"I told you I wanted to leave."
"Be quiet!" she said. "Drink your coffee. I made hot coffee for you. Drink it!"
"Is there something in it?" he asked.
"Why? Are you afraid of what I'll do to you when you're asleep?" she asked, and laughed again. "Do you know what happened to the old man in his sleep last night?"
"What old man?" Santo asked.
"The keeper of the keys," she said, "the man who fixed the locks, do you remember the man who fixed the locks?"
"I never saw him," Santo said.
"That's right, you were unconscious, weren't you? Someone put something in your food. You never met the poor man, did you? Clarence met him, though, didn't you, Clarence?"
The dog, at mention of his name, began thumping his tail against the floor.
"Yes, Clarence," she said, "good dog, you're the only one who knows now. You and Santo. The only ones who know."
"Know what?" Santo asked.
She laughed again, and suddenly the laughter caught in her throat like a choke, and her face sobered, and she pointed her finger at him and said, "You shouldn't have left me, Robert."
"Robert?" he said. "Hey, come on, I'm-"
"I told you to be
quiet!
I should have hidden your clothes. You wouldn't have been able to leave without your clothes. Couldn't have left here naked, could you, Robert?"
"Listen, I'm… I'm Santo. Now cut it out, you're-"
"I
said
be quiet!"
He closed his mouth. Just inside the door, the dog growled. "Take off your clothes," she said. "Listen, I really don't feel like…"
"Do as I tell you. Or do you want the dog to help you? Would you like to help him take off his clothes, Clarence?"
The dog's ears sprang suddenly erect.
"Would you like to help Robert take off his clothes?" she asked. "Would you, sweetie? Or shall we wait till he's unconscious, shall we wait for that?"
"You
did
put something in the coffee, didn't you?" he said.
"Oh, yes," she said, laughing merrily. He hated when she laughed that fucking merry laugh of hers. "Something in the coffee, and in the milk, and in the orange juice, something in
everything
this morning."
"Why?" he said, and rose from the couch. He felt nothing yet, perhaps she was lying. Those other times, all the other times, he'd become dizzy almost at once, but this time he felt nothing.
"Why?" she repeated. "Because you
know,
don't you?"
"What the fuck is it I'm supposed to
know?"
he said.
"That you're
here.
That you're here where you're supposed to be instead of running off leaving a bride of six months, you rotten bastard, I'll cut out your
heart
this time!"
"Listen, you're getting me mixed up with-"
"Be quiet, can't you
please
be quiet?" she said, and covered her ears with her hands.
"You didn't really put anything in the food, did you?"
"I
said
I did, why can't you believe anything I
say
to you or
do
for you, I'm trying to save you, don't you realize that?"
"Save me from what?"
"From leaving here. From disappearing. You mustn't leave here, Robert. You'll disappear if you leave."
"All right, I won't leave. Just promise me that if you put anything in the food…"
"Yes, I did."
"All right, then promise me you won't… you won't do… do anything to me while I'm…"
"Oh, yes," she said. "I will."
"You'll promise?"
"Promise?" she said. "Oh, no, Robert, you mustn't leave," she said. "Not now. Look," she said, and reached for her handbag and pulled the pistol from it, the same pistol she'd showed him long, long ago, so long ago he could hardly remember, the cornflakes and orange juice she'd said, large black pistol in her hand, "Look," she said, "I'm going to kill the dog," she said, "look, Robert, because the dog the dog knows you're here, he'll tell them, Robert, they'll come take you take you away, Robert, I'm going to kill the dog," the room going out of focus as he rose from the couch, hand outstretched to her, "and then I'm going to take off your clothes, all your clothes, you're going to be naked," she said, the gun coming up level, "See the gun, Clarence," the dog's tail thumping against the floor, "strip you to your skin," she said, moving toward her, his hand reaching reaching, his mouth opening and closing around words he could not form, "strip your skin," she said, "strip you naked," she said, and the gun exploded once, twice, and he saw the back of the dog's head splattering against the massive wooden door in a shower of gristle, bone, and blood before he fell flat to the floor, trying to say don't cut me don't burn me don't hurt me don't please don't please…
***
It was a little after twelve noon when they reached Dorothy Hawkins's apartment. This time they had a search warrant with them. And this time, Dorothy Hawkins wasn't home. The building superintendent told them that Mrs. Hawkins worked out on Bethtown in a factory that made transistor radios, something the detectives already knew, and something they might have remembered if the case hadn't reached the true desperation phase. Desperately, Carella and Meyer showed the super the court order, and explained that Bethtown was one hell of a way from Diamondback, and that finding Mrs. Hawkins would necessitate a car trip all the way downtown to Land's End, where they'd have to take a ferry over to the island, or else go across the new bridge, but this would put them smack in the center of Village East, the heart of Bethtown, and they'd then have to drive all the way over to the other end of the island where most of the factories were located, and if they had to drag Mrs. Hawkins back here with them to unlock her door, she'd lose a day's work, did the super want the poor woman to lose a day's work? The super said he certainly didn't want a nice lady like Mrs. Hawkins to lose a day's work.
"Then how about opening the door for us?" Meyer said.
"I spose," the super said dubiously.
Under his watchful eye, they searched the apartment from top to bottom for almost two hours, but they could not find the slightest clue to where C. J. Hawkins had gone each and every Wednesday for the past thirteen weeks.
***
The girl who opened the door of Joey Peace's downtown pad was a tall redhead wearing nothing but a pair of red bikini panties. She had very long legs and rather exuberant breasts with nipples that peered at each other as though in need of an ophthalmologist. She also had green eyes and frizzy hair, and she looked and sounded somewhat kooky.
"Hey, hi," she said, opening the door and peeking into the hall. "Is there just the two of you?"
