“That’s explicit enough,” Carella said.
“It’s in accordance with the law,” Preston said.
“I’m sure it is,” Carella said, and since he was well over twenty-one years of age, and since he was also desirous of viewing a sexually oriented advertisement, he opened the brochure.
The items advertised within were many and varied.
Here was a cordless massager in a handsome grain finish in a choice of ivory or walnut colors. Here on the facing page was a set of double remote-controlled Ben-Wa balls. Here now was a Ben-Wa fringed tingle ball, and here a series of love potions ranging from stingers to energizers to vaginal teasers to penis sweeteners and to more exotically erotic variously called Cunnilingus Powder, Erecios Capsules, Vipe Spice and Jungle Love. Here was a life-sized doll complete with breasts and vaginal pocket, the blonde with no clothes selling for $32.50, the blonde with lingerie selling for $37.50, similarly naked or attired brunettes coming somewhat cheaper, with nary a redhead in evidence. Here was a vibrodongo marital aid and here a vibro double dongo marital aid. Here was something called a vaginal pal portable marital aid of durable construction with real-looking hair in a handsome gift box — only $17.25. Here, too, was something called an autosuck vagina, described as a male marital aid and guaranteed to operate from a car’s cigarette lighter.
The list of products went on and on, page after page of prosthetic extensions, electrical devices designed to provide sensuous vibrations, action playing cards featuring male-female “sexation” or female-female love, eight-track recordings or cassettes boasting “live stag-action,” a bath mat covered with foam rubber breasts, a wristwatch with sexual positions substituting for the numbers on the dial, a sensuous dictionary with full-color photographs, and lastly but not least inventively, a lipstick in the shape of a penis — described as “a tasteful gift for any woman.”
Carella closed the brochure. “Is this what you had Isabel Harris mailing for you?” he said.
“If she couldn’t see it,” Preston said, “how could it hurt her?”
Carella suddenly had the feeling that he could hack his way through the dense undergrowth of this city forever and still not reach a clearing where there was sunlight. He looked at Preston for only an instant, and then began searching through the desk that had been Isabel’s. He did not find a diary, he did not find a journal, he did not find a goddamned thing. When he left the office, he went down the corridor to the men’s room and washed his hands.
So now they snowballed it.
It was ten minutes past twelve on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and they sat in Lieutenant Byrnes’ office, drinking coffee brewed in Clerical and eating sandwiches Hawes had called down for a half-hour earlier. There were four of them in the office: Carella, Meyer, Hawes and the lieutenant.
Byrnes was a compact man whose clothes seemed too tight for him, vest open across the barrel chest, jacket pinched across wide shoulders, tie pulled down and shirt collar open as though to allow breathing space for the thick neck that supported his head. His hair was a gray the color of the city snow; his eyes were a flinty blue. The men of the 87th called him “Loot” or “Pete” or “Boss.” He was the boss, the man in command of the squad’s sixteen detectives, answerable in the precinct only to Captain John Marshall Frick, who theoretically ran the whole shebang but who, in practice, gave Byrnes and the detective squad almost complete autonomy. Byrnes had read the reports filed by Carella, Meyer and Hawes, and now he wanted to know what the hell was happening. There were four crimes that irritated him more than any of the others rampant in this city. At the top of the list was homicide. Beneath that, but comparatively rare, was arson. Then came rape. And then pushing dope. In Byrnes view, slitting the throats of blind people was tantamount to strangling innocent babes in their cribs. He was not too happy about the squad’s progress on this case; he was, in fact, a bit cranky and unpredictable this morning, and the men sensed this displeasure and tiptoed around it like burglars in an occupied apartment.
“So why are you wasting time with all this Army business?” Byrnes asked.
“Well,” Carella said, “the man was having nightmares, Pete—”
“I have nightmares, too. So what?”
“And also he’d contacted one of his old Army buddies about this deal he had in mind, whatever it was.”
That’s according to his mother,” Byrnes said.
“She seems like a reliable witness,” Carella said.
“Witness to what?” Byrnes said. “She didn’t see this letter he’s supposed to have sent.”
“But he told her about it.”
“He told her he’d sent a letter to one of his buddies?”
“He told her the name, too.”
“But she can’t remember the name.”
“That’s right.”
“Then what the hell good is she?” Byrnes said, and picked up his coffee cup, and sipped at it, and then put it down on his desk immediately; goddamn coffee was cold “He could’ve sent the letter to anybody in Alpha — he had all their addresses, isn’t that what you said?”
“Yeah, he got them at the reunion.”
“Anyway, what’s this letter got to do with his murder? I get back to what I asked you before: why are you wasting time with all this Army business?”
“Because of the nightmares,” Carella said, and shrugged.
“What he figures,” Meyer said, “is that—”
“Does he stutter?” Byrnes asked.
“What?”
“Does Detective Carella stutter?”
“No, sir, but—”
“Then let him tell me himself what he figures.”
“I don’t know what I figure,” Carella said. “But it bothers me that Jimmy Harris remembered a rape that never happened.”
“That’s if you believe the girl.”
“I believe the girl,” Carella said.
“So do I,” Meyer said.
“What’s that got to do with the murders?” Byrnes insisted. “The man was murdered, his wife was murdered, another woman was murdered.”
“I don’t think all three murders are related,” Carella said. “I think the first two are, but I can’t see any connection—”
“He just picked another victim at random, is that what you’re saying?”
“No, not at random,” Carella said. “Well, it could have been anybody, yes, in that sense it was random. But the victim had to be blind. He deliberately chose another blind person.”
Hawes had been silent until this moment. He said now, very softly because he was in this case only peripherally and didn’t want to make waves when the lieutenant was making enough waves of his own, “It could be a smoke screen, Pete.”
“Nobody’s that dumb,” Byrnes said.
“You don’t have to be smart to kill people,” Meyer said.
“No, but you have to be dumb to try covering your tracks by killing somebody else.”
“Let’s look at the only thing we’ve got,” Carella said.
“What’s that?”
“Jimmy wrote to an Army buddy concerning a get-rich-quick scheme.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“His mother thinks Jimmy may have had something illegal in mind.”
“Like what?”
“She was only guessing, but she figured he needed somebody who knew how to use a gun. Okay, let’s say he wrote to this person after the August reunion.”