sit right here, little ones. The two of you together. That’s it. Look as if you love each other, I’m joking, God only knows you’re crazy in love with each other, that’s it, smile a little, Tommy, my God, don’t look so serious, the girl loves you. That’s better. Take his hand, Angela. That’s the girl, now look over there, not at the camera, over there where the picture’s hanging on the wall, that’s it, hold it, click! That’s going to be beautiful Now turn a little on the seat, Tommy, that’s it, and put your arms around her waist, oh she’s nice to hold, my friend, that’s it, don’t blush, you’re married now, that’s it, now hold it, hold it…”
“How do you feel, Teddy?” Carella asked.
Gently, Teddy touched the mound that began just below her breasts. Then she rolled her eyes heavenward and pulled a weary face.
“It’ll be over soon,” he said. “Is there anything you want? A glass of water or something?”
Teddy shook her head.
“Massage your back?”
She shook her head again.
“Know I love you?”
Teddy grinned and squeezed his hand.
The woman who answered the door at the private house in Riverhead was in her late fifties and didn’t care. She wore a wrinkled housedress and scuffed house-slippers. Her hair hung limply on her head, as if it had followed its owner’s directive and given up the struggle.
“What do you want?” she said. She pierced Meyer and O’Brien with eyes chipped from green agate.
“We’re looking for a man named Marty Sokolin,” Meyer said patiently. “Does he live here?”
“Yes, and who the hell are you?”
Patiently, Meyer took out his wallet and opened it to where his shield was pinned to the leather. “Police department,” he said.
The woman looked at the shield. “All right, Mr. Detective,” she said. “What did Sokolin do?”
“Nothing. We just want to ask him a few questions.”
“What about?”
“About what he might be planning to do.”
“He ain’t here,” the woman said.
“And what is your name, madam?” Meyer asked patiently. If there was one attribute Meyer possessed, it was extreme patience. An Orthodox Jew born in a predominantly Gentile neighborhood, he’d been further handicapped by the vagaries of a whimsical father who thought it would be a good joke to give his son a double-barreled moniker. The family surname was Meyer. And old Max Meyer decided to name his change-of-life offspring Meyer Meyer, just to get even with the powers that dictated offseason births. The joke was played. It was not a very practical one. It provided the young boy with a ready-made millstone. To say that Meyer Meyer’s childhood had been only an endless round of fist fights provoked by either his name or his religion would have been a complete understatement. For coupled with the fist fights came the slow development of a diplomat. Meyer learned that only some battles could be won with his hands. The rest had to be won with his tongue. And so he acquired a veneer of extreme patience to cover the scars of his father’s little jibe. Patiently, he even learned to forgive the old man before he died. Now, at the age of thirty-seven, the only scar he carried from an excruciatingly anxious childhood (or, to be more precise, the only scar that showed) was a head as bald as the famed American eagle.
Patiently, he repeated, “And what is your name, madam?”
“Mary Murdoch. What’s it to you?”
“Nothing,” Meyer said. He glanced at O’Brien. O’Brien stepped back a pace, as if anxious to sever whatever national ties bound him to the woman. “You said Mr. Sokolin was not in. When did he leave, might we ask?”
“Early this morning. He took his damn horn with him, thank the good Lord.”
“His horn?”
“His trumpet, his trombone, his saxophone, whatever you call the damn thing. He practices it morning and night. You never heard such unholy screeches. I wouldn’t have rented him the apartment if I’d known he played a horn. I might kick him out, matter of fact.”
“You don’t like horn players?”
“Put it this way,” Mary Murdoch said. “They make me vomit.”
“That’s a unique way of putting it,” Meyer said, and he cleared his throat. “How do you know Sokolin left with his horn?”
“I seen him. He’s got a case for the thing. A black case. That’s what he carries the damn thing in. A case.”
“A trumpet case?”
“Or a trombone, or a saxophone, some damn thing. It sure makes an unholy racket, whatever it is.”
“How long has he been living here, Miss Murdoch?”
“Mrs. Murdoch, if