Doll Page 4

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was he with those people?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did they leave the restaurant at ten and walk around for a while?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then Cutler couldn’t have been the man Cyclops took up in his elevator.’

  ‘Unless Cyclops got the time wrong.’

  That’s a possibility, and I suggest we check it. But the checking should have been done before you started hurling accusations around.’

  ‘I didn’t accuse anybody of anything!’

  ‘Your entire approach did! Who the hell do you think you are, a Gestapo agent? You can’t go marching into a man’s office with nothing but an idea and start—’

  ‘I was doing my best!’ Kling said. ‘If that’s not good enough, you can go to hell.’

  ‘It’s not good enough,’ Carella said, ‘and I don’t plan to go to hell, either.’

  ‘I’m asking Pete to take me off this,’ Kling said.

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I outrank you, like you said, and I want you on it.’

  ‘Then don’t ever try that again, I’m warning you. You embarrass me in front of a civilian again and—’

  ‘If you had any sense, you’d have been embarrassed long before I asked you to go.’

  ‘Listen, Carella—’

  ‘Oh, it’s Carella now, huh?’

  ‘I don’t have to take any crap from you, just remember that. I don’t care what your badge says. Just remember I don’t have to take any crap from you.’

  ‘Or from anybody.’

  ‘Or from anybody, right.’

  ‘I’ll remember.’

  ‘See that you do,’ Kling said, and he walked through the gate in the slatted railing and out of the squadroom.

  Carella clenched his fists, unclenched them again, and then slapped one open hand against the top of his desk.

  Detective Meyer Meyer came out of the men’s room in the corridor, zipping up his fly. He glanced to his left toward the iron-runged steps and cocked his head, listening to the angry clatter of Kling’s descending footfalls. When he came into the squadroom, Carella was leaning over, straight-armed, on his desk. A dead, cold expression was on his face.

  ‘What was all the noise about?’ Meyer asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Carella said. He was seething with anger, and the word came out as thin as a razor blade.

  ‘Kling again?’ Meyer asked.

  ‘Kling again.’

  ‘Boy,’ Meyer said, and shook his head, and said nothing more.

  On his way home late that afternoon, Carella stopped at the Sachs apartment, showed his shield to the patrolman still stationed outside her door, and then went into the apartment to search for anything that might give him a line on the men Tinka Sachs had known — correspondence, a memo pad, an address book, anything. The apartment was empty and still. The child Anna Sachs had been taken to the Children’s Shelter on Saturday and then released into the custody of Harvey Sadler — who was Tinka’s lawyer — to await the arrival of the little girl’s father from Arizona. Carella walked through the corridor past Anna’s room, the same route the murderer must have taken, glanced in through the open door at the rows of dolls lined up in the bookcase, and then went past the room and into Tinka’s spacious bedroom. The bed had been stripped, the blood-stained sheets and blanket sent to the police laboratory. There had been blood stains on the drapes as well, and these too had been taken down and shipped off to Grossman. The windows were bare now, overlooking the rooftops below, the boats moving slowly on the River Dix. Dusk was coming fast, a reminder that it was still only April. Carella flicked on the lights and walked around the chalked outline of Tinka’s body on the thick green carpet, the blood soaked into it and dried to an ugly brown. He went to an oval table serving as a desk on the wall opposite the bed, sat in the pedestal chair before it, and began rummaging through the papers scattered over its top. The disorder told him that detectives from Homicide had already been through all this and had found nothing they felt worthy of calling to his attention. He sighed and picked up an envelope with an airmail border, turned it over to look at the flap, and saw that it had come from Dennis Sachs — Tinka’s ex-husband — in Rainfield, Arizona. Carella took the letter from the envelope, unfolded it, and began reading:

  Carella refolded the letter and put it back into the envelope. He had just learned that Dennis Sachs was out in the desert on some sort of project involving the Hohokam, whoever the hell they were, and that apparently he was still carrying the torch for his ex-wife. But beyond that Carella also learned that Tinka had been going through what Dennis called a ‘monumental struggle’ and ‘ordeal’. What ordeal? Carella wondered. What struggle? And what exactly was the ‘nightmare’ Dennis mentioned later in his letter? Or was the nightmare the struggle itself, the ordeal, and not something that predated it? Dennis Sachs had been phoned in Arizona this morning by the authorities at the Children’s Shelter, and was presumably already on his way East. Whether he yet realized it or not, he would have a great many questions to answer when he arrived.

  Carella put the letter in his jacket pocket and began leafing through the other correspondence on the desk. There were bills from the electric company, the telephone company, most of the city’s department stores, the Diners’ Club, and many of the local merchants. There was a letter from a woman who had done house cleaning for Tinka and who was writing to say she could no longer work for her because she and her family were moving back to Jamaica, B.W.I. There was a letter from the editor of one of the fashion magazines, outlining her plans for shooting the new Paris line with Tinka and several other mannequins that summer, and asking whether she would be available or not. Carella read these cursorily, putting them into a small neat pile at one edge of the oval table, and then found Tinka’s address book.

