Palmer kept looking at him.

"They seem to think you did that one personally. The old lady. Martha Coleridge. I have no idea where she fits into the scheme of things, but apparently she was threatening a plagiarism suit. Do you know the woman I mean?"

"Yes," Palmer said.

"That would const.i.tute a second count of first-degree murder," Holden said, and stroked his mustache. "So I doubt if they'd offer you the same deal, after all."

"I'm not looking for a deal."

"Why should you be? You haven't done anything."

"That's right."

"I'll just tell them to forget it."

"Of course. They have no proof."

"Well, they have the woman's confession. Which implicates you, of course. And our chaps may get something more from Bridges, if ever they find him. They're looking for him now, apparently. In Euston. He lives in Euston."

Palmer fell silent again.

"You won't be granted bail, you realize," Holden said. "You're a foreigner implicated in murder, no one's going to risk your running. In fact, till the dust settles one way or another, they'll want your pa.s.sport." He sighed heavily, said, "Well, I'll see about finding a lawyer for you," and went to the corner where he'd hung his overcoat. Shrugging into it, b.u.t.toning it, his back to Palmer, he said, "You wouldn't possibly have anything to ... offer them, would you?"

"How do you mean?"

Holden turned toward him.

272.

"Well," he said, "I must tell you, with the woman's confession, they have more than enough for an indictment. It'll go worse for you if they catch up with the Jamaican and flip him as well, but even so they've got a quite decent case."

"But I haven't done anything."

"Right. Keep forgetting that. Sorry. Let me talk to them." He opened the door, hesitated, turned to Palmer again, and said, "You wouldn't know anything about this little black girl who got stabbed up in Diamondback, would you?"

Palmer merely looked at him.

"Althea Cleary? Because they like to tidy things up, you see. If you can tell them anything about that murder . . . they're not trying to implicate you in it, by the way, they seem to think the Jamaican did that one all on his own. Got into some sort of argument with the girl, lost his temper. Whatever." His voice lowered. "But if he mentioned anything about it to you . . . perhaps before he went back to London ... it might be worth a deal, hm?"

Palmer said nothing.

His voice almost a whisper, Holden said, "He's just a Yardie, y'know."

Palme'r sat as still as a stone.

"Well, I suppose not," Holden said.

It suddenly occurred to him that the man was simply very stupid.

He sighed again, and went out of the room.

In the squadroom, they were speculating about what might have happened to Althea Cleary.

"She takes the Jamaican back to her apartment," Parker suggested. "He drops the rope in her drink, figures he's home free. But while he's waiting for it to take effect, 273.

Ed McBam she casually mentions she's a working girl and this is gonna cost him two bills. He's offended because he's never had to pay for it in his life, male or female. So he stabs her."

"That's possible," Brown said, "but you're forgetting something."

"What's that?"

"He's gay."

"He's bi."

"He thinks he's bi."

"He wouldn'ta been there if he wasn't bi," Parker insisted.

"He gets into the apartment," Brown said, undaunted, "drops the pills, and starts moving on her. Trouble is he's gay. She doesn't excite him. He can't perform. So he loses his temper and jukes her."

"Well, that's a possibility," Meyer said, "but something else could've happened, too."

"What's that?"

"Bridges drops the pills, right? Five minutes or so, the girl starts feeling funny. She accuses him of having put something in her drink. He panics, grabs a knife from the counter, lets her have it."

"Yeah, maybe," Kling said, "but here's what / think happened. He gets in the apartment . . ."

"Who's for pizza?" Parker asked.

"They profile a Yardie as someone who enters the country carrying a forged or stolen British pa.s.sport," Carella said. "Usually-but not necessarily-he's a black man from Jamaica, somewhere between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. He's either got a record already . . ."

"Does Bridges have one?" Byrnes asked.

"n.o.body by that name in their files. They said he may be a new kid on the block, there's a constant flow. Most of 274.

them are in the drug trade. Getting rope would've been a walk in the park for him."

"Is he wanted for anything?"

