Bread (87th Precinct) (17 page)

“Who’d you say this was?”

“Detective Steve Carella, 87th Squad.”

“Put it in writing, Carella,” Yarborough said. “We can’t answer telephone requests.”

“This is urgent,” Carella said. “We’re investigating homicide and arson.”

“What’d you say your name was?”

“Carella. Steve Carella.”

“Where you calling from, Carella?”

“The squadroom.”

“What’s the number there?”

“Frederick 7-8024.”

“I’ll get back to you,” Yarborough said, and hung up.

Carella looked at the mouthpiece and then slammed the receiver down onto the cradle. The phone rang twenty minutes later. He lifted the receiver. “87th Squad, Carella,” he said.

“This is Yarborough.”

“Hello, Yarborough,” Carella said.

“I wanted to call you back because how did I know you were
really
a detective?” Yarborough said.

“That’s right, you did the right thing,” Carella said.

“I did
better
than the right thing. I first called Headquarters down there in the city and made sure this number was really the number of a detective squadroom.”

“You did very well,” Carella said. “Can you help with that record of correspondence?”

“I’ll try,” Yarborough said. “What was the prisoner’s name?”

“Alfred Allen Chase.”

“When was he here?”

“Started serving his sentence five years ago. Served three and a half.”

“What were you interested in, Carella?”

“I want to know if there was any correspondence between him and a man named Roger Grimm, who’s also one of your graduates.”

“Yeah, we get ’em all here, sooner or later,” Yarborough said dryly. “Any special time period? Some of these lists are a mile long, take me all morning to go through ‘em.”

“Grimm was paroled in June, four years ago. Can you start there?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Yarborough said reluctantly. “Let me get back to you.”

At ten minutes to 10:00 Fat Ollie Weeks walked into the second-floor offices of Diamondback Development. There were two men seated at the long table in front of the wall of photographs. One of them was Robinson Worthy. The other was a black man Ollie had never seen before.

“Good morning,” Ollie said cheerily. “Just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by.”

“Good morning,” Worthy said. His voice was frosty, his eyes wary.

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Ollie said to the other man.

“This is my other partner,” Worthy said. “Oscar Hemmings.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hemmings,” Ollie said, and extended his hand.

Hemmings was a handsome man of perhaps fifty, impeccably dressed in a brown lightweight business suit, beige shirt with a button-down collar, simple tie of a deeper shade of brown. His face was craggy, a strong sledgehammer nose, well-pronounced cheekbones, a firm mouth, a square jaw. His hair was turning gray, styled to hide the fact that it was thinning a bit. His handshake was firm. He smiled thinly and said in a very low voice, “Nice to meet you, Detective Weeks.”

Ollie did not miss the fact that Hemmings knew who he was. This meant that Worthy and Chase had discussed him with their partner. He filed away the information, and said,
“I really didn’t just
happen
to be in the neighborhood. I came up here deliberately.” Worthy and Hemmings said nothing. “First of all, I wanted to apologize,” Ollie said. “I really behaved like an asshole yesterday, Mr. Worthy. I don’t know what got into me.” The Diamondback partners still said nothing. “Also, I wanted to tell you we got the people we think killed Charlie Harrod. Least of all, we
know
they beat up Harrod’s girlfriend. I just came from the hospital, where I got positive identification on four of them, so I thought you’d be happy to hear that.”

“Yes, we’re very happy to hear that,” Worthy said.

“You fellows put in a long week, don’t you?” Ollie said. “Work Saturdays and all, huh?”

“So do you, it seems,” Hemmings said, and again smiled his razor-blade smile.

“No, no, I’m off today,” Ollie said. “Think I’ll take in a ball game or something.” He paused, and then said, “By the way, Mr. Hemmings, we stopped by at an apartment we thought was yours because we were trying to locate you this morning…”

“Oh?” Hemmings said.

“Yeah, when we picked up these guys, you know, who we think killed Harrod.”

“Yes?” Hemmings said.

“Yes,” Ollie said. “Yes. We wanted somebody in the company to know about it, and I was a little embarrassed about contacting Mr. Worthy here because of the way I hassled him yesterday.” He smiled in apology. “So we went over to the apartment on Saint Sebastian.”

