Til Death (6 page)

There was an enormous cracking sound that jolted the automobile.

The car did not turn to the left.

With something like awe in his voice, the driver said, “Jesus, it won’t steer!”

From outside the car, passers-by saw only a vehicle that was wildly out of control, the front wheels pointing in opposite directions as the limousine hurtled forward toward the sidewalk, the stone wall, and the cliff beyond.

Inside the car, the passengers only knew that the driver could not, for some reason, steer the limousine. In a last desperate effort, he swung the steering wheel to the right and then the left, his foot automatically leaping to the brake pedal. The car swung in a screeching arc toward the sidewalk, its back wheels leaping the curb, the rear end swinging toward the wall and the cliff.

“Brace yourself!” Carella shouted, and the men in the car tensed for the shock of impact, surprised when the shock was not as great as they expected, startled with the knowledge that something had intervened to prevent the powerful smash through the stone wall, amazed when they realized the something was a lamppost.

The car ricocheted off the unbending steel pole, swerved in another wild arc, bounced forward onto the front wheels finally, coming to a dead stop as the brakes took hold completely and irrevocably.

The men in the automobile were silent.

The driver was the first to speak.

He said only, “Wow!”

One by one, they climbed out of the car. Kling had banged his head on the roof of the car, but otherwise no one was injured. The car itself had fared worse. The entire right side was smashed in where the limousine had collided with the lamppost. A crowd was gathering on the sidewalk. A policeman began shoving his way through it. The driver of the Cadillac began talking to him, explaining what had happened.

Carella walked to the steel lamppost and slapped it with an open hand. “We can all get down on our hands and knees and kiss this baby,” he said. “If it hadn’t stopped us…” He looked over the stone wall, and then wiped his forehead.

“What the hell do you suppose happened?” Kling asked.

“I don’t know,” Carella said. “Come on.”

Together, they walked to where the driver and the patrolman were squatting on their hands and knees at the front of the car.

They waited.

“Sure,” the driver said to the cop. “That’s it.”

“Yeah,” the cop said. “Boy, you were lucky you hit that lamppost. A guy was killed here once, you know that?”

“What is it?” Carella asked.

“The steering linkage,” the driver said. “There’s a steering tube under there, connected to the tie rod ends. Well, the one on the right side busted. And without that tie rod end, I didn’t have any control.”

“It looks like more than that,” the patrolman said.

“What does it look like?” Carella asked.

“It looks like somebody worked on that thing with a hack saw!”

At 3:30
P.M.,
Tommy Giordano and his best man stepped from the rectory of the Church of the Sacred Heart and walked to the altar. In a loud stage whisper, Tommy asked, “Have you got the ring?” and Jonesy nodded in assurance.

Angela Carella, resplendent in white, entered the back of the church on her father’s arm. Her face beneath the white veil was frozen in lovely horror.

On one side of the church, sitting with the bride’s family, were Steve and Teddy Carella, and Bert Kling. On the other side, sitting with the groom’s relatives, were Cotton Hawes and Christine Maxwell. Organ music filled the vaulted stone vastnesses of the church. A photographer who’d snapped Angela as she’d stepped out of the Cadillac, snapped her again as she’d mounted the church steps, and again as she’d started down the aisle, now hopped with gnomelike agility to the front of the church, anxious to catch her as she approached the altar. Tommy’s hands twitched at his sides.

Louisa Carella began crying. Teddy reached over to pat her mother-in-law’s hand, and then reached for her own handkerchief, and blew her nose to hide her tears.

“She’s beautiful,” Louisa said, and Teddy nodded, her eyes brimming.

The organ music swelled to drown out the sound of the joyful weeping, the “Ooooohs” and “Ahhhhs” which heralded the bride’s steady regal progress down the aisle. The flash bulbs popped as the photographer busily kept his shutter clicking. Tony Carella, his bent arm supporting the trembling hand of his daughter, walked down the aisle with the dignity of a monarch about to be crowned, certain that the twitching of his left eye was not visible to anyone in the pews.

