"Yeah," Carella said into the phone, "what've you got. Cowboy?"

  "Maybe a line on this Joey La Paz. You still interested?"

  "I'm still interested."

  "This may be nothin," the Gaucho said, "or it may be choice meat. Here's what happened. This little girl come in the shop maybe half an hour ago, looking over the goodies, and we start talkin and it turns out she's in Joey's stable."

  "Where is he? Does she know?"

  "Well, that's what I ain't got yet. This is like a funny thing going on here. Joey's moved underground cause he's afraid you guys are gonna pin that hooker kill on him. But this girl here-the one right here in my shop this minute-is scared to death she's gonna be the next one. She won't go back to the apartment…"

  "Did she tell you where it is?"

  "No. Anyway, Joey ain't there now. I told you, he dug himself a hole and pulled it in after him."

  "Here in the city?"

  "The girl don't know."

  "Can you hold her there for me?"

  "I can only sell her so much underwear," the Gaucho said. "I'll be there in five minutes. Keep her in the shop," Carella said.

  At his own desk, Meyer said, "And here I thought it was raining!" and burst out laughing. Kling slapped the top of the desk, and shouted, "Thought it was raining!" Genero blinked, and then laughed politely.

  ***

  The girl in the back room of the Gaucho's shop seemed surrounded by the tools of a trade far too sophisticated for her years. A slight, rather pretty redhead with a dusting of freckles on her cheeks and her nose, she looked like a thirteen-year-old who'd been called into the principal's office for a minor infraction. Her clothing-her costume, to be more accurate-exaggerated the notion that here was a child just entering puberty. She wore a white cotton blouse and a gray flannel skirt with knee-length white socks and patent-leather Mary Jane shoes. Small-breasted and thin-wristed, narrow-waisted and slender-ankled, she appeared violated-nay, desecrated-just standing there in front of the Gaucho's walled display of leather anklets, penis extenders, aphrodisiacs, inflatable life-sized female dolls, condoms in every color of the rainbow, books on how to hypnotize and otherwise win women, and one product imaginatively named Suc-u-lator. Batting her big blue eyes, the girl seemed lost in an erotic jungle not of her own making, but suddenly, Little Orphan Annie opened her mouth and a coven of lizards and toads came crawling up out of the sewer.

  "Why the fuck did you send for a cop?" she asked Gaucho.

  "I was worried about you," Gaucho lied.

  "What's your name?" Carella asked her.

  "Fuck off, mister," she said. "What've you got me for? Buying a pair of sexy panties? Don't your wife wear sexy panties?"

  "I haven't got you for anything," Carella said. "The Cowboy tells me you're scared somebody's about to-"

  "I'm not scared of nothing. The Cowboy's wrong."

  "You told me-"

  "You're wrong, Cowboy. You want to wrap this stuff, I'll pay for it and be on my way."

  "Where's Joey La Paz?" Carella asked.

  "I don't know anybody named Joey La Paz."

  "You work for him, don't you?"

  "I work for the five-and-ten.”

  "Which one?"

  "On Twelfth and Rutgers. Go check."

  "Where do you work nights?"

  "I work days. At the five-and-ten on Twelfth and Rutgers."

  "I'll check," Carella said, and took his pad from his inside jacket pocket. "What's your name?"

  "I don't have to give you my name. I didn't do anything, I don't have to give you a fuckin thing."

  "Miss, I'm investigating a pair of homicides, and I haven't got time for any bullshit, okay? Now what's your name? You're so eager for me to go checking on you, I'll start checking, okay?"

  "Yeah, you go check, smart guy. My name's Nancy Elliott."

  "Where do you live, Nancy?"

  The girl hesitated.

  "I said where do you live? What's your address?"

  Again, she hesitated.

  "What do you say?" Carella said.

  "I don't have to give you my address."

  "That's right, you don't. Here's what we'll do, Miss Elliott, if that's your real name-"

  "That's my real name."

