Evan Hunter - Candyland

Time is moving so very swiftly.

"Goodbye, Lokatia," he says.

"Goodbye, Ben," she says.

He goes to the beaded curtains, and parts them, and walks to the front door and out of the apartment and down the steps to the street.

The rain has stopped.

A heavy fog is rolling in.

He steps down off the curb and looks up the street for a taxi. On the next corner, a young black girl is crossing the street against the light. She is wearing a tight mini skirt and very high-heeled shoes. Her blouse is cut low over her breasts. She is smoking a cigarette. As she comes toward the curb, the light changes, bathing her in its red glow. She glances in his direction, hesitates when she spots him, smiles, waves tentatively to him. In the distance, in the mist, Ben sees the dome light of a vacant taxi.

He raises his hand.

By eight, the morning fog

Must disappear…

The three detectives leave the crime scene at about nine a.m. and go for breakfast in a diner on Seventieth and Third. They sit together in a window booth, drinking hot coffee and eating bacon and eggs. Emma and the guy from Homicide work in the same building on Broadway, all the way uptown on the West Side, but they've never met each other before now. The guy from Vice works out of a building here on the Upper East Side, another planet. He is telling them the strangled girl was a known hooker.

"Worked at a massage parlor on Seventy-fourth and Third. Used the name Heidi on the job. Her real name is Cathy Frese. Twenty-six years old, new in the city."

The guy from Vice is maybe in his early to mid-forties, a good-looking man in a rough-hewn sort of way, dark hair going gray at the temples, brown eyes, what her father would call "a black Irishman." Irish manner about him, too, if there is such a thing. Emma supposes she herself has an Irish manner. The guy from Homicide is Italian. He is in his early fifties, Emma guesses, and dressed in what her father would call a "natty" way, wearing a tan tropical suit she swears is silk, a snap-brimmed straw hat of a deeper hue, beige button-down shirt, summery tie with alternating yellow and blue pastel stripes. His name is Anthony Manzetti, and he is telling them the One-Nine Precinct called around six-fifteen this morning to report a girl strangled in an alleyway on Seventieth and First. The guy from Vice has been called in because one of the blues recognized the dead girl as a neighborhood hooker. Emma was called in because it appears the girl was raped.

"What's Special Victims working just now?" Manzetti asks.

Special Victims was already called that when Emma joined the squad eight years ago. Until 1988, it was called the Sex Crimes Squad. She guesses Special Victims sounds more politically correct. Manzetti's squad used to be called Homicide North. Now it's Manhattan North Homicide Task Force, which makes it sound like an invading army. Manzetti is looking for an M.O. that will wrap the case in five seconds flat, fat chance.

"Nothing like this," Emma says.

"How about your phantom rape artist?" the guy from Vice asks.

This is sort of an inside joke. Special Victims has been chasing a black guy in a woolen watch cap for the past three years now, with still no arrest. His poster is in store windows all over the Upper East Side, but he just keeps doing his thing.

"Not his style," Emma says.

She's not quite sure she likes the guy from Vice, maybe because they kind of work different sides of the same street. Vice used to be called the Public Morals Division but for the past four years it's been called the Vice Enforcement Division, which makes it sound like they're rooting for the bad guys. Are they here to enforce vice? her father would ask. Make it stronger somehow? Help vice flourish and grow in this fair city?

"You know," she says, "I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name before."

"Morgan," he says. "James Morgan."

"Emma Boyle," she says, and extends her hand.

"Nice to meet you," he says. "You know the James Bond joke?"

"No," Emma says.

Manzetti shakes his head.

Morgan grins in anticipation.

"James Bond walks into this bar," he says, "and takes a stool next to this gorgeous blonde. He looks her in the eye, extends his hand, and says, “Bond. James Bond.” The blonde looks back at him and says, “Off. Fuck off.”"

Manzetti laughs. Morgan laughs with him. Two Good Old Boys hooting it up over the bacon and eggs. Emma merely smiles and nods. To her, the joke seems inappropriate when they're here to discuss a girl who was strangled and raped. Well, the job, she thinks. Twelve years on the force, they still have to test you with fuck, piss, shit, cunt.

"So how do you want us to proceed?" Morgan asks.

"As if he's a moving target," Manzetti says, "three-point triangle on his tail. Emma, you come at it like a run-of-the-mill rape…"

Run-of-the-mill rape, she thinks.

"Check your Lousy File, see if you've got anything matches the M.O…."

"I'm sure we don't," she says.

I just told you we don't, she thinks.

"Well, just to make sure. See who's on the street doing mischief, find out where he was this morning around dawn."

Emma nods.

She is already thinking this will lead to zero. She is thinking her team doesn't investigate many rapes resulting in murders. She is thinking she can count such cases on the fingers of one hand. She is thinking Anyway, a rape-homicide is always investigated as a homicide, not a rape, so what's Manzetti trying to pull here? Is his plate too full just now? Is he trying to dump this one on the local talent?

"Jim, I want you to come at it like some whore got killed cause of her line of work. Maybe her father or her brother or her boyfriend didn't like what she was doing. Or maybe it was a disgruntled John, or a jealous girl in the same stable, or a pimp deciding she held out on him, whatever. Or just some guy don't like hookers, whatever."

"Along those lines…" Morgan says, and lets the sentence dangle.

Master of suspense, Emma thinks.

"Yeah, what?" Manzetti says.

"We had a disturbance up the XS two, three…"

"The what?"

"The XS Salon. Where the vic worked."

"What kind of disturbance?"

"Two, three weeks ago. Some drunk got out of hand, started pushing two of the girls around."

"What's that got to do with…?"

"Cathy Frese was one of the girls."

Manzetti looks across the table at Emma. Emma nods maybe.

"You think he might have gone back?" Manzetti asks. "Is that it?"

"It's possible," Morgan says. "Getting laid is an obsession with these people. They ain't normal, you know. All they do is think about sex day and night, it's the only thing on their minds."

"Check him out," Manzetti says.

"So what do I call you?" Emma asks. "James? Jimmy? Jim?"

"Well, I'll tell you," he says, and turns toward her and grins. Big Irish grin. They're walking crosstown toward the XS Salon, dodging light morning traffic as they cross Second Avenue. John F. Kennedy, Jr. was found dead in the ocean yesterday, but the city doesn't seem to be overly distressed today. A twenty-six-year-old girl was found strangled and raped in an alleyway at six this morning, but the city is just going about its usual business three. and a half hours later. "My mother still calls me James," he says, "and my father still calls me Jimmy. Everybody else calls me Jim. You can take your choice."

"Which do you prefer?"

"I guess Jimmy," he says, and shrugs. "How about you? Is Emma what you like?"

"It's what most people call me."

"Not Em?"

"I hate Em."

"Emma Boyle," he says, trying the name.

"All over again."

"What do you mean?"