He could not get over the transformation in her.
Her hair was even shorter than his now, trimmed close at the sideburns and the back of her head, a single blonde tuft combed straight back off her forehead. Last night, after they’d tried on the garbage men’s uniforms, he’d sent down for pizza, and they’d all made themselves comfortable around the kitchen table. Her uniform jacket slung over the back of her chair, sitting in just the baggy green trousers and snug T-shirt, Gloria must have felt his steady gaze upon her. She turned suddenly away. He did not know whether she was embarrassed by his scrutiny, or whether she’d turned away merely to protect her job; the fact of the matter was that she’d gained weight in precisely the wrong places, transforming herself into the most voluptuous garbage man in the universe.
“You reserved a room yet?” Carter asked.
“Yes,” the Deaf Man said.
“Cause otherwise, we’re liable’a get there and find they’re full up,” he said, flogging yet another dead horse.
“The room’s already been reserved,” the Deaf Man said.
“Cause those motels over the bridge,” Carter said, “they’re riding academies, most of them, you get guys taking their bimbos there in the afternoon. We pull up with the van full of stuff, there won’t be a room for us.”
The Deaf Man looked at him.
“But you already reserved one,” Carter said, and shrugged.
“Yes.”
“Let’s hope they hold it.”
“For Christ’s sake, go phone your mother, will you?” Gloria said testily. “Ask her if we’ve got a different car for tomorrow, if the room is reserved, if you can blow your nose or go take a pee , for Christ’s sake!”
“It pays to be careful,” Carter said solemnly. “When I was on the stage, even though I’d been doing the same part for weeks and of course knew my lines by heart, I always had the stage manager cue me on them every night before I went on. I never went up in all the years I was acting.”
“Fine, you never went up,” Gloria said, tapping her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel.
“Did I see you in anything?” Florry asked.
“You’re getting on my nerves,” Gloria said, “all these superfluous questions. We’re here to run it through, I don’t know what all these other questions have to do with anything.”
“She’s right,” the Deaf Man said. “Let’s run it.”
Gloria nodded curtly and started the car.
THE MAN they’d spoken to at SavMor’s regional headquarters was a vice president named Arthur Presson. He’d told them yesterday afternoon that he would check the code numbers following the SavMor name on the pricing label and get back to them as soon as he could. He did not get back until two o’clock that Friday, almost twenty-four hours after they’d made their “urgent” request; corporate chiefs do not know from homicide investigations.
Kling took the call.
“On that pricing label,” Presson said.
He sounded Yale out of Choate.
“Yes, sir,” Kling said, intimidated.
“You understand that we have four hundred and thirty SavMor stores nationwide…”
“Yes, sir.”
“…and whereas all we sell is hardware , as opposed to a supermarket, say, which color-codes for frozen food, produce, dairy products, meats, and so on…”
“Yes, sir.”
“…we do need a code on our labels so that our computers can zero in immediately on the state, the specific city in that state, and the particular store in that city. The number thirty-seven, for example, would indicate…we have stores in each of the fifty states, you see…”
“I see.”
“Thirty-seven would be Georgia.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the number four following it would mean Atlanta, as opposed to five for Macon or six for Gainesville.”
“I see.”
“And then…well, we have nine stores in Atlanta, so the last number in the code could be for any one of those nine stores. The coded labels are supplied to the various stores. The pricing changes for each locality. Prices are set at national headquarters. In Dallas.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The code number you read to me on the phone was 19-06-07.”
“That’s the exact number,” Kling said.
“The nineteen is for this state, and the oh-six is for this city. We have twenty stores here. The oh-seven store is in Isola. It’s located on River and Marsh…are you familiar with the Hopscotch area? All the way downtown?”
“I am.”
“Well, that’s where it is,” Presson said.
Which was a long way from where Peter Wilkins had lived with his wife on Albermarle Way, all the way uptown .
“Thank you, sir,” Kling said, “I appreciate your time.”
“De nada,”Presson said, for no good reason Kling could fathom, and then hung up.
Parker was sitting at his desk, reading the morning paper and picking his teeth. Kling told him what he had. He listened, tossed the toothpick into the metal wastebasket under his desk, folded the newspaper, put it in the bottom drawer of his desk, rose, farted, and said, “Let’s go.”
RIVER STREET started on the waterfront in the oldest section of town, an area of narrow lanes and gabled houses dating back to when the Dutch were still governing. For quite some distance, it ran parallel to Goedkoop Avenue, which lay cheek by jowl with the courthouses and municipal buildings in the Chinatown Precinct, and then it crossed Marsh at the virtual hub of an area bristling with restaurants, art galleries, boutiques, bookstores, shops selling drug paraphernalia, sandals, jewelry, unpainted furniture, leather goods, lighting fixtures, herbal lotions and shampoos, Tarot cards, teas, art-deco reproductions and handcrafted items ranging from wooden whistles to whittled nudes. Here and there in the lofts along these narrow streets, a multitude of artists and photographers had taken up residence, spilling over from the Quarter into Hopscotch, so-called because the first gallery to open here was on Hopper Street, overlooking the Scotch Meadows Park.
The manager of the SavMor Hardware store on the corner of River and Marsh looked at the can of paint Kling had handed him, turned it over to glance at the pricing label stuck to its bottom, said, “That’s our store, all right,” and then said, “How can I help you?”
“We found twenty-two cans of this stuff in a dead man’s closet,” Parker said, getting directly to the point. “Every color you’d care to name, twenty-two of them. Is there anything on that pricing label that’d tell you when the purchase was made?”
“No, there isn’t.”
“Anything at your checkouts that might help us?” Kling asked. “Mr. Presson mentioned you’re computerized. Would your…?”
“Yes, we are. Mr.who ?”
“Presson. At regional headquarters. Would your computers show a sale of twenty-two cans of…?”
“I thought you meant someone in the store here,” the manager said. “When was this purchase made?”
“Sometime after the twenty-fourth of last month,” Parker said. “That’s when he got killed.”
He was thinking like Kling now. If Debra had killed him, then she’d bought the paint after he was safely out of the way.
“Wouldyour computers be able to help us?” Kling asked.
“Well, let’s take a look,” the manager said. “Twenty-two cans of spray paint is an unusual purchase.”