I put a dime in the phone and dialed the number. It rang four or five times, and then she picked it up and said hello. I don't know what the hell else I expected. I didn't say anything, and she said hello a second time and broke the connection.
I felt tight across my upper back and in my shoulders. I wanted to go to some bucket of blood and get in a fight. I wanted to hit something.
Where had the anger come from? I wanted to go up there and pull him off of her and hit him in the face, but what the hell had he done? A few days ago I'd been angry with him for neglecting her. Now I was enraged because he wasn't.
Was I jealous?But why? I wasn't interested in her.
Crazy.
I went and looked at her window again. The light was still out. An ambulance fromRoosevelt sped downNinth Avenue, its siren wailing. Rock music blared on the radio of a car waiting for the light to change. Then the car sped away and the ambulance siren faded in the distance, and for a moment the city seemed utterly silent. Then the silence, too, was gone, as I became aware again of all the background noises that never completely disappear.
That song Keegan had played for me came into my mind. Not all of it. I couldn't get the tune right and I only remembered snatches of the lyrics.Something about a night of poetry and poses. Well, you could call it that. And knowing you're all alone when the sacredginmill closes.
I picked up some beer on the way home.
Chapter 19
The Sixth Precinct is housed onWest Tenth Street betweenBleecker and Hudson, in the Village. Years before, when I did a tour of duty there, it was in an ornate structure farther west onCharles Street. That building has since been converted into co-op apartments, and named the Gendarme.
The new station house is an ugly modern building that no one will ever carve into apartments. I was there a little before noon on Tuesday and I walked past the front desk and straight to Eddie Koehler's office. I didn't have to ask, I knew where it was.
He looked up from a report he'd been reading, blinked at me. "Thing about that door," he said, "anybody could walk through it."
"You're looking good, Eddie."
"Well, you know. Clean living. Sit down, Matt."
I sat, and we talked a little. We went back a long ways, Eddie and I. When the small talk faded, he said, "You just happened to be in the neighborhood, right?"
"I just thought of you and figured you needed a new hat."
"In this weather?"
"Maybe a panama.Nice straw, keep the sun off."
"Maybe a pith helmet.But inthith neighborhood," he said, "Thomeof thegirlth would make dirtycrackth."
I had my notebook out. "A license number," I said. "I thought maybe you could check it for me."
"You mean call Motor Vehicles?"
"First check the hot-car sheet."
"What's it, a hit-and-run? Your client wants to know who hit him, maybe take quiet cash instead of press charges?"
"You've got a great imagination."
"You got a license number and I should check the hot cars before anything else? Shit. What's the number?"
I read it out to him. He jotted it down and pushed away from his desk. "Be a minute," he said.
While he was gone I looked at my ear drawings. Ears really do look different. The thing is you have to train yourself to notice them.
He wasn't gone long. He came back and dropped into his swivel chair. "Not on the sheet," he said.
"Could you check the registration with Motor Vehicles?"
"I could, but I don't have to. They don't always get on the sheet so quick. So I called in, and it's hot, all right, it'll be listed on the next sheet. It was phoned in last night, stolen late afternoon or early evening."
"It figured," I said.
" 'Seventy-three Mercury, right? Sedan, dark blue?"
"That's right."
"That what you wanted?"
"Where was it stolen from?"
"Somewhere inBrooklyn.Ocean Parkway, the high numbers, it must be pretty far out."
"Makes sense."
"It does?" he said. "Why?"
I shook my head. "It's nothing," I said. "I thought the car might be important, but if it's stolen it doesn't lead anywhere." I took out my wallet, drew out a twenty and a five, the traditional price of a hat in police parlance. I put the bills on his desk. He covered them with his hand but did not pick them up.
"Now I got a question," he said.
"Oh?"
"Why?"
"That's private," I said. "I'm working for someone, I can't-"
He was shaking his head. "Why spend twenty-five dollars on something youcoulda got for nothing over the telephone? Jesus Christ, Matt, how many years did you carry a shield that you don't remember how to get a listing out of the DMV? You call up, you identify yourself,you know the drill, don't you?"
"I thought it was hot."
"So you want to check hot cars first, you call somebody in the Department. You're a police officer on a stakeout, whatever you want to say, you just spotted a car you think might be hot, and could they check it for you? That saves you running down here and saves you the price of a hat on top of it."
"That's impersonating an officer," I said.
"Oh, really?"He patted the money. "This," he said, "is bribing an officer, you want to get technical. You pick a funny place to draw the line."
The conversation was making me uncomfortable. I had impersonated an officer less than twelve hours ago, getting Carolyn Cheatham's unlisted number from Information. I said, "Maybe I missed the sight of you, Eddie.How's that?"
"Maybe.Maybe your brain's getting rusty."
"That's possible."
"Maybe you should lay off the booze and rejoin the human race. Is that possible?"
I stood up."Always a pleasure, Eddie." He had more to say, but I didn't have to stay there and listen to it.
There was a church nearby, Saint Veronica's, a red-brick pile onChristopher Street near the river. A derelict had arrangedhimself on the steps, an empty bottle of Night Train still clutched in his hand. The thought came to me that Eddie had phoned ahead and had the man placed there, a grim example of what could lie in store for me. I didn't know whether to laugh or to shudder.
I climbed the steps and went inside. The church was cavernous and empty. I found a seat and closed my eyes for a minute. I thought about my two clients, Tommy and Skip, and the ineffectual work I was performing for each of them. Tommy didn't need my help and wasn't getting it. As for Skip, perhaps I'd helped make the exchange go smoothly, but I'd made mistakes. For God's sake, I should have had Billie and Bobby taking down license numbers, I shouldn't have left it for Billie to think of on his own.
I was almost glad the car had turned out to be stolen. So that Keegan's clue wouldn't lead anywhere and my lack of foresight would be less significant.
Stupid.Anyway, I'd posted them there, hadn't I? They wouldn't have seen the car, let alone got the number, if they'd been withKasabian on the other side of the block.
I went and put a dollar in the slot and lit a candle. A woman was kneeling a few yards to my left. When she rose to her full height I saw she was a transsexual. She stood two inches taller than I. Her features were a mix of Latin and Oriental, her shoulders and upper arms were muscular, and her breasts were the size of cantaloupes, straining thepolkadot sun halter.
"Well, hello," she said.
"Hello."
"Have you come to light a candle to Saint Veronica? Do you know anything about her?"
"No."
"Neither doI. But I prefer to think of her"- she arranged a strand of hair to fall across her forehead- "asSaintVeronicaLake."
THE N train took me to within a few blocks of the church atOvingtonand Eighteenth Avenue. A rather scattered woman in paint-spattered jeans and an army shirt pointed me to the pastor's office. There was no one at the desk, just a pudgy young man with an open freckled face. He had one foot on the arm of a chair and was tuning a guitar.