Sometimes Carella wondered who was doing what to whom.
At five o’clock that evening, he relieved Detective Hal Willis outside Fletcher’s office building downtown, and then followed Fletcher to a department store in midtown Isola. Carella did not normally go in for cops-and-robbers disguises, but Fletcher knew exactly what he looked like and so he was wearing a false mustache stuck to his upper lip with spirit gum, a wig with longer hair than his own and of a different color (a dirty blond whereas his own was brown), and a pair of sunglasses. The disguise, he was certain, would not have fooled Fletcher at close range. But he did not intend to get that close, and he felt pretty secure he would not be made. He was, in fact, more nervous about losing Fletcher than about being spotted by him.
The store was thronged with late shoppers. This was Tuesday, December 21, four days to the big one, only three more days of shopping once the stores closed tonight at nine. Hot desperation flowed beneath the cool white plastic icicles that hung from the ceiling, panic in wonderland, the American anxiety syndrome never more evident than at Christmas, when the entire nation became a ruthless jackpot—Two Hundred Million Neediest gifting and getting, with a gigantic hangover waiting just around the new year’s corner. Gerald Fletcher shoved through the crowd of holiday shoppers like a quarterback moving the ball downfield without benefit of blockers. Carella, like a reticent tackler, followed some twenty feet behind.
The elevator would be a danger spot. Carella saw the elevator bank at the far end of the store, and knew that Fletcher was heading directly for it, and weighed the chances of being spotted in a crowded car against the chances of losing Fletcher if he did not follow immediately on his heels. He did not know how many thousands of people were in the store at that moment; he did know that if he allowed Fletcher to get into an elevator without him, the surveillance was blown. The elevator would stop at every floor, the way most department-store elevators did, and Fletcher could get out at any one of them, then try to find him again.
An elevator arrived. Its door opened, and Fletcher waited while the passengers disembarked and then stepped into the car together with half a dozen shoppers. Carella ungentlemanly shoved his way past a woman in a leopard coat and got into the car with his back to Fletcher, who was standing against the rear wall. The car, as Carella had surmised, stopped at every floor. He studiously kept his back to the rear of the car, moving aside whenever anyone wanted to get out. On the fifth floor, he heard Fletcher call, “Getting out, please,” and then felt him coming toward the front of the car, and saw him stepping out, and waited for the count of three before he, himself, moved forward, much to the annoyance of the elevator operator, who was starting to close the door.
Fletcher had walked off to the left. Carella spotted him moving swiftly up one of the aisles, looking about at the signs identifying each of the various departments, and stopping at one marked INTIMATE APPAREL . Carella walked into the next aisle over, pausing to look at women’s robes and kimonos, keeping one eye on Fletcher, who was in conversation with the lingerie salesgirl. The girl nodded, smiled, and showed him what appeared to be either a slip or a short nightgown, holding the garment up against her ample bosom to model it for Fletcher, who nodded, and said something else to her. The girl disappeared under the counter, to reappear several moments later, her hands overflowing with gossamer undergarments, which she spread on the counter before Fletcher, awaiting his further choice.
“May I help you, sir?” a voice said, and Carella turned to find a stocky woman at his elbow, gray hair, black-rimmed spectacles, wearing army shoes and a black dress with a small white collar. She looked exactly like a prison matron, right down to the suspicious smile that silently accused him of being a junkie shoplifter or worse.
“Thank you, no,” Carella said. “I’m just looking.”
Fletcher was making his selections, pointing now to this garment, now to another. The salesgirl wrote up the order, and Fletcher reached into his wallet to give her either cash or a credit card, it was difficult to tell from this distance. He chatted with the girl a moment longer, and then walked off toward the elevator bank.
“Are you sure I can’t assist you?” the prison matron said, and Carella immediately answered, “I’m positive,” and moved swiftly toward the lingerie counter. Fletcher had left the counter without a package in his arms, which meant he was sending his purchases. You did not send dainty underthings to a prize fighter, and Carella wanted very much to know exactly which woman was to be the recipient of the “intimate apparel.” The salesgirl was already gathering up Fletcher’s selections—a black half-slip, a wildly patterned Pucci chemise, a peach-colored baby-doll nightgown with matching bikini panties, and four other pairs of panties, blue, black, white, and beige, each trimmed with lace around the leg-holes. The girl looked up.
“Yes, sir,” she said, “may I help you?”
Carella opened his wallet and produced his shield. “Police officer,” he said. “I’m interested in the order you just wrote up.”
The girl was perhaps nineteen years old, a college girl working in the store for the Christmas rush. The most exciting thing that had happened on the job, until this very moment, was an elderly Frenchman asking her if she would like to spend the month of February on his yacht in the Mediterranean. Speechlessly, the girl studied the shield, her eyes bugging. It suddenly occurred to Carella that Fletcher might have had the purchases sent to his home address, in which case all this undercover work was merely a waste of time. Well, he thought, you win some, you lose some.
“Are these items being sent?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” the girl said. Her eyes were still wide behind her glasses. She wet her lips and stood up a little straighter, prepared to be a perfect witness.
“Can you tell me where?” Carella asked.
“Yes, sir,” she said, and turned the sales slip toward him. “He wanted them wrapped separately, but they’re all going to the same address. Miss Arlene Orton, 812 Crane Street, right here in the city.”
“Thank you very much,” Carella said.
It felt like Christmas Day already.
Bert Kling was sitting up in bed and polishing off his dinner when Carella got to the hospital at close to 7 P . M . The men shook hands, and Carella took a seat by the bed.