Vespers

V

She went for the gun.

She went for it at once, not a moment's hesitation, right hand crossing her body and dipping into the open mouth of the bag, fingers curling around the grip, gun coming up and out of the bag, forefinger inside the trigger guard, thumb snapping off the safety, gun leveling to - He was on her in an instant.

The big one.

Moving swiftly across the Persian rug on the parqueted floor, past the canopied bed and the love seat upholstered in royal-blue crushed velvet.

He was an experienced street fighter, he did not grab for the gun, the gun was where the danger was. He came up on her left side instead, ducking inside the gun hand and throwing his shoulder against her chest before she could pull off a shot. She stumbled backward. He hit her full in the face, his huge fist bunched. She felt immediate pain, and brought her left hand up at once, forgetting the gun, the shrieking, cupping her nose, pulling her hand aw. covered with blood. He took the gun out of her as if taking a toy from a naughty child. She he'd broken her nose.

The pain was Blood poured onto her hand, blood dripped throu her fingers, blood stained her blouse and the front her jacket, blood spattered onto the Persian rug, wondered abruptly if the stains would come out, pain, where was the gun?

He was grinning.

Big fucking gorilla standing there grinning she held back the screams that bubbled into throat, the small gun in his huge hand, King standing on the Empire State Building airplanes.

"No more of that," he said in Spanish, grinnin The other one, the handsome one, was into the bathroom. She kept her eyes on the ugly the one who had hurt her. He did not know there also a switchblade knife in her bag. She would his throat the moment she had a chance. handsome one came out of the bathroom.

"Here," he said in Spanish and handed her one her good bath towels.

White. With the initials monogrammed on it in curliqued lettering fit royalty. Gold on white. She did not want to stain good towel. But she was bleeding all over the She put the towel to her nose.

"Noses bleed a lot," the ugly one said in Spanish, as if making a comment on the weather.

The other one merely nodded.

"Do you have a license for this gun?" the ugly one said in Spanish, and laughed.

She said nothing.

Held the towel to her nose, trying to stop the flow of blood. Nothing to do for the pain. The pain shrieked and shrieked. She kept her teeth clenched to keep from screaming. She would not scream. She would not reveal her terror. She would wait for the proper moment, and then go for the knife. Cut him.

Hurt him the way he had hurt her. And then go after the other one, the handsome one.

"Answer him," he said.

In Spanish. They were both speaking Spanish, assuming she understood, recognizing that if she was in fact Mary Ann Hollis, then she too would speak Spanish, she had learned Spanish in that fucking Mexican hellhole and had polished it on her knees in Buenos Aires. She pretended not to understand.

Stupidity, she realized. The initials MH were on every towel in the bathroom.

"Did you hear me?" the handsome one said.

"Answer him!”

“I don't understand you," she said in English.

"She doesn't understand us," he said in Spanish, "so knock out all her fucking teeth.”

The big one moved toward her, turning the gun up in his hand, flipping it so that the butt was in position. He was grinning again.

"No," she said.

"No what?" the handsome one said.

In Spanish.

"No, don't hit me," she said.

In English.

"I don't understand you," he said in Spanish.

"No me pegues, por favor," she said.

"Muy bien," the handsome one said. "Now will speak only Spanish, comprendes?”

"St;" she said, "solo espahol.”

Until I go for the knife, she thought.

"Do you know why we're here?" he asked.

"No.”

"Do you know who we are?”

"No.”

"My name is Ramon Castaneda. My colleague Carlos Ortega.”

She nodded.

"Do you think it foolhardy of us? Telling you names?" She said nothing.

"We trust you not to tell anyone after gone," Ramon said.

"Or we'll come back to kill you," Carlos said, grinned.

The gun was no longer in his hand. Had he in his pocket? She should have been paying attention, but she'd been too fucking intent on Spanish lesson, too afraid the big one, Carlos, would really use the gun on her teeth. She had let them frighten her. They had won the first small battle, not even a battle, a tiny skirmish, frightening her into revealing that she spoke Spanish fluently. But they'd known this already. Just as they knew she was Marilyn Hollis. Or, more accurately, Mary Ann Hollis. On the street yesterday, they had called her first Marianna and then Mariucha. They knew her as Mary Ann Hollis. In which case she could claim... "What do you...?" she started in English, and immediately switched to Spanish. "What do you want here?”

"The money," Ramon said.

Straight to the point, she thought.

"What money?”

"The money you stole from Alberto Hidalgo," Carlos said.

Even more directly to the point.

"Four hundred million Argentine australes," Ramon said.

"Two million dollars American," Carlos said.

"We want it back.”

