"Calm down," he said, and grabbed her wrist.
She tried to pull away from him.
"Calm down," he said more gently.
"Let go of me," she said. "I don't like being manhandled."
He released her wrist.
"You want to talk or what?" he said.
"No, I want you to get dressed and get the fuck out of here."
"Okay," he said.
"No, that's not what I want, either," she said.
"What do you want, Marilyn?"
"I want you to move in with me."
He was shocked speechless.
He tried to read her face in the dim light that filtered in under the drapes from the street outside. Was she serious? Did she really…?
"Then you'll know for sure," she said. "You'll know I'm clean. And then… maybe… you can love me."
He was moved almost to tears. He brought his cupped hand up to his eyes to shield them, fearful that he would begin crying in the next moment, and not wanting her to see his eyes if he began crying.
"Will you?" she said.
"I thought you'd never ask," he said, trying to keep it light, but the tears came anyway, and suddenly he was sobbing uncontrollably.
"Oh, baby," she said, taking him in her arms, "please, there's nothing to cry about, please, baby, don't cry," she said, "oh God, what am I going to do with this man, please, darling, please don't cry," and she kissed his wet cheeks and his eyes and his mouth, and she said, "Oh, God, how I love you, Hal," and he wondered how long it had been since a woman had spoken those words to him, and through his tears he said, "I love you, too," and that was the real beginning.
CHAPTER 10
The round-the-clocks on Endicott and Riley proved advantageous in that no one tried to knock off either of them. But a week into the protective surveillance, Lieutenant Byrnes called Carella into his office and asked how much longer he thought they should keep the six fuck-ups on the job.
"Because you have to look at this two ways," he said. "Nobody's tried to kill them, that's true, but maybe that's because whoever our man is, he's tipped to the plainclothes coverage and is afraid to make a move. On the other hand, maybe our man's Endicott or Riley, who are covered day and night, and who aren't about to make a move, either of them, when they've got cops sticking to them like a dirty shirt, am I right?"
It was the eleventh day of April, a balmy Friday morning, almost three weeks since Jerome McKennon had been found lying in his own filth in his apartment on Silvermine Oval. Two weeks and four days was a long time to be working a case without any concrete results. That was what Captain Frick had told Lieutenant Byrnes first crack out of the box this morning. Frick was in command of the entire precinct. Byrnes rarely listened to him, but this time the captain had a point. The captain wanted to pull those six cops off the surveillance and put them back on post.
"Frick wants his people back," Byrnes said.
"Then let 'em go," Carella said.
"You think so, huh?"
"I think the only possible suspects we've got are Endicott, Riley, and the Hollis woman. If she's our man, she already knows from both of them that they're covered, and she'd be crazy to make another move. The other two have cops with them, you're right, so they can't possibly expose themselves."
"What troubles me is they're the ones who asked for the cops."
"Maybe to throw us off."
"How do you see this, Steve? Level with me. You said three suspects…"
"Three possibles, I said."
"Say it's the woman, okay? Just to noodle it. What's her motive?"
"I don't know. I checked with Probate. McKennon died intestate, and Hollander left what little he had to his sister. The Hollis woman claims the two victims were close friends of hers, and I believe her. So does Hal. And she's got alibis a mile long for where she was when…"
"Her alibis are your two other suspects."
"Don't I know it," Carella said, and sighed.
"You checked on everybody in McKennon's orbit?"
"I did. I don't see any possibles there."
"How about Hollander?"
"Virtually a loner, except for his relationship with the Hollis woman."
"An accountant, huh?"
"Yeah."
"How'd she meet him?"
"I don't know."
"Was he doing accounting work for her?"
"I don't know."
"Find out. Maybe there's something fishy in her books. Maybe she killed McKennon as a smokescreen. If Hollander was her real target, maybe he knew something she didn't want the IRS to know."
"Maybe," Carella said.
"It's a possibility, isn't it?"
"It is."
"You say she used to be a hooker, huh?"
"Just the one fall, Pete. In Houston, seven years ago."
"I never yet met a hooker with a heart of gold, did you?"
"Never."
"Where'd she come across all this money she's got? Your report says she owns a fancy joint on…"
"I don't know. I'll have to check with Willis. He's been doing most of the work with her."
"Check with him. And check with her, too. How'd Hollander spend Easter Sunday? Before he went back to his apartment?"
"He was with his sister. The one named in his will."
"Did you talk to her?"
"Yes."
"What'd he leave her?"
"Peanuts."
"I know people who'd slit your throat for a nickel."
"Not this one, Pete. She's married to a plumber, she's got two kids and another one in the oven. I don't see her…"
"Pregnant ladies can stab somebody the same as anybody else."
"She's eight months gone, Pete. Waddles around like an elephant. Besides, she was watching television with her nextdoor neighbor the night Hollander caught it."
"From what time to what time?"
"Went back home at about eleven."
"Neighbor corroborate?"
"Yes."
"What time did Hollander catch it?"
"M.E. says sometime late Sunday night or early Monday morning."
"Where was she at…?"
"In bed. And then up getting her kids off to school."
Byrnes sighed.
"Call the Hollis woman," he said. "Find out how she met him, was he working for her, and so on."
That was how Carella found out that Willis was living with her.
He called the number he had for Marilyn Hollis and a man answered the phone.
"Hello?"
Carella recognized the voice at once.
"Hal?" he said, surprised.
"I know I'm late," Willis said.
Carella looked up at the wall clock. A quarter past nine. Willis should have been in a half hour ago. But…?
"I must've dialed the wrong number," Carella said, and looked at the open notebook in front of him. Marilyn Hollis's number, no question about it. There was a long silence on the line. Then:
"I've been staying here," Willis said.
"Oh?" Carella said, and then, not really intending a pun, "Doing what? Undercover work?"
"I don't need wisecracks," Willis snapped. "I'll be there in an hour or so."
And hung up.
Carella looked at the receiver.
Well, well, he thought.
He put the receiver back on its cradle.
He kept staring at the phone for a long time.
Walter Johnson of the Food and Drug Administration called back at ten that morning. Carella had called him on the second day of April. Today was the eleventh. He'd almost forgotten he was expecting a callback. Carella had the kind of mentality that assumed people shared his own sense of responsibility. If he asked someone to do something, he put it out of his mind until his tickle file reminded him that the task had not been performed, the request not honored. In this city's bureaucratic morass, Carella normally allowed two weeks before getting on the pipe to holler a little. A call to Johnson was on his calendar for the sixteenth. In that respect, Johnson was early.