Ed McBain - Long Time No See

“Yes.”

“For help with what you thought might have been an illegal scheme.”

“Yes.”

“And you said you didn’t remember the man’s name.”

“That’s right.”

“If I gave you some names, would that help?”

“Maybe.”

“How about Russell Poole? Did your son call him or write to him?”

“That doesn’t sound familiar.”

“Rudy Tanner?”

“No.”

“John Tataglia?”

“I really don’t remember. I’m very bad with names.”

“Robert Hopewell?”

“I’m sorry, but...”

“Karl Fiersen?”

“All those names sound alike to me.”

Carella thought about that. He guessed that Tanner did sound something like Tataglia and maybe Russell Poole and Robert Hopewell could be mistaken one for the other. But there was nothing Fiersen sounded like but itself. And as for Cortez...

“Cortez?” he said. “Danny Cortez?”

“I can’t remember,” Sophie said. “I’m sorry.”

“Did your son write to this person, or did he call him?”

“He wrote to him.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me.”

“Did you see the letter?”

“No.”

“Do you know what it said?”

“No, he didn’t tell me what was in it. Only that he’d written to this man who was going to help him and Isabel get rich.”

“Did he say how much money was involved?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Harris, what would Jimmy have considered rich?”

“I got no idea.”

“What do you consider rich?”

“I’d be the richest woman in the world if I could have my Jimmy and his wife back,” Sophie said, and began weeping.

The dog didn’t say a word all the way downtown. Kept sitting on the back seat looking through the window, watching the traffic. Carella wondered if he should take him to an animal shelter. He thought of what Maloney from Canine had told him about gradually drawing all the air out of a container. Maloney said it was just like going to sleep. Carella doubted that gasping for air was very much like going to sleep. He didn’t like dogs, and he didn’t know this particular dog from an inchworm — but he didn’t think he would take him to a shelter.

He parked the car on Dutchman’s Row, near the old Harrison Life Building. As he locked the door, the dog on the back seat looked out at him. Carella said, “That’s okay,” and walked away from the car. The streets here were clogged with automobiles and pedestrians. On the comer a traffic cop was chatting with a dark-haired girl in a miniskirt, a fake-fur jacket and black leather boots. The girl looked like a hooker. The traffic cop was talking to the girl who was maybe a hooker, smiling at her, puffing out his chest, while horns honked and tempers soared and traffic backed up clear to the harbor tunnel. Carella dodged a taxi that had begun weaving in and out of the stalled traffic. The taxi almost hit him. The driver rolled down his window and shouted, “You tired of living, mister?”

He found the address for Prestige Novelty on the other side of the street, some four buildings down from the comer. Someone had spilled water on the sidewalk in front of the entrance door and the water had frozen into a thin dangerous glaze. Carella automatically looked up to the face of the building, to see whether there were any window washers on scaffolds up there. Nothing, and no one. He wondered where the spilled water had come from. Mysteries. All the time, mysteries. He skirted the patch of ice and pushed his way through the revolving doors. On the lobby directory he found a listing for PRESTIGE NOVELTY, Room 501. He took the elevator up, and then searched out the office in the fifth-floor corridor. Frosted-glass upper panel on the door, Prestige Novelty in gold-leaf lettering beneath which were the numerals 501. So far, so good. With brilliant deductive work like this — finding an office after having consulted a lobby directory — Carella figured he’d make Detective/First within the month. He opened the door. This, too, indicated high intelligence and good small-motor control — grasping a doorknob in one’s right hand, twisting it, pushing the door inward. He found himself in a smallish reception room done in various shades of green, all bilious. There was an opening on the wall facing the door, a pair of sliding glass panels. Behind the panels was a dark-haired woman in her early thirties. He guessed this was Jennie D’Amato, with whom he had talked last Friday night. He approached the partition; one of the panels slid open.

“Yes?”

“Detective Carella,” he said. “I’d like to talk to Mr. Preston, please.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Are you Miss D’Amato?”

“Yes.”

“Is Mr. Preston in?”

“I’ll see,” she said, and slid the panel shut, and picked up the telephone receiver, and stabbed at a button in the base of the phone. He could hear her voice through the glass panels. “Mr. Preston? There’s a Detective Carella here to see you.” She listened, said, “Yes, sir,” and put the receiver back on its cradle. She slid open the panel again. “I’ll buzz you in,” she said to Carella, and indicated a door on her right. Carella went to the door, took the knob in his hand, waited for the buzz that unlocked it, and opened it into the office beyond. Desks, filing cabinets. At one of the desks, a horsefaced woman working over what appeared to be the company ledgers. He supposed this was Miss Houlihan. She did not look up from the books.

“It’s the door right there,” Jennie said. “Just go right in.”

“Thank you,” Carella said, and walked to the door and knocked on it.

“Come in,” Preston said.

He was sitting behind a large wooden desk, the book cases behind him lined with leatherbound books that looked dusty and old. He was wearing a dark pinstriped suit, a white shirt and muted tie. The last time Carella saw him, he’d been wearing a bathrobe. He looked rather more elegant now, somewhat like a barrister out of Great Expectations , fringe of white hair framing his massive head, blue eyes alert and expectant under the white shaggy brows. He rose immediately, shook hands with Carella, and immediately asked, “Any news?”

“No, nothing,” Carella said. “I’d like to ask you a few more questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. This other woman who was killed—”

“You know about that?” Carella asked at once.

“Yes, it was in the papers. Is her death linked to Isabel’s?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Because if it is...” Preston shrugged. “Well then, you’re obviously dealing with a lunatic, isn’t that so?”

“Possibly,” Carella said. “Mr. Preston, I’m assuming that the relationship between you and Isabel was the sort in which there was a free exchange of dialogue.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you ever talk about your separate marriages?”

“Yes, we did.”

“Mr. Preston, we have good reason to believe that Jimmy Harris wrote to someone he knew in the Army, proposing some sort of business deal — possibly something illegal. Did Isabel ever mention this to you?”

“No, she did not.”

“Never mentioned Jimmy contacting one of his old Army buddies?”

“No.”

“Did she mention Jimmy going to the reunion in August?”

“Yes. In fact...”

“Yes, Mr. Preston?”

“We... stole a few days together.”

“You and Isabel went away together, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“While Jimmy was at the reunion?”

“Yes.”

“Did she later mention anything that happened at the reunion?”

“No.”

“Did Jimmy ever tell her about a plan to get rich?”