“Yeah.”
“That’s a Chinese theater,” Hoffman said.
“It only shows Chinese pictures,” Reardon said.
“Yeah, it was Chinese cowboys,” Sadie said.
“You were in your usual doorway on Monday night, weren’t you?” Reardon said.
“You saw the shooting, didn’t you?” Hoffman said.
“What’d you see, Sadie?”
“Were you in your doorway as usual?”
“Nossir,” she said, and poured herself another drink.
“You’ve got nothing to be afraid of,” Reardon said. “If you saw something, you can tell us.”
“Sure, and get in trouble,” Sadie said.
“A man’s been killed,” Hoffman said. “We want to lock up whoever did it.”
“Sure, and they’ll be out in six months.”
“They?” Reardon said.
“How do you know there was more than one of them. Sadie?”
“I don’t know how many there was. I didn’t see nothing.”
“Sadie, if we catch these men, we’ll send them away for a long, long lime. You don’t have to worry, Sadie. If you saw something...”
“I don’t want no trouble,” Sadie said. “I got a good life, I don’t want no trouble.”
“Did you see them?” Hoffman asked.
Sadie looked down into her shot glass.
“Sadie?” Reardon said. “Please help us.”
She kept staring into her glass.
“I got a good life,” she said.
The detectives said nothing.
“I don’t want trouble,” she said.
They waited.
At last she looked up. There were tears in her eyes.
“I saw them,” she said.
“Where were you?” Hoffman asked.
“In my doorway. They pulled up in a car.”
“How many of them?”
“Three. One stayed in the car.”
“Were they wearing masks?”
“Not when they pulled up.”
“What’d they look like?”
“They were Puerto Ricans.”
“All three of them?”
“All three.”
“What kind of car were they driving?”
“A brown Mercedes-Benz.”
Hoffman looked at Reardon.
“Armed robbers in a Mercedes-Benz?” he said. “You sure it wasn’t a Chevy?”
“I know my cars,” Sadie said. “It was a Mercedes-Benz.”
“Did you happen to notice the license plate?”
“No. I mind my own business.”
“Was it a New York plate?”
“I didn’t see it.”
“Three Puerto Ricans in a Mercedes-Benz,” Reardon said.
“Grand Larceny, Auto,” Hoffman said bleakly.
“Okay, Sadie, thanks,” Reardon said, and both men got up.
“Could you leave the bottle, please?” Sadie said in a very small voice.
It was close to one-thirty m the afternoon when Sarge let himself into the brownstone on East Seventy-first Street. He took his key from the latch, put it back into his trouser pocket, and then hung his overcoat on the brass rack just inside the ground-level entrance door.
“Jessie?” he called.
There was no answer.
He draped his muffler over the coat, called “Jessie?” again, and walked into the living room. There was the aroma of dead ashes in the room. And stale cigarette smoke. Unwashed brandy snifters were on the coffee table in front of the fireplace. A woman’s high-heeled shoe rested on its side on the hearth.
Sarge walked to the staircase leading to the upper stories.
“Jessie?” he said again, and started up the carpeted steps. A stained-glass window on the first-floor landing, sunlight streaming through it. To the right, the dining room and kitchen. He went up to the second floor, where the bedrooms were. An oak door at the end of the hallway, a brass doorknob. He twisted the doorknob, opened the door a crack.
“Jessie?” he whispered.
She was asleep in the canopied four-poster bed on the other side of the room, quilt pulled to her chin, long black hair spread on the pillow. He stepped into the room, stood watching her silently for a moment, the exquisite nose and high cheekbones, the fair complexion, exactly the picture of their mother when she was young. “Jessie?” he said again.
She stirred.
Sleepily, she said, “What time is it?”
“Half past one,” Sarge said.
“Crack of dawn,” Jessica said, and rolled over, her eyes still closed.
He stood watching her.
“Late party last night,” she mumbled into the pillow.
“You ought to get up, though,” he said. “Day’s half gone already.”
“What time did you say?” Her eyes still closed.
“One-thirty.”
“Mmm,” she said. One eye opened. “I feel awful,” she said, and eased herself to a sitting position. “Oh, boy, do I feel awful.”
“I’ll make you some coffee,” Sarge said.
“I don’t want any coffee,” Jessica said.
She threw back the quilt, swung her long legs over the side of the bed, and sat there a moment, her hands folded in her lap, head bent, long black hair hiding half her face. She was wearing a pale blue babydoll nightgown. She curled her toes, stared at her feet.
“Has Olivia gone back to Phoenix?” she asked.
“Early this morning.”
“Good riddance.” she said, and got off the bed. She was wearing no panties under the nightgown. There was a flash of dark pubic hair as she came off the bed. stretched, yawned, and then padded silently to the bathroom. Sarge heard her spitting into the sink. He heard the shower starting.
“What’s going on. Sarge?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What?”
“I said...”
“I can’t hear you. Come in here, will you?”
He went to the bathroom door, stood in the doorframe. She was reaching into the shower stall, testing the stream of water with her right hand.
“Why can’t I go to Switzerland?”
“Because you’re needed here,” Sarge said.
“Since when am I needed anywhere? It’s my signature that’s needed, isn’t it?”
“Well... yes. Or perhaps not. It depends. Your signature won’t be needed unless it’s asked for. But in that event, the Captain wants you here in New York.”
“Are we buying something?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“But is that why you sold all your paintings?”
She pulled the nightgown over her head, stood there naked a moment, her back to him. and then stepped into the shower.
“Is it?” she asked.
“Let’s say we needed some ready cash,” Sarge said.
He could see her soaping herself behind the frosted glass door of the shower stall. He remembered once — when they were both children — the beating his father had given him because he’d been in the bathroom while Jessica was bathing. Six years old. she was then. Playing with a rubber toy in the bathtub, suds all around her. Sarge sitting on the toilet bowl, the lid down, watching her as she bathed. Eight years old at the time.
“So you were the one who had to make the sacrifice, huh?” Jessica said.
“It wasn’t such a sacrifice.”
Wanted to kill his father that night. Lay in bed, aching everywhere, planning how he would kill his father.
“Don’t lie to me,” Jessica said. “I know what those paintings meant to you.”
Soaping herself. Distorted image behind the frosted glass. Hands gliding over her body.
“Was it the Captain’s idea to sell them?”
Water splashing. Her voice sounding hollow in the stall.
“Yes.”
“Really needs money that badly, huh?”
“No, he simply felt they were the most expendable asset.” He shrugged. “This isn’t a big deal, Jessie.”