Well, let’s try the bedroom, he thought. Big Jack had told him that a lot of bedroom dressers, the bottom drawer rested just on the frame of the dresser itself. There wasn’t a shelf or anything under the bottom drawer. This meant there was a space of about two, three inches between the drawer and the floor of the room. What a lot of people did, they pulled out the drawer, and then put their valuables right on the floor itself before they put the drawer back in. An inexperienced burglar would go through the drawer, but he wouldn’t think of pulling out the drawer to look on the floor.
Brother Anthony pulled out the bottom drawer. It was full of the girl’s panties and brassieres. Little nylon bikinis in all colors. Tiny little brassieres, she must’ve had small tits. He tried to visualize her in just her panties. She was really too skinny, but some of those skinny ones, the closer the bone, the sweeter the meat. He picked up a pair of panties, the purple ones, and held them in his hands for several moments before throwing them back into the drawer. He was here to find two things: either a stash of cocaine, or something that would tell him where the girl was getting her stuff.
He got down on his hands and knees and looked into the empty space where the drawer had been. He couldn’t see a thing. He stood up, turned on the lamp on the dresser, and got down on his hands and knees again. He still couldn’t see anything. He reached into the dresser and began feeling around with both hands. There was nothing on the floor. He picked up the drawer from where he had left it on the floor, carried it to the bed — nice big bed with a patchwork quilt — and dumped the contents on the bed. Nothing but brassieres and panties, damn girl must’ve changed her underwear three times a day. He guessed maybe dancers did that. Worked up a sweat, changed their underwear a lot.
He took out all the other drawers in the dresser and dumped them on the bed, too. Nothing but clothes. Blouses and sweaters and tights and T-shirts, a whole pile of girl stuff. No cocaine. Not a scrap of paper with anything written on it. The cops had probably fine-combed the place, taken anything that looked interesting. They probably sold whatever dope they confiscated, the cops. Worse crooks than the honest crooks in this city. He put his hands on his hips, and looked around. Now where? he wondered.
Big Jack had told him you could sometimes find heroin in a person’s sugar bowl, that’s if you got lucky enough to bust into some dealer’s apartment. You found a stash of dope, it was better than finding cash or credit cards or even coin collections. He went back into the kitchen again, looked for the sugar bowl, found it on the bottom shelf of one of the cabinets, took off the lid, and discovered that the bowl was full of pink Sweet ‘N’ Low packets. So much for that, may God have mercy on your soul. He went through all the cereal boxes in the cabinet, figuring she might have hidden a plastic-wrapped kilo inside one of the boxes, dumping out cornflakes and wheat germ and whatever, but he couldn’t find a thing. He went through the refrigerator. Nothing but an open container of yogurt and a lot of wilted vegetables. He went through every drawer in the living room, and felt under every tabletop, figuring the stuff might be taped under one of them. Nothing. He went back into the bedroom, and opened the door to the closet.
Girl had more clothes than a Hall Avenue department store. Even a fur coat. Raccoon, it looked like. Must have been making a bundle selling the snow, so where the hell was it? He began pulling dresses and coats from the hangers, patting down all the coat pockets, throwing everything on the floor behind him. Nothing. He opened all her shoe boxes. Sexy whore shoes, some of them, with high heels and ankle straps. He thought of her panties again. Nothing but shoes in any of the boxes. So where was it? He dug deeper into the closet.
He found a man’s clothes hanging on the rod, pushed to the far corner of the closet. Well, sure, it figured. Little whore with her sexy panties and her high-heeled shoes, of course there had to be some guy putting it to her. Nice cardigan sweater, brown, Brother Anthony would have taken it with him except that it looked too small. Pair of checked slacks, wouldn’t be caught dead in them even if they did fit him. A black silk robe with the monogram TM over the breast pocket. Little kinky sex, T. M.? You put on your black silk robe, she puts on her silk panties and her high-heeled hooker shoes, you sniff a little blow, and it’s off to the races! Very nice, T. M. Nice clothes you got here, T. M. But not too many of them, so you couldn’t have been living here with her, could you? Maybe you just dropped in every now and then, maybe you’re some married stockbroker who was knocking off an uptown piece every Wednesday afternoon when the market closed. No more nookie, T. M. The lady’s dead and gone.
Nice cashmere jacket, soft, tan. Another pair of pants. Green! Who would wear green pants except an Irishman on St. Patrick’s Day? A down ski parka. Blue. A small one, though. Must’ve been the girl’s, with one of those zipper collars that had a hood folded up inside it, in case you got cold on the ski lift at St. Moritz, my dear. He wouldn’t strap a pair of skis to his feet if you paid him $1 million! Yeah, here was the guy’s parka, a black one, like the robe. Are you a skier, T. M.? Did you take your little sweetheart skiing every now and then? He patted down all the pockets in the cashmere jacket, and then threw it on the floor behind him. He patted down the girl’s ski parka, the blue one. Nothing. He was about to toss it on the floor with all the other clothes when he felt something strange about the collar.
He took it in both hands and twisted it.
Something felt a little stiff in there.
He twisted the collar again. There was a faint crackling sound. Something was zipped up inside that collar, something in addition to the hood. He carried the parka to the bed. He sat on the edge of the bed, the panties and brassieres scattered everywhere around him. He felt the collar again. Yes, there was definitely something in there. Quickly, he unzipped it.
At first, he was only disappointed.
What he was holding in his hands was an envelope folded lengthwise, once and then again, so that it formed a narrow oblong that had easily fitted inside the zipped-up collar of the parka. He unfolded the envelope once. He unfolded it again. The letter was addressed to Sally Anderson. He looked at the return address in the upper left-hand corner. The name there meant nothing to him, but the place triggered an instant reaction, and he suspected at once that whereas he hadn’t found the coke itself, he might have found the primary source of the coke. He reached into the envelope and took out the handwritten letter. He began reading it. He could hear the ticking of his own watch. He realized he was holding his breath. Suddenly, he began giggling.
Now we move, he thought. Straight up into the big time, man, Cadillacs and Cuban cigars, champagne and caviar, man! Still giggling, he tucked the letter into his pouch, considered whether it was safe to go out the way he had come in, decided it was, and headed uptown to share the wealth with Emma.
Alonso Quadrado was naked when they walked in on him at 4:00 that afternoon. They considered this an advantage. A naked man feels uncomfortable talking to a person who is fully dressed. This was why burglars had an edge whenever they surprised some guy asleep in his bedroom, and he jumped out of bed naked and stood there with everything hanging out, facing an intruder who was wearing an overcoat and holding a gun in his hand. Alonso Quadrado was taking a shower in the locker room at the YMCA on Landis Avenue when the two detectives walked in. The two detectives were both wearing overcoats. One of them was wearing a hat. Quadrado was wearing nothing but a thin layer of soapsuds.