Raymond said nothing. He reached up with his right hand, felt the switch mounted on the wall and flicked it on.
As the wall began to close Clement said, “Hey-” He didn’t move right away, he said, “My lawyer’s standing right there, shithead.” They saw him rise out of the chair now, saying, “Hey, come on, goddamn-it-” They could see his fingers in the opening before he pulled them in. They could see a line of light inside and hear him scream, “Goddamn-it, open this goddamn-” And that was all.
Raymond reached up again. The humming motor sound stopped. There was a silence. Carolyn turned, started for the stairs, and Raymond looked over.
“Carolyn?”
She didn’t pause or look back. “I’ll be in the car.”
He watched her go up the stairs-no objections from her, no emotion-and again there was silence. Hunter approached the cinderblock wall almost cautiously and ran his hand over it. He looked at Raymond and said, straightfaced, “Where’d he go?”
Toma said to Raymond, “You see why I didn’t kill him. This way satisfies both of us. For me, it’s like Skender doing it to him, which is much better. For you, it seems the only way you’re going to get this man who kills people.”
Hunter said, “You sure he can’t open it?”
“He broke the switch himself when he was here before,” Toma said.
Raymond listened as they spoke in low tones, almost reverently, Toma saying, “He prepared his own tomb. There’s water, a little food for his last meals, a toilet. He could last-I don’t know-fifty, sixty days maybe. But eventually he dies.” Hunter saying now, “We had the place covered, but somehow he slipped out. I don’t see any problem, do you? Man disappeared.” Toma saying, “It’s also soundproof.” Then Hunter wondering if after a while there might be an odor and Toma saying, “One of the tenants complains we open the wall and say, ‘Oh, so that’s where he was hiding. Oh, that’s too bad.’ ”
It’s done, Raymond thought. Walk away.
THEY HAD SEVERAL DRINKS at the Athens Bar, quiet drinks, Raymond and Hunter alone at a table, with little to talk about until Hunter leaned in to tell what worried him. Like Carolyn Wilder. Would she blow it or not? Raymond said he didn’t think so. She had walked out (her car was gone when they left the apartment building) and it was like saying to them, do what you want. Without saying it. He believed she could handle it. Carolyn had learned to be realistic about Clement: she could send him away for assault and robbery, but knew he would come back if she did.
Hunter said, “You want to know exactly what it’s like? It’s like the first time I ever went to a whorehouse. I was sixteen years old, these guys took me to a place corner of Seward and Second. After, you’re all clutched up, you don’t know whether to feel proud of yourself or guilty. You know what I mean? And after a while you don’t think of it either way; it’s something you did.” Hunter went home to bed.
Raymond walked back to 1300 Beaubien. The snack counter in the lobby was closed and he looked at his watch: 5:40. The squadroom was locked, empty. He went in and sat at his desk beneath the window. It was dismal outside, a gray cast to the sky; somber, semidark inside, but he didn’t bother to turn on lights.
He had felt relief as the wall closed and Mansell disappeared; but the relief was an absence of pressure, not something in itself. He tried to analyze what he was feeling now. He didn’t feel good, he didn’t feel bad. He called Carolyn. She said, “Are you worried I’m going to tell on you?” He said, “No.” She said, “Then why talk about it. I’m awfully tired. Why don’t you call me tomorrow, maybe go out to dinner, get a little high? How does that sound?”
A little after six Raymond looked up at the sound of the door opening. He saw the figure in the doorway backlighted from the hall.
Sandy said, “Anybody home?… What’re you doing sitting in the dark?” She came in, letting the door swing closed. “God, am I whacked out.” She dropped her shoulderbag on Hunter’s desk, sunk into his swivel chair and put her boots up on the corner of the desk.
Raymond could see her in faint light from the window. He didn’t move because he felt no reason to. He had not been thinking of Sandy Stanton. He had obvious questions but did not feel like asking them. He did not feel like getting himself into the role, being the policeman right now.
“I pulled in the garage downstairs, a guy goes, hey, you can’t park here. I told him it’s okay, it’s a stolen car, I’m returning it. The guy at the desk downstairs-what is that place?”
“First Precinct,” Raymond said.
“He goes, hey, where you going? I tell him I’m going up to five. He goes, you can’t go up there. I’m thinking, try and get out of here, shit, you can’t even get in … I thought you’d be looking for me. I sat in the apartment not knowing what’s going on, finally the phone rang. It was Del. He isn’t coming home, he’s going to Acapulco. You ready for this? And he wants me to fly out to L.A. and go with him… and bring his pink and green flowered sportcoat that asshole gave to the doorman. How am I gonna get it back?”
Raymond said, “Is that what you came to ask me?”
“No, I wanted to know if it’s okay to go or if you’re gonna arrest me or what. I’m so fucking whacked I want to go somewhere, I’m telling you, and sleep for about a week.” She made fists, holding them out, and said, “My nerves are like that.”
“You left Skender’s car?”
“Yeah, I told the guy it really wasn’t stolen it was sort of stolen and that you know all about it.”
“What about the gun?”
Sandy dug into her bag. She brought out the Walther and laid it on Hunter’s desk.
She said, “Do we have to get into it again? I haven’t seen shitbird at all, he hasn’t called, thank God, I don’t know where he is, if he’s in jail or what and I don’t want to know. I’m twenty-three and I got to get my ass in gear and I think going to Acapulco could be very good for me. What do you think?”
“I think you ought to go,” Raymond said.
“Really?”
Raymond didn’t say any more. Sandy got up with her bag. “I’ll just leave the gun here.” Raymond nodded. She said, “Listen, I’m not mad at you, I think you’ve been a pretty neat guy, considering. I know you have a job to do and, you know-so maybe I’ll see you again sometime…”
Raymond raised his hand to her. As the door swung in, closing off the light from the hall, he brought his hand down and got up. He went over to Hunter’s desk and picked up the Walther, hefting it, feeling its weight. He shifted the gun to his left hand and brought out his Colt 9-mm from the shoulder holster, feeling both of the guns now, judging the Colt to be a good half-pound heavier. Two-gun Cruz. In a dark room all by himself. Two-gun Cruz, shit. Sneaky Cruz… Dead-ass Cruz… Or how do you like Chicken-fat Cruz, chicken fat?
After a couple of hours Clement put Donna Summer’s “Love To Love You, Baby” on the record player to hear the sound of a human voice. He inventoried the canned goods, found all kinds of mashed chick peas and pressed meat and not one goddamn thing he liked to eat. There was nothing to drink except water and two cans of Tab and he expected they’d be turning the water off when they thought of it-if the plan was to leave him here. He had thought the wall would open again within a minute or so after it closed. All right, five minutes. Well, give ’em ten. Okay, play the game with ’em, maybe a half hour, which was supposed to give him a good scare. No-what they’d do, he realized after an hour or so, sure, they’d open it up and ask him if he wanted to confess, telling him if he didn’t they’d close it up again and take out the motor. The dumb fucks. He’d look scared and say, yes, Jesus, just get me out of here, I’ll confess to anything you want. Then come up for the exam and tell ’em to get fucked, the confession was signed under duress and he was not only walking, he was filing suit against the police department. A hundred thousand dollars for fucking up his nervous system. Look how he was shaking…