"Just the two of us," Carella said, and showed her his shield.
"Hey, wow," she said, "cool. Where'd you get that?"
"We're police officers," Carella said. "We've got a court order to conduct a search of this apartment, and we'd appreciate it if you let us in."
"Yeah, hey, wow," she said, "what are you lookin for?"
"We don't know," Meyer said, which was close enough to the truth, and which caused the redhead to burst into paroxysms of laughter that jiggled her exhilarated breasts and caused them to look even more cross-eyed than they had a moment before.
The judge who'd granted the warrant had been reluctant to give them what he called "a blind license to conduct a search for will-o'-the-wisps" until Carella pointed out that he had very specifically mentioned what the detectives were searching for, and what they were searching for. Your Honor-if you'll just glance here at heading Number Two-is
sand,
Your Honor, to match sand discovered in the apartment of a homicide victim and already in possession of the Police Department and in custody at the Police Laboratory, in the hope of making a positive comparison. Your Honor. The judge had looked at him askance; he knew the premise was utterly groundless. But he also knew that these men were investigating a triple homicide, and he suspected nobody's rights would be compromised if they conducted searches of the apartments one of the victims had most commonly inhabited, so he'd issued one warrant for a search of Mrs. Hawkins's apartment and another for a search of Joey Peace's rather more sumptuous pad on Laramie Avenue.
The redhead looked at the warrant Carella held in front of her face. She kept studying the document and nodding. Meyer, watching her, realized that her eyes were even more out of focus than her wayward breasts, and he decided that her natural kookiness was being aided somewhat by something that was causing her to float around on the ceiling someplace.
"You just shoot something?" he asked.
"Yeah, a tiger," the girl said, and giggled.
"What are you on, honey?" Meyer said.
"Who me?" the girl said. "Straight as an arrow, man, they call me Straight Arrow, man, yessir." She peeked around the warrant into the hallway. "I thought there was gonna be more of you," she said.
"How many?" Carella asked.
"Ten," the girl said, and shrugged.
"A minyan," Meyer said.
"No, only ten," the girl said.
"Which one are you?" Carella asked. "Lakie or Sarah?"
"Sarah. Hey, how'd you know my name?"
"My wife's name is Sarah," Meyer said. "Where's Nancy Elliott?"
"She split. She was afraid Joey was gonna hurt her. Hey, how do you know Nancy?"
"My grandmother's name is Nancy," Meyer said.
"Yeah? No kidding."
"No kidding," Meyer said. His grandmother's name was Rose.
"Where's Lakie?" Carella asked.
"Out buying some booze. This is supposed to be like a big party today, man," she said, and looked out into the hall again.
"At one o'clock in the afternoon?" Carella said.
"Sure, why not?" Sarah said, and shrugged. "It's raining." Each time she shrugged, her nipples demanded corrective lenses.
"You've seen the warrant," Carella said. "Now how about letting us in?"
"Sure, hey, come on," Sarah said, and stepped into the hallway and looked toward the elevator bank.
"You'd better come in yourself," Meyer said, "before you catch cold."
"It's just they're supposed to be here by now," she said, and shrugged.
"Come on inside," Meyer said.
Sarah shrugged again and preceded him into the apartment. Meyer locked the door and put the chain on it. "You're Joey Peace's girlfriend, huh?" he said.
"No, he's my big daddy," Sarah said, and giggled.
"Go put on some clothes," Meyer said.
"What for?"
"We're married men."
"Who ain't?" Sarah said.
"Where'd C. J. sleep?" Carella asked.
"All
over," Sarah said.
"I mean, where's her bedroom?"
"Second one down the hall." The buzzer on the door sounded. Sarah turned toward it, and said, "There they are. What should I tell them?"
"Tell them you're busy," Carella said.
"But I
ain't
busy."
"Tell them the cops are here," Meyer said. "Maybe they'll just go away on their own."
"Who, the cops?"
"No, the minyan."
"I
told
you not a million," the girl said. "Only ten."
"Go answer the door," Carella said.
Sarah went to the door and unlocked it. A tall blond girl wearing a soaking wet trenchcoat and a plastic scarf on her head came in carrying a bulging brown paper bag. She put the bag down on the Parsons table just inside the front door, said, "What took you so long to open it?" and then saw Carella and Meyer and said, "Hi, fellas."
"Hi, Lakie," Carella said.
"They're fuzz," Sarah said glumly.
"Shit," Lakie said, and took off the plastic scarf and shook out her long blond hair. "Is this a bust?" she asked.
"They got a search warrant," Sarah said.
"Shit," Lakie said again.
They had scarcely begun opening drawers in C. J.'s room when the door buzzer sounded again. A few minutes later, they heard loud voices in the entrance foyer. Carella walked out of the bedroom and toward the front door. Six wet and obviously annoyed men were standing there arguing with Sarah, who still wore nothing but the red bikini panties.
"What's the problem, fellas?" Carella asked.
"Who the fuck are
you?"
one of the men said.
"Police," Carella said, and showed them his shield.
The men looked at it silently.
"Is that a real badge?" one of the men asked.
"Solid gold," Carella said.
"There goes the fuckin party, right?" Sarah said.
"Well put," Carella said.
"Boy oh boy," one of the men said, shaking his head. "I gotta tell
you."
From the bedroom, Meyer called, "Steve! Come look at this."
"Close the door behind you, boys," Carella said, and wagged them out with his hands.
"This was
some
great idea, Jimmy," one of the men said.
"Shut the fuck up, willya?" Jimmy said, and slammed the door shut behind him. Carella locked it and put on the night chain.
"So what am I supposed to do all afternoon now, huh?" Sarah asked.
"Go read a book," Carella said.
"A
what?"
she said.