DIVISION OF PAROLE
MANAGER, KIRBY STRAUSS
The office was small and perhaps even shabbier-looking than the Eight-Seven’s squadroom. Six metal desks were spaced around the room, two of them flanking a curtainless window with a torn shade. A straight-backed wooden chair sat empty alongside each desk. Early afternoon sunlight tinted the shade yellow. Dark green metal filing cabinets lined one windowless wall, and an open door revealed a toilet bowl and a sink beside it. An ancient copying machine was on the wall alongside the bathroom. A wooden coat rack was in one corner of the room. There were several topcoats on it, but only one hat.
Two men sat in swivel chairs behind the choice window desks.
They both turned to look at the detectives as they walked in.
Carella wondered if the hat belonged to one of them.
“Mr. Strauss?” he asked.
“Yes?”
He was a man in his fifties, Carella guessed, wearing brown trousers and a brown cardigan sweater, a shirt and tie under it. He was sitting at the desk on the right. Bald and a trifle overweight, he looked like someone you might find selling stamps at your local post office. Carella figured the hat was his.
“I called earlier,” he said. “Detective Carella, the Eight-Seven. My partner, Detective Hawes.”
“Oh, yes,” Strauss said, rising and extending his hand. “This is Officer Latham,” he said, and gestured with his left hand toward the man sitting at the other desk. Latham nodded. Strauss briefly shook hands with both detectives, and then said, “Have a seat. You’re here about Wilkins, right? Let me get his file.”
The detectives took chairs alongside Strauss’ desk. Strauss went to the filing cabinets, opened one of them, began rummaging.
“Is it going to rain out there?” Latham asked.
“I don’t think so,” Hawes said. “Why? Who said it was going to rain?”
“Feel it in my bones,” Latham said, and shook his head mournfully.
He did, in fact, look a bit arthritic, a tall thin man wearing blue corduroy trousers and a gray sports jacket, a dingy white shirt with a worn collar, and a dark blue knit tie to match the trousers. A cardboard Starbucks container was on his desk, alongside his computer.
“Here we go,” Strauss said, and sat behind his desk again, and placed a manila folder between himself and the detectives. “I could do this on the computer, but it’s easier to look at hard copy,” he said, and opened the folder. “Calvin Robert Wilkins,” he said, “twenty-seven years old, took a fall for armed robbery when he was twenty. What happened was he went into this bank alone, must’ve been desperate, don’t you think? Stuck a gun in a teller’s face, ran off with whatever she had in the cash drawer, something like three thousand dollars, can you imagine? Gambles three thousand bucks against twenty-five in the slammer? He’s driving away from the bank when he gets a flat tire, finally climbs out of the car and starts running. The cops chasing him get out of their car, and one of them fires a shot that catches him in the leg…”
“The right leg,” Carella said, nodding.
“Well, let me check,” Strauss said, and looked at the report. “Yes, the right leg. Knocked him ass over teacups, ended his Bonnie and Clyde career. He was convicted of Rob One, a B-felony…well, you know that. Caught a bleeding-heart judge who sentenced him to a mere twenty because it was a first offense and all that jazz.”
“When was he paroled?”
“Six months ago. Just before Thanksgiving. Lot to be thankful for, that kid.”
“How so?”
“Got sprung his first appearance before the Board. Served only seven of the twenty. I call that stepping in shit.”
“You said it was a first offense…”
“Well, first time he gotcaught, let’s say. With these guys…”
“Any problems since he’s been out?”
“Yeah. Violating parole, for one.”
“What’d he do?”
“First year of parole, he’s supposed to be under what we call ‘Intensive Supervision.’ This is like a readjustment period for him, you know? He comes here to the office every week, and somebody from here—we’ve got six guys in this office, it’s a fairly small one—visits him at home once every two weeks, once a month, whatever. It’s an intensive period, that’s what it’s called, Intensive Supervision. This is supposed to continue for at least twelve months, after which we place him on what we callRegular Supervision, which means fewer home visits, and fewer visits to the office here.
“Well, he got out of Miramar just before Thanksgiving, that’s a state lockup even worse than Castleview…well, you know that. And he started coming here like clockwork once a week. He was living in a decent furnished room, and he had a job washing dishes in a deli over on Carpenter. I’ll tell you the truth, I figured he was a prime candidate for early discharge, which would’ve been three years instead of his maximum five. Then, all of a sudden, he doesn’t show up the week after Christmas, which I figured the holidays and all, am I right? But then he misses the first two weeks in January, and I figure shit the man’s absconded. Which is what it turned out to be. Failure to report here, changing address without permission, for all I know even leaving the fuckin state. A classic case of absconding. I issued a warrant for his arrest. If we catch him again, he’ll be doing his maximum-five behind bars. Some guys never learn.”
“Can we have that last known?” Hawes asked.
“Sure, but it won’t do you any good. He’s gone, man. And it’s a big bad city out there.”
Strauss got up nonetheless, and carried the file on Wilkins over to the copying machine. Seeing the open bathroom door, he closed it as if sight of a toilet bowl might be offensive to his visitors from across the river. “Why do you want him?” he asked.
“He may be involved in a kidnapping.”
“Graduation Day, huh? Some guys never learn,” he said again.
“How bad is that limp, by the way?” Hawes asked.
“Well, he’s not a cripple or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. He just sort of drags the right foot a little, you know?”
“Can you show me what you mean?” Carella asked.
“Charlie, show him how Wilkins walks, will you?” Strauss said.
Latham got up from behind his desk.
Like an actor preparing before he went onstage, he hesitated a moment, thinking, and then he started walking across the room. The limp he affected was a slight one. His impersonation captured perfectly the walk of the masked man the detectives had seen on Honey Blair’s tape.
“How’s that?” Latham asked.
“Perfect,” Strauss said. “Maybe we ought to sendyou up there to Miramar, finish out his term.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Latham said, but he seemed pleased he’d been such a big hit.
Strauss carried a sheaf of papers over from the copier. Stapling them together, he said, “You might as well haveall the vitals,” and handed the pages to Carella. “If you find him, let me know,” he said. “I really thought he was a candidate for early, the jackass. Goes to show, don’t it?”