Gerald Fletcher was nowhere in sight.
Carella had started his surveillance with the usual police gambit of calling Fletcher’s apartment from a nearby phone booth early in the morning. The object of this sometimes transparent ploy was to ascertain that the suspect was still in his own digs, after which the police tail would wait downstairs for him to emerge and then follow him to and fro wherever he went. Gerald Fletcher, however, was not in his digs. This being Sunday morning, Carella automatically assumed that Fletcher was spending the weekend elsewhere. But, intrepid law enforcer he, and steadfast surveillant besides, he parked the squad’s new (used) 1970 Buick sedan across the street from Fletcher’s apartment building, and alternately watched the front door of 721 Silvermine Oval and the kids playing in the park, thinking that perhaps Fletcher had merely spent S*A*T*U*R*D*A*Y N*I*G*H*T someplace and might return home momentarily.
At twelve noon, Carella got out of the car, walked into the park, and sat on a bench facing the building. He ate the ham and cheese sandwich his wife had prepared for him, and drank a soft drink that beat the others cold but wasn’t so hot hot. Then he stretched his legs by walking over to the railing that overlooked the river, never taking his eyes off the building, and finally went back to the car. His vigil ended at 5 P . M ., when he was relieved by Detective Arthur Brown, driving the squad’s old 1968 Chevrolet sedan. Brown was equipped with a description of Fletcher as well as a photograph swiped from the bedroom dresser in Fletcher’s apartment. In addition, he knew what sort of automobile Fletcher drove, courtesy of the Motor Vehicle Bureau. He told Carella to take it easy, and then he settled down to the serious business of watching a doorway for the next seven hours, at which time he was scheduled to be relieved by O’Brien, who would hold the fort until eight in the morning, when Kapek would report to work for the long daytime stretch.
Carella went home to read his son’s latest note to Santa Claus, and then he had dinner with the family and was settling down in the living room with a novel he had bought a week ago and had not yet cracked, when the telephone rang.
“I’ve got it!” he yelled, knowing that Teddy could not hear him, and knowing this was Fanny’s day off, but also knowing that Mark, his son, had a habit these days of answering the telephone with the words “Automobile Squad, Carella here,” all well and good unless the caller happened to be a detective from the Automobile Squad trying to report on a stolen vehicle.
“Hello?” Carella said into the mouthpiece.
“Hello, Steve?”
“Yes?” Carella said. He did not recognize the voice.
“This is Gerry.”
“Who?”
“Gerry Fletcher.”
Carella almost dropped the receiver. “Hello,” he said, “how are you?”
“Fine, thanks. I was away for the weekend, just got back a little while ago, in fact. I frankly find this apartment depressing as hell. I was wondering if you’d like to join me for a drink.”
“Well,” Carella said, “it’s late, and I was just about to . . .”
“Nonsense, it’s not even eight o’clock.”
“Yes, but it’s Sunday night . . .”
“Hop in your car and meet me down here,” Fletcher said. “We’ll do a little old-fashioned pub crawling, what the hell.”
“No, I really couldn’t. Thanks a lot, Gerry, but . . .”
“Take you half an hour to get here,” Fletcher said, “and you may end up saving my life. If I sit here alone another five minutes, I’m liable to throw myself out the window.” He suddenly began laughing. “You know what the Penal Law has to say about suicide, don’t you?”
“No, what?” Carella asked.
“Silliest damn section in the book,” Fletcher said, still laughing. “It says, and I quote ‘Although suicide is deemed a grave public wrong, yet from the impossibility of reaching the successful perpetrator, no forfeiture is imposed.’ How do you like that for legal nonsense? Come on, Steve. I’ll show you some of the city’s brighter spots, we’ll have a few drinks, what do you say?”
It suddenly occurred to Carella that Gerald Fletcher had already had a few drinks before placing his call. It further occurred to him that if he played this too cozily, Fletcher might rescind his generous offer. And since there was nothing Carella wanted more than a night on the town with a murder suspect who might possibly drink more than was prudent for his own best interests, he immediately said, “Okay, I’ll see you at eight-thirty. Provided I can square it with my wife.”
“Good,” Fletcher said. “See you.”
10
P addy’s Bar & Grille was on the Stem, adjacent to the city’s theater district. Carella and Fletcher got there at about nine o’clock, while the place was still relatively quiet. The action began a little later, Fletcher explained, the operative theory behind a singles operation being that neither bachelor nor career girl should seem too obvious about wanting to make each other’s acquaintance. If you began to prowl too early, you appeared eager. If you got there too late, however, you missed out. The idea was to time your arrival just as the crowd was beginning to reach its peak, wandering in as though casually looking for a phone booth instead of a partner.
“You seem to know a lot about it,” Carella said.
“I’m an observant man,” Fletcher said, and smiled. “What are you drinking?”
“Scotch and soda,” Carella said.
“A scotch and soda,” Fletcher said to the bartender, “and a Beefeater’s martini, straight up.”
He had drunk whiskey sours the day they’d had lunch together, Carella remembered, but he was drinking martinis tonight. Good. The more potent the drinks, the looser his tongue might become. Carella looked around the room. The men ranged in age from the low thirties to the late fifties, a scant dozen in the place at this early hour, all of them neatly dressed in city weekend clothes, sports jackets and slacks, some wearing shirts and ties, others wearing shirts with ascots, still others wearing turtlenecks. The women, half in number, were dressed casually as well—pants suits, skirts, blouses or sweaters, with only one brave and rather ugly soul dressed to the teeth in a silk Pucci. The mating game, at this hour, consisted of sly glances and discreet smiles; no one was willing to take a real gamble until he’d had an opportunity to look over the entire field.
“What do you think of it?” Fletcher asked.
“I’ve seen worse,” Carella said.
“I’ll bet you have. Would it be fair to say you’ve also seen better?” Their drinks arrived at that moment, and Fletcher lifted his glass in a silent toast. “What kind of person would you say comes to a place like this?” he asked.
“Judging from appearances alone, and it’s still early . . .”
“It’s a fairly representative crowd,” Fletcher said.
“I would say we’ve got a nice lower-middle-class clientele bent on making contact with members of the opposite sex.”
“A pretty decent element, would you say?”
“Oh, yes,” Carella answered. “You go into some places, you know immediately that half the people surrounding you are thieves. I don’t smell that here. Small businessmen, junior executives, divorced ladies, bachelor girls—for example, there isn’t a hooker in the lot, which is unusual for a bar on the Stem.”
“Can you recognize a hooker by just looking at her?”
“Usually.”