the right of the windows, near the desk. In the room where he’d been a boy, Carella felt no nostalgic wistfulness. He had led Darcy into the privacy of the house because he was about to conduct a police interrogation, and he wanted the psychological advantage of the cloistered silence, the four walls, all the appearance of a trap. At the 87th, he’d have used the small Interrogation Room set close to the Clerical Office, and for the same reasons. There were some cops who used the Interrogation Room as a sparring ring, but Carella had never laid a hand on a prisoner in all the years he’d been a cop, and he did not intend to start now. But he recognized his weapons, and he knew that Darcy was lying, and he wanted to know now why he was lying. He had drawn his gun with the same psychological warfare in mind. He knew he did not need his gun with Darcy. But the gun added official police weight. And, in following through on his line of intent, he had asked Kling to accompany him upstairs because the police weight was doubled with a second cop along; the feeling of inevitable exposure mounted, the lie would root around in the suspect’s mind searching for a rock beneath which to hide, relentlessly exposed to the overwhelming odds against it.
“Sit down,” he said to Darcy.
Darcy sat.
“Why do you want Tommy dead?” Carella asked bluntly.
“What?”
“You heard me.” He stood to the right of Darcy’s chair. Kling, knowing what was happening, immediately assumed a position to the left of the chair.
“Tommy dead?” Darcy said. “Are you kidding me? Why would I…?”
“That’s what I asked you.”
“But I—”
“You said a man slightly taller than you came up behind you in the bushes and circled your neck with his arm, is that right?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s the truth.”
“And then he hit you on the head, right? Once? Right?”
“Yes. That’s what happened. How does that…?”
“I’m six feet tall,” Carella said, “give or take a quarter of an inch. Bert here is about six-two. That’s about the difference in height between you and your alleged attacker, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you said?”
“Yes, that’s what I—”
“Would you mind grabbing me from behind, Bert? Put your arm far enough around me so that I can see what kind of clothes you’re wearing. You did tell me your attacker was wearing a tuxedo, didn’t you?”
“Well, I—”
“Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Darcy said.
“Okay, Bert.”
Kling wrapped his arm around Carella’s neck. Carella stood facing Darcy, the gun in his right hand.
“We’re pretty close, aren’t we, Darcy? I’m practically smack up against him. In fact, it would be impossible for Bert to take a whack at my head unless he shoved me on the head this way. Am I right?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Darcy said quickly. “The attacker did shove me away from him. I remember that now. I yelled and then just before he hit me, he shoved me a few feet away from him. So that he could swing. That’s right. That’s just the way it happened.”
“Well, that’s different,” Carella said, smiling. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? So he shoved you away from him, right?”
“Yes.”
“Would you mind demonstrating that, Bert?”
Kling shoved out gently at Carella, and Carella stepped forward a few paces. “About like that?” he asked Darcy.
“Well, with considerably more force. But that’s about where I wound up, yes. A few feet ahead of him.”
“Well, you should have told me that to begin with,” Carella said, still smiling. “He hit you from a few feet behind you, right?”
“Yes.”
“That makes a big difference,” Carella said, smiling pleasantly. “And he didn’t kick you or anything, am I right?”
“That’s right,” Darcy said, nodding. “He pushed me away from him and then he hit me. That was all.”
“Then suppose you tell me, Ben, why the hell that cut is in the exact center of your skull, on the top of your head? Suppose you tell me that, Ben?”
“What? I don’t—”
“If you were hit from behind, you’d most likely have been hit either on the side or the back of your head. Unless the man who hit you was an absolute giant, the cut would not be in the center of your skull. The size man you described would never have been able to get force enough into a blow that presupposes his extending the weapon above your head and then bringing it down vertically.”
“He…he was bigger than I thought.”
“How big?”
“Six-six, maybe. Maybe bigger.”
“That isn’t big