“No.”
“Well, open it.”
“I’m trying to,” Carella said. “My damn hands are shaking.”
Patiently Hawes waited while Carella unclasped the bag. There were four big manila envelopes in it. The first envelope contained a dozen photostated copies of the letter to Schlesser from the lawyer of the man who’d drunk the mousy sarsaparilla.
“Exhibit A,” Carella said.
“Tells us nothing we don’t already know,” Hawes answered. “Open the next envelope.”
The second envelope contained two pages from the ledger of a firm called Ederle and Cranshaw, Inc. Both pages were signed by a C.P.A. named Anthony Knowles. A comparison of the ledger pages showed that the second page was a revision of the first page, and that the first page did not exactly balance. It did not exactly balance to the tune of $30,744.29. The second page balanced very neatly, thank you. Mr. Knowles, whoever he was, had robbed the firm of Ederle and Cranshaw of thirty grand, and then balanced the books to cover the deficit. Sy Kramer had, in his own mysterious way, managed to get a copy of both the original entry and the fraudulent one—and had been using both to extort money from Knowles, who was undoubtedly the $1,100-a-month mark.
“Larceny rears its ugly head,” Carella said.
“The skeleton in every closet,” Hawes said.
“We’ll have to pick up this Knowles.”
“Damn right, we’ll have to,” Hawes said. “He may be the one who done in our friend Kramer.”
But, of course, they had not yet opened the remaining two envelopes.
Envelope number three contained six negatives and prints of Lucy Mencken in an attitude close to nudity. Hawes and Carella studied them with something unlike mere professional interest.
“Nice,” Hawes said.
“Yes,” Carella answered.
“You’re a married man,” Hawes reminded him.
“She’s a married woman,” Carella said, grinning. “That makes us even.”
“Do you think she killed Kramer?”
“I don’t know,” Carella said. “But that last envelope better have a lot of answers.” He lifted it out of the suitcase. “I think it’s empty,” he said, with astonishment.
“What? You haven’t opened it. How can you—?”
“It feels so light,” Carella said.
“Open it, will you? For God’s sake!”
Carella opened the envelope.
There was a sheet of onion-skin paper in the envelope, and that was all. The sheet of paper carried a very faint typewritten carbon impression of three words. The three words were:
I SAW YOU!
17.
YOU CAN CARRY DEDUCTION only so far.
You can add two and two, and get four. And then you can subtract two from four, and get two. You can square two, and get four again. And then you can take the square root of four, and get two again—and you’re right back where you started.
There comes a time when your personal mathematics don’t mean a damn.
There comes a time, for example, like immediately after the arrest of Anthony Knowles. There comes a time when Knowles admits to the theft and the fraudulent entry in the ledger, and then comes up with a perfect alibi for the night Sy Kramer was killed.
There comes a time when you’re right back where you started, and no matter how you add the facts you always get the same answer, and the same answer is no damn good at all.
When that time comes, you play a hunch.
If you’re a cop who isn’t particularly intuitive, you’re up the creek without a paddle. Because then you can only add up the facts, and the facts come out like this: Kramer was extorting money from three known victims in various amounts, the amounts arbitrarily decided by Kramer in an attempt to make the punishment fit the crime. Three hundred bucks for putting out sarsaparilla that had flavor and body—the body of a mouse. Five hundred bucks for getting undressed—before a photographer. Eleven hundred bucks for making an erasure—to cover a theft.
Kramer had had another source of income. This unknown source had furnished his apartment, bought his cars and clothes, and filled his bank account with $45,000. The first three manila envelopes in the suitcase had dealt with Kramer’s low-income marks. The fourth envelope contained a note saying “I SAW YOU!” and this was the carbon of a note that had possibly been mailed to someone. Was the fourth envelope the clue to the big-money mark? If so, to whom had the note been mailed? And what had Kramer seen?
Facts, facts, more facts.
A man named Phil Kettering had vanished. Poof, into thin air. Why? Where was he now? Had he killed Kramer? Was he the man to whom Kramer had sent the “I SAW YOU!” note? And what, what, what the hell had Kramer seen?
Facts.
Add them up.
Two and two make four.
Or sometimes zero.
* * *
COTTON HAWES played a hunch.
He played the hunch on his own time, on one of his off duty days. If he was wrong, he didn’t want to waste the city’s time and money. If he was right, there was plenty of time to act. And even if he was right, there would still be unanswered questions. He was beginning to wish he’d signed re-enlistment papers when the war had ended. He was beginning to wish he was on the deck of a seagoing tug somewhere in the Pacific, where there was no guesswork, no suspects, no bodies.
On Wednesday morning, July seventeenth, Hawes hopped into his automobile. He did not tell anyone on the squad where he was going. He had made a fool of himself once before, when he’d first joined the Squad, and he did not wish to compound the felony by proving himself wrong another time.
Hawes crossed the River Harb. He drove on the Greentree Highway. He passed the town in which he and an anthropology student named Polly had enjoyed an evening together. The memory was sweet. He drove past Castleview Prison’s impenetrable, forbidding walls. He drove up into New York State, and he headed for the Adirondacks and Kukabonga Lodge.
Jerry Fielding recognized the car as Hawes pulled up. He came down the steps to greet him, his hand extended.
“Been hoping you’d come back,” he said. “Have any luck with Kettering yet?”
“No,” Hawes said, taking Fielding’s hand. “We can’t find him.”
“That looks bad for him, doesn’t it?”
“It looks very bad for him,” Hawes said. “Do you know these woods pretty well?”
“Like the back of my hand.”
“Want to guide me through them?”
“Going to do a little hunting?” Fielding asked.
“In a sense, yes,” Hawes said. He went to the car and took out a small travel case.
“What’s in that?”
“A pair of swimming trunks,” Hawes said. “Could you take me around the edge of the lake first?”
“Are you hot?” Fielding asked, puzzled.
“Maybe,” Hawes said. “And maybe I’m cold. We’ll know in a little while, I guess.”