“We’ll worry about that when we get there.”

  “You’re wasting your time, Carella, and you know it.”

  The men stared at each other. There was a faintly superior smirk on Elliot’s mouth, a confident challenge in his eyes. Against his better judgment, Carella decided to pick up the gauntlet.

  “Your ankle isn’t sprained,” he said. “Buenavista Hospital reports having treated you for third-degree burns on April nineteenth, the morning after the murder.”

  “I’ve never been to Buenavista Hospital in my life.”

  “Then someone’s been using your name around town, Elliot.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “You want to unwrap that bandage and show me your foot?”

  “No.”

  “Am I going to need another warrant?”

  “Yes. Why don’t you just go get yourself one?”

  “There were remains of a small fire in one of the rooms…”

  “Go get your warrant. I think we’re finished talking.”

  “Is that where you had your accident, Elliot? Is that where you burned your foot?”

  “I’ve got nothing more to say to you.”

  “Okay, have it your way,” Carella said angrily, and opened the front door. “I’ll be back.”

  He slammed the door shut behind him and went out onto the street, no closer to a solution than he had been when he walked into the shop. There were three incontrovertible facts that added up to evidence of a sort, but unfortunately not enough evidence for an arrest. The sneaker found in that tenement was unquestionably Elliot’s. It had been found in the corner of a room that contained the dead ashes of a recent fire. And Elliot had been treated for burns on April 19, the morning after the murder. Carella had hoped Elliot might be intimidated by these three seemingly related facts, and then either volunteer a confession or blurt out something that would move the investigation onto firmer ground. But Elliot had called the bluff. A charge on the basis of the existing evidence alone would be kicked out of court in three minutes flat. Moreover, Elliot’s rights were securely protected; if arrested, he would have to be warned against saying anything self-incriminating, and would undoubtedly refuse to answer any questions without an attorney present. Once a lawyer entered the squadroom, he would most certainly advise Elliot to remain silent, which would take them right back to where they’d started: a charge of murder based on evidence that indicated only possible presence at the scene of a crime.

  Carella walked rapidly toward his parked car.

  He was certain of only one thing: if Sanford Elliot really knew nothing at all about what had happened on the fifth floor of 433 North Harrison on the night of April 18, he would be answering any and all questions willingly and honestly. But he was not answering willingly, and he was lying whenever he did answer. Which brought Carella to the little lady with the long brown hair, the frightened brown eyes, and the face of an angel—Mary Margaret Ryan, as sweet a young lass as had ever crossed herself in the anonymous darkness of a confessional. Mary Margaret Ryan, bless her soul, had told Carella that she and Elliot had come down from Boston late Monday night. But Elliot’s foot had been treated at Buenavista on Monday morning. Which meant that Mary Margaret perhaps had something to tell her priest the next time she saw him. In the meantime, seeing as how Mary Margaret was a frightened, slender little wisp of a thing, Carella decided it was worth trying to frighten her a hell of a lot more.

  He slammed the door of his car, stuck the key into the ignition switch, and started the engine.

  The trouble was, Kling could not stop staring at her.

  He had picked up Augusta at six o’clock sharp, and whereas she had warned him about the way she might look after a full day’s shooting, she looked nothing less than radiant. Red hair still a bit damp (she confessed to having caught a quick shower in Jerry Bloom’s own executive washroom), she came into the reception room to meet Kling, extended her hand to him, and then offered her cheek for a kiss he only belatedly realized was expected. Her cheek was cool and smooth, there was not a trace of makeup on her face except for the pale green shadow on her eyelids, the brownish liner just above her lashes. Her hair was brushed straight back from her forehead, falling to her shoulders without a part. She was wearing blue jeans, sandals, and a ribbed jersey top without a bra. A blue leather bag was slung over her right shoulder, but she shifted it immediately to the shoulder opposite, looped her right hand through his arm, and said, “Were you waiting long?”

  “No, I just got here.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No. What do you mean?”

  “The way you’re looking at me.”

  “No. No, no, everything’s fine.”

  But he could not stop staring at her. The film they went to see was Bullitt, which Kling had seen the first time it played the circuit, but which Augusta was intent on seeing in the presence of a real cop. Kling hesitated to tell her that, real cop or not, the first time he’d seen Bullitt he hadn’t for a moment known what the hell was going on. He had come out of the theater grateful that he hadn’t been the cop assigned to the case, partially because he wouldn’t have known where to begin unraveling it, and partially because fast car rides made him dizzy. He didn’t know what the movie was about this time either, but not because of any devious motivation or complicated plot twists. The simple fact was that he didn’t watch the picture; he watched Augusta instead. It was dark when they came out into the street. They walked in silence for several moments, and then Augusta said, “Listen, I think we’d better get something straight right away.”

  “What’s that?” he said, afraid she would tell him she was married, or engaged, or living with a high-priced photographer.

  “I know I’m beautiful,” she said.

  “What?” he said.

  “Bert,” she said, “I’m a model, and I get paid for being beautiful. It makes me very nervous to have you staring at me all the time.”

