He cut a king pineapple for them in the kitchen, cut it so that the outside shell could be lifted off in one piece, exposing the ripe yellow meat beneath the prickly exterior, the fruit sliced and ready to be lifted off in long slender pieces. They drank their tea, savoring the aroma and the warmth, their stomachs full, their minds and their bodies relaxed.
"How's August nineteenth sound to you?"
Teddy shrugged.
"It's a Saturday. Would you like to get married on a Saturday?"
Yes, her eyes said.
Charlie brought them their fortune cookies and replenished the tea pot.
Carella broke open his cookie. Then, before he read the message on the narrow slip of paper, he said, "Do you know the one about the man who opened one of these in a Chinese restaurant?"
Teddy shook her head.
"It said, 'Don't eat the soup. Signed, a friend.'"
Teddy laughed and then gestured to his fortune slip. Carella read it aloud to her:
"You are the luckiest man alive. You are about to marry Theodora Franklin."
She said "Oh!" in soundless exasperation, and then took the slip from him. The slender script read: "You are good with figures."
"Your figure," he said.
Teddy smiled and broke open her cookie. Her face clouded momentarily.
"What is it?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"Let me see it."
She tried to keep the fortune slip from him, but he got it out of her hand and read it.
"Leo will roar—sleep no more."
Carella stared at the printed slip. "That's a hell of a thing to put in a cookie," he said. "What does it mean?" He thought for a moment. "Oh, Leo. Leo the Lion. July 22nd to August something, isn't it?"
Teddy nodded.
"Well, the meaning here is perfectly clear then. Once we're married, you're going to have a hell of a time sleeping."
He grinned, and the worry left her eyes. She smiled, nodded, and then reached across the table for his hand.
The broken cookie rested alongside their hands, and beside that the curled fortune slip.
Leo will roar—sleep no more.
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
the man's name was not Leo. The man's name was Peter. His last name was Byrnes.
He was roaring.
"What the hell kind of crap is this, Carella?"
"What?"
"Today's issue of this . . . this goddamn rag!" he shouted, pointing to the afternoon tabloid on his desk. "August 4th!"
Leo, Carella thought. "What . . . what do you mean, Lieutenant?"
"What do I mean?" Byrnes shouted. "WHAT DO I MEAN? Who the hell gave you the authority to reel off this crap to that idiot Savage?"
"What?"
"There are cops walking beats in Bethtown because they spouted off nonsense like ..."
"Savage? Let me see that..." Carella started
Byrnes flipped open the newspaper angrily. "Cop Defies Department!" he shouted. "That's the headline. COP DEFIES DEPARTMENT! What's the matter, Carella, aren't you happy here?"
"Let me see ..."
"And under that 'MAY KNOW MURDERER,' DETECTIVE SAYS."
"May know___"
"Did you tell this to Savage?"
"That I may know who the murderer is? Of course not Jesus, Pete..."
"Don't call me Pete! Here, read the goddamn story."
Carella took the newspaper. For some strange reason, his hands were trembling.
Sure enough, the story was on page four, and it was headlined:
COP DEFIES DEPARTMENT
'MAY KNOW MURDER,'
DETECTIVE SAYS
"But this is..." "Read it," Byrnes said. Carella read it.
The bar was cool and dim.
We sat opposite each other, Detective Stephen Carella and I. He toyed with his drink, and we talked of many things, but mostly we talked of murder.
"I've got an idea I know who killed those three cops," Carella said. "It's not the kind of idea you can take to your superiors, though. They wouldn't understand."
And so came the first ray of hope in the mystery which has baffled the masterminds of Homicide North and tied the hands of stubborn, opinionated Detective-Lieutenant Peter Byrnes of the 87th Precinct.
"I can't tell you very much more about it right now," Carella said, "because I'm still digging. But this cop-hater theory is all wrong. Ifs something in the personal lives of these three men, of that I'm sure. It needs work, but we'll crack it."
So spoke Detective Carella yesterday afternoon in a bar in the heart of the Murder Belt. He is a shy, withdrawn man, a man who—in his own words—is "not seeking glory."
"Police work is like any other kind of work," he told me, "except that we deal in crime. When you've got a hunch, you dig into it. If it pans out, then you bring it to your superiors, and maybe they'll listen, and maybe they won't."
Thus far, he has confided his "hunch" only to his fiancee, a lovely young lady named Theodora Franklin, a girl from Riverhead. Miss Franklin feels that Carella can "do no wrong," and is certain he will crack the case despite the inadequate fumblings of the department to date.
"There are skeletons in the closets," Carella said. "And those skeletons point to our man. We've got to dig deeper. It's just a matter of time now."
We sat in the cool dimness of the bar, and I felt the quiet strength emanating from this man who has the courage to go ahead with his investigation in spite of the Cop-Hater
Theory which pervades the dusty minds of the men working around him.
This man will find the murderer, I thought.
This man will relieve the city of its constant fear, its dread of an unknown killer roaming the streets with a wanton .45 automatic in his blood-stained fist. This man ...
"Jesus!" Carella said.
"Yeah," Byrnes answered. "Now what about it?"
"I never said these things. I mean, not this way. And he said it wasn't for print!" Carella suddenly exploded. "Where's the phone? I'm going to sue this son of a bitch for libel! He can't get away with ..."
"Calm down," Byrnes said.
"Why'd he drag Teddy into this? Does he want to make her a sitting duck for that stupid bastard with the .45? Is he out of his mind?"
"Calm down," Byrnes repeated.
"Calm down? I never said I knew who the murderer was! I never..."
"What did you say?"
"I only said I had an idea that I wanted to work on."
"And what's the idea?"
"That maybe this guy wasn't after cops at all. Maybe he was just after men. And maybe not even that. Maybe he was just after one man."
"Which one?"
"How the hell do I know? Why'd he mention Teddy? Jesus, what's the matter with this guy?"
"Nothing that a head doctor couldn't cure," Byrnes said.
"Listen, I want to go up to see Teddy. God knows . . ."
"What time is it?" Byrnes asked.
Carella looked at the wall clock. "Six-fifteen."
"Wait until six-thirty. Havilland will be back from supper by then."
"If I ever meet this guy Savage again," Carella promised, "I'm going to rip him in half."
"Or at least give him a speeding ticket," Byrnes commented.
The man in the black suit stood outside the apartment door, listening. A copy of the afternoon newspaper stuck up from the right-hand pocket of his jacket. His left shoulder throbbed with pain, and the weight of the .45 automatic tugged at the other pocket of his jacket, so that—favoring the wound, bearing the weight of the gun—he leaned slightly to his left while he listened.