“Oh, yes. I was shocked!”
“But I didn’t murder Crandall, you know.”
“Well, of course you didn’t.”
“In fact, I didn’t murder anyone.”
“Well, I’m not too sure about that.”
“You can take my word for it. And please don’t change the subject. The reason the police think I killed Rainey …”
“Who?”
“… is that you and Felix Hooper stole my goddamn identification and …”
“Yes, but that was for a joke.”
“What joke? What do you mean?”
“The joke Charlie was going to play on his friend.”
“What friend?”
“He didn’t say.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he needed someone’s identification to play a joke on a friend of his. He said it wouldn’t really be stealing …”
“Oh, it wouldn’t, huh?”
“In that he would return the stuff to its rightful owner the moment he was through with it.”
“And just how did he plan to do that?”
“He said he would mail it all back.”
“And you believed him, huh?”
“Not entirely. But a thousand dollars is a lot of money.”
“What do you mean?”
“Charlie paid each of us a thousand for the job.”
“You and Felix.”
“Yes.”
Which accounted for two thousand dollars of the check Crandall had cashed on Friday. But where had the other seven thousand gone?
“I was the one who picked Felix for the part,” Judy said. “He was very good, didn’t you think?”
“Yes, excellent,” Michael said.
“Yes, he’s a very good actor. I still owe him the thousand, but Charlie hasn’t paid me yet.”
Nor is he likely to, Michael thought.
“So as I understand this,” he said, “you were supposed to steal my identification …”
“Well, borrow it, yes. And your money, too.”
“Why the money? If all you needed was my …”
“In case you went to the police. So it wouldn’t look as if we’d been after your I.D. Actually, it was the best improv Felix and I ever did together.”
“The best what?”
“Improvisation. Picking up a stranger in a bar, and then …”
“You mean I was chosen at random?”
“Well, not entirely. Charlie gave me the nod.”
“What nod?”
“To go ahead.”
“Go ahead?”
“Yes. He was sitting at the bar, listening to everything we said …”
“Yes, I know that.”
“And he gave me the okay, just this little nod, you know—do you remember when I looked down the bar?”
“No.”
“Well, I did. To get his okay. The nod.”
“To get his permission, you mean, to steal my goddamn …”
“Well, it was only for a joke, you know.”
“A murder was committed!”
“Well, I’m sorry about that, but Felix and I had nothing to do with it.”
“Where does Crandall fit in?” he asked.
“I have no idea, but he’s a very good director and I’m glad it wasn’t him you killed.”
“I didn’t kill anyone, goddamn it!”
“I don’t like profanity,” she said at once. “And if you want to know something, I’m beginning to find you enormously boring and a trifle sinister. If the police made a mistake, you should go to them and correct it, instead of breaking the concentration of someone who’s trying to master a very complex role.”
“That was very good,” he said sincerely. “You sounded absolutely royal.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked.
“Positively majestic. Better than Bette Davis in Elizabeth and Essex …”
“Honestly?”
“Even better than Hepburn in The Lion in Winter.”
“Oh dear,” she said.
“But would you happen to know a bar called Benny’s?”
“No. I’m not being too forceful, am I? Maybe I should temper the steel with a touch of lace.”
“No, I think you’ve got exactly the proper balance, really. On Christmas Eve, Crandall went to Benny’s to meet a man sent there by someone named Mama. Would you happen to know who Mama is?”
“Well, of course.”
“You do?”
“Mady Christians, am I right?”
“Who?” he said.
“That was in the original 1944 production, of course. When we did it fifteen years ago, a woman named …”
“Yes, but this Mama is an illegal alien. Would you know anyone …?”
“Oh,” she said. “That Mama.”
He held his breath.
“Charlie’s crack dealer,” she said. “I’ve never met her, but he talks about her all the time.”
“Do you know where she lives?” Michael asked.
Only her last name was on the mailbox.
Rodriguez.
The match Michael was holding went out.
The hallway was very dark again.
“Somebody peed in here,” Connie said.
Michael was thinking it would be very dangerous to ring Mama’s bell and then go up there to see her. He wondered if they should go up the fire escape again. Apartment 2C. Was what it said under the name Rodriguez on the mailbox.
Michael rang the bell for apartment 3B.
There was no answering buzz.
He tried 4D.
No answer.
“Is this an abandoned building?” he asked
Connie.
“Not that I noticed,” she said. “Why don’t you just kick the door in?”
He did not want to hurt the sole of his foot again by trying to kick in yet another door. And he didn’t want to throw his shoulder against the door, either, because his arm still hurt from getting shot and then hurling himself at Alice. He wondered if there were any medics here in this almost abandoned building.
What’s the matter, honey? Andrew asked.
Cute little baby girl, eight months old, not a day older. Crying her eyes out. Sitting the way the Orientals did. Squatting really. Legs folded under her, feet turned back. Bawling. Birds twittering in the jungle. The village not six hundred yards behind them. Friendlies. Charlie had left three days ago, the old man had told Mendelsohnn. Took all the rice, moved out. Had to be miles and miles away by now. The baby crying.
Come to Papa, sweetie.
Andrew reached for her.
Michael kicked out at the doorjamb, just above the lock. The door sprang open, surprising him, catching him off balance. He stumbled forward, following the opening door into a small ground-floor rectangle directly in front of a flight of steps. Connie was immediately behind him. “2C,” he said.
She nodded.
They began climbing the steps.
Four apartments on the second floor.
2A, B, C, and D. They stopped outside the door to 2C. He put his ear to the wood, listened the way Connie had told him cops did. He couldn’t hear a thing. He took the .22 out of the right-hand pocket of the bomber jacket. He wondered if he would need both pistols. Suppose Mama Rodriguez was sleeping inside there with a .357 Magnum under her pillow? In Vietnam, you slept—when you slept, if you slept—with your rifle in your hands. But sometimes …
Andrew’s rifle was slung.
His arms extended to the baby.
Come on, darlin’.
The baby blinking at him.
It had stopped raining.
A fan of sunlight touched the baby like a religious miracle.
“I don’t hear anything in there,” Michael said.
Birds twittering in the jungle. The leaves still wet. Water dripping onto the jungle floor. The baby had stopped crying. Fat tear-stained cheeks. Looking at Andrew wide-eyed as his hands closed on either side of her body, fingers widespread, lifting her, lifting her—
Michael was suddenly covered with sweat. Terrified again.
Terrified the way he’d been that day in Vietnam when Andrew picked up the baby. Afraid of what might be beyond that door. Afraid to enter the apartment beyond that door. Because beyond that door was the unknown. Mama. A woman named Mama who had ordered him murdered. Fat Mama Rodriguez inside there. Waiting and deadly. Like the baby.