If, on the other hand, the Deaf Man himself was the person who’d been tied to that bed, then whoever was with him had shot him and stolen the already stolen narcotics. Honor among thieves, so to speak.
Either way, the Deaf Man—or Sonny Sanson, as he’d called himself this time around—was once again gone with the wind.
“Maybe he’ll turn up dead and bleeding in some ditch along-side the road,” Brown said.
“Maybe,” Carella said.
He did not think so.
He knew in his bones that the Deaf Man was still alive and that one day he’d be back to plague them again.
“Sarah has a theory about the name he used,” Meyer said.
Sarah was his wife.
Nobody really wanted to hear Sarah’s theory. Rain was pouring down outside, and the squadroom lights were on in defense against it, and all they could think was they’d lost him again. He’d made fools of them yet another time.
“She thinks it’s a combination of Italian and French. She goes to Berlitz,” Meyer explained. “When I retire, she wants to go live in Europe.”
Rain drops trailed down the windowpanes. On the street below, there was the hiss of automobile tires on slick asphalt. It felt like the dead of winter, but it was the fifth of April and spring was here.
“She thinks the Sonny stands for ‘Son’io.’ That means ‘I am’ in Italian.Io sono is the formal way of saying it.Son’io is more casual. That’s what Sarah thinks.”
Carella was listening now. So was Brown.
“So he’s saying ‘I am Sanson,’” Meyer said. “Or, more casually, just ‘I’m Sanson.’ You get it?”
“No,” Brown said.
“He’s telling us he’s deaf,” Meyer said.
“He is, huh?” Brown said.
“How does Sarah figure that?” Carella asked.
“Because of what Sanson means in French.”
“What does it mean in French?”
“It means he’s deaf.”
“Sanson means somebody’s deaf ?” Brown asked.
“No, it’s two words. That’s what Sarah thinks, anyway.”
“What are the two words?” Carella asked patiently.
“Sansand son . I’m not sure I’m pronouncing them right. I can call Sarah, if you like, put her on the speaker…”
“No, that’s fine,” Carella said. “What do those words mean ?”
“Sansmeans ‘without.’ And son means ‘sound.’ He was saying ‘I’m without sound.’ He was telling us he’s deaf.”
Carella looked at Brown.
Brown looked back at him.
Outside, the rain kept falling.
PARKER MADE his call from a pay phone on the locker-room wall because he wasn’t so sure what kind of reception he’d get from Catalina Herrera and he didn’t want any wise-ass remarks from the squadroom clowns in case he got turned down. This was Sunday, after all, and he was just now calling to report on the case they’d closed out Friday .
She sounded as if she’d been asleep.
“Cathy?” he said.
“Sí?”
He wished to fuck she’d speak English.
“This is Detective Parker,” he said. “Andy.”
“Oh, hello, Andy.”
“How you been?”
“Oh, fine.”
Her voice sort of low-key. As if she was still waking up. Either that or the rain had got to her. Not the same way it had got to him, though. Rainy days always made him horny. Which was why he was calling her.
“I guess you heard we cracked the case.”
“Yes,” she said. “That was good.”
“Yeah, I thought so,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, but there was a lot of paper work to do, wrap it all up, you know.”
“Yes,” she said.
“So how you been?”
“You didn’t call since four days,” she said. “Wednesday night, I saw you. This is Sunday.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s right,” he said. “But I been out chasing the man killed your son,” he reminded her. In fact, busting my balls trying to catch him, he wanted to say. “Which, of course, we finally done. As you know.”
“Wednesday we go to bed,” she said. “Sunday you call.”
“Yeah, well.”
There was a silence on the line.
“But I’m calling now, right?” he said.
Silence.
“I thought maybe I’d come over,” he said.
The silence lengthened.
“Cathy? What do you say?”
The silence became almost unbearable.
He thought Hey, fuck you, sister, there’s plenty other fish in the sea, huh? But he hung on, anyway, hoping he wouldn’t have to put another fuckin quarter in the phone.
She was thinking that maybe a little house in a Los Angeles suburb wasn’t for the Catalinas of this world, maybe in America, California dreaming was only for the Cathys. She was thinking that maybe Parker wasn’t quite the decent hard-working man she dreamed about, the one who’d cook barbecues for her when she finished a day’s work on her screenplay, maybe he wasn’t that man at all. But it was raining, and her son was dead, and she was lonely.
“Sure, come over,” she said, and hung up.
KLING MADE his call from a pay phone, too, and for much the same reason Parker had. He didn’t want to be turned down in a place as public as the squadroom. He didn’t want to risk possible derision from the men with whom he worked day and night, the men to whom he often entrusted his life. Nor did he want to make the call from anyplace at all in the station house. There were pay phones on every floor, but a police station was like a small town, and gossip traveled fast. He did not want anyone to overhear him fumbling for words in the event of a rejection. He felt that rejection was a very definite possibility.
So he stood in the pouring rain a block from the station house, at a blue plastic shell with a pay phone inside it, dialing the number he’d got from the police directory operator, and which he’d scribbled on a scrap of paper that was now getting soggy in the rain. He waited while the phone rang, once, twice, three times, four, five, and he thought She isn’t home, six, sev…
“Hello?”
Her voice startled him.
“Hello, uh, Sharon?” he said. “Chief Cooke?”
“Who’s this, please?”
Her voice impatient and sharp. Rain pelting down everywhere around him. Hang up, he thought.
“This is Bert Kling?” he said.
“Who?”
The sharpness still in her voice. But edged with puzzlement now.
“Detective Bert Kling,” he said. “We…uh…met at the hospital.”
“The hospital?”
“Earlier this week. The hostage cop shooting. Georgia Mowbry.”
“Yes?”
Trying to remember who he was. Unforgettable encounter, he guessed. Lasting impression.
“I was with Detective Burke,” he said, ready to give up. “The redheaded hostage cop. She was with Georgia when…”
“Oh, yes, I remember now,” Sharyn said. “How are you?”
“Fine,” he said, and then very quickly, “I’m calling to tell you how sorry I am you lost her.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“I know I should have called earlier…”
“No, no, it’s appreciated.”
“But we were working a difficult case…”
“I quite understand.”
Georgia Mowbry had died on Wednesday night. This was now Sunday. Sharyn suddenly wondered what this was all about. She’d been reading the papers when her phone rang. Reading all about yesterday’s riot in the park. Blacks and whites rioting. Blacks and whites shooting each other, killing each other.