by McBain, Ed
I couldn’t phone her, she wasn’t listed, but I didn’t want to walk up to her on the street, either. Hey, Katie, remember me? Remember the night you and I killed Charlie Custer? Remember the alligators eating him? A laugh riot, remember? Do you remember all of it, Katie, the way I remember all of it except when I’m lost in Dopeland? Do you remember, Katie?
I wrote her a letter.
It was dated Monday, August tenth. I know because I read it again after I broke into her apartment to get it back. I tore it up the minute I got home. Flushed the bits and pieces down the toilet. The letter said Hi, Katie, it’s good knowing you’re still alive and well. I don’t want to bother you, Katie, I know you have a new life now, but I’m in a little trouble, and maybe you can help me out. This is what it is. I need a couple of thousand dollars to square a debt. I was hoping you could ask your parents for a loan until I get on my feet again. Do you think that would be possible? I would appreciate your help. Please call me, Katie. I’m living out on Sand’s Spit just now, in a small development house. The number there is 803-7256. I mean you no harm. I just need money. Considering our past together, I feel certain you’ll help. Please call.
She never called.
I figured she must have got the letter sometime that week. Even if she got it late in the week, say Thursday or Friday, she should have called. But she didn’t.
So I wrote her a second letter. This one was dated Saturday, August fifteenth. It went down the toilet, too, right after I found it in her apartment. What it said was I really had to have the money right away because the man I owed it to was making serious threats. I told her I knew her parents were wealthy, so please ask them for it, can you? All I need is two thousand. I asked her to meet me the following Friday in Grover Park. August twenty-first. Six-thirty P.M., I said. Come in on Larson Street. Go to the third bench on the right. I’ll be sitting there waiting for you. Please bring the money. I won’t harm you, Katie. I promise. Please meet me, Katie. We are old friends. Don’t you remember, Katie? Please help me.
I was waiting there for her at six-thirty that night.
She didn’t arrive until seven. I was just about to leave. She told me she’d been walking through the park. She told me she’d been praying. Affirming that God still approved of the decision she’d made. That was the word she used. Affirming.
So here we are, she said.
Smiling. Looking serene and placid and … well … almost beatific.
She told me I was looking very good, which was a lie, and I told her I was happy she’d decided to meet me. I told her I was so surprised to learn she was a nun, had she given up singing altogether? You were such a good singer, I said.
I sing on the ward sometimes, she said. To my patients.
She told me she dealt mostly with terminally ill patients. I said I found that so hard to imagine. Katie Cochran a nun on a hospital ward? Singing to terminally ill patients? Come on, I said.
“Come on, Charlie.”
I told her I was married now and had two little girls, Josie and Jenny. My wife’s a lovely girl, Katie, I’d like you to meet her one day.
I’d love to meet her, Katie said.
I told her I was sorry I had to bother her this way but I really was in a bind.
I really need the money, I said. Really, Katie.
Katie, I’m a drug addict, I said.
I’m sorry to hear that, she said.
My wife is clean, though, totally sober. Well, she’s what you might call a recreational user, she does it just to keep me company every now and then. I told her I was in serious trouble. I told her because of the cocaine I owed close to three thousand dollars to my dealer. If I could pay him two now, he’d let the rest slide till I could get a steady gig someplace.
So did you bring the money? I asked.
Your letters sounded so threatening, she said.
No, no. I meant you no harm.
Yes, those words especially. “I mean you no harm.” Why would you want to harm me?
I don’t.
But your words. “Considering our past together.” And in the second letter, “Don’t you remember, Katie?” Such threatening words.
No, no, I didn’t mean them that way.
They frightened me, Sal. Your words. I prayed that God would forgive your words. It was odd, receiving your letters when I did. After I’d already made my decision.
Katie, did you bring the money?
I tried to get it, she said.
Tried?
I called my brother in Philadelphia. He inherited a lot of money when my parents died. They were killed in a car crash last July, Sal.
I’m sorry to hear that. But …
The Fourth of July. He inherited everything they had. I was sure he would help me. He’d helped me before, you see.
Tried? I said.
He turned me down. I’m sorry, Sal. I tried.
No! Go to him again!
He’ll refuse again. I almost knew he would, Sal. You see, God had already …
Katie, I don’t want to hear about God! Just go to your brother …
It was God who revealed the way, Sal. I prayed so hard for guidance. And at last, He forgave me. Even before I got your letters …
Damn it, Katie …
… I knew I could forgive myself. God’s will had become my will.
That same unsettling smile was on her face. This was now getting on seven-thirty, the lights had already come on in the park, the sky was beginning to deepen but she seemed to be staring into a blinding light, smiling.
I’ve forgotten the past, Sal. All of it. God has helped me do that.
No one can forget the past, I said.
I can, she said. I have. Pray to God, she said. Let him forgive you. Let him help you forget, too.
But I was remembering.