A pair of international bankers discussing high finance in Spanish.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

Still speaking Spanish. This was a cozy little g among high-born Spanish-speaking people. was a tea party on the duchess's lawn. The duchess had invited the two bankers here to meet dazzling international traveler, Mary Ann Holli.. whose nose was still bleeding into a white towel.

"You must be mistaking me for someone else she said in Spanish.

Everyone speaking Spanish. How nice to have second language.

"No, there's no mistake," Ramon said.

"We know who you are, and we know you the money," Carlos said.

"And we'll kill you if you don't give it back us," Ramon said simply, a slight shrug of his shoulders, this was merely one of the rules international banking.

"Marilyn Hollis?" she said. "Are you looking someone named Marilyn Hollis?”

"No, we're...”

"Because that's my name, you see, and...”

"Shut up," the ugly one said.

Very softly.

The word sounding not at all menacing Spanish, cdllate, the word rolling mellifluously his tongue, cdllate, shut up.

"Your name is Mary Ann Hollis," he said. softly. Explaining something to a very young possibly quite stupid child.

"Ah, bien," she said, "there's the mis...”

"No," he said.

The word identical in English and in Spanish.

No.

Softly.

No, we've made no mistake. You are Mary Ann I-Iollis. And we are going to kill you if you don't give us the money you stole from Hidalgo.

All in that single word.

No.

The bag was still on her shoulder.

The knife was in the bag.

The clock on the mantel read 3:15.

I should be home around four-thirty, see you then, love ya.

No sense wishing for the cavalry. Do or die. Go for the knife, or... The clock ticked into the room. Her nose had stopped bleeding. She tossed the towel aside, seeing her own reflection in the ornately flamed mirror opposite the bed, her reverse image partially obscured by the backs of the two gentlemen from Buenos Aires.

"I have identification," she said. "My driver "s license...”

The one to go for was the big one.. "... my credit cards...”

Him first.

"We don't need identification," the handsome one said. Ramon. "We know exactly who you are.”

"But that's just it, you see...”

Moving across the room toward where the big one with his hands dangling at his sides.

"If I can prove that I'm not who you think I am...”

Her hand dropping into the bag as she moved.

"... then you'll realize your mistake, an you'll...”

"There is no mistake," Ramon said, shaking head.

Fingers searching for the knife.

"But there is. Look, I'd be happy to pay back...”

“Then pay us and shut up!" Ramon said.

Fingers closing on the handle of the knife.

"... but I'm just not this person you think I am. mean it. Truly.”

"Enough of this shit!" Carlos said.

Verdad, she thought, and yanked the knife out the bag.

Her mistake was going high.

She should have gone low instead, for the plunge the blade in low, rip it across his belly, hands would have had to cross in front of his body block the thrust, a clumsy unnatural maneuver. instead she went for the throat. Arm stiff extended, right hand clutching the handle of knife, blade going for his throat like a matador, sword, that was her mistake.

Because his hands up at once in a fighter's instinctive defensive fists clenched for the tick of an instant, and then hands opening when he recognized in instant's beat exactly what was happening here, was coming at him with a knife, this was a here!

His eyes said Oh, yeah?

Ah sf?

In which case I will break your fucking face.

She saw those eyes at once, read those eyes, had seen the message in those eyes many times before when she'd been repeatedly beaten and raped in that Mexican prison, and she thought No, mister, never again, and stopped the knife in mid-thrust because his hands were there and she did not want those massive fingers closing on her wrist.

She shifted her stance, stood wide-legged and fierce, the knife moving in tiny circles, waiting for his move. He was not going for the gun in his pocket or wherever the hell he'd put it. This meant that he respected the knife. You didn't grow up a fucking hoodlum in B.A.

without having been cut at least once. You didn't spend time in a Mexican prison, either, without becoming an expert on reading eyes.

The big one's eyes were saying that she was the one with the knife, and he did not want to get cut. Her eyes were saying If you make a move for the gun, I'll go for your eyes. I'll blind you. Mexican standoff.

She'd forgotten the handsome one.

He moved in as gracefully and as swiftly as a flamenco dancer. She caught his motion almost a moment too late, spotted him from the tail of her eye, and turned immediately to her right as he lunged for her. She thought again, No, mister, and swung the knife out in a wide slashing arc, backhanded. He put out his hand as if trying to deflect the thrust, and then started to pull it back when he remembered cold hard steel'm but he was too late. caught him. It ripped through the meaty flesh edge of his hand, just below the pinky, horizontally, opening a wide bloody gash. He "Aiiii," and caught the hand in his free hand, one, cradling it, trying to cradle it, pulling in against his body, his face going pale, glazing over in fear, the blood covering now'm she went for him again.

And cut him again.

