“Hey, wait a minute,” McCarthy said. “I was only wisecrackin’.”

  “DON’T WISECRACK ON MY TIME!” Carella shouted.

  “Okay, okay, don’t get sore.”

  “What were you doing in that car?”

  “Sitting.”

  “You always sit in parked cars at three in the a.m.?” Foster asked.

  “Sometimes,” McCarthy said.

  “What else were you doing?”

  “Talking.”

  “What about?”

  “Everything.”

  “Philosophy?” Bush asked.

  “Yeah,” McCarthy said.

  “What’d you decide?”

  “We decided it ain’t wise to sit in parked cars at three in the morning. There’s always some cop who’s got to fill his pinch book.”

  Carella tapped a pencil on the desk. “Don’t get me mad, McCarthy,” he said. “I just come from six hours sleep, and I don’t feel like listening to a vaudeville routine. Did you know Mike Reardon?”

  “Who?”

  “Mike Reardon. A detective attached to this precinct.”

  McCarthy shrugged. He turned to Kelly. “We know him, Clarence?”

  “Yeah,” Clarence said. “Reardon. That rings a bell.”

  “How big a bell?” Foster asked.

  “Just a tiny tinkle so far,” Kelly said, and he began laughing. The laugh died when he saw the bulls weren’t quite appreciating his humor.

  “Did you see him last night?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We didn’t run across any bulls last night,” Kelly said.

  “Do you usually?”

  “Well, sometimes.”

  “Were you heeled when they pulled you in?”

  “What?”

  “Come on,” Foster said.

  “No.”

  “We’ll check that.”

  “Yeah, go ahead,” McCarthy said. “We didn’t even have a water pistol between us.”

  “What were you doing in the car?”

  “I just told you,” McCarthy said.

  “The story stinks. Try again,” Carella answered.

  Kelly sighed. McCarthy looked at him.

  “Well?” Carella said.

  “I was checkin’ up on my dame,” Kelly said.

  “Yeah?” Bush said.

  “Truth,” Kelly said. “So help me Jesus, may I be struck dead right this goddamn minute.”

  “What’s there to check up on?” Bush asked.

  “Well, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know. Tell me.”

  “I figured she was maybe slippin’ around.”

  “Slipping around with who?” Bush asked.

  “Well, that’s what I wanted to find out.”

  “And what were you doing with him, McCarthy?”

  “I was helping him check,” McCarthy said, smiling.

  “Was she?” Bush asked, a bored expression on his face.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Kelly said.

  “Don’t check again,” Bush said. “Next time we’re liable to find you with the burglar’s tools.”

  “Burglar’s tools!” McCarthy said, shocked.

  “Gee, Detective Bush,” Kelly said, “you know us better than that.”

  “Get the hell out of here,” Bush said.

  “We can go home?”

  “You can go to hell, for my part,” Bush informed them.

  “Here’s the coffee,” Foster said.

  The released prisoners sauntered out of the squadroom. The three detectives paid the delivery boy for the coffee and then pulled chairs up to one of the desks.

  “I heard a good one last night,” Foster said.

  “Let’s hear it,” Carella prompted.

  “This guy is a construction worker, you see?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Working up on a girder about sixty floors above the street.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The lunch whistle blows. He knocks off, goes to the end of the girder, sits down, and puts his lunch box on his lap. He opens the box, takes out a sandwich, and very carefully unwraps the waxed paper. Then he bites into it. ‘Goddamn,’ he says, ‘peanut butter!’ and he throws the sandwich down the sixty floors to the street.”

  “I don’t get it,” Bush said, sipping at his coffee.

  “I’m not finished yet,” Foster said, grinning, hardly able to contain his glee.

  “Go ahead,” Carella said.

  “He reaches into the box,” Foster said, “for the next sandwich. He very carefully unwraps the waxed paper. He bites into the sandwich. ‘Goddamn,’ he says again, ‘peanut butter!’ and he flings that second sandwich down the sixty floors to the street.”

