Til Death (3 page)

“It’s your twinkling blue eyes I miss,” Carella said.

“Yeah, everybody’s charmed by my eyes. I thought your sister was getting married today.”

“She is.”

“So what can I do for you? Need a few bucks for a wedding present?”

“No. Meyer, would you take a look at the new schedule and see who’s on my team this week? I want to know who else is off today.”

“You need a fourth for bridge? Hold on a second.” He opened his top desk drawer and pulled out a clipboard to which a mimeographed sheet was attached. He studied the grid, his index finger running down the page:

“Oh, I pity these poor bastards,” Meyer said into the phone. “Having to work with a
schnook
like—”

“Come on, come on, who are they?” Carella asked.

“Kling and Hawes.”

“Have you got their home numbers handy?”

“Is there anything else you’d like, sir? Shoes shined? Pants pressed? Loan of my wife for the weekend?”

“Now that isn’t a bad idea,” Carella said, grinning.

“Hold on. You got a pencil to take this down?”

“Sarah’s number?”

“Leave Sarah out of this.”

“You were the one who brought her up.”

“Listen, horny, you want these numbers or not? We’re trying to run a tight little squad here.”

“Shoot,” Carella said, and Meyer gave him the numbers. “Thank you. Now there are a few more things I’d like you to do for me. First, will you see what you can get on a guy named Marty Sokolin. You may draw a blank because he’s a resident of California and we haven’t got time to check with the FBI. But give our own IB a buzz and see if he’s turned up here in the past few years. Most important, try to find out if he’s here now.”

“I thought this was your day off,” Meyer said wearily.

“A conscientious cop never has a day off,” Carella said conscientiously. “The last thing is this. Can you send a patrolman over to my house to pick up a note? I’d like the lab to look it over, and I’d like a report on it as soon as possible.”

“You think we’re running a private messenger service here?”

“Come on, Meyer, loosen the reins. I should be home in a half-hour or so. Try to get back to me on Sokolin before noon, will you?”

“I’ll try,” Meyer said. “What else do you do for diversion on your day off? Pistol practice?”

“Goodbye, Meyer,” Carella said. “I’ve got to call Bert and Cotton.”

Cotton Hawes was dead asleep when the telephone rang in his bachelor apartment. He heard it only vaguely and then as a distant tinkle. During World War II, he’d been the only man aboard his PT boat who’d earned the distinction of having slept through the bleatings of the alarm announcing General Quarters. He’d almost lost his Chief Torpedoman’s rating because of the incident. But the captain of the vessel was a lieutenant, JG, who’d been trained as a radar technician for the Navy’s Communications Division and who didn’t know torpedoes from toenails. He recognized, with some injury to his ego, that the man who really commanded the boat, the man who established rapport with the crew, the man who knew navigation and ballistics, was really Cotton Hawes and not himself. The JG (anachronistically called “The Old Man” by the crew, even though he was only twenty-five years old) had been a disc jockey in his home town, Schenectady, New York. He wanted only to return safely to—in order of their importance— his beloved records, his beloved MG convertible, and his beloved Annabelle Tyler whom he’d been dating since high school. He did not appreciate Naval chains of command or Naval reprimands
or Naval operations. He knew he had a job to do and he knew he could not do it without Cotton Hawes’s complete co-operation. Perhaps the Admiral would have been delighted were Hawes demoted to Torpedoman First Class. The JG didn’t much give a damn about the Admiral.

“You’ll have to watch that stuff,” he said to Hawes. “We can’t have you sleeping through another kamikaze attack.”

“No, sir,” Hawes said. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m a heavy sleeper.”

“I’m assigning a seaman to wake you whenever General Quarters is sounded. That should take care of it.”

“Yes, sir,” Hawes said. “Thank you, sir.”

“How the hell did you manage to snore through that ungodly din, Cotton? We almost had two direct hits on our bow!”

“Mike, I can’t help it,” Hawes said. “I’m a heavy sleeper.”

“Well, somebody’ll wake you from now on,” the JG said. “Let’s come through this damn thing alive, huh, Cotton?”

