The Frumious Bandersnatch (29 page)

 

SOMEPLACE
downtown could have been anywhere.

In this city, when you crossed any of the bridges from the outlying sectors, you were heading into “The City.” And once you got into the city, you invariably headed “downtown” because that's where all the action was.

They started with the yellow pages for Isola, a literal translation of the Italian word
“isola,”
for “island.” They looked first under RECORDS, TAPES & COMPACT DISCS, and found a sub-heading that read
See Compact Discs, Tapes & Records—Retail.
They turned back to the Cs, and found a listing for exactly one hundred and twelve record shops. None of them were named Laura Something or Laura Anything. Under the L listings, they found seventeen. They called Wilkins' former landlady at once.

“Do any of these names ring a bell?” they asked, and started reeling them off. “L&M Records, Lane Books Music & Café…”

“No,” she said.

“Lark Music, Laurence's Records, Lewis Music & Video, Lexington Entertainment, Lion Heart Record Shop…”

“No, none of those.”

“Live Wire Compact Discs, Lone Star Records, Long John's Music, Lorelei Records, Lotus…”

“What was that Laura one?”

“Ma'am?”

“Laura
Lee,
was that it?”

“Lorelei Records? Is that what you mean?”

“That's it,” she said. “Laura Lie.”

Lorelei Records was a chain of shops similar to Sam Goody's. There were six of them in Isola alone, but only two of them were located in what might have been considered “downtown,” one of them on St. John's Avenue in what was really “midtown,” the other one in the financial district at the very tip of the island. They struck paydirt on the first call they made.

 

“
I THOUGHT
you said nothing fancy,” Patricia said.

“Nah, this is just a little Italian joint,” Ollie said, and held open the door for her to enter before him.

“This is fancy,” she said. “We'll make it Dutch tonight.”

“No, no, I invited you.”

“Yeah, but I picked the movie.”

“Makes no difference. This is my treat. You want to take me out sometime, then you ask me.”

Patricia grinned.

“Okay,” she said, “I'll do that.”

“Hey, Detective Weeks,” a man sitting at the bar said, and immediately rose with his hand extended. “Long time no see, how you been?”

“Patricia,” Ollie said, “this is Artie Di Domenico, owner and proprietor of this fine restaurant. Artie, meet Patricia Gomez, a fellow police officer.”

“Nice to meet you,” Di Domenico said, and took her hand and graciously kissed it. Patricia felt like the queen of England. “Come,” he said, “I have a nice table for you,” and led them across the room to a table near the windows. This was only five-thirty, the place was almost empty. They had walked here from the precinct, directly after the shift changed. It was not yet dark outside.

“Something to drink?” Di Domenico asked.

“Some wine, Patricia?”

“I really can't let you…”

“Tut tut, m'dear,” Ollie said. “Artie, do you have any of that fine Simi chardonnay?”

“Ma, certo,”
Di Domenico said, spreading his hands wide the way Patricia had seen Henry Armetta do in an old black-and-white movie on television. “
Subito,
Detective Weeks!”

“This is so nice of you, really,” Patricia said.

“But we can't eat too much,” Ollie said. “Because zee clock, she is ticking.”

Patricia looked puzzled.

“The movie starts at seven-forty-five,” he explained.

“Ah,” she said. “Well, I don't eat much, anyway.”

“Ah, but I do,” Ollie said. “And this is very fine Italian food here.”

“I should have dressed more elegantly,” she said, looking around at the neat little tables with their white tablecloths and the candles burning everywhere and the posters of Italian villages on the walls.

“You are dressed to the nines,” Ollie said.

She was, in fact, wearing tailored brown slacks, and a pumpkin-colored cashmere sweater with a neat little tan jacket over it, and a string of pearls around her throat. Ollie thought she looked beautiful. He looked at his watch.

“Five-thirty-five,” he said.

“Zee clock, she is ticking,” Patricia said.

“I learned that from the smartest man I ever met,” Ollie said.

“Who's that?”

“Henry Daggert. Though, actually, I never met him in person.”

“Is he a cop?”

“No, he's an editor. Though maybe a spook, too.”

“A spy, you mean?”

“CIA, maybe,” Ollie said, nodding.

“Get out!”

“I'm serious. Being an editor might have been just a cover. But he certainly gave me some good advice. To use in my work.”

“On the job, you mean?”

“No. Writing books, I mean.”

“I sure hope you catch that guy.”

“Oh, me, too.”

“Cause if for no other reason, I'd love to read your book.”

“I'd love you to read it. It's called
Report to the Commissioner.
This cross-dressing hooker named Emilio Herrera stole it, the little prick, excuse my French. I'll get him, though. What he don't realize is zee clock, she is ticking.”

“What's that supposed to mean, anyway?” Patricia asked. “I mean, as it pertains to writing books?”

“What it means is that a vital element of all good suspense fiction is a ticking clock. Take a truly great master of literature like James Patterson, are you familiar with his uv?”

“His what?”

“His uv. That's French for ‘body of work,' an
uv,
they call it.”

“I forgot you were learning languages.”

“Yes, I am.”

“That's so impressive, you have no idea.”

“Patterson always has a ticking clock in his books. If I may quote Henry Daggert, fiction editor and master spy for all I know, ‘You Must Introduce a Ticking Clock.' ”

“Introduce it to who?” Patricia asked.