Slashed out viciously at both hands where them in tight against his belly, the blade across the knuckles of the left hand, slashing to the bone. He began whimpering. His running. He stood there with terror in his nose running, his hands bleeding, baby. She had them both in her line of " the handsome one backing away toward the whimpering, the gun still nowhere in sl wondered why the big one didn't pull the then she realized in a sudden exhilarating they could not kill her; if they killed her, never get the money they'd come for. In they inhabited, you did not kill except as an example to other debtors. If yogi your money, you threatened and you they could hurt her very badly - but you Not if you wanted your money. They her!

felt suddenly invincible.

"orne on," she said.

swinging out ahead of her.

on, you cocksuckers!”

Spanish, so they'd know exactly what she was fe testing the air.

want it? Come get it! Come on/" handsome one was still whimpering.

kept his hands tucked in against his belly. His was covered with blood.

big one's eyes had naked murder in them. almost burst out laughing. He wanted to kill he couldn't. Anger twisted his features, caused his lips to quiver. His fury was ., a towering rage that set him trembling volcano about to erupt. His face was livid, clenched, mouth twitching, eyes blazing.

come on," she said.

he would come.

wishing he would come.

you, she thought.

out your eyes.

i backed away from her instead, guiding the one around her, his eyes never leaving the cautiously back and away from her, her toward the bedroom door, Marilyn that the knife was always between them, the air.

The handsome one could not stop whimpering. At the door, the big one whis, "Volverernos.”

Which meant "We'll be back.”

Nobody on Eleventh Street knew anything what had happened on Easter Sunday. This me that everybody in the neighborhood knew exac. what had happened. But around here, there was need to talk to cops ever. If somebody was you, you went to people who could do about it. The only thing cops could do was parking tickets and sit around with their thumbs their asses.

Around here, they told a story about these black guys went in the Capri Grot one night. was a restaurant on Ainsley, it was actually Grotto di Capri, but everybody called it the Grot, even the guys who owned it. So these guys walk in on a crowded Friday night, they're strapped with huge guns like .45s or Magnums, depended on who was telling the sto. And shove the guns in the cashier's face and announce this is a stickup, man, and the he just stands there with his arms folded across chest, shaking his head. Like he can't believe happening, man! Four dumb fucking walking into a place has Mafia written up one and down the other, they're here pulling a Amazing! So they clean out the cash register and off in the night, and the headwaiter is still there shaking his head at the wonder of it all.

Next day one of the niggers comes back to the restaurant. His arm is in a sling, and his right eye is half-closed and there's a bandage wrapped around his head from where somebody busted it for him.

He's carrying a briefcase. He asks to see the owner and then he tells him some friends of his made a terrible mistake last night, coming in here the way they done, and like, man, here's all the money back, let's let bygones be bygones, man, keep the briefcase, too, it's a Mark Cross.

People around here still laughed at that story.

Which is why nobody around here went to the cops when they had any kind of problem that needed solving. They went instead to the people who knew what to do about it. Which is why on any given Friday night, the customers at the Capri Grot could park their Benzes or their Jags outside and nobody would even dream of touching them. And if the cars happened to be double-parked in a clearly marked No Parking zone, that was okay, too, because some of the cops on the beat here were also in the pockets of the people you went to whenever you had a problem. Which is why you didn't tell cops a fucking thing around here, even if they asked you was your mother a virgin before she got married.

Nobody on the street knew who had busted that nigger's head on Easter Sunday.

Nobody on the street even knew there'd been trouble at all that day.

Except Angelo Di Napoli.

Di Napoli was thirty-seven years old, a cop family name (which translated as "of Naples" promised short and dark with curly black hair who was in fact an even six feet tall with blond and blue eyes. Di Napoli was a recent transfer to Eight-Seven from the CPEP Unit at the Five-One Riverhead. CPEP was an acronym for £ Police Enrichment Program, a law concept rudely imitative of the foot-patrol pro. in several other large American cities. Here in city, the centralized 911 emergency response s' had gone into effect some thirty years ago, brin with it the need for quick motorized response, leaving in its wake a reduction in the number of fo patrols. Then, as so often happened when became confused with quality, many police began thinking that motorized patrol was in a more diverse and interesting assignment, with attendant result that those poor souls assigned to foot beat approached the job with less than enthusiasm. All by way of saying that the officer was almost entirely eliminated in the scheme of law enforcement and crime prevention.

CPEP pronounced Cee-Pep by the department had been designed to correct was now perceived as an error. Its sole intent was re-establish the foot-patrol cop as an essential part the process of essential contact between police and community. Di Napoli had been a part of the highly effective Narcpoc Drive, a combined blues-and-suits operation aimed at narcotic pockets in the Fifty-First precinct and resulting in a total of some ten thousand buy-and-bust arrests. It was a measure of the man that he considered it a challenge to be transferred to the newly organized CPEP Unit at the Eight-Seven, under the command of a sergeant who'd initiated Operation Clean Sweep out of the notorious Hundred-and-First in Majesta. Di Napoli was a good cop and a dedicated cop. Like any good cop, he listened. And like any dedicated cop, he put what he heard to good use.

