Underhill did not know that three blind people had been killed since Thursday night, two of them in the Eight-Seven and another in Midtown East. Carella’s stop-sheet asking for information on Unusual Crimes and specifying attacks on blind people was at this moment on the desk of a Detective Ramon Jiminez, not six feet from Underhill’s own desk in the detective squadroom of the 41st Precinct, but Underhill hadn’t seen it. If he had seen it, he might have called Carella at once. But this wasn’t a homicide Underhill was dealing with, this wasn’t even an assault, this was maybe an attempted assault — or maybe it was just a grouchy old dog biting somebody just for the hell of it.
Being a conscientious man, however, he wired a stop to the Commissioner of the Department of Hospitals at 432 Market, asking for information re patients seeking medical treatment for dog bites. He did not know where the man had been bitten, he guessed the leg, if anyplace, but he didn’t specify this in his stop. It occurred to him belatedly that if any of the city hospitals came up with the name of a man they’d treated for dog bite, he would have no way of identifying a possible suspect unless he had a blood sample. That was why he called the Police Laboratory, and that was how it happened that a lab technician went to the scene at eight-fifteen that night and began taking blood samples from the sidewalk.
Carella knew nothing about any of this.
It was a big city.
Fourteen
Sophie Harris did not want the dog.
“I got no way of taking care of the dog,” she said. “Chrissie’s in school all day long, and I’m out workin. What we goan do with a big dog like that in this small apartment? Who’s goan take care of him?”
“I thought you might want him,” Carella said.
“Ain’t no dog goan bring back my Jimmy,” she said. “You better take him with you when you leave.”
“Well,” Carella said, and looked at the dog. Nobody seemed to want the dog. He’d be damned if he wanted the dog, either. The dog looked back at him balefully. Carella had removed the leather harness, but the dog still wore around his neck a studded leather collar hung with a collection of hardware. If he decided to keep the dog, he’d have to look at all those metal discs and whatever else was hanging there, find out what shots the dog had already had. He did not want a dog. He didn’t even like dogs. Teddy would have a fit if he brought home a dog. “Are you sure you don’t want the dog?” he asked Sophie.
“I’m sure,” she said. They had put her son in the ground yesterday, she did not want any damn dog reminding her that he was gone forever. Buried him side by side with the daughter-in-law she’d loved, both of them gone now. Made Sophie want to bust out crying all over again, here in the presence of the policeman. She had to learn to control these sudden fits of weeping that came over her.
“Well,” Carella said, “I’ll have to find something to do with him.” He looked at the dog again. The dog looked back. “Anyway,” Carella said, “that isn’t my only reason for coming here this morning. Mrs. Harris, do you remember telling me that Jimmy had contacted an old Army buddy...”
“Yes.”
“For help with what you thought might have been an illegal scheme.”
“Yes.”
“And you said you didn’t remember the man’s name.”
“That’s right.”
“If I gave you some names, would that help?”
“Maybe.”
“How about Russell Poole? Did your son call him or write to him?”
“That doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Rudy Tanner?”
“No.”
“John Tataglia?”
“I really don’t remember. I’m very bad with names.”
“Robert Hopewell?”
“I’m sorry, but...”
“Karl Fiersen?”
“All those names sound alike to me.”
Carella thought about that. He guessed that Tanner did sound something like Tataglia and maybe Russell Poole and Robert Hopewell could be mistaken one for the other. But there was nothing Fiersen sounded like but itself. And as for Cortez...
“Cortez?” he said. “Danny Cortez?”
“I can’t remember,” Sophie said. “I’m sorry.”
“Did your son write to this person, or did he call him?”
“He wrote to him.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me.”
“Did you see the letter?”
“No.”
“Do you know what it said?”
“No, he didn’t tell me what was in it. Only that he’d written to this man who was going to help him and Isabel get rich.”
“Did he say how much money was involved?”
“No.”
“Mrs. Harris, what would Jimmy have considered rich?”
“I got no idea.”
“What do you consider rich?”
“I’d be the richest woman in the world if I could have my Jimmy and his wife back,” Sophie said, and began weeping.
The dog didn’t say a word all the way downtown. Kept sitting on the back seat looking through the window, watching the traffic. Carella wondered if he should take him to an animal shelter. He thought of what Maloney from Canine had told him about gradually drawing all the air out of a container. Maloney said it was just like going to sleep. Carella doubted that gasping for air was very much like going to sleep. He didn’t like dogs, and he didn’t know this particular dog from an inchworm — but he didn’t think he would take him to a shelter.
He parked the car on Dutchman’s Row, near the old Harrison Life Building. As he locked the door, the dog on the back seat looked out at him. Carella said, “That’s okay,” and walked away from the car. The streets here were clogged with automobiles and pedestrians. On the comer a traffic cop was chatting with a dark-haired girl in a miniskirt, a fake-fur jacket and black leather boots. The girl looked like a hooker. The traffic cop was talking to the girl who was maybe a hooker, smiling at her, puffing out his chest, while horns honked and tempers soared and traffic backed up clear to the harbor tunnel. Carella dodged a taxi that had begun weaving in and out of the stalled traffic. The taxi almost hit him. The driver rolled down his window and shouted, “You tired of living, mister?”
He found the address for Prestige Novelty on the other side of the street, some four buildings down from the comer. Someone had spilled water on the sidewalk in front of the entrance door and the water had frozen into a thin dangerous glaze. Carella automatically looked up to the face of the building, to see whether there were any window washers on scaffolds up there. Nothing, and no one. He wondered where the spilled water had come from. Mysteries. All the time, mysteries. He skirted the patch of ice and pushed his way through the revolving doors. On the lobby directory he found a listing for PRESTIGE NOVELTY, Room 501. He took the elevator up, and then searched out the office in the fifth-floor corridor. Frosted-glass upper panel on the door, Prestige Novelty in gold-leaf lettering beneath which were the numerals 501. So far, so good. With brilliant deductive work like this — finding an office after having consulted a lobby directory — Carella figured he’d make Detective/First within the month. He opened the door. This, too, indicated high intelligence and good small-motor control — grasping a doorknob in one’s right hand, twisting it, pushing the door inward. He found himself in a smallish reception room done in various shades of green, all bilious. There was an opening on the wall facing the door, a pair of sliding glass panels. Behind the panels was a dark-haired woman in her early thirties. He guessed this was Jennie D’Amato, with whom he had talked last Friday night. He approached the partition; one of the panels slid open.