In the first pew on the bride’s half of the church, Steve Carella sat alongside his wife and chewed his lip.

Somebody sawed through that rod end,
he thought.
This was no damn black widow joke. This was serious business.

Angela climbed the steps to the altar. Tommy smiled at her, and she returned the smile, and then lowered her eyes behind the pale white veil.

And whoever did the sawing was well aware of that steep hill and that sharp turn. Whoever did it probably sawed it through just far enough to know it would snap when the turn was attempted.

Tony Carella handed his daughter to his soon-to-be-son. Together, the couple faced the priest. The church was still with the solemnity of the occasion.

Tommy saw something glinting on the driveway as we pulled out,
Carella thought.
Probably metal filings from the sawed rod. The rod is thin. Ten minutes with a hack saw could have done a very fine job on it. And Sam Jones was gone for a half-hour walk. And Sam Jones had dirt on the knees of his trousers. And it was Sam Jones who gave the driver permission to leave the limousine in search of a cup of coffee.

The priest said a prayer and then blessed the couple with holy water. Tommy was sweating profusely. Beneath the white veil, Angela’s lips were trembling.

“Do you, Thomas Giordano,” the priest said, “take this woman as your lawfully wedded wife to live together in the state of holy matrimony? Will you love, honor and keep her as a faithful man is bound to do, in health, sickness, prosperity, and adversity, and forsaking all others keep you alone unto her ‘til death do you part?”

Tommy swallowed hard. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

“Do you, Angela Louisa Carella, take this man as your lawfully wedded husband to live together in the state of holy
matrimony? Will you love, honor and cherish him as a faithful woman is bound to do, in health, sickness…”

And it was Sam Jones,
Carella thought,
who conveniently stepped out of the automobile to buy a package of cigarettes just before the crash.

“…
prosperity and adversity, and forsaking all others keep you alone unto him ‘til death do you part?”

“I do,” Angela whispered.

It is also Sam Jones, best man and best friend, who is named in Tommy’s will, who gets everything Tommy owns should Tommy die. Sam Jones.

“For as you have both consented in wedlock and have acknowledged it before God and this company, I do by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Catholic Church and the laws of this state now pronounce you husband and wife.”

The priest made the sign of the cross over the young couple and, sobbing next to Teddy, Louisa Carella suddenly said, “Now I have
another
married daughter,” and she took Teddy’s hand and kissed it quickly and fervently.

Tommy lifted his bride’s veil and kissed her fleetingly and with much embarrassment. The organ music started again. Smiling, the veil pulled back onto the white crown nestled in her hair, Angela clutched Tommy’s arm and they started up the aisle, the photographer recording every inch of their progress.

In the rectory, the telephone began ringing.

The nun in the rectory held the door open for Steve Carella as he stepped into the small room. Standing by the telephone in the robes he’d worn during the ceremony, Father Paul said, “I knew it’d take a wedding to get you into the church, Steve. But I didn’t guess a phone call would bring you into the rectory.”

“Two things I never discuss are politics and religion,” Carella answered. “Is the call from the squad, Father?”

“A man named Meyer Meyer,” Father Paul said.

“Thank you,” Carella said, and he took the receiver from the priest’s hand. “Hello, Meyer. Steve.”

“Hello, boy. How goes the wedding?”

“So far, so good. The knot’s been tied.”

“I’ve been doing a little further checking on this Sokolin character. Are you still interested?”

“Very much so.”

“Okay. I checked with his parole officer. He’s been leading an exemplary life, working as a salesman in a department store downtown. But two weeks ago, he moved from Isola to Riverhead. I’ve got the address, Steve. From what the map tells me, it looks as if it’s eleven blocks from your father’s house.”

Carella thought for a moment and then said, “Meyer, will you do me a favor? We had an accident a little while ago that stank to high heaven. Will you put a pickup-and-hold on this character? I’d feel a hell of a lot safer.” He suddenly remembered he was in a church rectory and glanced sheepishly at Father Paul.