He would not have known that Carella was on the job if Carella hadn't introduced himself. Di Napoli couldn't recall seeing him around the station house, but then again he was new here. They exchanged the usual pleasantries... "How's it going?”

"Little quiet.”

"Well, give it time, it's Saturday.”

"Yeah, I can't wait.”

... and then Carella got straight to the point.

"I'm investigating the murder of that priest at St. Kate's," he said.

"Yeah, Thursday night," Di Napoli said.

"That's the one. I'm looking for whoever chased a black kid into the church on Easter Sunday.”

“I wasn't here then," Di Napoli said. "I only got transferred the first of the month." He hesitated then said, "I hear Edward-car panicked, huh?”

"Let's say they got out of there fast.”

"The people around here laugh about it.”

I'll bet.”

“Bad for the old image, huh?" Di Napoli said, raised his eyebrows. "I bust my ass out here day night and two jerks run when it gets hot.”

"Have you heard anything about who it have been?”

"That jumped the black kid?”

"Yeah.”

"I'll tell you," Di Napoli said, "there's a happening around here where they're starting to proud of it, you know what I mean? neighborhood people. They like the idea these beat up the black kid and got away with it. That cops cooled it, you know? For whatever reason, the hell knows, maybe Edward-car was afraid they'., have a riot on their hands, who knows? The point a kid got beat up, and nobody paid for it. Nobody.

around here they're saying Yeah, it served him n he shoulda stayed in his own neighborhood, wh he come around here, and so on, this is a neighborhood, we don't need niggers coming in...!

Di Napoli shook his head.

"I'm Italian, you know," he said, "I guess you too, but I can't stand the way Italians feel people. It's a fuckin' shame the way they Maybe they don't know how much prejudice there still around about us, you know? Italians. Maybe they don't know you say somebody's Italian he's supposed to be a thief or a ditchdigger or a guy singing 0 Sole Mio in a restaurant with checked tablecloths and Chianti bottles dripping wax.

I'm only a cop, I mean I know I'm not a fuckin' account executive or a bank president, but there're Italians who are, you realize that? So you get these dumb wops in this neighborhood ... that's exactly what they are, excuse me, they're dumb fucking wops .. they beat up this black kid and then they laugh about it later and all Italians suffer. All of us. I hate it. Man, I absolutely hate it.”

"You sound like you know who did it," Carella said.

"Not completely. But I've been listening, believe me.”

"And what've you heard?”

"I heard a guy in his forties, he's in the construction business, his name is Vinnie Corrente, I heard he's been bragging to people that his son Bobby was the one used the bat. I didn't hear him say this personally, otherwise his ass would be up the station house and I'd be reading him Miranda, the dumb fucking wop.”

"On the other hand...”

"On the other hand, you're investigating a "Uh-huh.”

"So maybe you got probable to pull him in.”

"Let's say I'd like to talk to him.”

"Let's say he's in apartment 41 at 304 North.”

“Thanks," Carella said.

"Hey, come on," Di Napoli said, pleased.

304 North Eleventh was a five-story brick set in row of identical buildings undoubtedly put up by same contractor at the turn of the century, when neighborhood was still considered desirable. three-thirty that afternoon, several old wearing the black mourning dresses and you could see on widows all over Italy were in late afternoon sunshine on the front chatting in Italian. Carella nodded good them, and then walked through them and past into the building foyer. He found a nameplate for V. Corrente in apartment 41, began climbing the steps.

The building was scrupulously clean.

Mouth-watering cooking smells wafted in hallways, suffused the stairwells. Oregano thyme. Sweet sausage. Fresh basil. Delectable simmering in olive oil and garlic.

Carella kept climbing.

He found apartment 41 to the right of the on the fourth-floor landing.

He listened at the for a moment, heard nothing, and knocked on door.

"Who is it?" a man's voice said.

"Police," Carella answered.

There was a brief silence.

"Just a minute," the man said.

Carella waited.

He heard several locks coming undone, and then the door opened some three inches or so, held by a night chain.

"Let's see your badge," the man said.

Gruff no-nonsense voice, somewhat gravelly. A smoker's voice. Or a drinker's.

Carella flipped open his leather case to show a blue-enameled, gold detective's shield and a laminated I.D. card. "Detective Carella," he said.

"Eighty-seventh Squad.”

“What's this about, Carella. the man asked. He had still not taken the chain off the door. In the narrow wedge between door and jamb, Carella could dimly perceive a heavyset man with a stubble on his cheeks, dark hooded eyes.

