Evan Hunter - Candyland

"Maybe he's still here," Emma says.

"Maybe that's why I can't sleep," Manzetti says.

The telephone rings again a few moments later. Her watch reads five-oh-one a.m.

"Hello?" she says.

Someone is sobbing on the other end of the line.

"Hello?" she says again.

"Detective Boyle?" a girl's voice says.

"Yes, who's this?"

"Lois."

"What's wrong, Lois?" she asks at once.

"I'm so ashamed," Lois says.

"What is it? Tell me."

"I'm so ashamed."

"Tell me what happened," Emma says.

This is what you say to rape victims. Tell me what happened. They want to tell you what happened, but at the same time they are ashamed of what happened, feel that they themselves are somehow responsible for what happened. Was my skirt too short, my heels too high, my blouse too low cut? Was I showing too much leg, breast, ass? Was my lipstick too bright? Did I look like a slut? Technically, Lois Ford is not a rape victim. But as she tells Emma What Benjamin Thorpe made her do on the telephone…

"Was he calling from Los Angeles?" Emma asks.

"No, New York. He's here in New York."

… as she reports in detail the conversation she had with him, a conversation that had started at approximately four a.m. and ended almost forty-five minutes later…

Emma looks at her watch.

It is now five-oh-eight.

"Yes, tell me," she says.

As Lois recites what happened, it becomes clear that she was every bit a rape victim as a woman dragged into the bushes and threatened with a knife. She'd been helpless in the hands of a gentleman rapist on the other end of the line, a friendly persuader, an experienced seducer who had done this many times before and who would do it again and again so long as there were women out there to be had for the plucking. Technically or not, Lois Ford had for damn sure been raped.

"How do you know he wasn't calling from L.A.?" Emma asks.

"He said he was in New York."

"Said he was Benjamin Thorpe?"

"Yes."

"Said he was calling from New York?"

"Yes."

"Did he say from where in New York?"

"No."

"Did you ask him?"

"No."

"Is your phone number listed in the directory?"

"Yes. But not my first name. Just an L."

"Do you have caller ID?"

"No."

"What time did he call, Lois?"

"Around four."

"And what time did the call end?"

"Just before I called you."

"Five, ten minutes ago?"

"Yes."

"You're sure it wasn't longer ago than that?"

"I'm sure."

"It wasn't longer ago than a half-hour, was it?"

"No."

"You're positive?"

"Positive."

"All right, then, listen to me carefully. This is what I want you to do."

She calls Morgan and asks him to meet her for breakfast at a diner on Canal Street, convenient to both the Chelsea brownstone and his apartment in SoHo. The streets are still heavy with fog when he arrives at six-thirty in the morning.

"You'd think it was fuckin London," he says.

He is wearing jeans and a lemon-colored cotton sweater. Loafers without socks. Emma has thrown on a green cotton skirt and matching T. She is barelegged and wearing darker green slides with a low heel. They look as if they're both dressed for a day in the Hamptons, but officially, they're not on the job yet. They are just two off-duty cops meeting for breakfast.

"I was up half the night…" he says.

"Me, too."

"… tryin'a dope this thing out. It's a bitch, ain't it?"

"It is," Emma agrees.

"So what's all. this you have to tell me?" he asks.

He is eating blueberry pancakes. He slices them with his fork, lifts little triangles dripping syrup to his mouth. He hasn't yet shaved this morning; there is a faint beard stubble on his chin and his jowls.

"Thorpe called Lois Ford," she says.

"You're kidding me!"

"He's in New York, Jimmy. He told her he's in New York."

"Where? Jesus, does she know where?"

" No. He called for phone sex…"

Jimmy is nodding.

"Led her down the garden…"

"Naturally, these guys," he says, still nodding.

"I asked her to hit Star 69. I figured if Thorpe got horny, maybe he also got reckless. What you do, you hit the star key on your phone and then the six and the nine…"

"I know."

"… and you get the number of the last person who called. You have to do it within a half-hour after the person hangs up. But it won't work if the caller has a block on his line."

"I know. Zippo," Morgan says, and nods again.

"Zippo," Emma says. "Thorpe called from a blocked phone. But there's something else, Jimmy. This is what's driving me nuts."

He is lifting a wedge of pancake to his mouth. He waits, the fork poised.

"Cathy had a boyfriend."

"What!"

"Some guy who thought she was really Heidi."

"What do you mean?"

"Dressed her like a little girl."

"Who told you this?"

"Cindy."

"You made contact again, huh?"

"Don't get sore. I Would've called you, but…"

"No, that's okay."

"It was late, Jimmy. I went up there two in the morning."

"Up where?"

"The XS."

"Busy at that time, I'll bet."

"Very. She told me this guy waited outside for Cathy after work each night."

"Did she say who?"

"Never met him."

"Did she get a look at him?"

"No. But it can't be Thorpe. He only got here Wednesday."

"Be too much to hope for, anyway."

"Never met him. Never saw him. So she says."

"You think she's lying?"

"I think she's frightened. He's the reason Cathy changed the lock on her door."

"Then he's the one who broke in this afternoon! Shit, Emma, let's go up the XS right this minute!"

"She's long gone, Jimmy."

"See if anybody else up there knows this guy. Jesus, all at once this is coming together!"

"You think?"

"Well, don't you? This is a real lead, Emma, this really gives us something to work with! We find this guy, we wrap it!" He gulps down coffee, wipes his mouth and his chin with a napkin. "Here's what I think," he says.

"Let me hear."

"I think we should go back to the XS, see if Cathy's boyfriend actually exists."

"Okay."

"See if anybody up there actually ever saw the guy."

"Okay."

"What do you say?"

"I say good."

"You wanna go back up there?"

"Yes."

"Ask some questions?"

"Yes."

"Try to zero in on this creep?"

"Yes."

" Nail the son of a bitch?"

"Yes," she says, and nods. "Yes, I do."

They sit there grinning at each other. For the first time since yesterday morning, she feels they're really working together.

"But not now," she says. "Nobody'll be there right now."

He looks at his watch.

"They don't come in till ten," she says.

"Okay, I'll meet you there at ten." He picks up the check, looks at it. "You want to split this or what?" he asks.

"Of course," she says, and reaches into her bag for her wallet.

"Three bucks enough for the tip?" he asks, and shows her the bill. There is suddenly a look of such boyish uncertainty on his face that she wants to hug him.

"Three bucks is fine," she says.

On Emma's cheap Timex, it is ten minutes to eight when she gets to Cathy Frese's building on Lexington Avenue. The fog is still thick, the city seems insulated in gray. Tenants are coming out of the building, into the fog, heading off to work. As Emma climbs to the second floor, tenants coming down the stairs glance curiously at the yellow tapes and the policeman standing outside the door to apartment 22.

She shows the officer her shield and her ID card, tells him she's investigating the murder of the girl who lived here, and asks him to unlock the Medeco for her, please. The officer has just relieved the Graveyard Shift, and this is his first day at the crime scene, so he's not sure whether it's okay to let her in or not. Emma advises him to check with his patrol sergeant, and waits while he steps away from her to phone in. A short stout woman comes lumbering up the steps. She is wearing a gray skirt, a red T-shirt, and black clogs.