He pressed the bell-button under the box. Nothing. He pressed it again, ready to reach for the inner-lobby door when the buzz sounded. Nothing came. At the end of the row of mailboxes, he found the super’s box, and pressed the button under it. He waited several moments and was about to press it again when an answering buzz came. Leaping for the handle on the lobby door, he opened the door and stepped into a larger space that was dry with contained heat. Against the wall on his left, a pair of radiators hissed and whistled. A single elevator with a pair of spray-painted brass doors was on the rear wall. On the right of the lobby, taped to the wall there, Carella saw a piece of cardboard with the word Super hand-lettered onto it, a black arrow under it. He followed the arrow and knocked on the door to apartment 10. A man’s voice said, “Yeah, who is it?”
“Police,” Carella said.
“Who?”
“Police.”
“Shit,” the man said.
Carella waited. Behind the door he could hear shuffling and muttering, those famous vaudeville performers. At last the door opened. The superintendent was a white man in his late sixties, Carella guessed, wearing rumpled blue trousers, a tank-top white undershirt and badly scruffed red velveteen house slippers. He looked grizzled and bleary-eyed. Through the open door to the room beyond the kitchen, Carella could see the edge of the bed with the covers thrown back. He suspected he’d wakened the superintendent, and further suspected he would not be overly receptive to questions about Stephanie Welles. The super’s tone immediately confirmed all suspicions.
“Well, what is it?” he said.
“Sorry to bother you this time of night,” Carella said.
“Yeah, well you already bothered me, so what is it?”
“I’m investigating a homicide, and I’d—”
“Somebody in this building?”
“No, sir.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“I’m trying to locate a woman named Stephanie Welles. I thought she might have—”
“She ain’t home,” the super said.
Carella looked at him.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“Working. She works nights.”
“You mean she still lives here?” Carella asked.
“Of course she lives here. Why are you here looking for her if she don’t live here?”
“She doesn’t live in Chicago?”
“Do I live in Chicago? Do you live in Chicago?”
“I thought she’d moved to Chicago.”
“No, she ain’t moved to Chicago.”
“Where does she work, can you tell me that?”
“You planning to bust her?”
“What for?”
“It’s legal what she does.”
“What does she do?”
“I won’t tell you where she works if you’re planning to go there and bust her.”
“I want to ask her some questions about the woman who was killed.”
“What woman?”
“Her name is Hester Mathieson, would you know her?”
“No.”
“Would you know anyone named Jimmy Harris?”
“No.”
“Or Isabel Harris?”
“No.”
“Ever hear Miss Welles mention any of those people?”
“I don’t know her that good,” the super said. “I only know she works nights, and I know that what she does is legal. So if you’re going to go running down there tryin to bust her—”
“Running down where?”
“Where she works.”
“Where’s that?”
“I ain’t tellin you,” the super said, and started to close the door. Carella put his foot into the wedge. “Get your foot out of there,” the super said.
“I can find out where she works,” Carella said. “But that’ll mean more trouble for me.”
“So?”
“So then I’ll come back about your garbage cans.”
“My garbage cans are fine.”
“Or the pipes in your basement. Or the electrical wiring. Mister, I’ll find something, believe me. I’m very good at finding something.”
“I’ll bet,” the super said. “But you ain’t gonna find Stephanie Welles by threatening me.”
“Where does she work?” Carella said. “And stop pushing that damn door against my foot.”
“You going to bust her?”
“I’m going to question her about a homicide victim.”
“She didn’t kill nobody.”
“I thought you didn’t know her too well.”
“I know her well enough to know she didn’t kill nobody.”
“Where does she work?”
“Place called The Tahitian Gardens.”
“What is it, a massage parlor?”
“It’s a health club.”
“Sure,” Carella said.
“It’s legal,” the super said.
Carella took his foot out of the door, and the super slammed it shut.
Ten
The Tahitian Gardens was crosstown and slightly uptown on Talbot Avenue, four blocks from the Calm’s Point Bridge. As short a time as ten years back, one might have said that The Tahitian Gardens was “in the shadow of the el.” But there no longer was an elevated train running above Talbot Avenue, and so the turn of phrase, however fresh, did not now apply. Then again, ten years ago there was no such thing as a massage parlor in the city for which Carella worked, and so The Tahitian Gardens could not possibly have been there in the shadow of the el, or even in the shadow of the Law. Or, more correctly, if The Tahitian Gardens had existed on Talbot Avenue ten years ago, it would have been in the shadow of the el and also in the shadow of the Law. Today, it was neither. All clear, Harold? Try to concentrate, Harold.
The façade of the massage parlor was decorated with real bamboo poles and straw matting. The name was scorch-lettered into a wooden sign nailed to a pair of bamboo poles that formed an X across the door. A shorter piece of bamboo served as a handle. Carella opened the door and stepped into a room similarly decorated with bamboo and matting, but softer-looking than the outside facade, in that it was lighted with subdued reds and greens emanating from bulbs hidden behind valances or tucked into niches. Some four feet from the door was a desk. A girl sat behind the desk, her back to the wall. She glanced up as Carella came in. Judging from her looks, she was either Chinese or Japanese, may be Polynesian, certainly Oriental. She was wearing a Madame-Gin-Sling costume, the material looking like brocade, the collar coming an inch or so up on her neck, the sleeves short, her naked arras wreathed in jade bracelets. She smiled as the door whispered shut behind Carella.
He smiled back. He had not yet decided quite how to play this. If he identified himself as a cop, they might not even let him inside without a warrant. On the other hand, if he did manage to get inside, he’d have to identify himself to Stephanie Welles if he expected to get any information about the dead woman. He was still debating his approach when the girl behind the desk said, “Yes, sir, may I help you?”
He decided on a scam, hell with it.
“That depends on what you’re offering,” Carella said.
“Well, sir, why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll explain it to you.”
“I wish you would,” Carella.
He took a chair beside the desk. The girl swiveled her own chair out toward him. The gown she wore was long and slitted to the thigh. A fringe of black underwear lace showed in the slit. She was wearing black satin shoes with extremely high heels and ankle straps. The telephone on her desk had a multitude of buttons on it, none of them lighted at the moment. The wall bearing the door had a fish tank set into it. The tank swirled with tropical fish and iridescent bubbles. To the right of where Carella sat, there was another door. It opened suddenly, and a girl wearing what appeared to be a bikini bathing suit came out, glanced at him briefly, walked directly to the desk, said “Benny,” and put a pink slip of paper on the desk. The Oriental girl repeated “Benny,” and took the slip and wrote something on it. The other girl turned, glanced at Carella again, opened the door, and went into the other room. The door closed slowly behind her.