Lullaby

'Why?'

'Because none of them knows what I look like,' Hamilton said, and smiled. In English, he said to the girls, 'Yeah, good, I like that.'

'He likes it,' Lane said in German.

'I'll bet he likes it,' Cassie said in German.

'And then we take out the spic,' Hamilton said in the patois. 'For what he stole from us.'

'You finish him off,' Lane said in German.

'Ick,' Cassie said in English.

* * * *

Carella talked to Lorraine in the Interrogation Room.

Meyer talked to Scott in the squadroom.

Lorraine thought she was playing to a packed house at the London Palladium. A star at last. All this attention focused on her. There were probably a hundred other cops in the next room, behind that fake mirror on the wall. She had seen a lot of movies and she knew all about two-way mirrors. Actually, no one was watching her and Carella through the admittedly two-way mirror, but Lorraine didn't know this, and she was doing a star turn, anyway. Big performance here at the old station house, Give the cops the show of their lives. Cop, as the case actually happened to be.

On the other hand, Scott thought he was talking to his priest.

He guessed Meyer was Jewish, but this was a confessional scene anyway.

All contrite and weepy.

Waiting for Meyer to dispense penance.

'I didn't kill her,' Scott said.

'Did someone accuse you?' Meyer asked.

He almost said, 'Did someone accuse you, my son?'

With his bald head, and in Scott's abject presence, he felt like a tonsured monk. He felt like making the sign of the cross on the air and saying 'Dominus vobiscum.'

Instead, he said, 'Why'd you run?'

'I was scared.'

'Why?'

'Because I knew exactly what you'd be thinking.'

'And what was that?'

Slopping himself before he added, 'My son?'

'That I'd done it,' Scott said. 'Because she bounced me.'

'Do you want to tell me where you were on New Year's Eve?'

* * * *

'He was with me,' Lorraine said.

She was on her feet, facing both Carella and the mirror behind which the Police Commissioner and the Chief of Detectives and all the high-ranking departmental brass were undoubtedly standing, watching her performance. She had changed out of the waitressing costume and into her street clothes before leaving the Steamboat Cafe. Short denim skirt, red sweater, red tights, short black boots with a cuff turned down above the ankle. She was strutting for Carella and everybody behind the mirror. Carella knew that she knew she possessed long and spectacularly beautiful legs.

'From what time to what time?' he asked.

He was sitting on the opposite side of the long table that ran the vertical length of the room. The mirror was behind him.

'He got to the party at around twelve-thirty,' Lorraine said.

Strothers had said a quarter to one.

'Was he there all night?' Carella asked.

* * * *

'All night, yes,' Scott said.

'Until when?'

'Well, I spent the night there. I mean, I slept over. With Lorraine.'

That'll be another fifty Hail Marys, Meyer thought.

'I've been staying there,' Scott said. 'With Lorraine. When I found out about the murder . . .'

'How'd you find out?'

'On television.'

Nobody reads the newspapers anymore, Meyer thought.

'I figured I'd ... I knew you'd think I did it. Because her parents would've mentioned the argument we had. And what I said. And I knew . . .'

'What was it you said?'

* * * *

'That he was going to kill her,' Lorraine said.

'Uh-huh,' Carella said.

'Her and her new boyfriend both.'

'Uh-huh. And this is what he told you that day he came to your apartment?'

'No, no. This was later. When he came to the apartment, she'd just broken up with him. A few days earlier.'

'This was ...?'

'Three days after Christmas. When he came to me. Because I used to be his baby-sitter. And he could tell me anything.'

'And he told you Annie Flynn had broken up with him.'

'Yes.'

'But he didn't mention the death threats.'

'Well, I wouldn't call them death threats.'

'What would you call them, Miss Greer?'

'Well, would you call them death threats?' she said, looking directly into the mirror behind Carella and above his head.

'Yes, I would call them death threats,' Carella said. 'When a person threatens to kill someone, we call that a death threat.'

'Well, he didn't mean he'd actually kill them.'

* * * *

'That was just an expression,' Scott said.

'That you'd kill her and her new boyfriend.'

'Yes. I was angry, I just ... I was just saying anything that came to my mind. Because I was angry, and hurt and ... do you understand what I'm telling you?'

Yes, my son.

'Yes, I understand,' Meyer said. 'What I don't understand is why you thought it was better to hide instead of . . .'

* * * *

'He was scared,' Lorraine said. 'He figured her parents would tell you what he'd said, and you'd get him up here and wring a confession out of him. I don't mean beat a confession out of him. I mean outsmart him, get him to say things he didn't really want to say. Don't you go to the movies?'

'Sometimes,' Carella said. 'When did he tell you all this?'

'Last Friday. I advised him to turn himself in.'

'Uh-huh.'

'Otherwise you'd think he killed her.'

'And what'd he say?'

'He said he didn't kill her.'

'Then why wouldn't he come in?'

'I told you. He was scared.'

'I don't see why. He had a perfect alibi.'

'Sure, alibis,' she said to the mirror, dismissing the possibility of an innocent man being able to protect himself from a roomful of clever, aggressive cops. Like the ones behind the mirror.

'Well, he does have an alibi, doesn't he?' Carella said.

She looked at him. Was he starting to get clever?

'You said he was with you all night . . .'

'That's right.'

Flatly. Challengingly. You don't like the idea of my sleeping with a nineteen-year-old kid? Tough. Rock stars can do whatever they want to do.