“That’s exactly what bothers me,” Kerry said. “Suppose he says, ‘Go ahead, blow my brains out.’ What do I do then?”

  “The bank is insured. You will rarely find heroic bank employees nowadays. They all have instructions to press the alarm button and sit tight until the police arrive. In this case, we are depriving Mr. Alton—that’s the manager’s name—of the opportunity to sound the alarm. I can assure you he will not avail himself of the alternate opportunity—that of having his brains blown out. He will escort you to the vault, quietly and without fuss.”

  “I hope so,” Kerry said. “But what if he doesn’t? Since I’m the only guy inside the bank, I’m automatically the fall guy.”

  “I will also be inside the bank,” the Deaf Man said.

  “Yeah, but you won’t be holding a gun on any manager.”

  “I chose you for the job because you’d had previous experience,” the Deaf Man said. “I assumed you would have the nerve to…”

  “Yeah, I got caught on my previous experience,” Kerry said.

  “Do you want the job or don’t you?” the Deaf Man asked. “You can still get out. No hard feelings either way.”

  “Let me hear the rest of it again.”

  “You go into the vault with Mr. Alton, carrying your leather case, the architectural contents of which are now in Mr. Alton’s office.”

  “In other words,” Angela said, “the case is empty now.”

  “Precisely,” the Deaf Man said, and thought, Impossible. “As soon as you are inside the vault, Kerry, you will transfer the payroll to your case, and then allow Mr. Alton to escort you back to his office…”

  “Suppose there’s somebody else in the vault when we get in there?”

  “You will already have informed Mr. Alton that should anyone question your presence, he is to say you’re there to test the alarm system. Presumably, that is why you are carrying a big black leather case.”

  “But suppose somebody’s actually in the vault?” Kerry said. “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “Mr. Alton will ask that person to leave. The testing of an alarm system is not something normally open to casual scrutiny by insignificant bank personnel.”

  “Okay. So I’m in the vault transferring all that money into my case…”

  “Correct. The moment I see you leaving the vault to head back for Mr. Alton’s office, I will step outside the bank and set the second phase of the plan in motion.”

  “This is where we come in,” Angela said, and smiled. Utterly impossible, the Deaf Man thought, and returned her smile.

  “Yes,” he said pleasantly enough, “this is where you come in. If you’ll all look at the diagram again, you’ll see that a driveway comes in off the street on the right of the bank, runs around the rear of the bank, and then emerges into the street again on the left. The driveway was put in to accommodate the car teller’s window. It is only wide enough to permit passage of a single automobile. Two things will happen the moment I step out of the bank. First, John and Rudy, in Car Number One, will drive up to the teller’s window. Second, Angela, in Car Number Two, will park across the mouth of the driveway, get out of the car, and open the hood as though searching for starter trouble.”

  “That’s so no other cars can get in the driveway after Rudy and John pull up to the teller’s window,” Angela said.

  “Yes,” the Deaf Man answered blankly.

  “Meanwhile,” Kerry said, and the Deaf Man was pleased to see that he had managed to generate some sort of enthusiasm for the project, “I’ll be in the manager’s office, tying him up and sticking a gag in his mouth.”

  “Correct,” the Deaf Man said. “John?”

  “I’ll get out of the car at the teller’s window and smash the glass there with a sledge hammer.”

  “Which is precisely when the alarm will go off. You won’t hear it. It’s a silent alarm that sounds at the 86th Precinct and also at the Security Office.”

  “But I’ll hear the glass smashing,” Kerry said, and grinned. “Which is when I open the door leading from the manager’s office to the tellers’ cages, go through the gate in the counter, and jump through the busted window into the driveway.”

  “Yes,” the Deaf Man said. “You get into the car, and Rudy, at the wheel, will drive around the rear of the bank and out into the street again. I will meanwhile have entered the car Angela is driving, and we will all go off together into a lucrative sunset.”

  “How long does it take the police to answer that alarm?” Rudy asked.

