Carella was thinking.

"Questions," he said.

"Shoot."

"Do you have any evidence at all that Allison Cleary . . . ?"

"Althea."

". . . knew John Bridges?"

"None at all. But they could have met."

"How?"

"Guy's up from Houston, right? Out on the town, from what it appears, am I right? With a little help from his friends, he does a hanging, then goes out to play some cards on the weekend. Meets our little f.a.ggot friend Harpo, introduces him to his friends, too, here, pal, take these with you, they'll help your s.e.x life, tee hee. Meaning, if Harpo is ever bis.e.xually inclined, he can drop a few tabs in a young lady's drink, induce her to s...o...b..r the Johnson. Which is exactly what Bridges or whoever he is done two nights later to little Althea Cleary."

"Where do you think they met?"

"Lady lives upstairs from her has cappuccino with her every now and then. Tells me the girl works nights for the telephone company. Okay, I'm prowling her pad, I find a social security card in her handbag. You want to know where she worked?"

"You just told me. The telephone company."

"Yeah, but not AT&T. What I done, I checked the ID number on her social security card with Soc Sec Admin. Employer contributions on her behalf were made for the 101.

Ed McBain past six months to a go-go joint called The Telephone Company on The Stem downtown. Wanna go dancin, Steve-a-rino?"

The last plane to Houston that Wednesday night, a non-stop Delta flight scheduled to arrive at Houston-Intercontinental at 9:01 P.M., closed its doors at 6:00 P.M. sharp.

There were no Jamaicans on it.

A dive called The Telephone Company, Carella didn't know what to expect. Maybe something on the style of the Kit Kat Klub of Cabaret fame, telephones on all the tables, numbered placards indicating which table was which, girls phoning from table to table, "This is table twenty-seven, calling table forty-nine. Sitting all alone like that. . ." and so on.

But when they got there at ten o'clock that night, the only telephones in sight were the house phone sitting behind the bar and a pay phone on the wall to the right of the entrance door. The joint was located on Lower Stemmler, all the way downtown, where The Stem became a narrower pa.s.sage lined with meatpacking houses, the occasional restaurant, and an a.s.sortment of clubs featuring m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ers in drafty dungeons; cross-dressers wearing smeared lipstick, high heels, and crude tattoos; raving teeny boppers in spangles and pinkish-green hair; pneumatic West Coast starlets thrilling to the big bad city or-as was the case here in The Telephone Company-an a.s.sortment of topless girls wearing thong panties and gyrating on a crescent-shaped stage.

The detectives roamed around like casual customers. Smoke drifted in bluish-gray layers in the beam of follow spots illuminating half a dozen girls slithering restlessly 102.

across the stage, eyes slitted, tongues wetting glossy lips, imitation s.e.x oozing from every pore with each insinuating spike-heeled step they took. If a man signaled from one of the tables below the stage, a wink of the eye or a flick of the tongue acknowledged that the girl would join him on the dance break, to negotiate whatever suited his fancy behind the plastic palms in a back room called The Party Line. One peek into that room told the detectives exactly what was going on back there. A bouncer gave them a look, but said nothing to them.

A dozen or so men sat at tables below the stage, drinking, chatting among themselves, trying to look bored by the exhibition of all that flesh up there because demeaning these women was part of the joy of partic.i.p.ation. Even the men who would never dream of taking one of these girls into the back room for actual s.e.x knew that just sitting here while the girls displayed themselves was a way of telling them they could be had for a price-were, in fact, being had for a price, witness the ten-dollar bills tucked into G-string bands. The girls, on the other hand, perhaps to convince themselves they hadn't already been broken by this city or the men in this city, told themselves that only a jacka.s.s would part with ten bucks to watch a girl bouncing her t.i.ts or bending over to spread the cheeks on her a.s.s.

Here in the spotlight-pierced gloom stinking of stale cigarette smoke and sour sweat, over the deafening roar of music blaring from speakers on pillars and posts, the detectives introduced themselves to the man behind the bar, who told them he was Mac Gordon, owner of the club. Gordon looked to be some six feet, three inches tall. His eyes appeared blue, but who could tell in the near-darkness? One thing for sure, he had a red handlebar mustache.

"Did a girl named Althea Cleary work here?" Carella asked.

103.

Ed McBain "Still does. Should be in any minute now."

"Don't count on it," Ollie said.

"What do you mean?"

"She was murdered last night."

"Holy smokes. And here I thought this was about some kind of violation."

"What kind of violation did you have in mind?" Ollie asked.

"Well, gee, how would I know?"

Carella wasn't here to throw a scare into the owner; all he wanted was information. Ollie, on the other hand, couldn't resist being a f.u.c.king cop.

"You're not thinkin of the hand jobs in the back room, are you?" he asked.

"I don't know what that's supposed to mean, sir."

"Fifty bucks a throw."

"Not here, sir."

"A hundred for a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b where the jungle gets thicker?"

"I don't know what jungle you mean, sir."

"Back there at the very back of the back room," Ollie said. "All them fake trees dripping moss and s.h.i.t."

"You must be thinking of some other place," Gordon said.

"Yeah, maybe. You didn't see Althea taking some kind of Jamaican back there last night, did you?"

