chair alongside the girl's.

"Sugar?" the girl said, and offered Carella the bowl.

"Thanks," Carella said. "What's your name?”

“Why?" she said.

"Why not?" he said, and smiled.

"Seronia," she said.

"Nice to meet you.”

"When you gonna lock up the shits beat up Nate?" she said.

"That's what I'd like to talk about," Carella said.

"Be the first one since it happened," Seronia said, and shrugged.

"That's not entirely true, is it?" Carella said. "The way I found out about it was from a report in our files. So someone had to...”

"Yeah, the blues," Hooper said. "But wasn't no detectives come around later is whut she means.”

"Well, here's a detective now," Carella said.

"You don't look like no detective I ever seen," Seronia said. "Mama says you showed her a bad but, man, you don't look like no detective to me.”

"What do detectives look like?" he asked.

"Like pieces a shit," she said.

Carella wasn't looking for an argument here. was he even certain the girl was trying to provoke one. He was here for information. A priest had been murdered. A priest who'd protected this boy on Easter Sunday.

"According to the report...”

"The report's full of shit," Hooper said. "The only thing they wanted to do was get out of that church fast, before they got lynched. They were scareder than I was. You never seen two cops writing so fast.”

"They dinn even drive him to the hospital," Seronia said. "He's bleedin' like you shoulda seen him, man. Was the priest finely took him to the 'mergency room.”

"Where was this?”

"Greer General.”

"And you say Father Michael drove you there?”

"Walked me there, man," Hooper said. "You know like Christ walkin' with the fuckin' cross on his back and everybody jeerin' him, whatever? That was me, man. I'm bleedin' from the head from where one of them fucks hit me with a ball bat...”

"Start from the beginning," Carella said.

"What's the use?" Hooper said.

"What can you lose?" Seronia said, and shrugged again.

Easter this year had fallen on the fifteenth day of April, but even in its death throes winter tenaciously refused to loosen its grip and the day was howlingly windy, with what appeared to be a promise of snow on the air. A sullen rolling sky hung in angry motion over the city, giving it the look of an E1 Greco painting even in neighborhoods not entirely Hispanic. In this checkerboard precinct where black .squares became white squares in the blink of an eye, Nathan Hooper lived in an area that was ninety-percent black, eight-percent Hispanic, and two-percent Asian. Not two blocks away was entirely white neighborhood composed of Itali Irish, and a sprinkling of Jews. The melting pot this precinct has never really come to a boil. On windy Easter Sunday, it is about to overboil.

Hooper rarely goes to church, but today he into a friend of his named Harold Jones, who other guys all call Fat Harold after the Bill Cos routine. Fat Harold isn't truly fat; he is, in fact, thin and spindly-looking. He is also a crack who is on his way to church this Easter Sunday pray that he can kick his habit and become a rich famous black television star like Bill Cosby. decides to go along with him. Too fuckin' cold windy to hang out, might as well join Fat Harold.

The church they go to is on the corner c and Third, and it is called the First Baptisi Abyssinian Church of Isola. Hooper is glad warm inside the church, because as far as he' concerned the rest of it is all bullshit.

He's dropped out of school because he doesn't do good reading none of his teachers ever realized he was dyslexic but one thing he learn from all those history books he stru through was that most of the wars that ever on this planet was because one religion tried to another religion it was the only true way to God. what the preacher is laying down in the church this morning all this stuff about Jesus crucified by the Romans or the Jews or whoever fuck did it, Hooper doesn't know and doesn't give a damn is all a lot of bullshit to him. These people want to believe fairy tales about virgins getting pregnant without nobody fucking them, that was their business. All Hooper was doing here was getting warm.

They're out of church by a little past noon. Fat Harold wants to go to this crack house he knows, buy himself a nickel vial, pass the time smoking some dope. But Hooper tells him what's the sense he just went to church and prayed his ass off for salvation if the next minute he's back on the pipe, does that make sense, man? He tells Fat Harold why don't he use the five bucks they go see a movie and buy some popcorn? Fat Harold thinks he rather go smoke some dope. So they part company on Ainsley this is now maybe ten past twelve, a quarter past and Fat Harold goes his way to the crack house where he's gonna find hope in a pipe, man, and Hooper walks crosstown and a little ways uptown on The Stem to where this movie theater is playing a new picture with Eddie Murphy in it.

