They continued along the Bowery.
“Cold,” Reardon said.
Hoffman nodded. His eyes were tearing.
Another doorway. This one near Grand Street.
Another drunk.
“Sally, did you say?”
“Forget it.”
And yet another.
And another.
The wind howling through the Bowery with a vengeance.
Nearing the northernmost boundary of the precinct now, the Salvation Army-Booth House between Rivington and Stanton. A man there told them he’d seen Sadie on Monday.
“Monday when?” Hoffman asked.
“The afternoon sometime.”
“She didn’t come in Monday night, did she? After seven o’clock?”
“Not while I was here,” the man said. “Why? What’d she do?”
Doubling back on the other side of the avenue now, a hotel near the corner of Broome Street, the room clerk telling them she’d taken a room there on Monday night.
“Is she still here?” Reardon asked.
“No, she only had cash enough for the one night.”
“When did she leave?” Hoffman asked.
“Early yesterday morning.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“Yeah, Paris, France,” the clerk said drily. “There’s lots of garbage cans in Paris, France.”
It was warmer in the car, even though the heater wasn’t functioning properly. They cruised the streets, looking. Plenty of shopping bag ladies, but none of them Sadie. Plenty of men lying in doorways. Plenty of people passing by them hurriedly. The wind lashed the snow piled against the curbs, sent eddies into the air so that it seemed it was snowing again.
“Lost souls,” Hoffman said. “Every fucking one of ’em. Some of these guys, they’re probably doctors, lawyers, maybe, lost themselves in a fuckin’ bottle.”
“You want to break for lunch?” Reardon asked.
“Let’s hit a few more places,” Hoffman said.
“You bucking for Commissioner?”
“Fat chance. In this city, unless you’re Irish or black, you haven’t got a prayer above Captain.”
“You mean I might make Commissioner?” Reardon said, grinning.
“Sure, go talk to your rabbi.”
The men fell silent. The heater rattled and clanged.
“Fuckin’ jungle out there.” Hoffman said.
They continued riding in silence.
“You talk about promotions,” Hoffman said, “that robbery bust ain’t helping me, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“That missing cash.”
“Come on,” Reardon said.
“They think I bagged that fuckin’ loot,” Hoffman said.
“Nobody thinks that.”
“They don’t, huh? I’m fifty years old, I broke that case nine years ago. Nine fuckin’ years, Bry. I was Detective/First at the time, and I’m still Detective/First. Somebody up there’s got his eye on me, Bry. There’s a folder up there at Headquarters, it’s marked Chick Hoffman, and under my name it says ‘Hold.’ I’m in a holding pattern, Bry. I could find Judge Crater tomorrow, and I still won’t get a promotion. You know what it feels like to be in a job you know you do pretty damn good, and there ain’t no future in—”
“Up ahead,” Reardon said.
“What?”
“There she is.”
Sadie was standing in front of a building near Hester Street, picking through the garbage can out front. They pulled the car to the curb. Hoffman was already on the sidewalk as Reardon turned off the ignition. Sadie looked up as Hoffman approached, recognized him right off as a cop. and seemed about to run.
“Hello, Sadie,” Hoffman said. “How you doing?”
Sadie held her ground, her eyes shifting to Reardon as he came up.
“Got a few minutes?” Hoffman said. “We’d like to talk to you.”
“I’m busy just now,” Sadie said.
“Come on, we’ll buy you a drink,” Reardon said.
“Why not?” Sadie said at once.
At a little before one that afternoon, the Cathay Bar on Bayard Street was virtually empty. Three Chinese men sat at the bar on stools, but that was it. There were two empty shot glasses in front of Sadie. She had downed each of the shots in something like two seconds flat, and was working on the third one now. savoring it this time, lingering over it.
“Where were you Monday night, Sadie?” Reardon asked. “How come you weren’t in your doorway?”
“I was out with some friends,” Sadie said.
“Doing what?” Hoffman asked.
“We went to a movie.”
“What movie?”
“I forget the name. It was cowboys.”
“Cowboys, huh?”
“Yeah, cowboys,” she said, and smiled, pleased with her answer. Her blue eyes were shrewd in her face. She peered out at them from behind a scarf wrapped around her head and under her chin. She sipped at her whiskey again, gauged what was left in the shot glass, wondering how long she could keep them here buying drinks for her.
“How come you haven’t been back to Mulberry Street?” Reardon asked.
“I been there,” she said.
“Not in your usual doorway.”
“Yeah, but I been there.”
“You don’t like that doorway anymore?” Hoffman asked.
“I like it fine,” Sadie said, and shrugged. “But there’s plenty other doorways this city.” She looked at the shot glass hesitantly and then, apparently deciding she could take a chance on their generosity, swallowed the rest of the whiskey in a single gulp. She looked into the empty glass mournfully. She looked up at the detectives. Her eyes were startlingly blue. Reardon suddenly realized that she must have once been a very beautiful woman. He signalled to the bartender, pointed to Sadie’s glass. The bartender was not accustomed to giving table service, but he knew the Law when he saw it. He hurried over with a bottle.
“Leave the bottle,” Reardon said.
“So how come?” Hoffman said.
“How come what?” Sadie said, pouring for herself.
“How come you ain’t been back to that doorway?”
“I got tired of that doorway,” she said, drinking. “I like to try different doorways every now and then.”
“You haven’t tried a different doorway for the past three years,” Reardon said.
“Well, time for a change, right?” Sadie said, again pleased with her answer, her blue eyes twinkling.
“Where you living now, Sadie?”
“Well, I found a nice doorway on Kenmare the night after the...”
She stopped dead.
“The night after the what?” Reardon said.
“Snowstorm,” she said at once.
“You talking about last night?” Hoffman said.
“Musta been.”
“Or Monday night?”
“No, no. Monday night, I slept at the Chelsea.”
“How come no doorway?”
“Well, I had a little money, so I figured...”
“Were you afraid to sleep in a doorway on Monday night?”
“Why would I be afraid?”
“You tell us,” Reardon said.
“No, I wasn’t afraid.”
“What were you afraid of, Sadie?”
“Did something scare you, Sadie?”
“Did you see the shooting, Sadie?”
“I didn’t see no shooting Monday night,” Sadie said.
“Who said the shooting was on Monday night?”
“You just asked me...”
“Where were you on Monday night, Sadie?”
“I told you,” she said. “At the movies.”
“Which movie?”
“The cowboys.”
“Not the picture, the theater,” Hoffman said. “What theater was it?”
“The one on Bowery and Hester.”
“The Music Palace?”