  “Four minutes.”

  “How long does it take to drive around the bank?”

  “A minute and a half.”

  The group was silent.

  “What do you think?” the Deaf Man asked. He had deliberately chosen nonthinkers, and he fully realized that his task today was one of selling an idea. He looked at them hopefully. If he had not completely sold them, he would replace them. It was as simple as that.

  “I think it’ll work,” John said.

  “So do I,” Rudy said.

  “Oh, how can it miss?” Angela said in her whiny voice, and the Deaf Man winced.

  “Kerry?” he asked.

  Kerry, of course, was the key man. As he had rightfully pointed out, he was the only one of the group who would actually be inside the bank, holding a gun, committing a robbery. The question Kerry asked now was the only question he should have asked; the Deaf Man was beginning to think he had chosen someone altogether too smart.

  “How come you don’t go into the manager’s office and stick the gun in his back?” Kerry asked.

  “I’m known at the bank,” the Deaf Man said.

  “How?”

  “As a depositor.”

  “Why can’t a depositor also be somebody who’s asking for financing on a housing development?”

  “There’s no reason why he couldn’t be. But my face has been recorded by the bank’s cameras many times already, and I don’t wish to spend the rest of my life dodging the police.”

  “What about my face?” Kerry asked. “They’ll know what I look like, won’t they? What’s to stop them from hounding me after the job?”

  “You’ll be in disguise.”

  “You didn’t mention that.”

  “I know I didn’t,” the Deaf Man said. He hadn’t mentioned it because he hadn’t thought of it until just this moment. “You will grow a mustache and shave your head before the job. As far as they’ll ever know, the bank was robbed by a Yul Brynner with a hairy lip.” Everyone laughed, including Kerry. The Deaf Man waited. They were almost in his pocket. It all depended on Kerry.

  Kerry, still laughing, shook his head in admiration. “I got to hand it to you,” he said. “You think of everything.” He took a long swallow of the drink, and said, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but it sounds good to me.” He raised his glass to the Deaf Man and said, “Count me in.”

  The Deaf Man did not mention to Kerry that his next logical question should have been, “Mr. Taubman, why don’t you shave your head and grow a mustache?” or that he was extremely grateful to him for not having asked it. But then again, had the question come up, the Deaf Man would have thought of an answer. As Kerry had noted, the Deaf Man thought of everything, even when he didn’t think of everything. Grinning now, he said to the others, “May I count all of you in?” and turned away not three seconds later to mix a fresh round of drinks in celebration.

  The second photostat of the Japanese Zero came in the afternoon mail, just as Carella was leaving the squadroom. Carella studied it solemnly as Meyer tacked it to the bulletin board alongside the five other stats. Then he picked up the manila envelope in which it had been delivered and looked again at the typewritten address.

  “He’s still addressing them to me,” he said.

  “I see that.”

  “And still spelling my name wrong. It’s Stephen with a p-h, not Steven with a v.”

  “I didn’t even know that,” Meyer said.

  “Yeah,” Carella said, and then turned to look at the row of stats again. “Do you suppose he knows I have twins?”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s all I can figure. He’s addressing the stuff to me, he’s putting it on an entirely personal level. So maybe he’s also duplicating it because I have twins.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah.” Carella paused. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re getting slightly paranoid,” Meyer said.

  Sanford Elliot was working when Carella went over with his search warrant. The long wooden table at which he sat was spattered with daubs of wax. A round biscuit tin was near his right elbow, half full of molten wax, a naked electric light bulb shining into its open top to keep it soft. Elliot dipped into the can with fingers or wire-end tool, adding, spreading, molding wax onto the small figure of the nude on the table before him. He was thoroughly engrossed in what he was doing, and did not look up when Carella walked into the studio from the front of the shop. Carella did not wish to startle him. The man may have figured in a murder, and a startled murderer is a dangerous one. He hesitated just inside the curtain that divided the studio from the front, and then coughed. Elliot looked up immediately.

