Lullaby

'The park was your idea,' Carella said.

'Sure, all I need is to get spotted in a bar someplace, talking to a cop. Especially one who gets himself shot every other weekend. You're starting to be like that other guy you got up there, what's his name?'

'O'Brien.'

'O'Brien, right. He's got a reputation for that, ain't he? Getting himself hot every time he gets out of bed in the morning.'

'He's been shot a fair amount of times,' Carella said drily.

'So what're you trying to do? Break his record?'

Carella suddenly realized that Danny was truly concerned.

'I'll be careful,' he said gently.

'Please do,' Danny said. 'Now tell me who you're looking for.'

'A man named Proctor.'

'The Doctor?'

'You know him?'

'I know the name. He ain't into murder, Steve. He's a two-bit burglar and a sometime-dealer.'

'We're thinking maybe a felony murder.'

'Well, maybe,' Danny said dubiously.

'Because we know he did a burglary in the same building on the night of the murders. If he was doing another one, and the sitter surprised him . . .'

'Well, sure, then you got your felony murder.'

'Because he used a knife.'

'Yeah, I saw that on television.'

'A weapon of convenience.'

'Yeah.'

'Which could happen if a person is surprised. He grabs a knife from the rack . . .'

'He don't have to be surprised to do that.'

'Well, nobody goes in planning to use what he finds on the spot.'

'I suppose,' Danny said, and shrugged. 'Proctor, Proctor, where did I hear something about him lately? Did he just get out?'

'Two years ago.'

'Did he break parole or something?'

'Yes. Where'd you hear that?'

'Shmuck breaks parole it's all over the street. Captain Invincible, right? Nobody can touch him. But that's not it. I mean, this was something new. Where the hell did I hear it?'

The men fell silent again.

Danny was thinking furiously.

Carella was waiting.

There were two figure skaters out on the ice now. They floated like sugar plum fairies among the children churning furiously around them. An ice hockey game, strictly against the rules, was in its formative stages, two rosy-cheeked boys choosing up sides while half a dozen others circled them.

'They always picked me last,' Danny said.

He never misses a trick, Carella thought.

'Because of the leg.'

'They picked me last, too,' Carella said.

This was a lie. He'd always been a fairly good athlete.

'Who you think has the better legs? The one in blue or the one in red?'

Carella looked out over the ice.

'The one in red,' he said.

'Really. You know what I call those kind of legs? I call them Chinese legs.'

'Why?'

'I don't know why. It's the kind of legs Chinese girls have. Did you ever make it with a Chinese girl?'

'Never.'

'That's the kind of legs they got. My money's on the one in blue.'

'Okay,' Carella said.

'Salzeech his own, huh?' Danny said, and smiled.

Carella smiled, too.

'That's a pun,' Danny explained.

'I know.'

'You know the expression "To each his own"?'

'Yes.'

'That's the pun,' Danny explained. 'The Italians say salsiccia, which means sausage. Salzeech for short. I ain't Italian, but you ought to know that.'

'I do know it.'

'So that's the pun. Salzeech his own.'

'I got it already, Danny.'

'So how come you didn't bust out laughing?' he said, and smiled again.

Carella smiled with him.

They fell silent again.

Danny was still thinking.

'It'll come to me,' he said at last.

* * * *

The man sitting at Kling's desk was obviously Jamaican.

One of the Jakies, as Herrera had labeled them. As if this city needed more ethnic labels than it already had.

His speech rolled from his tongue like the sea nudging the shores of his native island.

He was telling Kling that his wife had threatened to kill him.

He was asking Kling to come back to the apartment with him, to warn his wife - whose name was Imogene - not to say such things to him anymore. And especially not to do such things, if that was what she really planned to do. Which he strongly believed was her plan since she had recently purchased from a street vendor a .22-caliber pistol for sixteen dollars and change.

The man talking to Kling said his name was Dudley Archibald.

He was, Kling supposed, in his early thirties, with a very dark complexion, soulful brown eyes, and a thin-lipped mouth. He wore his hair in a modified Afro. He was dressed conservatively in a tan suit that appeared a bit tropical for the frigid temperatures outside. You told somebody in the Caribbean that it was cold up here, he nodded knowingly, figured all he had to do was pack a sweater. Like for when it got a bit chilly at night in the islands. Just like that. Sure. Came up here, immediately froze to death. Tan tropical suit with the temperature outside at twenty-one degrees Fahrenheit and the squadroom windows rimed with ice.

Archibald told Kling he was a postal worker. This was his day off. Saturday. He'd come up here on his day off because he was truly worried that his wife Imogene would take it in her mind to use that pistol one of these days.

'I would appreciate it, sir,' he said, 'if you came home with me and told her that wouldn't be such a good idea, sir.'

'You know,' Kling said, 'people sometimes say things they don't really . . .'

'Yes, sir, but she bought a pistol, sir.'

'Even so.'

'I don't think you would want my murder on your head, sir.'

Kling looked at him.

What the hell was this?

First Herrera, now Archibald. Telling Kling if he didn't take care of them, their murders would be on his head.

'How'd you happen to come to me?' he asked.

He really wanted to say Of all the detectives on this squad, why the fuck did you pick me?

'You did a burglary in the neighborhood,' Archibald said.

Kling realized he wasn't suggesting that Kling had committed a burglary. He was merely saying that Kling had investigated one. Of several hundred, Kling imagined. In this precinct, burglaries were as common as jaywalking.

'Which one?' he asked.