Shannon looked up. “How come?”
“Because these guys switch garages all the time—you know what cabdrivers are like. Anyway, all the garages’ll have to be checked out.”
“I’ll tell Jenkins.”
“Okay, I’m going to bed.” Rackman moved toward the door. “Good night, buddy.”
Shannon looked at his watch, and it was ten-thirty a.m. “Night?” he asked.
Chapter Twelve
Rackman woke up at eight-thirty that evening. He turned on the radio next to his bed to an all-news station and the announcer said that the Soviet Union had freed eight more dissidents. Yawning and rolling out of bed, he scratched his stomach and wondered if Kowalchuk had come home. Picking up the phone on the night table, he called Midtown North and got through to Alfred Stevens, a black detective who’d recently joined the section.
“This is Rackman. Did they pick up the Slasher last night?”
“No,” replied Stevens, “but we know where he works.”
“Where?”
“The Metropolitan Garage on West Sixty-first Street. It was one of the first garages we checked. It’s staked out now.”
“Who found it?”
“Olivero.”
“Good old Olivero.”
“You comin’ in?”
“In a little while. If anybody needs me before then, I’ll be home. I put in a twenty-hour day yesterday and I’m not feeling so good.”
“Take the night off—what the fuck?”
“I might. See you, Stevens.”
“Right.”
Rackman hung up the phone and yawned again. He turned up the radio and the announcer said that a busload of civilians had been blown up in Tel Aviv. The PLO in Beirut claimed responsibility for the deed. Rackman hunkered toward the bathroom, wondering why the Israelis refused to make some kind of deal with the Palestinians. He shaved, took a shower, then put on his blue terrycloth bathrobe and went into his little kitchen to make breakfast since he didn’t feel like going out yet. He opened his refrigerator and took out three eggs and a container of cottage cheese, because he was going to prepare his specialty of the house, a cottage cheese omelet. It was the only thing he knew how to cook besides hamburgers.
He had a specially pressed steel omelet pan which he’d bought at a restaurant supply joint on the Bowery, and he used it only for omelets. Wiping it out, he placed it over the fire and dropped a big lump of butter into it, because he’d learned that the key to a good omelet was plenty of butter in the pan. He broke the eggs into a bowl and whipped them up, then poured them into the pan and watched the edges curl. He jerked the pan back and forth, feeling like a French chef.
The phone rang, and he didn’t know what to do. He decided to take the pan off the fire and take the call, although that might be harmful to the omelet. He dashed out of the kitchen and picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Danny ?” asked a familiar female voice.
“Hi Francie. Listen, I’m busy right now. Can I call you back?”
“What are you busy doing?”
“Making breakfast.”
“At nine-thirty at night?”
“I just got up. Listen I’ll call you right back—”
“I’m not home,” she interrupted. “I’m in a phone booth on the corner of your street. Can I come up?”
“Sure, but the place is a mess.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Bye.”
Rackman hung up the phone and returned to the kitchen, wondering if he wanted to see Francie just then. Well, it looked like he was going to see her anyway. He put the omelet back on the fire, flipped it over like an expert, and added the cottage cheese. He folded the omelet over the cottage cheese, let it cook for a while longer, and slid it out of the pan onto a plate. Then he carried the omelet and coffee to the little table next to the window in his living room, which also doubled as his dining room. As he was sitting down, the buzzer went off, and he went to the door, pressing the button that would open the downstairs door of the building. He returned to the table and ate two mouthfuls of omelet before Francie knocked on the door.
He opened the door. “Good morning,” he said cheerily.
She peeked into the room. “Anybody else here?”
“Just me and my roaches.”
She stepped into the room, wearing a dress, heels, and coat. “What a mess.”
“I told you.” He returned to the table and continued eating his breakfast. “If you want a cup of coffee you know where everything is.”
“You’re such a good host,” she said, taking a cigarette out of her purse and lighting it. Removing her coat and dropping it over a chair, she sat at the table with Rackman, who was finishing his omelet.
He looked at her, admiring the elegant way she held her cigarette, and the regal movements of her head. Her dress, which was a color somewhere between purple and green, fastened around her throat and draped over the swell of her breasts.
“What are you doing over here?” he asked.
“I had dinner with a girlfriend of mine at Charlie’s.”
“Was it good?”
“Yes. Then I thought I’d come over and see you, because I haven’t seen you for a while and I was getting horny.”
“Oh.”
“Are you horny?”
“Not at the moment, but if you can wait until I finish my coffee, I’m sure I’ll get horny. How have you been?”
“All right. You?”
“I’m working like a dog.”
“Sure you are.”
“I am.”
She looked around the room, and her long eyelashes enchanted him. “You don’t seem to be working so hard now.”
“I just got up.”
“You could have called me.”
“You were having dinner with a girl friend of yours.”
“I’m home a lot and you don’t call.”
“I told you that I’m working a lot. You’ve heard of the Slasher, haven’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Well that’s a Midtown North case and we’re trying to get the son of a bitch.”
She looked at him and pointed her long forefinger. “I know you’re seeing somebody else.”
“I am not seeing somebody else.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“So don’t believe me.” He took a Lucky from his pack on the table and lit it up, his first one of the day, and it was delicious.
“Somebody asked me to marry him,” Francie said, blowing a column of smoke at the ceiling.
“Who?”
“You don’t know him. Do you think I should marry him?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
“Well, I’m not getting any younger,” she said.
“None of us are.”
“I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting for you.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
She looked at him angrily. “Don’t you even care!”
“About what?”
“If I married somebody else?”
Rackman thought for a few moments. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you care?”
“I care, but it’s your life, Francie. I don’t know what’s right for you. I don’t even know what’s right for me. What does he do?”
“He’s a playwright.”
“Had any hits?”
“He had a big hit about ten years ago. Now he teaches at Hunter College, and gives lectures at different places. He makes around forty thousand dollars a year.”
“Marry him,” Rackman said.
“I don’t know whether I should or not.” She puffed her cigarette nervously.
“What does your shrink say?”
“He says it’s my decision to make.”
“Why don’t you get rid of that fucking asshole?”
“He’s not a fucking asshole.”