“A woman’s work is never done,” the other technician said.
“Think you can lock up and get the key back to us?”
“Back where?” the first technician said.
“The Eight-Seven. Uptown.”
“All the way uptown,” the second technician said, rolling his eyes. “I got a date tonight. You want to be responsible for the key, John?”
John, that’s it, Carella thought.
“I don’t want to be responsible for no fuckin’ key,” John said.
“Well, can you call when you think you’re almost finished?” Hawes asked. “We’ll send a patrolman down for it.”
“They got pick-up and delivery service, the Eight-Seven,” John said, and again winked at his partner.
“What’s the number up there?” the other technician asked.
“377-8024,” Hawes said.
John turned off the vacuum cleaner. “Let me write it down,” he said. He fished in a coverall pocket for a pencil. He patted his other pockets. “Who’s got a pencil?” he asked.
Hawes was already writing his last name and the precinct telephone number on a page in his notebook. He tore the page loose and handed it to John. “Ask for either one of us,” he said. “Hawes or Carella.”
“Horse?” the second technician said. “We got ‘A Man Called Horse’ here,” he said to John.
“You part Indian?” John asked.
“Mohawk,” Hawes lied. “Full-blooded.”
“How come you ain’t in construction work?” the other technician asked, and both he and John laughed. John looked at the page Hawes had torn from his notebook.
“This how you spell it in Mohawk?” he asked Hawes.
“That’s the way my father always spelled it,” Hawes said. “Running Deer Hawes was his name.”
“What’s your first name?” the other technician asked.
“Great Bull Farting,” Hawes said, and followed Carella out of the apartment.
“That reminds me,” Carella said in the hallway outside. “Why did the Indian buy a hat?”
“To keep his wigwam,” Hawes said.
“Ouch,” Carella said.
In the waning sunlight, he ran.
He had left his apartment at five-fifteen, driven up here in less than ten minutes, and then parked his car on Grover Avenue, outside the park. The park at this hour of the day was virtually empty of mothers with their baby carriages, populated now with youngsters tossing footballs, lovers strolling hand in hand, old men sitting on benches trying to read their newspapers in the fading light. Yesterday at this time, there’d been more people in the park than was usual. Yesterday had been Columbus Day — or at least the day set aside for the official observance of Columbus Day — and many of the shops and offices had been closed.
It annoyed him that they no longer observed a famous man’s holiday when they were supposed to. Columbus Day was October 12, so why had they celebrated it two days earlier? To take advantage of a long weekend, of course. Not that he’d enjoyed that advantage at all. He was his own boss, and he set his own work schedule.
God, what a beautiful day it was!
Still light enough at a quarter to six to see clearly every twist and turn of the footpath along which he ran, a far cry from a cinder track, but better than nothing in this city of concrete and steel. The clocks would go back on the last Sunday in October — Spring ahead, Fall back, he thought — and it would start getting dark around five, five-thirty then, but in the meantime there was still the fading glow of sunshine and a cloudless blue sky overhead, he loved October, he loved this city in October.
He ran at a steady pace, nothing to win here, no one to defeat, not even a clock to race. Exercise, that’s all, he thought, just exercise, running along a park path for exercise, running anonymously, a tall, slender man in a gray warm-up suit without letters, running at an easy, steady pace that soothed and comforted, as did the knowledge of what he’d done and would continue to do.
He stopped running when he came abreast of the police station across the street, visible beyond the low stone wall bordering the park. Even in the late afternoon light, he could make out the numerals 87, lettered in white on the green globes flanking the entrance steps. Two men in plainclothes were entering the building, both of them hatless, neither of them wearing coats — well, on a day like today, who needed a coat? Still, he always thought of detectives as men wearing overcoats. If, in fact, they were detectives. Perhaps they were only citizens coming to make a complaint. Plenty of citizens in this city, all of them with complaints.
He wondered if his little package had arrived yet.
He had mailed it on Saturday, took the subway all the way out to Calm’s Point to drop the package in a mailbox there. Flat enough to squeeze into the mailbox opening, he’d made certain of that. Weighed it at home first, made sure the proper postage was on it. He didn’t want that package to go undelivered because of insufficient postage. There was no way it could be returned to him because he hadn’t put a return address on it. That was why he hadn’t taken it to a post office. He hadn’t wanted to chance some dumb postal clerk telling him they couldn’t accept his package because there was no return address on it. He didn’t know what the exact rules were, but he didn’t want to risk a hassle. Drop it in a mailbox, the letter carrier would shrug and figure if there was enough postage on it, somebody down the line would attempt delivery. The guys who emptied those big mailboxes probably never even looked at what they were picking up, anyway. A post office was different. Clerk might see there was no return address and even if it wasn’t against the rules, he might point it out. No return address on this, you know that? Have to explain that he was sending it as a surprise, something like that, too much explaining to do. Man might remember him later on. Simpler to drop it in a mailbox. Flat enough so that it fit in a mailbox. He didn’t want anyone remembering him just yet. There was plenty of time later for people to start remembering him.
All of the post offices in the city had been closed yesterday, no mail delivery anywhere; he knew for certain the package could not have been delivered yesterday. But today — unless there’d been an unusual pile-up because of the holiday — yes, it should have been delivered today.
He wondered what they’d made of it.
Getting her handbag in the mail that way.
He smiled, thinking about the looks on their faces.
Maybe next time he’d leave identification right at the scene. Make it a little easier for them. Let them know who the victim was right off. Leave the identification right in the street, under the lamppost. Didn’t want to make it too easy for them, of course, not till the thing started building momentum. Friday’s newspapers had barely mentioned the dead girl. Nothing at all in the morning papers, and no front-page headline in the sensational afternoon paper. They’d put the story on page eight, big story like that, girl found hanging from a goddamn lamppost! Next time around, they’d know there was a pattern. The cops would know it, too, unless they were even dumber than he thought they were. Headlines next time around, for sure.
He looked once again at the police station across the way, and then began running, smiling.
Soon, he thought.
Soon they’d know who he was.
The two women were sizing each other up.
Annie Rawles had been told that Eileen Burke was the best decoy in Special Forces. Eileen Burke had been told that Annie Rawles was a hard-nosed Rape Squad cop who’d once worked out of Robbery and had shot down two hoods trying to rip off a midtown bank. Annie was looking at a woman who was five feet nine inches tall, with long legs, good breasts, flaring hips, red hair, and green eyes. Eileen was looking at a woman with eyes the color of loam behind glasses that gave her a scholarly look, wedge-cut hair the color of midnight, firm cupcake breasts, and a slender boy’s body. They were both about the same age, Eileen guessed, give or take a year or so. Eileen kept wondering how somebody who looked so much like a bookkeeper could have pulled her service revolver and blown away two desperate punks facing a max of twenty years’ hard time.