Long Time No See (23 page)

Underhill did not know that three blind people had been killed since Thursday night, two of them in the Eight-Seven and another in Midtown East. Carella’s stop-sheet asking for information on unusual crimes and specifying attacks on blind people was at this moment on the desk of a Detective Ramon Jiminez, not six feet from Underbill’s own desk in the detective squadroom of the 41st Precinct, but Underhill hadn’t seen it. If he
had
seen it, he might have called Carella at once. But this wasn’t a homicide Underhill was dealing with, this wasn’t even an assault, this was
maybe
an attempted assault—or maybe it was just a grouchy old dog biting somebody just for the hell of it.

Being a conscientious man, however, he wired a stop to the commissioner of the Department of Hospitals at 432 Market, asking for information re patients seeking medical treatment for dog bites. He did not know where the man had been bitten, he guessed the leg, if anyplace, but he didn’t specify this in his stop. It occurred to him belatedly that if any of the city hospitals came up with the name of a man they’d treated for dog bite, he would have no way of identifying a possible suspect unless he had a blood sample. That was why he called the police laboratory, and that was how it happened that a lab technician went to the scene at 8:15 that night and began taking blood samples from the sidewalk.

Carella knew nothing about any of this.

It was a big city.

Sophie Harris did not want the dog.

“I got no way of taking care of the dog,” she said. “Chrissie’s in school all day long, and I’m out workin’. What we goan do with a big dog like that in this small apartment? Who’s goan take care of him?”

“I thought you might want him,” Carella said.

“Ain’t no dog goan bring back my Jimmy,” she said “You better take him with you when you leave.”

“Well,” Carella said, and looked at the dog. Nobody seemed to want the dog. He’d be damned if
he
wanted the dog, either. The dog looked back at him balefully. Carella had removed the leather harness, but the dog still wore around his neck a studded leather collar hung with a collection of hardware. If he decided to keep the dog, he’d have to look at all those metal discs and whatever else was hanging there, find out what shots the dog had already had. He did not want a dog. He didn’t even
like
dogs. Teddy would have a fit if he brought home a dog. “Are you sure you don’t want the dog?” he asked Sophie.

“I’m sure,” she said. They had put her son in the ground yesterday, she did not want any damn dog reminding her that he was gone forever. Buried him side by side with the daughter-in-law she’d loved, both of them gone now. Made Sophie want to bust out crying all over again, here in the presence of the policeman. She had to learn to control these sudden fits of weeping that came over her.

“Well,” Carella said, “I’ll have to find something to do with him.” He looked at the dog again. The dog looked back. “Anyway,” Carella said, “that isn’t my only reason for coming here this morning. Mrs. Harris, do you remember telling me that Jimmy had contacted an old Army buddy…”

“Yes.”

“For help with what you thought might have been an illegal scheme.”

“Yes.”

“And you said you didn’t remember the man’s name.”

“That’s right.”

“If I gave you some names, would that help?”

“Maybe.”

“How about Russell Poole? Did your son call him or write to him?”

“That doesn’t sound familiar.”

“Rudy Tanner?”

“No.”

“John Tataglia?”

“I really don’t remember. I’m very bad with names.”

“Robert Hopewell?”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Karl Fiersen?”

“All those names sound alike to me.”

Carella thought about that. He guessed that Tanner
did
sound something like Tataglia and maybe Russell Poole and Robert Hopewell
could
be mistaken one for the other. But there was nothing Fiersen sounded like but itself. And as for Cortez…

“Cortez?” he said. “Danny Cortez?”

“I can’t remember,” Sophie said. “I’m sorry.”

“Did your son
write
to this person, or did he
call
him?”

“He wrote to him.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me.”

“Did you see the letter?”

“No.”

“Do you know what it said?”

“No, he didn’t tell me what was in it. Only that he’d written to this man who was going to help him and Isabel get rich.”

“Did he say how much money was involved?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Harris, what would Jimmy have considered rich?”

“I got no idea.”

“What do
you
consider rich?”

“I’d be the richest woman in the world if I could have my Jimmy and his wife back,” Sophie said, and began weeping.

The dog didn’t say a word all the way downtown. Kept sitting on the backseat looking through the window, watching the traffic. Carella wondered if he should take him to an animal shelter. He thought of what Maloney from Canine had told him about gradually drawing all the air out of a container. Maloney said it was just like going to sleep. Carella doubted that gasping for air was very much like going to sleep. He didn’t like dogs, and he didn’t know this particular dog from an inchworm—but he didn’t think he would take him to a shelter.