“Why didn’t you simply telephone?” Hemmings asked.

“Well, it was close by, no sweat.” Ollie paused. “We met the girl living there.”

“Yes?” Hemmings said.

“Yes. Girl named Rosalie Waggener. Nice girl.”

Hemmings said nothing.

“She ought to get the door fixed,” Ollie said. “The lock’s busted.” He smiled again. “Well, just thought I’d let you know everything’s all wrapped up, and I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time. I’ll see you, huh? Keep up the good work here in Diamondback.” He chopped his beefy hand into the air in farewell, and went out. In the hallway outside, he put his ear to the frosted-glass door and listened. Someone was dialing a telephone. He expected that would be Oscar Hemmings trying to reach his little white bimbo. Ollie smiled and went downstairs and out of the building.

The streets were already beginning to blister under the onslaught of the early-morning sun. Ollie walked two blocks up Landis, turned left, and continued walking north toward the River Harb. A green panel truck was parked in front of an abandoned warehouse facing the river. The man at the wheel of the truck was dozing, a cap pulled down over his eyes, a matchstick between his teeth. Ollie rapped on the partially closed window, and the man jerked suddenly awake.

“I’m Weeks,” Ollie said. “You the guy from the Motor Pool?”

“Yeah,” the man said. “Halloran.”

Ollie stepped back and looked over the truck. “They sent a good one for a change,” he said. “It must be a miracle. Most of these goddamn trucks, everybody in the neighborhood knows it’s taking pictures. This is a nice one, company name painted on the side and everything. Even a phony telephone number. Real classy.”

“The number’s hooked into a phone at Headquarters downtown,” Halloran said. “Anybody calls it to check whether this is a phony truck, a guy answers and gives the name of the company painted on the side there.”

“Ah yes,” Ollie said in his W. C. Fields voice, “very classy, very classy indeed.” In his natural voice he said, “I got to make a phone call, Halloran. Soon as I’m done, we’re heading for 2914 Landis. Okay?”

“Sure, why not?” Halloran said, and shrugged.

When the telephone rang on Carella’s desk, he thought it might be Yarborough calling back from Castleview. Instead, it was Ollie Weeks.

“Carella,” he said, “this is Ollie. Has Hawes called in yet?”

“No. Why?”

“I found Oscar Hemmings, there’s no need for him to stick with the girl.”

“I’ll tell him if he calls.”

“There’s one other thing,” Ollie said. “He was up there alone with Worthy, which means I can’t get nothing on Chase. You want to handle that from your end?”

“You thinking of the IS?”

“Yeah, Chase has a record, so they’re sure to have mug shots of him.”

“Will do,” Carella said.

“I got to get moving,” Ollie said. “Before my jigaboo friends decide to leave without me.”

Rosalie Waggener came down the front steps of 1137 St. Sebastian at a little past 10:30. She was wearing bell-bottomed, hip-hugger tan pants, a scoop-necked, horizontally striped top, and brown low-heeled shoes. In her right hand, she was clutching a small brown pocketbook, which she waved frantically at a passing taxicab the moment she stepped onto the curb.

Cotton Hawes, watching from the doorway across the street, did not know that a call to the squadroom would have advised him to drop the tail. He knew only that he had better get to his
car damn fast, because the cab had already squealed to a stop just ahead and was now backing up to the curb to pick up Rosalie. Hawes’s car was parked halfway up the block. He began walking swiftly, turning once to see Rosalie getting into the taxi. He had just climbed behind the wheel, and was starting the car, when the taxi flashed by.

With a little luck, Hawes figured he would catch up at the next traffic light.

In the rear of the panel truck, sitting behind a camera equipped with a telescopic lens and mounted on a tripod, Ollie Weeks sat behind the equivalent of a one-way-two-way mirror, waiting to take photographs of Worthy and Hemmings the moment they came out of the building across the street. Ollie was looking through a clear pane of glass. The other side of the glass was painted green, like the side of the truck, and then lettered over in yellow paint with the name of the fake company, its address, and the telephone number of the phone downtown at Headquarters.

There was a steady stream of traffic, mostly women, into 2914 Landis. Ollie figured they were heading up to B
LACK
F
ASHIONS
on the third floor. Ollie watched the women through the telescopic lens. One thing you had to say for black broads, they had good legs.

