The recorder in the mock telephone-company shack across the highway wound its tapes relentlessly. Arthur Brown, monitoring the calls, was bored to tears. He had brought along a dozen back issues of
But the telephone of Lucy Mencken was damned busy.
THE TELEPHONE OF Teddy Carella was not busy at all. To Teddy Carella, the telephone was a worthless instrument designed for people who, in one respect alone, were more fortunate than she.
Teddy Carella was a deaf-mute.
Her handicap had been an unfortunate accident of birth, but she was more fortunate than other women in many other respects, and so she never gave much thought to it. Her greatest fortune was her husband, Steve Carella. She would never tire of looking at him, never tire of “listening” to him, never tire of loving him.
On the evening of July eighth, after dinner, she and Carella were sitting in the living room of their River-head apartment watching television. Reading the lips of the performers, Teddy glanced at Carella and realized that she was watching television alone. Her husband was up somewhere on cloud thirteen. She smiled. Her entire face seemed to open when she smiled. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, she embodied the physical attributes of a Venus, which were somehow combined with the impishness of a Puck. Wearing a skirt and halter, she came up out of her chair, went to sit at Carella’s feet, and then gestured with her head toward the television screen, her black eyebrows raised questioningly.
“Huh?” Carella said. “Oh, it’s a good show. Wonderful, wonderful.”
Teddy nodded, burlesquing the expression on his face.
“Really,” Carella said sincerely. “I love summer-replacement shows. They’ve got a lot of spark, a lot of imagination. Wonderful, wonderful.”
She gazed at him steadily.
“Okay,” he admitted, “I was thinking about the case.”
Teddy moved her mouth slightly and then pointed to herself.
“I’ll tell you about it, if you really want to hear it,” he said.
She nodded.
“Well, Hawes is working on it with me.”
Teddy pulled a sour face.
“No, no,” Carella said, “he’s going to be all right. He’s going to be a good man.” He grinned. “Remember. You heard it here first.”
Teddy grinned back.
“I told you about the kill, and the bank accounts, and about Kramer’s victims. We still haven’t located the eleven-hundred-dollar mark, and Lucy Mencken still seems like our best bet for the grand award. But a couple of things keep bothering me.”
Teddy nodded, listening intently.
“Well, for one thing, where did Kramer keep these extortion documents? The photostated copies of the letter, the pictures of Lucy, and whatever he had on this eleven-hundred-dollar mark. Not to mention the big babies in the bank book. We went over his apartment with a fine comb, but there wasn’t anything there. Hey, honey, you should see this redhead he was shacking with. Now, that’s my idea of a woman.”
Teddy frowned menacingly.
“Very pretty,” Carella said. “Very pretty. I think I’ll go back there and make another search for important documents. I think he might have kept them in the bedroom, don’t you?”
Teddy nodded her head in an exaggerated,
“Seriously, honey, it bothers me. You’d figure a safety deposit box, wouldn’t you?”
Again, Teddy nodded.
“Well, I put a check on all the banks in the city. No safety deposit boxes for Sy or Seymour Kramer. I got a list of eighty-five S. K. box holders-people with the initials S. K., you understand. Just in case Kramer used a phony name for the box. When a guy picks a phony, he’ll sometimes use his own initials. We called each and every one of those names. They’re all legitimate. So where the hell did Kramer hide the documents?”
Teddy licked an imaginary letter with her tongue.
“A post office box?” Carella asked. “Possibly. We checked his local post office, and he didn’t have one there. But it could be anyplace in the city. I’ll have a check started in the morning. But I don’t think we’ll turn up anything. We didn’t find any unexplained keys in his effects.”
Teddy turned an imaginary knob.
“That’s right,” he said, “some post offices have those little combination knobs on their boxes. It’s a possibility, all right.” He kissed her rapidly. “You’re a helpmeet indeed.”
She was in the process of getting set to kiss him more soundly, when he began shaking his head morosely.
What is it? her eyes asked.
“The other thing that bothers me is that bankbook,” he said. “Now, what the hell kind of extortion money is that? The only sensible entry is the fifteen thousand dollars. But if you were extorting money from me, would you come and ask for six thousand three hundred and twenty dollars and fourteen cents?”
Teddy looked puzzled.
