There were thirteen mailboxes on the wall to the right. One of them was marked SUPER. The other twelve were numbered for each floor of the building, three to a floor, starting with 1A, 1B, and 1C on the first floor and ending with 4A, 4B, and 4C on the fourth floor.
4C was the only mailbox without an identifying name on it. A plastic stick-on label above the boxes, black lettering on a silver field, gave the name, address, and telephone number of the real estate company managing the building. Kling copied down the information. When he came out of the building, Hawes was just pulling the sedan into the space the limo had vacated.
"What've we got?" Hawes asked.
"Nothing yet," Kling said. "We've got to make some phone calls.”
"Tomorrow," Hawes said. "It's already ten after five.”
"No, today," Kling said.
The telephone company gave Hawes a listing for a Dr. Kumar Moorthy at 714 Jacob's Way and advised him that the unpublished number had been in service for the past four years now. The supervisor Hawes spoke to outdid herself by informing him that this was the only telephone listed for that address. Which meant single occupancy for the three-story brownstone. Too bad he didn't know who Dr. Kumar Moorthy was.
"Got to be Indian," Parker said, looking at the pad on Hawes's desk. "That's an Indian name, for sure.”
"Which tribe?" Hawes asked him.
"I'm talking Indian Indian.”
"No kidding?”
At his own desk, Kling was on the phone with a woman from Bridge Realty. He motioned for them to tone it down. She was telling him that apartment 4C at 321 South Lewiston was rented to a man named Raymond Androtti. Kling wondered if the absence of a nameplate in the 4C mailbox meant anything at all.
"Do you have a renter named Andrew Denker?" he asked.
"Denker? No, sir.”
"Or Darrow?”
"No, sir. I can give you the names of all the renters in the building ...”
"Yes, would you do that, please?”
She ran down the list for him. As she'd told him, there was neither a Denker nor a Darrow. Nor was there anyone with the initials A. D. or A.N.D. "How long has Mr. Androtti been renting the apartment?" Kling asked.
"Since last July.”
"On a lease?”
"Yes, sir. A year-long lease.”
"Well, thank you very much," he said.
"Not at all," the woman said, and hung up.
Kling looked up the name Raymond Androtti in the directories for all five sectors of the city. There was a listing for an R. Androtti in Majesta. He dialed it.
"What you should do," Parker told Hawes, "is try every hospital in the city. If this guy's an Indian doctor, that's where you'll find him. We got more Indian doctors in this city than they got in all Bombay.”
Hawes was thinking that wasn't such a bad idea. How the hell was Parker coming up with all these good ideas all of a sudden?
"Hello, Mr. Androtti," Kling said into his telephone.
"Yes?”
"Raymond Androtti?”
"No, this is Ralph Androtti.”
"Is there a Raymond Androtti at this number?”
"No, I'm sorry, there isn't.”
"Thank you," Kling said. "Sorry to bother you.”
He hung up and began dialing down the list of all the other people named Androtti, although not Raymonds. It was not a common name, there were only eight of them scattered throughout the city. Hawes had already begun dialing down the list of hospitals in his personal directory.
"Hello, I'm trying to locate a man named Raymond Androtti," Kling said. "Can you tell me ...?was "Wrong number.”
"Hello, this is Detective Cotton Hawes, 87th Squad? I'm looking for a doctor named Kumar Moorthy, I wonder if ...”
Kling was finished with his comparatively short list before Hawes had made even a small dent in his. Parker, who had relieved at a quarter to four, and who was enjoying a relatively quiet night watch, did not offer to help either of them when they split the list and continued dialing. By twenty minutes past seven, they had called every hospital in the city and had not located a doctor named Kumar Moorthy.
"Call the Indian Consulate," Parker suggested.
Hawes looked at him in something close to wonder.
Parker shrugged as if to say Elementary, my dear Watson. The consul Hawes spoke to was a man named Ajit Sakti Vedam, and he spoke with a marked British accent. He told Hawes that indeed they were familiar with Dr. Moorthy, and then explained that the doctor taught Sanskrit, Hindu, Bengali, and Nepali at Ramsey University and was a frequent and honored guest here at the consulate.
"As well as seminars on Modern India, Indic Studies, and Hindu and Buddhist Controversies," Vedam said.
"Would you know how I can reach him?" Hawes asked.
"I believe I have an address for him in New Delhi," Vedam said.
"New Delhi?”
"Yes, sir. He is there enjoying a sabbatical.”
"When will he be back, would you know?" Hawes asked.
"I believe he left in September,”
Vedam said.
"Did he mention how long he'd be gone?”
"I'm sorry, sir.”
"Would you know what he's doing with his apartment meanwhile?" Hawes asked.
"I have no idea, sir.”
"Renting it? Or whatever?”
"I'm sorry.”
"Thank you very much, Mr. Vedam," Hawes said, and put the receiver back on its cradle.
"Any other ideas?" he asked Parker.
"Sure. Go on the earie.”
The request for a court order to begin surveillance of the telephone equipment installed at 714 Jacob's Way stated that the detectives of the 87th Squad were actively engaged in an ongoing homicide investigation and had good and reasonable cause to believe that the current occupant or occupants of the building might have knowledge valuable to the investigation, which knowledge might be revealed through aforesaid surveillance.
The simultaneous request for a court order to begin surveillance of the telephone equipment installed in apartment 4C at 321 South Lewiston stated that the detectives of the 87th Squad had good and reasonable cause to believe that the current occupant of the apartment had entered into a conspiracy to commit murder, and that sufficient cause for arrest might be divulged through aforesaid surveillance.
Both petitions asked for a No-Knock provision granting permission to enter and install listening devices on whatever telephones discovered therein.
Both petitions were denied in their entireties.
This being America, that was the end of that.
Parker suggested that they go in, anyway.
Plant their bugs, get what they needed, worry about the rest of it later. He was just whistling in the wind; he knew as well as the others that anything they uncovered through an illegal wiretap would be considered fruit of the poisonous tree and would be kicked out of court in a minute.
They were right back where they started.
Until Jimmy the Blink called on Saturday morning.
9.
"We never had this conversation," Jimmy said.
"What conversation?" Carella said.
"Good," Jimmy said, and Carella visualized him blinking. "This is what I understand from my people. There's this guy in no way connected to us who before now was running girls, very low-level, two or three in his stable, maybe four tops, from what I understand. Nobody to worry about, a flyspeck on a sand dune, you follow? Okay.
Two, three months ago he starts another little enterprise.”
"And what's that?”
"Housing for the homeless.”
"How very kind of him," Carella said.