“Yes, yes,” the judge said. “All right,” he said, “I’ll grant the warrant. And the No-Knock.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Kling said, and took his handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his brow.
The lie, as he rationalized it, was only a partial falsehood. An attempted murder had taken place, and the weapon he’d described was the one used last night. But neither Henry Watkins nor anyone else had told him Bradford Douglas was in possession of such a gun; if indeed he found it in Douglas’s apartment tonight, that would be strictly a bonus. He would be going there tonight looking for Augusta. The No-Knock provision gave him the right to kick in the door, no hiding in a closet or a bathroom, catch her there dead to rights.
As he came down the broad white steps of the courthouse, the heat enveloping him like a shroud, he felt a gloomy certainty that tonight would be the end of it. And he longed for it to be the beginning instead, when he and Augusta were both fresh and new and shining with hope.
Hope is the thing with feathers.
Halloran watched him as he came down the courthouse steps.
He wondered what he’d been doing up there. Went to court this morning, met the redhead for lunch at twelve, then went back to the courthouse again. Busy with his little cases, the bastard. The redhead had to be his wife, or else some cheap cunt he was living with. She’d be living with a corpse tomorrow morning.
He had missed last night, but he wouldn’t miss again.
Tonight, he wouldn’t miss.
Tonight, he’d shove the gun in that bastard’s face and do the job right, make that bastard eat the barrel and chew on the slug before it ripped off the back of his head.
Tonight.
At four that afternoon, Carella called Grossman’s office. A woman answered the phone. She identified herself as Mrs. Di Marco, one of the lab assistants.
“The captain’s not here,” she said. “Who’s this?”
“Detective Carella, 87th Squad. When will he be back, do you know?”
“He just left. He’s been in court all week, a man’s entitled to go home when he’s been in court all week.”
“Then he’s gone for the day, is that it?”
“He’s gone for the day, yes.”
“Would you know if he had a chance to look over any papers on his desk?”
“He looked at some papers, yes. He even took some papers home with him.”
“Thanks,” Carella said, “I’ll call him at home then.”
“He didn’t go home.”
“You just said—”
“That was figurative. He was taking his wife to dinner.”
“All right, I’ll call him later tonight then.”
“Why don’t you call him tomorrow morning instead? People don’t like to be disturbed at home.”
“Good-bye, Mrs. Di Marco,” Carella said, and hung up.
It would have to wait, after all.
The city succumbed to the night with a sigh of gratitude.
It was not that the temperature dropped all that much. Neither did the humidity. But the night brought with it a semblance of relief, the false impression that darkness could be equated with coolness. At least the sun was gone from the sky, its blistering assault only an unmourned memory.
Now there was the night.
10
He wanted to make sure he’d given her enough time to get here.
She had called him at the squadroom at nine o’clock, to say she was going to the movies after all, if he wouldn’t mind, and would be catching the 9:27 show, just around the corner, he didn’t have to worry about her getting home safe, the avenue was well-lighted. She had then gone on to reel off the name of the movie she’d be seeing, the novel upon which it was based, the stars who were in it, and had even quoted from a review she’d read on it. She had done her homework well.
It was now a little past ten.
The windows on the first floor of the Hopper Street building were lighted; Michael Lucas, the painter, was home. On the second floor, only the lights to the apartment shared by Martha and Michelle were on; Franny next door was apparently uptown with her Zooey. The lights on the third and fourth floors were out, as usual. Only one light burned on the fifth floor, at the northernmost end of Bradford Douglas’s apartment — the bedroom light, Kling thought.
He waited.
In a little while, the light went out.
He crossed the street and rang the service bell. Henry Watkins, the superintendent he’d talked to this past Tuesday, opened the door when he identified himself.
“What’s it now?” Watkins asked.
“Same old runaway,” Kling said. “Have to ask a few more questions.”
“Help yourself,” Watkins said, and shrugged. “Let yourself out when you’re finished, just pull the door shut hard behind you.”
“Thanks,” Kling said.
He waited until Watkins went back into his own ground-floor apartment, and then he started up the iron-runged steps. On the first floor, a stereo was blaring rock and roll music behind Lucas’s closed door. On the second floor, he heard nothing as he passed the door to the apartment shared by the two women. He walked past the studio belonging to Peter Lang, the photographer on the third floor, and then took the steps up to the fourth floor. The light was still out in the hallway there. He picked his way through the dark again, and went up the stairs to the fifth floor.
His heart was pounding.
Carella did not reach Sam Grossman at home until a quarter past ten that night. The first thing Grossman said was, “I’ve got a good one for you.”
He was about to tell a joke. Carella could virtually feel over the telephone wires the contained glee in his voice. Grossman was a tall and angular man, who’d have looked more at home on a New England farm than in the sterile orderliness of a police laboratory. He wore glasses, his eyes a guileless blue behind them. There was a gentility to his manner, a quiet warmth reminiscent of a long-lost era, even though his voice normally rapped out scientific facts with staccato authority. Except when he was telling a joke. When he was telling a joke, he took his time.
“This shyster attorney is scheduled for a court appearance downtown,” Grossman said, “the Criminal Courts Building downtown. You know how tough it is to park down there?”
“Yes,” Carella said. He was already smiling.
“So he circles the block, and he circles the block again, and the time is ticking away, and the judge who’s going to hear the case is a stickler for punctuality. So finally the lawyer parks in a No Parking zone, and he writes a little note. The note says, ‘I’m an attorney with a criminal case to try, and I’m late, and I’ve been circling this block for the past twenty minutes, and finally I had to park here. Forgive us our trespasses.’ And he takes out a five-dollar bill, and folds it neatly inside the note, and sticks the bill and the note under the windshield wiper.”
“Forgive us our trespasses,” Carella said, still smiling.
“Yes, and a five-dollar bill,” Grossman said. “So he comes down again four hours later, and his note and the five-dollar bill are still under the windshield, but there’s also a summons for the parking violation and a note from the patrolman who wrote the ticket. And the cop’s note says, ‘I’ve been circling this block for the past twenty years. Lead us not into temptation.’”
Carella burst out laughing. Cops loved nothing better than jokes about foiled bribery attempts.
“Brighten your day?” Grossman said, chuckling.