"Want to open the door?" he asked.

"Not till I know what this is about," the man said.

"Are you Vincent Corrente?”

"Yeah?”

Surprise in his voice.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions, Mr. Corrente, ifthat''s okay with you," Carella said.

"Like I said, what about?”

"Easter Sunday.”

"What about Easter Sunday?”

"Well, I won't really know until I can ask some questions.”

There was silence behind the door. In the wed Carella thought he detected the eyes narrowing.

"What do you say?" he asked.

"I say tell me more," the man said.

"Mr. Corrente, I want to ask you about an" that occurred at St.

Catherine's Church on Sunday.”

“I don't go to church," Corrente said.

"Neither do I," Carella said. "Mr. Corrente, investigating a murder.”

There was another silence. And then, and unsurprisingly'm the word "murder" some worked magic - the night chain came off rattle, and the door opened wide.

Corrente was wearing a pair of brown and a tank top undershirt. He was a jowly, unkempt man with a cigar in his mouth and a on his face, Hey, come in, how nice to see the here on my doorstep, come in, come in, don't the way the place looks, my wife's been sick, in, Detective, please.

Carella went in.

A modest apartment, spotlessly clean Corrente's protestations and apologies. kitchen to the right, living room dead ahead, opening from either side of it, presumably to bedrooms. From behind one of the closed television set was going.

"Come on in the kitchen," Corrente said, "so we won't bother my wife.

She's got the flu, I hadda get the doctor in yesterday. You want a beer or anything?”

"Thanks, no," Carella said.

They went into the kitchen and sat opposite each other at a round, Formica-topped table. The air-shaft window was open. In the backyard, four stories below, Carella could hear some kids playing Ring-a-Leevio.

From the other room, he could hear the unintelligible drone of the television set.

Corrente lifted an open can of beer that was sitting on the table, took a long swallow from it, and then said, "So what's this about St.

Catherine's?”

"You tell me.”

"All I know is I heard there was some fuss there on Easter.”

"That's true.”

"But I don't know what.”

"A black boy was badly beaten by a gang of six white boys. We think the boys were from...”

"There are no gangs in this neighborhood," Corrente said.

"Anything more than two in number, we call a gang," Carella said. "Any idea who they might've been?”

"Why should that be important to you?" Corrente asked. His cigar had gone out. He took a matchbook from his trouser pocket, struck a match and held it to the tip of the cigar, puffing, filling the kitchen with billowing smoke. "'Cause, you know," he sai, "maybe this black kid had no right comin' to neighborhood, you understand?”

"I understand that's the prevailing attitude, Carella said.

"Which may not be the wrong attitude, Corrente said. "I know what you're thinking, thinking this is a bunch of prejudiced people they don't like the colored, is what you're But maybe the same thing woulda happened if kid hadda been white, you follow me, Detective?”

“No," Carella said, "I'm afraid I don't.”

He did not like this man. He did not like the stubble on his face, or the potbelly hanging over belt, or the stench of his cigar, or his alleged boasts that his son Bobby had wielded the bat had broken Nathan Hooper's head. Even the way said "Detective" rankled.

"This is a nice neighborhood," Corrente said." family neighborhood.

Hardworking people, clean kids. We want to keep it that way.”

"Mr. Corrente," Carella said, "on Easter half a dozen nice clean kids from this nel. attacked a black kid with baseball bats and can lids and chased him down the street to...”

"Yeah, the Hooper kid," Corrente said.

"Yes," Carella said. "The Hooper kid.”

All of a sudden, Corrente seemed to know name of the Easter Sunday victim. All of a he seemed to know all about the fuss that happened at St. Catherine's, although not ten minutes ago he hadn't known nothing from nothing.

"You familiar with this kid?" Corrente asked.

"I've talked to him.”

"What'd he tell you?”

“He told me what happened to him here on Eleventh Street.”

"Did he tell you what he was doing here on Eleventh Street?”

"He was on his way home from the...”

"No, no, never mind the bullshit," Corrente said, taking his cigar from his mouth and waving it like a conductor's baton. "Did he tell you what he was doing here?”

"What was he doing here, Mr. Corrente?”

"Do you know what they call him down the schoolyard? On Ninth Street?

The elementary school? You know what they call him there?”

“No," Carella said. "What do they call him there?”

"His nickname? Did he tell you his nickname?”

"No, he didn't.”

"Go ask him what his nickname is down the schoolyard. Go ask him what he was doing here Easter Sunday, go ahead.”

"Why don't you save me the trouble?" Carella said.

"Sure," Corrente said, and inhaled deeply on the cigar. Blowing out a cloud of smoke, he said, "Mr. Crack.”

