A: No.
Q: Are you sure?
A: I'm positive. Oh, I get it.
Q: What do you get, Mr Proctor?
A: Somebody was killed in that building, right? So you think I done the sixth-floor burglary and then topped it off with a murder, right?
Q: You tell me.
A: Don't be ridiculous. I never killed anybody in my entire life.
Q: Tell me what you did, minute by minute, after you left the Unger apartment at one-thirty a.m.
A: Really, Mr Carella, you can't expect him to remember minute by minute what he ...
Q: I think he knows what I'm looking for, Mr Angelini.
A: As long as it's clear that you don't mean minute by minute literally.
Q: As close as he can remember.
A: May I ask on my client's behalf, is he correct in assuming that a homicide was committed in that building on the night of the burglary?
Q: Two homicides, Mr Angelini.
A: What are you pursuing here, Mr Carella?
Q: Let me level with you. Your client . . .
A: (from Mr Proctor) Go hide the silver, Ralph.
Q: Well, I'm happy for a little levity here . . .
A: (from Mr Proctor) You either laugh or you cry, am I right?
Q: I'm glad you have a sense of humor.
A: One thing you develop in the slammer is a good sense of humor.
Q: I'm happy to hear that, but I don't think there's anything funny about a dead six-month-old baby.
A: (from Mr Angelini) So that's the case.
Q: That's the case.
A: Maybe we ought to pack up and go home, Martin.
Q: Well, Mr Proctor isn't going anywhere, as you know. If you mean you'd like him to quit answering my questions, fine. But as I was about to say . . .
A: Give me one good reason why I should permit him to continue.
Q: Because if he didn't kill that baby and her sitter . . .
A: He didn't. Flatly and unequivocally.
Q: Before you even ask him, huh?
A: My client is not a murderer. Period.
Q: Well, I'm glad you're so certain of that, Mr Angelini. But as I was saying, I wish you'd permit your client to convince us he's clean. We're looking for a place to hang our hats, that's the truth. Two people are dead, and we've got your client in the building doing a felony. So let him convince us he didn't do a couple of murders, too. Is that reasonable? That way we go with the burglary and the parole violation and we call it a day, okay?
A: I wish we were talking only parole violation here.
Q: There's no way we can lose the burglary. Forget it.
A: I was merely thinking out loud. You understand what I'm saying, don't you?
Q: You're asking me what's in it for you. The DA might want to bargain on the burglary charge, that's up to him. But it won't just disappear, believe me. We're looking at a Burglary One here. Two people in the apartment while he was doing the . . .
A: Not while he was in there. He was already out the window.
Q: He spoke to them. Threatened them, in fact. Pointed a gun at them and . . .
A: The gun is your contention.
Q:Mr Angelini, we've got an occupied dwelling at nighttime, and a threat with a gun. I don't know what else you think we need for Burglary One, but . . .
A: Okay, let's say you do have a Burg One. How can the DA help us?
Q: You'd have to discuss that with him.
A: I'd be looking for a B and E.
Q: You'd be looking low.
A: Would he go for Burg Two?
Q: I can't make deals for the DA. All I can tell him is that Mr Proctor was exceedingly cooperative in answering whatever questions we put to him about the double homicide committed in that building. Which is of prime importance to a lot of people in this city, as I'm sure you must realize. On the other hand . . .
A: Tell him what he wants to know, Martin.
A: (from Mr Proctor) I forgot the question.
Q: Minute by minute. Starting with one-thirty when you went out on that fire escape.
* * * *
Minute by minute, he had come down the fire escapes until he reached the one outside the first-floor window, and then he had lowered the ladder there to the cement area in the backyard, and had gone down it and jumped the four, five feet to the ground, and then he'd come around the side of the building carrying the VCR under his arm and wearing the camel hair coat with the emerald ring in one of the pockets. He'd walked up to Culver and dumped the VCR right away, sold it to a receiver in a bar named The Bald Eagle, which was still open as this must have been a little before two in the morning by now.
'Better nail it down closer,' Carella advised.
'Okay, a movie was just starting on the bar TV. A Joan Crawford movie. Black-and-white. I don't know the name of it, I don't know the channel. Whatever time the movie went on, that's what time I got to the bar.'
'And sold the VCR . . .'
'To a fence who gave me forty-two bucks for it. I also . . .'
'His name,' Carella said.
'Why?'
'He's your alibi.'
'Jerry Macklin,' Proctor said at once.
He'd also showed Macklin the emerald ring, and Macklin had offered him three bills for it, which Proctor told him to shove up his ass because he knew the ring was worth at least a couple of grand. Macklin offered him fifty for the coat he was wearing, but Proctor liked the coat and figured he'd keep it. So he'd headed out, still wearing the coat with the ring in the pocket, looking for somebody he could score a coupla vials off...
'What time did you leave The Bald Eagle?' Meyer asked.
'Exact?'
'Close as you can get it.'
'I can tell you what scene was on in the movie, is all,' Proctor said. 'I didn't look at a clock or anything.'
'What scene was on?'
'She was coming out a fancy building.'
'Who?'
'Joan Crawford. With an awning.'
'Okay, then what?'
Proctor had gone out of the bar and cruised Glitter Park, which was the street name for the center-island park on Culver between Glendon and Ritter, where he'd run across . . .
'Oh, wait a minute,' he said, 'I can pin the time down closer. 'Cause this guy I made the buy from, he told me he had to be uptown a quarter to three, and he looked at his watch and said it was already two-twenty. So you got to figure it look me five minutes to walk from the Eagle to Glitter, so that puts me leaving the bar a quarter after two.'
'And his name?' Carella said.
'Hey, come on, you got me doin' a snitch on half the people I know.'
'Suit yourself,' Meyer said.
'Okay, his name is Fletcher Gaines, but you don't have to mention the crack, do you? You can just ask was I with him at twenty after two.'