‘I don’t want anything to happen to either of us,’ she said. ‘Ever.’
‘Nothing will happen to us,’ he said. ‘Ever.’
‘But I’m going to call Jordan...’
‘Eileen, please...’
‘... tell him I want a bigger backup team. All over the platform. Men and women. Wall to wall cover.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I want to.’
‘You don’t want to.’
‘I don’t want to, right. But I have to,’ she said. ‘Or I never will again.’
She looked at the clock.
‘You’re going to be late,’ she said.
‘Will you be all right?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Go. Come back soon.’
He kissed her gently and went to the door.
‘Be careful,’ she said.
The clock on the dresser read a quarter to eight.
* * * *
In the park across the street from the station house the Deaf Man watched them trickling in. Big men, most of them. You could almost always tell a detective by his size. All of them bundled up against the cold. A very cold night. Well, they’d be warm enough soon enough.
He looked at his watch.
Ten minutes to eight.
In exactly twenty-five minutes ... Armageddon.
He began pacing again.
The snow blew furiously around him.
He hoped none of them would be late.
* * * *
By five minutes to eight on the squadroom clock, all but three of the invited detectives had arrived. Since none of the detectives knew who had been invited, none of them knew who was missing. But since they knew that anyone there had been invited, they felt free to talk about the party.
‘What’s it for?’ Brown asked. ‘You got any idea?’
‘Did you bring a present?’ Genero asked.
‘No,’ Hawes said. ‘Were we supposed to bring presents?’
‘Anybody know what it’s for? Brown said.
‘It said eight o’clock, didn’t it?’ Delgado asked. ‘The invitation?’
A man in the detention cage said, ‘What the hell is this?’ He had been arrested by Parker not ten minutes earlier. ‘I’m locked up in a fuckin’ cage here, like a fuckin’ animal here, and you guys are havin’ a party?’
‘Shut up,’ Parker said.
‘Where’s my lawyer?’ the man said.
‘On the way,’ Parker said. ‘Shut up.’
Even the four detectives who had the duty were all dressed up. Suits and ties, polished shoes. Parker was upset that he’d got blood on his shirt while arresting the man in the detention cage. The man in the detention cage had slit his wife’s throat with a straight razor.
‘My wife’s dead, and you guys are havin’ a party,’ he said.
‘You’re the one killed her,’ Parker said.
‘Never mind who killed her, is it right to have a party when a woman is dead? Anyway, I didn’t kill her.’
‘No, that razor just jumped off the sink all by itself,’ Parker said.
‘That wasn’t even my razor.’
‘Save it for when your lawyer gets here,’ Parker said. ‘You got blood all over my fuckin’ shirt.’
He walked to the sink near the supply closet, tore a paper towel loose, opened the cold water faucet, and began dabbing at the blood stains.
Inside the box in the supply closet the timer moved into the 8:00-to-8:15 sector.
Carella was just walking into the squadroom.
Genero noticed at once that he was carrying a present.
‘Where’s Harriet?’ Carella asked.
* * * *
In the park across the way the Deaf Man looked at his watch again. He had just seen Carella going into the station house. Carella, he knew. Carella, he recognized. In exactly fourteen minutes, though, Carella—and all the others—would be unrecognizable. The moment...
There!
Another one.
Blond and hatless, his head ducked against the flying snow.
The Deaf Man smiled.
Alfred Hitchcock, a director whose work the Deaf Man admired greatly —except for The Birds, that silly exercise in science fiction—had once described for an interviewer the difference between shock and suspense. The Master had used a parable to explain.
There is a boardroom meeting. Twenty men are sitting around a table, discussing high finance. The audience doesn’t know that a bomb has been planted in the room. The chairman of the board is in mid-sentence when the bomb goes off.
That is shock.
The same boardroom meeting. The same twenty men sitting around a table, discussing high finance. But this time the audience knows there is a bomb in that room, and they know that it is set to go off—as an example—at 8:15 p.m. The men keep discussing high finance. The camera keeps cutting away to the clock as it throws minutes into the room.
8:08.
8:12.
8:14.
That is suspense.
The detectives in the squadroom across the street did not know that a timer was programmed to set off an explosion and a subsequent fire at 8:15 sharp. They were in for one hell of a shock.
The Deaf Man, however—in this instance, the audience—did know, and the suspense for him was almost unbearable.
He looked at his watch again.
8:03.
It was taking forever.
* * * *
The confusion started the moment Lieutenant Byrnes walked in.
‘Where’s Teddy?’ he said.
‘Where’s the sandwiches?’ Delgado said.
‘Where’s Harriet?’ Carella said.
The detectives all looked at each other.
‘You jerks got the wrong night,’ the man in the detention cage said.
Brown looked at the clock.
8:05.
The invitation had specified eight o’clock.
‘Where’s my lawyer?’ the man in the detention cage said.
All Genero knew was that Carella had brought a present.
He began moving at once toward the supply closet.
* * * *
Nine minutes, the Deaf Man thought.
He had specifically asked them to arrive at eight because he wanted to be sure they were all assembled by eight-fifteen.
Another man was entering the police station across the street.
The Deaf Man had lost count.