They heard footsteps approaching the door. Heard a lock turning, tumblers falling, a chain coming off. The door opened wide. The man inside backed away the instant he saw four guys standing outside there with guns in their hands. He was about six feet tall in his bare feet, Carella guessed, wearing blue jeans and a brown woolen sweater with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows. His hair was a muddy blond color and his eyes were blue, opened wide now in either fear or surprise or both. A Christmas special was on the television set behind him.
“For Christ’s sake, don’t shoot,” he said, and threw his hands up alongside his head. The cops in the hallway suddenly felt like horses’ asses.
“Okay to come in?” Carella asked, and showed the tin.
“Yes, fine, come in,” the man said, his hands still up. “Just watch how you handle them pieces, okay?”
“Your name Struthers?” Brown asked.
“Yes, sir, that’s my name,” Struthers said.
“Wilbur Struthers?”
“But you can call me Will, sir. Is this the kidnapping again?”
“What kidnapping?” Carella asked at once.
The detectives were maneuvering so that he was the center of a loose circle, their guns still drawn, nobody even dreaming of holstering them now that they’d heard the word “kidnapping,” which was a federal offense that carried with it the death penalty.
“Is it the President’s been kidnapped?” Struthers asked, and Carella thought, Oh dear, we’ve got ourselves a nutcase here, but he still didn’t put up the gun.
“Know anybody named Cassandra Jean Ridley?” he asked.
Recognition flashed in Struthers’ eyes.
“Do you know her?” Carella asked.
“I have met her, yes. But I do notknow her, sirs. I would not say I trulyknowher. Excuse me, Officers, but it’s been my experience that when there are firearms on the scene, one of them is bound to go off, either because of undue excitement or some other impulse of the moment. So, if it’s all right with you, I’d appreciate it …”
“How’d your fingerprints get in her apartment?” Carella asked.
“Her goods and her money have already been returned,” Struthers said.
The detectives looked at each other.
“What goods? What money?” Carella asked.
“I gave it all back to her yesterday,” Struthers said.
“What are you saying?”
“He’s saying he burglarized the joint,” Brown said.
“Is that it?”
“No, no. There was a misunderstanding, that’s all,” Struthers said.
“What kind of misunderstanding?”
“Two of her furs came into my possession, was all. And a little cash, too. But everything was returned to her yesterday. Officers, if you think I’m armed and dangerous, why not simply frisk me, so I can put my hands down?”
Hawes frisked him. He was still smiling. He was finding all of this somehow very comical. He nodded okay to the other detectives. They all holstered their guns except Brown, who had grown up in a neighborhood where people sometimes hid weapons up their asses. Struthers lowered his hands. He looked relieved.
“When yesterday?” Carella asked.
Struthers blinked at him, puzzled.
“Did you return her stuff?” Carella explained.
“Oh. She came here around ten-thirty in the morning.”
“How’d she know where to find you?”
“I think through my eyeglasses,” Struthers said.
Carella was still thinking the man was a bit off his rocker. Hawes was still smiling. Brown still had his gun in his hand. Meyer was wondering what the man had meant about a kidnapping.
“What kidnapping?” he asked.
“What do you mean, through your eyeglasses?” Carella asked.
“I think she may have found my eyeglasses. She said she was delivering my eyeglasses.”
“Found them where?” Carella asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What kidnapping?” Meyer asked again.
“The man from the Secret Service said there’d been a kidnapping.”
Next comes the CIA giving him instructions, Carella thought. Through his radio or his television set.
“Said the President had been kidnapped?” he asked.
“No, that wasmy notion.”
“Youthought the President had been kidnapped.”
“Well, why else the Secret Service?”
Why else indeed? Carella thought.
Hawes was still smiling. Nodding his head and smiling. This was turning out to be a very amusing evening after all. Meyer was thinking if the Secret Service had really been here, then maybe someone in the White House had really been kidnapped. Brown was beginning to think along the same lines as Carella: the man was a loonie. He kept his gun in his hand, just in case.
“When was the Secret Service here?” Meyer asked.
“Day before yesterday,” Struthers said, “around four in the afternoon. And he came back again that night, around ten, ten-thirty.”
“Who was this? Did he give you a name?”
“Yes, sir, he did. Special Agent David A. Horne. With an ‘e.’ ”
“Show you any ID?”
“Showed me his badge, yes, sir.”
“What’d it look like?”
“You know that gold star the Texas Rangers carry? It looked a lot like that.”
“And he told you he was with the Secret Service, is that right?”
“Yes, sir. The U.S. Treasury Department.”
“What’d he want here?”
“He said a hundred-dollar bill I’d spent earlier in the day had serial numbers that matched the ones paid as ransom in a kidnapping. Which is why I thought it might be the President, the Secret Service and all.”
“Naturally,” Carella said.
“He took the rest of the money with him,” Struthers said.
“The rest ofwhat money?” Hawes asked.
“The money that was part of the misunderstanding between me and the Ridley woman.”
“The money youburglarized,” Brown said, and waved the nine for emphasis.
Struthers looked at the gun.
“I’m not admitting to any burglary here,” he said. “Or anything else.”
“Like what?” Carella asked.
“Like anything at all,” Struthers said.
“Maybe you’d like to tell us how your prints got in her apartment,” Brown said.
“I took down her drapes,” Struthers said.
Carella tried to remember if there’d been any drapes in the dead woman’s apartment.
“Because I was going to paint the place for her,” Struthers said. “Which is why I thought she wanted the furs moved. So they wouldn’t get any paint on them.” He nodded to the detectives, seeking approval and encouragement. “That was the misunderstanding,” he said.“I thought she wanted the furs moved, whereasshe didn’t want them moved.”