He parked the car on Dutchman’s Row, near the old Harrison Life building. As he locked the door, the dog on the backseat looked out at him. Carella said, “That’s okay,” and walked away from the car. The streets here were clogged with automobiles and pedestrians. On the corner a traffic cop was chatting with a dark-haired girl in a miniskirt, a fake-fur jacket and black leather boots. The girl looked like a hooker. The traffic cop was talking to the girl who was maybe a hooker, smiling at her, puffing out his chest, while horns honked and tempers soared and traffic backed up clear to the harbor tunnel. Carella dodged a taxi that had begun weaving in and out of the stalled traffic. The taxi almost hit him. The driver rolled down his window and shouted, “You tired of living, mister?”

He found the address for Prestige Novelty on the other side of the street, some four buildings down from the corner. Someone had spilled water on the sidewalk in front of the entrance door and the water had frozen into a thin, dangerous glaze. Carella automatically looked up to the face of the building, to see whether there were any window washers on scaffolds up there. Nothing, and no one. He wondered where the spilled water had come from. Mysteries. All the time, mysteries. He skirted the patch of ice and pushed his way through the revolving doors. On the lobby directory he found a listing for Prestige Novelty, room 501. He took the elevator up, and then searched out the office in the fifth-floor corridor. Frosted-glass upper panel on the door, Prestige Novelty in gold-leaf lettering beneath, which were the numerals 501. So far, so good. With brilliant deductive work like this—finding an office after having consulted a lobby directory—Carella figured he’d make detective/1st within the month. He opened the door. This, too, indicated high intelligence and good small-motor control—grasping a doorknob in one’s right hand, twisting it, pushing the door inward. He found himself in a smallish reception room done in various shades of green, all bilious. There was an opening on the wall facing the door, a pair of sliding glass panels. Behind the panels was a dark-haired woman in her early thirties. He guessed this was Jennie D’Amato, with whom he had talked last Friday night. He approached the partition; one of the panels slid open.

“Yes?”

“Detective Carella,” he said. “I’d like to talk to Mr. Preston, please.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Are you Miss D’Amato?”

“Yes.”

“Is Mr. Preston in?”

“I’ll see,” she said, and slid the panel shut, and picked up the telephone receiver, and stabbed at a button in the base of the phone. He could hear her voice through the glass panels. “Mr. Preston? There’s a Detective Carella here to see you.” She listened, said, “Yes, sir,” and put the receiver back on its cradle. She slid open the panel again. “I’ll buzz you in,” she said to Carella, and indicated a door on her right. Carella went to the door, took the knob in his hand, waited for the buzz that unlocked it, and opened it into the office beyond. Desks, filing cabinets. At one of the desks, a horse-faced woman working over what appeared to be the company ledgers. He supposed this was Miss Houlihan. She did not look up from the books.

“It’s the door right there,” Jennie said. “Just go right in.”

“Thank you,” Carella said, and walked to the door and knocked on it.

“Come in,” Preston said.

He was sitting behind a large wooden desk, the bookcases behind him lined with leather-bound books that looked dusty and old. He was wearing a dark pin-striped suit, a white shirt, and muted tie. The last time Carella saw him he’d been wearing a bathrobe. He looked rather more elegant now, somewhat like a barrister out of
Great Expectations
, fringe of white hair framing his massive head, blue eyes alert and expectant under the white shaggy brows. He rose immediately, shook hands with Carella, and immediately asked, “Any news?”

“No, nothing,” Carella said. “I’d like to ask you a few more questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. This other woman who was killed—”

“You know about that?” Carella asked at once.

“Yes, it was in the papers. Is her death linked to Isabel’s?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Because if it is…” Preston shrugged. “Well then, you’re obviously dealing with a lunatic, isn’t that so?”

“Possibly,” Carella said. “Mr. Preston, I’m assuming that the relationship between you and Isabel was the sort in which there was a free exchange of dialogue.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you ever talk about your separate marriages?”

“Yes, we did.”

“Mr. Preston, we have good reason to believe that Jimmy Harris wrote to someone he knew in the Army, proposing some sort of business deal—possibly something illegal. Did Isabel ever mention this to you?”

“No, she did not.”

“Never mentioned Jimmy contacting one of his old Army buddies?”

“No.”

“Did she mention Jimmy going to the reunion in August?”

“Yes. In fact…”

“Yes, Mr. Preston?”

