Calypso (16 page)

    "Nothing in the phone book, huh?" Kling asked.

    "Nothing."

    "Okay," Byrnes said, somewhat brusquely, "so far you're handling Leopold's case brilliantly. You're tracking down the pimp the girl worked for, wonderful, you'll probably find him one of these days, and maybe you'll learn he didn't like the way she was doing her nails or combing her hair, so maybe he put a couple of.38 slugs in her last Friday night, great. If you're right, you've solved Leopold's case and he'll get a promotion to Detective/First, great. Meanwhile, what are you doing to find
Chadderton's
killer?"

    Byrnes delivered this somewhat lengthy (for Byrnes) speech in a tone of voice entirely devoid of sarcasm. His blue eyes were without the slightest trace of malicious amusement, his mouth betrayed neither smirk nor snarl, his words were in fact as mild as the balmy zephyrs of spring, which warm breezes all the detectives gathered around Meyer's desk would have preferred to the blustery rain outside the squadroom this very moment. But they all knew Byrnes pretty well, they had all over the years grown accustomed to his flat delivery and his no-nonsense appearance, the iron-gray hair and the blue eyes that followed you like tracer bullets in the night. They heard each word fall suddenly now, like the raindrops outside,
ploppity-plop-plip
onto Meyer's desk top and onto the worn green linoleum around the desk,
ploppity-plip-plop
all over their case like a big puppy pissing on paper under the kitchen sink.

    "Well, what we thought…" Carella said.

    "Mm, what did you think?" Byrnes asked, again without sarcasm, but somehow his words kept dampening things.

    "We thought the connection between the girl and the pimp…"

    "Mm-huh?"

    "Is… uh… Chadderton wrote a song about a hooker."

    "He did, huh?" Byrnes said.

    "Yes, sir," Carella said. "In which he exhorts her-"

    "Exhorts?" Byrnes said.

    "Yes, sir. Exhorts, right?" Carella said to Hawes.

    "Sure, exhorts."

    "Exhorts her to quit being a whore, you know."

    "Uh-huh," Byrnes said.

    "So what we thought…" Meyer said.

    "What we thought," Carella said, "is that
if
this Joey Peace is the one who killed the
girl,
then since it's the same
gun
and all, since Ballistics has nailed it as the same
gun,
then maybe he
also
killed George Chadderton because Chadderton was trying to convince the girl to get out of the life and all."

    "Where does it say that?" Byrnes asked.

    "Say what?"

    "That Chadderton was trying to convince the Hawkins girl to get out of the life."

    "That's just a supposition," Carella said.

    "Ah," Byrnes said.

    "But he
did
write a song about a hooker," Hawes said.

    "Where does it say the song's about this particular hooker?" Byrnes said.

    "Well… I don't know," Hawes said. "Steve,
is
it about this particular hooker?"

    "Not according to Harding."

    "Who's Harding?" Kling asked.

    "Chadderton's business manager. He says Chadderton's songs weren't about anybody in particular."

    "Then he
wasn't
writing about the Hawkins girl," Byrnes said.

    "Well, I… guess not," Carella said.

    "Then where's the connection?"

    "I don't know yet. But, Pete, they were killed with the same damn pistol. Now
that's
connection enough, isn't it?"

    "It's connection enough," Byrnes said, "yes. And it'll be very nice if when you find this Joey Peace, you also find a Smith & Wesson.38 Police Special…"

    "No, either a Regulation or a Terrier," Carella said.

    "Whatever," Byrnes said. "It'll be very nice if you find the murder weapon tucked in his socks or his undershorts, and it'll be very nice if he admits he killed the girl and also killed Chadderton in the bargain because Chadderton wrote a song about somebody who could've been the Hawkins girl. So yes, it'll be very nice if Joey Peace is your man. But, gentlemen, I can tell you after too many damn years in this lousy business that nothing is ever as easy as it seems it might be, nothing ever is. And if it stops raining this very goddamn minute, I for one will be very goddamn surprised."

