Long Time No See (22 page)

“Is that what happened to Lieutenant Blake?”

“Yeah. He must’ve got hit while he was going down the hill. Alpha told us later they couldn’t go after him because of the mortars. All they could do was watch while he was dragged in the jungle. They found him later in an open pit—cut to ribbons. The bastards used to cut the bodies up and leave them in open pits.”

“Mm-huh,” Carella said.

“With bayonets, they did it,” Cortez said.

“Mm-huh.”

“So what I’m saying, you go through these terrible things together, you naturally get close to the guys who are in your own fire team. You understand me?”

“Yes, I do,” Carella said. “This happened on the third of December, is that right?”

“I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you that. We weren’t even
there
, you understand me? We were on our way to where they’d found those bunkers. It turned out there was a big cache up there. What I’m saying, there are things that are important to a person in combat because he’s
in
them. But if he isn’t there to experience them, well, then it’s just another day for him. So I couldn’t tell you if the lieutenant was killed on the third or the fourth or whenever. To me, it was just another day. I was out there on a search-and-destroy, I was in no danger at all. The mortars didn’t come anywhere near us. All we heard was the noise. You ever been in a mortar attack? It makes a lot of noise, even from a distance.”

“Mm-huh. Mr. Cortez, when you were at that reunion in New Jersey, did Jimmy talk to you about a plan he was considering?”

“A plan? No. We talked about what it was like overseas. What do you mean, a plan?”

“For making money.”

“I wish he
would’ve
talked to me about it,” Cortez said, and laughed. “I could
use
some money.”

“You wouldn’t know whether he’d approached any of the other men about such a plan?”

“No, I wouldn’t know. I’ll tell you,
none
of us are doing too hot, you understand me? In New Jersey we were all bitching about what a lousy deal we got. As veterans, I mean. If Jimmy had some plan to make money…Hey, I got to tell you, we’d have gone in with him in a minute.” Cortez laughed again. “Long as it didn’t cost us nothing.”

“But you didn’t know about any such plan?”

“No.”

“Did you give Jimmy your address?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he write to you after the reunion?”

“No.”

“Did he telephone you, or try to contact you in any other way?”

“No.”

“Mm,” Carella said. “Well,” he said, and sighed. “Thanks a lot, Mr. Cortez, I appreciate the time you gave me.”

“I wish you luck,” Cortez said, and hung up.

Sergeant Dave Murchison looked toward the iron-runged steps as Carella came down them into the muster room. In the swing room, two patrolmen had taken off their tunics and were sitting in their suspendered trousers and long-sleeved underwear, drinking coffee. One of them had just told a joke, and both men were laughing.

Carella glanced briefly through the open door to the room, and then walked to the muster desk. “I’m heading home,” he said.

“What about the dog?” Murchison asked.

“What? Oh, Jesus, I forgot all about him. Did somebody pick him up?”

“He’s downstairs in one of the holding cells. What do you plan to do with him?”

“I don’t know,” Carella said. “I guess I’ll turn him over to Harris’s mother.”

“When?” Murchison said. “Steve, it’s against regulations to keep animals here at the station house.”

“Miscolo has a cat in the clerical office,” Carella said.

“That’s different. That’s not in a holding cell downstairs.”

“Shall I take the dog up to Clerical?”

“He’d eat Miscolo’s cat. He’s a very big dog, Steve. Have you seen this dog?”

“He’s not so big. He’s an average-sized Labrador.”

“An average-sized Labrador is a very big dog. I’d say he weighs ninety pounds, that’s what I’d say. Also, he won’t eat.”

“Well, I’ll take him over to Harris’s mother in the morning. I have to talk to her, anyway.”

“You better hope Captain Frick doesn’t decide to take a stroll down to the holding cells. He finds a dog down there, he’ll take a fit.”

“Tell him it’s a master of disguise.”

“What?” Murchison said.

“Tell him it’s a criminal wearing a dog suit.”

“Ha-ha,” Murchison said mirthlessly.

“I’ll get him out of here first thing in the morning,” Carella said. “Dave, I’m tired. I want to go home.”

