“No, I was just getting into my pajamas.”
“Sorry to bother you this way.”
“No, no, what is it, Pete?”
“Parker just got shot in a grocery store on Ainsley.”
“No kidding?”
“Yeah.”
“Jesus,” Carella said.
“Two hoods killed the proprietor, wounded Parker in the shoulder and leg. He’s been taken to Buenavista Hospital. It looks pretty serious.”
“Jesus,” Carella said again.
“I’ve already called in Di Maeo, Levine, and Meriwether. They’re on vacation, Steve, but I had to do it, I don’t like it when cops get shot.”
“No, neither do I.”
“I just thought I’d tell you.”
“Yeah, I’m glad you did, Pete.”
The line went silent.
“Pete?”
“Yeah, Steve?”
“What is it? Do you want me to come in, too?”
“Well, you had a long night, Steve.”
The line was silent again.
“Well... What do you want me to do, Pete?”
“Why don’t you see how you feel?” Byrnes said. “Go to bed, get some rest, maybe you’ll feel like coming in a little later, okay?” Byrnes paused. “I can use you, Steve. It’s up to you.”
“What time is it, anyway?” Carella asked.
Byrnes looked up at the wall clock. “Little after eight. Get some rest, okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” Carella said.
“I’ll talk to you later,” Byrnes said, and hung up. He rose from behind his desk, hooked his thumbs into his belt just above both hip pockets, and walked to the window overlooking the park. He was a compact man with gray hair and flinty blue eyes, and he stood looking silently at the sun-washed foliage across the street, his face expressionless, and then turned suddenly and walked to the frosted-glass door of his office, yanked it open, and went out into the squadroom.
A Marine corporal was sitting with Detective Carl Kapek at the desk closest to the lieutenant’s office. A swollen discolored lump the size of a baseball sat just over the Marine’s left eye. His uniform was rumpled and soiled, and he looked extremely embarrassed, his hands clasped in his lap rather like a schoolboy’s. He spoke in a very low voice, almost a whisper, to Kapek as the lieutenant walked past them to where Brown was on the telephone at his own desk.
“Right, I’ll tell him,” Brown said, and replaced the phone on its cradle.
“That about Parker?” Byrnes asked.
“No, that was Delgado over on South Sixth. Guy was on his way to church, four other guys grabbed him as he came out of his building, damn near killed him. Delgado’s on it now.”
“Right. The hospital call back on Parker?”
“Not yet.”
“Who’s that in the holding cell downstairs?”
“A burglar Simms picked up on Fifth and Friedlander.”
“You’d better get over to that grocery store, Artie.”
“That’ll leave Kapek all alone here.”
“I’ve got some men coming in. They should be here anytime now.”
“Okay then.”
“I want some meat on this, Artie. I don’t like my squad getting shot up.”
Brown nodded, opened the top drawer of his desk, and took from it a holstered .38 Detective’s Special. He fastened the holster to his belt just slightly forward of his right hip pocket, put on his jacket, and then went to the locker room to get his coat and hat. On his way out of the squadroom, he stopped at Kapek’s desk and said, “I’ll be at that grocery store, you need me.”
“Okay,” Kapek said, and turned back to the Marine. “I still don’t understand exactly how you got beat up,” he said. “You mind going over it one more time?”
The marine looked even more embarrassed now. He was short and slender, dwarfed by Kapek, who sat beside him in his shirtsleeves with his tie pulled down, collar open, straight blond hair falling onto his forehead, wearing a shoulder holster from which protruded the walnut butt of a .38.
“Well, you know, I got jumped, is all,” the Marine said.
“How?”
“I was walking along, and I got jumped, is all.”
“Where was this, Corporal Miles?”
“On The Stem.”
“What time?”
“Must’ve been about three in the morning.”
“What were you doing?”
“Just walking.”
“Going any place in particular?”
“I’d just left this bar, you see? I’d been drinking in this bar on Seventeenth Street, I think it was.”
“Anything happen in the bar?”
“Well, like what?”
“Any trouble? Any words?”
“No, no, it was a real nice bar.”
“And you left there about three o’clock and started walking up The Stem.”
“That’s right.”
“Where were you going?”
“Oh, just for a little walk, that’s all. Before heading back to the ship. I’m on this battleship over to the Navy Yard. It’s in dry dock there.”
“Um-huh,” Kapek said. “So you were walking along and this man jumped you.”
“Mmm.”
“Just one man?”
“Yeah. One.”
“What’d he hit you with?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you came to just a little while ago, is that it?”
“Yeah. And found out the bastards had taken my wallet and watch.”
Kapek was silent for several seconds. Then he said, “I thought there was only one of them.”
“That’s right. Just one.”
“You said ‘bastards.’”
“Huh?”
“Plural.”
“Huh?”
“How many were there actually, Corporal?”
“Who hit me, you mean? Like I said. Just one.”
“Never mind who hit you or who didn’t. How many were there altogether?”
“Well... two.”
“All right, let’s get this straight now. It was two men who jumped you, not—”
“Well, no. Not exactly.”
“Look, Corporal,” Kapek said, “you want to tell me about this, or you want to forget it? We’re pretty busy around here right now, and I don’t have time for this kind of thing, I mean it. You want us to try to recover your stuff, then give us a little help, okay? Otherwise, so long, it was nice meeting you, I hope you get back to your ship all right.”
Miles was silent for several moments. Then he sighed deeply and said, “I feel like a goddamn jackass, is all.”
“Why? What happened?”
“There was this girl in the bar...”
“I figured,” Kapek said, and nodded.
“In a red dress. She kept wiggling her ass at me all night long, you know? So I finally started a conversation with her, and she was real friendly and all, I mean she didn’t seem to be after nothing, I think I maybe bought her only two drinks the whole night long.”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“So a little before three, she tells me she’s awful tired and wants to go home to bed, and she says good night to everybody and then goes to the door and winks at me and gives me a kind of a little come-on move with her head, you know? Like this, you know? Like just this little movement of her head, you know? To tell me I should follow her. So I paid the check and hurried on outside, and there she was on the corner, and she starts walking the minute she sees me, looking back over her shoulder and giving me that same come-on again, trotting her little ass right up the avenue, and then turning off into one of the side streets. So I turned the corner after her and there’s this guy standing there, and wham, he clobbers me. Next thing I know, I wake up with this fucking thing over my eye, and my money gone, and my watch, too. Little bitch.”