"I sure didn't," Gordon said.

"Guy with a knife scar on his face?"

"Nossir."

"Who did you see with her?"

"I believe she was talking to various gentlemen at various times during the night."

"Gentlemen, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

"Talking to them, huh?"

"Yes, sir. And sharing an occasional drink."

104.

"Sharing a drink, I see. Did she happen to leave here with one of these gentlemen?"

"That is strictly against the rules, sir."

"Oh, there are rules."

"Yes, sir, very strict rules. None of the performers here . . ."

"Performers, I see."

". . . is allowed to leave the club with any of the customers. Or even to make arrangements to meet any of the customers outside the club."

"How many girls you got working here?" Ollie asked.

"A dozen or so. Fourteen. Sixteen. It varies on different nights."

"How many were here last night?"

"I would say ten or twelve."

"Which?"

"Ten. Eleven."

"Are they all here tonight? All ten or eleven of these girls?"

"I believe so, yes. I would have to check the time cards."

"Oh, you have time cards, do you?"

"Yes, sir, this is a business establishment."

"I'm sure it is. Find out which girls were here last night, okay? We want to talk to them. You got a nice quiet place where we can visit?"

"I suppose you could use my office," Gordon said. "If you don't mind the clutter."

"Gee, that's very kind of you, thanks," Ollie said.

Carella wanted to kick him in his fat a.s.s.

The girls ranged in age from nineteen to thirty-four. That was because Gordon knew better than to hire anyone under eighteen. The mayor's vigorous anti-vice campaign notwithstanding, Gordon was running a virtual wh.o.r.e 105.

Ed McBam house here, lacking only genital penetration to qualify for full statehood. Five of the eleven girls, it turned out to be, were white. The remaining six were black. Some of them were experienced, some of them were straight off the train from Oaken Bucket, Minnesota. Nine of the girls were single. Two of them were married. Even some of the single girls had children. Three of the girls had worked in ma.s.sage parlors . . .

"Where it can sometimes get rough," a girl named Sherry told them. "Because doin ma.s.sage, you alone with the dude, you dig? It ain't like here, where they's a whole buncha s.h.i.t goin on."

When she laughed, she exposed a gap in her mouth where two front teeth were missing.

"Which is great for givin derby, hm?" she said, and laughed again, and covered her mouth with a hand on which there was a fake emerald ring as big as all Hong Kong.

None of the girls seemed nervous talking to two detectives. Carella and Ollie both figured Gordon was spreading some heavy bread among the neighborhood law enforcement types. Carella abhorred the widespread practice. Ollie considered it all part of the game, ah yes.

Two of the girls had worked the hostess circuit.

"This's much better," one of them said. "You never knows what you goan walk into when you take a hos'ess call."

Her name was Ruby Sa.s.s.

"Mah whole name's Ruby Sa.s.safras Martin," she said, "but I think Ruby Sa.s.s got pinch to it, don't you?"

She was a black girl with bleached blond hair, wearing a bra top and G-string covered with sequins the color of her name. Silicone b.r.e.a.s.t.s virtually spilled out of her top, but she paid them no mind. Instead, she puffed on her cigarette and sipped at the drink the detectives had purchased for her. She told them she was studying drama 106.

and dance during the day, which they believed was as authentic as her blond hair. She also told them she'd seen Althea go in the back room with three different guys last night.

"Finely went home at two A.M.," she said. "Approximate."

"Alone?"

"Meaning?"

"Meaning was she with anyone? What else does alone mean?"

"Depends on whether you're president of the United States."

"I'm not," Ollie said.

"Didn't think so."

"Was she alone or wasn't she?"

"Let me tell you something about this business, okay?" Ruby said. "Guys who come here, they don't want all the ha.s.sle of arrangements or commitments, you comprehend? They make they business deal, whatever it's for, and that's whut it is. So Mac tellin us don't meet no men outside, don't take no men home with you, that happens ony like once in a blue moon, anyway. Like some college kid with pimples all over his face falls in love with one of the girls up there dancin, he keeps stuffm bills in her gadget, axes her to go the back room with him. Kid like that, he keeps comin back for more, you play him like a fish till he finely works up the courage to ax could he go home with you. Then you tell him sure, but that's gonna coss you, honey. By then, he'll go along with whatever you say, cause he is yours, darlin, he is completely yours. You play it right he'll become yo own personal m.u.f.f diver and pay you for the pleasure besides."

"Does that mean Althea was alone?" Carella asked.

"It means far as I could see, Althea left the club alone. Whether somebody was waitin outside for her is 107.

Ed McBain another matter. But let me tell you suppin else bout this business . . ."

"We're all ears," Ollie said.

"Most guys I know-and this prolly includes you- they have s.e.x with a woman, the next thing they want is to go home and go to sleep. Especially s.e.x a guy pays for. You ever pay for s.e.x?"

"Never in my life," Ollie said.

"Didn't think you had to, handsome fella like you," Ruby said dryly, and sucked on her cigarette. "But even with a freebie, your average guy today, he don't want to wake up the next morning with some beast in bed, am I right? Or even some beauty, for that matter."

"I don't mind wakin up with beauties in my bed," Ollie said.