"You tap individuals, not groups, as they approach the building," said Sammy, "and you tap everyone, including women. You report anything suspicious, but you do not, repeat not, approach the subject. You pass him along to the next squad until his seat is noted, and that's it. Once the performance has started, assuming that we haven't landed anything, you withdraw from the main hall. During the intermission you repeat the procedure on people passing in and out of the main hall and, again, if we don't have anything, you withdraw. We do the final screening when the audience leaves the hall after the concert. Now remember who you're dealing with here. This guy kills the way you blow your nose. Very casually. So let's not have any heroes here tonight. Your job is not to apprehend, only to report. No heroes, you understand?"
"You understand?" I asked Chicken as we crossed Fifty-seventh Street to the Hall. "Don't screw up tonight. You pull one of your stunts and I'll have you shoveling horse shit all summer."
"You don't have to worry about me," he said jauntily. "I'm on the team now. I'm a happy camper."
"You're a pain in the ass and an arrogant little prick, so don't blow me any smoke. Just do your job."
"I told you, Ben, I'll do it. I learned a lot on the Sextant job."
"You learned that you were lucky, that's what you learned. And who said that you could call me Ben?"
That got to him. First names were always used at the Center, regardless of age. His jauntiness crumbled at the edges. "What should I call you?"
Collect, I thought. Calvin's line. Call me collect.
"Collect?" he asked, puzzled.
Sloppy of me, he had picked up the thought. He had his touch back, all right. "Yeah, sure, call me Ben. Call me anything you damn well please."
There is nothing grand about the entrance to Carnegie Hall, just two steps up from the street and you're in the small lobby with the box office windows on the far left. It isn't until you walk into the main-stage auditorium that you begin to feel the grandeur of the place and, standing at the back of the Parquet, your eyes rise up to the four glittering horseshoe tiers that converge on the stage. Eighty feet above your head a double halo of chandeliers spreads a buttery light that suffuses the atmosphere and picks out the intricate wreaths and scrolls on the walls. Serried rows of seats slope down at a steep but pleasing angle. The Hall is just over one hundred years old, saved from the wrecker's ball and still going strong, singing songs of better days.
My squad covered the lobby and the Parquet, and I took up my position at the top of the center aisle as the first of the ticket holders began to trickle in. Chicken stood beside me. The setup made for easy tapping. As each person walked by I did a quick tap, in and out, and Chicken did the same, backing me up. It soon turned into a dull routine.
You getting anything? asked Chicken. Anything at all?
No, but keep alert. Don't let up.
Look, I've been thinking…
Don't. Whenever you think you have an accident.
When I was on the Sextant job…
If I hear anything more about that job, I'll puke. Get back to work, and stay on it.
All right, all right, I'm on it.
He was on it, I was on it, we all were on it, but by the time that the house lights dimmed we had turned up nothing. The message came from Sammy in the truck. Everybody out of the Hall. We gathered in the lobby, and Sammy came through again. Don't bunch up in there. Some of you get out on the street and move around. Be back in time for the intermission.
I went across the street and climbed into the truck. Ritter and Costello were there, hooked up to their people, and Sammy and Martha. I didn't see any smiling faces.
"Anything?" I asked.
"Zilch," said Sammy. "A couple of false alarms."
"Then we might as well pack it in and go home. He isn't coming. '
"It's still early."
"The house is full. He'd be here by now."
"We could have missed him going in. We have two more cracks at him."
"Damn it, you're kidding yourself. He isn't here."
Ben. It was Martha. Costello and Ritter were looking at us curiously. Let's keep the discussion inside the family.
Sorry. It's just that I don't think this is going to work. I never did.
You don't want it to work. That's why you're so sure he won't show.
What's all this? asked Sammy. You don't want it to work?
He's afraid of what's going to happen if we nail this creep tonight.
Leave it alone, I told her. She had taken a really good look in my head.
It's nothing to be ashamed of. If Safeer goes down tonight, right here, everything about him comes out in the open. Lila finds out that her father is a cold-blooded killer, June gets robbed of her one decent memory, and Teague finds out what happened to the boy he treated like a son. So Ben would feel better if he didn't show up.
Fuck you, Madam Freud, I said. Were you able to keep a tap on Chicken?
As much as I could. You're hurting him, Ben.
He'll live. That kid is made of solid brass.
She flipped me a mental sigh. When you get like this I can't talk to you.
I went back to the Hall for the intermission screening, and once again we turned up nothing. Some of the audience went out onto Fifty-seventh Street to smoke, some gathered in the lobby, some stayed in their seats. We screened everyone who moved past our positions, and to cover the ones who had stayed in their seats we sent a few aces sauntering up and down the aisles, tapping as they went along. Nothing. Upstairs, downstairs, inside, outside. Nothing. When the second half of the program began, we withdrew again from the Hall. We gathered in the lobby and on the sidewalk, and Sammy made a speech to the troops from the truck speaking head-to-head, all hands tapped in.
Quiet down and listen up, he said. The fact that we haven't spotted this bastard yet doesn't mean that he isn't here. In a crowd like this we could easily have missed him, but we still have one more crack at him, so don't let down. I want you on your toes when the concert ends and the people start coming out. Tap them once, tap them twice, tap them three times if you get the chance, and report anything you find. Send it straight in to me in the truck, and then get out of the way. The Feds and the cops will take it from there. Stay with it, gang.
Tucked away somewhere I have a program of that concert at Carnegie Hall, and if I looked at it I could tell you what Bonfiglia sang that night, but I don't remember any of it. All I remember about the second half of that concert is pacing up and down Fifty-seventh Street in the rain with Chicken at my heels, waiting for it to be over. My mood was foul and angry, made worse by what Martha had said. Yes, I wanted Safeer caught, I even wanted him killed, but I wanted something better than that for the memory of Hassan Rashid.
"Ben," said Chicken.
"No," I said, and that was the end of that conversation.
We went back to the Hall, and took up our positions. Through the closed doors we heard the applause and the calls for encores. She sang one, and then another. They forced her to sing a third, and then it was over. The applause died down, the doors swung open, and the crowd came pouring out.
I tapped and I tapped, and I got what I expected. Nothing. The crowd thinned down to a trickle. Still nothing. I went into the Hall to take a final look around. Anyone who has worked as an usher either in Broadway theatres or in halls such as Carnegie, Avery Fisher, or the Met will tell you that people exit from an auditorium in three different ways. There are the taxi hunters who rush for the door as soon as the curtain begins to fall, there are those who exit in an orderly fashion, and there are the very few who sit stock still while the others leave, reluctant to remove themselves from the scene. Still captured by what they have seen and heard, they can sit that way, unmoving, until they are politely told that it is time to go.