“That’s what Graham said.”
“The Graham who was with you when you noticed your credit cards were missing?”
“Yes, and he’s my neighbor. He’s also a playwright. And as I told you, a waiter at a restaurant near my apartment.”
“Well, Graham’s right about obscene callers.” Kennedy sat forward slowly and placed his elbows on the desk, rested one hand on top the other. “Tell you what. If it happens again, we can have the phone company put a tap on your phone.”
“Tap?”
“It’s a tracer, actually. It would enable us to find out what telephone any future obscene calls came from. But again, in my experience, these men usually call from public pay phones. And they don’t often use the same phone twice.”
“Then a tracer probably wouldn’t do much good.”
“To be candid, no good at all, most likely.”
“What about my stolen credit cards?”
“You should make a complaint on that one. At least give us the account numbers. But I need to be honest with you, there isn’t much chance they’ll be recovered. People who steal credit cards, if they’re pros, either sell the cards immediately or charge everything they can on them before they might be reported stolen. On the street, stolen credit cards depreciate by the hour. Whatever’s going to be done with them is done fast, then they’re often destroyed.” He clucked his tongue. “Some sad society we live in, isn’t it?”
Allie Jones smiled and shook her head in futility. “Have I wasted my time coming here, Sergeant Kennedy?”
“Maybe not. You never know. I’d advise you to fill out the forms, report the credit card theft. The cards might turn up on somebody we bring in. It’s happened.”
“All right, then,” she said. “I’ll do that.”
Kennedy ran the appropriate form into his typewriter and one-fingered out the information as she answered his questions. She was alert and efficient. From working with computers, Kennedy thought. He was uncomfortable around computers, didn’t understand them. What were microchips, miniature potato chips?
When he was finished he read over what he’d typed. After making a few sloppy corrections with Whiteout, he ratcheted the form from the typewriter and had Allison Jones sign it.
He said, “I promise we’ll call you right away if there’s any progress on this.”
She thanked him and stood up. There was something about this troubled young woman that intrigued Kennedy, evoking pity and concern. Did she resemble Jeanie? Maybe. A little. And it was the cruelest of cities out there, a crouching monster that waited patiently for as long as it took and then devoured its victims.
“Miss Jones,” he said, “is there anything else bothering you?”
She gave him her slow and appealing smile. “It shows?”
“Afraid it does.”
“Not a police matter,” she said. “It’s just that my life hasn’t gone very well lately. My job, my … Well, never mind that.”
“What about your, ah, romantic life?”
She seemed to consider telling him something, then decide against it. “My love life’s fine, Sergeant, believe me. But that’s irrelevant.”
“We can’t be sure about that.”
“We’ll have to be.”
Testy again.
“My personal problems are more job-related. Financial.” She straightened and shrugged as if none of it mattered. “It’s how the world works sometimes,” she said.
“Isn’t that the truth for all of us?” He stood up halfway, leaning on his desk, and shook her hand. It was limp and cool. “Hang on,” he told her, squeezing the narrow fingers reassuringly. “Things’ll take a favorable bounce. They always do, eventually.”
She said, “I’m sure you’re right. Thanks for reminding me.”
He watched her walk from the squad room and out the large oak doors to the street. Then he sat back down heavily. The chair groaned beneath him. His hemorrhoids flared. God, his health was deteriorating like the South Bronx.
“What we got there?” a voice said behind Kennedy. His partner, Hector Vasquez.
“Obscene phone calls, stolen credit cards.”
“Nice-looking woman,” Hector said. “The sort that’d attract that kinda call.”
“Isn’t she, though?” Kennedy picked up the complaint form Allie Jones had signed and considered it. Stolen credit cards were seldom recovered.
“Better file that so we can get going,” Hector urged. “Lieutenant wants us to drive over to Queens and pick up that prisoner.”
“My hemorrhoids are on fire,” Kennedy said. “I don’t want to drive to Queens.”
“I sure feel sorry for you,” Hector said with mock sympathy, “but that’s how the world works sometimes.”
“Funny,” Kennedy told him, “that’s just what she said, about how the world works sometimes. Her words exactly.”
“Whose words?”
“Allie Jones’s. The woman who just left.”
“Forget her and come on,” Hector said, “unless you wanna receive an obscene phone call from the lieutenant.”
Kennedy braced with his hands on the arms of his chair and levered himself to a standing position. He tucked in his wrinkled white shirt around his ample stomach and wrestled into his tweed sportcoat. After even that brief effort, he was breathing hard. Better watch the blood pressure, he told himself. Lose some weight. Really lay off the cigars, like the doctor advised, or someday he might be waddling after a suspect and collapse and die from a heart attack.
But he knew he wouldn’t change the way he lived. Or the way he’d probably die. Suicide by cigar.
He filed the complaint form and trudged after Hector.
Chapter 18
ALLIE walked home from the precinct house unsure of how she felt. Around her the wet pavement had a mirrorlike effect. The rain had become a cool, persistent mist that found its way down the back of her collar. She moved through it as if it were the atmosphere of dreams, unconcerned about getting wet or catching cold. The tires of passing cabs shiiished. Windshield wipers thunk, thunked.
Though she felt better after having told Sergeant Kennedy about the phone calls and missing credit cards, she was sure the police couldn’t help. Reporting a crime was a long way from seeing that crime solved. Kennedy himself had as much as said that. He seemed to see the city as a festering, vile creation out of control. The good guys were overwhelmed.
When finally she reached the apartment, she found Hedra concerned about her. “For Pete’s sake, Allie, what are you doing out wandering around in the rain?”
“I went to the police station.”
“You walked?”
“Took the subway there, but I decided to walk back.”
“The doctor’ll be your next stop.” There was a mothering quality to Hedra’s voice; a different Hedra, with Allie in trouble.
She hurried across the living room and helped Allie shrug out of the blue raincoat. After shaking the coat so that hundreds of drops of water caught the light and glittered like scattered diamonds, she hung it in the hall closet, well away from the other coats. Hedra had always liked the blue raincoat and took special care of it, though she hadn’t bought one like it, probably because the coat was four years old and the style was no longer in the stores.
“I told them about the obscene phone calls and the stolen credit cards,” Allie said.
“I gathered that. Why don’t you get out of those wet shoes and sit down. I’ll fix you a cup of hot chocolate.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think I want anything.”
“Don’t be ridiculous; you’ll catch pneumonia or worse.” She rested a hand on Allie’s shoulder and pushed and guided her to the sofa, like the stern guardian of a recalcitrant child.