Uptown.

Is where this movie theater is.

Uptown.

Where Eddie Murphy and Bill Cosby live.

Hooper knows he is walking into white turf, he wasn't born yesterday.

But, man, this is Easter Sunday and all he's doing is going to a fuckin' movie where there's hundreds of white people standing on line outside, waitin' to see a black man up there on the screen. Handful of blacks on the line, too, here and there, guys all silked up, sportin' for they girls, this is Easter Sunday, it'll be cool, man, no sweat.

Hooper wishes he had a girl with him, too. But he broke up with this chick last month 'cause she was mad he dropped out of school, which was for the best if she didn't understand how he wasn't getting nowhere in that fuckin' school, what was the sense wastin' his time there? Learn more on a stree corner in ten minutes than you did in school the whole fuckin' tenn. But on days like today, dudes all around him with they girls, he misses her. makes him feel like some kind of jerk, anyway going to a movie alone.

Eddie Murphy takes care of that, though.

Eddie Murphy makes him feel good.

You see a handsome black man up there, hell and not takin' any shit from Whitey, it you feel real good. Eddie Murphy probably lived a big house on a hill overlooking the ocean. Probably had blonde girls coming in to suck his cock and his feet with they hair like the preacher was about Jesus's feet this morning. You was Eddie, Murphy, you could buy anything in the world you". wanted, have anything you wanted. Didn't matter' you was black. You was Eddie Murphy, man! In movie theater, sitting there in the dark with mostly white people, Hooper likes to wet his pants laughing every time Eddie Murphy does another one of his shrewd things.

White people all around him are laughing, too. Not at any dumb nigger but at dumb Charlie who the nigger's fuckin' around. Hooper doesn't completely understand why all these white people are laughin' at they ownselves, but he knows it makes him feel damn good.

He is still feeling good when he comes out of the theater at two-thirty, around then. It isn't snowing yet, but it sure feels like it's gonna start any minute.

Still windy as can be, great big gusts blowin' in off the River Harb and cuttin' clear to the marrow. He can walk home one of two ways. He can go down on The Stem to North Fifth, and then come crosstown the three blocks to his own building on Culver, where maybe some of the guys'll be hangin' out, or he can go directly crosstown on Eleventh where the theater is, and then walk downtown on Culver, six of one, half a dozen of the other except that the Eleventh Street route will take him straight through an exclusively Italian neighborhood.

Hooper does not belong to any of the neighborhood street gangs. Neither does he do dope nor run dope for any of the myriad crack dealers who are what the newspapers call "a blight on the urban landscape." He is not a good student, but this does not make him a bad person. The color of his skin does not make him a bad person, either. He is black.

I-Ie knows he is black. But he has never done a criminal thing in his life. Never. (He repeats the Word fervently to Carella now: "Never!" ) This is no small achievement in a neighborhood where the word "bad" is often used with pride. I'm a baaaad nigger, man. If Hooper's gonna be any kind of nigger, it's gonna be a good one. Like Eddie Murphy. (He tells this to Carella, too, driving the point home by rapping a clenched fist on his T-shined chest.) The Italian-Americans on Eleventh Street are so far removed in time, space and attitude from their heritage in Naples or Palermo that they could, if they chose to, safely drop the hyphenated form. These are Americans, period, born and bred on the turf they now inhabit with somewhat confused and confusing ethnic pride. These are kids whose great-great-grandparents came here as immigrants at the turn of the century. Kids whose great-grandparents were first-generation Americans.

Kids whose grandparents fought against Italy in World War II, whose parents were teenagers in the Sixties, and who themselves are now teenagers who do not speak Italian and who do not care to learn, thank you. They are Americans. And it is American to cherish home and family, American to protect one's neighborhood from evil infiltration, American to cherish God and country and to make sure no niggers fuck your sisters.

Hooper is aware of them at once.

He has come perhaps a block and a half crosstown: from The Stem when he sees them on the front of the building. There are six of them. This is Easter Sunday and they are all silked out in their new Easter threads, hanging out and kidding around, laughing.

He tells himself that's all they're doing is hanging out and kidding around, laughing, but warning hackles go up on the back of his neck, anyway. He should not be here. He should have gone down The Stem to Fifth Street instead, he was dumb to come across Eleventh where up ahead all of a sudden the horseplay stops and the laughter stops and there is a dead silence, they have spotted him.

He figures he should cross the street.

Would Eddie Murphy cross the street?

Sheee-it, man, no! Hooper's got as much right as these dudes to be wherever the fuck he wants to be, man but his heart is pounding. He knows there is going to be trouble. He can smell it on the air, he can feel it coming his way on the wind, blowin' on the wind, man, touching his black skin like somebody usin' a cattle prod on him.., trouble.., danger.., run!

But would Eddie Murphy run?

He does not run.

He does not cross the street.

He keeps walking toward where the six of them have now come off the stoop and are standing on the sidewalk in a casual phalanx, hands dangling loosely at their sides like gunslicks about to draw, narrow smiles on their faces, say somethin' smart, he thinks, say somethin' cool, be Eddie Murphy, man! But nothing smart comes. Nothing cool comes.

He smiles.

"Hey, man," he says to the closest one.

And the baseball bat comes swinging out nowhere.

"Do you know which one used the bat?" asked.

"No," Hooper said.

"They all had bats," Seronia said.

"That was later," Hooper said. "When they chasin' me. All at once, they all got bats. Or can lids. It was that first bat bust my head, thou "Cause it took me by surprise. It musta been one them standin' in the back had the bat hid, you know' So when I come up, I'm like a sittin' duck, know? I give 'em my shit-eatin' grin, I say man' politely, and wham the bat comes somewhere hid behind them, breaks my head open., "What happened then?”

"I ran, man, whutchoo think happen? They six them who all at once got ball bats, and they nigger and whatnot, man I know a lynch mob I see one. I got the hell out of there fast as my could carry me. But that wasn't gonna be the end it, far as they was concerned. They was right me, all six of 'em, cussin' and yellin' and chasin' off they turf. I figured once I got to Culver I be I could run downtown on Culver, get the hell Eleventh Street...”

"You was crazy goin' in there in the first place," Seronia said.

"It was Easter," Hooper said in explanation, and shrugged.

"All right, they're chasing you," Carella said.

"Yeah, and I'm thinkin' I gotta get off the street, I stay here on the street, they goan kill me. I gotta be someplace where they witnesses, a restaurant, a bar, anythin' where they people can see what's happenin' if it goes that far. "Cause it sounds like it's goan all the way, man, it sounds like they out to kill me.”

"Then what?”

"All at once, I see this church up ahead. I never been inside it in my life, but there it is, and I figure there's got to be people inside a church, don't there, this is Easter Sunday. I like was losin' track of time by then, I didn't realize there wouldn't be no services two-thirty, three o'clock, whatever it was by then.

But the front door was open... "Standing open?”

"No, no. Unlocked. I tried it and it was unlocked.

They were right behind me, man, it's a good thing it wasn't locked, I'd be dead right there on the church steps. So I ran in with my head busted open and drippin' blood and them behind me yellin" and I hear more yellin' from someplace in the church, and the first thing I think is they got me surrounded, man, there's yellin' behind me and yellin' in front of me, I'm a dead man.”

"What do you mean, yelling in front of you?”

"From like behind these columns. Two people el “

Y hng.

"Behind what columns?”

"Where they on the right side of the church, know? They's like these columns and what I must be a little room back there 'cause...”

"Is that where the yelling was coming from? little room behind the columns? On the ri side of the church?”

"I'm only sayin' it was a room, I was never in But this door opened, and a priest came out...”

"From the room?”

