“Who’d C.J. tell?”
“Someone who isn’t going to bother us anymore.”
“Who?”
“Do it to me, Santo, do it.”
“Who?”
“Yes, that’s it, yes. Oh, Jesus, yes.”
12
By Thursday morning, everything in the squadroom was sticky and soggy. D.D. report forms clung moistly to each other and to the carbon paper that was supposed to be separating the triplicate copies. File cards pulled from the drawers grew limp within minutes of exposure to the dampness. Forearms stuck to desktops, erasers refused to erase properly, clothing seemed possessed of sponge-like qualities — and still the rains came. They came in varying degrees, either as torrential downpours or relentless drizzles, but they came unabated; the city had not seen a patch of blue sky for the past eight days.
When the call from Gaucho Palacios came at 10:00 A.M. that morning, Meyer was in the middle of a joke about rain. His audience was Bert Kling and Richard Genero. Genero had no sense of humor, although Genero’s mother thought he was a very comical fellow. The funniest joke Genero ever heard in his life was the one about the monkey humping a football. Every time Genero told that joke, he cracked up. He did not think many other jokes were funny, but he listened to them politely, and always laughed politely when they were finished. Then he instantly forgot them. Whenever he went to his mother’s house, which was every Sunday, he pinched her on the cheek and comically said to her, “You’re getting to be a little fatty-boo, ain’t you, Mama?” which his mother found uproariously funny. Genero’s mother loved him a lot. She called him Richie. Everybody on the squad called him Genero, which was odd, since otherwise they all called each other by their first names. Even the lieutenant was either Pete or Loot, but certainly never Byrnes. Genero, however, was Genero. He listened now as Meyer came roaring down the pike toward the punch line.
“Yeah,” Carella said into the phone, “what’ve you got, Cowboy?”
“Maybe a line on this Joey La Paz. You still interested?”
“I’m still interested.”
“This may be nothin,” the Gaucho said, “or it may be choice meat. Here’s what happened. This little girl come in the shop maybe half an hour ago, looking over the goodies, and we start talkin and it turns out she’s in Joey’s stable.”
“Where is he? Does she know?”
“Well, that’s what I ain’t got yet. This is like a funny thing going on here. Joey’s moved underground cause he’s afraid you guys are gonna pin that hooker kill on him. But this girl here — the one right here in my shop this minute — is scared to death she’s gonna be the next one. She won’t go back to the apartment...”
“Did she tell you where it is?”
“No. Anyway, Joey ain’t there now. I told you, he dug himself a hole and pulled it in after him.”
“Here in the city?”
“The girl don’t know.”
“Can you hold her there for me?”
“I can only sell her so much underwear,” the Gaucho said.
“I’ll be there in five minutes. Keep her in the shop,” Carella said.
At his own desk, Meyer said, “And here I thought it was raining!” and burst out laughing. Kling slapped the top of the desk, and shouted, “Thought it was raining!”
Genero blinked, and then laughed politely.
The girl in the back room of the Gaucho’s shop seemed surrounded by the tools of a trade far too sophisticated for her years. A slight, rather pretty redhead with a dusting of freckles on her cheeks and her nose, she looked like a thirteen-year-old who’d been called into the principal’s office for a minor infraction. Her clothing — her costume, to be more accurate — exaggerated the notion that here was a child just entering puberty. She wore a white cotton blouse and a gray flannel skirt with knee-length white socks and patent-leather Mary Jane shoes. Small-breasted and thin-wristed, narrow-waisted and slender-ankled, she appeared violated — nay, desecrated — just standing there in front of the Gaucho’s walled display of leather anklets, penis extenders, aphrodisiacs, inflatable life-sized female dolls, condoms in every color of the rainbow, books on how to hypnotize and otherwise win women, and one product imaginatively named Suc-u-lator. Batting her big blue eyes, the girl seemed lost in an erotic jungle not of her own making, but suddenly, Little Orphan Annie opened her mouth and a coven of lizards and toads came crawling up out of the sewer.
“Why the fuck did you send for a cop?” she asked Gaucho.
“I was worried about you,” Gaucho lied.
“What’s your name?” Carella asked her.
“Fuck off, mister,” she said. “What’ve you got me for? Buying a pair of sexy panties? Don’t your wife wear sexy panties?”
“I haven’t got you for anything,” Carella said. “The Cowboy tells me you’re scared somebody’s about to—”
“I’m not scared of nothing. The Cowboy’s wrong.”
“You told me—”
“You’re wrong, Cowboy. You want to wrap this stuff, I’ll pay for it and be on my way.”
“Where’s Joey La Paz?” Carella asked.
“I don’t know anybody named Joey La Paz.”
“You work for him, don’t you?”
“I work for the five-and-ten.”
“Which one?”
“On Twelfth and Rutgers. Go check.”
“Where do you work nights?”
“I work days. At the five-and-ten on Twelfth and Rutgers.”
“I’ll check,” Carella said, and took his pad from his inside jacket pocket. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t have to give you my name. I didn’t do anything, I don’t have to give you a fuckin thing.”
“Miss, I’m investigating a pair of homicides, and I haven’t got time for any bullshit, okay? Now what’s your name? You’re so eager for me to go checking on you, I’ll start checking, okay?”
“Yeah, you go check, smart guy. My name’s Nancy Elliott.”
“Where do you live, Nancy?”
The girl hesitated.
“I said where do you live? What’s your address?”
Again, she hesitated.
“What do you say?” Carella said.
“I don’t have to give you my address.”
“That’s right, you don’t. Here’s what we’ll do, Miss Elliott, if that’s your real name—”
“That’s my real name.”
“Fine, here’s what we’ll do. I’ve got reason to believe you have information concerning a person we’re seeking in a homicide investigation. That’s Joey La Paz, whose name I mentioned just a little while ago, in case you’ve already forgotten it. Now, Miss Elliott, here’s what we’ll do if you refuse to answer my questions. What we’ll do is have you subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury, and they’ll ask you the same questions I’m asking you, but with a difference. If you refuse to answer them, that’s contempt. And if you lie to them, that’s perjury. So what do you say? We can play the game my way or we can play it yours. Makes no difference at all to me.”
Nancy was silent.
“Okay,” Carella said, “I guess you want—”
“I don’t know where he is,” she said.
“But you do know him.”
“I know him.”