  "Fine, here's what we'll do. I've got reason to believe you have information concerning a person we're seeking in a homicide investigation. That's Joey La Paz, whose name I mentioned just a little while ago, in case you've already forgotten it. Now, Miss Elliott, here's what we'll do if you refuse to answer my questions. What we'll do is have you subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury, and they'll ask you the same questions I'm asking you, but with a difference. If you refuse to answer them, that's contempt. And if you lie to them, that's perjury. So what do you say? We can play the game my way or we can play it yours. Makes no difference at all to me."

  Nancy was silent.

  "Okay," Carella said, "I guess you want-"

  "I don't know where he is," she said. "But you do know him."

  "I know him."

  "Want to tell me what your relationship is?"

  "You know what it is, let's just cut the crap, okay?"

  "Fine. Did you also know Clara Jean Hawkins?"

  "Yes, I knew her."

  "When did you last see her alive?"

  "The morning of the day she caught it."

  "Last Friday morning?"

  Nancy nodded.

  "Where?"

  "The apartment."

  "Where's that?"

  "Joey'll kill me," she said.

  "Where's the apartment?"

  "On Laramie and German."

  "But you say he's not there now?"

  "No, he split on Sunday, soon as he heard about C. J."

  "Why'd he split?"

  "He's afraid you'll hang it on him."

  "Did he tell you that?"

  "He didn't tell us nothing. He just split. I'm guessing, is all."

  "Who do you mean by us?"

  "Me and the other girls."

  "How many of you?"

  "Four, when C. J. was alive. Three of us now." She shrugged. "That's if Joey ever comes back."

  "Do you think he will?"

  "If he didn't kill C. J."

  "Do you think he killed her?" Nancy shrugged.

  "The Cowboy told me you're scared of him. Is it because you think he killed her?"

  "I don't know what he did."

  "Then why are you scared of him?"

  She shrugged again.

  "You do think he killed her, don't you?"

  "I think he had reason to kill her."

  "What reason?"

  "The moonlighting."

  "What do you mean?"

  "She was cheating on him."

  "To the tune of two hundred bucks a week, am I right?" Carella said.

  "I don't know how much her little party was bringin in each week."

  "What kind of party? Did she tell you?"

  "Some kind of beach party," Nancy said, and shrugged.

  "Every week?"

  "Every Wednesday. She went out there in the morning-"

  "Out where?"

  "The beach someplace."

  "Which beach?"

  "Out on Sands Spit someplace."

  "Which beach there?"

  "I don't know."

  "How'd she get there?"

  "Took a train. And then whoever it was picked her up with a car."

  "Out there on Sands Spit?"

  "Yeah, out there at the beach someplace."

  "And you think Joey found out about this?"

  "If he killed her, then it was because he found out."

  "How would he have found out?"

  "Well, I didn't tell him, and C. J. sure as shit wouldn't have."

  "Then who did?"

  "Maybe Sarah."

  "Who's Sarah?"

  "One of the other girls. Sarah Wyatt. She's new, she still digs him a lot. Maybe she's the one told him."

  "Did C. J. mention it to her?"

  "C. J. had a big mouth," Nancy said, nodding.

  "How about the other girl? The third one?"

  "Lakie?"

  "Is that her name?"

  "That's her trade name, she's from up around the Great Lakes someplace, Joey tagged her with Lakie."

  "Did she know about C. J.'s moonlighting?"

  "I don't think so. They didn't get along much. Lakie's kind of snooty, thinks she's got a golden snatch, you know what I mean? C. J. didn't go for that."

  "But she told the two of you."

  "Well, yeah."

  "Why do you suppose she got so careless?"

  "Maybe she was ready to cut out, and just didn't give a shit anymore."

  "Shouldn't she have recognized the danger of-"

  "She should have. Joey's a mean son of a bitch."

  "Does he own a gun?"

  "Yes."

  "You've seen it?"

  "Yes."

  "What kind of gun?"

  "I don't know guns. He's got a permit for it."

  "A permit? How'd he swing that?"

  "His cousin owns a jewelry store up in Diamondback. Joey got him to say he worked for him delivering diamonds and shit. So he got the permit."

  "What's the cousin's name?"

  "I don't know. Some spic name, like Joey's."

  "Where in Diamondback?"

  "The jewelry store? I don't know."

