“Actors,” she said, and then, realizing that the two men standing near the bench across the room were cute enough to be actors themselves, and might just possibly be actors, she said in explanation, “Hitchcock was right,” and recognized she might only be compounding the felony although neither of the two seemed to understand the reference, which was to Hitchcock constantly saying all actors were cattle, which she’d read in a magazine in a doctor’s office, never having met the man.
“Can I help you?” she asked, smiling pleasantly and sitting up straighter in her chair, the better to impress in her somewhat tight red sweater. The blond one stepped away from the wall with the framed eight-by-tens of Johnny’s clients on it, and crossed over to the desk, a sort of leather fob falling open in his right hand to reveal a gold shield that had the name of the city on it, and the city’s seal in gold on blue enamel and the word DETECTIVE under it, and under that 87TH SQUAD.
“Detective Kling,” he said. “My partner, Detective Carella,” nodding toward him as he, too, approached the desk. “We’d like to talk to Mr. Milton, please.”
“Oh,” she said. “Sure,” and immediately picked up the phone and hit a button on its base, giving the lie to the conference-call story she’d just told the actor named Mike. “Mr. Milton,” she said, “there are some detectives here to see you.” She listened, nodded, and said, “Yes, sir, right away,” and replaced the phone on its base. “Just go right in,” she said, and indicated a wood-paneled door to the right of her desk.
Johnny Milton was dressed for spring sunshine this after-noon, although it was still raining outside his window. Wearing a pastel blue V-necked sweater over a yellow shirt open at the throat, beige slacks, and tasseled loafers, he looked like a producer on a Hollywood lot, rather than an agent in an office the size of the lieutenant’s back at the old Eight-Seven. Instead of mug shots, however, the walls here were covered with framed posters of shows in which Milton’s clients had presumably performed. Some of the shows were familiar to Carella, if only by their titles. Most of them rang no bell at all. Milton’s right hand was extended as he came around the desk.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “nice to see you again,” and shook hands first with Carella and then with Kling. “Sit down, please. Just move that stuff, here let me get it,” he said, and went to a sofa laden with what Carella guessed were scripts in variously colored binders. Milton carried them to his desk, dropped them on it unceremoniously, motioned for them to sit, and then went behind the desk and sat himself. The sofa was one of those narrow little love seats upholstered in a very dark green velvet fabric. The detectives sat side by side on it, their shoulders touching.
“Michelle’s fine,” Milton said at once. “If you’re wondering.” He looked at his watch. “Rehearsing right this minute, in fact.”
“Good,” Carella said. “Mr. Milton, had she mentioned any of these threatening phone calls to you?”
“Not until yesterday. I was the one who advised her to go to the police.”
“Ahh,” Carella said.
“Yes.”
“Did she tell you the man sounded like Jack Nicholson?”
“Yes. But, of course…”
“Of course.”
“… he isn’t Jack Nicholson. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Jack Nicholson is in Europe right now, in fact, on location.”
“So he couldn’t have been the man who stabbed Michelle in that alleyway,” Carella said, deadpan.
“Exactly what I’m saying,” Milton said.
“Any idea who that man might have been?” Carella asked.
“No.”
“Do any of your clients do jack Nicholson imitations?”
“No. Not to my knowledge, anyway,” Milton said, and smiled.
“Mr. Milton,” Kling said, “do you remember where you were last night when you heard Michelle had been stabbed?”
“Yes, I do. Certainly. Why?”
“Where would that have been, sir?”
“At a steakhouse on the Stem. Stemmler Avenue,” he added, explaining the abbreviation as if the detectives had just got off a boat from Peru.
“Do you remember the name of it?” Carella said.
“O’Leary’s Steakhouse.”
“On the Stem and North Twelfth?”
“Yes.”
“All the way uptown, huh?”
“Michelle was supposed to meet me there. It’s close to the theater.”
“Three, four blocks away, in fact.”
“Yes.”
“What time were you supposed to meet?”
“I made a reservation for seven.”
“But she never showed.”
“No. Well, you know what happened.”
“Yes. She got stabbed as she was leaving the theater. Apparently on her way to meet you.”
“Apparently.”
“What’d you do when she didn’t show?”
“I called the theater.”
“What time was that?”
“Seven-fifteen, seven-twenty. That was when I learned what had happened.”
“Oh?” Kling said.
Both detectives looked at each other.
“I thought you heard the news on the radio,” Carella said.
“No, Torey told me what had happened. The play’s security guard. Romance. The play she’s in. He told me she’d been stabbed and they’d taken her to Morehouse General. So I caught a cab and rushed right over.”
“I got the impression you’d heard the news on the radio,” Carella said.
“Really? What gave you that impression?”
“Just the way you said it.”
“What I said was I’d just heard the news.”
“Yes, and rushed right over.”
“Right.”
“Made it sound as if you’d heard a news broadcast.”
“No, I didn’t. It was Torey who told me about it.”
“I understand that now.”
The detectives looked at each other again.
“According to Miss Cassidy, you and she are living together, is that right?” Kling asked.
“That’s right.”
“Where do you live, sir?”
“Her apartment. What used to be her apartment, till we decided to take the plunge. Live together, I mean.”
“And where’s that?” Carella asked.
“The apartment? On Carter and Stein.”
The Eighty-eighth, Carella thought.
Carter and Stein was just on the edge of Diamondback, in what used to be the area’s Gold Coast back in the late twenties and early thirties. In those days, Diamondback was exclusively black, and the high-rise buildings on Carter Avenue between Stein and Ridge were populated with entertainers, musicians, artists, businessmen, politicians, all the elite of Isola’s black society. The buildings still afforded a splendid view of Grover Park, an inducement that had caused an enterprising black developer to renovate them into doorman buildings which downtown honkies had snapped up in a minute. These adventurous whites wouldn’t have been quite so bold if the buildings had been offered for sale a scant twelve blocks farther uptown. Living in the heart of Diamondback was a bit different, Charlie, from going uptown to Mama Grace’s for a down-home supper of chitlins, black-eyed peas, and grits. But Carter Avenue was still relatively safe for this city, and you couldn’t beat the price or the view of the park.