“Hello?” a man’s voice said.
“Mr. Corbett?”
“Yes?” The voice sounded a trifle annoyed. Carella realized it was still only a little before 9:00 on a Saturday morning—the big Christmas weekend no less. Under the blanket, Teddy’s hand roamed familiarly.
“I’m sorry to bother you so early in the morning,” Carella said. “This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad. I’m investigating the murder of Gregory Craig.”
“Oh. Yes,” Corbett said.
“I was wondering if I might stop by there a little later this morning,” Carella said. “There are some questions I’d like to ask you.”
“Yes, certainly.”
Carella looked at the bedside clock. “Would ten o’clock be all right?”
Beside him, Teddy read his lips and shook her head.
“Or eleven,” Carella corrected, “whichever is more convenient for you.”
“Eleven would be better,” Corbett said.
“May I have the address there, please?”
Corbett gave it to him. As Carella wrote, Teddy’s hand became more insistent.
“I’ll see you at eleven,” he said, “thanks a lot,” and hung up, and turned to her.
“I have to call Cotton first,” he said.
She rolled her eyes heavenward.
“It’ll only take a minute.”
She released him as suddenly as she had grasped him and with a sigh lay back against the pillow, her hands behind her head, the bedclothes lowered to her thighs, the baby doll gown carelessly exposing the black triangular patch of hair below the hem.
“Cotton,” he said, “I’ve made an appointment with Daniel Corbett for eleven o’clock. He’s down in the Quarter. Can you meet me there?”
“How’d you find him?” Hawes asked.
“The Spook called.”
“Out of the blue?”
“Flux. Write this down, will you?” Carella said, and read off the address. “Eleven o’clock.”
“See you there,” Hawes said, and hung up.
Carella put the receiver back on the cradle and rolled over to Teddy. Her hands were still behind her head; there was an expression of utter boredom on her face.
“Okay,” he said.
She sat up suddenly. Her hands fluttered on the air. He watched her fingers, reading the words they formed, and then began grinning.
“What do you mean, you’ve got a headache?” he said.
Her hands moved again, fluidly, fluently.
I always get headaches when people stay on the phone too long, she said.
“I’m off the phone now,” he said.
She shrugged airily.
“So what do you say?”
She shrugged again.
“You want to fool around a little?” he asked, grinning.
Her eyes narrowed smokily, in imitation of some bygone silent-movie star. She wet her lips with her tongue. She lowered one strap of the gown from her shoulder, exposing her breast. Her hands moved again. I want to fool around a lot, big boy, she said, and licked her lips again, and fell greedily into his arms.
The Quarter on that Saturday before Christmas was thronged with last-minute shoppers, who milled along the sidewalks and swarmed into the stores in search of bargains they would never find. There was a time, not too many decades ago, when this section of the city was still known as the Artists’ Quarter, and when it was possible to find here first-rate paintings or pieces of sculpture, hand-fashioned silver and gold jewelry, leather goods the equal of any tooled in Florence, lavish art books and prints, blouses and smocks hand-stitched in Mexico, wood carvings and jade, pottery and exotic plants—all at reasonable prices. Them days was gone forever, Gertie. No longer was it possible to rent a garret here and starve in it. No longer was it possible to find anything of quality at less than exorbitant prices. The name had changed those many years ago, and the area’s uniqueness had vanished with it; the Quarter was now only another tourist attraction in a city that laid its traps like a fur trader. And still the shoppers came, ever hopeful of finding something here they could not find in the fancy shops lining Hall Avenue uptown.
As everywhere else in the city, the lampposts were now entwined with yuletide ropes and garlands of pine or holly. The storefront windows were sprayed with clouds of white paint in a vain attempt to simulate frost. Behind the plate glass, beds of cotton sprinkled with blue sequins were intended to evoke memories of snow-covered meadows. The huge Christmas trees in the area’s still-existing plazas and squares were festooned with outdoor bulbs that glowed feebly in the late-morning gloom. The sky had turned cloudy once again, and the plowed snow in the gutters was now the city’s favorite color: grime gray. The pavements had been shoveled only partially clear of the earlier snowfall, and there were treacherous icy patches to navigate. Nothing deterred the avid late shoppers. They plunged ahead like salmon swimming upstream to mate in icy waters.
Daniel Corbett lived in one of the area’s remaining mews. A sculpted black wrought-iron fence enclosed a small courtyard paved with slate and led to the hidden front door of a house in an alleyway protected from the side street by a stand of Australian pines. The door was painted bright orange, and there was a massive brass knocker on it. Had the door been anywhere near the sidewalk, the knocker would have been stolen in ten minutes flat. As it was, Carella decided Corbett was taking an enormous risk leaving it hanging out there in burnished invitation. He lifted the heavy brass and let it fall. Once, twice, again. Hawes looked at him.
“He knows we’re coming, doesn’t—?”
The door opened.
Daniel Corbett was a young and handsome man with straight black hair and brown eyes, an aquiline nose out of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a mouth out of The Razor’s Edge, and a jaw out of Brighton Rock. He was, in addition, wearing a red smoking jacket with a black velvet collar, straight out of Great Expectations. He was altogether a literary man.
“Mr. Corbett?” Carella said.
“Yes?”
“Detectives Carella and Hawes,” he said, and showed his shield.
“Yes, come in, please,” Corbett said.
What Corbett had promised in the flesh was now fully realized in the shell. The wood-paneled entrance foyer opened into a library lined with bookshelves that supported the weight of an entire publishing house’s output for the past ten years or more. Jacketed books in every color of the spectrum added a festive holiday note to the rich walnut paneling. Books bound in luxuriant leather provided a proper touch of permanence. A fire blazed on the hearth, flames dancing in yellows, reds, and blues undoubtedly generated by a chemically impregnated log. A Christmas tree stood in one corner of the room, decorated with delicate hand-blown German ornaments and miniature tree lights manufactured in Hong Kong. Corbett walked to where he had left a pipe burning in an ashtray beside a red leather armchair. He picked up the pipe, puffed on it, and said, “Please sit down.” Carella looked around for Dr. Watson but couldn’t see him anywhere in evidence. He sat in one of the two upholstered chairs facing the red leather chair. He felt like ringing for his nog. He wanted to take off his shoes and put on his velvet slippers. He wanted to cook a Christmas goose. He wanted to be looking forward to Boxing Day, whatever that was. Hawes sat in the chair beside him. Corbett, as befitted his station as master of the domicile, sat in the red leather chair and puffed on his pipe.