“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.
