“When you were saying you thought I might feel uncomfortable in a place where there were only white people.”
“Do you feel uncomfortable now?”
“No.”
“Well, do you feel comfortable?“
“Yes.”
“Even though everyone around us is white?”
“I’m not seeing anyone around us.”
“Do you think if we went to a place in Diamondback, I wouldn’t see anyone around us, either?”
“I think if we went to Diamondback, you’d be made for a cop in ten seconds flat. They’d probably shoot you the minute you walked through the door.”
“That’s racist.”
“But realistic.”
“How about you? Would they shoot you?”
“I doubt it.”
“How come? You’re a cop.”
“Do I look like a cop?”
“You look like a sexy, beautiful woman.”
“I feel like a sexy, beautiful woman.”
“So I called you Shaar, huh?”
“Yes. You said, ’I’ll tell you the truth, Shaar.’”
“I guess maybe I did.”
“Why?”
“I guess I was feeling very close to you.”
“My mother’s the only one in the world who ever called me Shaar.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“It’s just peculiar. That you should pick my mother’s pet name for me.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was a special…”
“No, I kind of like your using it.”
“Then I’ll…”
“But not all the time.”
“Okay, only…”
“Only when you’re feeling very close to me.”
“I’m beginning to feel close to you all the time.”
“Then we’d better be careful,” she said.
“Why?” he said, and suddenly put his big trembling hands on the table and covered her hands with them.
“Oh dear,” she said.
The waitress was back.
“Another round?” she asked, smiling at Kling.
“Sharyn?”
“Yes, okay,” she said.
“I’m glad you caught that guy,” the waitress said, and swiveled off.
“She thinks you’re cute, too,” Sharyn said.
“Who?”
“The waitress.”
“What waitress?” he said.
Alone with her in bed that night, he tried to tell her what was troubling him about the Cassidy murder. She listened intently, lying back against the pillows, head turned toward him, eyes wide, trying to visualize these people he was talking about.
“You see, Johnny Milton just had no reason to kill her,” he said. “Stabbing her accomplished everything he wanted to happen. His client is suddenly a star, she’s in a play where she gets stabbed, he’s got all the media dogs barking at her heels, so why kill her? No reason for it at all. Stabbing her already served the purpose. Stabbing her put both her and the play on the map. So why kill the golden goose? No way. I can’t see it. Where’s the motive?
“Love or money, that’s it, it’s either one or the other. He stabs her, he can expect to lose money, so scratch that. Love? Is there another guy or girl in the picture, who knows? Maybe there is a man out there who was somehow involved with her, or a woman, for that matter. One thing you learn about homicides is never to take anything for granted, nothing is ever what it seems to be. So maybe it’s love, okay, that’s a possibility. I don’t think we’ve got a crazy loose out there, this doesn’t look like a crazy to me. So it’s either love or money, the same old standbys, you can count on them every time, love or… excuse me, honey, but are you falling asleep?”
She nodded vaguely.
Smiling, he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek and then found her mouth and kissed her lips and then looked into her eyes and said, “Goodnight, Teddy, I love you.”
And she signed with her right hand I love you, too, and turned out the light, and then snuggled up close to him in the dark.
8
CARELLA AND KLING WERE ON THEIR WAY OUT OF THE squadroom when this big black guy who looked like a contract hitter for either the Crips or the Bloods came up the iron-runged steps leading to the second floor. From above, Carella saw the top of a red and blue knit hat, brawny shoulders in a black leather jacket, and the clenched ham-hock fists of a man in one hell of a hurry. He figured he’d better get out of the way fast before he got stampeded. Kling, younger and more foolhardy, said to the top of the man’s head, “Help you, sir?” They were both surprised when he looked up sharply and — lo and behold — it was Detective/Second Grade Arthur Brown, dressed for what was undoubtedly a waterfront plant since Carella now noticed the baling hook hanging from his belt.
“How’d it go last night?” Brown asked.
“Barney’s, you mean?” Kling said.
“Yeah. Well, all of it.”
“We left kind of early.”
“Too Oreo, huh?”
“Yeah. Kind of unnatural.”
“I was worried about that. But I figured…”
“No, listen, it worked out fine. We both felt the same way about it.”
Carella figured this was the woman Kling didn’t want to talk about just yet. But here he was, babbling about her to Brown.
“Who is this woman, anyhow?” Brown asked.
Good question, Carella thought.
“You don’t know her,” Kling said.
“What’s her name?”
“Sharyn.”
“Irish girl, huh?” Brown said, and burst out laughing for no reason Carella could fathom.
“With a `y,’ ” he offered helpfully. “The Sharyn.”
“Now that makes more sense,” Brown said, still laughing. “Black folks don’t know how to spell their own kids’ names. Where’d you…”
What? Carella thought.
“… end up?”
What?
“When you left Barney’s, I mean.”
“Top of the Hill.”
“Hoo-boy!” Brown said. “I figured her being black and all, Barney’s might ease the way. But it turned out to be overkill, huh?”
“Yeah, it really was, Artie.”
Carella stood by silently.
“How black is she, anyway? Is she black as me?”
“Nobody’s as black as you,” Kling said, and Brown burst out laughing again.
Carella suddenly felt like an outsider.
Well, is she the color of this banister here?” Brown asked.
“A little darker.”
“That makes her blacker than me.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You think you’ll be seeing her again?”
“Oh, sure. Well, I hope so. I mean, she’s got a say in it, too.”
“Cause if you’d like to some night, maybe Caroline and me could join you, go out for Chinks or something, if you think you’d like that. Both of you.”
“Let me ask her.”
“Might be nice, you know?” Brown said. “You ask her, okay?”
“I will.”
“Is the Loot in yet?” Brown asked, and started charging up the stairs again.
“Artie?” Kling called after him.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, man,” Brown said, and disappeared from sight.
Together, Kling and Carella went down the iron-runged steps in silence, their footfalls clanging as if they were in armor. He was wondering why Kling hadn’t told him Sharyn was black. Surely, he didn’t think…
“We’d better hurry,” Kling said. “I told her ten o’clock.”
End of discussion, Carella guessed.