The Frumious Bandersnatch (27 page)

The men and sole woman on the squad were now working on the premise that the men who'd kidnapped Tamar Valparaiso were no amateurs. In many respects, this assumption was a throwback to the days of the old Monday-to-Thursday lineups. See those guys on the stage there? Yesterday they committed murder, armed robbery, burglary, rape, auto theft, whatever, and it seems like they all have records of felony convictions as long as my arm here, so look at their faces and remember them well because tomorrow these same people will be committing the same felonies or different felonies all over again.

Once a thief, always a thief, right?

In America, kidnapping was rarely a crime anyone committed more than once. It was fashionable among certain criminal types in remoter parts of the world to capture businessmen and hold them for ransom, but that was there and this was here. It was fashionable in some countries to eat raw crocodile eyes, too. Nobody on the Eight-Seven had ever heard of a serial kidnapper. You either kidnapped somebody and got away with it, in which case you flew to Rio and danced the samba till dawn, or you got caught and spent the rest of your life behind bars. Either way, it was usually a one-shot crime.

So when Carella went to the computer that Tuesday morning, he accessed the state's prison records by typing in first his name and then his password, but once he was cleared, he did not type in the key word KIDNAP because he didn't think that would bear any fruit. In fact, he didn't specify any crime at all. What he was looking for was a left-handed con who limped. In fact, what he was looking for was a left-handed con who'd limped his way out of jail and straight onto the deck of the
River Princess
this past Saturday night.

He called for a statewide search, but he limited it to just the past five years, otherwise he'd be here for the
next
five years. He went straight for the jugular. As his key word, he typed INJURY.

Got a menu asking him to choose among HEAD, TRUNK, or EXTREMITIES.

Hit EXTREMITIES.

Was asked to choose between ARMS or LEGS.

Hit LEGS.

Knew what he was going to be asked before it popped up on the screen, and was not surprised.

He hit RIGHT.

Got a list as long as a prison night.

He'd be here all next week looking through all these records, maybe five or six hundred of them. Who'd have dreamt there were so many cons with injuries to the right leg, and how in hell was he supposed to find the man among them who'd…

Wait a minute, he was looking in the wrong place.

In this state, a term of post-release supervision was mandatory for every determinate sentence. For example, a Class B felony was punishable by an incarceration period of five to twenty-five years. If you were paroled, you had to be supervised on the outside for a period of from two and a half to five years. On the other hand, for a Class E felony, you could be sent up for a term of a year and a half to four years, but after parole, you had to report to your parole officer for at least a year and a half or as long as three years. The message was the same one it had always been: If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Carella logged off the prison system, clicked on DIVISION OF PAROLE, was asked for his online name and password, gave them STEPHEN L. CARELLA and then his shield number, 714-5632, and waited for clearance. When he was online, he asked for a search going back five years.

When prompted for the NAME of the parolee, he typed UNKNOWN.

OFFENSE?

He typed UNKNOWN.

SCARS, TATTOOS, OTHER DISTINGUISHING MARKS?

He typed LEFTHANDED.

DISABILITIES OR INFIRMITIES?

He typed INJURY TO RIGHT LEG, and got INVALID ANSWER and the same question again: DISABILITIES OR INFIRMITIES?

This time he typed LIMP, and hit the jackpot.

There were currently seven left-handed cons on parole from various prisons around the state, all of them with leg injuries. Four of these were injuries to the left leg. The remaining three were injuries to the right leg.

One of these injuries was sustained in the machine shop at Castleview State Penitentiary, when the heavy metal die for manufacturing license plates fell on the inmate's foot, fracturing his ankle bone. The inmate had subsequently sued the state, Carella noticed. And lost, by the way. He'd been released from prison two years ago, and had since got hit by a bus that fractured his skull and caused his untimely demise. Carella figured some guys were just born losers.

The other two men were still alive.

Carella hit the PRINT button.

 

SHE ACTUALLY
heard the key being inserted in the lock.

Heard the tiny click of the key being turned.

Heard some fumbling outside the door, and then the door opened and standing in the door frame was Saddam Hussein.

Carrying the big rifle.

None of them came into the room without a weapon. Must have thought she was extremely dangerous, handcuffed to the radiator this way. Maybe they'd caught a glimpse of “Bandersnatch” before they came down the stairs all macho-men, “Don't nobody fucking
move!
” Weapons of mass destruction in their hands. Same as now. Maybe they'd seen her reach for the invisible vorpal sword and beat the shit out of the frumious beast.

Hussein closed the door behind him, came limping across the floor towards her, dragging his right foot.

She could still remember him slapping her.

She almost flinched as he approached.

“Don't be afraid,” he whispered, and stopped just a few feet away from her.

She said nothing.

Realized she was cowering, tried to straighten her shoulders, realized this emphasized the thrust of her breasts, hunched over again. Behind the Hussein mask, his eyes were bright and blue. He held the AK-47 in his left hand.

“I wanted to tell you how sorry I am,” he said.

I'll bet, she thought.

“For hitting you the other night.”

“That's okay,” she said. “Forget it.”

“No, really,” he said, and knelt beside her on the floor. “I got a little excited, is all.”

He's sitting too close, she thought. Watch it, Tamar.

“What can I do for you? To make you more comfortable,” he said, and put his right hand on her exposed knee.

“No, don't,” she said, and turned her body away, into the radiator.

“
Sorr
-eee,” he said, and pulled back his hand as if he'd burned it. “Just trying to be helpful.”

How about unlocking this handcuff? she thought.

Only way out of here is to get hold of the gun, she thought.

Any one of the guns.

They all have guns around here.

“My wrist hurts,” she said.

“Ahh,” he said. “Want me to rub it for you?”

