‘Naomi Schneider.’
‘Is this police business, Miss Schneider?’
‘Well ... uh ... yes.’
‘Are you a police officer, Miss Schneider?’
‘No.’
‘Then what’s this in reference to, please?’
It wasn’t often that a civilian called here at the house, but sometimes they did, even though the number was listed in the book as ‘Carella, T. F.,’ for Theodora Franklin Carella. Not too many cops listed their home numbers in the telephone directories; this was because not too many crooks enjoyed being sent up the river, and some of them came out looking for revenge. The way things were nowadays, most of them got out ten minutes after you locked them up. These days, when you threw away the key, it came back at you like a boomerang.
‘I’d rather discuss it with him personally,’ Naomi said.
‘Well, he’s finishing his dinner just now,’ Fanny said. ‘May I take a message?’
‘I wonder if you could interrupt him, please,’ Naomi said.
‘I’d rather not do that,’ Fanny said. ‘They’re just having their coffee. If you’ll give me your number...’
‘They?’ Naomi said.
‘Him and Mrs. Carella, yes.’
There was a long silence on the line.
‘His mother, do you mean?’ Naomi asked.
‘No, his wife. Miss Schneider, he’ll be back in the office tomorrow if you’d like to...’
‘Are you sure I have the right number?’ Naomi said. ‘The Detective Carella I have in mind isn’t married.’
‘Well, this one is,’ Fanny said. She was beginning to get a bit irritated.
‘Detective Steve Carella, right?’ Naomi said.
‘Yes, Miss, that’s who lives here,’ Fanny said. ‘If you’d like to give me a number where he can reach you...’
‘No, never mind,’ Naomi said. ‘Thank you.’
And hung up.
Fanny frowned. She replaced the receiver on the wall hook, dried her hands on a dish towel, and went out into the dining room. She could hear the television set down the hallway turned up full blast, the twins giggling at yet another animated cartoon; Thanksgiving Day and all you got was animated cats chasing animated mice. Carella and Teddy were sitting at the dining room table, finishing their second cups of coffee.
‘Who was that?’ Carella asked.
‘Somebody wanting a Detective Steve Carella,’ Fanny said.
‘Well, who?’
‘A woman named Naomi Schneider.’
‘What?’ Carella said.
‘Got the wrong Carella,’ Fanny said, and looked at him. ‘The one she wanted ain’t married.’
Teddy was reading her lips. She looked at Carella questioningly.
‘Did you get a number?’ he asked. ‘Did she leave a number?’
‘She hung up,’ Fanny said, and looked at Carella again. ‘You ought to tell people not to bring police business into your home,’ she said, and went out into the kitchen again.
* * * *
Josie was only fourteen years old. That was the problem. She shouldn’t have been in the park in the first place, not at one o’clock in the morning, and certainly not doing what she’d been doing. She had told her parents she’d be spending the night at Jessica Cartwright’s house, which was true, but she hadn’t told them that Jessica’s parents didn’t care what time Jessica came in or that she and Jessica wouldn’t be studying for a big French exam, as she’d told them, but instead would be out with two seventeen-year-old boys.
Seventeen-year-old boys were exciting.
Actually all boys were exciting.
She and Jessica and the two boys had gone to a movie and then Eddie—who was the boy Jessica had fixed her up with—suggested that they take a little stroll in the park, it being such a nice night and all. This was back in October, when the weather was acting so crazy and you could walk around in just a skirt and sweater, which was what Josie was wearing that night. October twenty-fourth, a Monday night. She remembered the date because the French exam wasn’t until Wednesday, actually, the twenty-sixth, and she and Jessica really planned to study for it on Tuesday, but at her house instead of Jessica’s. She also remembered the date because of what she had seen in the park.
Josie hadn’t wanted to go into the park at all because if you were born and raised in this city, you knew that Grover Park after dark was like a cage of wild animals, which if you walked into it you could get chewed to bits, or even raped, which she supposed was worse, maybe. But Eddie said this part of the park was safe at night, which was probably true. In this city the neighborhoods changed abruptly. You could walk up Grover Avenue past buildings with awnings and doormen and security guards—like the building Jessica lived in—and then two blocks farther uptown you were all at once in a neighborhood with graffiti all over the buildings and minority groups hanging around in doorways because they were collecting welfare and didn’t want to work. That was what her father told her when he explained why he was voting for Ronald Reagan. ‘Too many spics and niggers getting welfare,’ he’d said. Josie didn’t know about that, but she thought Ronald Reagan was cute.
So what they did after the movie, they went into the park the way Eddie had suggested. This was around midnight, a little before midnight, and the park entrance they used was a few blocks downtown from Jessica’s building, which meant this was still a safe neighborhood. Also there was a service road to the right of the entrance, and you could always see parks department trucks parked in there, so it had to be pretty safe if the city parked trucks there overnight. Farther uptown, where the police station was, the neighborhood was awful, and if you left your car parked on the street, you’d come back in the morning and find everything gone but the steering wheel. But Eddie promised they wouldn’t be going anywhere near there; he knew some good spots right here near the service road.
He really knew a lot of things, Eddie. Well, seventeen, you know.
He knew, for example, that what you did, you found a spot that was dark but that was also near a light. The marauders in this city, they didn’t like lights. Darkness was very good for marauders. ‘That’s ‘cause all of them are niggers,’ her father said. ‘They blend in nice.’ She didn’t know about that, but she thought Eddie was awfully cute, the way he led the four of them past the service road, where she could see a truck parked at the end of it, and then along the path where the lampposts were spaced maybe fifteen, twenty feet apart, and then sinned climbing up onto a sort of bedrock shelf that had trees around it and was dark, but from which you could still see the path with the lights on
It was such a nice night.
Almost like springtime.
She couldn’t get over it. She kept telling Eddie she couldn’t get over how mild it was for October, almost the end of October.
She didn’t even know where Jessica and Aaron—that was the other boy’s name—went, they just disappeared in the bushes someplace.