  “Okay, I won’t…”

  “No, please let me finish…”

  “I thought you were finished.”

  “No. I want to get this settled.”

  “It’s settled,” he said. “Now we both know you’re beautiful.” He hesitated just an instant, and then added, “And modest besides.”

  “Oh, boy,” she said. “I’m trying to relate as a goddamn person, and you’re…”

  “I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable,” he said. “But the truth is…”

  “Yes, what’s the truth?” Augusta said. “Let’s at least start with the truth, okay?”

  “The truth is I’ve never in my life been out with a girl as beautiful as you are, that’s the truth. And I can’t get over it. So I keep staring at you. That’s the truth.”

  “Well, you’ll have to get over it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think you’re beautiful, too,” Augusta said, “and we’d have one hell of a relationship if all we did was sit around and stare at each other all the time.”

  She stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. Kling searched her face, hoping she would recognize that this was not the same as staring.

  “I mean,” she said, “I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, and I’d like to think I’m permitted to sweat every now and then. I do sweat, you know.”

  “Yes, I suppose you do,” he said, and smiled.

  “Okay?” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s eat,” she said. “I’m famished.”

  It was Detective-Lieutenant Peter Byrnes himself who identified the photostat of the silent silver-screen star. This was only reasonable, since he was the oldest man on the squad.

  “This is Vilma Banky,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” Meyer asked.

  “Positive. I saw her in The Awakening, and I also saw her in Two Lovers with Ronald Colman.” Byrnes cleared his throat. “I was, naturally, a very small child at the time.”

  “Naturally,” Meyer said.

  “Banky,” Hawes said. “He can’t be that goddamn corny, can he?”

  “What do you mean?” Byrnes said.

  “He isn’t telling us it’s a bank, is he?”

  “I’ll bet he is,” Meyer said. “Of course he is.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Byrnes said. “Put it up there on the bulletin board with the rest of them, Meyer. Let’s see what else we’ve got here.” He watched as Meyer tacked the picture to the end of the row. Two of Hoover, two of Washington, two of a Japanese Zero, and now Miss Banky. “All right, let’s dope it out,” Byrnes said.

  “It’s her last name,” Hawes said. “Maybe we’re supposed to put together all the last names.”

  “Yeah,” Meyer said. “And come up with the name of the bank.”

  “Right, right.”

  “Hoover Washington Zero Bank,” Byrnes said. “That’s some bank.”

  “Or maybe the first names,” Hawes suggested.

  “John George Japanese Bank,” Byrnes said. “Even better.”

  The men looked at the photostats and then looked at each other.

  “Listen, let’s not…”

  “Right, right.”

  “He’s not that smart. If he doped it out, we can dope it out.”

  “Right.”

  “So it isn’t the last names, and it isn’t the first names.”

  “So what is it?” Byrnes said.

  “I don’t know,” Hawes said.

  “Anyway, Cotton, he is that smart,” Meyer said.

  “That’s right, he is,” Byrnes said.

  The men looked at the photostats again.

  “J. Edgar Hoover,” Hawes said.

  “Right.”

  “Director of the FBI.”

  “Right.”

  “George Washington.”

  “Right, right.”

  “Father of the country.”

  “Which gives us nothing,” Byrnes said.

  “Zero,” Meyer said.

  “Exactly,” Byrnes said.

  “Let’s start from the beginning,” Hawes said. “The first picture we got was Hoover’s, right?”

  “Mmm.”

  “And then Washington and the Zero,” Meyer said.

  “All right, let’s associate,” Hawes said.

  “What?”

  “Let’s free-associate. What do you think of when I say Washington?”

  “General.”

  “President.”

  “Martha.”

  “Mount Vernon.”

  “D.C.”

  “State of.”

  “Let’s take it back. General.”

  “Revolution.”

  “Valley Forge.”

  “Delaware.”

  “Cherry tree,” Meyer said.

  “Cherry tree?”

  “He chopped down a cherry tree, didn’t he?”

  “How about president? What can we get from that?”

  “Chief Executive.”

  “Commander in Chief.”

  “We’re getting no place,” Byrnes said.

  “How about Hoover?”

  “FBI.”

  “Federal Bureau of…”

  “Federal!” Hawes said, and snapped his fingers. “A federal bank!”

  “Yes,” Byrnes said, and nodded, and the men fell silent.

  “A federal bank in Washington?”

  “Then why bother us with it?”

  “What about the Zero?”

  “Never mind the Zero, let’s get back to Washington.”

  “No, wait a minute, maybe the Zero’s important.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s try it. Zero.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Goose egg.”

  “Zip.”

  “Zed.”

  “Zed?”

  “Isn’t that what they say in England?”

  “For zero? I don’t think so.”

  “Zero, zero…”

  “Zero, one, two, three, four…”

  “Love,” Meyer said.

  “Love?”

  “That’s zero in a tennis match.”

  “Let’s get back to Washington.”

  “It has to be a federal bank in Washington,” Byrnes said.

  “Then why send us a picture of Washington himself? If he’s trying to identify a place…”

  “A bank is a place, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but wouldn’t it have been easier to send a picture of the White House or the Capitol dome or…”

  “Who says he’s trying to make it easy?”

