You see, he thought, I’m me, Arthur Brown. Now what is all this white man-black man crap? I don’t understand what you want me to be. You are saying I’m a Negro, you are telling me this is so, but I don’t know what Negro means, I don’t know what this whole damn discussion is all about. What do you want from me, exactly? If I say, why yes, that’s right, I’m a Negro, well, then what? What the hell is it you want, that’s what I’d like to know.
Arthur Brown finished shaving, rinsed his face, and looked into the mirror.
As usual, he saw himself.
He dressed quietly, drank some orange juice and coffee, kissed his daughter as she lay sleeping in her crib, woke Caroline briefly to tell her he was off to work, and then went cross town to the neighborhood where Joseph Wechsler had run a hardware store.
It was purely by chance that Meyer Meyer went to see Mrs. Rudy Glennon alone that Monday morning, the chance having been occasioned by the fact that Steve Carella had drawn Lineup duty. Things might have worked out differently had Carella been along, but the police commissioner felt it was necessary to acquaint his working dicks with criminals every Monday to Thursday inclusive. Carella, being a working dick, took the Lineup duty like a man and sent Meyer to Mrs. Glennon’s apartment alone.
Mrs. Glennon was the name supplied by Dr. McElroy at Buenavista Hospital, the woman with whose family Claire Townsend had been personally involved. She lived in one of the worst slum sections in Isola, some five blocks from the station house. Meyer walked over, found the apartment building, and climbed the steps to the third floor. He knocked on the door to the apartment and waited.
“Who is it?” a voice called.
“Police,” Meyer called.
“What do you want? I’m in bed.”
“I’d like to talk to you, Mrs. Glennon,” Meyer said.
“Come back next week. I’m sick. I’m in bed.”
“I’d like to talk to you now, Mrs. Glennon.”
“What about?”
“Mrs. Glennon, would you open the door, please?”
“Oh, for the love of Mary, it’s open,” she shouted. “Come in, come in.”
Meyer turned the knob and stepped into the apartment. The shades were drawn and the room he entered was dim. He peered into the apartment.
“I’m in here,” Mrs. Glennon said. “The bedroom.”
He followed the voice into the other room. She was sitting in the middle of a large double bed, propped against the pillows, a small faded woman wearing a faded pink robe over her nightgown. She looked at Meyer as if even the glance sapped all her energy. Her hair was stringy, threaded with gray strands. Her cheeks were gaunt.
“I told you I was sick,” Mrs. Glennon said. “What is it you want?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Glennon,” Meyer said. “The hospital told us you’d been released. I thought—”
“I’m convalescing,” she interrupted. She said the word proudly, as if she had learned it at great expense.
“Well, I’m awfully sorry. But if you feel you can answer a few questions, I’d appreciate it,” Meyer said.
“You’re here now. I might as well.”
“You have a daughter, Mrs. Glennon?”
“And a son. Why?”
“How old are the children?”
“Eileen is sixteen and Terry is eighteen. Why?”
“Where are they now, Mrs. Glennon?”
“What’s it to you? They haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I didn’t say they had, Mrs. Glennon. I simply—”
“Then why do you want to know where they are?”
“Actually, we’re trying to locate—”
“I’m here, Mom,” a voice behind Meyer said. The voice came suddenly, startling him. His hand automatically went for the service revolver clipped to his belt on the left — and then stopped. He turned slowly. The boy standing behind him was undoubtedly Terry Glennon, a strapping youth of eighteen, with his mother’s piercing eyes and narrow jaw.
“What do you want, mister?” he said.
“I’m a cop,” Meyer told him before he got any wild ideas. “I want to ask your mother a few questions.”
“My mother just got out of the hospital. She can’t answer no questions,” Terry said.
“It’s all right, son,” Mrs. Glennon said.
“You let me handle this, Mom. You better go, mister.”
“Well, I’d like to ask—”
“I think you better go,” Terry said.
“I’m sorry, sonny,” Meyer said, “but I happen to be investigating a homicide, and I think I’ll stay.”
“A homi...” Terry Glennon swallowed the information silently. “Who got killed?”
“Why? Who do you think got killed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why’d you ask?”
“I don’t know. You said a homicide, so I naturally asked—”
“Uh-huh,” Meyer said. “You know anyone named Claire Townsend?”
“No.”
“I know her,” Mrs. Glennon said. “Did she send you here?”
“Look, mister,” Terry interrupted, apparently making up his mind once and for all, “I told you my mother’s sick. I don’t care what you’re investigating — she ain’t gonna—”
“Terry, now stop it,” his mother said. “Did you buy the milk I asked you to?”
“Yeah.”
“Where is it?”
“I put it on the table.”
“Well, what good is it gonna do me on the table, where I can’t get at it? Put some in a pot and turn up the gas. Then you can go.”
“What do you mean, go?”
“Downstairs. With your friends.”
“What do you mean, my friends? Why do you always say it that way?”
“Terry, do what I tell you.”
“You gonna let this guy tire you out?”
“I’m not tired.”
“You’re sick!” Terry shouted. “You just had an operation, for Christ’s sake!”
“Terry, don’t swear in my house,” Mrs. Glennon said, apparently forgetting that she had profaned Christ’s mother earlier, when Meyer was standing in the hallway. “Now go put the milk up to heat and go downstairs and find something to do.”
“Boy, I don’t understand you,” Terry said. He shot a petulant glare at his mother, some of it spilling onto Meyer, and then walked angrily out of the room. He picked up the container of milk from the table, went into the kitchen, banged around a lot of pots, and then stormed out of the apartment.
“He’s got a temper,” Mrs. Glennon said.
“Mmmmm,” Meyer commented.
“Did Claire send you here?”
“No, ma’am. Claire Townsend is dead.”
“What? What are you saying?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Tch,” Mrs. Glennon said. She tilted her head to one side and then repeated the sound again. “Tch.”
“Were you very friendly with her, Mrs. Glennon?” Meyer asked.
“Yes.” Her eyes seemed to have gone blank. She was thinking of something, but Meyer didn’t know what. He had seen this look a great many times before, a statement triggering off a memory or an association, the person being interrogated simply drifting off into a private thought. “Yes, Claire was a nice girl,” Mrs. Glennon said, but her mind was on something else, and Meyer would have given his eyeteeth to have known what.