    It did not stop raining that very goddamn minute.

    The only thing that ended that minute was the meeting. Hawes and Kling went home, Byrnes went back into his office, and Meyer went back to his desk to finish typing up his report. Carella phoned Midtown South and asked to speak to Detective Leopold, intending to report to him on the positive finding from Ballistics. He was advised by a detective named Peter Sherman that Leopold had left for the day. Carella hung up, checked his personal phone listings for the name "Palacios, Francisco," and dialed the number.

    Francisco Palacios owned and operated a store that sold medicinal herbs, dream books, religious statues, numbers books, tarot cards, and the like. Gaucho Palacios and Cowboy Palacios ran a store
behind
the other store, and
this
one offered for sale such medically approved "marital aids" as dildoes, French ticklers, open-crotch panties, vibrators (eight inch and ten inch), leather executioner's masks, chastity belts, whips with leather thongs, and ben-wa balls in both plastic and gold plate. The sale of these items was not illegal in this city; the Gaucho and the Cowboy were breaking no laws, this was not why they ran their store
behind
the store owned and operated by Francisco. Instead, they did so out of a sense of responsibility to the Puerto Rican community. They did not, for example, want an old lady in a black shawl to wander into their shop and faint dead away at the sight of the playing cards featuring men, women, police dogs, and midgets in fifty-two marital-aid positions, fifty-four if you counted the jokers. Both the Gaucho and the Cowboy had community pride to match that of Francisco himself. Francisco, the Gaucho, and the Cowboy were, in fact, all one and the same person, and they were collectively a police informer. "Palacios," a voice said.

    "Cowboy, this is Steve Carella, I need some help."

    "Name it," the Gaucho said.

    'I'm looking for a pimp named Joey Peace. Ever hear of him?"

    "Not offhand. Is he from here in El Infierno?"

    "Don't know anything about him but his name. Supposed to have had four hookers in his stable, one of them murdered this past Friday night."

    "What's her name?"

    "Clara Jean Hawkins."

    "White? Black?"

    "Black."

    "Okay, let me check around. You gonna be there tomorrow?"

    "I'll be here," Carella said. "I'll call you."

    "Thanks," Carella said, and hung up. It was still raining. He walked to where Meyer was busily typing at his own desk, and told him he was heading uptown to Diamondback to talk to the dead girl's mother-did Meyer want to come along? Considering the tone of Carella's voice, Meyer thought it might be best to accept the invitation graciously.

    

    

    Dorothy Hawkins was a light-complexioned black woman in her early fifties, Carella guessed, her body sinewy rather than slender, her face gaunt rather than finely chiseled; even Meyer, with his new-found novelistic turn of mind, might have chosen those more severe descriptive adjectives to define the woman who opened the door for them and let them into her Pettit Lane apartment. The time was 6:30 p.m. Mrs. Hawkins explained that she had just got home from work. She worked assembling transistor radios in a factory out on Beth-town. A shot glass of whiskey sat on the kitchen table before her; she explained that it was bourbon and asked the detectives if they would care for some.

    "Take the chill off this mis'able rainy weather," she said.

    When the detectives declined, she drank the whiskey neat and in a single swallow, and then went to the cabinet, took down the half-full bottle and poured herself another shot. The detectives sat opposite her at the kitchen table. A wall clock threw minutes into the room. There were no cooking smells in the apartment; Carella wondered if Mrs. Hawkins planned to drink her dinner. Outside, neon tinted the slanting rain, transmogrifying the windowpane trickles into nests of disturbed green snakes.

    "Mrs. Hawkins," Carella said, "my partner and I are investigating a case we feel is linked to your daughter's death, and we'd like to ask you some questions about it. If you feel you'd like to answer them, we'd be most appreciative."

    "Yes, anythin," she said.

    "First off," he said, "do you know anyone named George Chadderton?"

    "No," she said.

    "We have reason to believe that he knew your daughter. Did she ever mention him in your presence?"

    "I don't recall hearin his name, no."

    "Nor Santo Chadderton, is that right?" Meyer asked.

