They caught the theater squeal at eight minutes past seven. The Susan Granger, a small theater on North Eleventh, near Mapes Avenue. Woman stabbed in the alley there. By the time Carella and Kling arrived, the woman had already been carted off to the hospital. One of the blues at the scene told them the victim’s name was Michelle Cassidy and that she’d been taken to Morehouse General. Kling recognized the name. He told Carella she was the redhead who’d come to see him only three, three and a half hours ago, whenever the hell it was.
“Told me somebody was threatening to stab her,” he said.
The uniformed cop shrugged and said, “So now he did.“
They decided it was more important to talk to the victim than to do the neighborhood canvass just now. They got to Morehouse at about seven-thirty and talked to the ER intern who’d admitted Michelle Cassidy. He told them that two inches lower and a bit to the right and Miss Cassidy would at this very moment be playing first harp in the celestial philharmonic. Instead, she was in room two thirty-seven, her vital signs normal, her condition stable. He understood she was an actress.
“Is she someone famous?” he asked.
“She played Annie,” Kling said.
“Who’s Annie?” the doctor asked. His name was Raman-than Mehrota. It said so on the little plastic tag on his tunic. Carella guessed he was Indian. In this city, the odds on finding a doctor from Bombay in any hospital emergency room were extraordinarily good. Almost as good as finding a Pakistani cabdriver.
“They’ve got TV cameras up there,” Mehrota said. “I thought she might be someone famous.”
“She is now,” Carella said.
The TV reporter was doing their job for them. All they had to do was stand at the back of the room and listen.
“When did this happen, Miss Cassidy?”
Carella recognized the woman as one of Channel 4’s roving reporters. Good-looking woman with curly black hair and dark brown eyes, reminded him of his wife, except for the curls; Teddy’s hair was straight, but just as black.
“Everybody else had already gone to dinner,” she said, “but I had a costume fitting, so I was a little late leaving. I was just coming out of the theater when…”
“What time was this?”
“A little after seven. We’d been rehearsing all day long…”
“Rehearsing what, Miss Cassidy?”
“A new play called Romance.”
“What happened when you left the theater?”
“A man stepped out of a doorway there in the alley. He said, `Miss Cassidy?’ And then he stabbed inc.”
The camera came in on the reporter.
“Michelle Cassidy, stabbed tonight outside the Susan Granger Theater, where she is rehearsing — ironically — a play about a man who stabs an actress. This is Monica Mann, Channel 4 News, live at Morehouse General Hospital.”
She stared into the camera for a moment until the operator gave her the signal that she was clear. She turned to the bed then, said, “Terrific, Miss Cassidy. Good luck with the show,” and then turned again to her crew and said, “We’re out of here.”
The hot lights went out. The TV people cleared the room, and the nurse went outside to let in the newspaper people. The two city tabloids had each sent a reporter and a photographer. Carella could just see tomorrow’s head-lines:
Or:
The stately morning paper hadn’t deigned to send anyone to the hospital; maybe the editor didn’t realize a former child actress was the victim. Or maybe he simply didn’t care. Cheap stabbings were a dime a dozen in this town. Besides, there’d been a riot in Grover Park this past Saturday, and the paper was still running postmortem studies on the causes of racial conflict and the possible remedies for it.
Again, all Carella and Kling had to do was listen. They realized at once that this was to be a more in-depth interview than television, with its limited time, had been able to grant.
“Miss Cassidy, did you see the man who attacked you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What’d he look like?”
“A tall slender man wearing a long black coat and a black hat pulled down over his head.”
“What kind of hat?”
“A fedora. Whatever you call them.”
“A brimmed hat?”
“Yes. Black.”
“Wide-brimmed? Narrow-brimmed?”
“Wide. He had it pulled down over his eyes.”
“Was he wearing gloves?”
“Yes. Black gloves.”
“Did you see the knife?”
“No. Not really. I sure felt it, though.”
Nervous laughter.
“You wouldn’t know what kind of knife it was, would you?”
“A sharp one.”
More laughter. Not as nervous this time. The kid was being a good sport. She’d just been stabbed in the shoulder, inches away from the heart, but she was able to joke about the weapon. The reporters liked that. It made good copy. Good-looking woman besides. Sitting up in bed in a hospital gown that kept slipping off one shoulder. As the reporters asked their questions, the photographers’ cameras kept clicking.
Kling noticed that neither of the two reporters had yet asked her what color the man was. Maybe journalists weren’t allowed to. As cops, he and Carella would ask that question the minute the others cleared the room. Then again, they were looking to find whoever had just attempted murder. The reporters were only looking for a good story.
“Did he say anything to you?” one of the reporters asked.
“Yes. He said, `Miss Cassidy?’ Same thing he calls me on the phone. ”
“Wait a minute,” the other reporter said. “What do you mean?”
“He’s been calling me for the past week. Threatening to kill me. With a knife.”
“This same man? The one who stabbed you tonight?”
“It sounded like the same man.”
“Are you saying his voice sounded the same? As the man on the phone?”
“Exactly the same. Just like Jack Nicholson’s voice.”
Both reporters were scribbling furiously now. Jack Nicholson stabbing a young actress in the alley outside a rehearsal theater? Jesus, this was made in heaven!
“It wasn’t Jack Nicholson, of course,” Michelle said.
“Of course not,” one of the reporters said, but he sounded disappointed.
“Who was he?” the other one asked. “Do you have any idea who he was?”