“What the hell time is it, anyway?” Murchison said, and looked up at the clock. “I got a call from Charlie Maynard an hour ago, he said he’d be a little late. He’s supposed to relieve me at a quarter to four, he calls at a quarter to five, tells me he’ll be a little late. Now it’s a quarter to six, and he
still
ain’t here. When he called, I told him to get on Tarzan and ride over here as quick as he could.”

“Get on Tarzan? What do you mean?”

“Tarzan was Ken Maynard’s horse,” Murchison said.

“No, Tarzan was Tom Mix’s horse.”

“
Tony
was Tom Mix’s horse.”

“Then who was Trigger?” Carella asked.

“I don’t know who Trigger was. Buck Jones’s horse, maybe.”

“Anyway, Charlie Maynard isn’t Ken Maynard.”

“What difference does it make?” Murchison said. “He’s two hours late either way, ain’t he?”

Carella blinked. “Good night, Dave,” he said, and walked across the room to the entrance doors, and through them to the steps outside. A fierce wind was blowing in the street.

The wind tore at the blind man’s coat.

He clung to the harness of the German shepherd leading him, cursing the wind, cursing the fact that he had to go to the bathroom and he was still three blocks from his building. The trouble with running a newsstand was that you had to go in the cafeteria or the bookstore every time you had to pee. They were nice about it, they knew a man couldn’t be out there on the corner all day long without going to the bathroom, but still he hated to bother them all the time.

He wondered what astronauts did. Did they pee inside their space suits? Was there a tube they had? He should have gone in the cafeteria before heading home. The bookstore was already closed, but the cafeteria was open twenty-four hours, and the manager said he didn’t mind him coming in to use the men’s room downstairs. Still, you couldn’t go in there every ten minutes, take advantage of the man’s hospitality that way. Tried to limit his necessity calls to lunchtime and then maybe once again mid-afternoon. Always took his lunch at the cafeteria so he could stay on friendly terms with the manager. He went in the bookstore only every now and then, when he felt embarrassed about going in the cafeteria. But it was different in the bookstore because he only bought from them every now and then, when he wanted to give a present to one of his sighted friends, and also they sold magazines same as he did, and he guessed they maybe thought he was in competition with them.

God, he had to pee!

The dog suddenly stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk.

“What is it, Ralph?” he said.

The dog began growling.

“Ralph?” he said. “What’s the matter, boy?”

He smelled something sickeningly sweet in that instant, cloying, medicinal—chloroform, it was chloroform. The dog growled again, an attack growl deep in his throat, and suddenly the harness jerked out of his hand and someone yelled in pain. He heard the shuffle of feet on the sidewalk, heard harsh breathing, the dog’s low growl again, and then footsteps running into the night, fading. The dog was barking. The dog would not stop barking.

“All right,” he said, “all right,” and groped for the harness and found it. He patted the dog’s head. “Take me home, boy,” he said. “Home now. Home, Ralph.”

At home, there was a telephone.

He called the police, not because he thought they’d do anything about it—police in this damn city never did
anything
about
anything
—but only because he felt outraged by the attack. The patrolman who arrived at his apartment immediately challenged him.

“How do you know it was an
attack
, Mr. Masler?”

The man’s name was Eugene Maslen, with an “n.” He had corrected the patrolman twice, but the patrolman kept saying Masler. Maybe he was hard of hearing. He tried again.

“It’s Maslen,” he said, “with an ‘n,’ and I know it was an attack because the dog wouldn’t have begun growling that way if someone wasn’t threatening us.”

“Mm,” the patrolman said. His name was McGrew, and he worked out of the Four-One downtown in the Financial District, near the Headquarters building. “And you say you smelled chloroform?”

“It smelled like chloroform, yes. From when I had my tonsils out.”

“When was that, Mr. Masler?”

“When I was seven.”

“And you remember what the chloroform smelled like, huh?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“So what is it you’re saying, Mr. Masler? Are you saying this person was trying to chloroform the dog?”

“I don’t know what he was trying to do. I’m telling you he approached us with chloroform and the dog attacked him and bit him.”

“Oh, the dog bit him. How do you know?”

“Because I heard the man yell.”

“How do you know it was a man?”

“It sounded like a man yelling.”

“What did he yell?”

“He just yelled in pain, but I can tell the difference between a man yelling and a woman yelling. This was a man.”

“Your dog ain’t got rabies, has he?”

