"Was he trying for you?"
"Yes."
She came over to the car. Light from the open doorway of the house spilled onto the sidewalk. Willis thumbed open the glove compartment and took out the walkie-talkie.
"Eight-Seven," he said into it. "This is Willis."
"Go ahead, Hal."
"Who's this?"
"Murchison."
"Dave, I'm here at 1211 Harborside Lane. Somebody just tried to blow me away, Brown and I need lights at the scene."
"You got "em," Murchison said.
"Who's catching upstairs?"
"Kling and Fujiwara just relieved."
"Ask them to check on Charles Endicott, Jr., his address is in the files, they can look in the McKennon folder. I want to know if he's home. If he's not home, I want them to wait there till he gets home."
"I'll tell 'em," Murchison said.
"Thanks," Willis said. He took a flashlight from the glove compartment, came out of the car, clipped the walkie-talkie to his belt, and then closed and locked the door. "I guess I won't have to move it, after all," he said.
"You think it was Chip, don't you?" Marilyn said.
"I don't know who it was," Willis said.
"Then why are you sending policemen there?"
"Because he's the one you kissed off this afternoon."
"Why do you need lights?"
"If he was using an automatic, there'll be spent cartridge cases. You'd better go back inside, this may take a while."
He turned on the flashlight, played it on the car door.
"Son of a bitch put two holes in it," he said. "Right above where my head was."
Marilyn looked at the holes in the car door. One was about sixteen inches above the pavement. Another was two inches above that. He saw the puzzled look on her face.
"That short I'm not," he said, and smiled. "I was lying flat on my belly." He began playing the flashlight on the pavement at his feet.
"What are you looking for?" she asked.
"Bullets," he said.
"What'll they tell you?"
"The kind of gun he used."
She came into his arms and held him close. "See?" she said. "I'm trying to be family."
The lights in the park were on until two in the morning. A lot of neighbors gathered to watch the policemen milling around over there. None of them knew what was going on. If any of them had heard the earlier shots, they'd dismissed them as backfires. When the police finally turned off the lights, the neighbors went back to their houses. They figured something had happened, but they still didn't know what. The police van carrying the portable equipment drove off. One by one, the patrol cars angled into the curb, backed out and moved off into the night. Willis went to the house across the street, and let himself in with his key.
Marilyn was already in bed. He undressed silently, and climbed into bed beside her. She moved instantly into his arms.
"Did you find anything?" she asked.
"Three bullets and four spent cartridge cases."
"That's good, isn't it?"
"If we ever come up with a gun that matches them."
"Your feet are cold," she said, and snuggled closer to him. "Do you want to make love?"
"No, I want to talk," he said.
"About what happened tonight?"
"No. About what happened this afternoon. While you were having lunch with Endicott."
"I already told you. He was very nice about it… well, he's a very nice man. Wished me the best of…"
"Marilyn," he said, "I found a clipping in the storeroom. An ad for an electric distiller. Costs three hundred and ninety-five bucks."
"Want to buy it for me?" she said.
"No. I want to know if you bought it."
"Why would I buy something like that?"
"You tell me. Why'd you save the clipping?"
"I thought it might be fun to make my own perfume."
"Or your own poison," Willis said.
She was silent for a moment.
"I see," she said at last. "So what do you want to do? Search the house?"
"Do I have to?" he said.
"If you think I've been making poison here…"
"Have you?"
"Let's search the fucking house."
"Just tell me you didn't buy that distiller."
"I didn't."
He nodded.
"Is that enough for you?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, and kissed her fiercely.
They talked the night away, they loved the night away, as they had that first time here in this house, only now there was the scent of woodsmoke on the air from someone's fireplace up the street, wafting through the open window, and when Marilyn screamed in orgasm, she tried to muffle it because she didn't want cops knocking on the door wanting to know who was being murdered. Nobody was being murdered. Little deaths aside, nobody was getting killed.
But if theories of conspiracy take into account the moment when hands are irrevocably clasped and allegiances permanently sworn, then yes, they were witch-whispered Macbeth and his ambitious lady, confirming to each other in the crucible of dawn that this metal and this metal had been fused into this alloy, and that come what might they were locked into each other as immutably as iron and carbon into steel.
"I love you," he said, "oh, Jesus, how I love you!"
"I love you, too," she said.
She was crying.
CHAPTER 16
On Tuesday morning, April 15, Willis and Carella met with Byrnes in his office. Elsewhere in the city, a great many citizens were mailing off their federal income tax returns. But death is as certain as taxes, and the men were there to discuss three corpses. Plus an attempton Willis that could have made him a corpse.
"Anything from Ballistics yet?" Byrnes asked.
"Supposed to hear from them sometime today," Willis said.
"Four shots fired?"
"Recovered three of the bullets and the four spent cartridge cases."
"If it's the same man, he's versatile," Byrnes said drily.
"Or desperate," Carella said.
"Where was Endicott at the time?" Byrnes asked.
"Home in his beddie," Willis said. "Kling beeped Hawes—who by the way, I didn't know was tailing Endicott—and Hawes rapped on his door five minutes after the shooting. It would've been impossible for Endicott to get all the way downtown in that time. He was in his pajamas when he answered the door."
"So we can scratch Endicott," Byrnes said. "How about the woman?"
"Home," Willis said.
"Across the street?"
"Yes."
"Firing came from the park?"
"Yes."
"So that lets her out," Byrnes said.
"Unless either of them hired the shooter," Carella said.
"Come on, Steve," Willis said, flaring immediately.
"It's a possibility," Byrnes said. "But an extremely remote one. What it looks like to me, we just lost two suspects."
"I hope we don't lose them for keeps," Willis said.
"What do you mean?"
"I'd like to recommend renewed protective surveillance."
"I'll talk to Frick."
"The sooner the better," Willis said.
"I understand you're living with this woman," Byrnes said.
"Yes, sir. And I've got to tell you it pisses me off that I wasn't informed about the tails on her and Endicott."
"Be that as it may…"
"No, sir, I'd like to make this a formal complaint. As far as I know, I'm still working this case, and withholding information from me…"
"All right, your point is well taken. We thought, however…"
"Who's we?"
"Me and Steve."
"Well, next time let me know what you're thinking, okay? And doing."
"I said your point was well taken," Byrnes said. "Meanwhile, what've we got now?"