It was too early for Christmas presents.
OR MAYBE NOT .
At nine that night, when Carella went back to the squadroom to check on any phone calls and to sign out, there was a message that a detective named John Murphy had called to say he’d run the prints he’d lifted from the vic’s apartment and had got hits on an Army lieutenant named Cassandra Jean Ridley and a guy named Wilbur Colley Struthers who’d taken a burglary fall in this city seven years ago. Struthers had dropped the better part of a five-and-dime at Castleview before getting released on parole two years ago. His last known address was 1117 South Twelfth …
“Right up there in the Eight-Seven,” Murphy said. “Now ain’tthat a stroke of luck?”
Carella figured maybe it was.
HE WENT THERE with three other detectives as backup; the man was a convicted felon whose fingerprints had been found all over the vic’s apartment. The building on South Twelfth was a brick walkup, no doorman. The name under the doorbell was W. Struthers. Carella rang every other doorbell in the row. To the first voice that erupted on the speaker, he said, “Police, want to buzz me in, please?”
“What?” the voice said.
“Detective Carella, Eighty-seventh Squad,” he said. “Please buzz me in, sir.”
“What is it?”
“We need access to the roof. Buzz us in, sir.”
“But what is it?”
“An air vent,” Carella said.
Hawes shook his head, suppressed a smile. The buzz sounded a moment later.
“Thank you, sir,” Carella said to the speaker, and the four detectives entered the building. Hawes was still shaking his head and smiling. Outside the door to 2C, Carella put his ear to the wood. Meyer was behind him, on his right. Brown was standing to the left of the door. This was ten o’clock on the Saturday night before Christmas, the building was alive with sound. Radios and television sets going, toilets flushing, people talking behind closed doors, there was a city in miniature inside the walls of this building. They had no warrant, hadn’t even bothered to approach a judge for one because they’d felt certain Struthers’ fingerprints alone would not constitute probable cause for arrest. They had to hope that the man inside there did not bolt for a window the minute they knocked on the door and announced themselves as policemen. Like most cops, they considered burglars—even convicted burglars—people who were not particularly dangerous. The “Burglars-Are-Gents” myth persisted, even though a surprised burglar could turn as violent as any other thief in the world.
There was music behind the closed door, coming from either a radio, an audio system, or a TV set, Carella couldn’t tell which. Christmas music. He kept listening. He heard nothing but the music.
He turned to the others, shrugged.
Nobody said anything.
They all stood there with drawn weapons pointing up at the ceiling. Meyer Meyer, bald and blue-eyed and burly, looking patient and attentive and somewhat bored, to tell the truth; Cotton Hawes standing tall and square and redheaded, a white streak in the temple over his left ear, memento of an assailant whose name he’d long since forgotten, still looking amused by Carella’s doorbell bullshit; Arthur Brown resembling nothing so much as a dark, scowling Sherman tank. Stalwarts of the law. Waiting for a signal either to come down the chimney or go home.
Carella shrugged again, knocked on the door.
There was silence except for the music, and then, “Yes?”
A man’s voice.
“Police,” Carella said, what the hell.
“Shit, what is itthis time?” the man said.
They heard footsteps approaching the door. Heard a lock turning, tumblers falling, a chain coming off. The door opened wide. The man inside backed away the instant he saw four guys standing outside there with guns in their hands. He was about six feet tall in his bare feet, Carella guessed, wearing blue jeans and a brown woolen sweater with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows. His hair was a muddy blond color and his eyes were blue, opened wide now in either fear or surprise or both. A Christmas special was on the television set behind him.
“For Christ’s sake, don’t shoot,” he said, and threw his hands up alongside his head. The cops in the hallway suddenly felt like horses’ asses.
“Okay to come in?” Carella asked, and showed the tin.
“Yes, fine, come in,” the man said, his hands still up. “Just watch how you handle them pieces, okay?”
“Your name Struthers?” Brown asked.
“Yes, sir, that’s my name,” Struthers said.
“Wilbur Struthers?”
“But you can call me Will, sir. Is this the kidnapping again?”
“What kidnapping?” Carella asked at once.
The detectives were maneuvering so that he was the center of a loose circle, their guns still drawn, nobody even dreaming of holstering them now that they’d heard the word “kidnapping,” which was a federal offense that carried with it the death penalty.
“Is it the President’s been kidnapped?” Struthers asked, and Carella thought, Oh dear, we’ve got ourselves a nutcase here, but he still didn’t put up the gun.
