'I've got my own theories about guys who send letters like this,' Carella said. He picked up the photograph and held it to the light streaming through the windows. He was a tall, deceptively slender man, giving an impression of strength without the slightest hint of massive power. His eyes were slightly slanted and, together with his clean-shaven look, they gave him a high-cheeked, somewhat Oriental appearance.
'What's your idea, Steve?' Byrnes asked.
Carella tapped the photograph. 'The first question I ask is Why? If this joker is about to commit homicide, he sure as hell knows there are laws against it. The obvious way to do murder is to do it secretly and quietly and try to escape the law. But no. He sends us a letter. Why does he send us a letter?'
'It's more fun for him this way,' said Hawes, who had been listening intently to Carella. 'He's got a double challenge—the challenge of killing someone, and the challenge of getting away with it after he's raised the odds.'
'That's one way to look at it,' Carella said, and Byrnes watched the interplay between the two cops and was pleased by it. 'But there's another possibility. He wants to get caught.'
'Like this Heirens kid in Chicago, a few years back?' Hawes said.
'Sure. The lipstick on the mirror. Catch me before I kill again.' Carella tapped the letter. 'Maybe he wants to get caught, too. Maybe he's scared stiff of killing and wants us to catch him before he has to kill. What do you think, Pete?'
Byrnes shrugged. It's a theory. In any case, we still have to catch him.'
'I know, I know,' Carella said. 'But if he wants to get caught, then the letter isn't just a letter. Do you follow me?'
'No.'
Detective Meyer nodded. 'I get you, Steve. He's not just warning us. He's tipping us.'
'Sure,' Carella said. 'If he wants to get caught, if he wants to be stopped, this letter'll tell us just how to stop him. It'll tell us who and where.' He dropped the letter on Byrnes's desk.
Detective Meyer walked over to it and studied it. Meyer was a very patient cop, and so his scrutiny of the letter was careful and slow. Meyer, you see, had a father who was something of a practical joker. The senior Meyer, whose name was Max, had been somewhat startled and surprised when his wife had announced she was going to have a change-of-life baby. When the baby had been born, Max had played his little joke on humanity and incidentally on his son. He had given the baby the name of Meyer, which, added to the surname of Meyer, had caused the infant to emerge as Meyer Meyer. The joke had doubtless been a masterpiece of hilarity. Except perhaps to Meyer Meyer. The boy had grown up as an Orthodox Jew in a predominantly Gentile neighbourhood. The kids on the block had been accustomed to taking out their petty hatreds on scapegoats, and what better scapegoat than one whose name presented a ready-made chant: 'Meyer Meyer, Jew-on-Fire!' In all fairness, they had never put Meyer Meyer to the stake. But he had suffered many a beating in the days of his youth, and faced with what seemed to be the overwhelming odds of life, he had developed an attitude of extreme patience toward his fellow man.
Patience is an exacting virtue. Perhaps Meyer Meyer had emerged unscarred and unscathed. Perhaps. He was none the less completely bald. There are a lot of men who are completely bald. But Meyer Meyer was only thirty-seven years old.
Patiently, exactingly, he studied the letter now.
'It doesn't say a hell of a lot, Steve,' he said.
'Read it,' Byrnes told him
' "I will kill The Lady tonight at eight," ' Meyer quoted. ' "What can you do about it?" '
'Well, it tells us who,' Carella said.
'Who?' Byrnes asked.
' "The Lady",' Carella said.
'And who's she?'
'I don't know.'
'Mmmm.'
'It doesn't tell us how,' Meyer said, 'or where.'
'But it does give a time,' Hawes put in.
'Eight. Tonight at eight.'
'You really think this character wants to get caught, Steve?'
'I really don't know. I'm just offering a theory. I do know one thing.'
'What's that?'
'Until we get a report from the lab, we'd better start with what we've got.'
Byrnes looked at the letter.
'Well, what the hell do we have?'
'The Lady,' Carella answered.
CHAPTER THREE
Fats Donner was a stool pigeon.
There are stool pigeons and there are stool pigeons, and there is no law in the city that prevents you from getting your information from whomever you want to. If you like Turkish baths, there is no better stool pigeon than Fats.
When Hawes had worked with the 30th Squad, he had had his own coterie of informers. Unfortunately, his tattletales had all been highly specialized men who were hip only to the crimes and criminals within the 30th Precinct. Their limited scope did not extend to the brawling, sprawling 87th. And so, at 9.27 a.m. that morning, while Steve Carella went to see his own preferred stoolie—a man named Danny Gimp—and while Meyer Meyer checked the Lousy File for any female criminals who might have used 'The Lady' as an alias, Cotton Hawes spoke to Detective Hal Willis, and Willis told him to look up Donner.
A call to Donner's apartment drew a blank.
'He's probably at the baths,' Willis said, and he gave Hawes the address. Hawes checked out a car and drove downtown.
The sign outside the place read:
REGAN BATHS
Turkish
Steam
Galvanized
Hawes walked in, climbed a flight of wooden steps leading to the second floor of the building, and stopped before a desk in the lobby. The climb had already brought perspiration to Hawes's forehead. He wondered why anyone would go to a Turkish bath on a day like today, and then he further wondered why anyone would go swimming in January, and then he thought the hell with it.
'What can I do you for?' the man at the desk asked. He was a small man with a sharp nose. He wore a white tee shirt upon which the name REGAN BATHS was stencilled in green. He also wore a green eyeshade.
'Police,' Hawes said, and he flashed the tin.
'You got the wrong place,' the man said. 'This is a legit bath. Somebody steered you wrong.'
'I'm looking for a man named Fats Donner. Know where I can find him?'
'Sure,' the man said. 'Donner's a regular. You got no beef with me?'
'Who are you?'
'Alf Regan. I run the joint. Legit.'
'I only want to talk to Donner. Where is he?'
'Room Four, middle of the hall. You can't go in like that, mister.'
'What do I need?'
'Just your skin. But I'll give you a towel. Lockers are back there. Anything valuable, you can leave here at the desk. I'll put it in the safe.'
Hawes unloaded his wallet and watch. He debated for a moment, and then undipped his service revolver and holster and put them on the desk.
'That thing loaded?' Regan asked.
'Yes.'
'Mister, you better—'
'It's got an internal safety,' Hawes said. 'It can't go off unless the trigger is pulled.'
Regan looked at the .38 sceptically. 'Okay, okay,' he said, 'but I wonder how many people accidentally get shot by guns that got internal safeties.'
Hawes grinned and headed for the lockers. While he was undressing, Regan brought him a towel.
'I hope you got a thick hide,' he said.
'Why?'
'Donner likes them hot. I mean hot.'