“lei è italiano?” he asked.
“What?”
“Are you Italian?”
“No, are you?” Parker said, and grinned.
“Yes,” Silvio answered. He drew back his shoulders. “Yes, I’m Italian.”
“Well, good, good,” Parker said. “You always open the store on Sunday?”
“What?”
“I said—”
“I only stay open till twelve o’clock, that’s all,” Silvio said, and shrugged. “I get the people coming home from church.”
“That’s against the law in this state, you know that?”
“Nobody ever said anything.”
“Well, just because somebody’s willing to look the other way every now and then, that doesn’t make it legal,” Parker said. He stared deep into Silvio’s eyes. “We’ll talk about it later, huh? Meantime, fill me in on these holdups, okay?”
Silvio hesitated. He knew that talking about it later would cost him money. He was beginning to be sorry he’d ever told the police about the holdups. He sighed now and said, “It is three times in the past month.”
“Same guy each time?”
“Two of them. I don’t know if it’s the same. They are wearing — come si dice? Maschere.”
“Masks?”
“Sì, masks.”
“Same masks each time?”
“No. Once it was stockings, another time black ones, the third time handkerchiefs.”
Parker bit into the apple again. “Are they armed?” he asked.
“If they did not have guns, I would break their heads and throw them out on the sidewalk.”
“Handguns?” Parker asked.
“What?”
“Pistols?”
“Yes, yes, pistols.”
“Both of them armed, or just one?”
“Both.”
“What time do they usually come in?”
“Different times. The first time was early in the morning, when I just opened the store. The next time was at night, maybe six, six-thirty. The last time was around lunch, the store was very quiet.”
“Did they take anything but cash?”
“Only cash.”
“Well,” Parker said, and shrugged. “Maybe they’ll come back, who knows? If you don’t mind, I’ll just hang around, okay? You got a back room or something?”
“Behind the curtain,” Silvio said. “But if they come back again, I am ready for them myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“I got a gun now.”
He walked behind the counter to the cash register, opened it, and removed from the drawer a .32 Smith & Wesson.
“You need a permit for that, you know,” Parker said.
“I got one. A man gets held up three times, nobody argues about giving him a permit.”
“Carry or premises?”
“Premises.”
“You know how to use that thing?” Parker asked.
“I know how, yes.”
“I’ve got some advice for you,” Parker said. “If those hoods come back, leave your gun in the drawer. Let me take care of any shooting needs to be done.”
A woman was coming into the store. Without answering, Silvio turned away from Parker, smiled, and said to her, “Buon giorno, signora.”
Parker sighed, threw the curtain back, and went into the other room.
“What do you think?” Willis asked the assistant medical examiner.
“Fell or was pushed from someplace up there,” the M.E. said. “Split his skull wide open when he hit the ground. Probably dead on impact.”
“Anything else?”
“What more do you want? You’re lucky we haven’t got an omelet here.” He snapped his bag shut, rose from where he was crouched beside the body, and said, “I’m finished, you can do what you like with him.”
“Thanks, Al,” Willis said.
“Yeah,” the M.E. answered, and walked off.
The body was now lying on its back. Genero looked down at the open skull and turned away. Dennison, the building superintendent, walked over with his hands in the pockets of his bib overalls. He looked down at the boy’s bloody face and nodded.
“That’s the kid in 4C,” he said.
“What’s his name?”
“Scott.”
“That the first name or the last?”
“The last. I got his first name written down someplace inside. I got all the tenants’ names written down. You want me to look it up for you?”
“Would you, please?”
“Sure,” Dennison said.
“Would that be 4C up there?” Willis asked. “The apartment with the broken window?”
“That’s it, all right,” Dennison said.
The telephone on Arthur Brown’s desk was ringing. He lifted the receiver, tucked it between his shoulder and his ear, said, “Eighty-seventh Squad, Detective Brown,” and then glanced toward the slatted rail divider, where a patrolman was leading a handcuffed prisoner into the squadroom.
“Is this a detective?” the woman on the telephone asked.
“Yes, ma’am, Detective Brown.”
“I want to report a missing person,” the woman said.
“Yes, ma’am, just one second, please.”
Brown opened his desk drawer, took out a block of wood to which was attached the key to the detention cage across the room, and flipped it to the patrolman, who missed the catch. The prisoner laughed. The patrolman picked up the key, led the prisoner to the cage, opened the grillwork door, and shoved him inside.
“Take it easy, man,” the prisoner warned.
The patrolman locked the cage door without answering him. Then he walked to Brown’s desk and sat on the edge of it, tilting his peaked cap back on his forehead and lighting a cigarette. On the telephone, Brown was saying, “Now, what’s your name, please, ma’am?”
“Mary Ellingham. Mrs. Donald Ellingham.”
“Would you spell that for me, please?”
“E-L–L...”
“Yep...”
“...I-N-G, H-A-M.”
“And your address, Mrs. Ellingham?”
“742 North Trinity.”
“All right, who’s missing, Mrs. Ellingham?”
“My husband.”
“That his full name? Donald Ellingham?”
“Yes. Well, no. Donald E. Ellingham. For Edward.”
“Yes, ma’am. How long has he been gone?”
“He was gone a week this past Friday.”
“Has this ever happened before, Mrs. Ellingham?”
“No. Never.”
“He’s never been gone before? Never any unexplained absences?”
“Never.”
“And you say he’s been missing since, let’s see, that’d be Friday the ninth?”
“Yes.”
“Did he go to work on Monday morning? The twelfth?”
“No.”
“You called his office?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And he wasn’t there.”
“He hasn’t been there all week.”
“Why’d you wait till today to report this, Mrs. Ellingham?”
“I wanted to give him a chance to come back. I kept extending the deadline, you see. I thought I’d give him a few days, and then it turned into a week, and then I thought I’d give him just another day, and then Saturday went by, and... Well, I decided to call today.”
“Does your husband drink, Mrs. Ellingham?”
“No. That is, he drinks, but not excessively. He’s not an alcoholic, if that’s what you mean.”
“Has there ever been any problem with... well... other women?”
“No.”
“What I’m trying to say, Mrs. Ellingham—”
“Yes, I understand. I don’t think he’s run off with another woman, no.”
“What do you think has happened, Mrs. Ellingham?”
“I’m afraid he’s been in an accident.”
“Have you contacted the various hospitals in the city?”