  “All right, let’s see what we’ve got so far, all right? Federal Washington Zero Bank.”

  “Come on, Cotton, that doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  “I know it doesn’t, but that’s the order they arrived in, so maybe…”

  “Who says there has to be any special order?”

  “Bank came last, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “So that’s where I’ve put it. Last.”

  “And Hoover came first,” Meyer said. “So what?”

  “So that’s where I’ve put him.”

  “Federal Washington Zero Bank. It still doesn’t make sense.”

  “Suppose the Zero means nothing at all? Literally zero. Suppose it’s just there to be canceled out?”

  “Try it.”

  “Federal Washington Bank.”

  “That’s just what I said,” Byrnes said. “A federal bank in Washington.”

  “If the bank’s in Washington, why’s he telling us about it?”

  “Washington,” Hawes said.

  “Here we go again,” Meyer said.

  “Washington.”

  “President?”

  “Federal President Bank?”

  “No, no.”

  “General?”

  “Federal General Bank?”

  “Federal Martha Bank?”

  “What the hell was he besides a general and the first president of the United…”

  “First Federal Bank,” Meyer said.

  “What?”

  “First president, First goddamn Federal Bank!”

  “That’s it,” Byrnes said.

  “That’s got to be it.”

  “First Federal Bank,” Meyer said, grinning.

  “Get the phone book,” Byrnes said.

  They were all quite naturally proud of the deductive reasoning that had led them to their solution. They now felt they knew the name of the bank as well as the exact date of the planned holdup. Gleefully, they began going through the Yellow Pages, confident that the rest would be simple.

  There were twenty-one First Federal Banks in Isola alone, and none of them were located in the 87th Precinct.

  There were seventeen First Federals in Calm’s Point.

  There were nine in Riverhead, twelve in Majesta, and two in Bethtown, for a grand total of sixty-one banks.

  It is sometimes not so good to work in a very big city.

  Sunday.

  Take a look at this city.

  How can you possibly hate her?

  She is composed of five sections as alien to each other as foreign countries with a common border; indeed, many residents of Isola are more familiar with the streets of England or France than they are with those of Bethtown, a stone’s throw across the river. Her natives, too, speak dissimilar tongues. It is not uncommon for a Calm’s Point accent to sound as unintelligible as the sounds a Welshman makes.

  How can you hate this untidy bitch?

  She is all walls, true. She flings up buildings like army stockades designed for protection against an Indian population long since cheated and departed. She hides the sky. She blocks her rivers from view. (Never perhaps in the history of mankind has a city so neglected the beauty of her waterways or treated them so casually. Were her rivers lovers, they would surely be unfaithful.) She forces you to catch glimpses of herself in quick takes, through chinks in long canyons, here a wedge of water, there a slice of sky, never a panoramic view, always walls enclosing, constricting, yet how can you hate her, this flirtatious bitch with smoky hair?

  She’s noisy and vulgar; there are runs in her nylons, and her heels are round (you can put this lady on her back with a kind word or a knowing leer because she’s a sucker for attention, always willing to please, anxious to prove she’s at least as good as most). She sings too fucking loud. Her lipstick is smeared across her face like an obscene challenge. She raises her skirt or drops it with equal abandon, she snarls, she belches, she hustles, she farts, she staggers, she falls, she’s common, vile, treacherous, dangerous, brittle, vulnerable, stupid, obstinate, clever, and cheap, but it is impossible to hate her because when she steps out of the shower smelling of gasoline and sweat and smoke and grass and wine and flowers and food and dust and death (never mind the high-pollution level), she wears that blatant stink like the most expensive perfume. If you were born in a city, and raised in a city, you know the scent and it makes you dizzy. Not the scent of all the half-ass towns, hamlets, and villages that pose as cities and fool no one but their own hick inhabitants. There are half a dozen real cities in the world, and this is one of them, and it’s impossible to hate her when she comes to you with a suppressed female giggle about to burst on her silly face, bubbling up from some secret adolescent well to erupt in merriment on her unpredictable mouth. (If you can’t personalize a city, you have never lived in one. If you can’t get romantic and sentimental about her, you’re a foreigner still learning the language. Try Philadelphia, you’ll love it there.) To know a real city, you’ve got to hold her close or not at all. You’ve got to breathe her.

  Take a look at this city.

  How can you possibly hate her?

  The Sunday comics have been read and the apartment is still.

  The man sitting in the easy chair is black, forty-seven years old, wearing an undershirt, denim trousers, and house slippers. He is a slender man, with brown eyes too large for his face, so that he always looks either frightened or astonished. There is a mild breeze blowing in off the fire escape, where the man’s eight-year-old daughter has planted four o’clocks in a cheese box as part of a school project. The balmy feel of the day reminds the man that summer is coming. He frowns. He is suddenly upset, but he does not know quite why. His wife is next door visiting with a neighbor woman, and he feels neglected all at once, and begins wondering why she isn’t preparing lunch for him, why she’s next door gabbing when he’s beginning to get hungry and summer is coming.