“What’s the bank?”
“Bankers First on Culver Avenue, three blocks from their office. I called about four o’clock, it must’ve been. They close the doors at three, you know, but they keep working inside there till five, sometimes six o’clock. I spoke to the manager, a guy named Fred Epstein, and he told me Diamondback Development had a checking account and also a safety deposit box. I asked him if I could take a peek in the box, and he said not without a court order — you need a goddamn court order for a coffee break nowadays. So I ran out of the office, and downtown, and I got a municipal judge to write me the order, and I got uptown again around five and went through the box, and guess what?”
“What?” Carella said.
“There’s close to eight hundred thousand in cash in that box. Now that’s a pretty hefty sum for three bare-assed develop ers who started their business with five thousand nine hundred seventy-five dollars, don’t you think?”
“I think so, yes.”
“And who, don’t forget, have already laid out close to a hundred thousand buying buildings and getting architects to make drawings for them. Not to mention what it must’ve cost to do that one renovation job. Where’d all that money come from, Carella?”
“I don’t know,” Carella said.
“Neither do I.”
“Did you tell all this to Hawes?”
“I knew it when I called him, but there was one other thing I wanted to check before I filled him in.”
“What was that?”
“The third guy in Diamondback Development. Oscar Hemmings. The treasurer.”
“Did you get a line on him?”
“Yeah, he lives in that building on Saint Sebastian, the one Diamondback Development renovated. I plan to look him up tomorrow. I already checked with the IS, he hasn’t got a record. Neither has Worthy, by the way. Chase is another story. He took a fall five years ago, for Burglary/Two, was sentenced to ten at Castleview, got out on parole in three-and-a-half.”
“When was that?”
“When he was released? Be two years come November.”
“Has the FBI got anything on any of them?”
“Got a request in now,” Ollie said. “I should be hearing pretty soon.”
“You’ve been busy, Ollie,” Carella said. He did not like Ollie, but he made no attempt to hide his admiration for what Ollie had accomplished in the space of several hours. This was what he had tried to explain to Hawes earlier. Fat Ollie Weeks was a terrible person, but in many respects a good cop. Throwing away his investigative instincts and his dogged ferreting-out of facts would be tantamount to throwing away the baby with the bathwater. And yet, working with him rankled. So what was one to do? In all good conscience, what was one to do? Treat him like a computer spewing out information, thereby dehumanizing him and committing the same offense that so offended? Ollie Weeks was a problem. Moreover, Carella suspected he was a problem without a solution. He was what he was. There was no taking him aside and calmly explaining the facts of life to him. “Uh, Ollie baby, it’s not nice, these things you say. Some people may find them offensive, you dig, Ollie?” How do you explain to a crocodile that it’s not nice to eat other animals? “It’s in my nature,” he’ll reply. “That’s why God gave me such sharp teeth.” God alone knew why He had given Ollie Weeks such sharp teeth, but short of knocking them out of his mouth, Carella didn’t know quite what to do about them.
“You’re damn right I’ve been busy,” Ollie said, and grinned, thereby adding modesty to all his other virtues.
Both men heard voices in the corridor outside, and turned toward the slatted railing. Hawes was coming into the squadroom, followed by Kissman, who was carrying a tape recorder. Kissman looked older than Carella remembered him. He suddenly wondered if he looked the same way to Kissman.
“Hi, Alan,” he said.
“Martin,” Kissman said.
“Martin, Martin, right,” Carella said, and nodded. He was tired, his head was full of too many figures. Money, money, money, it always got down to love or money in the crime business. “This is Ollie Weeks of the Eight-Three. Martin Kissman, Narcotics.”
The men shook hands briefly, and looked each other over, like advertising executives wondering if they’d be working together on the same account.
“Where’s the girl?” Ollie asked, suddenly realizing Hawes had gone out to bust Elizabeth Benjamin and had come back with a Narcotics cop instead.
“In Diamondback Hospital,” Hawes said.
“With two broken legs, some broken ribs, and a broken jaw,” Kissman said.
“Why didn’t you call me?” Ollie said to Hawes, offended.
“It all happened too fast,” Hawes answered. “But Kissman’s got a tape of what went on in the apartment...”
“A tape?” Ollie said. He was enormously confused. He blinked his eyes and reached for a handkerchief. Mopping his brow, he said, “I don’t know what’s going on here,” which was true enough.
Hawes explained it to him while Kissman set up the recorder. Then the four men sat in straight-backed chairs around the desk as Kissman pressed the PLAY button. The tape started with a sequence that had been recorded earlier in the day:
— His things’ve been looked through. Four times already. The pigs’ve been in and out of this place like it was a subway station.
“Who’s that?” Ollie whispered.
“The girl,” Hawes whispered back.
— The police have been here before?
— Not while we were home.
— Then how do you know they were here?
“Who’s the guy?” Ollie asked.
“Me,” Hawes said.
“You?” Ollie said, even more confused.
— Charlie set traps for them. Pigs ain’t exactly bright, you know. Charlie found those bugs—
“Can you run it ahead?” Hawes asked.
— ten minutes after they planted them.
Kissman stopped the tape, and then pressed the FAST FORWARD button, watching the footage meter, stabbing the STOP button, and then pushing the PLAY button again. This time he was closer on target:
— better get here fast. The apartment. I did what you said, I stayed here. And now they’ve come to get me. The ones who killed Charlie. They’re outside on the fire escape. They’re gonna smash in here as soon as they work up the courage.
There was the sound of shattering glass, and then at last three, possibly four different voices erupted onto the tape:
— Get away from that phone!
— Hold her, watch it!
— She’s...
— I’ve got her!
Elizabeth screamed. There was a click on the tape, probably the phone being replaced on its cradle, and then the sounds of a scuffle, a chair being overturned perhaps, feet moving in rapid confusion over the linoleum floor. From the squadroom railing, Meyer Meyer, coming back with a container of coffee and a cheese Danish, said, “What’s going on?”
“Quiet,” Hawes said.
Elizabeth was sobbing now. There were the sodden sounds of something hard hitting human flesh.
— Oh, please, no.
— Shut up, bitch!
— Hold her, get her legs!
— Please, please.
She screamed again, a long blood-curdling scream that raised the hackles on the necks of five experienced detectives who had seen and heard almost everything in the horror department. There was the sound of more blows, even in cadence now, a methodical beating being administered to a girl already unconscious.
— Come on, that’s enough.
— Hold her, lay off, you’re gonna kill her!
— Let’s go, let’s go.
— What’s that?
— Let’s get the hell out of here, man.
There was the sound of footsteps running, the tinkle of glass, window shards probably breaking loose as they went out through the window. The sensitive mike picked up a moan from the kitchen floor, and then there was utter silence.