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Spedino turned to Hawes with his shark grin and, as though taking him into his confidence, said, “He still don’t believe me, your partner.”

Hawes grinned a peculiar shark grin of his own. “Neither do I,” he said.

Spedino shrugged and went out of the squadroom.

The funny part about Spedino’s story was that it seemed to check out. He was working in a bookstore called The Bookends in Riverhead, and the owner of the store—a Mr. Matthew Hicks—told Carella that Spedino did handle the store’s cash and did keep an eye out for petty thefts which, apparently, he was expert at spotting. Hicks paid him $85 before taxes for his duties, and Spedino seemed happy with the job and happy with his wife and happy with his two children, one of whom was married to a carpenter, the other of whom was going to college and studying pharmacy.

Carella hung up and relayed the information to Hawes, who nodded grimly and pulled the telephone directory from its drawer in his desk. They found a listing for a Sigmund Reuhr on Bartlett Street, and they checked out a police sedan and drove down there to kill the morning. On the way down, Hawes again brought up the fact that George Lasser had been able to afford a son in a fancy-shmancy prep school and a wife in a private mental institution, all on what a janitor was earning back in 1939.

“Well, where the hell was he getting the money?” Carella answered somewhat testily.

“Hey, what did I do?” Hawes asked, surprised.

“Nothing, nothing,” Carella said. “This case is beginning to bug me, that’s all. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s puzzles.”

“Maybe Mr. Reuhr will solve all the puzzles for us,” Hawes said, and smiled.

“I hope so,” Carella said. “I certainly hope somebody will solve all the puzzles.”

Mr. Reuhr, as it turned out, wasn’t solving any puzzles for them that morning. Mr. Reuhr was a man of about sixty-five with a thin wiry frame and a bald head and piercing brown eyes. He was wearing a brown cardigan sweater over a plaid woolen sports shirt, and he admitted them to his apartment after they’d identified themselves and then asked what he could do for them.

“You can tell us all about the crap games in the basement of 4111 South 5th,” Carella said, laying it right on the line.

“The what games?” Reuhr asked.

“Mr. Reuhr, we’re not in a mood to fool around,” Carella said, figuring he’d come this far already, so what the hell? “Gambling’s only a misdemeanor, but homicide’s the worst felony you’d want to get mixed up in. Now how about telling us what you were doing at those games, and who else was there, and why…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Reuhr said.

“The crap games, Mr. Reuhr.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The murder of George Lasser, Mr. Reuhr.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, I told you we didn’t feel like kidding around. Get your hat, Mr. Reuhr.”

“Are you arresting me?” Reuhr asked.

“We’re going to have a private little lineup, Mr. Reuhr. We’re going to walk you in front of another dice player and ask him to identify you. How about that, Mr. Reuhr?”

“I hope you know there are laws in this city against false arrest,” Reuhr said.

“Oh? Are you a lawyer, Mr. Reuhr?”

“I’ve done work for law firms.”

“What kind of work?”

“Accounting.”

“Do you have your own firm, or do you work for someone?”

“I’m retired now,” Reuhr said. “I used to work for Cavanaugh and Post here in the city.”

“Good. In that case you won’t be losing any time.”

“I want to call a lawyer,” Reuhr said.

“Mr. Reuhr, we are not arresting you,” Carella said. “We are asking you politely to accompany us to the precinct, a request which is within our rights as police officers investigating a murder. Once we get to the station, we will hold you only a reasonable length of time before either releasing you or booking you on a specific charge. All legal and nice, Mr. Reuhr.”

“What’s a reasonable length of time?” Reuhr asked.

“There are several people we have to contact,” Carella said. “As soon as they arrive, we’ll have our lineup, okay? It shouldn’t take very long at all.”

“I’m going with you under protest,” Reuhr said, and he put on his coat.

“Mr. Reuhr,” Carella advised him, “this is not a baseball game.”

When they got back to the squadroom, Carella called Danny Gimp and told him he had picked up Reuhr and was thinking of picking up Spedino as well.

“How come?” Danny asked.

“I want your contact to identify them.”

“Why? Did they say they weren’t at those games?”

“That’s right.”

“They’re full of it. This was straight goods, Steve. The guy I got it from had no reason to snow me.”

“Okay, would he be willing to come up here and identify them?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t realize he was handing this info to the cops, you dig?”

“Well, break the news to him, will you?”

“I still don’t think he’d come up, Steve.”

“We can always pinch him.”

“That’d louse me up just dandy. Besides, it’s academic.”

“What do you mean?”

“You want to pinch him, you’ll have to get extradition papers.”

“Why? Where is he?”

“He went down to Jamaica Saturday.”

“When’s he coming back?”

“When the season’s over. After Easter.”

“That’s great,” Carella said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Argh, the hell with it,” Carella said, and hung up. He stared at the phone for several moments and then went through the gate in the wooden railing and walked down the corridor to where Hawes was waiting with Reuhr in what was loosely called the Interrogation Room. He opened the frosted glass door, went into the room, sat on the edge of the long table, and said, “I promised a reasonable length of time, right, Mr. Reuhr? How long have you been here now? Ten minutes?”

“How much longer will it—”

“You can go home,” Carella said. Reuhr looked up at him in surprise. “Go ahead, you heard me. Go home.”

Reuhr rose without saying a word. He put on his hat and coat and walked out of the room.

The call from Detective-Lieutenant Sam Grossman came at 2:30 that afternoon. A blustery wind was blowing in over Grover Park, lashing the meshed squadroom windows, whistling under the eaves of the old building. Carella listened to the roar of the wind and beneath that, like a warm breeze from somewhere south, the gentle voice of Sam Grossman.

“Steve, I may have something on this ax murder,” Grossman said.

“Like what?” Carella asked.

“Like a motive.”

For a moment Carella was silent. The window panes rattled beneath a new furious gust of wind.

“What did you say?” he asked Grossman.

“I said I think I may have a motive.”

“For the killing?”

“Yes, for the killing. What did you think? Of course for the killing. Did you think for the bar mitzvah?”

“I’m sorry, Sam. This case has been—”

“Okay, you want to hear this or not? I’m a busy man.”

“Shoot,” Carella said, smiling.

“I think the motive is robbery,” Grossman said.

“Robbery?”

“Yeah. What’s the matter with you? You going a little deaf or something? Robbery is what I said.”

“But what was there to rob in that basement?”

“Money,” Grossman said.