  “You,” he said.

  “Me,” Carella answered.

  “What is it this time?”

  “Do you always work in wax, Mr. Elliot?”

  “Only when I’m going to cast something in bronze.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I don’t give art lessons,” Elliot said abruptly. “What do you want?”

  “This is what I want,” Carella said, and walked to him and handed him the search warrant:

  IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE OF THIS STATE TO ANY POLICE OFFICER IN THIS CITY:

  Proof by affidavit having been made this day by Detective Stephen L. Carella that there is probable cause for believing that certain property constitutes evidence of the crime of murder or tends to show that a particular person has committed the crime of murder:

  YOU ARE THEREFORE COMMANDED, between the hours of 6:00 A.M. and 9:00 P.M. to make an immediate search of the ground floor rear of premises 1211 King’s Circle, occupied by Sanford Elliot and of the person of Sanford Elliot and of any other person who may be found to have such property in his possession or under his control or to whom such property may have been delivered, for a size twelve, right-footed, white tennis sneaker, and if you find such property or any part thereof to bring it before me at the Criminal Courts Building in this county.

  This warrant must be executed within ten days of the date of issuance.

  Elliot read the warrant, checked the date and the signature of the supreme court justice, and then said, “What sneaker? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Carella looked down at his right foot. Elliot was no longer wearing the sneaker; instead, there was a leather sandal on his foot.

  “You were wearing a sneaker the last time I saw you. That search warrant gives me the right to look for it.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” Elliot said.

  “Am I?”

  “I’ve never worn sneakers in my life.”

  “I’ll just look around, if you don’t mind.”

  “How can I stop you?” Elliot said sarcastically, and went back to work.

  “Want to tell me about the wax?” Carella said. He was roaming the studio now, looking for a closet or a cupboard, the logical places one might put a sneaker. There was a second curtain hanging opposite the door leading to the shop, and Carella figured it might be covering the opening to a closet. He was mistaken. There was a small sink-refrigerator-stove unit behind the curtain. He stepped on the foot lever to open the refrigerator door and discovered that it was full of arms, legs, breasts, and heads. They had all been rendered in wax, to be sure, but the discovery was startling nonetheless, somewhat like stumbling upon the remains of a mass Lilliputian dismemberment. “What are these?” Carella said.

  “Parts,” Elliot answered. He had obviously decided not to be cooperative, responsive, or even polite. His attitude was not exactly surprising; his visitor had come into the studio with a piece of paper empowering him to go through the place from top to bottom.

  “Did you mold them?”

  “Yes,” Elliot said.

  “I suppose you keep them in here so they won’t melt.”

  “Brilliant.”

  “Why do you keep them at all?”

  “I made up a batch from rubber molds,” Elliot said. “I use them as prototypes, changing them to fit a specific pose.”

  Carella nodded, closed the refrigerator, and began wandering the studio again. He found what he thought was a packing crate, but when he lifted the lid he discovered that Elliot stored his clothes in it. He kneeled and began going through the crate, being careful not to disturb the order in which blue jeans and sweaters, shirts and socks, underwear and jackets were arranged. A single sandal was in the crate, the mate to the one Elliot was now wearing. There were also two pairs of loafers. But no sneaker. Carella put the lid onto the crate again.

  “Why do you model in wax if it’s so perishable?” he asked.

  “I told you, I only do it when I’m going to be casting in bronze.” Elliot put down the wire-end tool in his hand, turned to Carella, and patiently said, “It’s called cire perdue, the lost-wax method. A mold is made of the piece when it gets to the foundry, and then the wax is melted out, and molten bronze is poured into the mold.”

  “Then the original wax piece is lost, is that right?”

  “Brilliant,” Elliot said again, and picked up a fettling knife.

  “What do you do when you get the bronze piece back?”

  “Chisel or file off the fins, plug any holes, color it, polish it, and mount it on a marble base.”

  “What’s in here?” Carella asked, indicating a closed door.

  “Storage.”

  “Of what?”