"From whatever was there behind the door. heard all the yellin' in the church, you see. them yellin' nigger and they was goan kill me, that, and heard me yellin' Help, somebody help So he came out lookin' surprised and scared and thing he sees is me spillin' blood from my head, he goes, "What's this, what's this?' like he believe it, you know, here's a nigger bleedin' on floor and six white guys chasin' him. So I yell, man, hep me, they goan kill me!' and the priest what's happenin' now, gets it all in a flash, man, steps between me and them and tells them get luck outa his church, tells them this is God's how dare they, all that shit. Meanwhile called the cops, and by the time they showed up was a big crowd outside, everybody yellin' screamin' even if they didn't know what the was happenin'. It was the priest walked me to hospital.

The cops were too scared. If you're write up a report...”

"I am.”

"You better mention them fucks was too scared to put me in the car and drive me the six blocks to Greer. I had to walk it with the priest.”

"I'll mention it," Carella said.

A lot of good it'll do, he thought. The police protected their own. This was a simple, perhaps regrettable fact. But he would mention it.

"You say the priest was arguing with someone when you came into the...”

"Yeah.”

"Who, do you know?”

"No. It was behind the door there.”

"A man? A woman?”

"A man, I think. There were six fuckin guys tryin'a kill me, you think I gave a shit who...”

"How do you know they were arguing?”

“'Cause they were yellin' at each other.”

"Did you hear anything they said?”

"Just these loud voices.”

"Two voices? Or more than two?”

"I don't know.”

"Well... after it was all over.., did you see anyone?”

"What do you mean?”

"Coming out of that room.”

"Oh. No. We went straight to the hospital. The cops opened up a path in the crowd out there, and me and the priest went through. I didn't see nobody else inside the church.”

"You know Father Michael was killed Thursday night, don't you?”

“Sure,” Hooper said. "And I know who done TOO.”

Carella looked at him.

"Them wops," Hooper said. "They made a vow they gonna get both me and the priest. For happened on Easter. So now they got the priest, that means I'm next. And for what? For walkin' the street mindin' myown fuckin' business.”

“For being' black," Seronia said.

Carella had no argument.

"It was very nice of you to come up here, Lund," Hawes said. "I know it's Saturday, and I to intrude on your time.”

“Not at all," she said.

"Happy to help in any I can.”

The clock on the wall read twenty minutes eleven. Krissie was wearing blue jeans, boots, a white T-shirt, and a fringed leather vest. makeup except lipstick and eye linei'. Long hair pulled to the back of her head in a ponytail. smelled of spring flowers.

"As I told you on the phone, the lab sent over whole batch of letters and bills and whatnot, Father Michael's stuff, you know, which I finished going through. The point is, the lab some very good latents on them, and we...”

"Latents?”

"Father Michael's, of course, but also some wild prints that may have been left by the killer. In case he'd been in the office looking through the files for something, which is still a possibility because of that open file drawer and the papers on the floor. Okay, so far?”

“Yes,” Krissie said, and smiled.

"So what we're trying to do is track down the wild prints the ones we know for sure weren't left by Father Michael and eliminate whoever might have had a legitimate reason to be handling the papers. One of the logical...”

“Yes, his secretary," Krissie said, and smiled.

"Yes, would be a logical choice. Typing them, filing them, and so on.”

"Yes.”

"You look very pretty this morning," he said.

The words startled her. They startled him, too. He hadn't expected to say them out loud. A second earlier, he'd only been thinking them.

"Well, thank you," Krissie said.

"Sorry," he said.

"No, no.”

"But you do.”

"Well, thanks.”

There was an awkward silence. They stood side .-by side in a shaft of sunlight streaming through the Window. The squadroom was unusually silent this morning. Somewhere down the hall, a tele rang. Outside on the street, a horn honked.

"The thing is," he said, and cleared his throat, the killer did touch any of the papers ... and chance are he at least had his hands on that stuff he threw over the floor then by eliminating as many latents as we can, we might have a shot identification later on. If we come up with Which so far we haven't. But if we do.”

"Yes.”

“Which is why I asked you to stop by to have prints taken, if it's no bother.”

“No bother at all," she said.

"It'll take ten, fifteen minutes at the most.”

"I've always wondered what it'd be like to my fingerprints taken.”

"Really? Well, here's your chance to find out.”

“Yes," she said.

"Yes," he said, and cleared his throat again.

"Are you catching a cold?" she asked.

"No, I don't think so.”

