I'm getting so hot sitting here, thinking of you and your big hard cock. Why aren't you here with me? What am I supposed to do without you here? Maybe I'11 just put my own hand between my legs, do you think I should do that? Start rubbing my middle finger against my clitoris? Yes, that's what I'll do, I think that's just what I'll do. Just touch myself and think of you and think of your cock in my mouth. Close my eyes and see that cock in my mouth, feel it in my cunt, hear you say all those things to me, oh God I wish it was your mouth down here between my legs, wish it was your tongue licking me, licking me, licking me, this can't be me talking. I would never say to you that thinking of you makes my breasts swell and grow and ache with desire, that thinking of you fucking me makes my cunt drool a river. I love the way you caress my breasts, it makes them feel red hot with desire. My wet cunt is more than ready for you, come to me, come slip your cock inside me. Fuck me real slow at first - it's so sexy to feel a cock almost pull all the way out, and then go in again as deep as it can - faster and faster, fuck me, come fuck me, I love it, I love it, oh Jesus I'm coming and you're not even here.
What an evil man you are to make me do such things.
Stop by and I'll give you a new toy. Bye!
The same typewriter had been used on this letter as on the letters they'd found in Arthur Schumacher's safe-deposit box; the typeface was unmistakably identical. Like the seventeen other letters, this one began with first the typewritten day of the week …
Friday.
Then the month . . .
June.
And then the date in numerals.
30.
June thirtieth last year had fallen on a Friday. A call to the morning newspaper's morgue confirmed that it had been raining that day. In all of the letters, there was no year following the date. There was only Wednesday, June 28, and Friday, June 30, and Tuesday, July 4, and Saturday, July 15, and so on - eighteen letters in all, including the one Betsy had found at the bottom of an otherwise empty shoe box in a dusty garage in Vermont. All of the dates corresponded to last year's calendar; there was no doubt now as to when they'd been written.
But if anyone at all …
Well, all the indications . . .
But still . . .
If any of the master sleuths on the 87th Squad had taken the trouble to check a calendar against the dates on the letters they'd found, when they found them . . .
Well, the letters seemed absolutely related to …
Then they'd have realized at once that none of the dates on the letters in Schumacher's box corresponded to the days in this year's calender.
Still, it was easy to see how . . .
No, damn it, they should have checked.
"We should have checked," Brown said.
"Nobody's perfect," Carella said.
Which was true.
Nonetheless, if Arthur Schumacher had not met Susan
Brauer until January of this year, then she could not have written those letters dated in June and July of last year.
Which was elementary.
In which case, who had written them?
None of them were signed. Each began with the salutation "Hi!" and ended with the complementary close "Bye!" The contents were similar and so was the style - if such it could be called. Whoever had written any one of those letters had written all of them.
"What do you think she means here?" Brown asked.
"Where?" Carella said.
"Here. About the toy."
"I don't know."
Brown looked at him.
"What is it?" Carella said.
"I don't know. Something just seems to be ringing some kind of bell."
"Are you talking about the toy?"
"I don't know if it's the toy."
"Then …"
"Just something," Brown said.
"Stop by and I'll give you a new toy," Carella said, prompting him.
Both men looked at each other. Both men shrugged.
"Some kind of sex toy?" Carella said.
"Could be, but…"
"Or maybe she meant a three-way."
"Uh-huh."
"A new toy you know?"
"Uh-huh."
"Another girl. A three-way. Stop by and I'll give you a new toy."
"Uh-huh," Brown said. "But doesn't that ring some kind of bell with you?"
"No. The toy, you mean?"
"The new toy. Didn't somebody . . . wasn't there something about new toys?"
"No, I don't. . ."
"About getting a new toy …"
"No …"
". . .or buying a new toy … or … some kind of shipment of toys …"
"Oh God, the dog!" Carella said.
The place used to be called Wally's Soul, and it still served soul food, but the owner had renamed it the Viva Mandela Deli shortly after the South African leader's triumphant visit to the city. At seven o'clock that Tuesday night, it was fairly crowded. Bent was eating country fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans cooked with fatback and hot buttered biscuits. Wade was eating fried chicken with mashed rutabaga, fried okra, and hot buttered corn bread. They were not here primarily to eat, but every cop in this city knew you grabbed a bite whenever you could because you never knew when the shit might hit the fan.
They were here to talk to a sixteen-year-old white girl named Dolly Simms.
"No racial bullshit about old Dolly, huh?" Wade said.
