The first day of Christmas was Christmas Day itself. On Christmas Day the detectives of the 87th Squad would no doubt be celebrating, opening their own meager gifts, and not for a moment expecting the first of his gifts. But receive it they would and perhaps recognize at last what all his advance publicity had been about. They would not, however—if his notes had been inaccessible enough—realize what lay in store for them on January 5, Twelfth Night, Epiphany Eve.
In lower case the word ‘epiphany’ meant the sudden revelation of an underlying truth about a person or a situation. The English word was from the Greek epiphaneia, of course, the gods revealing themselves to mortal eyes, but the Irish novelist James Joyce—one of the Deaf Man’s favorites—first popularized the word in modern literature by calling his early experimental prose passages ‘epiphanies.’ A sudden flash of recognition. Would the men of the 87th recognize al last? Before the sudden flash? During it? There would be no time for recognition afterward.
He smiled again.
Epiphany Day. January 6. In honor of the first time Jesus Christ manifested himself to the Gentiles. On Epiphany Eve, Twelfth Night as it was called—oh what fun Shakespeare’d had with that one—the Deaf Man would reveal himself in spirit to the detectives, making it clear to them for the first, last, and only time that he would brook no further interference with his chosen profession. On three previous occasions he had given them every opportunity to thwart his plans, virtually laying them all out in advance—but never once realizing his plans actually would meet with disaster. Oh, not through any brilliant deduction on their part, no, that would be giving them far too much credit for intelligence. But rather through clumsy accidents. Accidents. The bane of the Deaf Man’s existence.
Accidents.
The first time it had been a cop wanting to buy ice cream from the Deaf Man’s stolen getaway truck. Wanted an ice cream pop. One of the specials with the chopped walnuts. Never once suspected the refrigerator compartment was stuffed with money stolen from the Mercantile Trust. But blew the job anyway—by accident.
The next time it had been two small-time hoods committing a holdup in a tailor shop on the very same night the Deaf Man had planned a little fillip-surprise to his big extortion scheme. There were two detectives in the back of the store, waiting for the hoods. The Deaf Man and his accomplices came in the front door at the very same moment. Fuzz! A stakeout for the two punks, and the Deaf Man had accidentally walked into it. Carella had shot him on that occasion; he would never forget Carella’s shooting him, would never forgive him for it.
The last time—well, he supposed he could credit Carella with having doped that one out in advance, though he’d certainly given him enough help with it. That had been his mistake. Laid it all out too clearly, too fairly. Virtually told Carella he was planning to rob the same bank twice in the same morning, setting up an A-team for a fall and then going in with his B-team—to find Carella there and waiting.
Carella was smarter than the Deaf Man thought he was.
He was maybe even smarter than he himself thought he was.
Accidents, not mistakes.
But now—no more Mr. Nice Guy.
There was nothing in the book that said he had to play the game fairly.
They were lucky he was playing it at all.
On the night before Christmas the Deaf Man Would steal half a million dollars, perhaps more.
And get away with it this time, because this time he had not warned the police in advance. Well, yes, he had not been able to resist dropping Elizabeth’s body in the park opposite the station house. Naked, though, and therefore unidentifiable. And that had been the only clue, if it could be considered one, to the job planned for Christmas Eve.
On Epiphany Eve, Twelfth Night, he would destroy the detectives—most of them anyway— who worked out of the old building facing Grover Park.
And get away with that, too.
Because, although he’d warned them, he had not warned them fairly.
They would die.
Horribly.
He smiled at the thought.
Tonight was December 23.
Tonight there was still some work to be done.
* * * *
In this neighborhood you had to be careful, even with it being so close to Christmas. In fact, maybe even more careful this time of year; people did funny things around Christmastime. Lots of the street people around here, they could remember a time—well, this hadn’t been Christmastime, it was in March sometime, years ago—they could remember some young kids setting fire to bums sleeping in doorways. Winos. Doused them with gasoline and set fire to them. Doug Hennesy hadn’t lived in this city then, but he’d heard plenty about them long-ago roasts, and he knew you had to be more careful in this city than maybe in any city on earth. Not that Doug considered himself a bum. Or even a wino. Doug was a street person, is what he was.
He didn’t particularly enjoy the holiday season because the streets were always too crowded, everybody rushing around, everybody selfish and concerned only with his ownself, never mind dropping a coin in the hand of someone needy like Doug. He’d managed to get four dollars and twenty-two cents today—two days before Christmas, could you imagine it? Where was the spirit of giving?—but that had taken him from eight this morning till almost seven tonight. He kept wondering who had given him the two cents. Had it been that well-dressed guy in the raccoon coat and the beaver hat? Two cents. But the money Doug collected had been enough for three bottles of excellent wine at a dollar forty a bottle, including tax, with the two cents still left over. He’d already drunk one of the bottles and planned to savor the remaining two all through the night, huddled in the doorway here on Mason Avenue.
The hookers on Mason Avenue didn’t like the idea of street people sleeping in doorways. They felt it made the neighborhood look shoddy, as if anything could make it look shoddier than it actually was. Felt it was bad for business. Downtown Johns came up here looking for a little black or Puerto Rican ass, they didn’t want to see wino bums sprawled in the doorways. The hookers on Mason Avenue were thinking of getting a petition signed against the street people who made their turf look shoddy. Well, Doug guessed he couldn’t blame them much. They worked hard, those girls did. He tried to remember the last time he’d been to bed with a woman, hooker or otherwise. Couldn’t remember for the life of him. Back in Chicago, wasn’t it? Back when he used to be an accountant in Chicago? Another lifetime
Some of your street people, the men, they took advantage of women living on the streets same as themselves. Found a bag lady curled up in a doorway, threw her skirts up, had their way with her. Doug would never in a million years do anything like that, take advantage of someone unfortunate. He’d seen—this was yesterday morning, it almost broke his heart. He’d seen this young street person, she couldn’t have been older than twenty-eight or nine, wearing a pink sweater over a thin cotton dress, woolen gloves cut off at the fingers, Christ, she almost broke his heart. Standing in a doorway. Looking at herself in the plate glass window on the door. Hands clasped over her belly. Exploring her belly. Fingers widespread in the sawed-off woolen gloves. Touching her belly. Her belly as big as a watermelon. And on her face a look of total bewilderment. For an instant Doug visualized her standing in a bedroom someplace, the closet door open, a full-length mirror on the closet door, imagined her standing in a silken nightgown, her hands widespread over her pregnant belly, just the way they were widespread over her belly in that doorway, only with a different look on her face. A look of pride, of pleasure. A young pregnant woman awed by the wonder of it, her face glowing. Instead, a doorway on a cold winter day near Christmas—and a look of utter confusion.