“Anybody else here?” Meyer asked.
The woman shook her head.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Mary,” she said.
“Mary what?”
“What’s my name?” she asked the black man.
The black man shrugged.
“How about you?” Meyer asked him.
“Jefferson Hill.”
“Where’d you get this shit?” one of the Narc cops asked, picking up an empty glassine packet.
“Mary?” Hill said. “Where we get this?”
“Good shit,” Mary said, and nodded.
“Where’re the guys running this place?” Brown asked.
“Where’re the guys, Mary?” Hill asked.
“Yeah,” Mary said, and shrugged.
“All this for a couple of fuckin’ junkies,” the other Narc cop said.
Some you win, some you lose.
Augusta had told him they’d be shooting outdoors tonight, at Long General downtown, something to do with juxtaposing the new line of ski fashions with the stark, monolithic architecture of the hospital and the starched white uniforms of the staff nurses they’d be using as background extras. The commercial would not appear on television till December sometime, Augusta explained, they worked very far in advance. She was not looking forward to the assignment. Modeling ski parkas, in the stifling heat under bright lights, was not her idea of an ideal way to spend a summer night.
Kling hadn’t believed a word of it.
A call to the senior security officer at the hospital informed him that no plans had been made for anyone to take pictures in or around the place that night. “This is a hospital,” the security man said somewhat testily, “there are sick people here, we don’t allow such shenanigans here.”
Marveling at the blatancy of her lie, Kling thanked the man politely, and then sat at his desk in the squadroom, staring at the windows, listening to the lost sounds of summer outside. In a little while, he said good night to Carella, and went downstairs, and told Murchison on the muster desk that he was checking out, and then walked the two blocks to the kiosk on Grover, and took the subway downtown.
The lights on the first floor of the building on Hopper Street, in the apartment occupied by the painter Michael Lucas, were out. So were the lights on the second floor; Martha and Michelle were most likely prowling the town, and God knew where Franny the possible hooker was. He expected the photographers’ studios on the third and fourth floors to be dark, and they were. But the fifth-floor apartment — the one rented or owned by the man who modeled “mostly fashion, occasional beefcake,” the man named Bradford Douglas with his bulging muscles and his flowing blond hair — his apartment was ablaze with light across the entire top floor of the building. Kling was tempted to go up there and kick in the door, no search warrant with a No-Knock provision, just kick the damn thing in and find Augusta there.
He stood across the street, in the shadows, thirty feet or more away from the single lamppost on the corner. The shops and restaurants lining the street were closed for the night; this was now a little past eleven, and Augusta had left for her imaginary shoot at a quarter to nine. He looked up at the lighted windows. In his mind, they became multiple screens flashing pornographic movies, Augusta scantily clad, Douglas bare-chested, Augusta in his arms, Augusta accepting his embrace and his kisses, Augusta opening herself to—
The first shot took him completely by surprise.
He heard the roar of the gun somewhere off to his left, beyond the circle of light cast by the street-corner lamppost, heard the slug as it whacked home against the brick of the building, saw from the corner of his eye the brick a foot away from his head shatter with the impact of the bullet, throwing flying pieces of soot-stained red into the air. By the time the second shot came, he was flat on his belly on the sidewalk, his pistol in his hand, his heart beating wildly, his eyes scanning the darkness beyond the circle of light. There was a third shot, triggered off in haste, and then the sound of footsteps pounding away into the darkness. As he scrambled to his feet, he saw the running man cross a pool of light under another lamppost. Dark windbreaker and fedora. Gun flailing in his right hand as he pumped the air like a track star. He disappeared around the corner just as Kling began chasing him, and was gone when Kling reached the lamppost.
Out of breath, he walked back to where he thought the shots had come from. On his hands and knees, he began searching the pavement, touching, feeling with his palms and his fingers, looking for spent cartridge cases. All he got was dirty hands. Either this wasn’t the exact spot or else the man had been firing a revolver rather than an automatic. He went back to where he’d been standing when the shooting started. The hole in the brick wall was at least six inches in diameter; his assailant had been using a high-powered gun. The area was dark. He looked up and down the street, hoping to find a radio motor-patrol car; the patrolmen would be carrying torchlights. The street was empty of traffic. Never a cop around when you needed one. He got down on his hands and knees again, in the dark, and began feeling the sidewalk, searching for bullets. He found only one, in pretty good shape, not too badly deformed. He pocketed the slug, debated phoning this in to the local precinct, and decided against it. Instead, he walked up to the lighted avenue two blocks away, hailed a taxi, and told the driver to take him to Long General. There were no photographers and no models outside the hospital. He gave the driver his home address, and then nervously took a cigarette from the package he’d bought that morning, and lighted it, his hands trembling. The last time he’d smoked was on his wedding night, almost four years ago, when Augusta, his bride, was abducted by a lunatic who’d then held her captive for three days.
The cabbie said, “Would you mind putting that out, please? I’m allergic to cigarette smoke.”
“What?” Kling said.
“There’s a sign back there, can’t you see the sign?” the cabbie said.
Kling put out the cigarette.
Back at the ranch, they were discussing the abortive raid.
“They must’ve been tipped,” Gerardi, the older of the Narc Squad cops said.
“I don’t think so,” Meyer said.
“Then how come we find only two junkies with track marks running from their shoulders to their assholes?”
“It must’ve been called off,” Brown said. “Maybe the shipment was delayed.”
“Delayed, my ass,” Miller, the other Narc said. “Somebody tipped them.”
“You should tighten your security up here,” Gerardi said.
“What’ve you got up here?” Miller asked. “Some cop on the take?”
Brown glared at him and said nothing. Brown’s glares were often more meaningful than a thousand words.
“Where’s the son of a bitch sitting that bakery truck?” Gerardi asked. “I thought he was supposed to come up here.”
“He’s clearing it with Photo,” Willis said.
“What?” Gerardi said.
“He’s with Photo, he’s got to clear it with his command.”
“Clear what with his command? Coming up here to tell us what the hell happened tonight?”
“He’ll be here,” Willis said.
“When? It’s half past eleven already.”
“As soon as he clears it.”
“He’s trying to save his ass, is what he’s trying to do,” Miller said. “How come we weren’t tipped?”
“What do you mean?” Hawes asked.
“How come the guy in that van, who’s sitting there day and night taking pictures, didn’t radio in to say there was nobody up there but a coupla hopheads?”