“Sure thing. It’s kind of slow around here, anyway. I may go out on it myself.”

“Will you let me know when you’ve got him? We’re heading for the photographer’s right now, but I’ll be at my father’s place in about an hour. You can reach me there.”

“Right. Kiss the bride for me, will you?”

“I will. Thanks again, Meyer.” He hung up.

Father Paul looked at him and said, “Trouble?”

“No. Nothing serious.”

“I’ve been told about the automobile accident,” he said. “Quite a freak occurrence.”

“Yes.”

“But there’s no trouble?”

“No.”

“Even though the accident, to quote you, stank to high heaven?”

Carella smiled. “Father,” he said, “you’ve got me inside the church, but you’re not going to get me into the confessional.” He shook hands with the priest. “It was a beautiful ceremony. Thank you, Father.”

Outside, the limousines were waiting.

Carella walked over to where Kling was standing with Teddy.

“That was Meyer,” he said. “I’ve got a pickup-and-hold on Sokolin. I think that’s wise, don’t you?”

“I suppose.”

Carella looked around. “Where’s our friend Jonesy?”

“He went back to the house.”

“Oh.”

“If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, don’t worry about it. Cotton left right after him.”

“Good.” He took Teddy’s arm. “Honey, you look about ready to drop. Come on. Get inside that nice air-cooled Cadillac.” He held the door open for her. “Some day,” he said, “when I get to be commissioner, I’m going to buy you one of these all for yourself.”

Ben Darcy and Sam Jones were talking to the caterers when Hawes and Christine pulled up in a taxicab. Hawes paid the driver, and then walked around to the back of the Carella house. A huge framework was in its last stages of construction at the far end of the plot, just inside the row of hedges that divided the Carella property from Birnbaum’s.

Jonesy stopped talking when he saw Christine Maxwell. Wearing an ice-blue chiffon, she rustled across the lawn clinging to Hawes’s arm, and Jonesy followed her progress through the grass with unabashed and open admiration. When they were close enough, his eyes still on Christine, he said, “I don’t believe we’ve met. My name is Sam Jones. Call me Jonesy.”

“I’m Cotton Hawes,” Hawes said. “This is Christine Maxwell.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, taking Christine’s hand. Belatedly, he added, “Both.”

“What’s this monster creation?” Hawes asked, indicating the huge wooden grid.

“For the fireworks display,” one of the caterers explained.

“It looks like the launching platform for a three-stage rocket,” Hawes commented, aware of the sledgehammer subtlety of Jonesy’s ogling and slightly rankled by it. “Are we trying for the moon?”

“We’ll be shooting off a few rockets,” the caterer replied humorlessly.

“When will this be?”

“As soon as it’s dark. This is going to be the goddamnedest wedding
this
neighborhood ever saw, you can bet on that.”

“Angela deserves it,” Darcy said.

“And Tommy, too,” Jonesy added, smiling at Christine. “Have you seen the mermaid, Miss Maxwell? Come, I’ll show it to you. They’ve already loaded the buckets of champagne. It’s fascinating.”

“Well…” Christine started, and she glanced hesitantly at Hawes.

“I’m sure Mr. Hawes won’t mind,” Jonesy said. “Come along.” He took her arm and led her to where the ice maiden lay on her side, protected from the sun by a shielding canopy. The base upon which she lay had been scooped out to form a frigid tub into which dozens of champagne bottles had been placed. It truly looked as if this was going to be one hell of a wedding. Hawes watched Christine amble away across the lawn, aware of a growing irritation within him. It was one thing to do a cotton-picking, bodyguarding favor, but it was another to have a girl snatched from right before your eyes.

“So what is this?” a voice beside him said. “The battleship
Missouri?”

Hawes turned. The man standing before the fireworks scaffolding was short and slender with a balding pate fringed with white hair. His blue eyes held a merry twinkle. He studied the framework as if it were truly a wonder of the scientific age.

“I’m Birnbaum,” he said. “The neighbor. Who are you?”