"Because you keep clearing your throat, know...”

"No, that's...”

"So I thought maybe...”

"No, that's a nervous reaction," Hawes said.

"Oh," she said.

"Yes.”

"Oh.”

They looked at each other.

"Well, how do we do this?" she asked.

"Well... if you'll step over to this table...”

"Just like in the movies, huh?”

"Sort of.”

"I've never had my fingerprints taken before," she said.

"Yes, I know.”

"Did I tell yout”

"Yes.”

“Oh. Then it must be true," she said.

"Yes.”

"The first thing I have to do," he said, "is lock my pistol in the desk drawer there because what happened once I don't know how long ago this was - a police officer somewhere in the city was fingerprinting a felon and the guy grabbed the gun and shot him dead.”

“Oh my!" Krissie said.

"Yeah," Hawes said. "So now it's a rule that whenever we're fingerprinting anyone, we have to take off the gun.”

He walked over to his desk, dropped his pistol into one of the deep drawers on the right-hand side, locked the drawer, and then came back to the fingerprinting table. Krissie watched apprehensively as he began squirting black ink from a tube onto a pane of glass.

"This stuff washes right off with soap and water," he said.

"Thank God," she said.

"Oh sure, nothing to worry about.”

"You must be an expert at this," she said.

"Well, it becomes second nature. Although we rarely do it anymore. This is all done at Central Booking now. Downtown. At Headquarters.”

“Mugging and printing," she said. "Is that what you call it?”

"Yes.”

"Mugging and printing," she said again.

"Yes." He was rolling the ink onto the glass now spreading it evenly.

She watched him with interest.

"You have to spread it, huh?" she said.

"Yes.”

"Like blackberry jam," she said.

"I never thought of it that way," he said, and down the roller. "There we go. Now I'll just take of these cards...”

He took a fingerprint card from the rack at back of the table.

"And if you'll let me have your right first...”

She extended her hand to him.

"I have to... uh... sort of... uh... if you'll just your hand hang sort of... uh... Loose... I have to them on the glass first, you see, each finger...”

"I hope this stuff really washes off," she said.

"Oh, yes, with soap and water, I promise. that's better.”

She was sort of standing with her right hip sort against him somewhat, his arms sort of cradling her arm, sort of holding her hand in both his hands as he rolled her fingers one at a time on the glass, and then rolled them in turn on the fingerprint card... "Now the thumb," he said.

"Am I doing this right?" she asked.

"Just let me do it," he said, "just relax, that's the “

way... sort of standing very close to each other in the silent sunwashed squadroom, he could smell the scent of her flowery perfume...

"Now the other hand," he said... sort of guiding each finger onto the glass, rolling it there, lifting it, rolling it onto the card, sort of moving together with a special rhythm now, her hand in his, her hip sort of molded in against him... "This is sort of fun," she said.

"Yes," he said, "can you have dinner with me tonight?”

“I'd love to,” she said.

She'd finally chosen the Walther PPK, a neat little .32 caliber automatic with an eight-shot capacity.

Shad Russell had showed her some guns that had five, six-shot capacities, but she figured if push came to shove she might need those few extra cartridges.

Seven in the magazine, he'd told her, another in the breech. He'd also showed her some .22 caliber pistols, but she insisted on the heavier firepower.

Shad told her the caliber didn't mean a thing. You could sometimes do more damage with a .22 th with a .45. She didn't believe him. If you had bring down a giant, you didn't go after him with pea shooter.

She wasn't even sure this gun would do the job, But all of his bigger caliber guns seemed either too bulky or too heavy. The Walther had a three-inch barrel, with an overall length of only and a half inches, and the lightweight model chose weighed only a bit more than twelve ounces.

fit snugly in her handbag, alongside of and very much bulkier than her wallet. Shad charged her six hundred dollars for the gun. figured that his profit on this deal alone would for a vacation at Lake Como.

She had discovered that a person did not " when she was carrying an unlicensed pistol. suspected that not many such gun-toters the speed limit, either. Or spit on the sidewalk. even raised their voices in public places. She breaking the law. And would break it further if had to. Break it to the limit if she had to. Her bag heavier with the gun in it. The weight reassuring.

