Carella pushed the six button on the base of his phone and lifted the receiver. ‘Detective Carella,’ he said.
‘Steve?’ a woman’s voice said. ‘It’s Naomi.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he said, and looked at Brown.
Brown rolled his eyes.
‘You promised you’d call,’ she said.
‘Uh-huh,’ Carella said, and looked at Brown again. The way he figured it, there were only two possible explanations for the youngish-sounding lady on the phone. One: she was someone he’d dealt with before in the course of a working day, an honest citizen with one complaint or another, and he’d simply forgotten her name. Or two, and he considered this more likely: the witty gents of the Eight-Seven had concocted an elaborate little gag, and he was the butt of it. He remembered back to last April, when they’d asked a friendly neighborhood hooker to come up here and tell Genero she was pregnant with his child. Now there was Naomi. City-honed voice calling him ‘Steve’ and telling him he’d promised to call. And Brown sitting across the room, watching him expectantly. Okay, he thought, let’s play the string out. ‘Steve?’ she said. ‘Are you still there?’ ‘Yep,’ he said. ‘Still here. What’s this in reference to, Miss?’
‘It’s in reference to your pistol.’
‘Oh, I see, my pistol,’ he said.
‘Yes, your big pistol.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he said.
‘When am I going to see you again, Steve?’
‘Well, that all depends,’ he said, and smiled at Brown. ‘Who’d you say this was?’
‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Can’t you talk just now?’
‘Yes, Miss, certainly,’ he said. ‘But police regulations require that we get the name and address of anyone calling the squadroom. Didn’t they tell you that?’
‘Didn’t who tell me that?’
‘Whoever put you up to calling me.’
There was a long silence on the line.
‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Don’t you want to talk to me?’
‘Miss,’ Carella said, ‘I would love to talk to you, truly. I would love to talk to you for hours on end. It’s just that these jackasses up here’—he looked meaningfully at Brown—‘don’t seem to understand that a dedicated and hardworking policeman has better things to do at eight o’clock in the morning than...’
‘Why are you acting so peculiarly?’ she said.
‘Would you like to talk to Artie again?’ Carella said.
‘Who’s Artie?’
‘Or did Meyer set this up?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said.
‘Cotton, right? It was Cotton.’
‘Am I talking to the right person?’ she asked.
‘You are talking to the person they asked you to talk to,’ he said, and winked at Brown. Brown did not wink back. Carella felt suddenly uneasy.
‘Is this Detective Steve Carella?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said cautiously, beginning to think he’d made a terrible mistake. If this was an honest citizen calling on legitimate police business...
‘Who ties girls to beds and plays Russian roulette,’ she said. ‘With a wooden bullet.’
Uh-oh, he thought, a bedbug. He signaled to Brown to pick up the extension, and then he put his forefinger to his temple and twirled it clockwise in the universal sign language for someone who’d lost his marbles.
‘Can you let me have your last name, please?’ he said. He was all business now. This was someone out there who might need help. Brown had picked up the phone on his desk. Both men heard a heavy sigh on the other end of the line.
‘Okay,’ she said, ‘if you want to play games, we’ll play games. This is Naomi Schneider.’
‘And your address, please?’
‘You know my address,’ she said. ‘You spent a whole goddamn weekend with me.’
‘Yes, but can you give it to me again, Miss?’
‘No, I won’t give it to you again. If you’ve forgotten where I live, for Christ’s sake...’
‘Are you alone there, Miss?’ he asked. They sometimes called in desperation. They sometimes asked the department sergeant to put them through to the detectives, and sometimes the sergeant said, ‘Just a moment, I’ll connect you to Detective Kling,’ or Brown or whoever the hell—Detective Carella in this case—but how did she know his first name?
‘Yes, I’m alone,’ she said. ‘But you can’t come over just now, I’m about to leave for work.’
‘And where’s that, Miss? Where do you work?’
‘I’m wearing what you told me to wear,’ she said. ‘I’ve been wearing it every day.’
‘Yes, Miss, where do you work?’
‘The garter belt and stockings,’ she said.
‘Can you tell me where you work, Miss?’
‘No panties,’ she said seductively. ‘No bra.’
‘If you’ll tell me where you work...’
‘You know where I work,’ she said.
‘I guess I’ve forgotten.’
‘Maybe you weren’t listening.’
‘I was listening, but I guess I...’
‘Maybe you should have turned up your hearing aid,’ she said.
‘My what?’ Carella asked at once.
‘What?’ Naomi said.
“What makes you mention a hearing aid?’ Carella said. There was a long silence on the line.
‘Miss?’ he said.
‘Are you sure this is Steve Carella?’ she said.
‘Yes, this is...’
‘Because you sound strange as hell, I’ve got to tell you.’
‘Listen, I’d like to see you,’ Carella said, ‘really. If you’ll give me your address...’
‘I told you I’m leaving for work in a few minutes...’
‘And where’s that? I’d like to talk to you, Naomi...’
‘Is that all you’d like to do?’
‘Well, I...’
‘I thought you might want to fuck me again.’
Brown raised his eyebrows. Jesus, Carella thought, he thinks I really know this girl! But she had mentioned a hearing aid, and right now he didn’t give a damn what Brown thought.
‘Yes, I’d like to do that, too,’ he said.
‘At last,’ she said, and sighed again. ‘It’s like pulling teeth with you, isn’t it?’
‘Tell me where you work,’ he said.
‘You already know where I work. Anyway, why would you want to come there?’
‘Well, I thought...’
‘We couldn’t do anything there, could we, Steve?’ she said, and giggled. ‘We’d get arrested.’