  There were a great many names, addresses, and telephone numbers in the small red leather book. Some of the people listed were men. Carella studied each name carefully, going through the book several times. Most of the names were run-of-the-mill Georges and Franks and Charlies, while others were a bit more rare like Clyde and Adrian, and still others were pretty exotic like Rion and Dink and Fritz. None of them rang a bell. Carella closed the book, put it into his jacket pocket and went through the remainder of the papers on the desk. The only other item of interest was a partially completed poem in Tinka’s handwriting:

  He folded the poem carefully and put it into his jacket pocket together with the address book. Then he rose, walked to the door, took a last look into the room, and snapped out the light He went down the corridor toward the front door. The last pale light of day glanced through Anna’s windows into her room, glowing feebly on the faces of her dolls lined up in rows on the bookcase shelves. He went into the room and gently lifted one of the dolls from the top shelf, replaced it, and then recognized another doll as the one Anna had been holding in her lap on Saturday when he’d talked to her. He lifted the doll from the shelf.

  The patrolman outside the apartment was startled to see a grown detective rushing by him with a doll under his arm. Carella got into the elevator, hurriedly found what he wanted in Tinka’s address book, and debated whether he should call the squad to tell where he was headed, possibly get Kling to assist him with the arrest. He suddenly remembered that Kling had left the squadroom early. His anger boiled to the surface again. The hell with him, he thought, and came out into the street at a trot, running for his car. His thoughts came in a disorderly jumble, one following the next, the brutality of it, the goddamn stalking animal brutality of it, should I try making the collar alone, God that poor kid listening to her mother’s murder, maybe I ought to go back to the office first, get Meyer to assist, but suppose my man is getting ready to cut out, why doesn’t Kling shape up. Oh God, slashed again and again. He started the car. The child’s doll was on the seat beside him. He looked again at the name and address in Tinka’s book. Well? he thought. Which? Get help or go it alone?

  He stepped on the accelerator.

  There was an excitement pounding inside him now, coupled with the anger, a high anticipatory clamor that drowned out whatever note of caution whispered automatically in his mind. It did not usually happen this way, there were usually weeks or months of drudgery. The surprise of his windfall, the idea of a sudden culmination to a chase barely begun, unleashed a wild energy inside him, forced his foot onto the gas pedal more firmly. His hands were tight on the wheel. He drove with a recklessness that would have brought a summons to a civilian, weaving in and out of traffic, hitting the horn and the brake, his hands and his feet a part of the machine that hurtled steadily downtown toward the address listed in Tinka’s book.

  He parked the car, and came out onto the sidewalk, leaving the doll on the front seat. He studied the name plates in the entrance hallway — yes, this was it. He pushed a bell button at random, turned the knob on the locked inside door when the answering buzz sounded. Swiftly he began climbing the steps to the third floor. On the second-floor landing, he drew his service revolver, a .38 Smith & Wesson Police Model 10. The gun had a two-inch barrel that made it virtually impossible to snag on clothing when drawn. It weighed only two ounces and was six and seven-eighths of an inch long, with a blue finish and a checked walnut Magna stock with the familiar S&W monogram. It was capable of firing six shots without reloading.

  He reached the third floor and started down the hallway. The mailbox had told him the apartment number was 34. He found it at the end of the hall, and put his ear to the door, listening. He could hear the muted voices of a man and a woman inside the apartment. Kick it in, he thought. You’ve got enough for an arrest. Kick in the door, and go in shooting if necessary — he’s your man.
He backed away from the door. He braced himself against the corridor wall opposite the door, lifted his right leg high, pulling back the knee, and then stepped forward and simultaneously unleashed a piston kick, aiming for the lock high on the door.

  The wood splintered, the lock ripped from the jamb, the door shot inward. He followed the opening door into the room, the gun leveled in his right hand. He saw only a big beautiful dark-haired woman sitting on a couch facing the door, her legs crossed, a look of startled surprise on her face. But he had heard a man from outside. Where—?

  He turned suddenly. He had abruptly realized that the apartment fanned out on both sides of the entrance door, and that the man could easily be to his right or his left, beyond his field of vision. He turned naturally to the right because he was right-handed, because the gun was in his right hand, and made the mistake that could have cost him his life.

  The man was on his left.

  Carella heard the sound of his approach too late, reversed his direction, caught a single glimpse of straight blond hair like Sonny Tufts, and then felt something hard and heavy smashing into his face.

  Chapter 4

  There was no furniture in the small room, save for a wooden chair to the right of the door. There were two windows on the wall facing the door, and these were covered with drawn green shades. The room was perhaps twelve feet wide by fifteen long, with a radiator in the center of one of the fifteen-foot walls.

  Carella blinked his eyes and stared into the semidarkness.