  “Yeah,” Carella said.

  “He opens the third sandwich,” Foster said. “This time it’s ham. This time he likes it. He eats the sandwich all up.”

  “This is gonna go on all night,” Bush said. “You shoulda stood in bed, Dave.”

  “No, wait a minute, wait a minute,” Foster said. “He opens the fourth sandwich. He bites into it. ‘Goddamn,’ he says again, ‘peanut butter!’ and he flings that sandwich, too, down the sixty floors to the street. Well, there’s another construction worker sitting on a girder just a little bit above this fellow. He looks down and says, ‘Say, fellow, I’ve been watching you with them sandwiches.’

  “‘So what?’ the first guy says.

  “‘You married?’ the second guy asks.

  “‘Yes, I’m married.’

  “The second guy shakes his head. ‘How long you been married?’

  “‘Ten years,’ the first guy says.

  “‘And your wife still doesn’t know what kind of sandwiches you like?’

  “The first guy points his finger up at the guy above him and yells, ‘Listen, you son of a bitch, leave my wife out of this. I made those goddamn sandwiches myself!’”

  Carella burst out laughing, almost choking on his coffee. Bush stared at Foster deadpanned.

  “I still don’t get it,” Bush said. “What’s so funny about a guy married ten years whose wife doesn’t know what kind of sandwiches he likes? That’s not funny. That’s a tragedy.”

  “He made the sandwiches himself,” Foster said.

  “So then it’s a psycho joke. Psycho jokes don’t appeal to me. You got to be nuts to appreciate a psycho joke.”

  “I appreciate it,” Carella said.

  “So? That proves my point,” Bush answered.

  “Hank didn’t get enough sleep,” Carella said to Foster. Foster winked.

  “I got plenty of sleep,” Bush said.

  “Aha,” Carella said. “Then that explains it.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” Bush said, annoyed.

  “Oh, forget it. Drink your coffee.”

  “A man doesn’t get a joke, right away his sex life gets dragged in. Do I ask you how much sleep you get or don’t get?”

  “No,” Carella said.

  “Okay. Okay.”

  One of the patrolmen walked into the squadroom. “Desk sergeant asked me to give you this,” he said. “Just came up from downtown.”

  “Probably that coroner’s report,” Carella said, taking the manila envelope. “Thanks.”

  The patrolman nodded and went out. Carella opened the envelope.

  “Is it?” Foster asked.

  “Yeah. Something else, too.” He pulled a card from the envelope. “Oh, report on the slugs they dug out of the theater booth.”

  “Let’s see it,” Hank said.

  Carella handed him the card.

  “Argh, so what does it tell us?” Bush said, still smarting from the earlier badinage.

  “Nothing,” Carella answered, “until we get the gun that fired it.”

  “What about the coroner’s report?” Foster asked.

  Carella slipped it out of the envelope.

  CORONER’S PRELIMINARY AUTOPSY REPORT

  MICHAEL REARDON

  Male, apparent age 42; chronological age 38. Approximate weight 210 pounds; height 28.9 cm.

  Gross Inspection

  HEAD: 1.0 x 1.25 cm circular perforation visible 3.1 centimeters laterally to the left of external occipital protuberance (inion). Wound edges slightly inverted. Flame zone and second zone reveal heavy embedding of powder grains. A number 22 catheter inserted through the wound in the occipital region of the skull transverses ventrally and emerges through the right orbit. Point of emergence has left a gaping rough‐edged wound measuring 3.7 centimeters in diameter.

  There is a second perforation located 6.2 centimeters laterally to the left of the tip of the right mastoid process of the temporal bone, measuring 1.0 x 1.33 centimeters. A number 22 catheter inserted through this second wound passes anteriorly and ventrally and emerges through a perforation measuring approximately 3.5 centimeters in diameter through the right maxilla. The edges of the remaining portion of the right maxilla are splintered.

