“How can I help you?” Halloway asked.
“One of your salesmen was murdered on Christmas Eve,” Ollie said. “His name …”
“What?” Halloway said.
“Yes, sir. His name’s Jerome Hoskins. From what his wife …”
“Oh my God!” Halloway said.
“From what his wife tells me, he sold books in your northeast corridor.”
“Yes. Yes, he did. Forgive me, I’m … forgive me.”
He was shaking his head now, demonstrating how overwhelmed he was. Little white-haired guy in a gray flannel suit and a bow tie with red polka dots on a black field, shaking his head and looking appalled and overcome with sudden grief, all of which seemed somewhat phony to Ollie. Then again, he’d never met a book publisher before.
“Did his territory include Diamondback?” he asked.
“Yes, it did.”
“Lots of bookstores up there, I guess.”
“Not many. But enough. We’re a small firm, last of the family publishing houses in this city, in fact. We’re constantly trying to expand our market.”
“You sell your books for cash, Mr. Halloway?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”
“Hoskins had seven hundred dollars and change in his wallet. Seemed like a lot of cash to be carrying around.”
“I have no idea why he would have …”
“Any idea why he might have been carrying a gun?”
“Diamondback is a dangerous section of the …”
“Tell me about it.”
“Perhaps he felt he needed protection.”
“Do all of your salesmen carry guns?”
“Not to my knowledge. In fact, I didn’t knowJerry carried one until this very moment.”
“How many salesmen are there?”
“Including Jerry, only five. As I told you, we’re a small firm.”
“Is Mr. Wadsworth still alive? Or Mr. Dodds?”
“Both dead. Christine Dodds is the sole stockholder now. Henry Dodds’s granddaughter.”
“How about you? Are you a member of the family?”
“Me? No. No, what gave you that idea?”
“Well, you being thepublisher and all …”
“Oh, that’s just a title,” Halloway said airily. “Like President or Vice President or Senior Editor.”
“Pretty important title, though, huh?”
“Well … yes.”
“Who are these other four salesmen? I’ll need to talk to them.”
“Jerry was the only one based here, you know. In this city.”
“Where are the other ones?”
“Illinois, Minnesota, Texas, and California.”
“Can you give me a list of names and phone numbers?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the bookstores Mr. Hoskins visited in Diamondback.”
“I’ll ask Charmaine to get those ready for you,” he said.
Charmaine, Ollie thought. A slender wraith who weighs a ton and a half bone dry. He watched as Halloway picked up the receiver, pressed a button, and told his receptionist what he needed. There was something crisp and efficient about his motions and the way he rapped out instructions. When at last he replaced the receiver on the cradle, he seemed to suddenly realize that Ollie had been observing his every move. He smiled pleasantly. “She’ll have those for you when you leave,” he said.
“Thanks,” Ollie said. “Tell me what you know about Jerry Hoskins, okay?”
“Tell me what you’re looking for.”
“Well,” Ollie said, “I guess I want to know what a book salesman was doing with types who’ll shoot a man at the back of his head and drop him in a garbage can.”
“Good Lord!” Halloway said.
Ollie didn’t know there was anyone still left on the planet who said, “Good Lord!” He had the feeling all over again that Richard Halloway was faking surprise and sorrow.
“Most of the gangs in Diamondback are dealing drugs,” he said, and watched Halloway’s eyes. Nothing flickered there. “Hoskins wasn’t doing dope, was he?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Whowouldknow?” Ollie asked.
“Pardon?”
“If he was doing drugs. Or dealing drugs. Or involved in any way with controlled substances.”
“I can’t possibly imagine Jerry …”
“Whocouldpossibly imagine it, Mr. Halloway?”
“I suppose our sales manager would have known him better than anyone else in the firm.”
“What’s his name?”
“She’s a woman.”
“Okay,” Ollie said.
“I’ll ask her to come in.”
CARELLA AND MEYER went to the Banque Française at ten that morning of the twenty-sixth with a court order to open Cassandra Jean Ridley’s safe deposit box. The manager of the bank was a Frenchman from Lyon. His name was Pascal Prouteau. In a charming accent, he said he had read about Mademoiselle “Reed-ley’s” death in the newspapers and was very sorry. “She was a lovely person,” he said. “It is a shame what ’appen.”
“When did she first open the box, can you tell us?” Meyer asked.
“Oui, messieurs,I ’ave her records here,” Prouteau said. “It was on the sixteenth of November.”
“How many times has she been in that box since?”
Prouteau consulted the signature card.
“She was ’ere a great deal,” he said, looking surprised, and handed the card to Carella. He and Meyer looked at it together. “We’ll need a copy of this, please,” Meyer said.
“Mais, oui, certainement,”Prouteau said.
“Let’s take a look in the box,” Carella said.
What they found in the box was $96,000 in hundred-dollar bills.
There was also a sheet of paper with a lot of figures on it.
They asked Prouteau for a copy of that as well.
THEY KNEW THE LADY had been smurfing even before they checked the figures against her two checkbooks and her passbook.
The handwritten notes in her safe deposit box looked like this:
“Missed a day,” Meyer said.
“Thanksgiving,” Carella said.
The next deposit was made almost two weeks later.
“According to her calendar, she came East on the eighth of December,” Carella said.
On the identical dates she had listed for withdrawals from the safe deposit box, there were corresponding deposits in either of her two checking accounts or her savings account. Each deposit was for a sum of money less than $10,000, the maximum cash deposit allowed under a federal law that had gone into effect almost three decades ago. Anything more than that sum had to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service on a so-called CTR, the acronym for Currency Transaction Report. Cassandra Jean Ridley, it would appear, had been engaged in money laundering, albeit on a relatively minor scale. Smurfing, as it was called in the trade.