Ghosts

“The killer brought the knife with him,” Hawes said.

“Yeah,” Carella said.

“So?”

“So what the hell do I know?” Carella said, and wiped at the misting windshield with his gloved hand. He was thoughtful for a moment. The wipers snicked at the sticking snowflakes. “All right,” he said, “here’s what I think. I think we ought to call Jerry Mandel up there in Mount Semanee and get him back to the city right away. I want to run a lineup on Daniel Corbett. Meanwhile, since we’re so close to the courthouses down here, I think we ought to try for an order to toss his apartment. More than eighty-three thousand bucks’ worth of jewelry was stolen from Craig’s place, and that isn’t the kind of stuff you can get rid of in a minute, especially if you’re an editor and not familiar with fences. What do you say?”

“I say I’m hungry,” Hawes said.

They stopped for a quick lunch in a Chinese restaurant on Cowper Street and then drove over to the Criminal Courts Building on High Street. The Supreme Court judge to whom they presented their written request sounded dubious about granting them the order solely on the basis of a telephone conversation with a security guard, but Carella pointed out that there was reasonable cause to believe that someone who’d a

They struck out with Jerry Mandel as well. A call to the Three Oaks Lodge in Mount Semanee informed them that he had checked out that morning, looking for better skiing conditions elsewhere. Carella told the desk clerk that if Mandel wanted snow, they were up to their eyeballs in it right here in the city. By then six inches had fallen, and it was still coming down. The clerk said, “Ship some of it up here, we can use it.”

Carella hung up.

4

The first of the crank calls came at 2:30 that afternoon, proving to Carella’s satisfaction that not only every author on the face of the earth received them, but perhaps every cop as well. The caller was a woman who said her name was Miss Betty Aldershot, and she said she lived at 782 Jackson, just across the street from the Harborview complex. She said that at exactly twenty-five minutes to 7:00 on Thursday night, she’d been looking through her window at the street below when she saw a man and a woman struggling in the snow. Carella did not know this was a crank call; not just yet he didn’t. He shoved a pad into place on his desk and picked up a pencil.

“Yes, Miss Aldershot, I’m listening,” he said. “Can you describe the man to me?”

“He was Superman,” she said.

“Superman?”

“Yes. He was wearing blue underwear and a red cape.”

“I see,” Carella said.

“He took out a big red penis and stuck it in her.”

“I see.”

“A superman penis,” she said.

“Uh-huh. Well, Mrs. Aldershot, thank you for—”

“Then he flew away.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Up over the buildings. It was still hanging out.”

“Uh-huh. Well, fine, thanks a lot.”

“You’ll never get him,” she said, and began cackling. “He can go faster than a speeding bullet,” and she hung up.

“Who was that?” Meyer Meyer said from his desk. He was wearing the hat he had taken to wearing indoors and out, a checked deerstalker that hid his bald head and made him feel like Sherlock Holmes. The men in the squadroom had been speculating only a week ago about whether or not he wore it to bed. Hal Willis suggested that Meyer’s wife, Sarah, liked to get shtupped by baldheaded men wearing deerstalker hats. Deerstalker hats and black garters, Bert Kling said. Nothing else. Just the deerstalker hat and the black garters. And a big hard-on, Hawes said. Very fu

“That was Superman’s mother,” Carella said.

“Yeah? How’s she doing?”

“Terrific. I’ve been trying to reach Da

“Not that I know of,” Meyer said. “Listen, what are we going to do about Monday?”

“I expect to crack this case by midnight tonight,” Carella said.

“Sure, you and Superman. Seriously. If you plan to be schlepping all over the city, then let me have Hanukkah.”

“Give me till midnight,” Carella said, and tried Da

“Do

“Fats, this is Detective Carella.”

“Hey, how are you?” Do

“Something like eighty-three thousand dollars in jewelry was stolen Thursday night during the commission of a homicide,” Carella said. “Hear anything about it?”

Do

“A mixed bag, I’ll read you the list in a minute. In the meantime, has there been any rumble on it?”

“Nothing I heard,” Do

“The twenty-first.”

“This is Saturday. Could be it’s already been fenced.”

“Could be.”

“Let me go on the earie,” Do

“You can discuss price with Willis,” Carella said.

“Willis is a tightwad. This is Christmastime, I got presents to buy. I’m human, too, you know. You’re asking me to go out in the snow and listen around when I should be home instead, putting up my tree.”

“For all your little kiddies?” Carella asked, and the line went silent.

“Well, okay, I’ll discuss price with Willis. But I want something even if I don’t score. This is Christmastime.”

“Discuss it with Willis,” Carella said, and read off the list of stolen items.

“That’s a whole lot of shit there,” Do

Carella tried Da