He carried the radio back into the bedroom, and put it in the open suitcase. Anything else? he wondered. Anything I’m forgetting? So easy to forget things when you’re, when you, when you start something like this, all the things you have to do to protect it, keep your eye on the main goal, never mind the money, I wanted to be a doctor! Almost forgot about Edelman, last link in the chain, remembered him later. Suppose some IRS agent examined his books, wanted to know where he’d sold those diamonds, twenty-five carats, $300,000 in cash, who’d you sell them to, who? Tie me in with that kind of money, cops would be around asking more questions, where’d you get that kind of money, no. Had to protect myself. Had to kill him. Like the others. So I could be a doctor one day. Like my father.
He closed the suitcase.
So, he thought.
He looked around the apartment.
That’s it, he thought.
He picked up the suitcase, walked out of the bedroom, and out of the apartment, and down the steps to the street.
She was waiting for him in the small dark entrance lobby downstairs.
She said only, “The opera ain’t over,” and he frowned and started to walk past her, taking her for a crazy bag lady or something, this city was full of lunatics, surprised when he saw the open straight razor in her hand, shocked when he realized she was coming at him with the razor, terrified when he saw his own blood pouring from the open wound in his throat. He clutched for his throat. Blood gushed onto his hands. He said, “I’m sorry,” but he was dead before he could say the word “Dad.”
The call from Fort Phyllis did not come until Saturday morning. There was only one notorious homosexual cruising street in the entire precinct that surrounded Ramsey University and the neighboring Quarter, but the cops of the 5th Precinct nonetheless called their turf Fort Phyllis. The man phoning was a detective/3rd grade named Dawson. He asked to speak to Detective Carella.
“This is Dawson,” he said, “5th Squad.”
“What can I do for you?” Carella asked.
“We caught a homicide last night, slashing in a hallway on Chelsea Place. Guy named Timothy Moore.”
“What?” Carella said.
“Yeah,” Dawson said. “Reason I’m calling, Charlie Nichols here was in court yesterday while you were arraigning this guy, he figured maybe you ought to know about it. Figured maybe this ties in with the homicides you were investigating. The ones you charged this guy Moore with.”
“How?” Carella said.
“Well, I don’t know how,” Dawson said. “That’s what I’m asking you.”
“A slashing, you said?”
“Yeah. Ear to ear. Nice job.”
He thought fleetingly of Judite Quadrado.
“Any leads?” he asked.
“None so far,” Dawson said. “No witnesses, nothing. Guy had a bag of diamonds in his suitcase. Was he out on bail or something?”
“Yes,” Carella said.
“Looks like he was maybe skipping, huh?”
“Looks that way,” Carella said.
“So what do you want us to do about this?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You want us to turn this over to you, or what?”
Here we go again, Carella thought.
“Well, let me see what the lieutenant thinks,” he said.
“Maybe you charged the wrong guy, you know what I mean?” Dawson said. “I mean, Charlie told me it was four counts of Murder One.”
“That’s what it was,” Carella said.
“So maybe somebody else did it, is all I’m saying,” Dawson said. “The four murders. Maybe it wasn’t this guy Moore at all.”
“It was Moore,” Carella said flatly.
“Anyway,” Dawson said, and the line went silent.
“I’ll talk to the lieutenant,” Carella said.
“Sure, let me know,” Dawson said, and hung up.
The squadroom was very quiet for a Saturday morning. Carella rose from his desk and walked to the water cooler. Standing near the windows streaming wintry sunlight, he sipped at the water in the paper cup, and then crumpled the cup and tossed it into the wastebasket. He went to the lieutenant’s door and knocked on it.
“Come!” Byrnes shouted.
He went into the lieutenant’s office, and closed the door behind him. He told the lieutenant that he’d just had a call from Fort Phyllis. He told the lieutenant that someone had slit Timothy Moore’s throat in the hallway of his building last night, and that there were no witnesses and no leads, and the cops down there wanted to know what to do about it, whether they should turn this over to the Eight-Seven or what?
Byrnes listened very carefully. He was thoughtfully silent for a long time. Then he said, “No witnesses, huh?”
“None,” Carella said.
“The 5th Squad, huh?”
“Yes.”
“We got enough headaches,” Byrnes said.
“Let their mothers worry.”