You wouldn't think you could get cocaine in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which Tommy had always thought of as some kind of hick city in the middle of nowhere. But Fran knew a place they could go to, and it wasn't the kind of sleazy joint you saw on television where the cops are knocking down doors and
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yelling Freeze. The one thing Tommy had learned since last September . . . well, yeah, that's right, it had been almost a year now . . . was that it wasn't only black kids doing crack in the ghettos, it was white people, too, doing coke uptown -coke didn't know about racial inequality, coke was the great emancipator. Just the way you used to have slum kids rolling marijuana joints on the street while rich people out in Malibu were offering you tailor-mades in silver cigarette boxes, it was the same thing now with cocaine. You didn't have to go smoke a five-dollar vial of crack in some shitty tenement apartment, there were places where people just like yourself could sit around in pleasant, sometimes luxurious surroundings, snorting really terrific stuff, socializing at the same time . . .
"You stupid jackass," Carella said.
"Anyway, that's how it started," Tommy said. "In Minnesota that time. And we've been doing it together since. She travels with me a lot, she knows all the places. The dangerous thing is getting caught with it, you know . . ."
Tell me about it, Carella thought.
". . . so if you don't make a buy and carry the stuff away, if instead you go to where the stuff is, one of these upscale apartments with people just like yourself ..."
Noses just like yourself, Carella thought.
"... like the one here on Laramie, for example, is really nice, we go there a lot."
"You better quit going there," Carella said. "You're already a movie star."
"Do you think you could . . .?"
"Don't even ask. Just stay away from that place. Or anyplace like it."
"I'll try."
"Never mind trying, you dumb jackass. You quit or I'll bust you myself, I promise you."
Tommy nodded.
"You hear me? You get psychiatric help, and you quit. Period."
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"Yeah." He was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Does ... did you tell Angela?"
"No."
"Are you going to?"
"That's your job."
"How do I . . .what do I. . .?"
"That's entirely up to you. You got yourself into this, you get yourself out."
"I just want you to understand," Tommy said again, "this had nothing to do with sex. Angela was wrong. This isn't like sex at all."
Yes it is, Carella thought.
Sitting here by the river, waiting for him to arrive, Eileen looked out over the water at the tugs moving slowly under the distant bridge. The place she'd chosen was a plain, unadorned seafood joint perched somewhat precariously on the end of the dock, all brown shingles and blue shutters and walls and floors that weren't quite plumb. Brown sheets of wrapping paper served as tablecloths, and waiters ran around frantically in stained white aprons. At dinnertime, the place was a madhouse. She was only meeting him for a drink, but even now, at ten past five, there was a sense of hyperkinetic preparation.
She sat at a table on the deck and breathed in deeply of air that smelled vaguely of the sea, activity swarming behind her, the river roiling below. She was feeling pretty good about herself. The minutes passed serenely.
At a quarter past five, Kling came rushing out onto the deck.
"I'm sorry I'm late," he said, "we had a. . ."
"I just got here myself," she said.
"Gee, I really am late," he said, looking at his watch. "I'm sorry, have you ordered yet?"
"I was waiting for you."
"So what would you like?" he asked, and turned to signal to one of the peripatetic waiters.
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"A white wine, please," she said.
"I saw you on television," Kling said, grinning. "We'll have a white wine and a Dewar's on the rocks, please, with a twist," he told the waiter.
"White wine, Dewar's rocks, a twist," the waiter said and went off.
"You look a little tired," he said.
"It was a long night."
"Worked out okay, though."
"Yeah, it went pretty . . ."
"The girl getting killed wasn't your fault," he said quickly.
"I know it wasn't," she said.
In fact, until this very moment, she thought she'd handled the situation in a completely pro . . .
"It was the bad guy - what was his name, Whitman . . .?"
"Whittaker," she said.
"Whittaker, who killed the girl, you had nothing to do with it, Eileen. Even that guy interviewing you on television mentioned right on the air that the girl was within minutes of safety when she got shot in the back. So don't start blaming yourself for ..."
"But I'm not," she said.
"Good, for something you didn't do. Otherwise you'll mess up a real opportunity here to start a whole new line of police work you might be very good at."
She looked at him.
"I am good at it," she said.
"I'm sure you are."
"I'm already good at it."
Who needs this? she thought.
"Bert," she said, "let's end it once and for all, okay?"
The Monday-night poker game was composed of off-duty detectives from precincts all over the city. There were usually seven players in the game, but in any case there were never fewer than six or more than eight. Eight made the game unwieldy. Also, with eight players and only fifty-two cards,
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you couldn't play a lot of the wild-card games the detectives favored. Playing poker was a form of release for them. The stakes weren't high - if you had bad luck all night long, you could maybe lose fifty, sixty dollars - and the sense of gambling in a situation where the risks weren't frightening had a certain appeal for men who sometimes had to put their lives on the line.
Meyer Meyer was debating whether or not to bet into what looked like a straight flush, but which might be only a seven-high straight, if it was a straight at all.
He decided to take the risk.
"See the buck and raise it a buck," he said.
Morris Goldstein, a detective from the Seven-Three, raised his eyebrows and puffed on his pipe. He was the one sitting there with a three, four, five, and six of clubs in front of him and maybe a deuce or a seven of clubs in the hole. He seemed surprised now that Meyer had not only seen his bet but raised it as well.
There were only three players still in the pot. Meyer, who had a full house composed of three kings and a pair of aces; Goldstein with what appeared to be a straight flush but which perhaps wasn't; and Rudy Gonsowski from the One-Oh-Three, a sure loser even if he'd tripped one of his low pairs. Goldstein puffed on his pipe and casually raised the ante another buck. He was a lousy poker player, and Meyer figured he was still trying to bluff his phony straight flush. Gonsowski dropped out, no big surprise. Meyer thought it over.
"Let's go, ladies," Parker said, "this ain't mah-jongg night."
They were playing in his apartment tonight. The two other players in the game were a detective named Henry Flannery from Headquarters Command downtown and Leo Palladino from Midtown South. They were both very good players who usually went home winners. Tonight, though, both of them were suffering losing streaks. They sat back with the impatient, bored looks of losers on their faces, waiting for Meyer to make up his mind.
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"One more time," Meyer said, and threw four fifty-cent chips into the pot.
Goldstein raised his eyebrows yet again.
He puffed solemnly on his pipe.
"And again," he said, and threw another two bucks into the pot.
Meyer figured it was time to start believing him.