"Now I know what Hell is like," he said.
"Wait until the sun really starts shining," Carella said.
"You cheerful guys are always good for an early-morning laugh," Bush answered. "Let me have a cigarette, will you?"
Carella glanced at his watch. "Time we were up there."
"Let it wait. We've got a few minutes yet." He took the cigarette Carella offered, lighted it, and blew out a stream of smoke. "Any new corpses today?"
"None yet."
"Pity. I'm getting so I miss my morning coffee and corpse."
"The city," Carella said.
"What?"
"Look at it. What a goddamn monster."
"A hairy bastard," Bush agreed.
"But I love her."
"Yeah," Bush said noncommittally.
"It's too hot to work today. This is a day for the beach."
"The beaches'll be jammed. You're lucky you've got a nice lineup to attend."
"Sure, I know. Who wants a cool, sandy beach with the breakers rolling in and ..."
"You Chinese?"
"Huh?"
"You know your torture pretty good."
"Let's go upstairs."
They flipped their cigarettes away and entered the Headquarters building. The building had once boasted clean red brick and architecture which was modern. The brick was now covered with the soot of five decades, and the architecture was as modern as a chastity belt.
They walked into the first-floor marbled entryway, past the dick squad room, past the lab, past the various records rooms. Down a shaded hallway, a frosted glass door announced "Commissioner of Police."
"I'll bet he's at the beach," Carella said.
"He's in there hiding behind his desk," Bush said. "He's afraid the 87th's maniac is going to get him next."
"Maybe he's not at the beach," Carella amended. "I understand this building has a swimming pool in the basement."
"Two of them," Bush said. He rang for the elevator. They waited in hot, suffering silence for several moments. The elevator doors slid open. The patrolman inside was sweating.
"Step into the iron coffin," he said.
Carella grinned. Bush winced. Together they got into the car.
"Lineup?" the patrolman asked. "No, the swimming pool," Bush cracked. "Jokes I can't take in this heat," the patrolman said. "Then don't supply straight lines," Bush said. "Abbott and Costello I've got with me," the patrolman said, and then he lapsed into silence. The elevator crawled up the intestinal tract of the building. It creaked. It whined. Its walls were moist with the beaded exhalations of its occupants.
"Nine," the patrolman said.
The doors slid open. Carella and Bush stepped into a sunlit corridor. Simultaneously, they reached for the leather cases to which their shields were pinned. Again simultaneously, they pinned the tin to their collars and then walked toward the desk behind which another patrolman was seated. The patrolman eyed the tin, nodded, and they passed the desk and walked into a large room which served many purposes at Headquarters. The room was built with the physical proportions of a gymnasium, and did indeed have two basketball hoops, one at each end of the room. The windows were wide and tall, covered with steel mesh. The room was used for indoor sport, lectures, swearing in of rookies, occasional meetings of the Police Benevolent Association or the Police Honor Legion and, of course, the lineups.
For the purpose of these Monday-to-Thursday parades of felony offenders, a permanent stage had been set up at the far end of the room, beneath the balcony there, and beyond the basketball hoop. The stage was brilliantly lighted. Behind the stage was a white wall, and upon the wall in black numerals was the graduated height scale against which the prisoners stood.
In front of the stage, and stretching back towards the entrance doorways for about ten rows, was an array of folding chairs, most of which were occupied by detectives from all over the city when Bush and Carella entered. The blinds at the windows had already been drawn, and a look at the raised dais and speaking stand behind the chairs showed that the Chief of Detectives was already in position and the strawberry festival would start in a few moments. To the left of the stage, the felony offenders huddled in a group, lightly guarded by several patrolmen and several detectives, the men who had made the arrests. Every felony offender who'd been picked up in the city the day before would be paraded across the stage this morning.
The purpose of the lineup, you see—despite popular misconception about the identification of suspects by victims, a practice which was more helpful in theory than in actual usage—was simply to acquaint as many detectives as possible with the men who were doing evil in their city. The ideal setup would have been to have each detective in each precinct at each scheduled lineup, but other pressing matters made this impossible. So two men were chosen each day from each precinct, on the theory that if you can't acquaint all of the people all of the time, you can at least acquaint some of them some of the time.
"All right," the Chief of Detectives said into his microphone, "let's start."
Carella and Bush took seats in the fifth row as the first two offenders walked onto the stage. It was the practice to show the offenders as they'd been picked up, in pairs, in a trio, a quartet, whatever. This simply for the purpose of establishing an m.o. If a crook works in a pair once, he will generally work in a pair again.
The police stenographer poised his pen above his pad. The Chief of Detectives intoned, "Diamondback, One," calling off the area of the city in which the arrest had been made, and the number of the case from that area that day. "Diamondback, One. Anselmo, Joseph, 17, and Di Palermo, Frederick, 16, Forced the door of an apartment on Cambridge and Gribble. Occupant screamed for help, bringing patrolman to scene. No statement. How about it, Joe?"
Joseph Anselmo was a tall, thin boy with dark black hair and dark brown eyes. The eyes seemed darker than they were because they were set against a pale, white face. The whiteness was attributable to one emotion, and one emotion alone. Joseph Anselmo was scared.
"How about it, Joe?" the Chief of Detectives asked again.
"What do you want to know?" Anselmo said.
"Did you force the door to that apartment?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Well, you forced a door, you must have had a reason for doing it. Did you know somebody was in the apartment?"
"No."
"Did you force it alone?"
Anselmo did not answer.
"How about it, Freddie. Were you with Joe when you broke that lock?"
Frederick Di Palermo was blond and blue-eyed. He was shorter than Anselmo, and he looked cleaner. He shared two things in common with his friend. First, he had been picked up on a felony offense. Second, he was scared. "I was with him," Di Palermo said. "How'd you force the door?" "We hit the lock." "What with?" "A hammer."
"Weren't you afraid it would make noise?" "We only give it a quick rap," Di Palermo said. "We didn't know somebody was home."
"What'd you expect to get in that apartment?" the Chief of Detectives asked.
"I don't know," Di Palermo said.
"Now, look," the Chief of Detectives said patiently, "you both broke into an apartment. Now we know that, and you just admitted it, so you must have had a reason for going in there. What do you say?"
"The girls told us," Anselmo said. "What girls?"
"Oh, some chicks," Di Palermo answered. "What'd they tell you?" "To bust the door." "Why?"
"Like that," Anselmo said. "Like what?" "Like for kicks." "Only for kicks?"
"I don't know why we busted the door," Anselmo said, and he glanced quickly at Di Palermo.
"To take something out of the apartment?" the Chief asked.
"Maybe a ..." Di Palermo shrugged. "Maybe what?"
"A couple of bucks. You know, like that." "You were planning a burglary then, is that right?" "Yeah, I guess."