"Not by the Brits. Not so far, anyway."

"Give him time," Byrnes said.

"Meanwhile, he's running around London someplace."

"Or Manchester."

"Or wherever. Actually, we don't need him, Pete. Nellie says the overt act is enough."

"Conspiracy and the overt act, yes."

"Which she's already got."

"So let the Queen's mother worry," Byrnes said.

Ollie felt very nervous, like a teenager about to ask for a first date. He dialed the number on the card she'd given him, and let the phone ring three, four, five . . .

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Miss Hobson?" he said.

"Yes?"

"This is Detective Weeks. We talked about piano lessons, do you remember?"

"No. Detective whoT "Weeks. Oliver Wendell Weeks. I was investigating the murder of Althea Cleary, do you remember? Big Ollie, they sometimes call me," he said, which was a lie. "I wanted to learn five songs, remember?"

"Oh. Yes," she said.

"I still do."

"I see," she said.

"I got a list we can pick from," he said.

"Did you find him?"

"Who do you mean, Miss Hobson?"

"Whoever killed Althea."

"He's in London just now. We're leaving it to the 275.

Ed McBain bobbies there, they're supposed to be very good. When can we start, Miss Hobson?"

"That depends on which songs you want to learn."

"Oh, they're easy ones, don't worry."

"That's so rea.s.suring," she said drily. "But which ones are they exactly?"

"Guess," he said, and grinned into the mouthpiece.

They had no idea they were in the middle of a race riot until it was full upon them. Until that moment, they'd been peacefully watching television and drifting off to sleep, Kling knowing he was due back in the squadroom at eight tomorrow, Sharyn knowing her day would start at about the same time in her office at 24 Rankin Plaza, neither antic.i.p.ating an explosion, each surprised when it came.

A panel of talking heads was offering its collective opinion on the war, the election, the wedding, the crash, the trial, the disaster, the game, the whatever because in America, it wasn't enough merely to present the news, you then had to have half a dozen commentators parading their thoughts on what the news had just been all about. Over the background din, Kling was telling Sharyn there'd been an extraordinary number of people informing on other people in this case they'd just wrapped, a veritable chorus of rats singing to whoever would listen, when all at once a blond woman on the panel said something about the "so-called blue wall of silence," and Sharyn said, "Shhh," and someone else on the panel, a black man, shouted that the blue wall of silence wouldn't be holding in the Milagros case if the victim had been white, and someone else, a white man, shouted, "This poor victim you're talking about is a murdererl" and Kling said, "Milagros is one of the guys I mean," and Sharyn said "Shhh" again, when all he'd 276.

wanted to say was that Hector Milagros had been given up by Maxie Blaine who'd been given up by Betty Young in a case virtually defined by perpetual snitchery.

"You don't know whether those men who went in there were white or black!" someone on the panel shouted.

"You don't even know if they were actually copsl" someone else shouted.

"They were cops and they were whitel"

"I'll bet they were," someone else said, but the voice wasn't coming from the television set, it was coming from the pillow next to Kling's. He turned to look at her.

The blonde on television very calmly said, "I do not believe that any police officer in this city would maintain silence in the face of such a brutal beating. The police . . ."

"Oh, come off it," Sharyn said.

". . . simply don't know who went in there, that's all. If they knew . . ."

On the television set, the black man said, "The guy who let them in knows."

"Every cop in this city knows," Sharyn said.

"I don't," Kling said.

And now there was a veritable Babel of voices pouring from the television set in a deluge of conflicting invective that rose higher and higher in volume and pa.s.sion.

"Instead of maintaining their ridiculous posture of. . ."

"There are black cops, too, you know. I don't see any of them . . ."

"Would you come forward if ... ?"

"You're asking them to be rats."

"It's not informing if the person ..."

"Milagros was in custody!"

"He's a criminal!"

"So are the cops who beat him up!"

277.

Ed McBam "A murderer!"

". . . almost killed him!"

"He's blackl"

"Here we go," Kling said.