"Not drugs," Altaba said. "Who said drugs?”
"You guys always think drugs.”
"What is he into?" Meyer asked.
"This other man would only use this to hurt Gofredo," Altaba said. "But I'm a good friend of his.”
"So let's hear it.”
"Guns," Altaba said.
"Guns," Carella repeated.
"Sí," Altaba said.
"Selling guns?" Meyer suggested.
Altaba nodded.
"So who'd he sell a gun to recently?”
Wanting him to say Andrew Denker.
"Somebody here to do a job.”
"What kind of job?”
Wanting him to say murder.
"A big one.”
"Like what? A bank heist? Something like that?”
Wanting it to come from him.
"No, no," he said.
"Then what?”
"I think you know.”
"No, we don't know.”
Like pulling teeth.
"Then what are you doing here?" Altaba asked.
"If you don't know why you're here, then why are you here?”
"We're here because Cabrera found a room for somebody," Meyer said, and glanced at Carella who gave a faint, almost indiscernible nod.
Run with it, he was saying. Tell him the truth, let's see where it takes us.
Altaba nodded, too. A big, knowing nod.
"Tell us," Meyer said.
"The same guy," Altaba said.
"The same guy what?" Meyer said, beginning to lose his patience.
"The guy he found the room for, this is the same guy he sold the gun to.”
"Ahh," Meyer said.
"You got it," Altaba said.
"Who was the guy?”
"I don't know. All I know is he came to the club ...”
"Who? What do you mean?”
"This guy he sold the gun to.”
"Came to Las Palmas?”
"That's what I'm telling you.”
"When?”
“After Christmas sometime. Right after Christmas.”
"Was he white, black, Hispan ...?was "White.”
"What'd he look like?”
"Big tall blond guy.”
"Okay, and?”
"And he ast for Gofredo. And the two of them went out together.”
"Why do you think he was there?”
"For a piece, I told you.”
"How do you know that?”
"'Cause Gofredo told me later he made a hun' fifty profit on the gun.”
"What kind of gun, would you know?”
"A forty-five. A Colt.”
"What else did he say?”
"Gofredo?”
"Yes. Did he say anything about a room?”
"He said he'd make another fifty on the room.”
"What do you mean?”
"His commission. For helping the guy find a room.”
"Did he say where he was going to get this room?”
"No.”
"Does the name Ray Androtti mean anything to you?”
"No.”
"How about Ramón Andros?”
"I think I heard that name.”
"Where'd you hear it?”
"I don't know.”
"Did Gofredo mention it?”
"Maybe.”
"In connection with finding this man a room?”
"Maybe, I don't remember.”
"Does the name Andrew Denker ring a bell?”
"No.”
"Do you know anybody named Tilly?”
"Is that a girl?”
"No, a man. Roger Tilly.”
"No.”
"Roger Turner Tilly.”
"Never heard of him.”
"Who's the man at Las Palmas?”
"What man?”
"The one who'd like to get Cabrera in trouble.”
"I can't tell you that.”
“Why does he want to get Cabrera in trouble?" Meyer asked.
"Because Gofredo is fucking his wife.”
"Ahh," Carella said.
"But you didn't hear this from me," Altaba said, and shrugged elaborately and innocently.
"Know where we can find Cabrera?" Carella asked.
"I wish I did," Altaba said. "I would tell you in a minute.”
And suddenly they knew that the wife he'd been talking about was his own wife, and that the man at Las Palmas who wished only harm to his good old buddy Cabrera was none other than José Altaba himself, in person.
Altaba shrugged again, confirming it.
You came crosstown to the bridge that ran over the Diamondback River at its narrowest point, and suddenly the accents were no longer Hispanic. You were in Diamondback now, and Diamondback was black, although this was a misnomer in that none of these people were black, they were merely varying shades of colors as old as time and as rich as loam. Up here was where the thousand points of light never shone. Black mayor or not, black commissioner or not, up here was where the fire would come when it came, if it came.
Ollie Weeks survived up here by hating every black man who crossed his path. Carella and Meyer were cut of quite a different cloth, and what troubled them most was the thought that up here they might be the ones who got killed for Ollie's sins.
So they drove carefully, not wanting to be responsible for the holocaust if it came, when it came. The car heater was on, but it contributed very little toward heating the car, what with the temperature outside hovering at the zero mark. Zero degrees Fahrenheit was about minus eighteen degrees Celsius. That was cold. That was unusually cold for this city. It sometimes got that cold here-as witness right now-but not very often and not for such long stretches of time.
Winter was beginning to get to them. In this kind of weather, they did not want to be shagging ass all over the city, chasing the killer or killers of a two-bit punk like Tilly. They did not want to be thinking up ways they could arrest Andrew Denker before he got around to killing Emma Bowles-if in fact he'd been hired - to kill her at all. It was possible, after all, that he was really a private eye from the Windy City, here to protect the lady.
"What the problem is," Meyer was saying, "is we can't bust this guy unless we can prove Bowles hired him to do the wife. That's conspiracy. And if murder's the crime ...”
"Or kidnapping," Carella said.
"Or kidnapping, right, then what we're looking at is a Class-C felony. But Bowles isn't going to come out and admit he hired him ...”
"Of course not.”
"... and they won't let us have a goddamn wiretap, so where does that leave us?”
They were approaching the Eight-Three. Meyer pulled the car into the curb, alongside a blue-and-white. Before they got out of the car, they checked the street left and right to make sure nobody was about to go on a rampage, because in any rampage blind hatred could not distinguish shades of white or brown.
The Eight-Three looked exactly like the Eight-Seven, except that it was further uptown.
The sergeant behind the desk could have been Dave Murchison, except that he was a little younger and not quite as paunchy. The walkie-talkies recharging on the wall alongside the Computer Room could just as easily have been taped with the words PROPERTY OF 87TH PCT. The iron-runged steps leading to the second floor had the same familiar ring to them.
And upstairs there were the same smells, the faint stink of urine as they passed the men's room, the aroma of coffee brewing in the Clerical Office, the stench of stale cigarette smoke as they approached the squadroom. The precincts in this city all looked and smelled alike. Even the new ones started to resemble the old ones before too long. There was a lot of crime in this city, and the station houses were used twenty-four hours a day. That was enough to make anything look older than it was.
Fat Ollie Weeks looked younger than he was. That was because he was fat. Fat people looked fat, but they also looked young. It was a phenomenon of nature. When they came in, he was talking to a black hooker at his desk. He motioned for them to take a seat, and then he turned to the girl again. - "Now, Marfelia," he said, "you know, don't you, that you are in very serious trouble here, don't you?”
The girl looked as if she knew she was in very serious trouble. Big brown eyes wide in a narrow fox face. Lipstick slash on her wide mouth. Hands nervously twisting in her lap and then tugging at the hem of a mini riding north.