The building in which Harrod lived was a three-story brick walk-up painted white. Carella rang the downstairs bell, got an answering buzz, and climbed the stairs to the third floor. The apartment was at the end of the hall. He knocked on the door, and it opened at once, almost as if Harrod had been waiting impatiently behind it. Carella was surprised to find himself looking into the face of a tall, slender black man. Priscilla had not mentioned to him that the third man in the proposed ménage à trois was black.
“Mr. Harrod?” he said.
“Yes, please come in.”
He was wearing blue jeans and a tight-fitting white T-shirt under a blue cardigan sweater with a shawl collar. He was barefooted, and he padded now into a living room decorated in what Carella termed “tchotchke-potchke,” an expression he’d picked up from Meyer. The walls were lined with shelves and shelves of objets d’art and trinkets, small vases with dried flowers, photographs in miniature oval frames, keys picked up in antique shops, the letter A in various sizes, some in brass, others of wood painted gold, enough books to fill a good-sized bookstore, little framed notes that were obviously of sentimental value to Harrod. The sofa was done in soft black leather and heaped with pillows of various sizes, some of them mirrored, some of them tasseled, that spilled over onto the floor to form yet another seating area. A painting of two men wrestling was on the wall over the couch. The floor was covered with a white shag rug. The heat was turned up very high; Carella wondered if Harrod grew orchids in his spare time.
“Is this about Gregory Craig?” Harrod asked.
“What makes you think so?”
“I know he was killed, and Absalom published the paperback of Shades.”
“It’s about Daniel Corbett,” Carella said.
“Danny? What about him?”
“He was murdered early tonight,” Carella said, and watched for Harrod’s reaction. The reaction came at once. Harrod backed away a pace, as though Carella had punched him full in the face.
“You’re putting me on,” he said.
“I wish I were.”
“Danny?” he said.
“Daniel Corbett, yes. He was stabbed to death sometime between five-thirty and six o’clock tonight.”
“Danny?” Harrod repeated blankly, and suddenly he was weeping. Carella watched him and said nothing. Harrod pulled a tissue from the back pocket of his jeans and dried his eyes. “I’m sorry…we…we were good friends,” he said.
“That’s why I’m here, Mr. Harrod,” Carella said. “How close was your relationship?”
“I just told you. We were good friends.”
“Mr. Harrod, is it true that you and Mr. Corbett planned to go to Gracelands this weekend with a woman named Priscilla Lambeth?”
“Where’d you hear that?” Harrod asked.
“From Mrs. Lambeth.”
“Well, then…”
“Is it true?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Mr. Harrod, are you aware that Daniel Corbett suggested the three of you go to bed together?”
“I was aware of that, yes. It still doesn’t mean—”
“Wasn’t that the purpose of the planned trip to Gracelands?”
“Yes, but—”
“Had you and Mr. Corbett ever done this before?”
“No.”
“I don’t mean with Priscilla Lambeth. I mean with any woman.”
“What’s that got to do with his murder?”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“I don’t have to answer a damn thing,” Harrod said. “Let me ask you something, Mr. Detective. If you didn’t think I was gay, would you be here asking the same questions?”
“I don’t give a damn about your sexual preferences, Mr. Harrod. That’s your business. I’m here to—”
“Sure,” Harrod said. “Go tell that to every other cop in this city.”
“I’m not every other cop in this city, I’m me. I want to know whether you went along with the idea of sharing a bed with Daniel Corbett and Priscilla Lambeth.”
“Why?”
“Were you and Corbett lovers?”
“I don’t have to answer that.”
“That’s true, you don’t. Where were you at five-forty tonight, Mr. Harrod?”
“Right here. I came here straight from work.”
“Where’s Absalom Books?”
“Uptown on Jefferson.”
“What time did you get here?”
“Five-thirty, little bit after.”
“Did you talk to Mr. Corbett at any time today?”
“We spoke, yes.”
“What about?”
“Nothing important.”
“The trip to Gracelands?”
“The subject may have come up.”
“How’d you feel about the trip?”
“Here comes the gay shit again,” Harrod said.
“You’re the one who keeps bringing it up. How’d you feel about the trip?”
“I didn’t want to go, all right?”
“Why not?”
“Because I was…” Harrod suddenly clenched his fists. “You have no right to hassle me this way. I was nowhere near Danny’s place when he was…when he was…” He began weeping again. “You son of a bitch,” he said, and again pulled the tattered tissue from his pocket and dried his eyes. “You’re always hassling us. Can’t you, for Christ’s sake, leave us alone?”
“Tell me about the trip,” Carella said.
“I didn’t want to go,” Harrod said, weeping. “I was sick and tired of…of Danny bringing all these fag hags around. He was AC-DC, all right, I could live with that. But these…these goddamn women he was always intruding into our relationship…” He shook his head. “I told him to make up his mind. He…he promised this would be the last time. He said I’d enjoy it. He said she found me attractive.”
“How’d you find her?”
“Repulsive,” Harrod said flatly.
“But you agreed to go.”
“For the last time. I told him I’d walk if he kept insisting on these outside relationships. This was to be it. The very last time.”
“It turned out to be just that, didn’t it?” Carella said.
“I was here at five-thirty,” Harrod said. “Check it.”
“With whom?”
Harrod hesitated.
“Who were you with, Mr. Harrod?”
“A friend of mine.”
“Who?”
“His name is Oliver Walsh. Are you going to hassle him, too?”
“Yes,” Carella said, “I’m going to hassle him, too.”
Oliver Walsh lived within walking distance of Harrod’s apartment. Carella got there at five minutes to midnight. He had not called first to announce himself, and he had warned Harrod not to pick up the phone the moment he left the apartment. Walsh seemed genuinely surprised to find a city detective on his doorstep. He was nineteen or twenty years old, Carella guessed, with a shock of red hair and a spate of freckles across the bridge of his nose. Carella saw all this through the wedge in the partially opened door; Walsh would not take off the night chain till Carella showed his shield and his plastic-encased ID card.
“I thought you might be a burglar or something,” Walsh said.
“Mr. Walsh,” Carella said, “I’ll tell you why I’m here. I want to know where you were between five-thirty and six o’clock tonight.”
“Why?” Walsh said at once.
“Were you here at home?” Carella asked, dodging the question.
“No.”
“Then where were you?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Mr. Walsh,” Carella said, “someone’s been murdered. All I want to know—”
“Well, Jesus…you don’t think…”