  "Does the cousin live up there?"

  "I think so. He's married and has a hundred kids like all the other fuckin spies in this city." The Gaucho cleared his throat. "Not you, Cowboy," Nancy said. "You're different." The Gaucho seemed unconvinced.

  "Will you be going back to that apartment downtown?" Carella asked.

  "I don't know, I'm sort of scared to. But like… where else would I go?"

  "If Joey shows up there, pick up the phone and call this number," Carella said, writing.

  "Sure, and he'll break my arm," Nancy said.

  "Suit yourself," Carella said, and handed her the card on which he'd written the precinct's phone number. "If he killed C. J., though…"

  "Sure," Nancy said, nibbling at the inside of her mouth, "What's a broken arm by comparison, right?"

  ***

  A call to Pistol Permits revealed that Jose Luis La Paz had indeed been issued a Carry Permit on the third day of May, which was about the time he'd gone into business procuring young ladies for gentlemen of good taste. The license application stated as his reason for needing a pistol the fact that he delivered precious gems as part of his job with Corrosco Jewelers at 1727 Cabot Street. The proprietor of the shop, who had signed his name to the confirming affidavit, was Eugene Corrosco. Carella thanked the man at Pistol Permits, looked up "Corrosco Jewelers" in the Isola yellow pages, and immediately dialed the store. A man speaking with a heavy Spanish accent told Carella that Eugene Corrosco was away on vacation. Carella asked when Mr. Corrosco would be back, but the man didn't know. Carella thanked him, looked up "Corrosco, Eugene" in the white pages, and got a woman who said she was Mrs. Corrosco. She didn't know where her husband was, or when he would be back. Belatedly, she asked who was calling.

  "This is Marty Rosen," Carella said. "I talked to him last week about some very nice sapphires, he said to give him a call."

  "Well, Mr. Rosen, he ain't here," the woman said.

  "And you don't know when he'll be back, huh?" Carella said.

  "No, I don't know."

  "Cause I'll be going back to Chicago, you know, on Friday."

  "I'm sorry," the woman said.

  "Yeah, thanks anyway," Carella said, and hung up.

  He opened the top drawer of his desk, and pulled out the police map that divided the city into precincts. Seventeen twenty-seven Cabot Street was smack in the middle of the Eight-Three, uptown in Diamondback.

  The Eight-Three meant only one thing: Fat Ollie Weeks.

  ***

  Stubby hand extended, shirt collar open, tie pulled down, sleeves rolled up over massive forearms. Fat Ollie Weeks came waddling across the squadroom of the 83rd Precinct to greet Carella and Meyer where they stood just outside the slatted rail divider. Both men were wearing sodden raincoats. Meyer was wearing his Professor Higgins hat, but Carella was hatless and even the short run from the car to the station house had left his hair looking like a tangle of brown seaweed.

  "Hey, you guys. Jeez," Ollie said, and gripped Carella's hand. "I ain't seen you guys in a dog's age, ever since Kling had his bride stole right out from under him! Jeez, how the hell are you, I been meanin to call you. You brought ole Kosher Salami with you, huh?" he said, gripping Meyer's hand. "How's old Oscar-Mayer Kosher Salami doin, huh?" he said, and burst out laughing.

  Meyer took off the Professor Higgins hat, and shook the rain from it.

  "What brings you guys up here to the Eight-Three, have a seat, willyez. Jeez, it's great to see you," Ollie said. "Hey, Gonzalez," he shouted to the clerical office, "bring some coffee out here, will you, hold the Spanish fly," and burst out laughing again, and said, "He's Puerto Rican, I'm always kiddin him about puttin Spanish fly in the coffee, you know what I mean? So, Jeez, how you doin down there in the Eight-Seven? I been meanin to call you guys, I swear to God, I really do enjoy workin with you guys."

  "We're up here looking for a pimp named Joey La Paz," Carella said. "Do you know him?"

  "No, it don't ring a bell?" Ollie said. He shook his head. "No."

  "Joey Peace?"

  "No."

  "How about Eugene Corrosco?"

