'What do you see?'Meyer asked.
'Nothing.'
'He's still there?'
'The sun's still on the binoculars.'
'Where the hell is Hawes!'
'It's a big park,' Carella said charitably.
Sitting on the rock, the man with the binoculars thought he heard a sound in the bushes. Slowly he turned, lowering the glasses. Barely breathing, he listened.
He could feel the hackles at the back of his neck rising. Suddenly he was drenched with sweat. He wiped beads of perspiration from the swollen feel of his upper lip.
There was an unmistakable thrashing in the woods.
He listened.
Was it a kid?
Lovers?
Or a cop?
Run, his mind shrieked. The thought ricocheted inside his skull, but he sat riveted to the rock. They'll stop me, he thought.
But so soon? So soon? After all the planning? To be stopped so soon?
The noise in the woods was closer now. He saw the glint of sunlight on metal. Goddamnit, why hadn't he taken the gun with him? Why hadn't he prepared for something like this? His eyes anxiously scanned the barren surface of the rock. There was a high bush at the base of the stone surface. Crawling on his belly, the binoculars clutched in his right hand, he moved toward the bush. The sunlight caught at something bright, something non-metallic this time. Red. Red hair! The cop who'd left the desk! He held his breath. The thrashing in the woods stopped. From where he crouched behind the bush, he could see the red hair and only that. And then the head ducked, and then reappeared. The cop was advancing. He would pass directly in front of the bush.
The man with the binoculars waited. His hand on the metal was sweating. He could see the cop plainly now, advancing slowly, a gun in his right hand.
Patiently he waited. Maybe he wouldn't be seen. Maybe if he stayed right where he was, he wouldn't be discovered. No. No, that was foolish. He had to get out of this. He had to get out of it, or be caught, and it was too soon to be caught, too damned soon.
Hefting the binoculars like a mace, he waited.
From where Hawes advanced through the bushes, he could hear no sound. The park seemed to have gone suddenly still. The birds were no longer chattering in the trees. The sound of muted voices, which hung on the air like a swarm of insects, drifting over the paths and the lake and the trees, had suddenly quieted. There was only the bright sun overhead and the beginnings of the sloping rock, a huge bush on Hawes's left, and the frightening sudden silence.
He could feel danger, could sense it in every nerve ending, could feel it throbbing in every bone marrow. He had felt this way the time he'd been knifed, could remember the startling appearance of the blade, the naked light bulb glinting on metal, the hurried, desperate lunge for his back pocket and his revolver. He could remember the blurred swipe of the blade, the sudden warmth over his left temple, the feel of blood gushing on to his face. And then, unable to reach his gun before the slashing knife was pulled back, he had struck out with his fists, struck repeatedly until the knife had clattered to the hallway floor, until his assailant had been a blubbering quivering hulk against the wall, and still he had hit him, hit him until his knuckles had bled.
This time he had a gun in his hand. This time he was ready. And still, danger prickled his scalp, rushed up his spinal column with tingling ferocity.
Cautiously he advanced.
The blow struck him on his right wrist.
The blow was sharp, the biting impact of metal hitting bone. His hand opened, and the .38 clattered to the rock surface. He whirled in time to see the man raise the binoculars high. He brought his hands up to protect his face. The binoculars descended, the lenses catching sunlight, glittering crazily. For a maniacal, soundless moment he saw the man's frenzied, twisted face, and then the binoculars struck, smashing into Hawes's hands. He felt intense pain. He clenched his fists, threw a punch, and then saw the binoculars go up again and down, and he knew they would strike his face this time. Blindly he clutched at them.
He felt metal strike his palms, and then he closed his hands and wrenched at the glasses with all his strength, pulling at them. He felt them come free. The man stood stock-still for just a moment, surprise stamped on his face. Then he broke into a run.
Hawes dropped the glasses.
The man was in the bushes by the time Hawes retrieved the .38.
He picked up the gun and fired into the air. He fired into the air again, and then he thrashed into the bushes after the man.
When Carella heard the shots in the squad-room, he shoved back his chair and said, 'Let's go, Meyer.'
They found Hawes sitting on a patch of grass in the park. He'd lost their man, he said. They examined his wrist and his hands. There didn't seem to be any broken bones. He led them back to the rock where he'd been ambushed, and again he said, 'I lost him. I lost the bastard.'
'Maybe you didn't,' Carella said.
Spreading a handkerchief over his palm, he picked up the binoculars.
CHAPTER EIGHT
At the police lab, Sam Grossman identified the glasses as having been made by a firm named Pieter-Vondiger. The serial number told him the glasses had been manufactured sometime during 1952. The air-glass surfaces were not anti-reflection coated, and so the binoculars had not been made for the Armed Forces, as many of the firm's glasses had been during that time. A call to the company assured Sam that the model was no longer being sold in retail stores, having been replaced by more recent, improved models. None the less, he prepared a chart on the glasses for the cops of the 87th, while his men went over the glasses for fingerprints. Sam Grossman was a methodical man, and it was his contention that the smallest, most insignificant-seeming piece of information might prove valuable to the men investigating a case. And so he wrote down every particular of the field glasses.
Magnification: 8 diameters
Exit pupiclass="underline" 3 -5 mm.
Objective lenses: 30 mm. diameter
Relative brightness: 12-3
Field at 1,000 yards: 135 yds
Angular field: 7°44'
Length closed: 4''
Pupillary distance: 48 to 72 mm.
Length extended: 4 5/8
Weight: 18 oz.
The glasses were central focusing, right ocular adjustable individually. The price of the glasses when new, sold together with a stiff sole leather casing and straps, was $92.50.
There were two sets of prints on the glasses. One belonged to Cotton Hawes. The other, which—because of the very way in which binoculars must be held—consisted of fairly good thumb and ringer impressions for both hands, had been left on the glasses by Hawes's assailant. Photos were taken of the prints. One photo was sent immediately to the Bureau of Criminal Identification. The other was photo-transmitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington. Each agency was asked for extreme speed in making a possible identification from the prints.
Sam Grossman prayed that the man who'd left the prints on the glasses had also left a record of those prints somewhere in the United States.
It was 1.10 p.m.
Lieutenant Byrnes spread the newspaper on his desk. 'How about this, Hawes?' he asked.
Hawes looked at the page, his eye running down it until he found the ad. The ad said:
Appearing now at the Brisson Roof!
Jay 'Lady' Astor
Piano stylings and Songs
in the
Lady Astor manner
There was a picture of a dark-haired girl in a skin-tight evening dress, smiling.