This time the doorman was with them.
His name was Ahmad Something. Carella had written down the last name, but he couldn't pronounce it. Short and squat and dust-colored, narrow mustache over his upper lip, looking like a member of the palace guard in his gray uniform with its red trim. Squinting, straining hard to understand what they were saying.
"Did you let anyone into the apartment?"
"Dunn remembah," he said.
Thick Middle Eastern accent. They had not asked him where he was from. Carella was wondering if they'd need a translator here.
"Try to remember," he said.
"Many peckages always," he said, and shrugged helplessly.
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"This would've been sometime in the late afternoon, early evening."
The medical examiner had set the postmortem interval at two to three hours. That would've put the stabbing at sometime between five and six o'clock. The doorman looked only puzzled. Carella guessed he was unfamiliar with the words "afternoon" and "evening."
"Five o'clock," he said. "Six o'clock. Were you working then?"
"Yes, working," the doorman said.
"Okay, did anyone come to the door and ask for Miss Brauer?"
"Dunn remembah."
"This is important," Brown said.
"Yes."
"This woman was killed."
"Yes."
"We're trying to find whoever killed her."
"Yes."
"So will you help us, please? Will you try to remember whether you let anyone go up?"
There was something in his eyes. Carella caught it first, Brown caught it a split second later.
"What are you afraid of?"
The doorman shook his head.
"Tell us."
"Saw nobody," he said.
But he had. They knew he had.
"What is it?" Carella asked.
The doorman shook his head again.
"You want to come to the station house with us?" Brown said.
"Hold off a second, Artie," Carella said.
Good Cop/Bad Cop. No need to signal for the curtain to go up, they both knew the act by heart.
"Hold off, sheeee-it," Brown said, doing his Big Bad Leroy imitation. "The man here is lying in his teeth."
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"The man's afraid, is all," Carella said. "Isn't that right, sir?"
The doorman nodded. Then he shook his head. Then he nodded again.
"Let's go, mister," Brown said, and reached for the handcuffs hanging from his belt.
"Hold off, Artie," Carella said "What is it, sir?" he asked gently. "Please tell me why you're so afraid."
The doorman looked as if he might burst into tears at any moment. His little mustache quivered, his brown eyes moistened.
"Sit down, sir," Carella said. "Artie, put those goddamn cuffs away!"
The doorman sat on the black leather sofa. Carella sat beside him. Brown scowled and hung the cuffs on his belt again.
"Now tell me," Carella said gently. "Please."
What it was, the doorman was an illegal alien. He had purchased a phony green card and social-security card for twenty bucks each, and he was scared to death that if he got involved in any of this, the authorities would find out about him and send him back home. Back home was Iran. He knew how Americans felt about Iranians. If he got involved in this, they would start blaming him for what had happened to the girl. He just didn't want to get involved. All of this in a broken English on the edge of tears. Carella was thinking that for an illegal alien, Ahmad was learning very fast; nobody in this city wanted to get involved.
"So tell me," he said, "did you send someone up to Miss Brauer's apartment?"
Ahmad had said everything he was going to say. Now he stared off into space like a mystic.
"We won't bother you about the green card," Carella said. "You don't have to worry about the green card. Just tell us what happened that afternoon, okay?"
Ahmad kept staring.
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Okay, you little shit," Brown said, "off we go," and he reached for the cuffs again.
"Well, I did my best," Carella said, and sighed heavily. "He's all yours, Artie."
"Vittoria," Ahmad said.
"What?" Carella said.
"Her name," Ahmad said.
"Whose name?"
"The woman who comes."
"What woman who comes?" Brown asked.
"That day."
"A woman came that day?"
"Yes."
"Say her name again."
"Vittoria."
"Are you saying Victoria?"
"Yes. Vittoria."
"Her name was Victoria?"
"Yes."
"Victoria what?"
"Seegah."
"What?"
"Seegah."
"How are you spelling that?"
Ahmad looked at them blankly.
"How's he spelling that, Steve?"
"Is that an S?" Carella asked.
Ahmad shrugged. "Seegah," he said.
"What'd she look like?"
"Tall," Ahmad said. "Tin."
"Thin?"
"Tin, yes."
"White or black?"
"White."
"What color hair?"
"I don' know. She is wearing . . ."
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He searched for the word, gave up, mimed pulling a kerchief over his head and tying it under his chin.
"A scarf?" Brown asked.
"Yes."
"What color eyes?" Carella asked.
"She has glasses."
"She was wearing glasses?"
"Yes."
"Well, couldn't you see the color of . . .?"
"Dark glass."
"Sunglasses? She was wearing sunglasses?"
"Yes."
"What else was she wearing?"
"Pants. Shirt."
"What color?"
"Sand color."
"What'd she say?"
"Says Vittoria Seegah. Tell Miss Brauer."
"Tell her what?"
"Vittoria Seegah here."
"Did you tell her?"
"Tell her, yes."
"Then what?"
"She tell me send up."
"And did she go up?"
"Yes. Go elevator."
"How are you spelling that?" Brown asked again. "S-E-E-G?"
"Seegah," Ahmad said.
"What time was this?" Carella asked. "That she went upstairs?"
"Five. Little more."
"A little past five?"
"Yes. Little past."
"Did you see her when she came down?"
"Yes."
"When was that?"
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"Six."
"Exactly six?"
"Little past."
"So she was up there a full hour, huh?"
Ahmad went blank.
"Did you look at your watch?"
"No."
"You're just estimating?"
The blank look.
"Any blood on her clothes?"
"No."
"What else do you remember about her?"
"Bag. Market bag."
"She was carrying a bag?"
"Yes."
"A what bag?" Brown asked.
"Market bag."
"You mean a shopping bag?"
"Yes. Shopping bag."
"Did you see what was in the bag?"
"No."
"Went upstairs with it?"
"Yes."
"Came back down with it?"
"Yes."
"Can you try spelling that name for us?" Carella said.
Ahmad went blank again.
Brown shook his head. "Seeger," he said.
Which was close, but - as they say - no see-gah.
There were thirty-eight Seegers, Seigers, and Siegers listed in the telephone directories for all five sections of the city, but none of them was a Victoria. There were eight Seagers and eleven Seagrams. Again, no Victorias. There were hundreds and hundreds of Seegals and Segals and Segels and Seigals and Seigels and Siegels and Siegles and Sigals and Sigalls. One of them was a Victoria and seven of them were listed as
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merely Vs. But the posssibility existed that a Victoria might be residing at any one of the addresses listed for a Mark or a Harry or an Isabel or a Whoever.