  "Oh, sure, I know Gene, but he ain't a pimp. Gene owns a jewelry store on Cabot. Just between you, me, and the lamppost, Gene does a little bit of fencing on the side, you dig? I'm waitin to bust his spic ass the minute I hear he's also settin up burglaries, the way some of these guys do, you know? Sell you a diamond tiara for your wife, put a burglar on it, have him break in and steal the thing back, fence it next week across the river someplace. Very neat," Ollie said. "So far. Gene's just a small-time fence, hardly worth a bust. I'm layin in the bushes so I can send him away for a long one. What's your beef with him?"

  "No beef. We're trying to find La Paz. They're cousins."

  "This on the hooker got killed in Midtown South?"

  "Yes," Carella said.

  "Figures. You're lookin for a pimp, got to be a hooker involved, right?" he said, and tapped his temple with his forefinger, and smiled at Meyer, and said, "Tochis, Meyer."

  Meyer did not smile back. Meyer did not like Ollie. Meyer did not know anyone who liked Ollie. Ollie was not only fat, which in the United States of America automatically made him a villain, he was also bigoted. And he smelled. His breath smelled. His body smelled. He was a vast uncharted garbage dump. He was also a good cop. By certain standards.

  "So Gene's store is right around the comer," Ollie said. "What's the problem?"

  "Away on vacation it seems," Carella said.

  "Vacation, bullshit," Ollie said. "Come on, let's go find that little asshole."

  ***

  The Puerto Rican section of Diamondback had been named by its inhabitants, who-perhaps in reaction to a city that seemed determined to grind them into the dust-had lost in the christening process the fine sense of humor that had caused them to name the biggest slum in Puerto Rico "La Perla." Following the same satiric tack, they might have named their Stateside ghetto "El Paradiso." Instead, they chose to call a spade a spade. The place was El Infierno, and the tenement smells here were Hispanic in origin, which meant that mixed in with the headier nondenominational stinks of cohabitation and waste were the more exotic aromas of sancochado, ajiaco de papas, frijoles negros, arroz con salchicha, and cabrito criollo.

  "Makes you hungry just walkin inside one of these fuckin buildings," Ollie said. "There's a Spanish joint around the corner, you guys want to get a bite to eat later. The prices are very reasonable, if you take my meaning, yes indeed, oh, yes," he said, winking and falling into his world-famous W. C. Fields imitation. "What this is here," he said, returning to his normal speaking voice, which was pitched somewhere between a grunt and a growl, a sort of whiskey-seared rumble that came up from his huge barrel chest and rattled across the gravel pit of his throat to emerge from his thick lips with a stench of brimstone and bile accompanying it-Meyer wondered when Ollie had last brushed his teeth. Guy Fawkes Day? Which was not celebrated in the United States of America. "What this is here," Ollie said, "is the place where Gene Corrosco keeps the shit he fences, yes indeed, m'friends, doesn't know ole Ollie knows about it, he's gonna be in for some surprise, the little spic asshole. It's on the third floor here, get ready with the heat, m'friends, in case Corrosco decides his little stash is worth protecting."

  They were on the third floor already, following Ollie down the corridor toward the two apartments at the end of it. "It's 3A, the one on the right," Ollie said. "Let me give a listen first, huh?" He put his ear to the door as soon as they were outside the apartment, listening the way any good cop would listen before knocking on a door or kicking it in. His pistol was in his right hand, his left ear was to the door, he was breathing heavily after the climb to the third floor and his breath stank to high heaven. "Two of them, from what I can tell," he whispered. "I'll bust the door down, you fan out behind me."

  "Ollie," Carella said, "we haven't got a warrant, I think-"

  "Fuck the warrant," Ollie said, "this is Diamondback." He moved away from the door, across the corridor, and then sprinted toward it with all the agility of a dainty hippo, hitting the lock with his shoulder instead of going for a kick at it; Meyer guessed Ollie would have had trouble bringing up his knee. The door splintered away from the jamb, nuts and bolts flying as Ollie followed it into the room, left shoulder still low after hitting the lock, swinging around now to bring his right hand, the gun hand, into position. Carella and Meyer were just behind him.

 

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