Part 26 (1/2)

”No.”

”So?”

”So?” he parroted.

”So why did you call?”

”I dunno,” he said.

”What are you going to do now?” she asked.

”I've got to go by my office, and then figure out some way to get my car from where it's parked in front of your house,” he said.

”I forgot about that,” she said. ”Why don't you pick me up here after I do the news at six? I could drive it to your place, or wherever.”

”Where would I meet you?”

”Come on in,” Louise said. ”I'll tell them at reception.”

”Okay,” he said. ”Thank you.”

”Don't be silly,” she said, and then added, ”Peter, don't forget to pick up your uniform at the cleaners.”

”Okay,” he said, and chuckled, and the line went dead.

He realized, as he hung the telephone up, that he was smiling. More than that, he was very happy. There was something very touching, very intimate, in her concern that he not forget to pick up his uniform. Then he thought that if he had called Barbara Crowley and she had reminded him of it, he would have been annoyed.

Is this what being in love is like?

He went out of his way to get the uniform before he drove downtown, so that he really would not forget it.

He had not been at his desk in his office three minutes when Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin slipped into the chair beside it.

”Jeannie was asking where you were last night, Peter,” Coughlin said. ”At the house.”

”I wasn't up to it,” Peter said. ”And you know what happened later.”

”You feel up to being a pallbearer?” Coughlin asked, evenly.

”If Jeannie wants me to, sure,” Peter said.

”That's what I told her,” Coughlin said. ”Be at Marshutz & Sons about half past nine. The funeral's at eleven.”

”I'll be there,” Peter said. ”Chief, my dad suggested I wear my uniform.”

Chief Inspector Coughlin thought that over a moment.

”What did you decide about it?”

”Until I heard about being a pallbearer, I was going to wear it.”

”I think it would nice, Peter, if we carried Dutch to his rest in uniform,” Chief Inspector Coughlin said. ”I'll call the wife and make sure mine's pressed.”

Officer Anthony F. Caragiola, who was headed for the job on the four-to-midnight watch, glanced at his wrist-watch, and walked into Gene & Jerry's Restaurant & Sandwiches across the street from the Bridge Street Terminal. There would be time for a cup of coffee and a sweet roll before he climbed the stairs to catch the elevated and go to work.

Officer Caragiola, who wore the white cap of the Traffic Division, had been a policeman for eleven years, and was now thirty-four years old. He was a large and swarthy man, whose skin showed the ravages of being outside day after day in heat and cold, rain and s.h.i.+ne.

He eased his bulk onto one of the round stools at the counter, waved his fingers in greeting at the waitress, a stout, blond woman, and helped himself to a sweet roll from the gla.s.s case. He had lived three blocks away, now with his wife and four kids, for most of his life. When there was a problem at Gene & Jerry's, if one of the waitresses took sick, or one of the cooks, and his wife, Maria, could get somebody to watch the kids, she came and filled in.

The waitress put a china mug of coffee and three half-and-half containers in front of him.

”So how's it going?”

”Can't complain,” Officer Caragiola said. ”Yourself?”

She shrugged and smiled and walked away. Tony Caragiola carefully opened the three tubs of half-and-half and carefully poured them into his coffee, and then stirred it.

He heard a hissing noise, and looked at the black swinging doors leading to the kitchen. Gene was standing there, wiggling her fingers at him. Gene was Eugenia Santalvaria, a stout, black-haired woman in her fifties who had six months before buried her husband, Gerimino, after thirty-three years of marriage.

Caragiola slipped off the stool and, carrying his coffee with him, stepped behind the counter and walked to the doors to the kitchen.

”Tony, maybe it's something, maybe it ain't,” Gene Santalvaria said, in English, and then switched to Italian. There were two b.u.ms outside, a big fat slob and a little guy that looked like a spic, she told him. They had been there for hours, sitting in an old Volkswagen. Maybe they were going to stick up the check-cas.h.i.+ng place down the block, or maybe they were selling dope or something; every once in a while, one of them got out of the car and went up the stairs to the elevated, and then a couple of minutes later came back down the stairs and got back in the car. She didn't want to call the district, 'cause maybe it wasn't nothing, but since he had come in, she thought it was better she tell him.

”I'll have a look,” Officer Caragiola said.

He left the kitchen and walked to the front of the restaurant and, sipping on his coffee, looked for a Volkswagen. There was two guys in it, one of them, a big fat slob with one of them hippie bands around his forehead, behind the wheel, slumped down in the seat as if he was asleep. And then the pa.s.senger door opened, and a little guy-she was right, he looked like a spic-got out and looked for traffic, and then walked across the street to the stairs to the elevated. Looked like a mean little f.u.c.ker.

Officer Caragiola set his coffee on the counter and walked quickly out of Gene & Jerry's, and across the street, and up the stairs after him.

He got to the platform just as a train arrived. Everybody on the platform got on it but the little spic. He acted as if he was waiting for somebody who might have ridden the elevated to the end of the line and just stayed on. If he did that, he would just go back downtown. If somebody like that was either buying or selling dope, that would be the way to do it.

Officer Caragiola ducked behind a stairwell so the little spic couldn't see him, and waited. People started coming up the stairs, filling up the platform, and then a train arrived from downtown and left, and then five minutes later reappeared on the downtown track. Everybody on the platform got on the train but the little spic.

Tony Caragiola came out from behind the stairwell and walked over to the little spic.

”Speak to you a minute, buddy?” he said.

”What about?”

Tony saw that the little spic was p.i.s.sed. He probably knew all the civil rights laws about cops not being supposed to ask questions without reasonable cause.

”You want to tell me what you and your friend in the Volkswagen are doing?”

”Narcotics,” the little spic said. ”I'd rather not show you my I.D. Not here.”

”Who's your lieutenant?” Tony asked.

”Lieutenant Pekach.”