“No, nothing like that. Steve, could you come over here?”
“Before we go to the church, you mean?”
“No. No. I mean now.”
“Now?” Carella paused. A frown crossed his face. In his years with the police department, he had heard many anxious voices on the telephone. He had attributed the tone of Tommy’s voice to the normal pre-conjugal jitters at first, but he sensed now that this was something more. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s the matter?”
“I… I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. Can you come over?”
“I’ll be right there,” he said, “As soon as I dress.”
“Thank you, Steve,” Tommy said, and he hung up.
Carella cradled the phone. He stared at it thoughtfully for a moment, and then went into the bathroom to wash. When he came back into the bedroom, he tilted the blinds shut so that the sunshine would not disturb his sleeping wife. He dressed and wrote a note for her and then — just before he left — he caressed her breast with longing tenderness, sighed, and propped the note up against his pillow. She was still sleeping when he went out of the apartment.
Teddy sat at the table alongside the bride’s table, sipping disconsolately at a Manhattan, watching her husband cavort in the arms of a redheaded sexpot from Flemington, New Jersey.
This is not fair, she thought angrily. There is no competition here. I don’tnow who that damn girl is, or what she wants — although what she wants seems pretty apparent — but I do know that she is svelte and trim and wearing a dress designed for a size 8. Since she is at least a 10, and possibly a 12, the odds are stacked against me to begin with. I am at least a size 54 right now. When will this baby come? Next week, did the doctor say? Yes, next week. Next week and four thousand years from now. I’ve been big forever. I hope it’s a boy. Mark if it’s a boy. Mark Carella. That’s a good name.
Steve, you don’t have to hold her so damn close!
I mean, really, goddamnit!
And April if it’s a girl.
I wonder if I should faint or something. That would bring him back to the table in a hurry, all right. Although I can’t really say that he’s holding her close because she seems to be doing all the holding. But I guess holding works both ways, and don’t think this has been easy on me, Steve, my pet, and you really needn’t… Steve! If your hand moves another inch, I am going to crown you with a champagne bottle!
A boy or a girl, the baby was kicking up a storm.
Sitting with her father-in-law, who had surely had too much to drink, Teddy could not remember the heir apparent ever having raised such a fuss.
It was difficult for her to appreciate the oncoming dusk with her son- or daughter-to-be doing his early evening calisthenics. Every now and then the baby would kick her sharply, and she’d start from the sudden blow, certain that everyone at the reception was witnessing the wriggling fidgets. The baby seemed to have a thousand feet, God forbid! He kicked her high on the belly, close under her breasts, and then he kicked her again, lower in the pelvic region, and she was sure he’d turned a somersault, so widely diverse had the kicks been.
It’ll be over next week, she thought, and she sighed. No more backaches. No more children pointing fingers at me in the street. Hey, lady, what time does the balloon go up? Ha-ha, very funny. She glanced across the dance floor. The redhead from Teaneck or Gowanus or wherever had latched onto a new male, but it hadn’t helped Teddy very much. Steve hadn’t been anywhere near her for the past few hours, and she wondered now what it was that could possibly be keeping him so occupied. Of course, it was his sister’s wedding, and she supposed he was duty bound to play the semi-host. But why had Tommy called him so early this morning? And what were Bert and Cotton doing here? With the instincts of a cop’s wife, she knew that something was in the wind — but she didn’t know quite what.
The baby kicked her again.
Damn, she thought, I do wish you’d stop that.
“Steve! Steve!”
He hesitated, one foot inside the car, the other on the pavement.
“What is it, Mama?”
“Teddy! It’s Teddy! It’s her time!”
“What?”
“Her time! The baby, Steve!”
“But the baby isn’t due until next—”
“It’s her time!” Louisa Carella said firmly. “Get her to the hospital!”
Carella slammed the car door shut. He thrust his head through the door window and shouted, “Bert! My wife’s gonna have a baby!” and he ran like hell up the path to the house.
“Can’t you drive any faster?” Carella said to the cabdriver.
“I’m driving as fast as I can,” the cabbie answered.
“Damnit! My wife’s about to have a baby!”
“Well, mister, I’m…”
“I’m a cop,” Carella said. “Get this heap moving.”
“What are you worried about?” the cabbie said, pressing his foot to the accelerator. “Between a cop and a cabbie, we sure as hell should be able to deliver a baby.”
Carella paced the floor of the hospital waiting room. Meyer, Hawes, and O’Brien paced the floor behind him.
“What’s taking so long?” Carella asked. “My God, does it always lake this long?”
“Relax,” Meyer said. “I’ve been through this three times already. It gets longer each time.”
“She’s been up there for close to an hour,” Carella moaned.
“She’ll be all right, don’t worry. What are you going to name the baby?”
“Mark if it’s a boy, and April if it’s a girl. Meyer, it shouldn’t be taking this long, should it?”
“Relax.”
“Relax, relax.”
“Relax,” Meyer said.
“Here comes a nurse,” O’Brien said.
Carella whirled. With starched precision, the nurse marched down the corridor. He walked rapidly to greet her, his heels clicking on the marble floor.
“Is she all right?” the detectives heard him ask, and the nurse nodded and then took Carella’s arm and brought him to the side of the corridor where they entered into a whispered consultation. Carella kept nodding. The detectives watched him. Then, in a louder voice, Carella asked, “Can I go see her now?”
“Yes,” the nurse answered. “The doctor’s still with her. Everything’s fine.”
Carella started down the hallway, not looking back at his colleagues.
“Hey!” Meyer shouted.
Carella turned.
“What is it?” Meyer said. “Mark or April?”
And Carella, a somewhat mystified grin on his face, shouted “Both!” and then broke into a trot for the elevators.
‘Til Death, 1959
It was a great little holiday, Halloween.
Cops just loved it.
Nevertheless, at six o’clock on All Hallows Even, after a tiring day of inactivity on the Leyden case and all sorts of activity in the streets preventing and discouraging mayhem, not to mention arresting people here and there who had allowed their celebrating to become a bit too uninhibited, Carella watched his wife as she painted the face of his son, and prepared to go out into the streets once again.
“I got a great idea, Pop,” Mark said. He was the older of the twins by seven minutes, which gave him seniority as well as masculine superiority over his sister, April. It was Mark who generally had the “great” ideas and April who invariably put him down with something sweet like, “That’s the stupidest idea I ever heard in my life.”
“What’s your idea?” Carella asked.
“I think we should go to Mr. Oberman’s house…”