  There were nighttime noises outside the windows, and he could see the intermittent flash of neon around the edges of the drawn shades. He wondered what time it was. He started to raise his left hand for a look at his watch, and discovered that it was handcuffed to the radiator. The handcuffs were his own. Whoever had closed the cuff onto his wrist had done so quickly and viciously; the metal was biting sharply into his flesh. The other cuff was clasped shut around the radiator leg. His watch was gone, and he seemed to have been stripped as well of his service revolver, his billet, his cartridges, his wallet and loose change, and even his shoes and socks. The side of his face hurt like hell. He lifted his right hand in exploration and found that his cheek and temple were crusted with dried blood. He looked down again at the radiator leg around which the second cuff was looped. Then he moved to the right of the radiator and looked behind it to see how it was fastened to the wall. If the fittings were loose—

  He heard a key being inserted into the door lock. It suddenly occurred to him that he was still alive, and the knowledge filled him with a sense of impending dread rather than elation. Why was he still alive? And was someone opening the door right this minute in order to remedy that oversight?

  The key turned.

  The overhead light snapped on.

  A big brunette girl came into the room. She was the same girl who had been sitting on the couch when he’d bravely kicked in the front door. She was carrying a tray in her hands, and he caught the aroma of coffee the moment she entered the room, that and the overriding scent of the heavy perfume the girl was wearing.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘Hello,’ he answered.

  ‘Have a nice sleep?’

  ‘Lovely.’

  She was very big, much bigger than she had seemed seated on the couch. She had the bones and body of a showgirl, five feet eight or nine inches tall, with firm full breasts threatening a low cut peasant blouse, solid thighs sheathed in a tight black skirt that ended just above her knees. Her legs were long and very white, shaped like a dancer’s with full calves and slender ankles. She was wearing black slippers, and she closed the door behind her and came into the room silently, the slippers whispering across the floor.

  She moved slowly, almost as though she were sleepwalking. There was a current of sensuality about her, emphasized by her dreamlike motion. She seemed to possess an acute awareness of her lush body, and this in turn seemed coupled with the knowledge that whatever she might be — housewife or whore, slattern or saint — men would try to do things to that body, and succeed, repeatedly and without mercy. She was a victim, and she moved with the cautious tread of someone who had been beaten before and now expects attack from any quarter. Her caution, her awareness, the ripeness of her body, the certain knowledge that it was available, the curious look of inevitability the girl wore, all invited further abuses, encouraged fantasies, drew dark imaginings from hidden comers of the mind. Rinsed raven-black hair framed the girl’s white face. It was a face hard with knowledge. Smoky Cleopatra makeup shaded her eyes and lashes, hiding the deeper-toned flesh there. Her nose had been fixed once, a long time ago, but it was beginning to fall out of shape so that it looked now as if someone had broken it, and this too added to the victim’s look she wore. Her mouth was brightly painted, a whore’s mouth, a doll’s mouth. It had said every word ever invented. It had done everything a mouth was ever forced to do.

  ‘I brought you some coffee,’ she said.

  Her voice was almost a whisper. He watched her as she came closer. He had the feeling that she could kill a man as readily as kiss him, and he wondered again why he was still alive.

  He noticed for the first time that there was a gun on the tray, alongside the coffee pot. The girl lifted the gun now, and pointed it at his belly, still holding the tray with one hand. ‘Back,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t fuck around with me,’ she said. ‘Do what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it.’

  Carella moved back as far as his cuffed wrist would allow him. The girl crouched, the tight skirt riding up over her thighs, and pushed the tray toward the radiator. Her face was dead serious. The gun was a super .38-caliber Llama automatic. The girl held it steady in her right hand. The thumb safety on the left side of the gun had been thrown. The automatic was ready for firing.

  The girl rose and backed away toward the chair near the entrance door, the gun still trained on him. She sat, lowered the gun, and said, ‘Go ahead.’

  Carella poured coffee from the pot into the single mug on the tray. He took a swallow. The coffee was hot and strong.

  ‘How is it?’ the girl asked.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I made it myself.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll bring you a wet towel later,’ she said. ‘So you can wipe off that blood. It looks terrible.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel so hot, either,’ Carella said.

  ‘Well, who invited you?’ the girl asked. She seemed about to smile, and then changed her mind.

  ‘No one, that’s true.’ He took another sip of coffee. The girl watched him steadily.

  ‘Steve Carella,’ she said. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘That’s right. What’s your name?’

  He asked the question quickly and naturally, but the girl did not step into the trap.

  ‘Detective second/grade,’ she said. ‘87th Squad.’ She paused. ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Across from the park.’

  ‘What park?’

  ‘Grover Park.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ she said. That’s a nice park. That’s the nicest park in this whole damn city.’

  ‘Yes,’ Carella said.

  ‘I saved your life, you know,’ the girl said conversationally.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yeah. He wanted to kill you.’

  ‘I’m surprised he didn’t.’

  ‘Cheer up, maybe he will.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘You in a hurry?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  The room went silent. Carella took another swallow of coffee. The girl kept staring at him. Outside, he could hear the sounds of traffic.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked.

  ‘About nine. Why? You got a date?’

  ‘I’m wondering how long it’ll be before I’m missed, that’s all,’ Carella said, and watched the girl.

  ‘Don’t try to scare me,’ she said. ‘Nothing scares me.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to scare you.’

  The girl scratched her leg idly, and then said, ‘There’s some questions I have to ask you.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’ll answer them.’

  ‘You will,’ she said. There was something cold and deadly in her voice. ‘I can guarantee that. Sooner or later, you will.’