“The hospital,” he said.
“I’ve got a General Hospital and an Evacuation Hospital.”
“Let’s try the General Hospital.”
“Do you wish to write the number down, sir?”
“Yes, please,” Carella said.
“963-7047,” she said.
“Thank you,” Carella said. “That’s 963...”
But she’d already hung up. He sighed, dialed the number 1, and then the area code, and then the numerals 963, and then the numerals 7047. The phone rang. Across the room, Genero, whose tastes were catholic, switched the radio to a rock-and-roll station. Up in Paxton, the phone was still ringing. Carella wondered if the hospital was closed.
“Hospital,” a man’s voice said.
“Is this the Fort Mercer General Hospital?” Carella asked.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“This is Detective Carella, 87th Squad, Isola. I’m calling in regard to a patient you had there some ten years ago. I wonder if I could talk to someone who—”
“Who did you want to talk to, sir?”
“Whoever might have detailed knowledge of the patient.”
“Well, sir... how would I know who that might be, sir?”
“Is there anyone there who goes back ten years?”
“Yes, sir, I’m sure there is. But... sir, this is a very big facility, sir, I really wouldn’t know where to connect you.”
“May I speak to whoever is in command of the facility?”
“That would be General Wrigley, sir.”
“Could you connect me, please?”
“Just one moment, sir.”
Carella waited. A woman’s voice came on the phone almost instantly.
“General Wrigley’s office.”
“This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad in Isola. May I please speak to the general?”
“I’m sorry, sir, he isn’t in today.”
“Perhaps you can help me,” Carella said.
“I’ll try, sir.”
“We’re investigating a homicide in which the victim was once a patient at Fort Mercer. I’m trying to learn whatever I can about him.”
“When was he a patient here?”
“Ten years ago.”
“Mm,” the woman said.
“I know that’s a long time ago.”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“But I’m sure your records go back that far.”
“Yes, sir, they do, that’s not the problem.”
“What is the problem?”
“Sir, I really don’t think this is something that can be handled on the telephone.”
“I was trying to save myself a trip upstate. This is a homicide.”
“Well, HI put you through to Records.”
“Thank you.”
“Just hang on,” she said. “It’ll sound as if I’m hanging up, but I’m only transferring the call.”
“Thank you.”
Again he waited. He decided that homicide was an intrusion. Nobody wanted intrusions in their lives, nobody wanted you calling from the big city to ask about a man who’d passed this way ten years ago. Hell with that. There was a hospital to run here, a facility. Lots of sick people here. I’ll put you through to Records. Records might be interested. Records dealt with history, the distant past and the more recent. I’ll put you through to Records because we here among the quick albeit sick just can’t be bothered, you see, with corpses who once lived in the neighborhood.
“Records, Sergeant Hollister speaking.”
“This is Detective Carella, 87th Squad, I’m looking for some information about a homicide victim.”
Sergeant Hollister whistled. “Shoot,” he said.
“The name is James Harris, he was in the Fort Mercer hospital ten years ago.”
“Any middle name?”
“Randolph.”
“This’ll take some time,” Hollister said. “Let me get back to you.”
“The number here is Frederick 7-8024. But, Sergeant...”
“Yes, sir?”
“I’m really more interested in talking to someone who might have known him while he was there. I mean, rather than you reading to me from his records.”
“Well, let me see what the records indicate, okay, sir? I’ll get back to you in a little while.”
“Sergeant, this is a homicide.”
“Yes, sir, I understand that.”
“Thank you, I’ll be waiting for your call.”
There was a click on the line. Carella looked up at the wall clock. The time was 10:37 a.m.
“How do you spell vehicular?” Genero asked
"You’ve got the dictionary right there, just look it up,” Carella said.
“How can I look it up if I don’t know how to spell it?”
“Well, you know it starts with a V, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but then what?” Genero said.
Carella looked up at the clock again.
The time was 10:38 a.m.
The call from upstate did not come till a few minutes past eleven. By then Carella had called the I.S. for a routine check on Charles C. Clarke, and had finished typing his updated reports in triplicate. The I.S. had promised to get back to him at once. He expected he would hear from them by Monday unless he called them again later in the day. He also expected he would have to call the hospital back. In America, and maybe throughout the whole wide world for all he knew, nobody ever got anything done unless you called twice. And then followed the second call with a letter. And then called again a week after the follow-up letter. He suspected it had been this way in ancient Rome, just before the barbarian hordes broke through the northern barricades and rode their ponies into the streets. Senators picking up the skirts of their togas and running for their lives, clutching unanswered tablets to their chests. Secretaries running along behind them, chewing gum, clothes in disarray.
“87th Squad, Carella.”
“This is Colonel Anderson, Fort Mercer Hospital.”
“Yes, sir,” Carella said.
“A Sergeant Hollister in Records called to say you were interested in a patient I treated several years back.”
“Yes, sir, a man named James Harris.”
“Hollister said he’d been murdered, is that true?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Anderson said. “What is it you want to know, Mr. Carella?”
“This will sound ridiculous.”
“Try me.”
“I was talking to his mother this morning, and she told me he was having nightmares.”
“Yes?”
“I’d like to talk to anyone who might know something about them.”
“The nightmares?”
“Yes, the nature of the nightmares.”
“I’m a plastic surgeon, I didn’t have anything to do with his mental rehabilitation. He’d been through three other hospitals before he reached us, you understand. Our goal was to prepare him for civilian life after the terrible trauma he’d suffered. The wound was a particularly vicious one, requiring a great deal of reconstructive surgery. But it was the psychiatric team who worked toward adjusting him realistically to his new situation. They’re the ones who’d know about any nightmares.”
“Who headed up the team, can you tell me that?” “That would have been Colonel Konigsberg.”
“I wonder if I could speak to him.”
“He’s no longer here. He was transferred to Walter Reed in Washington, you might try him there. That would be Colonel Paul — well, wait a minute, he was a colonel when he left here, he might well be a brigadier general by now.”
“Colonel Anderson, where would the psychiatric records be? Would they still be there at Fort Mercer?”