  BODY: Gross inspection of remaining portion of body is negative for demonstrable pathology.

  REMARKS: On craniotomy with brain examination, there is evidence of petechiae along course of projectile; small splinters of cranial bone are embedded within the brain substance.

  MICROSCOPIC: Examination of brain reveals minute petechiae as well as bone substance within brain matter. Microscopic examination of brain tissue is essentially negative for pathology.

  “He did a good job, the bastard,” Foster said.

  “Yeah,” Bush answered.

  Carella sighed and looked at his watch. “It’s going to be a long night, fellers,” he said.

  He had not seen Teddy Franklin since Mike took the slugs.

  Generally, in the course of running down something, he would drop in to see her, spending a few minutes with her before rushing off again. And, of course, he spent all his free time with her because he was in love with the girl.

  He had met her less than six months ago, when she’d been working addressing envelopes for a small firm on the fringe of the precinct territory. The firm reported a burglary, and Carella had been assigned to it. He had been taken instantly with her buoyant beauty, asked her out, and that had been the beginning. He had also, in the course of investigation, cracked the burglary—but that didn’t seem important now. The important thing now was Teddy. Even the firm had gone the way of most small firms, fading into the abyss of a corporate dissolution, leaving her without a job but with enough saved money to maintain herself for a while. He honestly hoped it would only be for a while, a short while at that. This was the girl he wanted to marry. This was the girl he wanted for his own.

  Thinking of her, thinking of the progression of slow traffic lights which kept him from racing to her side, he cursed ballistics reports and coroner’s reports, and people who shot cops in the back of the head, and he cursed the devilish instrument known as the telephone and the fact that the instrument was worthless with a girl like Teddy. He glanced at his watch. It was close to midnight, and she didn’t know he was coming, but he’d take the chance, anyway. He wanted to see her.

  When he reached her apartment building in Riverhead, he parked the car and locked it. The street was very quiet. The building was old and sedate, covered with lush ivy. A few windows blinked wide‐eyed at the stifling heat of the night, but most of the tenants were asleep or trying to sleep. He glanced up at her window, pleased when he saw the light was still burning. Quickly, he mounted the steps, stopping outside her door.

  He did not knock.

  Knocking was no good with Teddy.

  He took the knob in his hand and twisted it back and forth, back and forth. In a few moments, he heard her footsteps, and then the door opened a crack, and then the door opened wide.

  She was wearing prisoner pajamas, white‐and‐black‐striped cotton top and pants she’d picked up as a gag. Her hair was raven black, and the light in the foyer put a high sheen onto it. He closed the door behind him, and she went instantly into his arms, and then she moved back from him, and he marveled at the expressiveness of her eyes and her mouth. There was joy in her eyes, pure soaring joy. Her lips parted, edging back over small white teeth, and then she lifted her face to his, and he took her kiss, and he felt the warmth of her body beneath the cotton pajamas.

  “Hello,” he said, and she kissed the words on his mouth and then broke away, holding only his hand, pulling him into the warmly lighted living room.

  She held her right index finger alongside her face, calling for his attention.

  “Yes?” he said, and then she shook her head, changing her mind, wanting him to sit first. She fluffed a pillow for him, and he sat in the easy chair, and she perched herself on the arm of the chair and cocked her head to one side, repeating the extended index finger gesture.

  “Go ahead,” he said, “I’m listening.”

  She watched his lips carefully, and then she smiled. Her index finger dropped. There was a white tag sewed onto the prisoner pajama top close to the mound of her left breast. She ran the extended finger across the tag. He looked at it closely.

  “I’m not examining your feminine attributes,” he said, smiling, and she shook her head, understanding. She had inked numbers onto the tag, carrying out the prison garb motif. He studied the numbers closely.

  “My shield numbers,” he said, and the smile flowered on her mouth. “You deserve a kiss for that,” he told her.

  She shook her head.

  “No kiss?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Why not?”

