Killer's Choice

'How did you mean, sir?' Hawes asked.

'Huh?'

'How did you mean, sir?'

'Show you around,' Byrnes said. 'The squad, and the house, and maybe the streets. Won't hurt to get to know the precinct.'

'No, sir.'

'In the meantime, Cotton…' Byrnes paused. 'Is… ah… that what people call you? Cotton?'

'Yes, sir. Cotton.'

'Well… ah… in the meantime, Hawes, we're happy to have you aboard. You won't find the 87th to be a garden spot, not after working in the 30th. But it's not such a bad dump.'

'It's pretty bad,' Carella said.

'Well, yes, as a matter of fact, it's pretty bad. But you'll get used to it. Or it'll get used to you. It's hard to tell which around here.'

'I'm sure I'll get into the swing of things, sir,' Hawes said.

'Oh, no question, no question.' Byrnes paused again. 'Well, unless there was anything else…' He paused. He felt exceptionally awkward in the presence of Hawes, and he did not know why. 'You might show him around, Steve,' he concluded.

'Yes, sir,' Carella said, and he led Hawes to the door which opened on the Detective Squad Room. 'I guess the layout is pretty much the same all over the city,' he said when they were outside.

'More or less,' Hawes said.

'Cotton,' Carella said. 'That's an unusual name.'

'My father was intrigued with the Puritan priest.'

'Huh?'

'Cotton Mather. Figured him to be one of the great colonists. It could have been worse.'

'How so?'

'He might have named me Increase.'

'Yeah,' Carella said, smiling. 'Well, this is the squad room. Desks, windows—bulletin board there has the wanted posters and any notices we don't know what to do with. Filing cabinets are over there on your right. The usual stuff. Lousy File, Wanted cards, Arrests, Stolen Goods, hell, it must have been the same in your squad.'

'Sure,' Hawes said.

'We've got a file on lost bicycles,' Carella said. 'Maybe you didn't have that.'

'No, we didn't.'

'Helps every now and then. Lots of kids in this precinct.'

'Um-huh.'

'Only free desk we've got is the one by the window. We use it as a junk collector. You'll find everything in it but your mother-in-law.'

'I'm not married,' Hawes said.

'Oh. Well. Anyway, we can clean it out, and you can use it. If in case you ever do get married.' He smiled, but Hawes did not return the smile. 'Well… uh…' Carella paused, thinking. His eye lighted on Meyer Meyer and he quickly said, 'Meyer!' and Meyer looked up from his typewriter. Carella steered Hawes over to the desk.

'Meyer, meet Cotton Hawes, just assigned to the squad. Cotton, this is Meyer Meyer.'

Meyer extended his hand and started to say, 'How do you…' and then he cut himself short and asked, 'How was that again?'

'Cotton Hawes,' Hawes said.

'Oh. How do you do?' He took Hawes's hand.

'Meyer is the only man in the world with two first names,' Carella said. 'Or two last names, depending now you look at it.'

'With the exception of Harry James,' Hawes said.

'Huh? Harry…? Oh, Harry James. Two first names. Yes. Yes,' Carella said. He cleared his throat. 'What are you working on, Harry… uh… Meyer?'

'This liquor store kill,' Meyer said. 'I just interrogated the owner. I'm going to miss my bar mitzvah.'

'How come?'

'Time I get finished typing up this report.' He looked at his watch.

'Hell, it shouldn't take that long,' Carella said.

'Don't rush me,' Meyer said. 'I think maybe I want to miss that lousy bar mitzvah.'

'Well, you'll be seeing Cotton around,' Carella said. 'I know you'll make him at home.'

'Sure,' Meyer said indifferently, and he went back to typing up his report.

'Through the railing here is the corridor leading to the locker room. On your left is the Clerical Office, the latrine… you an Army man?'

'Navy,' Hawes said.

'Oh. Did they teach you any judo?'

'A little.'

'We've got a whiz working with us. Fellow named Hal Willis. You'll have a lot to talk about.'

'Will we?' Hawes said.

'Just don't shake hands with him,' Carella said jokingly. 'He can have you on your back in three seconds.'

'Can he?' Hawes asked dryly.

'Well, he…' Carella cleared his throat again. 'Interrogation is at the end of the hall, if you feel you need privacy. We generally question suspects in the squad room. The Skipper doesn't like rough stuff.'

'I never saw a prisoner maltreated all the while I was with the 30th squad,' Hawes said.

'Well, that's a pretty good neighbourhood, isn't it?' Carella said.

'We had our share of crime,' Hawes said.

'Sure, I didn't doubt…' Carella let the sentence trail. 'Locker room is right there at the end of the hall. Steps here lead to the desk downstairs and the Waldorf Suite at the back of the building.'

'The what?'

'Detention cells.'

'Oh.'

'Come on down, I'll introduce you to the desk sergeant. Then we can take a walk around the precinct if you like.'

'Whatever you say,' Hawes said.

'Oh, it's my pleasure,' Carella answered, in his first display of sarcasm all day. Hawes chose to ignore the thrust. Together they walked down the steps to the ground floor, silently.

CHAPTER THREE

The woman who sat in the small living room was fifty-four years old, and had once had hair as bright and as red as her daughter's. The hair was now streaked with grey, but it did not give the impression of red hair turning. Instead, and paradoxically, it looked like iron grey hair streaked with rust.

The woman's face was streaked with tears. The tears had destroyed the mascara around her eyes, sent it trickling down her cheeks, and was now demolishing the pancake makeup on her face. The woman was no beauty to begin with, and sorrow had stabbed at her eyes and was now trickling down her face, disintegrating the mask of beauty she donned for the world, the mask of beauty which news of death was ripping away piece by crumbling piece.

Detective Bert Kling sat opposite her and watched her. He did not like questioning women, and he did not like questioning women who cried. In homicides, in suicides, the women always cried. He felt uncomfortable in the presence of a crying woman. He was a new detective, and a very young detective, and he had not yet acquired either the sympathy or the savoir faire of a man like Carella. And so the woman's tears dissolved more than her carefully made-up face. They also dissolved the external facade of one Bert Kling, so that he sat like a dumbstruck schoolboy, unable to utter a syllable.

The living-room was furnished comfortably and tastefully. The furniture was not expensive, but it boasted clean modern lines without the cumbersome heavy look of furniture that hugs the floor, furniture that crowds a small apartment. The upholstery was light and gay, too, in sharp contrast to the woman who sat on the couch daubing at her brown-streaked eyes and face. There was a huge photograph of a vivacious redhead on the wall over the couch. The redhead had been photographed in a field of waving wheat, her head thrown back to the skies, the red hair streaming over her shoulders. There was pure soaring joy on her face, and Kling thought back to the face he had seen pressed against the wooden floor of the liquor shop, and he thought fleetingly of life and death, of joy and sorrow.

'Annie,' the woman said, following his glance.

'Yes,' Kling answered.

'That was taken seven years ago. On her honeymoon. They went to his father's farm in Indiana. Stayed a month. She was happy.'

'Ted Boone,' Kling said. 'That was her husband's name, wasn't it?'

'Theodore, yes. I always called him Theodore. He was a nice boy. A photographer, you know. He took that picture. Blew it up from a small Kodachrome. He's very talented.'