The Frumious Bandersnatch полностью

“Sure,” Ollie said. “Whatever you say, Patricia.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“Good. You’ll like it, I promise. It’s not at all what you expect Shakespeare to be.”

“Hey, I love Shakespeare,” he said.

“Well, good. Then I made a good pick, huh?”

“You certainly did.”

He had never seen a Shakespeare play in his entire life.

“Also, how should I dress?” she asked. “I told you, I’ll be working Tuesday…”

“Me, too.”

“So I won’t have time to go home and change…”

“Me, neither. Just put on what’s in your locker. Whatever you wear to work that morning.”

“It won’t be anything fancy,” Patricia said. “Just slacks and a sweater, probably.”

“That’ll be fine.”

“Okay then. You working tomorrow?”

“Oh sure.”

“See you up the precinct then.”

“See you,” Ollie said.

There was a click on the line.

He sighed heavily and put the receiver back on its cradle.

The fag and the priest were still going at it.

He hit the mute button again.

“…sending this message to adolescent boys all over America,” the Reverend Brenner was saying. “If you want to slay wild dragons…”

“It isn’t a dragon,” Graham said.

“…then you have to declare yourself to be homosexual! What kind of a message…?”

“I’m sure that isn’t Tamar Valparaiso’s mess…”

“You just said the boy in that video…”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!”

“I’m sure her message is simply ‘Be what you wish to be. In choice, there is freedom.’ ”

“Oh, are we going to get into the abortion issue now?”

“Not on my time,” Ollie said out loud, and turned off the set, and wondered if any of that scrumptious apple pie his sister had baked was still in the refrigerator.

WHAT WAS CALLED CSI in some cities was called MCU here in the big bad city, and never the twain shall meet. The Mobile Crime Unit had struck out twice last night, once on the Rinker and again on the Ford Explorer, but that didn’t mean they weren’t as sharp or as perceptive as their television counterparts. On the contrary, the package they had messengered over to Carella at seven-thirty this evening, and which he now presented to The Squad downtown, included one piece of very important information.

As expected, there’d been no latent fingerprints on any of the railings or bulkheads the perps may have touched in boarding the River Princess and then descending into the ballroom where Tamar was performing. The intruders were wearing gloves. So much for that.

But they were also wearing running shoes with identifiable soles. And whereas they hadn’t left any recoverable footprints on the rubber ladder-treads that ascended to the second level of the yacht, they had left behind some discernable prints on the mahogany steps and the parquet dance floor inside.

Together, Carella and The Squad looked over the report prepared by an MCU Detective/First named Oswald Hooper.

The report stated, unsurprisingly, that the recovered footprints had been left behind on stairway and dance floor by two separate males wearing running shoes later identified from laboratory comparison soles as Reeboks. That the persons wearing the shoes were both male was established by the size and type of the shoe and also by the angle of the foot, definitively different for male and female.

What was revealing about the separate prints, however, was the separate walking pattern for each man. The pattern for the man whose prints were consistently recovered on the starboard side of the stairway and dance floor was remarkably different from the pattern for the man who’d been on the port side of all the action.

“Starboard is right, port is left,” Corcoran told Endicott.

Endicott gave him a look intended to convey the knowledge that his father had taken him sailing on Chesapeake Bay when he was still a toddler. Corcoran missed the meaning of the look.

“The guy on the right was the one who did all the hitting,” Carella said. “Have you seen the tape yet?”

“Only on television,” Endicott said.

Forbes, the other FBI agent, said, “It’s all over the place.”

“I’ve requested a copy from Channel Four,” Corcoran said.

“Are they giving you one?” Carella asked, surprised.

“Why not?”

“Well, when I seized it as evidence, they threatened to sue the city.”

Corcoran raised his eyebrows and gave him a look intended to convey the knowledge that this was the Joint Task Force here, kiddo, this was The Squad.

“Well, good luck,” Carella said, and shrugged, but he felt he had been reprimanded. Or perhaps warned. And he realized all at once that Lieutenant Charles Farley Corcoran did not want him on this team. He almost walked out. Something kept him there. Maybe it was the fact that Barney Loomis had requested his presence as someone he liked and trusted.

“What’s this about a walking pattern?” Endicott asked, and they all went back to reading Hooper’s report.