Hemmings and Worthy did not come out of the building until twenty minutes past 11:00. The moment they appeared at the top of the steps, coming through the door, Ollie began taking pictures. He cocked the camera and pressed the shutter release a total of thirteen times before they reached the sidewalk, and then he got three more shots of them moving away in profile. Ollie nodded in satisfaction and rapped on the panel leading to the front of the truck.

Halloran slid it open. “Yeah?”

“I need to go downtown to the IS,” Ollie said.

“You finished here?” Halloran asked.

“Yeah. But I got to get this stuff developed and printed.”

“I’m supposed to take the truck back when you’re finished.”

“You can take me downtown first.”

“This ain’t a goddamn taxi,” Halloran said, but he started the truck and pointed it downtown.

“Carella?”

“Yes?”

“This is Yarborough. I got that information you want.”

“Go ahead,” Carella said.

“This Roger Grimm character was paroled four years ago. Chase was still here at the time, had already served a year and a little more of his sentence.”

“Right, I’ve got that already.”

“Okay. The minute Grimm got out, he began writing to Chase. Correspondence was hot and heavy for about six months. Chase wrote to Grimm, and vice versa, at least once a week, sometimes twice. Then all at once, the correspondence stopped. You know what I think? These guys maybe had a thing here in prison, you know what I mean? Lovers, you know? You’d be surprised what goes on up here.”

“Yes, I’d be surprised,” Carella said.

“I’m only speculating,” Yarborough said. “Maybe they were just friends, who knows? You know the one about the lady with the monkeys?”

“No, which one is that?” Carella said.

“This lady comes into a taxidermist with two dead monkeys, you know, and she says she wants them stuffed. So the taxidermist says, ‘Yes, lady, I’ll stuff the monkeys. You want them mounted, too?’ And the lady thinks for a minute and says, ‘No, they were only friends. Just have them shaking hands.’ ”
Yarborough burst out laughing. Carella, who had remembered the joke after the first line, chuckled politely. “So maybe Grimm and Chase were only friends, who knows?” Yarborough said, still laughing. “Anyway, they wrote to each other a lot after Grimm got out.”

“You wouldn’t know whether or not they were cellmates, would you?”

“That’s another department,” Yarborough said.

“When did the correspondence between them stop?”

“Six months after Grimm got paroled.”

“Okay,” Carella said. “Thanks a lot.”

“
Wait
a minute,” Yarborough said. “Two other things.”

“I’m sorry, I thought you were…”

“They began writing to each other again just before
Chase
got paroled. Chase wrote the first letter, and then Grimm answered, and then they exchanged maybe a dozen more letters before Chase finally left this joint. That’s the first thing.”

“What’s the second thing?”

“The second thing is I need a letter from you formally requesting this information.”

“You already
gave
me the information,” Carella said. “Why do you need a letter from me
requesting
it?”

“To cover me. Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“I don’t
know
what. Just in case. Send me the letter, Carella.”

“Okay,” Carella said, and sighed. “Thanks again.”

“How’s it down there in the city?” Yarborough asked.

“Hot,” Carella said.

“Yeah, here too,” Yarborough said, and hung up.

Carella pressed one of the buttons in the receiver rest, held it down for a second, and then released it, getting a dial tone. He called the Identification Section and told the man he spoke
to that he urgently needed some eight-by-ten glossies of Alfred Allen Chase’s mug shots.

The man listened to the request, and then said, “This is Saturday, pal.”

“Yeah, it’s Saturday here, too,” Carella said.

“I don’t even know if there’s anybody next door in the Photo Unit.”

“
Find
somebody,” Carella said.

Downtown on High Street, the man in the Photographic Unit took the roll of film from Ollie’s hand and said, “You’re gonna have to wait. I just got a rush order from next door.”

“Yeah, well make it snappy, willya?” Ollie said. “
This
is a rush order, too.” He went down the hall to the phone booths, dialed the 87th, and when he got Carella, said, “I took more’n a dozen pictures, we’re bound to get one or two good ones. You heard from Hawes yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“What the hell’s the matter with him? Don’t he know he’s supposed to check in?”

“I guess he’s busy,” Carella said.