“Where were you at two this morning?” Meyer asked, going straight for the jugular.
“That, huh?”
“That,” Carella said.
“It’s all over the papers,” Inverni said. “But you’re still barking up the wrong tree.”
“So where were you?”
“With someone.”
“Who?”
“Someone.”
“The someone wouldn’t be Rebecca Schwartz, would it? Because as an alibi...”
“Are you kidding? You think old Sam would let her out of his sight at two in the morning?”
“Then who’s this ‘someone’ we’re talking about?”
“I’d rather not get her involved.”
“Oh? Really? We’ve got three dead cabbies here. You’d better start worrying about them and not about getting someone involved. Who is she? Who’s your alibi?”
Anthony turned to look over his shoulder, into the classroom. For a moment, the detectives thought he was going to name the girl with the blue scarf. Hanima, was it? Halifa? He turned back to them again. Lowering his voice, he said, “Judy Manzetti.”
“Was with you at two this morning?”
“Yes.”
His voice still a whisper. His eyes darting.
“Where?”
“My place.”
“Doing what?”
“Well... you know.”
“Spell it out.”
“We were in bed together.”
“Give us her address and phone number,” Carella said.
“Hey, come on. I told you I didn’t want to get her involved.”
“She’s already involved,” Carella said. His notebook was in his hand.
Inverni gave him her address and phone number.
“Is that it?” he asked. “Cause class is about to start.”
“I thought you planned to marry Becky,” Meyer said.
“Of course I’m marrying Becky!” Inverni said. “But meanwhile...” — and here he smiled conspiratorially — “...I’m fucking Judy.”
No, Meyer thought. It’s Becky who’s getting fucked.
The time was two P.M.
As if to confirm Parker’s fact-finding acumen, the two witnesses who’d heard the shot last night were both named Ali. They’d been coming home from a party at the time, and each of them had been a little drunk. They explained at once that this was not a habit of theirs. They fully understood that the imbibing of alcoholic beverages was strictly forbidden in the Koran.
“Haram,” the first Ali said, shaking his head. “Most definitely haram.”
“Oh yes, unacceptable,” the second Ali agreed, shaking his head as well. “Forbidden. Prohibited. In the Koran, it is written, ‘They ask thee concerning wine and gambling. In them is great sin, and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit.’ ”
“But our friend was celebrating his birthday,” the first Ali said, and smiled apologetically.
“It was a party,” the second Ali explained.
“Where?” Eileen asked.
The two Alis looked at each other.
At last, they admitted that the party had taken place at a club named Buffers, which Eileen and Willis both knew was a topless joint, but the Alis claimed that no one in their party had gone back to the club’s so-called private room but had instead merely enjoyed the young ladies dancing around their poles.
Eileen wondered whose poles?
The young ladies’ poles?
Or the poles of Ali and Company?
She guessed she maybe had a dirty mind.
At any rate, the two Alis were staggering out of Buffers at two o’clock in the morning when they spotted a yellow cab parked at the curb up the block. They were planning on taking the subway home, but one never argued with divine providence so they decided on the spot to take a taxi instead. As they tottered and swayed toward the idling cab — the first Ali raising his hand to hail it, the second Ali breaking into a trot toward it and almost tripping — they heard a single shot from inside the cab. They both stopped dead still in the middle of the pavement.
“A man jumped out,” the first Ali said now, his eyes wide with the excitement of recall.
“What’d he look like?” Eileen asked.
“A tall man,” the second Ali said. “Dressed all in black.”
“Black suit, black coat, black hat.”
“Was he bearded or clean-shaven?”
“No beard. No.”
“You’re sure it was a man?”
“Oh yes, positive,” the second Ali said.
“What’d he do after he got out of the cab?”
“Went to the windshield.”
“Sprayed the windshield.”
“You saw him spraying the windshield?”
“Yes.”
“Oh yes.”
“Then what?”
“He ran away.”
“Up the street.”
“Toward the subway.”
“There’s an entrance there.”
“For the subway.”
Which could have taken him anywhere in the city, Eileen thought.
“Thanks,” Willis said.
It was 2:15 P.M.
Parker and Genero were the two detectives who spoke once again to Ozzie Kiraz, the cousin of the second dead cabbie.
Kiraz was just leaving for work when they got there at a quarter past three that afternoon. He introduced them to his wife, a diminutive woman who seemed half his size, and who immediately went into the kitchen of their tiny apartment to prepare tea for the men. Fine-featured, dark-haired and dark-eyed, Badria Kiraz was a woman in her late twenties, Parker guessed. Exotic features aside, she looked very American to him, sporting lipstick and eye shadow, displaying a nice ass in beige tailored slacks, and good tits in a white cotton blouse.
Kiraz explained that he and his wife both worked night shifts at different places in different parts of the city. He worked at a pharmacy in Majesta, where he was manager of the store. Badria worked as a cashier in a supermarket in Calm’s Point. They both started work at four, and got off at midnight. Kiraz told them that in Afghanistan he’d once hoped to become a schoolteacher. That was before he started fighting the Russians. Now, here in America, he was the manager of a drugstore.
“Land of the free, right?” he said, and grinned.
Genero didn’t know if he was being a wise guy or not.
“So tell us a little more about your cousin,” he said.
“What would you like to know?”
“One of the men interviewed by our colleagues...”
Genero liked using the word “colleagues.” Made him sound like a university professor. He consulted his notebook, which made him feel even more professorial.
“Man named Ajmal, is that how you pronounce it?”
“Yes,” Kiraz said.
“Ajmal Khan, a short-order cook at a deli named Max’s in Midtown South. Do you know him?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Friend of your cousin’s,” Parker said.
He was eyeing Kiraz’s wife, who was carrying a tray in from the kitchen. She set it down on the low table in front of the sofa, smiled, and said, “We drink it sweet, but I didn’t add sugar. It’s there if you want it. Cream and lemon, too. Oz,” she said, “do you know what time it is?”
“I’m watching it, Badria, don’t worry. Maybe you should leave.”
“Would that be all right?” she asked the detectives.
“Yes, sure,” Genero said, and both detectives rose politely. Kiraz kissed his wife on the cheek. She smiled again and left the room. They heard the front door to the apartment closing. The men sat again. Through the open windows, they could heard the loudspeakered cry of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.
“The third prayer of the day,” Kiraz explained. “The Salat al-’Asr,” and added almost regretfully, “I never pray anymore. It’s too difficult here in America. If you want to be American, you follow American ways, am I right? You do what Americans do.”