Herrera stood on the front stoop, looking up and down the street.
Playing it like a cool television gangster.
Only ten thousand blacks in his immediate vicinity, so the dumb spic was trying to pick his exterminator from the bunch.
Fields smiled.
On New Year's Day, when they'd gone after him with the baseball bats, they were wearing jeans and leather jackets, boots, red woolen watch caps, they'd looked like some kind of street gang. Today, Fields was dressed like a banker. Dark suit and overcoat, black shoes, pearl gray stetson, black muffler. Briefcase in his left hand. So his right hand could be on the piece in his coat pocket when he caught up with Herrera and advised him that they were about to take a healthful little morning walk.
Herrera, apparently satisfied that no one on the street was life-threatening, came down the steps in front of the building, and then stopped to talk to an old man standing near a fire in a sawed-off gasoline drum. It took Fields a minute to figure out what Herrera wanted. He was showing the old man the package of cigarettes he had just taken from his coat pocket. He was asking the old man to light a cigarette for him. The old man nodded in comprehension, took the matchbook Herrera handed him, struck several matches unsuccessfully against the wind, finally got one going, and held it to the tip of the cigarette dangling from Herrera's mouth.
Enjoy it, Fields thought.
It'll be your last one, man.
Herrera thanked the old man, retrieved his matchbook, and put it in the same pocket with his cigarettes. He looked up and down the street again. It'll be a terrible shame if nobody assassinates this dude, Fields thought, seeing as he's looking for it so bad.
Herrera was in motion now.
So was Fields.
Following behind him at a safe distance, waiting for a good time to make his approach, didn't want too many people around, wanted the street populated enough to provide cover, but not so crowded that anyone brushing by could hear what he was telling Herrera. They had come maybe five, six blocks when Fields saw up ahead a nice break in the sidewalk traffic. Two, three people in Herrera's immediate orbit, moving in the same direction, half a dozen more up ahead, walking toward him. Time to move on the man.
He stepped out smoothly and quickly, planning to come up fast on Herrera's left, the side with the bad arm and also the side closest to the gun in the right-hand pocket of his coat. He was half a dozen paces behind him when Herrera suddenly veered in toward a door on his right. Fields stopped dead. The little spic was going into a bar. The name of the bar was Las Palmas. Fields peeked in through the plate glass window.
The big blond cop who'd done all the shooting on New Year's Day was sitting at the bar.
Herrera took the stool alongside his.
* * * *
Felice Handler was standing against a zebra-striped wall. With her frizzied blonde hair and her amber eyes, she looked somewhat like a healthy lioness posing against the hides of a herd she had stalked, killed and eaten. The other walls in the apartment's den were black. As she had already mentioned, Mrs Handler was an interior decorator.
Workmen were still trotting through the apartment as Meyer and Mrs Handlertalked. It made their conversation difficult. He suspected she welcomed the interruptions; he was there, after all, to ask further questions about her son. For Mrs Handler, everything else took precedence over the business of bloody murder. Did the wallpaper with the tiny floral pattern go in the master bedroom or the second bedroom? Which wall in the master bedroom got the floor-to-ceiling mirror? (Meyer knew the answer to that one.) Where did the gold metallic paper with the purple flecks go? Would she like to see a dipstick sample of the red for the ceiling in the study? Did the rocket ship paper go in the nursery? What was this roll of yellow paper that wasn't indicated anywhere on the floor plan? Where should they put it? (Meyer had an answer to that one, too.)
'Mrs Handler,' he said at last, his patience virtually exhausted, 'I know it's important that you give all these people the answers they're . . .'
'Yes, it is,' she said.
'I realize that,' he said. 'But we have a lot of people waiting for answers, too.'
'Oh?'
One eyebrow raised. Her expression saying What in the world could possibly be more important than what I'm doing here?
'Yes,' he said. 'So, you know, I'd hate to have to get a subpoena just to talk to you, but . . .'
He let the sentence trail.
She looked at him.
Was he really about to subpoena her?
Amber eyes flashing with intelligence.
Considering whether to tell him to go ahead and get his goddamn subpoena if that's how he wanted to be.
Instead, the smile from Fatal Attraction.
'I do apologize,' she said, 'I know you must be getting a lot of pressure. The case is all over everything, isn't it?'
He wished he could have said that the pressure from upstairs had nothing to do with his eagerness to solve the case. But this wasn't entirely true. Television and the tabloids were having a holiday with this one. A six-month-old baby? Murdered in her crib? If a baby wasn't safe from the maniacs in this city, then who was?
The calls to Lieutenant Byrnes had started on the morning the story broke. First a captain from Headquarters Division downtown. Then the Chief of Detectives. Then Howard Brill, one of the Deputy Police Commissioners, and then the First Dep himself, and finally the Commissioner, all of them politely inquiring as to whether Byrnes felt the investigating detectives were making reasonable headway or did he think Homicide should enter the case in something more than an advisory capacity? Or perhaps Special Forces? Just checking, of course, please let them know if the squad needed any help. Meaning please let them know if his men were ready to admit to failure before they'd even done the preliminary legwork.
'Do you think we could step out into the hall?' Meyer said. 'For ten minutes, okay? Without your people bothering us? That's all I ask.'
'Certainly,' she said, and looked at her watch. 'It's time for a cigarette break, anyway.'
They went out into the corridor, and walked down to the end of it, where there was an emergency exit. Mrs. Handler shook a cigarette free from a package of Pall Malls, and offered the package to Meyer. He had smoked Pall Malls for years. The familiar red package filled him with craving. He shook his head. And watched as she lighted her cigarette. And inhaled. And exhaled in deep satisfaction. Chinese torture.
'Mrs Handler,' he said, 'you know, of course, that your son's not back at school yet.'
'No, I didn't know.'
'I called Prentiss this morning, shortly before I spoke to you.'
'I see. And now you want to know if I've heard from him.'
'Have you?'
'No.'
'When we spoke to you last Tuesday . . .'