“Introduce it into your story. ‘You must give your protagonist only a limited amount of time to solve his problem,' quote unquote. And to quote once again, ‘The reader should be regularly reminded of the urgency via Countdown Cues,' quote unquote.”

“Gee, I never realized it was so complicated,” Patricia said.

“Ah yes, there are many tricks of the trade,” Ollie assured her, and looked at his watch again. “Five-forty-one,” he said. “Shall I get menus?”

Patricia waggled her eyebrows.

“Zee clock, she is ticking,” she said.

 

A HUGE POSTER
of Tamar Valparaiso standing spread-legged in her torn and tattered “Bandersnatch” costume was in each front window of Lorelei Records on St. John's Avenue. The poster did not show the actual beast attacking her, but its frumious shadow fell over her body, the jaws and claws threatening by implication. Scattered everywhere around each of the framed posters were stacks of the jewel-boxed CDs containing the title song and the album itself.

The manager was a black man named Angus Held.

Tall and narrow, he was wearing black jeans, a black sports shirt, and a gray sweater with a shawl collar when he came out of his office at the back of the shop. He knew why they were there; they had called ahead.

“Is Cal in some kind of trouble?” he asked at once.

Same thing he'd asked on the phone.

Same thing they always asked.

This time, they played it straight.

“He's broken parole,” Carella said.

“Didn't even know he was
on
parole,” Held said, shaking his head.

“When's the last time you saw him?” Hawes asked.

“When he left the job. Middle of April, must've been. Right around Easter time.”

“Did he say he was going to Jamaica?”

“No. Is that where he went?”

“We don't know where he went,” Carella said. “We're trying to find him.”

“How long did he work here?” Hawes asked.

“Started just before Christmas. Comes and goes with the holidays, seems like. What was he in jail for?”

“A bank holdup.”

“Whoo,” Held said.

“Did he give you any trouble while he was here?”

“None at all. You say he was on parole, huh?”

“That's right.”

“Can't understand why he broke it. Had himself a good job here.”

“What'd he do?”

“Worked in the stock room. This is a good location, we do lots of volume here. Wonder why he broke parole.”

Carella was wondering the same thing. Wilkins left a job as a dishwasher, got a better job here, you'd think he'd run to his parole officer and ask for a medal. Instead, he absconds. To do what? Kidnap Tamar Valparaiso? Whose picture was now in both front windows?

“Mind if we talk to some of the people in your stock room?” Hawes asked.

“I'll take you back,” Held said.

 

THERE WERE
three people in the Lorelei stock room. One was Hispanic, one was Asian, one was black. Only the Asian guy had known Wilkins while he was still working here.

“Quiet type,” he said.

Which was what most of them said about people who'd committed crimes of violence.

“Kept mostly to himself.”

Which is what they also said.

“Can't imagine him doing anything wrong.”

Ho-hum, Carella thought.

“Did he mention why he was quitting the job?” Hawes asked.

“Said he had bigger plans.”

“Like what?”

“Said he was going to retire to Jamaica.”

Jamaica again.

“Did he say how he planned to do that?”

“Nossir, he did not.”

“Mention any get-rich-quick scheme?”

“Nossir. I told you. He kept mostly to himself.”

“Ever see him with a redheaded girl and a…”

“Nope.”

“…guy about my height?” Carella said. “They might've been friends of his. Brown eyes, curly black hair, good build.”

“Sounds almost like Ave.”

“Ave? Who's Ave?”

“Avery, I guess was his complete name. Feller worked outside selling records. I saw them together a few times.”

“Avery
what?
” Hawes asked.

 

“
AVERY HANES
,” the manager told them. “He used to work at The Wiz, selling computers and such. I hired him last year around this time.”

“We understand he was friends with Wilkins.”

“I guess maybe so. They'd talk music together all the time. Avery knew every record ever made. Always coming to me with ideas about how we could sell more records. Was him who suggested we put in the listening booths. I was about to give him a raise when he left. Come to think of it, they both left around the same time. Around Easter.”

“Maybe something bigger came along,” Carella suggested.

“Maybe so. He was opportunistic, that's for sure.”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh, alert to possibilities. I'd hear him talking with customers, not just the usual do you like jazz, do you dig hip-hop, are you a Tony Bennett fan? He'd inquire what line of work they were in, were they musicians, were they in advertising, were they in publishing? I had the feeling he was looking for a better job. Didn't want to sell records all his life, was all the time
trawling,
you know whut I mean,
trawling?
”

“Yes, sir,” Carella said. “I know what you mean.”

“So maybe he hooked something,” Held said.

“Maybe he did,” Carella said.

“You wouldn't happen to have his address, would you?” Hawes asked.

 

IF CARELLA
and Hawes had walked around the corner from Lorelei Records on St. John's Avenue at precisely five past seven that evening, they'd have seen first a black Lincoln Town car pulling out of the garage under the Rio Building, and next two unmarked Mercury sedans behind it. Barney Loomis was at the wheel of the limo. Corcoran was sitting beside him, a dispatch case with $750,000 in new hundred-dollar bills on his lap. Endicott and Lonigan were in the lead Mercury, the blue one. Feingold and Jones were in the white Mercury behind it. The rest of The Squad was back at Number One Fed, manning the computers. This time, they were playing it their way. This time, the Joint Task Force had every intention of winning the horse race the Commissioner had created.