Got a menu asking him to choose among HEAD, TRUNK, or EXTREMITIES.
Hit EXTREMITIES.
Was asked to choose between ARMS or LEGS.
Hit LEGS.
Knew what he was going to be asked before it popped up on the screen, and was not surprised.
He hit RIGHT.
Got a list as long as a prison night.
He’d be here all next week looking through all these records, maybe five or six hundred of them. Who’d have dreamt there were so many cons with injuries to the right leg, and how in hell was he supposed to find the man among them who’d…
Wait a minute, he was looking in the wrong place.
In this state, a term of post-release supervision was mandatory for every determinate sentence. For example, a Class B felony was punishable by an incarceration period of five to twenty-five years. If you were paroled, you had to be supervised on the outside for a period of from two and a half to five years. On the other hand, for a Class E felony, you could be sent up for a term of a year and a half to four years, but after parole, you had to report to your parole officer for at least a year and a half or as long as three years. The message was the same one it had always been: If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
Carella logged off the prison system, clicked on DIVISION OF PAROLE, was asked for his online name and password, gave them STEPHEN L. CARELLA and then his shield number, 714-5632, and waited for clearance. When he was online, he asked for a search going back five years.
When prompted for the NAME of the parolee, he typed UNKNOWN.
OFFENSE?
He typed UNKNOWN.
SCARS, TATTOOS, OTHER DISTINGUISHING MARKS?
He typed LEFTHANDED.
DISABILITIES OR INFIRMITIES?
He typed INJURY TO RIGHT LEG, and got INVALID ANSWER and the same question again: DISABILITIES OR INFIRMITIES?
This time he typed LIMP, and hit the jackpot.
There were currently seven left-handed cons on parole from various prisons around the state, all of them with leg injuries. Four of these were injuries to the left leg. The remaining three were injuries to the right leg.
One of these injuries was sustained in the machine shop at Castleview State Penitentiary, when the heavy metal die for manufacturing license plates fell on the inmate’s foot, fracturing his ankle bone. The inmate had subsequently sued the state, Carella noticed. And lost, by the way. He’d been released from prison two years ago, and had since got hit by a bus that fractured his skull and caused his untimely demise. Carella figured some guys were just born losers.
The other two men were still alive.
Carella hit the PRINT button.
SHE ACTUALLYheard the key being inserted in the lock.
Heard the tiny click of the key being turned.
Heard some fumbling outside the door, and then the door opened and standing in the door frame was Saddam Hussein.
Carrying the big rifle.
None of them came into the room without a weapon. Must have thought she was extremely dangerous, handcuffed to the radiator this way. Maybe they’d caught a glimpse of “Bandersnatch” before they came down the stairs all macho-men, “Don’t nobody fuckingmove! ” Weapons of mass destruction in their hands. Same as now. Maybe they’d seen her reach for the invisible vorpal sword and beat the shit out of the frumious beast.
Hussein closed the door behind him, came limping across the floor towards her, dragging his right foot.
She could still remember him slapping her.
She almost flinched as he approached.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, and stopped just a few feet away from her.
She said nothing.
Realized she was cowering, tried to straighten her shoulders, realized this emphasized the thrust of her breasts, hunched over again. Behind the Hussein mask, his eyes were bright and blue. He held the AK-47 in his left hand.
“I wanted to tell you how sorry I am,” he said.
I’ll bet, she thought.
“For hitting you the other night.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “Forget it.”
“No, really,” he said, and knelt beside her on the floor. “I got a little excited, is all.”
He’s sitting too close, she thought. Watch it, Tamar.
“What can I do for you? To make you more comfortable,” he said, and put his right hand on her exposed knee.
“No, don’t,” she said, and turned her body away, into the radiator.
“Sorr-eee,” he said, and pulled back his hand as if he’d burned it. “Just trying to be helpful.”
How about unlocking this handcuff? she thought.
Only way out of here is to get hold of the gun, she thought.
Any one of the guns.
They all have guns around here.
“My wrist hurts,” she said.
“Ahh,” he said. “Want me to rub it for you?”
“Be better if you took off the handcuff,” she said.
“But I don’t have a key,” he said, and put his hand on her knee again.
This time, she did not tell him to stop.
“Why don’t you go get the key?” she asked. “It’s very uncomfortable this way.”
“Avery has the key,” he said.
Avery, she thought. A name.
He did not seem to realize he’d slipped.
“Go ask him for it,” she said.
His hand slid onto her thigh.
“No, don’t,” she said. “Not now. Go get the key first. Take off this damn handcuff,” she said, and smiled.
“How does it feel to be dancing in front of people half-naked that way?” he asked. His eyes were shining bright in the holes of the mask. His hand on her thigh was trembling.
“Go get the key,” she said. “I’ll dance for you.”
“I could fuck you without having to go for the key,” he said. His voice was trembling, too.
“Be better if I’m loose,” she whispered.
“You promise?” he said, and his hand tightened on her thigh.
“I promise,” she said, and licked her lips.
He rose abruptly. Almost scrambled to his feet.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and hurried to the door, the rifle in his left hand.
Don’t forget to bring your gun, she thought.
The door closed behind him.
She heard the soft click of the lock again.
Now she was trembling, too.
ONE CERTAIN AXIOMof this city is that you will never find a homeless shelter, a rehab center, or a parole office in a good neighborhood. If you’re apartment-hunting, and you ask the real estate agent about the nearest location of any of these places, and she replies, “Why, right around the corner, dearie!” then what you do is hike up your skirts and run for the hills because the onliest place you don’t wish to live is right here, honey.
Early that Tuesday afternoon, Carella and Hawes visited a parole office in a downtown neighborhood that they could best describe as “indifferent to law enforcement,” but perhaps this was a hasty judgment premised on the presence of hookers and drug dealers on every street corner. By oneP.M. , they had driven across the river and into the trees of a delightful Calm’s Point enclave known as Sunrise Shores because once upon a time it had indeed been an elegant waterfront community that faced the sun coming up over a bend in the River Dix.
The neighborhood had long ago been overrun by street gangs who’d once been content to rumble among themselves for the sheer joy of claiming worthless turf or second-hand virgins, but who had since graduated into selling dope on a large scale, and were now killing each other and innocent bystanders in drive-by shootings that made it dangerous to go to the corner grocery store for a pack of cigarettes.
The Sunrise Shores parole office was above one such grocery store, outside which a huddle of teenagers who should have known better were smoking their brains out—and don’t write me letters, Carella thought. There were two ways you walked in a neighborhood like this one, even if you were a cop. You either pretended you were invisible, or you pretended you had dynamite strapped to your waist under your jacket. Shoulders back, heads erect, both detectives strutted like walking bombs to the narrow doorway alongside the grocery store. The guys smoking outside figured these dudes were ex-cons here to make their scheduled visits, so they left them alone. So much for Actors Studio exercises, Carella thought, and went up a stairway stinking of piss, Hawes sniffing along haughtily behind him. On the second floor, they found a wooden door with a frosted glass panel lettered with the words: