“The Lady,” Donner said. “Fancy handle. She in the rackets?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I knew a dame called ‘The Lady Bird’ in St. Louis. She was a stoolie. Damn good one, too. So they called her The Lady Bird. Pigeon, bird, you dig?”

  “I dig,” Hawes said.

  “She knew everything, but everything, man, everything! You know how she got the dope?”

  “I can imagine,” Hawes said.

  “Well, it don’t take much imagination. That’s exactly how she got it. She could get information from the Sphinx, I swear to God. Right in the middle of the desert, she’d—”

  “She’s not in this city, is she?”

  “No. She’s dead. She got information from a guy it was very unhealthy to get information from. An occupational hazard. Bam! No more Lady Bird.”

  “He killed her because she stooled on him?”

  “That, and also one other thing. Like it seems she also gave him the clap. This guy was a very clean fellow, personal habits, I mean. He didn’t appreciate what she give him. Bam! No more Lady Bird.” Donner thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, she wasn’t such a lady, huh?”

  “I guess not. What about the lady we want?”

  “You got a hint?”

  “She’s going to be killed tonight.”

  “Yeah? Who’s gonna kill her?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

  “Mmm. A tough nut, huh?”

  “Yeah. Listen, do you think we could step outside and talk there?”

  “What’s the matter? You got a chill? I can ask them to turn up the—”

  “No, no, no,” Hawes said hastily.

  “The Lady, huh?” Donner asked, thinking. “The Lady.”

  “Yes.”

  It seemed to be getting hotter. While Donner sat and thought, the temperature in the room seemed to mount steadily. Each second of thought seemed to bring a corresponding second of increased heat. Hawes was gulping in air through his mouth, gasping for breath. He wanted to take off the towel, wanted to take of his skin and hang it on a peg. He wanted a glass of ice-cold water. He wanted a glass of cool water. He would accept a glass of lukewarm water. He’d settle for hot water, which, he was certain, would be cooler than the temperature of the room. Sweating from every pore, he sat while Donner thought. The seconds ticked by. The perspiration trickled down his face, poured from his wide shoulders, streamed down his backbone.

  “There was a colored dancer at the old Black and White Club,” Donner said.

  “She around now?”

  “No, she does a strip in Miami. They called her ‘The Lady.’ She did a very delicate strip. For those who got the Shy Young Thing Fetish combined with the Colored Fetish. She was a big hit. But she’s in Miami now.”

  “Who’s here?”

  “I’m trying to think,” Donner said.

  “Can you think a little faster?”

  “I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” Donner said. “There was a pusher called ‘The Lady.’ But I think she went to New York. That’s where all the junkie money is these days. Yeah, she’s in New York.”

  “Well, who’s here?” Hawes asked irritably, wiping his sweaty face with a sweaty hand.

  “Hey, I know,” Donner said.

  “Who?”

  “The Lady. A new hooker on Whore Street. You familiar?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “She works for Mama Ida. You know the place?”

  “No.”

  “The boys on the squad will. Look her up. The Lady. At Mama Ida’s.”

  “Do you know her?” Hawes asked.

  “The Lady? Only professionally.”

  “Whose profession? Yours or hers?”

  “Mine. I got some info from her a couple of weeks back. Jesus, I shoulda thought of her right away. Only I never call her ‘The Lady.’ That’s for the trade. Her real name is Marcia. She’s a peacheroo.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Not much to tell. You want the straight story or the story on the Street? I mean, you want to know about Marcia—or about The Lady?”

  “Both.”

  “Okay. Here’s the way Mama Ida tells it. She’s parlayed this thing into a fortune, believe me. Anybody comes down to the Street, they look for Mama Ida’s joint. And once they find it, they’re itching to tackle The Lady.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Mama Ida’s got a good imagination. Here’s the legend. Marcia was born in Italy. She’s the daughter of some Italian count who’s got a villa on the Mediterranean. During the war, Marcia—against the wishes of her father—married a guerrilla who was fighting Mussolini. She took about ten thousand dollars in jewels with her and went to live in the hills with him. Picture this flower of nobility, a kid who knew how to ride before she knew how to walk, living in a cave with a band of bearded men. Well, one day her husband got killed in a raid on a railroad. Second in command claimed Marcia as his own, and pretty soon the entire band of cutthroats was getting in on the act. One night Marcia took off. They chased her through the hills, but she escaped.

  “Her jewels bought her passage to America. But she was an enemy alien and had to stay in hiding. Barely able to speak the language, unable to get a job, she drifted into prostitution. She’s still in the racket, but she loathes it. Goes about it in a ladylike fashion, and every time she’s had, it’s like rape. That’s The Lady, and that’s the way Mama Ida tells it.”

  “What’s the real story?” Hawes asked.

  “Her name’s Marcia Polenski. She’s from Scranton. She’s been a hooker since she was sixteen, has the shrewdness of a viper, and a good ear for dialect. The Italian accent is as phony as the rape scenes.”

  “Any enemies?” Hawes asked.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Anybody who’d want to kill her?”

  “Probably every other hooker on the Street wants to kill her. But I doubt if any of them would.”

  “Why?”

  “Hookers are nice people. I like them.”

  “Well,” Hawes said noncommittally. He rose. “I’m getting out of here.”

  “Will Willis take care of me?” Donner asked.

  “Yeah. Talk to him about it. So long,” Hawes said hastily. “Thanks.”

  “De nada,” Donner replied, and he leaned against the steam.

  After Hawes had dressed and listened to a dissertation by Regan on the big money to be made in boxing, accompanied by Regan’s card and an admonition to keep it in a safe place, he went out into the street and called the squad. He got Carella.

  “You back?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I was waiting for your call.”

  “What’d you get?”

  “Danny Gimp tells me there’s a hooker named The Lady working on the Street. She may be our baby.”

  “I got the same from Donner,” Hawes said.

  “Good. Let’s look her up. This may turn out to be simpler than we thought.”

  “Maybe so,” Hawes said. “Want me to come back to the squad?”

  “No, I’ll meet you on the Street. Jenny’s, do you know it?”

  “I’ll find it,” Hawes said.

  “What time have you got?”

  Hawes looked at his watch. “Ten-o-three,” he said.

  “Can you meet me at ten-fifteen?”

  “I’ll be there,” Hawes said, and he hung up.

  La Vía de Putas was a street in Isola that ran north and south for a total of three blocks. Over the course of years, the street had changed its name many times, but never its profession. It had changed its name only to accommodate the incoming immigrant groups, translating “Whore Street” into as many languages as there were nations. The profession, as solidly economic a profession as undertaking, had steadfastly defied the buffetings of time, tide, and policemen. In fact, the policemen were, in a sense, part of the profession. Whore Street, you see, was not a secret. Trying to keep the Street a secret would have been like trying to keep the existence of Russia a secret. There was hardly a citizen, and barely a visitor, who had not heard of La Vía de Putas, and many citizens had firsthand knowledge of the practices plied there. And if the citizenry know of something, the police—as slow-witted as they sometimes are—know of it, too.

  It was here that the oldest profession clasped hands with the neophyte profession. And during the clasping of hands, bills of various denominations were exchanged so that the Street could continue its brisk trade without interference from the Law. Things got difficult for the 87th’s cops when the Vice Squad decided to get puritanical. But even then, it didn’t take cops long to realize that the green stuff could be divided and then subdivided. There was plenty of it to go all the way around, and there was certainly no reason to get stuffy about something as universal as sex.

  Besides, and here was rationalization of the most sublime sort, was it not better to have most of the precinct’s hookers contained in an area three blocks long rather than scattered all over the streets? Of course it was. Crime was something like information for a thesis. So long as you knew where to find it, you were halfway home.

  The uniformed cops of the 87th knew where to find it—and they also knew how to lose it. Every now and then they would stop by and chat with the various Mamas who ran the brothels. Mama Luz, Mama Theresa, Mama Carmen, Mama Ida, Mama Inez (from the song of the same name) were all bona fide madams and could all be counted on for the discreet payoff. In turn, the cops looked the other way. Sometimes, on a sleepy afternoon when the streets were quiet, they dropped into the cribs for a cup of coffee and things. The madams didn’t mind too much. After all, if you ran a pushcart you expected the cop on the beat to take an apple every now and then, didn’t you?

  The detectives of the 87th rarely got a piece of the long green that shuttled from customer to hooker to madam to patrolman. The detectives had bigger things going for them, and everybody has to eat. Besides, they knew the Vice Squad was getting its cut, and they didn’t want the pie sliced too many ways lest the bakery close shop altogether. Out of professional courtesy, they, too, looked the other way.

  On Wednesday, July 24, at 10:21 A.M., Carella and Hawes looked the other way. Jenny’s was a tiny dump on the corner of Whore Street. Most of the payoffs took place in Jenny’s, but Carella and Hawes were not looking for payoffs. They were discussing The Lady.

  “From what I understand,” Carella said, “we may have to wait in line to see her.”

  Hawes grinned. “Why don’t you let me handle this one alone, Steve?” he said. “After all, you’re a married man. I don’t want to corrupt—”

  “I’ve been corrupted,” Carella said. He looked at his watch. “It isn’t even ten-thirty yet. If this works out, we’re nine and a half hours ahead of our killer.”

  “If it works out,” Hawes said.

  “Well, let’s go see her.” He paused. “You ever been in one of these joints?”

  “We had a lot of high-class call houses in the 30th,” Hawes said.

  “These ain’t high class, son,” Carella said. “These are very low class. If you’ve got a clothespin, put it on your nose.”

  They paid their bill and went into the street. Halfway up the block, a radio motor patrol car was at the curb. Two patrolmen were on the sidewalk talking to a man and a woman, surrounded by kids.

  “Trouble,” Carella said. He quickened his pace. Hawes fell into step beside him.

  “Now, take it easy,” the patrolman was saying, “just take it easy!”

  “Easy?” the woman shouted. “Why I should take it easy? This man—”

  “Pipe down!” the second patrolman yelled. “You want the goddamn commissioner to drive up?”

  Carella pushed his way through the knot of kids. He recognized the patrolmen at once, walked to the nearest one, and said, “What’s up, Tom?”

  The woman’s face burst into a grin. “Stevie!” she said. “Dio gracias. Tell these stupids—”

  “Hello, Mama Luz,” Carella said.

  The woman he addressed was a fat woman with alabaster- white skin and black hair pulled into a tight bun at the back of her neck. She wore a loose silk kimono, and her swelling bosom moved fluidly in the open neck. Her face was exquisitely carved, angelic, patrician. She was one of the most notorious madams in the entire city.

  “What’s up?” Carella asked the patrolman again.

  “This guy don’t want to pay,” the patrolman said.

  This guy was a little man in a seersucker suit. Standing alongside Mama Luz, he seemed thinner than he actually was. He had a small paintbrush mustache under his nose, and his black hair fell despondently onto his forehead.

  “What do you mean?” Carella asked.

  “He don’t want to pay. He’s been upstairs. Now he’s tryin’ to beat the check.”

  “Get dinero first, I always tell them,” Mama Luz said, clucking. “Dinero first, then amor. No. This stupid, this new one, she forgets. So see what happens? Tell him, Stevie. Tell him I get my money.”

  “You’re getting careless, Luz,” Carella said.

  “Yes, yes, I know. But tell him I get my money, Stevie. Tell this Hitler!”

  Carella looked at the man, noticing the resemblance for the first time. The man had said nothing so far. With his arms folded across his chest, he stood beside Mama Luz, his lips pursed beneath the ridiculous paintbrush mustache, his eyes glaring heatedly.

  “Are you a detective?” he asked suddenly.

  “I am,” Carella said.

  “And you permit this sort of thing to go on in this city?”

  “What sort of thing?” Carella asked.

  “Open prostitution.”

  “I don’t see any prostitution,” Carella said.

  “What are you, a pimp or something? A collection agency for every madam in the city?”

  “Mister—” Carella started, and Hawes gently touched his arm. There was imminent danger in the situation, and Hawes recognized it immediately. It was one thing to look the other way. It was another thing to openly condone. Whatever Carella’s relationship with Mama Luz, Hawes did not feel this was a time for him to be sticking his neck out. An irate call to Headquarters and there could be trouble, big trouble.

  “We’ve got somebody to see, Steve,” he said.

  Carella’s eyes met Hawes’s and plainly asked him to keep the hell out of this.

  “Were you upstairs, mister?” he asked the little man.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I don’t know what you did up there, and I’m not asking. That’s your business. But I judge from that wedding band on your finger—”

  The man pulled his hand back sharply.

  “—that you wouldn’t appreciate the idea of being hauled into court to testify on the open prostitution permitted in this city. I’m busy as hell, mister, so I’ll leave the entire thing to your conscience. Come on, Cotton,” he said.

  He started up the street. Hawes caught up to him. As they walked, Hawes glanced over his shoulder.

  “He’s paying,” he said.

  Carella grunted.

  “You sore?” Hawes asked.

  “A little.”

  “I was only thinking of you.”

  “Mama Luz is a cooperative madam. Aside from that, I like her. Nobody asked that guy to come into the precinct. He came, he had a meal, and I think it’s justice that he should pay for it. The girl he was with isn’t in this for kicks. She works a hell of a lot harder than a five-and-dime clerk.”

  “Then why doesn’t she become a five-and-dime clerk?” Hawes asked logically.

  “Touché,” Carella said, and he smiled. “Here’s Mama Ida’s.”

  Mama Ida’s looked just like any of the other tenements lining the street. Two kids sat on the front stoop playing tic-tac-toe with a piece of chalk.

  “Get off the stoop!” Carella said, and the kids scattered. “This is what burns me up,” he said to Hawes. “The kids seeing all this. What a way to be brought up.”

  “A little while ago, you sounded as if you thought it was an honest profession,” Hawes said.

  “Are you looking for an argument?”

  “No. I’m trying to find out what makes you tick.”

  “Okay. Crime isn’t honest. Prostitution is crime, or at least it’s crime in this city. Maybe the law’s right, and maybe it isn’t, and it’s not for me to question it; it’s only for me to enforce it. Okay. In this precinct, and maybe in every damn precinct, for all I know, prostitution is a crime that isn’t a crime. Both those patrolmen are getting paid by every madam on the street. They keep trouble away from the madams, and the madams, in turn, run things clean. No muggings, no rollings. A clear act of commerce. But the guy who tried to cheat Luz was committing a crime, too, wasn’t he? So where does the cop go from there? Does he turn his back on all crime or just some crimes?”

  “No,” Hawes said. “Only on the crimes for which he’s been paid off.”

  Carella faced Hawes levelly. “I’ve never taken a dime all the time I’ve been on the force. Remember that.”

  “I didn’t think you had.”

  “Okay,” Carella said. “A cop can’t do everything by the book. I’ve got a sense of right and wrong that has nothing whatever to do with the law. I thought Hitler was committing a wrong back there. No tickee, no shirtee. Basic. Maybe I stuck my neck out, maybe I didn’t. I say it’s Spam, and I say the hell with it.”

  “Okay,” Hawes said.

  “Are you sore now?”

  “Nope. Just enlightened.”

  “There’s one other thing,” Carella said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The kids surrounding that scene. Was it better to have them taking it all in? Or better to break it up?”

  “You could have broken it up without forcing the guy to pay.”

  “You’re a marksman today,” Carella said, and they entered the building. Only one bell button in the hall panel worked. Carella rang it.

  “Mama Ida’s a bitch,” he said. “She thinks she owns the street and the city. You’ve got to be rough with her.”

  The inside door opened. A woman with a hairbrush in her hand stood just inside the jamb. Her black hair was hanging loose around her face. The face was narrow, with piercing brown eyes. The woman wore a light-blue sweater and a black skirt. She was barefooted.