Carella looked at him.

"Is his nickname, right," Corrente said. fucking nigger Crack.”

There was a need that took him back here.

Something inexplicable that did, in fact, take back to the scene of any murder he'd ew investigated, time and again, to stand alone in center of a bedroom or a hallway or a kitchen or roof or - as was the case now - a small cloisl garden suffused with the late afternoon scent hundreds of roses in riotous bloom.

The Crime Scene signs had all been taken the police were through with the place so far gathering evidence was concerned. But stood alone in the center of the garden, under spreading branches of the old maple, and tried sense what had happened here this past evening at sunset. It was yet only a little before the priest had been slain some two hours later, Carella was not here now to weigh and to to discern and to deduce, he was here to feel courtyard and this murder, to absorb the essence it, breathe it deeply into his lungs, have it seep his bloodstream to become a part of him as his liver or his heart- for only then could he to understand it.

Mystical, yes.

A detective searching for a muse of sorts.

He recognized the absurdity of what he was doing, but bowed to it nonetheless, standing there in pled shade, listening to the sounds of the springtime city beyond the high stone walls, trying to absorb through his very flesh whatever secrets the garden contained. Had not something of the murderer's rage and the victim's terror flown helter-skelter about this small, contained and silent space, to be claimed by stone or rose or blade of grass, and held forever in time like the image of a killer in a dead man's eye? And if so, if this was in fact a possibility, then was it not also possible that the terror and the rage of that final awful moment when knife entered flesh could now be recovered from all that had borne silent witness here in this garden?

He stood alone, scarcely dating to breathe.

He was not a religious man, but perhaps he was praying.

He stood there for what seemed a long time, some ten or fifteen minutes, head bent, waiting for... He didn't know what.

And at last, he took a deep breath and nodded and Went back into the rectory and into the small office :led into a nook that judging from the g had once served as something else, could not imagine what. There were secrets here, perhaps there were secrets everywhere.

The report from the Fingerprint Section had d him that any latents recovered from the open drawer of the file cabinet had been smudged to be useful in any meaningful se There had been latents as well on the various scattered on the floor and separately delivered in evidence envelope marked CORRES FLOOR and then initialed by the lab's R.] whoever he might be. Some of the latents the prints lifted from the dead priest's fingers thumbs. The rest of them were wild, with possibility that some had been left on correspondence by Kristin Lund.

Carella knelt beside the filing cabinet.

The bottom drawer, the one that had been open, was labeled: CORRESPONDENCE GL He opened the drawer, no danger in doing since the Mobile Lab had been through here everything from a vacuum cleaner to a tweezers. He felt around inside, along the back front panel; sometimes people Scotch-taped to the inside of a drawer, where no one but a a thief would think of looking.

Correspondence, G-L. Presumably, whoever thrown those papers all over the place was for something in this drawer, something with the letters of the alphabet that fell lx and L. Six letters altogether. God only knew piece of paper the vandal had been looking whether or not he'd found it. Or even whether the ransacking had had anything at all to do with the murder. Carella was getting to his feet again when a voice behind him said, "Excuse me, sir.”

He turned from the filing cabinets.

Two young girls were standing just inside the entrance door to the office.

They could not have been older than thirteen, fourteen at the most.

A blonde and one with hair as black as pitch.

The blonde was a classic beauty with a pale oval face, high molded cheekbones, a generous mouth, and dark brown eyes that gave her a thoughtful almost scholarly look. The other girl could have been her twin: the same delicate face, the same sculpted look, except that her hair was black and her eyes were a startling almost electric blue. Both girls wore their hair in stylists' cuts that fell straight and clean to the shoulders. Both were wearing sweaters, skirts and in a replay of the Fifties bobby sox and loafers. They exuded a freshness that Americans arrogantly assumed only their own healthy young girls possessed, but which was actually an asset of most teenage girls anywhere in the world.

"Sir," the black-haired one said, "are you with the church?”

Same one who'd spoken not a moment before.

"No," Carella said, "I'm not.”

"We thought they might have sent someone," the said. "A new priest.”

"No," Carella said, and showed his shield and I.] card. "I'm Detective Carella, Eighty-seventh Squad.”

“Oh," the black-haired one said.

Both girls huddled in the doorway.

"I'm investigating Father Michael's murder, Carella said... "How terrible," the blonde said.

The black-haired one nodded.

"Did you know Father Michael?" Carella asked "Oh, yes," both gifts said, almost in unison.

"He was a wonderful person," the one said. "Excuse me, I'm President of the My name is Gloria Keely.”

"I'm Alexis O'Donnell," the blonde said. "I': nothing.”

Carella smiled.

"Nice to meet both of you," he said.