  “Larger pieces. Most of them in plaster.”

  “Mind if I take a look?”

  “You’re hot stuff, you know that?” Elliot said. “You come around with a search warrant, and then you go through the charade of asking me whether or not you can…”

  “No sense being uncivilized about it, is there?”

  “Why not? I thought you were investigating a murder.”

  “I didn’t think you realized that, Mr. Elliot.”

  “I realize it fine. And I’ve already told you I don’t know who the dead man…”

  “Yes, you’ve already told me. The trouble is, I don’t happen to believe you.”

  “Then don’t be so fucking polite,” Elliot said. “If I’m a murder suspect, I don’t need your good manners.”

  Carella went into the storage room without answering. As Elliot had promised, the room contained several larger pieces, all done in plaster, all unmistakably of Mary Margaret Ryan. A locked door was at the far end of the room. “Where’s that door go?” Carella asked.

  “What?” Elliot said.

  “The other door here.”

  “Outside. The alley.”

  “You want to unlock it for me, please?”

  “I don’t have a key. I never open that door. It’s locked all the time.”

  “I’ll have to kick it open then,” Carella said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to see what’s out in that alley.”

  “There’s nothing out in that alley.”

  There were prints in the plaster dust on the floor. Easily identifiable prints left by someone’s right foot; on either side of them, there were circular marks that might have been left by the rubber tips of crutches. The prints led directly to the alley door.

  “What do you say, Elliot? Are you going to open it for me?”

  “I told you I don’t have a key.”

  “Fine,” Carella said, and kicked the door in without another word.

  “Are you allowed to do that?” Elliot said.

  “Sue me,” Carella said, and went out into the alley. A garbage can and two cardboard boxes full of trash were stacked against the brick wall. In one of the cardboard cartons Carella found the sneaker Elliot had been wearing yesterday. He came back into the studio, showed the sneaker to Elliot and said, “Ever see this before?”

  “Never.”

  “I figured you wouldn’t have,” Carella said. “Mr. Elliot, at the risk of sounding like a television cop, I’d like to warn you not to leave the city.”

  “Where would I go?” Elliot asked.

  “Who knows? You seem to have a penchant for Boston. Take my advice and stay put till I get back to you.”

  “What do you hope to get from a fucking moldy sneaker?” Elliot said.

  “Maybe some wax that didn’t get lost,” Carella answered.

  The cop who picked up the surveillance of Frederick Lipton at five o’clock that evening was Cotton Hawes. From his parked sedan across the street from the real estate office, he watched Lipton as he locked up the place and walked down the block to where his Ford convertible was parked. He followed him at a safe distance to a garden apartment a mile and a half from the real estate office, and waited outside for the next four hours, at which time Lipton emerged, got into his Ford again, and drove to a bar imaginatively named the Gee-Gee-Go-Go. Since Lipton had never met Hawes and did not know what he looked like, and also since the place advertised topless dancers, Hawes figured he might as well step inside and continue the surveillance there. The place was no more disappointing than he expected it to be. Topless dancing, in this city, was something more than topless—the something more being pasties or filmy brassieres. Hookers freely roamed the streets and plied their trade, but God forbid a mammary gland should be exposed to some unsuspecting visitor from Sioux City. The dancers, nonetheless, were usually young and attractive, gyrating wildly to canned rock music while the equivalent of front-row center in a burlesque house ogled them from stools lining the bar. Not so at the Gee-Gee-Go-Go. The dancers here were thirtyish or better, considerably over the hill for the kind of acrobatics they performed or the kind of erotic response they attempted to provoke. Hawes sat in bored silence while the elaborate electronics system buffeted him with waves of amplified sound and the dancers, four in all, came out in succession to grind away in tempo along the length of the bar. Keeping one eye on Lipton, who sat at the other end of the bar, Hawes speculated that the sound system had cost more than the dancing girls, but this was Calm’s Point and not Isola; one settled for whatever he could get in the city’s hinterlands.