“The elevated?”
“Yes.”
“It was coming into the platform when Mr. Palumbo got shot?”
“Well, to tell you the truth,” Mrs. O’Grady said, “I’m not too clear about the sequence. I mean, I heard the shot, but at the time I didn’t think it was a shot, I figured it was a backfire or a blow-out—who expects to hear a gun go off while you’re buying fruit from a man? So, although I heard the shot, I didn’t realize Sal…Mr. Palumbo…had been shot. I thought he was suffering a heart attack or something, him falling like that, and the fruit all tumbling off the stand. But then, of course, I saw the blood at the back of his head, and I guess my mind made the connection between the explosion I had heard and the fact that Sal was…well, I didn’t know he was dead…but certainly hurt.”
“And the train?”
“Well, what I’m trying to say is that everything happened so fast. The train coming in…I think it was coming in, though it may have been leaving…and the shot, and Sal falling down hurt. It all happened so fast that I’m not sure of the time sequence, the poor man.”
“You’re not sure, then, whether the train was pulling into the station or leaving it.”
“That’s right. But it was moving, that’s for sure. It wasn’t just standing still in the station.”
“Did you see anyone on the station platform, Mrs. O’Grady?”
“No, I didn’t even look up there. I thought it was a backfire at first, you see, or something like that. It never crossed my mind that somebody was shooting a gun. So I had no reason to look around to see who or what it was. Besides, I was buying fruit, and to tell you the truth, the shot didn’t register on my mind at all, either as a backfire or anything, it just didn’t register until I began thinking about it afterward, after Sal was dead, do you know what I mean? It’s hard to explain, but there are so many noises in the city, and you just don’t listen to them anymore, you just go about your business.”
“Then, in effect, you really didn’t hear the shot at the time. Or at least, you didn’t react to it.”
“That’s right. But there was a shot.” Mrs. O’Grady paused. “Why are you asking? Do they make silencers for rifles?”
“They’re not manufactured, Mrs. O’Grady, no. There are both state and federal regulations against the use of silencers. But any fairly competent machinist could turn one out in his own garage, especially if he had something like murder on his mind.”
“I always thought silencers were very complicated things. They always look so complicated in the movies.”
“Well, they’re really very simple in principle. When you put a silencer on a gun or a rifle, you’re closing a series of doors, in effect. You’re muffling the sound.”
“Doors?” Mrs. O’Grady asked.
“Try to visualize a piece of tubing, Mrs. O’Grady, perhaps an inch and a half in diameter, and about eight inches long. Inside this tube is a series of separated eight-inch baffling plates, the closed ‘doors’ that absorb the sound. That’s a silencer. A man can fashion one on a home lathe.”
“Well, I heard a shot,” Mrs. O’Grady said.
“And yet you didn’t turn, you didn’t look up, you didn’t comment upon it to Mr. Palumbo.”
“No.”
“The rifle that fired a .308 caliber bullet would have been a high-powered rifle, Mrs. O’Grady. Powerful enough to have felled a charging lion.”
“So?”
“It would have made a pretty loud noise.”
“So?”
“I’m only suggesting, Mrs. O’Grady, that your reconstruction of what happened may only be a result of your later thoughts about the incident.”
“I heard a shot,” Mrs. O’Grady insisted.
“Did you? Or is it only now, now that you know Mr. Palumbo was shot and killed, that you think you remember hearing a shot? In other words, Mrs. O’Grady, is logic interfering with your memory?”
“Logic?”
“Yes. If a bullet was fired, and if a man was killed, there must have been a shot. And if there was shot, you must have heard it. And if you heard it, you must have dismissed it as a backfire or a blowout.”
“I’m sure that’s what happened.”
“Have you ever heard a blowout, Mrs. O’Grady?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“And what happened? Did you ignore it, or were you momentarily startled?”
“I suppose I was startled.”
“Yet when Mr. Palumbo was killed with a high-powered rifle, which would have made a very loud noise, you only later remembered hearing a shot. Does that sound valid?”
“Well, I think I heard a shot,” Mrs. O’Grady said.
Carella smiled. “Maybe you did,” he answered. “We’ll check with the man in the change booth on the platform. In any case, Mrs. O’Grady, you’ve been extremely cooperative and most helpful.”
“He was a nice man,” Mrs. O’Grady said. “Sal. He was really a very nice man.”
The man in the change booth at the station platform above Palumbo’s store was not a very nice man at all. He was a crotchety old grouch who began giving the detectives trouble the moment they approached the booth.
“How many?” he asked immediately.
“How many what?” Meyer asked.
“Can’t you read the sign? State how many tokens you want.”
“We don’t want any tokens,” Meyer said.
“Map of the system is on the wall right there,” the attendant said. “I’m not paid to give out travel information.”
“Are you paid to cooperate with the police?” Carella asked amiably.
“The what?”
“Police,” Meyer said, and he flashed the tin.
“What’s that say? I’m a little nearsighted.”
“It says ‘Detective,’ “ Meyer answered.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, what do you want?”
“We want to know the best way to get to Carruthers Street in Calm’s Point,” Carella said.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I never heard of Carruthers Street.”
“That’s because I just made it up,” Carella said.
“Listen, what are you, a bunch of wise guys?” the attendant asked.
“We’re two college kids on a scavenger hunt,” Meyer said. “We’re supposed to bring back a hibernating bear, and you’re the first one we’ve seen all day.”
“Haha,” the attendant said mirthlessly. “That’s very funny.”
“What’s your name?” Carella asked.
“Quentin. You going to give me trouble? I’m a civil-service employee, too, you know. It ain’t nice to give your own kind trouble.”
“What’s your first name, Mr. Quentin?”
“Stan.”
“Stan Quentin?” Meyer asked incredulously.
“Yeah, what’s the matter with that?” The old man peered into Meyer’s face. “What’s your name?”
Meyer, whose full name was Meyer Meyer, the legacy of a practical-joking father, hastily said, “Let’s never mind the names, okay, Mr. Quentin? We only want to ask you some questions about what happened downstairs last week, okay?”
“The wop who was killed, you mean?” Quentin asked.
“Yeah, the wop who was killed,” Carella said.
“So what about him? I didn’t even know him.”
“Then how do you know he was a wop?”
“I read his name in the papers.” He turned to Meyer again. “What’s wrong with Stan Quentin, would you mind telling me?”
“Nothing. They almost named a prison after you.”
“Yeah? Which one?”
“Alcatraz,” Meyer said.
The old man stared at him blankly. “I don’t get it,” he said.
“Tell us about the day of the murder.”
“There’s nothing to tell. The guy downstairs got shot, that’s all.”