They came through the damn thing alive. Cotton Hawes never heard from the JG after they were separated at Lido Beach. He assumed he’d gone back to jockeying discs in Schenectady, New York. And whereas the seaman had temporarily foiled the further attempts of Japanese pilots to sink the boat, the victory over Morpheus was at best a shallow one. Cotton Hawes was still a heavy sleeper. He attributed this to the fact that he was a big man, six feet two inches tall and weighing 190 pounds. Big men, he maintained, needed a lot of sleep.

The telephone continued to tinkle somewhere in the far distance. There was movement on the bed, the creaking of springs, the rustle of the sheet being thrown back. Hawes stirred slightly. The distant tinkle was somewhat louder now. And then, added to the tinkle, came a voice fuzzy with sleep.

“Hello?” the voice said. “Who? I’m sorry, Mr. Carella, he’s asleep. Can you call back a little later? Me? I’m Christine Maxwell.”
The voice paused. “No, I don’t think I ought to wake him right now. Can he call you when he…” Christine paused again. Cotton sat up in bed. She stood naked at the telephone, the black receiver to her ear, her blonde hair pushed back to tumble over the black plastic in a riot of contrast. Delightedly, he watched her, her slender fingers curled about the telephone, the curving sweep of her arm, the long length of her body. Her brow was knotted in a frown now. Her blue eyes were puzzled.

“Well,” she said, “why didn’t you say you were from the squad to begin with? Just a moment, I’ll see if—”

“I’m up,” Hawes said from the bed.

“Just a second,” Christine said to the telephone. “He’s coming now.” She cradled the mouthpiece. “It’s a Steve Carella. He says he’s from the 87th Squad.”

“He is,” Hawes said, walking to the phone.

“Does that mean you’ll have to go in today?”

“I don’t know.”

“You promised you’d spend the day—”

“I haven’t even talked to him yet, honey.” Gently, Hawes took the phone from her hand. “Hello, Steve,” he said. He yawned.

“Did I get you out of bed?”

“Yes.”

“You busy today?”

“Yes.”

“Feel like doing me a favor?”

“No.”

“Thanks a million.”

“I’m sorry, Steve, I’ve got a date. I’m supposed to go on a boat ride up the Harb.”

“Can’t you break it? I need help.”

“If I break the date, the lady’ll break my head.” Christine, listening to the conversation, nodded emphatically.

“Come on. Big strong guy like you. You can take the girl with you.”

“Take her where?”

“To my sister’s wedding.”

“I don’t like weddings,” Hawes said. “They make me nervous.”

“Somebody’s threatened my future brother-in-law. Or at least it looks that way. I’d like a few people I can trust in the crowd. Just in case anything happens. What do you say?”

“Well…” Hawes started. Christine shook her head. “No, Steve. I’m sorry.”

“Look, Cotton, when’s the last time I asked you for a favor?”

“Well…” Hawes started, and again Christine shook her head. “I can’t, Steve.”

“There’ll be free booze,” Carella said.

“No.”

“Take the girl with you.”

“No.”

“Cotton, I’m asking a favor.”

“Just a second,” Hawes said, and he covered the mouthpiece.

“No,” Christine said immediately.

“You’re invited,” Hawes said. “To a wedding. What do you say?”

“I want to go on the boat ride. I haven’t been on a boat ride since I was eighteen.”

“We’ll go next Sunday, okay?”

“You’re not off next Sunday.”

“Well, the first Sunday I
am
off, okay?”

“No.”

“Christine?”

“No.”

“Honey?”

“Oh, damnit.”

“All right?”

“Damnit,” Christine said again.

“Steve,” Hawes said into the phone, “we’ll come.”

“Damnit,” Christine said.

“Where do you want us to meet you?”

“Can you come over to my place at about noon?”

“Sure. What’s the address?”

“837 Dartmouth. In Riverhead.”

“We’ll be there.”

“Thanks a lot, Cotton.”

“Send flowers to my funeral,” Hawes said, and he hung up.

Christine stood fuming by the telephone, her arms crossed over her breasts. Hawes reached for her and she said, “Don’t touch me, Mr. Hawes.”

