“Hit every fucking button,” he said, and without waiting for Willis to comply, he hit ten or twelve buttons.
Six or seven voices answered at once.
“Police!” Parker yelled. “There’s a burglar on the roof. Buzz us in!”
Only one answering buzz sounded, but it was enough to release the latch on the inner door.
“I learned that from Carella,” Parker said, grinning.
They climbed the steps to the third floor. The same choice greeted them outside apartment 3C. To be or not to be?
Willis knocked.
“Yes?” a woman’s voice said.
“Police,” he said, and stepped to the side of the door in case anyone inside decided to pump a volley through it. “We found your car, ma’am,” he said. “Want to open the door, please?”
Which gave her the option of going out the window and down the fire escape, which was better than her shooting at them through the wood.
They waited.
“Terrific!” they heard her say.
There was a rush of footsteps to the door. They stayed well back on either side of the jamb until they heard a series of locks and chains falling and tumbling, and finally the door opened and a woman in a red bathrobe over a long white nightgown opened the door wide and smiled out at them. She was a woman in her early fifties, Willis guessed, hair up in curlers, wearing pink bunny slippers, he now noticed, face scrubbed clean, beaming out at them in unexpected pleasure. Wow, they had really located her car!
Or else she was putting on one hell of an act.
“I thought that old buggy was a goner for sure,” she said. “Where’d you find it?”
“Are you Polly Olson?” Willis asked.
His eyes were looking past her into the apartment where a microwave dinner in a black plastic dish rested on a coffee table in front of which a television set was going. He was looking for two possible accomplices with two possible AK-47s. Parker was looking for the same thing. Their eyes must have been darting.
“How rude of me,” she said, “come in, come in,” and stepped aside, either to welcome them or to allow a clean line of fire for her shooter buddies. They stepped into the apartment. Nobody shot at them. Willis felt somewhat foolish.
“Ma’am?” he said. “Is it your Ford Explorer that was stolen?”
“It sure was! Man, that was fast!” she said. “You boys are to be commended.”
“When did you report the car missing, ma’am?” Parker asked, getting straight to the point. He was due to be relieved at eleven-forty-five, and it was now close to that—well, actually, it was only eight-thirty, but he didn’t want to be delayed by a lot of bullshit here.
“This morning. When I went down right after breakfast,” she said. “I get up early every morning to move the car. It’s alternate side of the street parking here. We can park it all night, but we have to move it in the morning. Even weekends. This is a busy street here, deliveries all the time.”
“So you went down at what time, lady?” Parker asked impatiently.
“Just before eight o’clock. It’s illegal to park between eight A.M. and six. I was going to move the car across the street, and then walk over to church. As it was, I missed the nine o’clock mass because I had to report the car missing and all. From where I’d left it.”
“Where was that, ma’am?”
“Right in front of the building. It would’ve been safe there until eight o’clock. Which is why I went down a few minutes before. Only to discover somebody had already moved it
“What time did you move it last night, ma’am?”
“Five to six. That’s what the signs say. Eight A.M. to six 6 P.M. ”
“So it had to’ve been stolen sometime after six last night, is that right?”
“Well, yes,” she said. “I was home all last night. Watching television,” she said. “Same as tonight,” she said, and her voice was suddenly so forlorn that Willis wanted to give her a hug. Her mention of the television set caused all of them to turn toward the screen, where for perhaps the twentieth time that day, the Valparaiso kidnapping tape was being aired.
“Do I have to go for the car right now?” she asked, looking suddenly frightened. “I mean…can it wait till morning?”
“Yes, ma’am, it can wait till morning,” Willis said, and was starting to give her the address of the One-Oh-Four, when all at once he heard himself saying, “In fact, I can stop by and drive you there, if you’d like.”
“Why that would be very nice, young man,” she said.
“Ten o’clock be all right?” he asked.
“Ten o’clock would be fine,” she said.
In the hallway outside, Parker said, “Love at first sight, Harold?”
“Fuck you,” Willis explained.
CARELLA was complaining that he felt like the father of the bride. Sitting beside him on the living room sofa, Teddy watched his lips and his signing hands, and then she herself signed,
