“Guess what I found out?” Carella said.
“What?”
“Gifford’s real name is Garfein.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“So what? My real name is Rock Hudson.”
9
Considering the number of human killings that took place daily in the five separate sections of the city, Kling was surprised to discover that the city could boast of only one slaughterhouse. Apparently the guiding fathers and the Butchers Union (who gave him the information) were averse to killing animals within the city limits. The single slaughteringhouse was on Boswell Avenue in Calm’s Point, and it specialized in the slaughtering of lambs. Most of the city’s killing, as Grossman had surmised, was done in four separate slaughterhouses across the river, in the next state. Since Calm’s Point was closest, Kling hit the one on Boswell Avenue first. He was armed with the list he had compiled at the lab earlier that day, together with the drawing he had received from the BCI. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, or exactly what he hoped to discover. He had never been inside a slaughterhouse before.
After visiting the one in Calm’s Point, he never wanted to step inside another one as long as he lived. Unfortunately, there were four more to check across the river.
He was used to blood; a cop gets used to blood. He was used to the sight of human beings bleeding in a hundred different ways from a thousand different wounds, he was used to all that. He had been witness to sudden attacks with razor blades or knives, pistols or shotguns, had seen the body case torn or punctured, the blood beginning to flow or spurt. He had seen them dead and bleeding, and he had seen them alive and in the midst of attack—bleeding. But he had never seen an animal killed before, and the sight made him want to retch. He could barely concentrate on what the head butcher was telling him. The bleating of the lambs rang in his ears, the stench of blood filled the air. The head butcher looked at the drawing Kling extended, leaving a bloody thumbprint on the celluloid sleeve, and shook his head. Behind him the animals shrieked.
The air outside was cold, it drilled the nostrils. He sucked breath after breath into his lungs, deeply savoring each cleansing rush. He did not want to go across that river, but he went. Forsaking lunch, because he knew he would not be able to keep it down, he hit two more slaughterhouses in succession and—finding nothing—grimly prepared to visit the next two on his list.
There is an intuitive feel to detection, and the closest thing to sudden truth—outside of fiction—is the dawning awareness of a cop when he is about to make a fresh discovery. The moment Kling drove onto the dock he knew he would hit pay dirt. The knowledge was sudden and fierce. He stepped out of the police sedan with a faint vague smile on his face, looking up at the huge white sign across the top of the building, facing the river, PURLEY BROTHERS, INC. He stood in the center of the open dock, an area the size of a baseball diamond, and took his time surveying the location, while all the while the rising knowledge clamored within him, this is it, this is it, this is it.
One side of the dock was open to the waterfront. Beyond the two marine gasoline pumps at the water’s edge, Kling could see across the river to where the towers of the city were silhouetted against the gray October sky. His eye lingered on the near distance for a moment, and then he swung his head to the right, where a half-dozen fishing boats were tied up, fishermen dumping their nets and their baskets, leaping onto the dock and then sitting with their booted legs hanging over its edge while they scraped and cleaned their fish and transferred them to fresh baskets lined with newspapers. The grin on his face widened because he knew for certain now that this was pay dirt, that everything would fall into place here on this dock.
He turned his attention back to the slaughterhouse that formed almost one complete side of the rectangular dock area. Gulls shrieked in the air over the river where waste material poured from an open pipe. Railroad tracks fed the rear of the brick building, a siding that ran from the yards some 500 feet back from the dock. He walked to the tracks and began following them to the building.
They led directly to the animal pens, empty now, alongside of which were the metal entrance doors to the slaughterhouse. He knew what he would find on the floor inside; he had seen the floors of three such places already.
The manager was a man named Joe Brady, and he was more than delighted to help Kling. He took him into a small, glass-partitioned office overlooking the killing floor (Kling sat with his back to the glass) and then accepted the drawing Kling handed to him, and pondered it for several moments, and then asked, “What is he, a nigger?”
“No,” Kling said. “He’s a white man.”
“You said he attacked a girl, didn’t you?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And he ain’t a nigger?” Brady shook his head.
“You can see from the drawing that he’s white,” Kling said. An annoyed tone had crept into his voice. Brady did not seem to notice.
“Well, it’s hard to tell from a drawing,” he said. “I mean, the way the shading is done here, look, right here, you see what I mean? That could be a nigger.”
“Mr. Brady,” Kling said flatly, “I do not like that word.”
“What word?” Brady asked.
“Nigger.”
“Oh, come on,” Brady said, “don’t get on your high horse. We got a half a dozen niggers working here, they’re all nice guys, what the hell’s the matter with you?”
“The word offends me,” Kling said. “Cut it out.”
Brady abruptly handed back the drawing. “I’ve never seen this guy in my life,” he said. “If you’re finished here, I got to get back to work.”
“He doesn’t work here?”
“No.”
“Are all of your employees full-time men?”
“All of them.”
“No part-time workers, maybe somebody who worked here for just a few days—”
“I know everybody who works here,” Brady said. “That guy don’t work here.”
“Is he someone who might possibly make deliveries here?”
“What kind of deliveries?”
“I don’t know. Maybe—”
“The only thing we get delivered here is animals.”
“I’m sure you get other things delivered here, Mr. Brady.”
“Nothing,” Brady said, and he rose from behind his desk. “I got to get back to work.”
“Sit down, Mr. Brady,” Kling said. His voice was harsh.
Surprised, Brady looked at him with rising eyebrows, ready to really take offense.
“I said sit down. Now go ahead.”
“Listen, mister—” Brady started.
“No, you listen, mister,” Kling said. “I’m investigating an assault, and I have good reason to believe this man”—he tapped the drawing—”was somewhere around here last Friday. Now, I don’t like your goddamn attitude, Mr. Brady, and if you’d like the inconvenience of answering some questions uptown at the station house instead of here in your nice cozy office overlooking all that killing out there, that’s just fine with me. So why don’t you get your hat and we’ll just take a little ride, okay?”
“What for?” Brady said.
Kling did not answer. He sat grimly on the side of the desk opposite Brady and studied him coldly. Brady looked deep into his eyes.
“The only thing we get delivered here is animals,” he said again.
“Then how’d the paper cups get here?”
“Huh?”
“On the water cooler,” Kling said. “Don’t brush me off, Mr. Brady, I’m goddamn good and sore.”
“Okay, okay,” Brady said.
“Okay! Who delivers stuff here?”
“A lot of people. But I know most of them, and I don’t recognize that picture.”