"How does this work?" Meyer asked. "Do you take the money out of the wallet and put it in one of the lock boxes? Or do you ...?was "You're askin' me?" the clerk said. "I just started here this morning. And I'll be glad to get out of here, I'm tellin' you.”
"'Cause what we'd like to take a look at," Carella said, "is the wallet.”
"But not the cash, huh?”
"No, we're not particularly interested in the cash.”
"They got lock boxes down here with millions of dollars in cash in them, would you believe it?”
"I believe it," Carella said.
"From dope raids," Di Luca said.
"Somebody wants to get smart, he should hold up this joint, he'd get more than he would in a bank heist.”
"It's been done," Meyer said.
"Everything's been done," Di Luca said sadly. "Let me see if I can find somebody knows what the fuck is goin' on here.”
He came back some five minutes later with another clerk in blue uniform. This one knew the system. He told them he'd been working for the Property Clerk's Office for fifteen years, and, if they wanted to know, he liked the old one better than this one, however crowded and cramped it might have been. His name tag read: R.
BALDINI.
"They call me The Great Baldini," he said, "'cause I'm the only one in this office can find anything. So what is it you're interested in? The man's billfold?”
"Actually, the papers that were in it," Carella said.
"What we do," Baldini said, "there are thieves in the Police Department, I guess you know that. Plenty of them.”
"You better believe it," Di Luca said.
"So what we do, we got the mesh cages for jewelry and such, and the lock boxes for cash. Because of all the sticky fingers we get down here. But usually, we don't separate cash that's in a person's wallet or handbag. Because that's like a package, you understand? We don't break up the package.”
"Uh-huh," Carella said.
"So what we have to do is go back to the computer again, and get the index number for this guy's shit.
It's the index number we follow all the way through. It's like the Dewey Decimal System, you familiar with the Dewey Decimal System?”
"No," Carella said.
"No," Meyer said.
"No," Di Luca said.
"I used to be a lib'arian," Baldini said.
"What we used was the Dewey Decimal System. It works the same here, only we got what we call these index numbers. All the guy's shit will be under the same index number.
Whether it's clothes, jewelry, money, whatever, it'll have the same index number in different locations here. You understand what I'm saying?”
"No," Di Luca said.
"You must do great up there in the I.S.,”
Baldini said dryly, and led them back to the computer again. Once again, they punched up TILLY, ROGER TURNER. But this time Baldini showed them a letter-and-number sequence somewhat to the right of and slightly above the name: RLD 34-21-679.
"I'll be damned," Di Luca said.
Baldini led them back through the rows and rows of open shelves, indicating the index numbers that defined each folded pile of clothing, showing them similar identifying numbers on the locked mesh cages with their little gray plastic trays of wristwatches and wallets, necklaces and rings, bracelets and earrings, all separately identified inside the cages, stopping at last before a cage marked RLD 34-21 and on a separate line below that 650-680. From a - ring hanging on his belt, Baldini found the key he wanted, and unlocked the cage.
"It may be in here," he said, "or it may be in one of the boxes. Depends how much money was in the wallet.”
"According to the list, four hundred and thirty-five bucks," Meyer said.
"Usually, we'll put five-hundred or over in the boxes.”
In a gray plastic tray tagged with the sequence RLD 34-21-679, they found Tilly's watch, ring, tie tack, and pen, an open package of Marlboro cigarettes, a matchbook, a plastic bag with three subway tokens, two quarters, four dimes, one nickel, and three pennies in it, an open package of Wrigley Spearmint chewing gum, and a brown leather wallet.
"Okay to look through the wallet?" Carella asked.
"Take the whole tray with you, if you like,”
Baldini said. "There's a room back there you can sit in, make yourself comfortable. No smoking, please. When you're done, take the tray back to the counter, and we'll check the inventory against the computer list.”
"Thanks," Carella said.
They carried the tray to the door Baldini had indicated, and went into a windowless room behind it.
There was a long wooden table with a dozen or more wooden chairs around it and a row of cheerless fluorescent lights above it. Two men in suits were sitting at the far end of the table, poring over the contents of another gray plastic tray.
Carella recognized one of them as a detective from the Tenth. He nodded hello, and then he and Meyer took off their coats, draped them over one of the chairs, and sat down to look through Tilly's wallet.
All of the cash was still there. Just so that no one could later accuse them of dipping into the cookie jar, they counted out the bills and made a list of the serial numbers on them. Four hundred and thirty-five dollars exactly, in hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens, and singles. In this city, that seemed like a lot of cash to be carrying around.
His chauffeur's license was made out to Roger Turner Tilly and it gave his date of birth as 10-15 ... "Birthdate of great men," Carella said, but did not amplify.
... and the license expiration date on the same day and month three years from now. They calculated that Tilly would have been only twenty-seven years old when he was shot and killed. He had given his address as 178 St. Paul's Avenue in Isola, smack in the heart of L'Infierno, the city's most densely populated Hispanic sector. The blue field behind his photograph indicated to any policeman that he was licensed to drive a motor vehicle only while wearing corrective lenses. The inventory list of his possessions had not included eyeglasses, but perhaps he'd been wearing contacts.
The miscellaneous papers and cards included a laminated card from a video rental store called Videodrome, bearing the serial number MRL 06732 and the name Roger Tilly hand-lettered in blue ink; a slip of paper with the name Arthur written on it, and below that 64 Charlesgate East, Boston 02215, and below that Sweater -Large, Shirt 16-32, Belt 32; and similar little scraps of paper listing addresses and sizes for another male named Frank and two females respectively named Paquita and Gerry. All of the little notes were written in the same bold hand, presumably Tilly's. There was also a booklet of first-class postage stamps and a card that gave the address and telephone number of a gypsy cab company.
There was only one other business card in the wallet.
For an investment firm called Laub, Kramer, Steele and Worth at 3301 Steinway Street.
In the lower right-hand corner of the card was the name Martin Bowles.
There was the certain knowledge that death had been to this place.
The police padlock on the door, yes, and the yellow plastic crime-scene tapes, and the black-and-white sign tacked to the wall, advising that the area was closed to all but Police Department personnel, all these, yes. But more.
They unlocked the door, and Meyer flicked the light switch on the wall to the right, and the two men went down the steep staircase into the - basement where a naked light bulb dangled at the bottom of the steps, everything dark beyond its circle of illumination. Now there was the lingering chilling sense that death had passed this way and left behind its sullen shadow.