“I ain’t your sweetie nor nobody else’s,” the girl said.
“You mean you ain’t my little chocolate Tootsie Roll?”
“What is this?” she said.
“Police officers, Miss,” Hawes said, and showed her his shield. “We have reason to believe...”
“We want to see your ticket stubs for last night,” Ollie said. “Anything that came in at eight, a little before eight, and left around a quarter to ten.”
“We don’t file them that way,” the girl said. “By time.”
“How do you file them?”
“By the numbers on the tickets.”
“Okay,” Ollie said, “drag out all the tickets, we’ll look through them ourselves.”
“Here?” the girl said. “I got work to do here.”
“So do we,” Ollie said.
The work took them close to two hours. They divided the tickets between them, isolated all those that had been stamped with an “in” time of seven-thirty or later, and then went through these for any with an “out” time between nine-forty-five and ten o’clock. They came up with three tickets and three license plate numbers.
One of the tickets was marked: Chev-38L4721.
The second was marked: Benz-604J29.
The third was marked: CadSav-WU3200.
“The rest is duck soup,” Ollie said.
Eileen Burke did not like this job. First of all, she did not like being a woman other than herself. Next, she did not like living in another woman’s apartment. And lastly, she did not like a masquerade that made it impossible for her to see Bert Kling. Annie had told her that she could not see Bert while she was posing as Mary Hollings. If the rapist spotted her in the company of a man he had not previously seen, he might just possibly smell a trap. This would not do. Eileen was the bait. If the rat sniffed anything rancid about the offered piece of cheese, he just might run for the hills.
Mary’s apartment was done in what Eileen would have called Victorian cum Peter Lorre. That was to say it somewhat resembled Count Dracula’s castle, lacking only its warmth. The walls throughout were painted a green that was the exact color to be found in any squadroom in the city. The rugs on the floors in the living room and bedroom were tattered Orientals that had known better snake charmers tootling their flutes upon them. The living room draperies resembled the ones Miss Haversham refused to open in Great Expectations although Eileen had to admit they were somewhat less dust-laden. And the clutter was unimaginable — even if it was Eileen’s own.
The clutter was deliberate.
In the several days Eileen had spent in orientation with Mary before her departure for Long Beach, she had come to learn that the woman was a slob. Perhaps it had to do with having been divorced. Or perhaps it had to do with having been raped. Either way, it was unimaginable. On her first visit to the apartment, Eileen saw panties, slips, blouses, sweaters, and slacks piled in heaps on the floors, sofas, backs of chairs, shower curtain rods, and dresser tops. Socks and pantyhose and nylons like a horde of snakes whose backs had been broken. “I usually tidy up on Saturday or Sunday,” Mary explained. “There’s no sense trying to keep up with it during the week.” Eileen had simply nodded. She’d been there to learn about the woman, not to criticize her. That first meeting had taken place on Wednesday morning, October 12. They had met again the next day, Eileen familiarizing herself with the apartment and with Mary’s everyday routine. On the fourteenth, Mary left for California, leaving behind her what appeared to be the debris of a vast army of very unsanitary women. On Saturday, Eileen had cleaned up the mess.
That was five days ago.
The clothes that littered the apartment now were her own; she had carried them in over a period of days, usually in shopping bags lest anyone watching might become suspicious of suitcases. The dirty dishes in the sink were dishes she herself had used. But this was only Thursday, and Mary did not normally clean up the apartment until Saturday or Sunday. If someone was watching, Eileen wanted everything to look the same as it always did. If someone was watching. She could not be sure. She hoped he was. That’s why she was here.
On the living room side — the one featuring Miss Haversham’s fine musty drapes — the windows faced the street twelve stories below. Eileen had opened the drapes the moment she’d moved in, the better to be seen — if anyone was watching. It was easier to watch on the bedroom side of the apartment. The window there, covered with venetian blinds that hadn’t been cleaned since Venice was but a mere trickle from a leaky water faucet, opened onto a wide areaway and a building some twenty feet opposite this one. Anyone behind any of the windows or on the roof could easily see into the apartment. Eileen hoped he had binoculars. Eileen hoped he was getting a good look, and she further hoped that he would make his move soon. On Saturday, she would pick up the clothing she had deliberately scattered all over the apartment and take it down to the washing machines in the basement. On Sunday, she would start all over again with a clean slate, so to speak. But she didn’t know how long she could go on living in the midst of all this disorder. Her own apartment, by comparison, was as spartan as a monk’s cell.
She had complained to Kling about the mess not half an hour ago — on the telephone, of course. He had listened patiently. He had told her he hoped this job would be over soon. He had told her he missed her. He had asked how long Annie expected to keep her in that apartment, wearing another woman’s nightgown to bed...
“I wear my own nightgown,” Eileen had said.
“So suppose he’s watching you?” Kling asked. “He sees a different nightgown, he figures ‘Uh-oh, this is an imposter in there.’”
“Mary could have bought some new nightgowns,” Eileen said. “All she does all morning long is shop, anyway. Until noon. Mary gets up at nine every morning and Mary takes two hours to shower and dress, is what Mary does. Don’t ask me what takes Mary two hours to shower and dress. I’ve had the lieutenant call me at home on emergencies, and I was out of the place in ten minutes flat, fresh as a daisy and looking neat as a pin.”
“To coin a couple of phrases,” Kling said.
“Nobody likes a smart-ass,” Eileen said. “Anyway, Mary leaves her apartment at eleven o’clock every morning, and she shops until one. I was in four department stores this morning, Bert. I almost bought you a very sexy pair of undershorts.”
“Why almost? An almost gift isn’t a gift at all.”
“I figured if he was watching me, he’d wonder why I was buying a pair of men’s undershorts.”
“Have you caught any glimpse of him yet?”
“No. But I have a feeling he’s around.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“Just a feeling, you know? While I was having lunch — Mary has lunch at one o’clock sharp every day — every weekday, that is. On Saturdays, she doesn’t set the alarm, she just sleeps as late as she likes. Sundays, too.”
“Maybe I’ll sneak over there on Sunday morning, pretend I’m the guy come to fix the plumbing or something.”
“Good idea,” Eileen said. “My plumbing can use some fixing, believe me. Anyway, while I was having lunch today...”
“Yeah, what happened?”
“I had a feeling he was there.”
“In the restaurant?”
“Mary doesn’t eat in restaurants. Mary eats in health food joints. I have had more damn bean sprouts in the past week...”
“But he was there, huh?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying it was a feeling. The place was full of mostly women, but there were maybe six guys in there and at least three of them could’ve been him. I mean, according to the description we got from the victims. White, thirty-ish, six feet tall, a hundred and eighty pounds, brown hair, blue eyes, no visible scars or tattoos.”