“Honey…”

“Don’t
honey
me.”

“Christine, honey, he’s in a jam.”

“You promised we would go on this boat ride. I made the arrangements
three weeks
ago. Now—”

“This is something I couldn’t avoid. Look, Carella happens to be a friend of mine. And he needs help.”

“And what am I?”

“The girl I love,” Hawes said. He took her into his arms.

“Sure,” Christine answered coldly.

“You know I love you.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

“Sure. You love me, all right. I’m just the merry widow, to you. I’m just the girl you…”

“You’re a very lovely widow.”

“…picked up in a bookshop.”

“It’s a very lovely bookshop,” Hawes said, and he kissed the top of her head. “You’ve got nice soft hair.”

“I’m not quite as alone in the world as you may think,” Christine said, her arms still folded across her breasts. “I could have got a hundred men to take me on this boat ride.”

“I know,” he said, and he kissed her earlobe.

“You louse,” she said. “It just happens that I love you.”

“I know.” He kissed her neck.

“Stop that.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“Why?”

“Stop it,” she said, but her voice was gentler, and her arms were beginning to relax. “We have to go to your friend’s house, don’t we?”

“Not until noon.”

Christine was silent. “I do love you,” she said.

“And I love you.”

“I’ll bet you do. I’ll just bet you—”

“Shhh, shhh,” he said, and he sought her mouth, and she brought her arms up around his neck. He clung to her, his big hands twisting in the long blonde hair. He kissed her again, and she buried her face in his shoulder, and he said, “Come. Come with me.”

“Your friend. There isn’t time…”

“There’s time.”

“We have to…”

“There’s time.”

“But won’t we…?”

“There’s time,” he said gently.

Bert Kling was reading the Sunday comics when Carella’s call came. He took a last wistful look at Dick Tracy’s wrist radio and then went to answer the phone.

“Bert Kling,” he said.

“Hi, Bert. This is Steve.”

“Uh-oh,” Kling said immediately.

“You busy?”

“I won’t answer any leading questions. What happened? What do you want?”

“Don’t be so brusque. Brusqueness is not flattering to youth.”

“Do I have to go to the squad?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“My sister’s getting married this afternoon. The groom received what could amount to a threatening note.”

“Yeah? Why doesn’t he call the police?”

“He did. And now I’m calling you. Feel like going to a wedding?”

“When? What time?”

“Can you be here at twelve?”

“I’ve got to pick up Claire at nine tonight. There’s a movie she wants to see.”

“Okay.”

“Where are you now?” Kling asked.

“Home. 837 Dartmouth. In Riverhead. Can you be here by noon?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you.”

“Bert?”

“What?”

“Bring your gun.”

“Okay,” Kling said, and he hung up. He walked back to the newspaper. He was a tall blond man of twenty-five years, and he
looked younger in his undershorts because his legs were covered with a light blond fuzz. He curled up in the armchair, studying the wrist radio design again, and then he decided to call Claire. He went to the telephone and dialed her number.

“Claire,” he said, “this is Bert.”

“Hello, lover.”

“I’m going to a wedding this afternoon.”

“Not your own, I hope.”

“No. Steve’s sister. You want to come?”

“I can’t. I told you that I’ve got to drive my father out to the cemetery.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Okay, I’ll see you at nine then, okay?”

“Right. This movie’s at a drive-in. Is that all right?”

“That’s fine. We can neck if it gets dull.”

“We can neck even if it doesn’t get dull.”

“What’s the picture anyway?”

“It’s an old one,” Claire said, “but I think you’ll enjoy it.”

“What is it?”

“Dragnet,”
she answered.

The packet from the Bureau of Criminal Identification arrived at the squadroom at 10:37
A.M.

Meyer Meyer was, in truth, surprised to see it. The chances of this Marty Whatever-His-Name-Was having a record were pretty slim to begin with. Add to that the possibility of his having a record in
this
city, and the chances were beyond the realm of plausibility. But record he had, and the record was in the voluminous files of the IB, and now a photostated copy of the file rested on Meyer’s desk, and he leafed through it leisurely.