“I think the Loot is right,” Meyer said. “We should scratch the Quadrado girl.”
“Except she was looking to inherit Lopez’s trade,” Kling said.
“That can’t be why Lopez was killed,” Carella said. “For his trade? We’re not dealing with Colombian hotshots here, we’re—”
“How do you know we’re not?” Brown asked.
“Because none of that crowd would even spit on a two-bit gram dealer like Lopez.”
“Please, not while I’m eating,” Meyer said.
“Sorry,” Carella said, and bit into his sausage-and-peppers sandwich.
(It was funny how things broke down ethnically in this squadroom: Meyer was eating the pastrami on rye, Kling was eating the tuna on white, and Brown was eating the ham on toasted whole wheat.)
“So okay, let’s scratch the Quadrado girl for the time being,” Kling said.
“And start with the Anderson girl,” Meyer said. “We know more about her than any of the other victims—”
“Well, that isn’t true,” Brown said.
“Relatively more,” Meyer said.
“Relatively, okay,” Brown conceded. “But don’t forget that three hundred G’s in Edelman’s safe.”
“You done good work, okay, Sonny?” Meyer said. “What do you want, a medal?”
“I want detective/first,” Brown said, and grinned.
“Give him detective/first,” Meyer said to Carella.
“You got it,” Carella said.
“So here’s this girl—” Meyer started.
“Who are we talking about?” Kling asked. “The Quadrado girl, or the Anderson girl?”
“The Anderson girl. She comes up here every Sunday after she buys her deli at Cohen’s, and she hops in the sack with Lopez—”
“Well, we don’t know that for sure,” Carella said.
“That’s not important, whether she was still sleeping with him or not,” Kling said. “What’s important—”
“What’s important is that she came up here to sell him coke,” Meyer said. “You think I don’t know that’s the important thing?”
“Which her boyfriend knew nothing about,” Carella said.
“Her boyfriend doesn’t know his ass from his elbow,” Brown said. “He’s the one who thought she was into ice full time, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Carella said.
“Sent you on a wild goose chase,” Brown said.
“It doesn’t matter what he knew or what he didn’t know,” Kling said. “We know she was coming up here to sell dope.”
“A little shtup in the hay,” Meyer said, “move an ounce of cocaine at the same time, nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.”
“It’s funny he didn’t know anything about it,” Carella said.
“Who’re we talking about now?” Kling asked.
“Moore. Her boyfriend.”
“That she was shtupping Lopez?”
“Or coming up here with coke. That’s something she’d have told him, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, but she didn’t.”
“Unless he was lying to us.”
“For that matter, why’d he lie about the ice?” Kling asked.
“Who says he lied?” Brown asked. “Maybe he thought she really was running those tickets on a regular basis.”
“Yeah, but it was a one-shot deal,” Carella said. “Wouldn’t he have known that? He was practically living with the girl.”
“That makes two things he didn’t know,” Meyer said.
“That she was coming uptown with coke,” Kling said, “and that she only ran the ice tickets once.”
“Three things, if you count the hanky-panky with Lopez.”
“Plus he didn’t even know she herself was tooting.”
“Said she only smoked a little grass.”
“Practically living with the girl, but didn’t know she was snorting coke.”
“Or moving it.”
“I keep remembering that a guy with three hundred thousand bucks in his safe was one of the victims,” Brown said.
“Here he goes with the safe again,” Meyer said.
“You’re thinking cocaine numbers, am I right?” Kling asked.
“I’m thinking somebody had that kind of money to hand over to Edelman. And I’m thinking, yes, there’s cocaine in this damn case, and those are the kind of numbers cocaine brings.”
“Not in the small-time trade the Anderson girl had,” Meyer said.
“Which is what we know about,” Carella said.
“We have no reason to believe there was anything more,” Meyer said. “Unless—”
“Yeah?”
“No, skip it. I just remembered—”
“Yeah, what?”
“He said they rarely spent Sundays together, didn’t he? During the day, I mean. He said she was always busy on Sundays.”
“Who’s this?” Brown asked.
“Moore. The boyfriend.”
“So what does that mean?”
“Busy doing what?” Meyer asked.
“Running to the deli,” Kling said.
“And making it with Lopez.”
“And selling him a little pile of nose candy.”
“And that’s what kept her busy all day long, huh?” Meyer said.
“It could keep a girl busy,” Brown said. “Lopez alone could’ve kept a girl busy.”
“The thing is,” Meyer said, “If she was so damn busy all day Sunday—”
“Yeah, that,” Carella said.
“What?”
“What the hell was she doing all that time? She writes Del on her calendar each and every Sunday, is that something important to write on your calendar? That she’s coming uptown to get delicatessen? Cohen’s is terrific, I admit it, but does she have to list that on her calendar?”
“Steve, she listed everything on her calendar. Visits to her shrink, calls to Moore’s mother in Miami, dance classes, meetings with her agent — so why not deli?”
“Then why didn’t she just write deli? Do you know anybody who would write del for deli? We’re talking about a single letter here, the letter i, the difference between del and deli. Why’d she write del instead of deli?”
“Why?” Brown asked.
“I don’t know why, I’m just asking.”
“Moore said it stood for ‘deli.’ ”