"Once. Or twice."
"Or maybe more?"
"Maybe. I don't remember."
"Ever get in a fight with Doctor Ellerbee?" Boone asked.
"Ever attack him?"
"Shit, no! He was my doctor. A decent guy. I liked him."
"How long had you been seeing him?"
"About two years."
"You own a car?" Delaney asked suddenly.
Bellsey looked at him, puzzled.
"Sure."
"What kind?"
"Last year's Cadillac."
"Where do you keep it?"
"In the basement. We have an underground garage."
"You ever do any repairs on it yourself?"
"Sometimes. Minor stuff."
"You own tools?"
"Some.
"Where do you keep those?"
"In the trunk of the car."
Delaney glanced at Boone.
"Mr. Bellsey," the Sergeant said, "did Ellerbee ever mention to you that he had been attacked or threatened by a patient?"
"No.
"Did you know any of his other patients?"
"No' "Did you notice any change recently in his manner or personality?"
"No, he was just the same."
"What's 'the same'?" Jason asked.
"What kind of a man was he?"
"Calm, cool, and collected. Never blew his stack. Never raised his voice.
A real put-together guy. I cursed him out once, and he never held it against me."
"Why did you curse him out?"
"I don't remember."
"When you went -out shopping today," Boone said, "what did you wear?"
"What did I wear?" Bellsey said, bewildered.
"I wore a rainhat and a lined trenchcoat."
"Galoshes? Boots?"
"No. A pair of rubbers."
"You work for a wholesale butcher?" Delaney said.
"That's right."
"What do you do-slice salami?"
"Christ, no! I'm the manager. Production manager."
"You oversee the butchers, loaders, drivers-is that it?"
"Yes.
"YOU must deal with some rough guys."
"They think they are," Bellsey said grimly.
"But they shape up or ship out."
"You ever do any boxing?" Jason Two asked.
"Some. When I was in the navy. Middleweight."
"Never professionally?"
"NO."
"You keep in shape?"
"I sure do," Bellsey boasted.
"Jog five miles twice a week.
Lift iron. Go to a health club once a week for a three-hour workout on the machines. What the hell has all this got to do with Ellerbee's murder?"
"Just asking," Jason said equably.
"You're wasting my time," Bellsey said.
"Anything else?"
"I think that's all," Delaney said.
"For now. Have a nice dinner, Mr. Bellsey."
There were other people in the elevator; they didn't talk.
But when they got into Jason's car, Sergeant Boone said, "A real sweetheart. How did you pick up on the boxing, Jose?"
"He looks like a pug. The way he stands and moves."
"We'll have to get into the trunk of that Cadillac," Delaney said.
"The ball peen. And let's try to talk to the wife when he's not around."
"You think he could be it?" Boone asked.
"Our best bet yet," Delaney said.
"A guy with a sheet, a short fuse, and he's a brawler. I think we better take a very close look at Mr. Bellsey."
That night, after dinner, he wanted to write out reports of the questioning of L. Vincent Symington and Ronald J. Bellsey. But Monica said firmly that she had to make a start on addressing Christmas cards, so he deferred to her wishes.
She sat in his swivel chair behind his desk in the study. As she worked, adding a short personal note to each card, he slumped in one of the worn club chairs, nursing a small Rum.
He told her about Symington and Bellsey.
When he finished, she said definitely, "It was Bellsey. He's the one who did it."
Delaney laughed softly.
"Why do you say that?"
"He sounds like a dreadful man."
"Oh, he is a dreadful man-but that doesn't make him a killer."
She went back to her Christmas cards. A soft cone of light shone down from a green student lamp on the desk. Delaney sat in dimness, staring with love and gratitude at the woman who brightened his life.
He saw her pursed lips as she wrote out her holiday greetings, dark eyes gleaming. Her glossy black hair was gathered in back with a gold barrette.
Strong face, strong woman. He thought of what his life would be like, sitting alone in that shadowed room, without her warm presence, and a small groan escaped him.
"What are you thinking?" she asked, without looking up.
He didn't tell her. Instead, he said, "Did you ever work a jigsaw puzzle?"
"When I was a kid."
"Me, too. Remember how you spilled all the pieces out of the box onto a tabletop, hoping none of them was missing.
Then you turned all the pieces picture-side up and looked for the four pieces with two straight edges. Those were the corners of the picture.
After you had those, you put together all the pieces with one straight edge to form the frame. Then you gradually filled in the picture."
She looked up at him.
"The Ellerbee case is a jigsaw puzzle?"
"Sort of."
"And you know what the picture is going to be?"
"No," he said with a tight smile, "but I see some straight edges."
Sunday was the best day of the week for Harold Gerber. He didn't have to see anyone; he didn't have to talk to anyone. He bought his Sunday Times on Saturday night, along with a couple of six-packs. The paper, the beer, and two pro football games on TV filled up his Sundays. He never left the house.
Gerber had lost a lot of weight in Vietnam and never put it back on. He had lost a lot of things there, including his appetite. So on Sunday morning he usually had some juice, a piece of toast and two cups of coffee with sugar and cream. That carried him through to evening, when he might heat up a frozen dinner that came in a cardboard box and tasted like the container.
For some reason, on Sundays he never got out the photographs and looked at them again. All those guys-grinning, scowling, laughing, mugging it up for the camera. Some of the photos were autographed, just like Gerber had autographed some of the shots they took of him. A family album…
It fed his fury since he couldn't comprehend it himself, Gerber could appreciate why other people were unable to understand the way he felt and why he did the things he did. Gerber couldn't figure it out, and no one else could either.
Doc Simon was coming close, really beginning to pin it down, but now Ellerbee was dead, and Gerber wasn't about to start all over again with another therapist. He had tried two before he found Ellerbee, but they had turned out to be bullshit artists, and Gerber knew after a few sessions that they weren't going to do him a damned bit of good.
Dr. Simon Ellerbee was different. No bullshit there. He went right in with a sharp scalpel, and all that blood didn't daunt him. He was tearing Harold Gerber apart and putting him back together again. But then Doc Simon got himself scragged and Gerber was alone again, with no one but ghosts for company.
The checks from his parents came regularly, every month, and he was on partial disability, so he wasn't hurting for money. Harold Gerber was just hurting for life, wondering if he was fated to drag his corpse through the world for maybe another fifty years, acting like a goddamn maniac and really wanting the whole fucking globe to blow up-the sooner the better.
That Sunday morning, driving down to Gerber's place in Greenwich Village, Delaney said to Boone, "I feel guilty about making you work this weekend. Rebecca probably thinks I'm a slave driver."
"Nah," Boone said.
"She's used to my working crazy hours. I guess every detective's wife is."
"Jason volunteered to come along, but weekends are the only chance he gets to spend some time with his sons. That's important, so I told him to stay home today. When the new guys come in, we should all be able to keep reasonable hours.
Did you find out anything about this Gerber?"
"Nothing. Suarez's men hadn't gotten around to him yet.