She had spent this Saturday morning shopping" the midtown area, and had boarded a uptown-bound, graffiti-covered subway train twenty past two.

She was not in the habit of expensive taxi rides all over the city, and she did plan on changing her habits now. Moreover, she sensed that there would be safety in crowded places; they had spooked yesterday when she'd led them directly to a cop.

The train rattled along in the underground dark.

Marilyn wondered if there were such things as passionate, poetic men who looked like lions and made their homes in subway caves. She wondered if there were alligators in the city's sewers. She wondered if there was such a thing as happily ever after.

The train pulled into a station stop.

The doors hissed open.

She watched the passengers coming on. She did not expect anyone even remotely resembling her two Hispanics to board. The doors hissed shut again. The train was in motion.

It was two-thirty-five when she got off the train uptown on The Stem and began walking northward toward the river. She was certain that they knew where she lived, had undoubtedly followed her from there to the school.

As she approached Silvermine Oval now, her eyes swept both. sides of the street ahead. Her handbag was slung on her left shoulder.

Her fight hand rested on its open top, hovering over the butt of the Walther.

Nothing.

She kept walking.

Entered the Oval, came around it. Nanny pushing a baby carriage in the bright sunshine. Such a lovely day. The weight of the gun in her bag.

Around Oval and onto Harborside. The small park across street from her house. Potential danger there. A approaching on the park side of the street. Short wearing a tan sports jacket. Little mustache under hi nose. Charlie Chaplin lookalike. Went on by, in his own thoughts. She scanned the park entrance Nothing.

1211 Harborside was just ahead, on her left. one on either side of the street, not a sign of in the park. A pigeon fluttered overhead, glided ov the park fence, settled on the walk inside the gate She approached the building and fished into her for her keys, the back of her hand brushing against the Walther. Found the keys, unlocked locks on the door, came into the entryway, secured the locks behind her. She was wearing Chanel ripoff, blue skirt and blue jacket with a ruff.

Unbuttoning the jacket, she went to answering machine, saw that she'd had messages, and pressed the playback button.

"Honey, it's me.”

Willis's voice.

"Did you make dinner reservations for toni Because I didn't, and it's Saturday night, and have a hell of a time this late. I kind of feel Italian, don't you? Do you think you could Mangia Bene? I'm at the lab, I should be around four-thirty, see you then, love ya.”

She looked at her watch.

Ten minutes to three.

"Hello, Miss. Willis, this is Sylvia Bourne, I'm the real estate person you were talking to Thursday night, at the open house? Oliphant Realty?

The co-op? I wonder if you and Mr. Hollis have had a chance to think about that penthouse apartment? I'm sure the sponsor would entertain a bid lower than the three-fifty, if you'd care to make an offer. Let me know what you think, won't you? It's negotiable. I know I gave you my card, but here's the number again.”

As she reeled off the number twice, no less Marilyn wondered why no one could ever get their names straight. It would be worth getting married just so they'd have only one name to worry about.

"Hello, Marilyn?”

A woman's voice.

"It's Eileen.”

Eileen?

"Burke. If you've got a minute, can you give me a call? At home, please.

Few things I'd like to discuss with you. Here's the number.”

Marilyn listened to the number, writing, thinking this had to be mental telepathy. Yesterday she'd thought of calling Eileen about a gun, and today Eileen was calling her. The difference was that today she already had a gun. And she still wasn't sure Eileen liked her very much. So why call me? And, Conversely, do I like her enough to call her back?

First things first, she thought.

Mangia Bene.

She found the number in her personal dire dialed it, said she was calling for Detective Willis why not a little P.D. muscle on a Saturday night? and asked if they could take two of them at ei o'clock.

Unconsciously, she looked at her w again. Three o'clock sharp. He'd be home in an and a half. She waited while the marre d' his reservations book, clucking his tongue all while. Finally, he said, "Si, Signora Willis, two you at eight, we look forward to seeing you then Willis again.

She cradled the phone, debated calling right that minute, get it over with, decided she rather bathe first. Slinging her shoulder bag, went upstairs to the third floor of the house.

They were waiting for her in the bedroom.