Lullaby

'Oh, yes. A very nice man. I suggest a lot of commercials to him, he's a copywriter at an advertising agency. I told him one time I had a good idea for a Hertz commercial. The car rental people, you know? I thought they could show an airport with a lot of people waiting on lines at all these other car rental counters, but this guy goes right up to the Hertz counter, and he's walking off with a car key in ten seconds flat, and as he's passing all those people still waiting on the other lines, he busts out laughing and he says, "I only laugh when it's Hertz." They could even have a jingle that goes "I own-lee laugh when it's Hertz, bom-bom." Mr Hodding told me his agency don't represent Hertz. So I gave him . . .'

'Do you know what he looks like? Mr Hodding?'

'Oh, sure. I gave him this other idea for a Blue Nun commercial, this is a wine, you know, it's got a picture of a little blue nun on the label, well it's called Blue Nun. I told him the headline they should use on their commercial is "Make a little Blue Nun a habit." They could have a jingle that goes "Make a litt-el Blue Nun a ha-bit." Mr Hodding told me his agency don't represent Blue Nun. So I gave him . . .'

'Would you recognize Mr Hodding, for example, if he walked up the street right this minute?'

'Oh, sure. I gave him this other idea for a Chrysler Le Baron commercial. We see this World War I German fighter pilot with the white scarf, you know, and the goggles . . .'

'Did you see him at any time on New Year's Eve?'

'Who?'

'Mr Hodding.'

'As a matter of fact, I did, yes.'

'When would that have been?'

'Around one o'clock. Well, a little after one. Ten after one, a quarter after, around then.'

'Where did you see him?'

'Well, here,' Di Stefano said, sounding surprised. 'This is where I was. Remember when I told you I caught the low card? Which was how come I . . .'

'You saw him here in this building sometime between one and one-fifteen, is that correct?'

'Not only saw him, but also spoke to him. Which is the irony of it, you know? He comes here to check on the baby . . .'

'Is that what he said? That he was going to check on the baby?'

'Yes. So he's up there a half-hour, and right after he leaves there's this terrible thing happens. I mean, he must've missed the killer by what? Ten, fifteen minutes? Something like that?'

'You saw him when he came downstairs again?'

'Yes. Came right off the elevator. I was watching TV in this little room we got over there,' he said, pointing, 'we can see the whole lobby from it if we leave the door open.'

'What time was this? When he came down?'

'I told you. It must've been around a quarter to two.'

'Did he say anything to you?'

'He told me everything was okay. I told him it never hurts to check. He and that's right, Al, and off he went.'

'Did he seem sober?'

'Oh, yes.'

'Sober when he got here?'

'Sober when he got here, sober when he left.'

'Any blood on his clothing?'

'Blood?'

'Or his hands?'

'Blood?' Di Stefano said, appalled. 'Mr Hodding? Blood? No, sir. No blood at all. No, sir!'

'Were you still here when he came home with Mrs Hodding?'

'I was here all night. Till eight in the morning.'

'And what time was that? When they got home?'

'Around two-thirty. Well, a little before.'

'Okay,' Carella said. 'Thanks a lot.'

'Don't you want to hear the Le Baron commercial?' Di Stefano asked.

* * * *

She could not get Eileen Burke out of her mind.

'My wife says I drink too much,' the detective was telling her. 'Her father was a drunk, so she thinks anybody has a few drinks, he's a drunk, too. She says I get dopey after a few drinks. It makes me want to punch her out. It's her goddamn upbringing, you can't grow up in a house with a drunk and not start thinking anybody takes a sip of elderberry wine is a fuckin' alcoholic.

'We were out last night with two other couples. I had the day shift, we're investigating this murder, somebody sawed off this woman's head and dropped it in a toilet bowl at the bus terminal. That is what I was dealing with all day yesterday. A fuckin' woman's head floating in a toilet bowl. From eight-thirty in the morning till six at night when I finally got outta that fuckin' squadroom. So I get home, we live in Bethtown, we got this garden apartment there near the bridge, I pour myself a Dewar's in a tall glass with ice and soda, I'm watching the news and drinking my drink and eating some peanuts and she comes in and says "Do me a favor, don't drink so much tonight." I coulda busted her fuckin' nose right then and there. She's already decided I'm a drunk, I drink too much, don't drink so much tonight, meaning I drink too much every night. Which I don't.

'I had a fuckin' heart attack last April, I can't eat what I want to eat, I have to walk two fuckin' miles every morning before I go to work, I used to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day and now I can't smoke any at all, and she's giving me no, no, no concerning a couple of drinks I allow myself when I get home after a head floating in a toilet bowl. Two fucking drinks! Was all I had before we left the house! So we meet these two other couples at this Chinese restaurant on Potter, one of the guys is an assistant DA, the other one's a computer analyst, their wives I don't know what they do. We're sharing, you know, the way you're supposed to when you're eating Chinks, and we order a bottle of wine goes around the table once and it's empty. Well, there's six people there, you know. So we order another bottle of wine, and that makes two glasses of wine I have, which is what everybody at that table had, including my fuckin' Carry Nation wife with her hatchet.

'Now it's ten-thirty, and we're leaving the restaurant, all of us together, and she takes her keys out of her bag and says so everybody can hear it, 'I'll drive, Frank.' So I say 'Why?' and she says 'Because I don't trust you.' The assistant DA laughs, this is a guy I work with, we call him in whenever we got real meat, make sure the case'll stick, you know, he's laughing at what my wife says. A guy I work with. The other guy, the computer analyst, he picks up on it, he says, 'I hope you've got the day off tomorrow, Frank.' Like they're all taking the cue from Cheryl, that's her name, my wife, and making Frank the big drunk who can't drive a car and who maybe can't even walk a straight line to the fuckin' car.

'On the way home, I tell her I don't want to start an argument, I'm tired, I worked a long hard day, that fuckin' head in the toilet bowl. She tells me I didn't work harder than any of the other men at the table, and I say 'What do you mean?' and she says 'You know what I mean,' and I say 'Are you saying I drank more than Charlie or Phil, are you saying I'm drunk?' and she says 'Did I say you're drunk?' and all at once I want to break every fuckin' bone in her body. All at once, I'm yelling. I'm supposed to avoid stress, am I right? It was stress caused the fuckin' heart attack, so here I am yelling like a fuckin' Puerto Rican hooker, and when we get home I go in the television room to sleep, only I can't sleep because I'm thinking I better throw my gun in the river 'cause if she keeps at me this way, I'm gonna use it on her one day. Or hurt her very bad some other way. And I don't want to do that.'