"Nice to meet you, too," Alexis said. means Catholic Youth Organization." ... Thoughtful brown eyes in her delicate, face. I'm nothing, she had said. Meaning she was an officer of the club. But something indeed, in she was easily the more beautiful of the two with a shy, and thoroughly appealing manner. wondered how parents who had named th daughter Alexis could possibly have known she turn out to be such a beauty.

"Thank you," he said, and smiled.

"We were wondering about the funer tomorrow," Gloria said. "About what time it'll be.

So we can tell the other kids.”

A grimace. A shrug. Still the little girl in the developing woman's body.

"I really don't know," Carella said. "Maybe you can call the archdiocese.”

“Mm, yeah, good idea," she said. Electric blue eyes sparkling with intelligence, midnight hair cascading to her shoulders, head bobbing in agreement with a plan already forming. "You wouldn't happen to have the number, would you?”

"I'm sorry.”

"Do you know what they'll be doing about mass tomorrow?" Alexis asked.

The same soft, shy voice.

"I really don't know.”

“I hate to miss mass," she said.

"I guess we can go over to St. Jude's," Gloria said.

"I guess," Alexis said.

A heavy silence shouldered its way into the room, as if the priest's death had suddenly made itself irretrievably felt. Father Michael would not be here this Sunday to say mass. They guessed they could go to St.

Jude's, but Father Michael would not be there, And then - he would never know which of the girls started it both were suddenly in tears.

hugging each other. And holding each other in clumsy embrace. And comforting each other small keening female sounds.

He felt utterly excluded.

The twins were watching television in the room at the other end of the house. Teddy Carella alone in the living room, waiting for her husband.

had called from the office to say he might be late, to worry about dinner, he'd catch a hamburger something. She wondered if he might be walking into danger again, there was so much danger there.

There was a time when the shield me something.

You said, "Police," and you showed the and you became the shield, you were everything shield represented, the force of law, the power law, this was what the shield represented. The represented civilization. And civilization meant body of law that human beings had created themselves over centuries and centuries. To themselves against others, to protect against themselves as well.

That's what the shield used to mean.

Law.

Civilization.

Nowadays, the shield meant nothing.

the law was overwritten with graffiti, scrawled in blood of cops. She felt like calling the President the telephone and telling him that the weren't about to invade us tomorrow. Tell him enemy was already here, and it wasn't the Russians.

The enemy was here feeding dope to our kids and killing cops in the streets.

"Hello, Mr. President?" she would say. "This is Teddy Carella. When are you going to do something?”

If only she could speak.

But, of course, she couldn't.

So she sat waiting for Carella to come home, and when at last she saw the knob turning on the front door, she leaped to her feet and was there when the door opened, relief thrusting her into his arms and almost knocking him off his feet.

They kissed.

Gently, lingeringly.

They had known each other such a long time.

She asked him if he'd like a drink... Fingers flashing in the sign language he knew so well... and he said he'd love a martini, and then went down the hall to say hello to the kids.

When he came back into the living room, she handed him the drink she'd mixed, and they went to sit on the sofa framed in the three arched windows at the far end of the room. The house was the sort Stephen King might have admired, a big Victorian white elephant in a section of Riverhead that had once boasted many similar houses, each on its own three or four acres of land, all dead and gone now, all gone. The Carella house was a reminder of an era long past, a more gracious, graceful time in America, the gabled white building with the wrought-iron fence all around it, a large tree-shaded corner plot, no longer all those acres, of course, those days of land and luxury were a thing of the dim, distant past.

He sat drinking his gin martini.

She sat drinking an after-dinner cognac.

She asked him where he'd eaten putting snifter down for a moment so that she could free use of her hands and he watched her r, fingers and answered in a combination of voice sign, said he'd gone to a little Chinese joint Culver, and then he fell silent, sipping at his his head bent. He looked so tired. She knew him well. She loved him so much.

He told her then how troubled he was by murder of the priest.

It wasn't that he was religious or anything..

"I mean, you know that, Teddy, I haven't inside a church since my sister got married, I don't believe in any of that stuff anymore...”

... but somehow, the murder of a man of God..

"I don’t even believe in that, people themselves to religion, devoting their lives spreading religion, any religion, I just don't in any of that anymore, Teddy, I'm sorry. I you're religious. I know you pray.

Forgive me. sorry.”

She took his hands in her own.

"I wish I could pray," he said.

And was silent again.

And then said, "But I've seen too much.”

She squeezed his hands.

"Teddy... this is really getting to me," he said.

She flashed the single word Why?

"Because... he was a priest.”

She looked at him, puzzled.

"I know. That sounds contradictory. Why should the death of a priest bother me? I haven't even spoken to a priest since.., when did she get married?

Angela? When was her wedding?”

