“After the summer sometime.”
“Before Labor Day?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“At the beginning of September, then?”
“I guess so.”
“Have you seen him since?”
“I ain’t even sure I seen him then.”
“Did you see him at all this month?”
“No.”
“Not at any time during the month of October, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“But you did see him in September, and you think it was sometime before Labor Day.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Was he alone?”
“There was a woman with him.”
“Do you know who she was?”
“No. He always has a different woman with him.”
“Had you ever seen this one before?”
“Once or twice.”
“But you don’t know her name.”
“No.”
“What’d she look like?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Was she white or black?”
“White,” Yancy said.
“What color hair?”
“Red.”
“Eyes?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Was she pretty?”
“For a white woman,” Yancy said.
“How old would you say she was?”
“Thirty, something like that.”
“Is she from the neighborhood?”
“I don’t think so. Only time I ever seen her was when Damascus brought her around.”
“Which was often, you said.”
“Well, a few times, anyway.”
“How old is Damascus?”
“In his forties,” Yancy said.
“What does he look like?”
“Oh, he’s about your height, six feet or so, dark hair and blue eyes, nice-looking fellow.”
“You getting this, Bert?” Carella asked.
“Mm-huh,” Kling said, without looking up from his pad.
“Is he white?” Carella asked.
“He’s white,” Yancy said.
“What kind of complexion?”
“I told you. White.”
“Pale, dark, fair, sallow?”
“Fair, I guess.”
“How is he built?”
“About like your partner here.”
“Does he have a mustache or a beard?”
“No.”
“Any scars?”
“No scars.”
“Tattoos?”
“No tattoos.”
“Any sort of distinctive mark?”
“No sort of marks,” Yancy said.
“Is he deformed in any way?”
“You mean does he have a clubfoot?” Yancy asked.
“That’s not what I meant, sir,” Carella said, refusing to flinch.
“No, he isn’t deformed,” Yancy said.
“What about his voice? What kind of voice does he have?”
“I don’t know.”
“Gruff, soft, refined, effeminate?”
“He’s not a fairy.”
“Does he lisp or stutter?”
“No, he talks straight out. Soft, I guess you would say. And fast. He talks very fast.”
“Bert?” Carella said. “Anything else?”
“Jewelry.”
“Does he habitually wear rings or other jewelry?” Carella asked.
“He’s got a ring with his initial on it,” Yancy said.
“Which initial? W or D?”
“W.”
“Does he wear it on his right hand or his left?”
“His right, I think.”
“Any other jewelry?”
“An ID bracelet, I think.”
“Gold or silver?”
“Silver.”
“With his name on it?”
“I never saw it close up,” Yancy said.
“Would you know whether or not Damascus is employed?”
“I don’t know. I’m just the super here.”
“You’re doing very well, Mr. Yancy,” Carella said.
“You’ve given us an excellent description so far,” Kling said.
Yancy looked at them suspiciously. He was used to all sorts of bullshit from Whitey, and he nodded skeptically now, letting the detectives know he wasn’t about to be that easily flattered.
“I still got to get my garbage cans off the sidewalk,” he said flatly.
“We’ll straighten out any problems with the cop on the beat,” Carella promised.
“Sure. You’ll pay the fine, too, I suppose.”
“There won’t be any fine, Mr. Yancy. Try to remember whether or not Damascus leaves the house and returns at any regularly set times, would you?”
“When he’s here, do you mean?”
“Yes.”
“If he’s got a job, it must be nights,” Yancy said. “Only time I ever seen him around was during the day.”
“He leaves the apartment at night?”
“I guess so.”
“What time?”
“Eight, nine o’clock, something like that.”
“But you wouldn’t know where he goes?”
“No.”
“Thank you, Mr. Yancy.”
“That it?”
“That’s it, thank you.”
They watched as he limped toward the doorway. At the door, he turned and said, “Ain’t nothing wrong with my eyes.”
“What?” Carella said.
“The description,” Yancy answered, and went out.
Carella went to the dresser. In the top drawer, in a box containing tie clasps and cuff links, he found an uncanceled check made out to Walter Damascus for $110.79. The check was drawn to the account of The Cozy Corners and signed by someone named Daniel Cudahy.
“Something?” Kling asked.
“I think so,” Carella answered.
The Cozy Corners was a bar-cum-nightclub on Dover Plains Avenue in Riverhead. The owner’s name was Daniel Cudahy, and when Carella and Kling got there at 5:00 in the afternoon, he was eating his dinner.
“In this crazy racket,” he said, “you got to eat when you get a chance. It starts becoming a madhouse around here in a little while.”
Cudahy was a diminutive man with a balding head and a broken nose. There was a knife scar on his right temple, and his right eye twitched spasmodically as though in memory of how close the knife had come to gouging it. He sat at a table near the bar, eating a minute steak and French fries, sipping a bottle of Heineken’s beer. The decor of the place was cozy-cute, with checkerboard tablecloths and wood paneling and phony electric candlesticks on each table. A small dance floor was at one end of the room, a piano, a set of drums, and three music stands behind it. The name of the band performing — according to what was lettered on the bass drum — was KEN MURPHY’S MARAUDERS. The detectives sat at Cudahy’s invitation and watched him demolish the steak. Between mouthfuls, he said, “Sure, I know Wally. Where the hell is that bum?”
“He works for you, does he?”
“He’s my bouncer,” Cudahy said.
“Does he work full-time?”
“Every night except Sunday. We’re closed Sunday.”
“When’d you see him last, Mr. Cudahy?”
“Friday night. He was supposed to come in Saturday night, and never showed. I’m expecting him tonight, but who the hell knows?”
“Did he call in?”
“Nope.”
“Did you call him?”
“He hasn’t got a phone.”
“No place you can reach him?”
“He lives in Isola someplace, some crumby neighborhood. I wouldn’t go down there personally if you gave me a million dollars.”
“He lives on South Second, isn’t that right?”
“Yeah, somewhere down there. All full of spies and niggers,” Cudahy said. “I wouldn’t go down there with the National Guard.”
“And he has no phone?”
“No phone.”
“How come?”
“What do you mean, how come?”
“Almost everybody has a phone.”
“Well, he’s hardly ever there, what the hell does he need a phone for?”