“Gee, who called you Tony?” Carella wanted to know.
“You were about to. I could feel it coming.”
Calling a suspect by his first name was an old cop trick, but actually Carella hadn’t been about to use it on the Inverni kid here. In fact, he agreed with him about all these proliferating hyphenated Americans in a nation that broadcast the words “United We Stand” as if they were a newly minted advertising slogan. But his father’s name had been Anthony. And his father had called himself Tony.
“What would you like us to call you?” he asked.
“Anthony. Anthony could be British. In fact, soon as I graduate, I’m gonna change my last name to Winters. Anthony Winters. I could be the prime minister of England, Anthony Winters. That’s what Inverni means anyway, in Italian. Winters.”
“Where do you go to school, Anthony?” Carella asked.
“Right here,” he said, nodding toward the towers in the near distance. “Ramsey U.”
“You studying to be a prime minister?” Meyer asked.
“A writer. Anthony Winters. How does that sound for a writer?”
“Very good,” Meyer said, trying the name, “Anthony Winters, excellent. We’ll look for your books.”
“Meanwhile,” Carella said, “tell us about your little run-in with Rabbi Cohen.”
“What run-in?”
“He seems to think he pissed you off.”
“Well, he did. I mean, why wouldn’t he go to Becky’s father and put in a good word for me? I’m a straight-A student, I’m on the dean’s list, am I some kind of pariah? You know what that means, ‘pariah’?”
Meyer figured this was a rhetorical question.
“I’m not even Catholic, no less pariah,” Anthony said, gathering steam. “I gave up the church the minute I tipped to what they were selling. I mean, am I supposed to believe a virgin gave birth? To the son of God, no less? That goes back to the ancient Greeks, doesn’t it? All their Gods messing in the affairs of humans? I mean, give me a break, man.”
“Just how pissed off were you?” Carella asked.
“Enough,” Anthony said. “But you should’ve seen Becky! When I told her what the rabbi said, she wanted to go right over there and kill him.”
“Then you’re still seeing her, is that it?”
“Of course I’m still seeing her! We’re gonna get married, what do you think? You think her bigoted father’s gonna stop us? You think Rabbi Cohen’s gonna stop us? We’re in love!”
Good for you, Meyer thought. And mazeltov. But did you kill those two cabbies, as the good rov seems to think?
“Are you on the internet?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Do you send e-mails?”
“That’s the main way Becky and I communicate. I can’t phone her because her father hangs up the minute he hears my voice. Her mother’s a little better, she at least lets me talk to her.”
“Ever send an e-mail to Rabbi Cohen?”
“No. Why? An e-mail? Why would...?”
“Three of them, in fact.”
“No. What kind of e-mails?”
“ ‘Death to all Jews,’ ” Meyer quoted.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Anthony said. “I love a Jewish girl! I’m gonna marry a Jewish girl!”
“Were you anywhere near Rabbi Cohen’s synagogue last night?” Carella asked.
“No. Why?”
“You didn’t throw a fire-bomb into that synagogue last night, did you?”
“No, I did not!”
“Sundown last night? You didn’t...?”
“Not at sundown and not at any time! I was with Becky at sundown. We were walking in the park outside school at sundown. We were trying to figure out our next move.”
“You may love a Jewish girl,” Meyer said, “but how do you feel about Jews?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means how do you feel about all these Jews who are trying to keep you from marrying this Jewish girl you love?”
“I did not throw a fucking fire-bomb...”
“Did you kill two Muslim cabbies...?”
“What!”
“...and paint Jewish stars on their windshields?”
“Holy shit, is that what this is about?”
“Did you?”
“Who said I did?” Anthony wanted to know. “Did the rabbi say I did such a thing?”
“Did you?”
“No. Why would...?”
“Because you were pissed off,” Meyer said. “And you wanted to get even. So you killed two Muslims and made it look like a Jew did it. So Muslims would start throwing fire-bombs into...”
“I don’t give a damn about Muslims or Jews or their fucking problems,” Anthony said. “All I care about is Becky. All I care about is marrying Becky. The rest is all bullshit. I did not send any e-mails to that jackass rabbi. I did not throw a fire-bomb into his dumb temple, which by the way won’t let women sit with men. I did not kill any Muslim cab drivers who go to stupid temples of their own, where their women aren’t allowed to sit with men, either. That’s a nice little plot you’ve cooked up there, and I’ll use it one day, when I’m Anthony Winters the best-selling writer. But right now, I’m still just Tony Inverni, right? And that’s the only thing that’s keeping me from marrying the girl I love, and that is a shame, gentlemen, that is a fucking crying shame. So if you’ll excuse me, I really don’t give a damn about your little problem, because Becky and I have a major problem of our own.”
He raised his right hand, touched it to his temple in a mock salute, and went back into his building.
At nine the next morning, Detective Wilbur Jackson of the Documents Section called to say they’d checked out the graffiti—
He called the Jewish stars graffiti.
— on the windshields of those two evidence cabs and they were now able to report that the handwriting was identical in both instances and that the writer was right-handed.
“Like ninety percent of the people in this city,” he added.
That night, the third Muslim cabbie was killed.
“Let’s hear it,” Lieutenant Byrnes said.
He was not feeling too terribly sanguine this Monday morning. He did not like this at all. First off, he did not like murder epidemics. And next, he did not like murder epidemics that could lead to full-scale riots. White-haired and scowling, eyes an icy-cold blue, he glowered across his desk as though the eight detectives gathered in his corner office had themselves committed the murders.
Hal Willis and Eileen Burke had been riding the midnight horse when the call came in about the third dead cabbie. At five-eight, Willis had barely cleared the minimum height requirement in effect before women were generously allowed to become police officers, at which time five-foot-two-eyes-of-blue became threatening when one was carrying a nine-millimeter Glock on her hip. That’s exactly what Eileen was carrying this morning. Not on her hip, but in a tote bag slung over her shoulder. At five-nine, she topped Willis by an inch. Red-headed and green-eyed, she provided Irish-setter contrast to his dark, curly-haired, brown-eyed, cocker-spaniel look. Byrnes was glaring at both of them. Willis deferred to the lady.
“His name is Ali Al-Barak,” Eileen said. “He’s a Saudi. Married with three...”
“That’s the most common Arabic name,” Andy Parker said. He was slumped in one of the chairs near the windows. Unshaven and unkempt, he looked as if he’d just come off a plant as a homeless wino. Actually, he’d come straight to the squadroom from home, where he’d dressed hastily, annoyed because he wasn’t supposed to come in until four, and now another fuckin Muslim had been aced.