“Be better if you took off the handcuff,” she said.

“But I don't have a key,” he said, and put his hand on her knee again.

This time, she did not tell him to stop.

“Why don't you go get the key?” she asked. “It's very uncomfortable this way.”

“Avery has the key,” he said.

Avery, she thought. A name.

He did not seem to realize he'd slipped.

“Go ask him for it,” she said.

His hand slid onto her thigh.

“No, don't,” she said. “Not now. Go get the key first. Take off this damn handcuff,” she said, and smiled.

“How does it feel to be dancing in front of people half-naked that way?” he asked. His eyes were shining bright in the holes of the mask. His hand on her thigh was trembling.

“Go get the key,” she said. “I'll dance for you.”

“I could fuck you without having to go for the key,” he said. His voice was trembling, too.

“Be better if I'm loose,” she whispered.

“You promise?” he said, and his hand tightened on her thigh.

“I promise,” she said, and licked her lips.

He rose abruptly. Almost scrambled to his feet.

“I'll be right back,” he said, and hurried to the door, the rifle in his left hand.

Don't forget to bring your gun, she thought.

The door closed behind him.

She heard the soft click of the lock again.

Now she was trembling, too.

 

ONE CERTAIN AXIOM
of this city is that you will never find a homeless shelter, a rehab center, or a parole office in a good neighborhood. If you're apartment-hunting, and you ask the real estate agent about the nearest location of any of these places, and she replies, “Why, right around the corner, dearie!” then what you do is hike up your skirts and run for the hills because the onliest place you don't wish to live is right here, honey.

Early that Tuesday afternoon, Carella and Hawes visited a parole office in a downtown neighborhood that they could best describe as “indifferent to law enforcement,” but perhaps this was a hasty judgment premised on the presence of hookers and drug dealers on every street corner. By one
P.M.
, they had driven across the river and into the trees of a delightful Calm's Point enclave known as Sunrise Shores because once upon a time it had indeed been an elegant waterfront community that faced the sun coming up over a bend in the River Dix.

The neighborhood had long ago been overrun by street gangs who'd once been content to rumble among themselves for the sheer joy of claiming worthless turf or second-hand virgins, but who had since graduated into selling dope on a large scale, and were now killing each other and innocent bystanders in drive-by shootings that made it dangerous to go to the corner grocery store for a pack of cigarettes.

The Sunrise Shores parole office was above one such grocery store, outside which a huddle of teenagers who should have known better were smoking their brains out—and don't write me letters, Carella thought. There were two ways you walked in a neighborhood like this one, even if you were a cop. You either pretended you were invisible, or you pretended you had dynamite strapped to your waist under your jacket. Shoulders back, heads erect, both detectives strutted like walking bombs to the narrow doorway alongside the grocery store. The guys smoking outside figured these dudes were ex-cons here to make their scheduled visits, so they left them alone. So much for Actors Studio exercises, Carella thought, and went up a stairway stinking of piss, Hawes sniffing along haughtily behind him. On the second floor, they found a wooden door with a frosted glass panel lettered with the words:

DIVISION OF PAROLE
MANAGER, KIRBY STRAUSS

The office was small and perhaps even shabbier-looking than the Eight-Seven's squadroom. Six metal desks were spaced around the room, two of them flanking a curtainless window with a torn shade. A straight-backed wooden chair sat empty alongside each desk. Early afternoon sunlight tinted the shade yellow. Dark green metal filing cabinets lined one windowless wall, and an open door revealed a toilet bowl and a sink beside it. An ancient copying machine was on the wall alongside the bathroom. A wooden coat rack was in one corner of the room. There were several topcoats on it, but only one hat.

Two men sat in swivel chairs behind the choice window desks.

They both turned to look at the detectives as they walked in.

Carella wondered if the hat belonged to one of them.

“Mr. Strauss?” he asked.

“Yes?”

He was a man in his fifties, Carella guessed, wearing brown trousers and a brown cardigan sweater, a shirt and tie under it. He was sitting at the desk on the right. Bald and a trifle overweight, he looked like someone you might find selling stamps at your local post office. Carella figured the hat was his.

“I called earlier,” he said. “Detective Carella, the Eight-Seven. My partner, Detective Hawes.”

“Oh, yes,” Strauss said, rising and extending his hand. “This is Officer Latham,” he said, and gestured with his left hand toward the man sitting at the other desk. Latham nodded. Strauss briefly shook hands with both detectives, and then said, “Have a seat. You're here about Wilkins, right? Let me get his file.”

The detectives took chairs alongside Strauss' desk. Strauss went to the filing cabinets, opened one of them, began rummaging.

“Is it going to rain out there?” Latham asked.

“I don't think so,” Hawes said. “Why? Who said it was going to rain?”

“Feel it in my bones,” Latham said, and shook his head mournfully.

He did, in fact, look a bit arthritic, a tall thin man wearing blue corduroy trousers and a gray sports jacket, a dingy white shirt with a worn collar, and a dark blue knit tie to match the trousers. A cardboard Starbucks container was on his desk, alongside his computer.

“Here we go,” Strauss said, and sat behind his desk again, and placed a manila folder between himself and the detectives. “I could do this on the computer, but it's easier to look at hard copy,” he said, and opened the folder. “Calvin Robert Wilkins,” he said, “twenty-seven years old, took a fall for armed robbery when he was twenty. What happened was he went into this bank alone, must've been desperate, don't you think? Stuck a gun in a teller's face, ran off with whatever she had in the cash drawer, something like three thousand dollars, can you imagine? Gambles three thousand bucks against twenty-five in the slammer? He's driving away from the bank when he gets a flat tire, finally climbs out of the car and starts running. The cops chasing him get out of their car, and one of them fires a shot that catches him in the leg…”