“You want my opinion,” Gerardi said, “he’s the one on the take.”
“Almost broke my neck on those fuckin’ stairs,” Miller said.
“Two junkies stoned out of their minds. Place as empty as a hooker’s heart,” Gerardi said. “Somebody tipped them, I’m telling you.”
“Here he is,” Meyer said, and walked swiftly to the slatted rail divider. “Al,” he said, “come on in. You clear it okay?”
“Don’t know why I needed clearance in the first place,” the man said. He was wearing a brightly patterned, short-sleeved sports shirt, pale-blue cotton trousers, and sandals. He had clipped his plastic-encased I.D. card to his shirt pocket before coming into the muster room downstairs, as though he were entering Headquarters or something.
“This is Al Rodriguez,” Meyer said. “Gerardi and Miller from the Narc Squad. I think you know the others.”
“Yeah, hi,” Rodriguez said.
“You the guy been sitting that van?” Gerardi asked.
“Yeah,” Rodriguez said.
“So what happened tonight?”
“What do you mean?”
“We go up there, there’s only two junkies. Where’s the guys in all those pictures you took?”
“How the hell do I know?”
“You been sleepin’ inside that fuckin’ truck?”
“I been takin’ pictures,” Rodriguez said.
“So what pictures did you take tonight? Two junkies going up there for a private little party?”
“I don’t know who went up there or who didn’t go up there,” Rodriguez said. “I focus the camera on the front door, the camera takes the pictures. The camera clicks empty, I change the reel. I don’t know what’s on that film till it’s developed downtown. I sometimes don’t even know what’s on it after it’s developed.”
“Who turns on the camera?”
“I turn it on.”
“When?”
“Whenever somebody goes near that front door.”
“So who went near that front door tonight?”
“Lots of people.”
“Did lots of people go inside that building?”
“Sure,” Rodriguez said.
“So where’d they disappear to?”
“How the fuck do I know? Maybe they went up the roof to fly pigeons. I ain’t supposed to tail them, I’m only supposed to photograph them.”
“You recognize any of the people who went in that building?”
“Some of them looked familiar.”
“Did the two Frenchmen go in?”
“How the fuck do I know which of them is French or which of them ain’t?”
“You can tell a Frenchman,” Gerardi said.
“You shoulda called,” Miller said.
“What for?”
“To tell us what was happening there.”
“How the fuck do I know what was happening there? It looked the same as it does every month. Whole stream of guys going in, same guys as usual. I’m supposed to call to tell you it’s business as usual?”
“You shoulda called,” Miller said again.
“Listen, I’m tired,” Rodriguez said. “Is this why you dragged me up here? To hear a lot of bullshit about what I shoulda done or shouldn’ta done? I mean, tell it to my lieutenant, okay? You got a beef, go bend his ear. I’m goin’ home to sleep.”
“We’re gonna be looking at that film,” Gerardi warned.
“So look at it,” Rodriguez said heatedly. “Have a good time.”
“Take it easy,” Meyer said.
“Fuckin’ Narcs got nothing to do but squawk all the time,” Rodriguez said. “Why don’t you go find an honest job?” he said to Gerardi. “So long, Meyer,” he said, “you know where to reach me.” He walked to the railing, shoved his way through the gate, and went angrily downstairs, his footsteps sounding heavily on the iron-runged steps.
“So what now?” Miller asked.
“We try again next month,” Meyer said.
“Those guys’ll be in China by next month,” Gerardi said. “I’m telling you somebody tipped them. They know we’re bringing heat to bear, and they’re smart enough to stay far, far away from it. We can forget this bust, it’ll never come off.”
“We’ll call you when it won’t be coming off,” Meyer said.
“That’s supposed to be humor,” Gerardi said to his partner.
She came into the apartment at a little after midnight. He was sitting before the television set watching the beginning of an old movie.
“Hi,” she said from the front door, and then took her key from the lock, and came into the living room, and kissed him on top of his head.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“It was called off,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Some trouble with the hospital. They didn’t want us shooting outside. Said it would disturb the patients.”
“So where’d you end up shooting?” Kling asked.
“We didn’t. Had a big meeting instead. Up at Chelsea.”
“Chelsea?”
“Chelsea TV, Inc. Would you like a sandwich or something? I’m famished,” she said, and walked out to the kitchen.
He watched her as she went, kept watching her as she unwrapped a loaf of sliced bread at the kitchen counter. He could remember the first time they’d met, could remember all of it as if it were happening here and now, the call from Murchison on the desk downstairs, a Burglary Past at 657 Richardson Drive, Apartment 11D, see the lady.
The lady had long red hair and green eyes and a deep suntan.
She was wearing a dark-green sweater, a short brown skirt, and brown boots. Her legs were crossed, she was staring bleakly at the wall. His first impression of her was one of total harmony, a casual perfection of color and design, russet and green, hair and eyes, sweater and skirt, boots blending with the smoothness of her tan, the long sleek grace of crossed legs, the inquisitively angled head, the red hair cascading in clean vertical descent.
She had high cheekbones, the lady, eyes slanting up from them, fiercely green against the tan, tilted nose gently drawing the upper lip away from partially exposed, even white teeth. Her sweater swelled over breasts firm without a bra, the wool cinched tightly at her waist with a brown, brass-studded belt, hip softly carving an arc against the nubby sofa back, skirt revealing a secret thigh as she turned.
He had never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.
“Who are they?” he asked.
“What?” Augusta said from the kitchen.
“Chelsea TV.”
“The ad firm shooting the commercial.”
“Oh,” he said. “So what was the meeting about?”
“Rewriting, rescheduling, picking a new location — the same old jazz.” She licked the knife with which she’d been spreading peanut butter and said, “Mmm, you sure you don’t want some of this?”
“They needed you for that, huh?”
“For what?”
“Rewriting, and rescheduling, and—”
“Well, Larry wants me for the spot.”
“Larry?”
“Patterson. At Chelsea. He wrote the spot, and he’s directing it.”
“Oh, yeah, right.”
“So we had to figure out my availability and all that.”
He found himself staring at her as she came back into the living room, the sandwich in her hand, just the way he’d stared at her on their first date so long ago, couldn’t stop staring at her. When finally she’d told him to stop it, he was forced to admit he’d never been out with a girl as beautiful as she was, and she simply said he’d have to get over it, he could still remember her exact words.
“Well, you’ll have to get over it. Because I think you’re beautiful, too, and we’d have one hell of a relationship if all we did was sit around and stare at each other all the time. I mean, I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, and I’d like to think I’m permitted to sweat every now and then. I do sweat, you know.”