“Hello?” a man’s voice said.
“Mr. Hart?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad. I wonder . . .”
“What’s the matter?” Hart said immediately.
“I’d like to ask you some questions, Mr. Hart.”
“I’m in the middle of shaving,” Hart said. “I’ve got to leave for the office in a little while. What’s this about?”
“We’re investigating a homicide, Mr. Hart . . .”
“A what? A homicide?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who? Who’s been killed?”
“A woman named Sarah Fletcher.”
“I don’t know anyone named Sarah Fletcher,” Hart said.
“She seems to have known you, Mr. Hart.”
“Sarah who? Fletcher, did you say?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t know anybody by that name. Who says she knew me? I never heard of her in my life.”
“Your name’s in her address book.”
“My what? My name? That’s impossible.”
“Mr. Hart, I have her book right here in my hand, and your name is in it, together with your address and your phone number.”
“Well, I don’t know how it got there.”
“Neither do I. That’s why I’d like to talk to you.”
“Okay, okay,” Hart said. “What time is it? Jesus, is it ten after eight already?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Look, I’ve got to shave and get out of here. Can you come to the office later? About . . . ten o’clock? I should be free around then. I’d see you earlier, but someone’s coming in at nine.”
“We’ll be there at ten. Where is the office, Mr. Hart?”
“On Hamilton and Reed. 480 Reed. The sixth floor. Hart and Widderman. We’ve got the whole floor.”
“See you at ten, Mr. Hart.”
“Right,” Hart said, and hung up.
Like a woman in her tenth month, the clouds over the city twisted and roiled in angry discomfort but refused to deliver the promised snow. The citizens grew anxious. Hurrying to their jobs, dashing into subway kiosks, boarding buses, climbing into taxicabs, they glanced apprehensively at the bloated skies and wondered if the weather bureau, as usual, was wrong. To the average city dweller, being alerted to a snowstorm was like being alerted to the bubonic plague. Nobody in his right mind liked snow. Nobody liked putting on rubbers and galoshes and skid-chains and boots; nobody liked shoveling sidewalks and canceling dinner dates and missing theater parties; nobody liked slipping and sliding and falling on his ass. But worse than that, nobody liked being promised all that, and being forced to anticipate all that, and then not having all that delivered. The city dweller, for all his sophistication, was a creature of habit who dreaded any break in his normal routine. He would accept blackouts or garbage strikes or muggings in the park because these were not breaks in the routine, they were the routine. And besides, they reinforced the image he carried of himself as an urban twentieth-century swashbuckler capable of coping with the worst disasters. But threaten a taxicab strike and then postpone or cancel it? Promise a protest and have it dispersed by the police? Forecast snow and then have the storm hover indefinitely over the city like a writhing gray snake ready to strike? Oh no, you couldn’t fool with a city person that way. It made him edgy and uncomfortable and insecure and constipated.
“So where the hell is it?” Meyer asked impatiently. One hand on the door of the police sedan, he looked up at the threatening sky and all but shook his fist at the gray clouds overhead.
“It’ll come,” Carella said.
“When?” Meyer asked flatly, and opened the door, and climbed into the car. Carella started the engine. “Damn forecasters never know what they’re doing,” Meyer said. “Last big storm we had, they were predicting sunny and mild. We can put men on the moon, but we can’t tell if it’s going to drizzle on Tuesday.”
“That’s an interesting thing,” Carella said.
“What is?”
“About the moon.”
“What about the moon?”
“Why should everything down here be expected to work perfectly just because we’ve put men on the moon?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Meyer said.
“We can put men on the moon,” Carella said, “but we can’t get a phone call through to Riverhead. We can put men on the moon, but we can’t settle a transit strike. We can put men on the moon . . .”
“I get your point,” Meyer said, “but I fail to see the parallel. There is a connection between the weather and the billions of dollars we’ve spent shooting meteorological hardware into space.”
“I merely thought it was an interesting observation,” Carella said.
“It was very interesting,” Meyer said.
“What’s the matter with you this morning?”
“Nothing’s the matter with me this morning.”
“Okay,” Carella said, and shrugged.
They drove in silence. The city was a monochromatic gray, the backdrop for a Warner Brothers gangster film of the thirties. The color seemed to have been drained from everything—the most vivid billboards, the most vibrant building façades, the most lurid women’s clothing, even the Christmas ornaments that decorated the shop windows. Overhung with eternal grayness, the trappings of the yuletide season stood revealed as shabby crap, tinsel and plastic to be exhibited once a year before being returned to the basement. In this bleak light, even the costumes of the streetcorner Santa Clauses appeared to be a faded maroon rather than a cheerful red, the fake beards dirty, the brass bells tarnished. The city had been robbed of sunshine and denied the cleansing release of snow. It waited, and it fretted, and it grew crankier by the minute.
“I was wondering about Christmas,” Carella said.
“What about it?”
“I’ve got the duty. You feel like switching with me?”
“What for?” Meyer said.
“I thought I’d give you Chanukah or something.”
“How long do you know me?” Meyer asked.
“Too long,” Carella said, and smiled.
“How many years has it been?” Meyer said. “And you don’t know I celebrate both Chanukah and Christmas? I’ve had a Christmas tree in the house ever since the kids were born. Every year. You’ve been there every year. You were there last year with Teddy. You saw the tree. Right in the living room. Right in the middle of the goddamn living room.”
“I forgot,” Carella said.
“I celebrate both,” Meyer said.
“Okay,” Carella said.
“Okay. So the answer is no, I don’t want to switch the duty.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
In this mood of joyous camaraderie, Meyer and Carella parked the car and went into the building at 480 Reed Street, and up the elevator to the sixth floor—in silence. Hart and Widderman manufactured watchbands. A huge advertising display near the receptionist’s desk in the lobby proudly proclaimed H & W BEATS THE BAND ! and then backed the slogan with more discreet copy that explained how Hart and Widderman had solved the difficult engineering problems of the expansion watch bracelet to present to the world their amazing new line, all illustrated with photographs as big as Carella’s head, in gleaming golden tones he felt certain he could hock at the nearest pawnshop. The receptionist’s hair was almost as golden, but it did not look as genuine as that in the display. She glanced up from her magazine without much interest as the detectives approached her desk. Meyer was still reading the advertising copy, fascinated.