“I think so.”
“And a diamond merchant named Marvin Edelman.”
“Doing business up here?”
“No, downtown. He lived on Silvermine Road.”
“Fancy,” Danny said.
“Who’s the third party?”
“A girl named Sally Anderson. Dancer in a musical downtown.”
“So where’s the connection?” Danny asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
“Mmm,” Danny said. “Lopez, huh?”
“Paco,” Carella said.
“Paco Lopez,” Danny said.
“Ring a bell?”
“Did he burn some chick’s tits a while back?”
“That’s the guy.”
“Yeah,” Danny said.
“Do you know him?”
“I seen him around. This was months ago. He must’ve been living with the chick, they were together all the time. So he bought it, huh? That’s no great loss, Steve. He was bad news all around.”
“How so?”
“Mean,” Danny said. “I don’t like people who are mean, do you? Did you talk to the chick yet?”
“The day after Lopez got killed.”
“And?”
“Nothing. She told us what he’d done to her—”
“Something, huh?” Danny said, and shook his head.
“But they’d stopped living together two months ago. She didn’t know anything.”
“Nobody ever knows anything when it comes to cops in this neighborhood. Maybe she’s the one who done it. For marking her that way.”
“I doubt it, Danny, but be my guest. Frankly, I’m more interested in knowing whether a .38 changed hands sometime during this past week.”
“Lots of .38s in this city, Steve.”
“I know that.”
“Changing hands all the time.” He was silent for a moment. “The first one was last Tuesday, huh? What time?”
“Eleven o’clock.”
“P.M.?”
“P.M.”
“Where?”
“On Culver Avenue.”
“Inside or out?”
“On the street.”
“Not too many people out doing mischief in this weather,” Danny said. “The cold keeps them home. Murderers and thieves like their comfort,” he said philosophically. “Nobody seen the killer, huh?”
“Would I be here freezing my ass off if we had a witness?” Carella said.
“I’m freezing, too, don’t forget,” Danny said, somewhat offended. “Well, let me see what I hear. How urgent is this?”
“Urgent,” Carella said.
“ ‘Cause there’s a bet I want to place before I get to work.”
“Anything good?” Carella asked.
“Only if he wins,” Danny said, and shrugged.
Brother Anthony and Emma were smoking dope and drinking wine and going over the list of names and addresses Judite Quadrado had given them two days ago. A kerosene heater was going in one corner of the room, but the radiators were only lukewarm, and the windows were nonetheless rimed with ice. Brother Anthony and Emma were sitting very close to the kerosene heater, even though both of them insisted that cold weather never bothered them. They were both in their underwear.
They had smoked a little pot an hour ago, before making love in the king-sized bed in Brother Anthony’s bedroom. Afterward, they had each and separately pulled on their underwear and walked out into the living room to open a bottle of wine and to light two more joints before sitting down again with the list of potential customers. Brother Anthony was wearing striped boxer shorts. Emma was wearing black bikini panties. Brother Anthony thought she looked radiantly lovely after sex.
“So what it looks like to me,” Emma said, “is that he had a dozen people he was servicing.”
“That’s not so many,” Brother Anthony said. “I was hoping for something bigger, Em, I’ll tell you the truth. Twelve rotten names sounds like very small potatoes for all the trouble we went to.” He looked at the list again. “Especially in such small quantities. Look at the quantities, Em.”
“Do you know the joke?” she asked him, grinning.
“No. What joke?” He loved it when she told jokes. He also loved it when she went down on him. Looking at her huge breasts, he was beginning to feel the faintest stirrings of renewed desire, and he began thinking that maybe he would let her tell her joke and then they would forget all about Lopez’s small-time list and go make love again. That sounded like a very good thing to do on a cold day like today.
“This lady is staying at a Miami Beach hotel, you know?” Emma said, still grinning.
“I wish I was staying at a Miami Beach hotel,” Brother Anthony said.
“You want to hear this joke or not?”
“Tell it,” he said.
“So she eats a couple of meals in the dining room, and then she goes to the front desk and starts complaining to the manager.”
“What about?” Brother Anthony said.
“Will you let me tell it, please?”
“Tell it, tell it.”
“She tells the manager the food in the dining room is absolute poison. The eggs are poison, the beef is poison, the potatoes are poison, the salads are poison, the coffee is poison, everything is poison, poison, poison, she says. And you know what else?”
“What else?” Brother Anthony asked.
“The portions are so small!” Emma said, and burst out laughing.
“I don’t get it,” Brother Anthony said.
“The lady is complaining the food is poison—”
“Yeah?”
“But she’s also complaining the portions are too small.”
“So what?”
“If it’s poison, why does she want bigger portions?”
“Maybe she’s crazy,” Brother Anthony said.
“No, she’s not crazy,” Emma said. “She’s complaining about the food, but she’s also telling the manager the portions—”
“I understand,” Brother Anthony said, “but I still don’t get it. Why don’t we go in the other room again?”
“You’re not ready yet,” Emma said, glancing at his lap.
“You can make me ready.”
“I know I can. But I like it better when you’re ready before I make you ready.”
“Sweet mouth,” Brother Anthony said, lowering his voice.
“Mmm,” Emma said.
“So what do you say?”
“I say business before pleasure,” Emma said.
“Anyway, what made you even think of that joke?” he asked.
“You said something about the small quantities.”
“They are small,” Brother Anthony said. “Look at them,” he said, and handed the list to her. “Two or three grams a week, most of them. We ain’t gonna get rich on two, three grams a week.”
“We don’t have to get rich all at once, Bro,” Emma said. “We’ll take things slow and easy at first, start with these people who used to be Lopez’s customers, build from there.”
“How?”
“Maybe the lady can put us onto some other customers.”
“What lady? The one eating poison?”
“The one who was supplying Lopez. His ounce dealer.”
“Why would she want to help us that way?”
“Why not? There has to be a chain of supply, Bro. An ounce dealer needs gram dealers, a gram dealer needs users. The lady puts us onto some users, we buy our goods from her, and everybody’s happy.”
“I think you’re dreaming,” Brother Anthony said.
“Would it hurt to ask?” Emma said.
“She’ll tell us to get lost.”
“Who knows? Anyway, first things first. First we have to let her know we’ve taken over from Lopez and would like to continue doing business with her. That’s the first thing.”