“We…stole a few days together.”

“You and Isabel went away together, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“While Jimmy was at the reunion?”

“Yes.”

“Did she later mention anything that happened at the reunion?”

“No.”

“Did Jimmy ever tell her about a plan to get rich?”

“She never mentioned such a plan to me.”

“Mr. Preston, when we went through the Harris apartment, we didn’t find anything like a diary or a journal that Isabel might have kept…”

“She was blind,” Preston said.

“Yes, I realize that, but blind people can write in Braille, and I’m sure there are at least
some
blind people who keep diaries. Did Isabel ever mention a diary or a journal?”

“No.”

“Where did she work, Mr. Preston?”

“Here, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“In the mailroom.”

“Where’s that?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because maybe she kept such a diary here at the office, where her husband wouldn’t come across it.”

“No, I don’t think she kept a diary.”

“But you’re not sure.”

“Well, I can’t be sure, of course, but…She never mentioned a diary to me. I’m sure she would have mentioned it.”

“Mr. Preston, may I see her desk, please?”

“I…I don’t see what—”

“What’s the problem, Mr. Preston?”

“There’s no problem. It’s simply that you’d be wasting your time.”

“Well, it’s
my
time, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but…”

“What is it, Mr. Preston?”

“Nothing.”

“Would you show me the mailroom, please?”

Preston sighed and rose from behind his desk. “This way,” he said, and walked across the office to the door, and opened it, and stepped into the outer office, Carella following him.

The door to the mailroom was set alongside the desk at which Miss Houlihan still worked on the ledgers. This time she glanced up as the two men went past. There seemed to be a faintly quizzical look on her face. Preston opened the door to the mailroom as though he were opening the door to a vault. A girl sat at a desk inside the windowless room. There were brochures stacked on the floor beside the desk. The girl kept reaching for the brochures and stuffing them into envelopes. She did this mindlessly—reaching, inserting, moistening the envelope flaps, sealing the envelopes.

“Would you leave us, please, Beth?” Preston asked, and the girl rose at once and walked out of the room. Preston closed the door behind her. Idly, because he was not here to look through advertising matter for ashtrays, salt and pepper shakers, coasters, swizzle sticks, or other assorted souvenir items, Carella picked up one of the brochures.

On the cover there was a line drawing of a man and a woman kissing. Above the woman’s head, and moving across the cover from left to right in delicate script lettering, was the legend
Marital Aids for Lovers.
Below the word
Lovers
, in a white heart on the extreme right-hand side of the cover, was the name of Preston’s firm, and below that its address on Dutchman’s Row. In the lower left-hand corner of the cover, in very small print, Carella read the words
SEXUALLY ORIENTED ADVERTISING FOR ADULTS
. Beneath this was the warning
This catalogue contains advertisements which may be deemed sexually oriented under the new postal law. That law is concerned with seeing that sexually oriented advertisements are not thrust upon minors or persons not desiring such advertisements. Accordingly if you are less than 21 years of age, or if you do not desire to view a sexually oriented advertisement,
DO NOT OPEN THIS CATALOGUE.
Please be kind enough to request that we remove your name from our mailing list. We will then remove your name and make every effort to see that you do not receive any more sexually oriented advertisements from us.

“That’s explicit enough,” Carella said.

“It’s in accordance with the law,” Preston said.

“I’m sure it is,” Carella said, and since he was well over twenty-one years of age, and since he was also desirous of viewing a sexually oriented advertisement, he opened the brochure.

The items advertised within were many and varied.

Here was a cordless massager in a handsome grain finish in a choice of ivory or walnut colors. Here on the facing page was a set of double remote-controlled Ben Wa balls. Here now was a Ben Wa fringed tingle ball, and here a series of love potions ranging from stingers to energizers to vaginal teasers to penis sweeteners and to more exotically erotic efflorescences variously called Cunnilingus Powder, Erectos Capsules, Vipe Spice, and Jungle Love. Here was a life-sized doll complete with breasts and vaginal pocket, the blonde with no clothes selling for $32.50, the blonde with lingerie selling for $37.50, similarly naked or attired brunettes coming somewhat cheaper, with nary a redhead in evidence. Here was a vibrodongo marital aid and here a vibro-
double
-dongo marital aid. Here was something called a vaginal pal portable marital aid of durable construction with real-looking hair in a handsome gift box—only $17.25. Here, too, was something called an autosuck vagina, described as a male marital aid and guaranteed to operate from a car’s cigarette lighter.