“What’ve we got?” he asked.
“A little,” Hawes said. “Guy who made the phone reservation said he was Corey McIntyre...”
“Who’s in Los Angeles,” Carella said.
“Right, but who was here last week, too, the guy who’s calling himself Corey McIntyre. The maitre d’ confirmed that, but he checked back through his book, and there’s nothing for a McIntyre before then, the guy who’s calling himself McIntyre.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Just this side of forty, the waiter said. About five-ten or eleven, hundred and seventy pounds, brown hair and brown eyes, mustache, no visible scars or tattoos. Wearing a dark brown suit, tan tie, brown shoes. No overcoat, according to the lady in the checkroom.”
“How’d he pay for dinner?”
“No luck there, Steve. Cash.”
“What about the girl?”
“The waiter says she looked about eighteen, nineteen. Slender... well, wiry was the word he used. I thought only men were wiry,” Hawes said and shrugged. “Anyway, wiry. About five-eight or five-nine, tall girl, the waiter said. Black hair, blue eyes.”
“Did the waiter catch her name?”
“Darcy. When he asked them if they wanted drinks before dinner, the guy said, ‘Darcy?’ The girl said she wasn’t supposed to. She told him she was in training.”
“Another athlete?” Carella said. “Jesus!”
“Another runner, Steve.”
“How do you know?”
“The waiter heard them talking about running. About how good running made her feel. This was when he was bringing their drinks to the table. The girl had white wine, the guy had Dewar’s on the rocks.”
“Reliable witness?” Carella asked.
“Sharp as a tack. Memory like an elephant.”
“What else?”
“The guy was taping her,” Hawes said. “Put a recorder on the table, taped every word she said. Well, he turned it off while they were eating, but he started taping again when they were on coffee.
The waiter said he kept asking her questions, as if it was an interview or something.”
“He didn’t happen to catch her last name, did he?”
“You expect miracles?”
“What was she wearing?”
“Red dress and red high-heeled shoes. Red barrette in her hair. The hair was pulled back. Not a ponytail, but pulled back and fastened with the barrette.”
“We ought to hire the waiter,” Carella said. “How’d they leave?”
“Doorman outside asked if they needed a taxi, our guy told him no.”
“So did they walk away, or what? Did he see them get into a car?”
“They walked.”
“Which way?”
“North. Toward Jefferson.”
“They may still be walking,” Carella said. “What precinct is this? Midtown South, isn’t it?”
“To Hall Avenue. Then it’s North.”
“Let’s get it on the radio to both precincts. If they’re walking, one of the cars may spot them.”
“You know how many garages there are in the side streets around here? Suppose the guy was driving?”
“That’s our job,” Carella said.
He had turned off the parkway just before the tollbooth that separated Isola from Riverhead, and was driving southward now toward the Diamondback River and the park bordering its northern bank. The statue, he had told her, was in the park. He doubted that anyone else in the city knew the statue even existed; that’s what he had told her. She seemed keen on seeing the statue, but he could tell that the streets through which they now drove were making her a little nervous. The old Maurice Avenue fish market was on their right, its windows shattered by vandals, its once-white walls adorned with spray-painted graffiti. Just beyond that was the century-old building that housed the 84th Precinct, green globes flanking the front steps. He had taken this street deliberately, hoping the sight of a police station would reassure her. He drove past the several police cars angled into the curb out front. A uniformed cop was just coming down the front steps.
“Good to know they’re around, isn’t it?” he said.
“You said it. This is some neighborhood.”
It had, at one time, been a fine neighborhood indeed, but the Bridge Street Section, as it was called, had deteriorated over the years until it resembled all too many other rundown areas of the city, its streets potholed, its buildings crumbling, many of them in fact abandoned. Years ago, when the police department chose Bridge Street as the location for one of its precincts, the street had been a lively thoroughfare brimming with merchant shops, the nucleus of which was the huge fish market close to the River Harb, where — back then — the clear waters had made possible a daily harvest of fresh fish. Now the river was polluted and the neighborhood scarcely habitable. He could not understand why it was called Bridge Street. The nearest bridges were to the east and west — the Hamilton Bridge that spanned the River Harb and connected two states; and the shorter bridge running over Devil’s Bight to join Riverhead with Isola. Nor was there any bridge at either end of the park bordering the Diamondback River, at which point Bridge Street ended in a perpendicular fusing with Turret Road. There were no turrets in evidence, either, though perhaps there had been when the Dutch or the British were here. Turret Road certainly sounded British. In any case, Bridge Street ran directly into it, and ended, and the Bridge Street Park began on the other side of Turret Road.
“Here we are,” he said.
The dashboard clock read 10:37.
“Spooky around here,” Darcy said.
“It’s well-patrolled,” he said.
He was lying. He had scouted the park on three separate nighttime occasions, and he hadn’t seen a single policeman on its paths, despite the park’s proximity to the police station. Moreover, the park was known to be dangerous at night, and a pedestrian abroad in it after 9:00 was a rare sight. He had seen only two people in the park on his previous nocturnal outings: a sailor and a girl who looked like a hooker on her knees before him in the bushes.
He parked the car some distance from the nearest streetlamp, came around to the passenger side at the curb, and opened the door for her. As she stepped out of the car, he reached into his pocket and snapped on the recorder.
“Will we be able to see this statue?” she asked. “It looks dark in there.”
“Oh, there are lights,” he said.
There were, in fact, lampposts inside the park. The old-fashioned vertical sort, a single post supporting a globe-enclosed light bulb at the top of the pole. No arms arcing out over the path. He considered this a drawback. This time, he would have preferred hanging her right where he killed her, in a deserted park in another precinct.
The park was bordered by a low stone wall on the Turret Road side and a cyclone fence on the far side near the Diamondback River. He had no intention of taking her that deep into the park. He planned to do this at once, as soon as they had cleared the entrance. The entrance was an opening in the wall defined by two higher stone pillars flanking it. A globe-enclosed light bulb topped each of the pillars, but the lamps were out just now; he had shattered both of them two nights ago. The sidewalk and the park path beyond were in almost complete darkness.
“Should have brought a flashlight,” Darcy said.
“Vandals,” he said. “But there’s a lamppost just a little ways in.”