"I have to leave for the restaurant at ten-thirty. Will that give you enough time?”
"Sure," Carella said. "See you in half an hour." They got to Fames's building at a quarter to ten. He lived in a part of the city not far from his restaurant, an area undergoing intensive urban renewal. Where once there'd been shabby tenements housing illegal aliens, there were now four- and five-story elevator buildings, many of them with doormen.
Fames's apartment was on the fifth floor of a building renovated a year or so ago. l There was no ttooxa, ,. themselves via the intercom over the downstairs buzzer, and then took the elevator up.
Fames led them into a living room modestly furnished with a teakwood sofa and two matching easy chairs upholstered in bleached linen. There was a teak coffee table in front of the sofa. A pair of standing floor lamps with glass shades, one blue, one orange, flanked the sofa. An open door led to a small kitchen. A closed second door led to what they supposed was the bedroom. Another closed door beside it probably opened onto a bathroom. The apartment was pleasantly air-conditioned, the windows closed to the noise of the traffic below and the incessant rise and fall of police and ambulance sirens.
"Something to drink?" he asked.
"Thanks, no," Carella said. "We're sorry to bother you again, Mr. Fames ...”
"Hey, no problem.”
" .... but I wonder if you can tell us again what happened on that last night in Boyle's Landing.”
“The night Charlie drowned, you mean.”
"Yes.”
"You don't think that had anything to do with Katie's murder, do you?”
"No, but we were wondering if it influenced her decision.”
"To quit the band, you mean?”
"Yes. You told us on Saturday that she broke the news right after Labor Day. That would've been immediately after the tour ended. So it's possible ...”
"Yeah, I see where you're going. Well, I guess it might have been upsetting to her. The thing is, we didn't find out about it until the next day. It wasn't as if we witnessed the drowning, or anything. I mean, we didn't actually see any alligators tearing him apart. So I don't know. I just don't know.”
"Maybe we can try reconstructing what happened that night.”
"Well... sure.”
"You finished playing at two, is that right?”
"Two A.M." correct. We did three shows that night.”
“Tote went to sleep ...”
"Man would sleep around the clock if you let him.”
“The rest of you were up talking ...”
“Talking, drinking.”
"You, Alan, Katie, and Sal, is that right?”
“Charlie joined us a little bit later.”
“When was that?”
"Before he paid us. I was the one who suggested we pick up our pay, pack the van, and drive up to Calusa right then, instead of waiting till tomorrow. Well, it already was tomorrow, this was two-thirty, three in the morning. I suggested that we drive the hundred and fifty miles or so, go straight to sleep when we got there. They all thought it was a terrific idea. So Alan and I started packing the van ...”
"Wait a minute," Brown said. "It was Alan and Sal who packed the van, wasn't it?”
"Not the way I remember it. Who told you that?”
“Sal did. That's the way he remembers it.”
"No, he's mistaken. I wouldn't let anyone touch my drums.”
"So the way you remember it, it was Alan and you who packed the van, is that right?”
"Packed the van and you all drove off.”
"Yes. Around three-thirty, something like that.”
“And the Calusa cops came around the next day.”
“Yes.”
"Asked you did you know anything about what happened the night before.”
"That's right.”
"But. nobody could tell them anything.”
“Nobody?”
"Cause none of you were there when Charlie Custer drowned.”
"None of us were there?”
"Well, thanks a lot, Mr. Fames," Carella said. "We appreciate your time?”
"And got eaten by alligators," Brown added. "None of us," Fames repeated.
It was almost twelve noon in Calusa, Florida, when Cynthia Huellen buzzed Matthew Hope and told him that a detective named Steve Carella was on line five. "Hey," Matthew said, surprised. "How are you?”
"Fine. How's the weather down there?”
“Hot.”
"Here, too. What are you doing these days? You still out of the crime business?”
"Planning a trip to the Czech Republic, in fact," Matthew said.
"Why there?”
"Prague's there.”
"When are you leaving?”
"Got to find a woman first.”
-/-'lenty of women mere, 1-11 DEE, t..arclla salo.
"Can't chance it. I'm getting old, Steve.”
“So am I. I'll be forty in October.”
“Now that's old, man.”
“Tell me about it.”
They chatted on for another five minutes or so, two old friends who had never met, one a lawyer in the sleepy Florida town of Calusa, the other a detective in a noisy northern city, strangers when first they'd met on the telephone, strangers still, perhaps, though each felt a kinship they could not explain.
"So what occasions this call?" Matthew asked at last. "Well, if you're really out of the crime business ...”
“I am.”
"Then you can't tell me what the Calusa police learned from four musicians and a girl singer who were down there around this time four years ago.”
"Why were the Calusa cops interested in them?" Matthew asked "Because a man named Charlie Custer drowned and got eaten by alligators.”
"Piece of cake," Matthew said.
The man Murchison put through to the squad room told Meyer that he knew the Leslie Blyden they were looking for.
"I saw the Chief of Detectives on television Saturday night," he said, "talking about a Leslie Blyden. I said to myself, What? Then yesterday's papers said he had a pinkie missing, the Blyden you're looking for. I said to myself, That has to be the Les I knew in the Gulf. What I want to know now ...”
"Is there a reward?”
"No, sir, there is not.”
"Then thanks a lot," the man said and hung up. Meyer guessed he didn't know that police departments had Caller ID capability and that his name was already displayed on Meyer's desktop LED panel. FRANK GIRARDI was what it read, with a telephone number directly above it.
Meyer didn't think they'd be calling ahead.
"So what we've got," Brown said, "is a piano player and a drummer who each say they were packing instruments in a van with a person who's now dead of AIDS. And we've got the piano player saying he saw the drummer, together with a lady who later got strangled in the park, go in the office of a man who later got eaten by alligators. And we've got the drummer saying the same thing about the piano player.”
“That's what we've got," Carella said. "So one of them's got to be lying.”
"Not necessarily. Four years was a long time ago. They may not be remembering clearly.”
"They remembered every other detail about that night, though, didn't they?" Brown said. "Drummers lie a lot, Steve. So do piano players.
In fact, been my experience most musicians do. Specially when there's nobody alive can contradict them.”
"You'll get letters.”
"I hope not," Brown said, and turned to look over his shoulder. "Am I dreaming," he asked, "or has that Honda been with us the past half hour?”
"What are you talking about?”
“Behind us. Little green Accord?”
Carella looked in the rearview mirror. "I hadn't noticed," he said.
"Black man at the wheel.”
"Makes him a wanted desperado, right?" Carella said.
"It's the next left," Brown said.
"I know.”
He made the turn at the next corner. Brown's apartment building was three doors in. He pulled up in front of it. The little green Accord drove right on by.