At first, Santo thought he could hold out on her. Okay, you bitch, you want to keep me prisoner on this fuckin island with a fuckin German shepherd roaming the grounds, okay, you know what you’re gonna get from me? You’re gonna get this, sister, that’s what you’re gonna get, you’re gonna get nothin, zero, zilch, nada, bubkes, that’s what! But when she came in to make love that first time — this was maybe two or three weeks after she bought the dog — she locked the doors behind her, both doors, and then hung the keys on Clarence’s collar, and said, “Sit, Clarence,” and the fuckin mutt sat just inside the door, and watched her as she walked to the bed. She was wearing a pale blue nightgown, nothing under it, he could see her body through the thin nylon, a beautiful body, it was her body that had attracted him to her in the first place, tall and slender, with good breasts and long legs, she came to the bed and sat on the edge of it and said, “Don’t you want to make love, Santo?” and he told her he didn’t want to make love, he wouldn’t make love to anybody who kept him prisoner with a goddamn dog named Clarence ready to bite him, get the dog out of here, get out of here yourself, I don’t want to make love to a bitch like you!
But... you know... it had been almost three weeks already, three weeks since he’d had any woman at all, three weeks since they’d been going at it day and night, and here she was now, crawling onto the bed beside him, and wriggling out of the gown, and then taking him in her hands, and then in her mouth, and then suddenly moving away from him, rolling onto her back and throwing her legs wide the way she had that night in the kitchen, and suddenly he was on top of her and not caring whether he was her prisoner or her slave or whatever, only wanting her, wanting her, and hating himself for wanting her.
He dreamed constantly of escape. He held back a fork from his tray one time — she never let him have a knife, the bitch, his food was always cut for him when she brought it in — kept the fork and tried digging a hole in the bathroom wall, get out of this fuckin room into the basement, get around the dog somehow, but the fork broke on the cinder block, and when she found it missing later, she punished him again, there was always the punishment when he did something wrong, something she thought was wrong. Another time, he pretended he was sick, stuck his finger down his throat and vomited all over the floor, told her he thought he had appendicitis or something, figured if he could get her to call a doctor... but no, she told him no doctor, she made him wipe up the vomit, he said he was going to die, she said, “No, you’re not going to die.” Always dreaming of escape. Get out of here, get to the boat. Get free.
He heard a key turning in the inner door. He waited. The door opened. She stood there holding Clarence’s leash in one hand. She smiled, led Clarence into the room, said, “Sit, Clarence,” and then went out into the corridor for Santo’s tray of food. She carried it to the coffee table in front of the couch, put it down, and — still smiling — said, “Are you hungry, sweetie?”
He did not answer her. He sat immediately and began eating.
“Did you miss me?” she asked.
He still said nothing. He continued wolfing down the food. From across the room, just inside the door, Clarence sat on his haunches and watched.
“I had some business to take care of in the city,” she said.
“I’m not interested,” he said.
“I thought you might be.”
“I’m not.”
She shrugged, went to the door, and took the dog’s leash in her hand again.
“I’ll be back later,” she said.
“You ever wonder what would happen if you should die?” he asked suddenly, looking up from the food on his tray. “I’d starve to death in here, do you realize that?”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “But don’t worry, sweetie, we’ve got a good long life ahead of us.”
He said nothing.
“What shall I wear later?” she asked.
“I don’t care what you wear,” he said.
“What’s your favorite? I want to make you happy tonight.”
“You can make me happy by leaving me alone.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Believe it, it’s true.”
“Shall I wear the black wig?”
“I told you I don’t care.”
“Finish your dinner,” she said. “I’ll surprise you, all right? I’ll wear something you’ve never seen before.”
“If you want to surprise me, you’ll come in later and tell me I’m a free man.”
“No, I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I need you, Santo.”
“I want to leave here.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“I’m going crazy here. If you keep me here any longer, I’ll go out of my mind. I’ll die, do you understand? I’ll die in this room.”
“You won’t die,” she said, and smiled again. “Not unless I want you to die. Please remember that, Santo.” She looked up at the clock. “I’ll be back in an hour. Will you be ready for me in an hour?”
“No.”
“Be ready,” she said.
“I hate you,” he said softly.
“You love me,” she answered, and smiled again. She was leaving the room when she seemed to remember something. She turned, looked at him, and said, “Oh, by the way — C.J. won’t be visiting us anymore.”
8
Monday morning, September 18, while Meyer was on the phone checking with both the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in an attempt to determine whether either or both had sponsored a benefit ball early in September seven years ago, Carella took a call from a man named Henry Gombes at Ballistics.
“On these spent bullets found at the scene,” he said.
“This the Chadderton case?” Carella asked.
“Chadderton, Chadderton,” Gombes said, obviously consulting a sheet of paper in front of him, “yes, Chadderton, Culver and South Eleventh, September fifteenth, that’s right.”
“That’s right,” Carella said.
“I’ll send the report on later,” Gombes said, “but meanwhile, do you want to take some of this stuff down?”
“Shoot,” Carella said.
“No ejected cartridge casings found at the scene, which indicates the weapon wasn’t an automatic pistol. Five bullets were recovered, though, three of them badly deformed—”
“Those would’ve been the three that hit the victims,” Carella said.
“Two victims, were there?”
“Yes.”
“One still alive from what I understand.”
“That’s right.”
“Did he say how many shots he’d heard?”
“He couldn’t remember.”
“The reason I ask... the fact that only five bullets were found at the scene doesn’t necessarily indicate the revolver had only a five-shot capacity.”
“It was empty when the killer tried to finish him off,” Carella said.
“Is that right? Mmm. Well, in any case, the recovered bullets all measured .3585 inches in diameter, which tells us we’re dealing with a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson cartridge. Your twist in inches was 183/4 to the right, and your groove diameter was .357, which would be the markings a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver would leave on a bullet, and which — when combined with the six lands we found — would seem to point pretty conclusively toward a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver firing .38-caliber Smith & Wesson cartridges. You’ve got your Regulation Police Model 33 taking Smith and Wesson .38s, and you’ve got your Terrier Model 32, which also takes the Smith & Wesson .38s, and both guns have a five-shot capacity. Now your Chiefs Special and your Bodyguard Model and also your Centennial take .38 S & W Specials, which have the same twist and groove as your regular .38, but your .38 Special has a different diameter than your .38, and the reading we got — as I told you — was .3585, which is the diameter of a .38 bullet and not a .38 Special bullet. Our micrometers here are calibrated to one one-thousandth of an inch, so I don’t think we’ve made any mistake about the caliber of this gun, it’s a .38, all right, and given all the other factors, I’d say a Smith & Wesson .38, either the Regulation Police or the Terrier, both of which have five-shot capacities. Your Regulation Police — what do you carry, Carella?”