“How’d she know?”
“She said her husband had called from the Coast that morning to say he’d be in San Francisco all weekend, and that he’d be moving on to Portland on Monday morning and wanted her to send a fresh checkbook to the Logan Hotel there.”
“What time had he called her?”
“She didn’t say.”
“But if he’d already called her, why’d he bother sending a wire to the company?”
“I don’t know. Just double-checking, I guess.”
“I wonder if he called her again later to say he’d be coming home instead?”
“She didn’t mention getting two calls.”
“This was close to five, you said?”
“Yes, just before closing.”
“Was he normally so careful?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would he normally make a call and then back it with a wire asking the company to convey the identical information?”
“He may have sent the wire before he called his wife.”
“Even so.”
“Besides, the company paid his expenses, so why not?” Anne smiled. “Have you thought it over yet?” she asked.
“No, not yet.”
“Think about it. I’d like to. Very much.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re stunning.”
“Oh, come on,” Kling said.
“You are. I’m not easily impressed, believe me. I think I’m in love with you.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Sure it is. A person can’t just fall in love with a person without knowing anything about the person. That only happens in the movies.”
“I know everything there is to know about you,” Anne said. “Let’s have another drink, shall we?”
“Sure,” Kling said, and signaled the waiter. “Another round,” he said when the waiter came over, and then turned to Anne, who was watching him with her eyes wide and her cheeks flushed, and he suddenly thought, Jesus, I think she really is in love with me. “Anyway, as you said, this is a business meeting, and—”
“It’s a lot more than that,” Anne said, “and you know it. I think you knew it when you agreed to meet me, but if you didn’t know it then, you certainly know it now. I love you and I want to go to bed with you. Let’s go to my apartment right this minute.”
“Hold it, hold it,” Kling said, thinking, What am I, crazy? Say Yes. Pay the check and get out of here, take this luscious little girl to wherever she wants to go, hurry up before she changes her mind. “You don’t know me at all,” he said, “really. We’ve hardly even talked to each other.”
“What’s there to talk about? You’re a wonderfully good-looking man, and you’re undoubtedly brave because you have to be brave in your line of work, and you’re idealistic because otherwise why would you be involved in crime prevention, and you’re bright as hell, and I think it’s very cute the way you’re so embarrassed because I’m begging you to take me to bed. There’s nothing else I have to know, do you have a mole on your thigh, or something?”
“No,” he said, and smiled.
“So?”
“Well, I... I can’t right now, anyway.”
“Why not?” Anne paused, and then moved closer to him, covering his hand with hers on the table top. “Bert,” she whispered, “I love you and I want you.”
“Listen,” he said, “let’s uh think this over a little, huh? I’m uh—”
“Don’t you want me?”
“Yes, but—”
“Ah, one for our side,” she said, and smiled. “What is it, then?”
“I’m uh engaged,” he said. “I already told you that.”
“So what?”
“Well, you uh wouldn’t want me to—”
“Yes, I would,” Anne said.
“Well, I couldn’t. Not now. I mean, maybe not ever.”
“My telephone number is Washington 6-3841. Call me later tonight, after you leave your girlfriend.”
“I’m not seeing her tonight.”
“You’re not?” Anne asked astonished.
“No. She goes to school on Wednesday nights.”
“Then, that settles it,” Anne said. “Pay the check.”
“I’ll pay the check,” Kling said, “but nothing’s settled.”
“You’re coming with me,” Anne said. “We’re going to make love six times, and then I’m going to cook you some dinner, and then we’ll make love another six times. What time do you have to be at work tomorrow morning?”
“The answer is no,” Kling said.
“Okay,” Anne said breezily. “But write down the telephone number.”
“I don’t have to write it down.”
“Oh, such a smart cop,” Anne said. “What’s the number?”
“Washington 6-3841.”
“You’ll call me,” she said. “You’ll call me later tonight when you think of me all alone in my bed, pining away for you.”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Maybe not tonight,” she amended. “But soon.”
“I can’t promise that.”
“Anyway,” she said, “it doesn’t matter. Because if you don’t call me, I’ll call you. I have no pride, Bert. I want you, and I’m going to get you. Consider yourself forewarned.”
“You scare hell out of me,” he said honestly.
“Good. Do I also excite you just a little bit?”
“Yes,” he said, and smiled. “Just a little bit.”
“That’s two for our side,” she said, and squeezed his hand.
7
Thursday was Halloween, so naturally nothing happened on either case. That’s because on Halloween there are ghouls and goblins and witches and spooks stirring on the sweet October air, and they put a hex on anybody trying to do good. The detectives of the 87th were trying to do good by solving those several murders, but it was no use, not on Halloween. So both cases sat right where they were. Besides, there was plenty of other mischief to take care of on that Thursday, October 31.
Carella knew, of course, that Halloween was in reality the day before All Saints’ Day, a church festival celebrated on November 1 each year in honor of all the saints. He further knew that All Saints’ Day was sometimes called All-hallows (hallow meaning saint), and Halloween, before it got bastardized, was originally called Allhallows Even (even being another way of saying eve), and even even became contracted to e’en, hence Hallowe’en, and finally everybody dropped the apostrophe and it became Halloween, a long way from Allhallows Even perhaps, but that’s the way the witch’s brew bubbles, bubeluh.
To Carella, Allhallows Even sounded a great deal more pious than Halloween, but pious was the last thing Halloween had become in America. So perhaps the bastardized and contracted handle was really quite descriptive of an unofficial holiday that had evolved over the years into an excuse for malicious mischief across the length and breadth of the nation. The mischief had been present when Carella was a boy too, but it all seemed far more innocent in those days. In those days he would roam the October streets wearing a fleece-lined pseudo — World War I leather aviator’s helmet with goggles, carrying either a piece of colored chalk (or white chalk, for that matter, though colored chalk was far more desirable); or else a stick stripped from an orange crate, the end of which had been chalked; or else a sock full of flour. The idea was to chase a person, preferably a girl, and either chalk a line down her back, or slap her with the stick, thereby chalking her back, or hit her with the sock full of flour, which also left a mark on her back. You then shouted “Halloween!” and ran like hell, usually giggling. The girl giggled too. Everybody giggled. It was good clean fun, or so it seemed in Carella’s memory. At night, the kids would build an enormous bonfire in the middle of the city street, tossing into it wood scavenged from empty lots, old furniture and crates begged from apartment-building superintendents during the long, exciting day. The flames would leap skyward, shooting sparks and cinders, the boys would run into the street like hobgoblins themselves, to throw more fuel onto the fire, and then the collection of wood exhausted itself, and the flames dwindled, and the girls all went upstairs while the boys stood around the smoldering fire and peed on it.