As she spewed all this religious crap, I was remembering everything that happened four years ago, on that sweltering night at the beginning of September. The noises of the night outside those French doors open to the river. The two of us in Charlie’s office, alone with him. Charlie’s obscene advances. Unzipping himself. Exposing himself to her. A young girl like Katie.
“You want this money?” Charlie asks again, and shakes the bills in Katie’s face.
Does God have two thousand dollars? I said. To pay the man who’s ready to break my fingers? My fingers! I said, and held up my hands to show them to her, waggling them in her face.
“Stop doing that,” Katie says, and flaps her hands on the air in front of her, trying to wave the money away.
My livelihood, I said. My music, Katie! My life!
I’m sorry, she said.
“Cause that’s the way it’s gonna be. Either the little girl here sucks my dick, or you don’t get paid.”
Listen to me, I said.
Forget that night, she said. Pray to God and He’ll forgive you, Sal. The way He’s forgiven me. Believe me, Sal, God will hear you!
Fuck God! I said.
She gave a shocked little cry. Her hand went to her lips.
Call your brother again, I said. Tell him I’ll go to the police. Tell him I remember it all, Katie. All of it! You hitting Charlie with the bottle, you shoving him in the river, everything! Go to him, I said. Get the money!
I can’t go to him again, she said.
Then get it someplace else! I don’t care where, just …
Sal, please. I’m a nun.
Then go to your mother superior, go to the pope, just get the fucking money. Or I’ll go to the police. I promise you. I’ll …
If anyone goes to the police …
Yes, I will, I said.
… it’ll be me, she said.
I looked at her.
I’m a nun, she said.
It was very dark on that path. The sun was gone, there was not a breeze stirring.
A nun, she said.
The leaves in the trees were still, the night was still.
Don’t make me do it, she said. You’re the on
e who killed him, Sal. You.
No.
You alone. I’m a nun.
No!
You killed him because he was …
Shut up, I whispered.
… forcing you to …
Shut up! I shouted, and grabbed her by the throat.
16
IN THE END, HE BELIEVED HIS OWN STORY,” BROWN SAID. “EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED,” Carella said. “Same with her.”
“Believed his story?”
“Believed her own story.”
Both men were a little drunk.
“Each of them rewriting what happened,” Carella said.
“Trying to change the past.”
“He shoved Charlie in the river, she shoved Charlie in the river.”
“Nobody shoved Charlie in the river.”
“Charlie jumped in the river!” Both men burst out laughing.
“Shhh,” Carella said.
Teddy was asleep upstairs, the twins were asleep just down the hall. The clock on the living room mantel read ten past ten. The detectives had each been awake since six-thirty this morning, and on the job since a quarter to eight. It had been a long, long day.
“You think she really would have gone to the police?” Carella asked.
“Oh sure. She had God on her side.”
“Didn’t help her much in the park.”
“She forgot to say ‘Sweet Jesus, help me,’ ” Brown said, and burst out laughing again.
“Shhh,” Carella said, and burst into laughter himself. Brown covered his mouth like a kid who’d uttered a dirty word. Carella cut his eyes toward the hallway. Both men were silent for a moment, and then began laughing again.
“Shhhh,” Carella said.
“Shhhh,” Brown said.
“You okay there? Let me freshen that for you.”
“Just a drop. I got to be running along. Caroline’s gonna start worrying.”
Carella went into the kitchen, poured scotch into Brown’s glass and Canadian Club into his own. Little soda in each. Fresh ice cubes. When he came back into the living room, Brown was standing at the bookcases, looking over the titles.
“You ever have time to read?” he asked.
“Not much. Except on vacation.”
“When are you taking yours?”
“Two weeks from now.”
“Where you going?”
“The shore.”
“Should be nice there.”
“Yes.” Carella held up his glass. “Here’s to golden days,” he said.
“And purple nights,” Brown said.
They drank.
“How did either of them ever expect to forget the past?” Carella asked, and sipped at his drink. “You want to know something?” he said.
“What’s that?” Brown asked, and sank into the leather easy chair under the imitation Tiffany lamp.
“I’ll be forty in October.”
“Oh boy,” Brown said.
“Forty.”
“I hear you.”
“Remember when we used to go out drinking after an important bust?”
“We’re doing that right this minute, Steve.”