Teddy's fingers moved: The day the twins were born.

"Almost eleven years ago," he said, and nodded.

"That's the last time I had anything to do with a priest. Eleven years ago.”

He looked at his wife. A great many things had happened in those eleven years. Sometimes time seemed elastic to him, a concept that could be bent at will, twisted to fit ever-changing needs. Who was to say the twins were not now thirty years old, rather than eleven? Who was to say that he and Teddy were not still the young marrieds they'd been back then?

Time. A concept as confusing to Carella as was that of... well, God.

He shook his head.

"Leave God out of it," he said, almost as if he'd spoken his earlier thoughts aloud. "Forget that Father Michael was a man of God, whatever that means. Maybe there are no men of God anymore.

Maybe the whole world...”

He shook his head again.

"Figure him only for someone who was.., okay, not pure, nobody's pure, but at least innocent.”

He saw the puzzlement on her face, and realized she had misread either his lips or his sloppy signing.

He signed the word letter by letter, and she nodded and signed it back, and he said, "Yeah, think of him that way. Innocent. And, yes, pure, why not? Pure of heart, anyway. A man who'd never harmed human being in his entire life. Would never have dreamt of harming anyone. And all at once, out the night, out of the sunset, into his peaceful g there comes an assassin with a knife.”

He drained his glass.

"That's what's getting to me, Teddy. On Year's Eve, I caught a baby smothered in her crib that was only five months ago, what's today, the twenty-sixth of May, not even five full And now another innocent. If people like.., like... people like that are getting killed.., if the.., if the.., if nobody gives a damn anymore.., if you kill a baby, kill a priest, kill a ninety-year-old grandmother, kill a pregnant woman...”

And suddenly he buried his face in his hands.

"There's too much of it," he said.

And she realized he was weeping.

"Too much," he said.

She took him in her arms.

And she thought Dear God, get him out of this job before it kills him.

Seronia and her brother were eating pizza in a joint on The Stem. They had ordered and devoured one large pizza with extra cheese and pepperoni, and were now working on the smaller pizza they'd ordered next. Seronia was leaning forward over the table, a long string of mozzarella cheese trailing from her lips to the folded wedge of pizza in her hand, eating her way up the string toward the slice of pizza. Hooper watched her as if she were walking a tightrope a hundred feet above the ground.

She bit off the cheese together with a piece of the pizza, chewed, swallowed and washed it down with Diet Coke. She was very much aware that the white guy throwing pizzas behind the counter was watching her.

She was wearing an exceptionally short mini made to look like black leather. Red silk blouse with a scoop neck. Dangling red earrings.

Black patent pumps. Thirteen years old and being eyed up and down by a white man shoveling pizza in an oven.

"You shoonta lied to him," she told her brother.

"He fine out why you was on. "Leventh Street, he be back.”

"You the one say they was nothin' to lose," I-looper said.

"That dinn give you no cause to lie.”

"I tole him basely d'troof," Hooper said.

"No, you lied about Fat Harol'.”

"So whut? Who gives a shit about that skinny li'l fuck?”

"Sayin' as how he do crack. Sheee-it, man, he a momma's boy doan know crack fum his own crack.”

Hooper laughed.

"Sayin' as how he wenn to a crack house, bought hisself a nickel vial.

An' paintin' yourself like a...”

"It was true we wenn t'church t'gether, though, me an' Harol"" Hooper said.

"I doan do no dope," Seronia said, imitating brother talking to Carella, "an' I doan run dope none a'these mis'able dealers comes aroun' tryin' a'spoil d'chirren.”

"This was the Man we talkin' to," Hooper "Whutchoo 'spec me to tell him?”

"I never done no crim'nal thing in my Seronia said, still doing a pretty fair imitation of he . brother's deeper voice. "Never!" she said, an clenched her fist and rapped it against her sin budding breast.

"Is 'zackly whut I tole the Man," Hooper said, grinned.

"I like to wet my pants when I heerd that, Seronia said, and shook her head in admiration pride. "I goan be any kine a'nigger, it's goan be i good one," she mimicked. "Like Eddie Murphy.”

And again shook her head and rolled her big brown eyes heavenward.

"Eddie Murphy, right," Hooper said.

"You goan wish you was Eddie Murphy when he comes roun' again," Seronia said. "'Cause he look to me like the kine a'fuzz doan let go, bro. An' he goan talk to the people 'long. "Leventh Street, an' somebody gonna tell him sumpin' you dinn tell him.

An' then he goan fine out whut happen 'tween you an' the pries" an' then you goan be in deep shit, bro.”

"Am' nothin' happen 'tween me an' the pries'.”

"'Sep' you hid yo' stash in the church," Seronia said, and bit into another slice of pizza.