As a result of that long-ago shootout—Christ, he shouldn't have told her about it, why had he opened up to her that way?—he had developed a severe aversion toward using the gun. Almost immediately after that worst day in his life, he had enrolled in a Judo school, and had since supplemented his education with police-academy lessons in karate. He was now capable of tossing any cheap thief on his ass in ten seconds flat, without having to resort to deadly force. He somehow enjoyed the feeling of secret power this gave him. Kick sand in Shorty's face? Okay, pal, wham, bam, how does it feel to have a broken arm and swollen balls? Drive your extended forefinger and middle finger into the space over the upper lip and the nose, hit the hard ridge there, and you could send bone splinters flying into a man's brain, never mind using the damn gun.
He had told Marilyn, in the hours he'd spent with her, more about himself than he'd ever told any other woman he'd known. There was that about her. An openness—no pun intended—that demanded openness in return. And yet he wondered. An undeniably beautiful woman deliberately encouraging the runt of the litter? Why? He was not the cat's ass, and he knew it. He was Harold Oliver Willis—even the name seemed appropriate for a short man—Detective/Third Grade, street-smart, experienced, wise to the ways of the con artist, but perhaps gulled anyway by a lady whose close friends seemed to be departing with amazing rapidity for that great big fraternal order in the sky. Four men on that list, two of them already dead and gone. Were the other two similarly marked for imminent extinction? Was he himself now on that select list, a fifth man who had shared Marilyn's bed and bountiful honesty?
If it was indeed honesty.
She had told him her stepfather's name was Jesse Stewart.
Big oil millionaire.
In Houston, Texas.
At the risk of incurring the lieutenant's wrath for making an unnecessary long-distance phone call, he asked the operator for the number of police headquarters in Houston, was informed by her that the main police facility down there was called Houston Central, and then immediately dialed the number and asked for the detective division.
The detective he spoke to was a man named Maynard Thurston. Willis imagined a big, red-faced man in a cowboy hat. He told Thurston he was working a double homicide up here and would appreciate anything the Texas cops could give him on an oil man named Jesse Stewart.
"He break the law?" Thurston asked.
"Well, I don't think so. He's a rich oil man down there."
"All oil men are rich down here," Thurston said. To Willis's northern ear, the words "all" and "oil" sounded identical. "Why you calling a law-enforcement agency if the man hasn't broken no law?"
"I thought you might run a quick check for me," Willis said. "I could call the Chamber of Commerce, I guess…"
"Yeah, why don't you do that?" Thurston suggested.
"But it's been my experience," Willis said, doing a quick tap dance for Texas, "that cops get better cooperation from other cops."
There was a long silence on the line.
Then Thurston said, "Mmm."
Willis waited.
"This's a double homicide, huh?" Thurston said.
"Yes," Willis said. "A poisoning and a stabbing."
"I got on my hands just now somebody chopped up seven people with a chainsaw."
Willis continued waiting. He was thinking he was glad he didn't work in Houston Central. Poisonings and stabbings were bad enough.
"I get the time, I'll see I can look into this for you," Thurston said. "May take a coupla days."
"I'd appreciate whatever…"
"How you spell that last name? Is it S-T-U, or S-T-E-W?"
"S-T-E-W," Willis said.
"Give me your number there, I'll see what I can do." Willis gave him the number before he changed his mind.
"I really appreciate this," he said.
"I ain't done nothin' yet," Thurston said, and hung up.
Willis put the receiver back on its cradle.
He looked at the wall clock.
Two P.M. sharp.
Twenty hours until ten o'clock tomorrow morning, when he would see Marilyn again.
The return call from Houston Central came at eight that night, midway through the evening shift.
By then, Carella had talked to most of the tenants in Hollander's building. As Larkin had reported, all of them—with the exception of the one who'd seen Hollander in the elevator at seven-thirty on Easter Sunday—were deaf, dumb and blind, a not uncommon phenomenon in this city insofar as witnessing a murder was concerned. Better not to get involved. Better to go one's own way. In this indifferent city, where a tenant rarely knew even the name of the person living next door, it was risky to say too much about what one had seen or heard. The fear of reprisal was always present. If someone had killed one person, was he not then capable of killing yet another? Why volunteer as the next victim? A policeman's lot was not a happy one.
They were laying out a strategy of sorts when the call came.
Carella was not dismissing the possibility that the homicides were of the Boy-Meets-Girl garden variety. Jealous lover does in the lady's two other lovers. Which made Nelson Riley and Chip Endicott prime suspects in the Eternal Triangle Tragedy, although in this case the triangle was four-sided, a geometric impossibility, but well within the realm of investigative speculation. The possibility also existed, Carella suggested, that the murders were of the classic Smokescreen variety, the lady herself doing in two of her lovers in the hope that suspicion would fall on—
"No, I don't think so," Willis said at once. "I think she's clean, Steve."
"How so? What'd she tell you?"
"She was with Endicott the night Hollander was killed. I checked with Endicott this afternoon, and he confirms…"
"That doesn't eliminate a double alibi."
"I don't think she had anything to do with this," Willis insisted. "Endicott may have sneaked out of bed…"
"Oh? They were in bed together."
"Well… yes," Willis said.
"What's the matter?" Carella said at once.
"Nothing."
"You look… I don't know… funny."
"Funny, I don't feel funny," Willis said, and attempted a smile.
Carella was still studying him. Willis opened his notebook, avoiding his gaze.
"All I'm saying is that it's unlikely Endicott got out of the apartment without her realizing it, and also got past the doorman—twice—without being seen…"
"You talked to the doorman?"
"Yes. He saw them both go in at a little after nine—which checks with their stories—and he didn't see either one of them go out anytime later."
"When did he go off?"
"At midnight."
"Did you talk to his relief?"
"Same story."
"What time did they leave the apartment?"
"Eight the next morning."
"Same doorman?"
"A third one. He corroborates. Got taxis for both of them."
"Any back way out of the building?"
"A door opening onto a courtyard where the garbage cans are stacked. But both the elevator and the steps are clearly visible from the front door."
"Is that all the security? Just the doorman?"
"Yes."
"So you're assuming all of these guys were wide awake all during their shifts, right?"
"They seemed like reliable witnesses," Willis said.
"So that would eliminate both Endicott and the Hollis woman."
"It would seem to," Willis said.
"Which leaves only Nelson Riley. On that list she gave us. If this was Boy-Meets-Girl." He hesitated, and then said, "But he was off skiing when McKennon caught it." He hesitated again. "Unless he and the Hollis woman are in this together. In which case, their alibi for that weekend…"