"It's tough to find steady work these days," he said. "I give lessons to supplement my income, got to pay the mortgage, hm? There's only one piano player in a band, you know. In a marching band, you can have seventy-six trombones, and a hundred and twelve cornets, but no piano at all. A rock group? Sometimes a keyboard, but just as often not. A symphony orchestra? One piano, but only sometimes.”
"I used to play clarinet when I was a kid," Brown said.
Roselli gave him the disinterested nod of a professional who didn't give a damn about the music lessons amateurs took when they were kids.
"So what brings you out here again?" he asked, and took a seat facing them. The detectives were looking into the sun. They shifted their chairs.
"Boyle's Landing," Carella said.
"September first, four years ago," Brown said. "Payday.”
"Charlie Custer's office.”
"What happened in there, Sal?”
First-name basis now, no more polite bullshit. You iled to us, Sal, so you're not Mr. Roselli anymore. You are Sal, and we are cops, Sal. "In where?" Roselli said. "Custer's office.”
"When you and Katie went up there?”
"It was Davey who went up there," Roselli said. "Not according to him.”
“Then he's lying.”
"Not according to Katie, either." Roselli looked at them. "Katie's dead," he said.
"She wasn't dead when she gave her statement to Detective Morris Bloom in Calusa, Florida, four years ago.”
"How'd you ... ?" Roselli started, and then closed his mouth.
"Sal?”
He looked away.
"Want to tell us what happened that night, Sal?”
He turned back sharply.
"What happened was Custer got drunk and fell in the river," he said.
"That's what happened. Just what I told you before.”
"Only after a second visit, Sal.”
"You neglected to mention the drowning the first time around.”
"You said you didn't think it was important?”
“How do you feel about being in Custer's office?”
“Alone with him and Katie?”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Do you think that's important?”
"All right, look, I didn't want to get involved.”
"Involved?”
"You were here investigating Katie's murder, I didn'.t want to get involved, that's all.”
"We're still investigating her murder, Sal.”
“And I still don't want to get involved.”
“Why'd you lie to us, Sal?”
"Because I had nothing to do with it.”
“With what?”
“Charlie drowning.”
"But he drowned after you left, didn't he?" Silence. "Sal?”
"He drowned after the band was long gone, isn't that what you told us?”
"Yes.”
"So how could you have had anything to do with it?”
“I didn't.”
"Then why'd you lie to us about being in his office?”
Silence.
"Sal?”
"Why'd you ... ?”
"Okay, I was trying to protect Katie, okay?”
“But Katie's dead.”
"You told me she was a nun.”
Ies.
"Okay, I didn't want it to reflect upon her.”
“Didn't want what to reflect upon her?”
“Didn't want it to tarnish her memory.”
“What do you mean?”
“Charlie drowning.”
"Would somehow tarnish her memory?”
"If it got out.”
"If what got out?”
"If I told you.”
"Told us what?”
"What happened?”
"What did happen, Sal?”
Silence.
"Sal?”
"Tell us, Sal.”
"What happened, Sal?”
"She shoved him over the railing," Roselli said.
"I can't tell you what a great job I think you kids did," Charlie says.
He's been drinking too much and his speech is slurred. A bottle of beer in one hand, he staggers as he walks to the safe, catches his balance, says, "Oops," gives a gurgly little giggle and then grins in broad apology and winks at Katie. He raises the bottle in a belated toast. "Here's to next time," he says, and tilts the bottle to his mouth and drinks again. Sal is hoping he won't pass out before he opens the safe and pays them.
Charlie is wearing a wrinkled white linen suit, he looks as if he's auditioning for the role of Big Daddy in Sweet Bird. Chomping on a cigar, belching around it, he takes it out of his mouth only to swig more beer. He finally sets the bottle down on top of the safe. This is a big old Mosler that sits on the floor, he has some difficulty kneeling down in front of it, first, because he's so fat, and next because he's so drunk. Sal is really beginning to worry now that they'll have to wait till morning to get paid. How's Charlie even going to remember the combination, much less see the numbers on the dial? It is unbearably hot here in the office. The window air conditioner is functioning, but only minimally, and Charlie has thrown open the French doors to the deck, hoping to catch a stray breeze. Outside, there is the sound of insects and wilder things, the cries of animals in the deep dark. Only the alligators are silent.
Katie is slumped in one of the big black leather chairs, exhausted and sweaty, her hair hanging limp, her T-shirt clinging to her. She has her legs stretched out, the mini riding high on her thighs, she looks sort of like a thirteen-year-old who's just come home from the junior high hop. Charlie is kneeling in front of the safe, having difficulty with his balance, reciting the combination out loud as if there's no one in the room with him, three to the right, stop on twenty. Two to the left, past twenty, stop on seven. One to the right, stop on thirty-four but the safe won't open. So he goes through the same routine once again, and then another time after that until he finally hits the right numbers, and boldly yanks down the handle, and flamboyantly flings open the safe door. All grand movements.
Everything big and baroque. Like drunken Charlie himself.
The night's proceeds are in there. Charlie's crowd is composed largely of teenagers, and they pay in cash. He starts counting out the bills, has to count them three times, too, before he gets it right. He puts the rest of the money back in the safe, hurls the door shut, gives the dial a dramatic twist. He's now holding a wad of hundred-dollar bills in his left hand. With his right hand, he braces himself against the safe and pushes himself to his feet. gonna be, He turns to Katie where she's sprawled half-asleep you don't in the black leather chair.
Sal "Now, young missy," he says, and staggers over to boy her, "You want this money?" thinks Katie opens her eyes. others, "Would you like to get paid?" he says.
Charlie "That's why we're here, boss," Sal says, smiling, he is and moves to where Charlie's standing in front of the chair, the way "You want this money?" Charlie asks again, and There shakes the bills in Katie's face. face "Stop doing that," she says sleepily, and flaps her very hands on the air in front of her, trying to wave the band, money away. matter.
"Sweet missy, you want this money, here' what the you got to do," he says, and shoves the wad of bills do into the right-hand pocket of his jacket. They bulge there like a sudden tumor. He unzips his fly. And all at once he,s holding himself in his hand.
"Come on, Charlie, put that away," Sal says. For some reason he is still smiling. He cannot imagine , why he is still smiling, unless it's because the situation is so absurd.
"What you want me to put away, boy?" Charlie says. "The money or my pecker?”
"Come on, Charlie.”
Sal is no longer smiling. ' "You want me to put this money back in the safe? Or you want me to put my pecker in Katie's mouth?”
"Come on, Charlie.”
gonna be, boy. Either the little girl sucks my dick, or you don't get paid.”
Sal doesn't know how to deal with this. He's a city boy unused to the ways of wild land crackers. He thinks for a moment he'll run outside and get the others, all for one and one for all, and all that. But Charlie has grabbed Katie's chin in his hand now, and he is moving in on her with a drunk's bullheaded determination, waving his bulging purple cock at her the way he waved the wad of money only minutes ago.