    "Nor him neither," Mrs. Hawkins said.

    "Ma'am," Carella said, "you told Detective Leopold that your daughter was a prostitute…"

    "Yes, that's true."

    "How did you know that for a fact?"

    "Clara Jean told me."

    "When did she tell you this?"

    "Two, three weeks ago."

    "Until that time, did you have any idea she was…"

    "I had an idea, but I wasn't sure. She kept tellin me she was workin nights some hotel downtown. Doin some kind of derkin work downtown."

    "Did she mention any hotel by name?" Carella asked at once.

    "She did, but I forget it now."

    "Downtown where?"

    "I don't remember. I ain't too familiar with the other parts of the city cept Diamondback here."

    "When did she stop living here, Mrs. Hawkins?" Meyer asked.

    "Oh, got to be six months at least. Told me she needed t'live closer to the job, the hotel where she was clerkin nights. Said it was dangerous takin the subway uptown here after she finished work, three, four o'clock in the mornin. I could unner-stan that, it seemed reasonable to me."

    "And you didn't suspect anything at the time?"

    "No, she was always a good girl, never had no trouble with her. Never hung aroun the street gangs like some of the other girls in this neighborhood, never messed with dope. She was a good girl, Clara Jean."

    "You're sure about the dope, are you?" Meyer said.

    "Positive. You go ask the doctor done the autopsy. You go ask him did he find any dope inside my little girl, did he find any marks on her arms or legs, you just ask him. I used to watch her like a hawk, search her arms an legs every afternoon when she come home from school, every night when she come home from a date. If I'da seed so much as a pinprick, I'da broke her head."

    "Where'd she go to school, Mrs. Hawkins?"

    "Right here in Diamondback. Edward Victor High."

    "Did she graduate?"

    "Last January."

    "Then what?"

    "She took a month off, said she wanted a li'l rest before she started lookin for work. In March, she got a job waitressin here in Diamondback, but she wasn't makin much money at it, so she left that in April musta been, and took the job clerkin at the hotel downtown-leastwise that's what she tole me. Moved out of here in May. How many months is that?"

    "Five, ma'm."

    "I thought it was six. I tole you
six
before, didn't I?"

    "Yes, ma'm."

    "Well, it's five then." She shook her head. "Seems longer."

    "Where was she waitressing?" Meyer asked.

    "Caribou Corner, here in Diamondback. That's a steak joint, I don't know why they give it such a godawful name. A caribou's some kind of big
moose
or somethin, ain't it?"

    "I think so," Meyer said.

    "Name like that don't make
me
want to eat no steak, I can tell you that."

    "Caribou Corner," Carella said. "C.C."

    "Pardon?" Mrs. Hawkins said.

    "Right, that's what it meant," Meyer said. "Clara Jean at Caribou Corner."

    "Mrs. Hawkins," Carella said, "are you
certain
your daughter never mentioned anyone named George Chadderton?"

    "I'm positive."

    "When she moved out, did she take everything she owned with her? All her personal possessions? Diaries, address books…"

    "Didn't keep no diary. But she took all her other things with her, yes. You mean where she kept her phone numbers an all?"

    "Yes."

    "Took 'em with her."

    "Did she leave
anything
of hers here?"

    "Well, some nightgowns an a few bras and panties, like that. So if she come up to spend a day and she needed somethin to sleep in, or a fresh change of underthings, they'd be handy."

    "Did she come here often?"

    "Ever now and then."

    "When did you last see her alive?"

    "Thursday."

    "She was here this past Thursday?"

    "Well, past two months, she been comin home ever Thursday."

    "Why's that?"

    "Just to see her mama, I guess," Mrs. Hawkins said, and suddenly avoided Carella's eyes.

    "Mm-huh," he said. "This is something new, though, huh? The Thursday visits?"

    "Well, past couple of months."

    "You say she moved out in May…"

    "Yes, May."

    "And this is September."

    "That's right."

    "So if she started visiting you on Thursdays a couple of months ago…"