Meyer turned, surprised. "Well, well," he said.
"Enjoying the rain?" Carella asked.
"Oh, yes, very much, thank you."
"Is Endicott in there?"
"With a blonde who just joined him," Meyer said.
At four-fifteen that Monday afternoon, Arthur Brown relieved Carella on post outside the Hollis house. Carella told him the joke about the black penis, and Brown burst out laughing and then immediately wondered if it was a racist joke. He knew his customer well, though, and just as quickly decided it wasn't. Still laughing, he said, "Got to tell that to Caroline when I get home. Who's relieving me?"
"Delgado."
"Hope he's on time. I don't like standing around in the rain."
Carella had been standing around in the rain since ten this morning, give or take an hour or so for taxi rides around town, following Marilyn hither and yon and finally back here to the house.
"Fill me in," Brown said.
"Blonde white woman, twenty-four years old, five eight, weighing about a hundred and twenty, more or less. Her name's Marilyn Hollis."
"What are you looking for specifically?"
"She may be a killer. Maybe she'll make another move."
"Very nice," Brown said.
"I'll talk to you in the morning," Carella said, and walked off through the rain.
The first surprise Brown got was at four-thirty, when a car pulled up across the street from where he was standing under a tree in the park, and a man got out of the car, and locked it, and began walking toward 1211 Harborside Lane. The man was either Hal Willis or his double. The man climbed the low, flat steps to the front door, took a key from his pocket, inserted it into the latch, and let himself into the building.
Brown blinked.
Had that really been Willis?
It sure as hell looked like Willis.
But Carella hadn't mentioned Willis being in on the stakeout. Was that a skeleton key he'd let himself in with? He hadn't looked like a man messing with a ringful of skeleton keys. He'd looked like a man who had the key to the front door of a house occupied by a lady Carella thought might be a killer.
The second surprise Brown got was at twenty minutes past seven when the front door opened again and first out came the blonde Marilyn Hollis girl Carella had described, and next out came Willis, who pulled the door shut behind him, and then the girl took Willis's arm and they walked off up the street together, making a right turn on the corner, heading crosstown toward the Stem.
Brown wondered what the hell was going on here.
He followed them to the Stem, and then downtown on the Stem, the neon lights filtered by a fine, soft drizzle now, the sound of automobile tires swishing on the black asphalt, keeping a decent interval behind them because if Willis wasn't in on the stakeout, Brown didn't want to be made by an experienced cop. But if he wasn't in on this, then what the hell was he doing with a broad who maybe killed somebody?
Up ahead was a Chinese restaurant named Buddha's Feast.
Willis opened the door for the girl, and the girl went in, and Willis went in behind her.
Brown peeked in through the plate glass window, and that was when he got his third surprise.
Because sitting there in one of the booths was a person who looked very much like Bert Kling, who was in fact Bert Kling, and sitting with Kling was his girlfriend, Eileen Burke, who was also a working cop, and Willis and the Marilyn Hollis girl came over to the booth, and it looked as if Willis was introducing her to them, and then Willis and the girl sat down and Willis signaled to the waiter.
Man, Brown thought, this is a bigger stakeout than I figured! The whole damn police department is in on it!
Eileen Burke kept trying to hide her left cheek. The plastic surgery looked very good to Willis, you could hardly tell she'd been slashed not too long ago, even if you were looking for a scar. But Willis noticed that she kept bringing up her left hand to cover her cheek.
"Eileen does a lot of work with the Rape Squad," he told Marilyn.
"Really?" Marilyn said.
"As a decoy," Willis said.
"I'm not sure I'd like that kind of work," Marilyn said, and rolled her eyes.
Willis was sitting beside Kling on one side of the booth, Marilyn and Eileen opposite them on the other. Willis thought the two women looked very beautiful together, Eileen with her red hair and green eyes, Marilyn blonde and blue-eyed, one a big-boned, full-breasted woman, the other slender and pale and somehow fragile-looking. A nice combination.
He wanted tonight to be a very special one. Marilyn's coming-out party, so to speak. Her introduction to two people he liked and admired, both of them working detectives. And, perhaps more important, their introduction to her. He knew Carella well enough to be certain he hadn't revealed to the other cops on the squad anything about Marilyn's past. The lieutenant, yes, Carella would have felt duty-bound to tell him that Willis had moved in with a former hooker whom Carella considered a murder suspect. But beyond the lieutenant, no. Carella was a working cop, not a gossip. Carella was a friend.
There were secrets at this table.
Marilyn's secret was that she'd been a hooker.
Eileen's secret was that she'd been raped and slashed in the line of duty.
There were also mysteries at this table.
Willis wondered if two experienced, eagle-eyed detectives would take one look at Marilyn and know what she'd been.
Kling wondered if Marilyn would ask questions that would again trigger memories of what had been the most horrible night in Eileen's life. He wished Willis hadn't mentioned her work as a decoy.
Willis wished nobody would ask Marilyn what sort of work she did.
"What sort of work do you do?" Eileen asked.
"I'm independently wealthy," Marilyn said breezily, and then said, "How about the orange chicken?"
Eileen looked at Kling.
"How does a person get to be independently wealthy?" Kling asked.
"I have a rich father," Marilyn said, and smiled.
Kling was thinking he'd once been married to a woman who earned a hell of a lot more money than he did. He wondered if Willis was serious about this girl. If so, did she know how much a Detective/Third earned?
"What do they do?" Marilyn asked. "Just turn you out on the street?"
"Sort of," Eileen said. "Would anyone like the crispy fish?"
"I'd be terrified," Marilyn said.
I am terrified, Eileen thought. Ever since that night, I've been scared to death.
"You get used to it," she said, and again brought her hand up to her cheek.
"Why don't we just order the special dinner?" Kling said. "Do you think that'd be too much to eat?"
"I'm starved," Marilyn said.
"Sure, let's do that," Willis said, and signaled to the waiter.
The waiter padded to the table.
"The special dinner for four," Willis said. "And another round of drinks, please."
"I go on at midnight," Kling said. "No more for me."
"Oh, come on," Eileen said.
"No, really," Kling said, and covered the top of his glass with his palm.
"The night shift's a good time for cooping," Eileen said. "Have another drink."
"What's cooping?" Marilyn asked.
"Sleeping on the job," Willis said.
"Special dinner for four," the waiter said. "More drinks." And walked off.
"Why do Chinese waiters always sound surly?" Marilyn asked. "Have you noticed that?"
"Because they are surly," Kling said.
"Racist remark," Eileen said.
"Who me? I have nothing against Chinks," Kling said.
"Compounding the felony," Eileen said.