'I've found Fetterick,' he said. 'Want to be in on the collar?'
'Think I'll get shot?' Carella asked.
Hawes smiled. 'There's a chance,' he said. 'The help is sort of inexperienced.'
'But maybe solid none the less,' Carella said. He clipped his holstered gun into his back pocket. 'Let's go.'
They drove to Riverhead in silence. If either of the men felt any particular tension, neither showed it. When they reached 312 Bragin, they got out of the car silently and looked for Fetterick's name in the mailboxes. He was in Apartment 2A. They went upstairs quietly. This time, Hawes unholstered his gun before Carella did. This time, Hawes threw off the safety before Carella did. When they reached the apartment door, Carella stood to one side of it, and Hawes backed off for the kick. He hit the lock flatfooted, and the door sprang open.
The room was dead silent. They could see an easy chair and a corner of the bed from where they stood in the hallway.
'Out?' Hawes whispered.
'I guess,' Carella said.
'Cover me.'
Hawes stepped into the room cautiously.
The arm came from behind the open door. It looped itself around Hawes's throat and yanked him backwards. He was too surprised to flip Fetterick over his shoulder. He had only time to shout, 'Steve! Get out!' before he felt the sharp snout of the automatic against his spine.
'Get in here, cop!' Fetterick said. 'You run, and your pal is dead.'
'Go, Steve!' Hawes said.
Carella came into the room.
'Drop the hardware,' Fetterick said. 'Both of you. Quick!'
Hawes dropped his gun. 'Shoot, Steve,' he said. 'Drop him!'
'You do, and your pal's dead,' Fetterick warned.' Drop the gun.'
Carella dropped the .38.
'Inside,' Fetterick said.
Carella moved away from the door, and Fetterick kicked it shut.
'Big cops,' he said. 'Saw you the minute you pulled up downstairs. Big cops.'
'What now, Fetterick?' Carella asked.
'Big sons of bitches,' Fetterick said. 'Because of you bastards, I couldn't go to a doctor. I'm still carrying the slug, you bastards.' He stood behind Hawes with the gun muzzle tight against Hawes's back. Carella moved across the room. 'No funny stuff,' Fetterick said. 'One cop's already dead. A few more won't make it any worse.'
'You've got it all wrong,' Carella said. 'You could get off with life.'
'What kind of life? I done the prison bit already, thanks. I either get away clean this time, or I get the chair. That's the way I want it.' He winced. The strain of keeping his arm around Hawes's neck was telling on his wounded shoulder. 'Sons of bitches. Couldn't even go to a doctor,' he said.
'Where's you mother, Fetterick?'
'Down getting something for breakfast. Leave her out of this.'
'She's harbouring a criminal.'
'She doesn't know anything.'
'She knows you're wounded.'
'She doesn't know it's a gun wound. You got nothing on her. How'd you get to me? Was it the paint job on the car the first time?'
'Yes.'
'I had to have it done. I thought it got spotted once. I couldn't chance it. What about now?'
'You shouldn't have looked for engraving work.'
'Engraving's my work,' Fetterick said.
'We thought burglary and robbery was,' Hawes said snidely.
'Shut up!' Fetterick warned. Again, he pulled the gun back and then rammed it forward. Hawes felt the snout dig into his flesh. He braced himself.
'You guys don't have me tagged for this Annie Boone crap in the papers, do you?'
'Was it you?' Carella asked.
'No. I got an alibi a mile long. That's one thing you don't stick me with.'
'Why don't you put up the gun like a good boy?' Carella asked.
'What for? So I get life on the state? Big deal. You guys walked into a coffin. You know that, don't you?'
'You're a stupid punk,' Hawes said. 'You wouldn't know how to…'
Fetterick pulled back the gun, ready to jab it into Hawes's back again. This time, Hawes was waiting for it. He moved quickly, twisting his body the moment the barrel left his back, twisting it inside the gun, throwing his weight at the same time so that he knocked the gun hand to one side, leaning forward simultaneously, his arms reaching up, his hands grabbing the arm that circled his neck.
The automatic in Fetterick's fist exploded, but Fetterick was in mid-air when it did, spiralling over Hawes's back. Carella was half-way across the room. Hawes threw Fetterick like a sack of flour. He landed on his back, sat up, and was bringing the automatic to bear when Carella kicked him. He kicked him in the arm, and the second shot went wild, and then Hawes took a flying leap, all one hundred and ninety pounds of him landing on Fetterick like a falling boulder. He pinioned Fetterick's arms and then began hitting him until he was senseless. Fetterick dropped the gun. He lay breathing heavily on the floor.
'That was a big chance,' Carella said to Hawes.
'He was ready to shoot us,' Hawes said.
'Yeah. Did I thank you?'
'No.'
'Thanks,' Carella said. 'Let's drag this hunk of crap down to the car.'
Charles Fetterick did not kill Annie Boone. His alibi for the night of 10 June was as solid as a rock. It didn't help Fetterick very much because the cops already had him on one murder. But, giving the devil his due, Fetterick did not kill Annie Boone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
'Who killed her?' they had asked at first.
And now they were asking something else again. Now they were asking, 'Who was killed?' They had asked questions about a girl named Annie Boone, and they had learned that there were many girls named Annie Boone, and to know who had killed Annie they first had to discover which of the Annies had been killed. The vivacious redhead? The intellectual reader and ballet-goer? The pool-shooter? The divorced wife? The mistress? The mother? The daughter? The social drinker? The drunkard? The girl who talked with a blind boy? Which was Annie? And which Annie had been killed? Or were they all Annie, and had the killer murdered someone who was all things to all men?
No, the killer had slain a specific Annie. And now the killer had a specific problem, and the problem was a letter.
Standing in the doorway across from the apartment house, the killer could watch everyone who went in or out of the building. When Monica and Mrs Travail left the apartment, the killer crossed the street rapidly, and then went upstairs. It was not easy to force the door of the apartment. There could be no sudden sound, no sharp splintering of wood. And so the tool used was a simple wood chisel pried into the jamb, pressed, pressed with subtle force until the door sprang open. The killer went directly to the dead Annie Boone's room.
There, books were knocked from shelves, closets were ransacked, the record player was almost demolished, the bed was stripped, the mattress turned over—but the letter was not found.
The whirlwind swept destructively throughout the entire apartment, seeking, seeking, not finding, infuriated by failure, destroying property as senselessly as it had in the liquor shop on the night of the murder. The killer ransacked and destroyed and rampaged.
But the letter remained undiscovered.
The killer succeeded in doing two things.
First, the wild rampage brought the cops back to the apartment. This time, they realized just how important that letter was. This time, there were a dozen cops going over the place. This time, whenever two cops finished with a room, two other cops came in and started searching all over again.