“I mean in a bar. When we were young. When none of us were married. Remember that bar near the bridge? Just off Culver? All the guys on the squad used to go there and get drunk. Remember? After a big one? Kling was a patrolman back then. Hawes wasn’t even on the squad. Remember?” He nodded, remembering, and went to sit in the easy chair opposite Brown. He took a long swallow of the drink, and then sat staring into the glass. “There was a cop named Hernandez I liked a lot,” he said. “He got killed by a cheap thief who holed up in the precinct, remember? Do you remember a cop named Havilland? Roger Havilland? He was worse than Parker. Sometimes I think Parker is Havilland, come back from the dead. Remember the time that rich guy’s kid got kidnapped up in Smoke Rise? King. Douglas King. Funny how you remember the names, isn’t it? Remember the time Virginia Dodge came up to the squadroom with a bottle of nitro in her purse? Looking for me? Cause I sent her husband away? Remember? Remember the time Claire got killed in that bookshop? Kling’s girl, remember? Claire Townsend. Remember the time The Deaf Man tunneled under that bank? I’ll bet he never gets old, Artie, not The Deaf Man. Remember … Jesus, remember the times? I remember them all, Artie. I remember all of it, all of it. Every single minute. It goes by too fast, Artie. I’ll be forty in October. Where did it all go, Artie?”
He looked up.
“Artie?” he said.
Brown was snoring lightly. Sleep softened his features, giving him the appearance of a much younger man. Carella went to him, stood watching him fondly, a smile on his face. He turned out the light then, and went to phone Caroline to say that her husband was exhausted and would be spending the night there.
Sonny got to Riverhead before dawn. He parked the stolen car in an all-night garage four blocks from the Carella house, and then walked along Dover Plains Avenue toward the elevated train station, trying to look like any simple colored man shuffling to work on a Wednesday morning just like any other Wednesday morning. He walked past the steps leading up to the platform, and made a right turn into the street where Carella lived. He was a black man on foot in a white neighborhood while the sun wasn’t yet up. He hoped no cop car would go rolling by, hoped nobody peering out his window would suspect him for a burglar instead of a man about to kill a police detective. This amused him. He laughed out loud, ducked his head as if somebody had read his mind, and hurried up the street.
The Chevy he’d been following for the past little while was parked in front of Carella’s garage. This surprised him. He glanced over at the house. Not a light burning. He went straight up the grassy patch alongside the driveway, padding softly to the door on the side of the garage, between it and the house. This was the most dangerous part. This was when he could be seen from the house. But it was still dark, and he was still black—this amused him, too—and he picked the Mickey Mouse lock in nothing flat. Swiftly, he opened the door and closed it just as swiftly behind him. There were two cars in the garage, explaining why Carella had parked the battered police sedan in the drive.
Sonny took the Desert Eagle from his belt.
He looked at his watch. Ten minutes to six.
He figured in an hour or so Carella would be a dead man.
They were drinking coffee at the kitchen table when Fat Ollie Weeks called. Teddy and the twins were still asleep. The clock on the wall read 6:35 A.M.
“I figured you’d be awake,” Ollie said.
“Been up since six,” Carella said.
“I got a nun joke for you.”
“Too late. We already cracked the case.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and Artie.”
“Artie?”
“Brown.”
“Oh. Yeah. Brown,” Ollie said.
“He’s here right now,” Carella said.
“What’s he doing there?”
“We were celebrating last night,” Carella said. “Like old times.”
“But what’s he doing there?”
“He slept here.”
“He slept there?”
It was inconceivable to Ollie that any white man would allow a black man to sleep in one of his beds. Or pee in one of his toilets. Or use one of his towels. Inconceivable.
“Give him my regards,” he said, making it sound like a curse. “Meanwhile, how do you like having a black dancing partner?”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t Parker tell you?”
“No. What?”
“Sonny Cole’s following you.”
“What?”
“Sonny Cole. The guy who shot your father. He’s been tailing you.”
“If this is a joke, Ollie …”
“No joke. He’s in a green Honda, watch for it.”
“A green Honda?”
“Been on you the past two weeks.”
“How do you know this?”
“
He maybe dusted a dealer in Hightown. I caught the squeal.”
“But how do you know he …?”
“Eyes and ears of the world, m’boy, ah yes,” Ollie said. “Give him my regards, too.”
There was a click on the line.
“A green Honda?” Brown said.
“Sonny Cole driving it,” Carella said.
“What’s he fixin to do?”
“Guess,” Carella said.
Watching through the paned glass panels on the side door of the garage, Sonny saw the kitchen door of the Carella house opening, and in that same moment he opened the garage door, and stepped outside, and yanked the Desert Eagle from his belt. He was swiftly walking the ten feet from the garage to the house, ready to drop Carella in his tracks the moment he came out onto the little porch outside the kitchen, when instead out stepped the big black dude who was his partner.
Brown was coming down the steps when he spotted Sonny.
He immediately reached for his nine.
Carella came out of the house a moment later and recognized Sonny from all those days sitting in the courtroom while Henry Lowell was letting him get away with murder, and he drew his own nine at once, so now there were three nines on this bright September morning, all facing each other with nowhere to go but murder. Three nines spelling the devil’s own mischief upside down, nine, nine, nine.
“Get out the way, nigger,” Sonny said. “I got no quarrel with you.”
“I got plenty quarrel with you,” Brown said.
Carella didn’t know if he said the words or only thought them, but as he squeezed the trigger they were there.