“No, he had his shots just last month. The date’s on the tag there. On his collar.”

McGrew thought he should look at the tag, but this was a dog who’d already bit one person and he didn’t want to be the second person getting bit tonight.

“Where did this incident take place?” he asked.

“Three blocks from here. On Cherry Street. Near the Mercantile Bank on the corner.”

“You knew where you were, huh?”

“Yes,” Maslen said, “I knew
exactly
where I was. I may be blind, but I’m not stupid.”

“Mm,” McGrew said, managing to sound dubious. “Well,” he said, “we’ll look into this, Mr. Masler, let you know if we come up with anything.”

“Thank you,” Maslen said. He did not for a moment believe anybody would look into it or come up with anything.

A second patrolman was waiting downstairs in the radio motor patrol car. They had routinely answered the 10-24—Past Assault—and when they got to Maslen’s building, had decided it wasn’t necessary for both of them to go all the way up to the fourth floor. McGrew’s partner, whose name was Kelly, was asleep in the car when McGrew came down to the street again. McGrew rapped on the window, and Kelly came awake with a start, blinked first into the car and then through the window to where McGrew was bent over looking in. “Oh,” Kelly said, and unlocked the door on the passenger side. McGrew got in.

“What was it?” Kelly asked.

“Who the hell knows?” McGrew said. “Whyn’t you take a spin over to Cherry, near the Mercantile there.”

“The bank there?”

“Yeah, the bank there.” McGrew took the hand mike from the dashboard. He had called in a 10-88—Arrived At Scene—some five minutes ago, and now he radioed the dispatcher with a combined 10-80D and 10-98—Referred to Detectives and Resuming Patrol/Available. From the call box on Cherry and Laird, he telephoned the precinct and asked the desk sergeant to connect him with the squadroom upstairs. The detective who took the call was a man named Underhill. McGrew filled him in on the squeal, and then asked did Underhill want to come down there, or what?

“You at the scene now?” Underhill asked.

“Yeah, where it’s supposed to have took place.”

“Why don’t you look around, give me a call back?”

“Look for what?”

“You said chloroform, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“So look around, see if there’s anything with chloroform on it. A rag, a piece of cotton, whatever. If you find anything, don’t touch it, you hear me?”

“Okay,” McGrew said.

“And look for bloodstains, too. You said the dog bit him, didn’t you?”

“Well, that’s what the blind guy told me.”

“Okay, so look for bloodstains. If you find anything, call me right back. Did the blind guy get hurt?”

“No.”

“Did his dog get hurt?”

“No.”

“Is the dog rabid or anything?”

“No, he got his shots last month.”

“So, okay, look around a little,” Underhill said, and hung up.

McGrew went back to the car and opened the door.

“What are we supposed to do?” Kelly asked.

“Look around a little,” McGrew said.

Kelly came out of the car with a long torchlight in his hand. He sprayed the beam over the sidewalk near the mailbox, and the call box, and the lamppost, and then began working his way back toward the wall of the bank.

“Look, there’s some blood,” he said.

“Yeah,” McGrew said. “I think I better get back to Underhill.”

Detective George Underhill did not want to leave the squadroom.

He was busy organizing the paperwork he’d assembled on a series of liquor store holdups just this side of Chinatown, and he was absorbed with the job, and besides, it was cold outside. Underhill had been born and raised in the state of California, where it was always warm and lovely, despite what songwriters had to say about its being cold and damp. Underhill did not like this city. Underhill liked San Diego. The reason Underhill was here in this city was that his wife’s mother lived here in this city, and his wife wanted to be near her mother, whom Underhill hated almost as much as he hated this city. If Underhill had his druthers, which he didn’t have, he’d have liked this city to break off and float away into the Atlantic, carrying his mother-in-law with it. That’s how Underhill felt about this city and about his mother-in-law. But that goddamn McGrew had found blood on the sidewalk, and so Underhill guessed the dog had really bitten somebody. Whether the dog had bitten somebody about to
assault
the blind man was another question. Nobody had got hurt, not the blind man, and not the dog, either; Underhill figured this could not by any stretch of the imagination be categorized as an assault. He even wondered whether it could be categorized an
attempted
assault. In which case, why the hell was he contemplating going all the way over to Cherry and Laird on a night when they should be taking in the brass monkeys?