Perhaps there is no difference in the way a telephone rings. It does not ring differently for sweethearts making lovers’ calls, it does not ring differently when it carries bad news, or when it carries news of a big deal being closed.
Chen was in a hurry. He had to see Carella, had to talk to him.
So perhaps the ring of the telephone in his closed and locked shop was not really so urgent. Perhaps it did not really sound so terribly important. It was, after all, only a telephone ring.
It was, nonetheless, urgent-sounding enough to pull him back from the curb and over to the locked door. It sounded urgent enough to force him to reach for his keys rapidly, find the right key, shove it into the hanging padlock, snap open the lock, and then throw open the door and rush to the phone.
It sounded urgent as hell until it stopped ringing.
By the time Chen lifted the receiver, all he got was a dial tone.
And since he had a dial tone, he used it.
He called FRederick 7-8024.
“87th Precinct, Sergeant Murchison,” the voice said.
“Detective Carella, please,” Chen said.
“Second,” the desk sergeant answered. Chen waited. He was right, then. Carella was back. He listened to the clicking on the line.
“87th Squad, Detective Havilland,” Havilland said.
“I speak to Detective Carella, please?”
“Not here,” Havilland said. “Who’s this?” From the corner of his eye, he saw Kling disappear into the stairwell leading to the first floor.
“Charlie Chen. When he be back?”
“Just a second,” Havilland said. He covered the mouthpiece. “Hey, Bert!” he shouted. “Bert!” There was no answer from the stairwell. Into the phone, Havilland said, “I’m a cop, too, mister. What’s on your mind?”
“Man who tattoo girl,” Chen said. “He was here shop. With Mrs. Carella.”
“Slow down,” Havilland said. “What man? What girl?”
“Carella knows,” Chen said. “Tell him man’s name is Chris. Big, blond man. Tell him wife follows. When he be back? Don’t you know when he be back?”
“Listen—” Havilland started, and Chen impatiently said, “I come. I come tell him. You ask him wait.”
“He may not even—” Havilland said, but he was talking to a dead line.
The girl was bent over double, the handkerchief pressed to her mouth. The tall, blond man kept his arm around her waist, holding her up, half walking her, half dragging her down the street.
Behind them, Teddy Carella followed.
Teddy Carella knew very little about con men.
She knew, though, that you could stand on a corner and offer to sell $5 gold pieces for 10¢, and you wouldn’t get a buyer all day. She knew that the city was an inherently distrustful place, that strangers did not talk to strangers in restaurants, that people somehow did not trust people.
And so she had taken out insurance.
If she had a tongue, she’d have shouted her message.
She could not speak, and so she’d taken insurance that would shout her message, a dozen narrow slips of paper, with the identical message on each slip:
Call Detective Carella, FRederick 7-8024. Tell him license number is DN1556. Hurry please!
And now, as she followed along behind Donaldson and the girl, she began to shout her message. She could not linger long with each passerby because she could not afford to lose sight of the pair. She could only touch the sleeve of an old man and hand him the paper and then walk off. She could only gently press the dip into the hand of a matron in a gray dress and leave her puzzled and somewhat amused. She could only stop a teenager, avoid the open invitation in his eyes, and hand him the message. She left behind her a trail of people with a scrap of paper in their hands. She hoped that one of them would call the 87th. She hoped the license number would reach her husband. In the meantime, she followed a sick girl and a killer, and she didn’t know what she would do if her husband didn’t reach her, if her husband didn’t somehow reach her.
“Sick... I...” Priscilla Ames could barely speak. She clung to the reassurance of his arm around her waist, and she staggered along the street with him, wondering where he was taking her, wondering why she was so deathly ill.
“Listen to me,” he said. There was a hard edge to his voice. He was breathing heavily, and she did not recognize his voice. Her throat burned, and she could only think of the churning in her stomach. Why should I be so sick, why, why? “I’m talking to you, do you hear me?” She’d never been sick in her life, never a day’s serious illness. Why, then, this sudden — “Goddammit, listen to me! You start throwing up again, I swear to Christ I’ll leave you here in the gutter!”
“Wh...wh...” She swallowed. She was ashamed of herself. The food, it must have been the food — that, and the fear of the needle. He shouldn’t have asked me to be tattooed, always afraid of needles—
“It’s the next house,” he said, “the big apartment house. I’m taking you in the back way. We’ll use the service elevator. I don’t want anyone to see you like this. Do you hear me? Can you understand me?”
She nodded, swallowing hard, wondering why he was telling her all this, squeezing her eyes shut tightly, knowing only excruciating pain, feeling weak all over, suddenly so very weak. “My purse, my purse, Chris, I’ve...”
She stopped.
She gestured limply with one hand.
“What is it?” he snapped. “What?” His eyes followed her gesture. He saw her purse where she’d dropped it onto the sidewalk. “Oh, goddammit,” he said, and he braced her with one arm and stooped, half turning for the purse.
He saw the pretty brunette then.
She was not more than fifty feet behind them, and when he stooped to pick up the purse, the girl stopped, stared at him for a moment, and then quickly turned away to look into one of the store windows.
Slowly, he picked up the purse. His eyes narrowed with thought.
He began walking again.
Behind him, he could hear the clatter of the girl’s heels.
“87th Precinct, Sergeant Murchison.”
“Detective Carella, please,” the young voice said.
“He’s not here right now,” Murchison answered. “Talk to anyone else?”
“The note said Carella,” the young voice said.
“What note, son?”
“Aw, never mind,” the boy replied. “It’s probably a gag.”
“Well, what—”
The line went dead.
A fly was buzzing around the nose of Steve Carella. Carella swatted at it in his sleep.
The fly zoomed up toward the ceiling and then swooped down again. Ssssszzzzzzzzz. It landed on Carella’s ear.
Still sleeping, Carella brushed at it.
“87th Precinct, Sergeant Murchison.”
“Is there a Detective Carella there?” the voice asked.
“Just a minute,” Murchison said. He plugged into the bull’s wire. Havilland picked up the phone.
“87th Detective Squad, Havilland,” he said.
“Rog, this is Dave,” Murchison said. “Has Carella come back yet?”
“Nope,” Havilland said.
“I’ve got another call for him. You want to take it?”
“I’m busy,” Havilland said.
“Doing what? Picking your nose?”
“All right, give me the call,” Havilland said, putting down the magazine and the story about the trunk murderer.
“Here’s the Detective Division,” he heard Murchison say.
“This is Detective Havilland,” Havilland said. “Can I help you?”
“Some dame handed me a note,” the voice said.