“You’re just remembering a knife scar?” Ollie said. “Guy has a fuckin knife scar on his face, and it’s the last thing you mention about him?”
“I try not to notice deformities or infirmities,” Hopwell said.
“Do you remember any other deformities or infirmities?”
“No.”
“How about identifying marks or tattoos? Like a mole, for example, or a birth…”
“Well, yes, a tattoo,” Hopwell said, and hesitated. “A blue star on the head of his penis.”
There was no one named John Bridges registered at the President Hotel. Nor had there been anyone registered under that name on the night of November sixth. When they gave the manager the description Hopwell had given them, he said he couldn’t recall anyone who’d looked or sounded Jamaican, but this was a big hotel with thousands of guests weekly, and it was possible there’d been any number of Jamaicans registered on the night in question.
They checked the register for anyone from Houston, Texas. There’d been a guest from Fort Worth who’d checked in on the fourth and out the next night, and another from Austin, who was here with his wife and two kids; they did not bother him. Their computer showed no outstanding warrants for anyone named John Bridges. Neither was anyone listed under that name in the Houston telephone directory.
Carella called Houston Central and talked to a man who identified himself as Detective Jack Walman. He told Carella he’d been a cop for almost twelve years now and knew most of the people doing mischief in this town, but he’d never run across one had a knife scar down the left-hand side of his face and a blue star tattooed on his pecker.
“That does beat all,” he said. “What’s the star stand for? The lone star state?”
“Could be,” Carella said.
“What I’ll do,” he said, “I’ll run it through the computer. But that’s an unusual combination, ain’t it, and I’d sure remember something peculiar like that if I’d ever seen it. Unless, what coulda happened, he mighta got the knife scar before he got the tattoo. Lots of these guys get jailhouse tattoos, you know. In which case, there wouldn’t be both of them on the computer, you follow? We get plenty knife scars down here. Is your man Chicano?”
“No. A Jamaican named John Bridges.”
“Well, we got something like two thousand Jamaicans here, too, so who knows? What’d he do, this dude?”
“Maybe killed two people.”
“Bad, huh?”
“Bad, yes.”
“Musta hurt, don’t you think?” Walman said. “Gettin tattooed that way?”
He called back an hour later to say he’d searched the system-city and state -for any felon named John Bridges and had come up blank. As he’d mentioned earlier, there were plenty facial scars in the state of Texas, and if Carella wanted him to fax printouts on each and every felon who had one, he’d be happy to oblige. But none of the facial scars came joined to tattooed dongs. One of the old-timers here at the station, though, remembered a guy one time had a little American flag tattooed on his wiener, if that was any help, it waved in the breeze whenever he got an erection. But he thought the guy was doing time at Angola, over Louisiana way. Aside from that, Walman was sorry he couldn’t be of greater assistance. Carella asked him to please fax the facial-scar printouts, and thanked him for his time.
They were right back where they’d been on the morning of October twenty-ninth, when they’d first caught the squeal.
There were three airports servicing the metropolitan area. The largest of them, out on Sands Spit, flew three direct flights and six connecting flights to Houston on most weekdays. The airport closest to the city flew nine direct flights and eleven connecting flights. Across the river, in the adjoining state, direct flights went out virtually every hour, starting at 6:20 A. M. Twenty-one non-stop and connecting flights left from that airport alone. Altogether, a total of fifty flights flew to Houston almost every day of the week. It was a big busy city, that Houston, Texas.
Starting early Wednesday morning, the tenth day of November, twelve detectives began surveillance of the check-in counters at Continental, Delta, US Airways, American, Northwest, and United Airlines, looking for a Jamaican with a knife scar who might be headed for either HoustonIntercontinental or Houston-Hobby on a direct flight, or on any one of the flights connecting through Charlotte, Dallas/Fort Worth, New Orleans, Detroit, Chicago, Memphis, Atlanta, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, or Philadelphia.
None of the men boarding any of the flights even remotely fit the description Harpo Hopwell had given them.
There were still a lot more flights going out that day.
“Who’s in charge here?” the assistant medical examiner wanted to know.