  She opened and closed the fingers on her right hand.

  “You want to talk?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “What about?”

  She left the arm of the chair suddenly. He watched her walking across the room, his eyes inadvertently following the swing of her small, rounded backside. She went to an end table and picked up a newspaper. She carried it back to him and then pointed to the picture of Mike Reardon on page one, his brains spilling out onto the sidewalk.

  “Yeah,” he said dully.

  There was sadness on her face now, an exaggerated sadness because Teddy could not give tongue to words, Teddy could neither hear words, and so her face was her speaking tool, and she spoke in exaggerated syllables, even to Carella, who understood the slightest nuance of expression in her eyes or on her mouth. But the exaggeration did not lie, for there was genuineness to the grief she felt. She had never met Mike Reardon, but Carella had talked of him often, and she felt that she knew him well.

  She raised her eyebrows and spread her hands simultaneously, asking Carella, Who? and Carella, understanding instantly, said, “We don’t know yet. That’s why I haven’t been around. We’ve been working on it.” He saw puzzlement in her eyes. “Am I going too fast for you?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “What then? What’s the matter?”

  She threw herself into his arms and she was weeping suddenly and fiercely, and he said, “Hey, hey, come on, now,” and then realized she could not read his lips because her head was buried in his shoulder. He lifted her chin.

  “You’re getting my shirt wet,” he said.

  She nodded, trying to hold back the tears.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She lifted her hand slowly, and she touched his cheek gently, so gently that it felt like the passing of a mild breeze, and then her fingers touched his lips and lingered there, caressing them.

  “You’re worried about me?”

  She nodded.

  “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  She tossed her hair at the first page of the newspaper again.

  “That was probably some crackpot,” Carella said.

  She lifted her face, and her eyes met his fully, wide and brown, still moist from the tears.

  “I’ll be careful,” he said. “Do you love me?”

  She nodded and then ducked her head.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She shrugged and smiled, an embarrassed, shy smile.

  “You missed me?”

  She nodded again.

  “I missed you, too.”

  She lifted her head again, and there was something else in her eyes this time, a challenge to him to read her eyes correctly this time, because she had truly missed him, but he had not uncovered the subtlety of her meaning as yet. He studied her eyes, and then he knew what she was saying, and he said only, “Oh.”

  She knew that he knew then, and she cocked one eyebrow saucily and slowly gave one exaggerated nod of her head, repeating his “oh,” soundlessly rounding her lips.

  “You’re just a fleshpot,” he said jokingly.

  She nodded.

  “You only love me because I have a clean, strong, young body.”

  She nodded.

  “Will you marry me?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ve only asked you about a dozen times so far.”

  She shrugged and nodded, enjoying herself immensely.

  “When?”

  She pointed at him.

  “All right, I’ll set the date. I’m getting my vacation in August. I’ll marry you then, okay?”

  She sat perfectly still, staring at him.

  “I mean it.”

  She seemed ready to cry again. He took her in his arms and said, “I mean it, Teddy. Teddy, darling, I mean it. Don’t be silly about this, Teddy, because I honestly, truly mean it. I love you, and I want to marry you, and I’ve wanted to marry you for a long, long time now, and if I have to keep asking you, I’ll go nuts. I love you just the way you are, I wouldn’t change any of you, darling, so don’t get silly, please don’t get silly again. It…it doesn’t matter to me, Teddy. Little Teddy, little Theodora, it doesn’t matter to me, can you understand that? You’re more than any other woman, so much more, so please marry me.”

  She looked up at him, wishing she could speak because she could not trust her eyes now, wondering why someone as beautiful as Steve Carella, as wonderful as Steve Carella, as brave and as strong and as marvelous as Steve Carella would want to marry a girl like her, a girl who could never say, “I love you, darling. I adore you.” But he had asked her again, and now, close in the circle of his arms, now she could believe that it didn’t really matter to him, that to him she was as whole as any woman, “more than any other woman,” he had said.