He slid off the stood to reveal his full height five-six, five-seven, shorter than he'd looked while sitting, a little man with broad shoulders and a waist, sporting a close-cropped haircut and mustache. Carella wondered if he'd acquired the weight lifter build in prison, and then realized he was someone who was, after all, gainfully employed as automobile mechanic. They moved to a table near the dance floor. Hawes noticed that the club was discreetly and gradually beginning to clear out, slipping into their overcoats and out the door. If a bust was on the cards, nobody wanted to be here when it came down. Some foolhardy couples, enjoying music and maybe even the sense of imminent clan. flitted past on the dance floor, trying to ignore them but everyone knew The Law was here, and sideswiped them with covert glances.
'We'll get right to the point,' Carella said. 'Did you happen to notice a gun in the glove compartment of that car?'
'I didn't go in the glove compartment,' Mondalvo said. 'I had to put in a new engine, why would I go in the glove compartment?'
'I don't know. Why would you?'
'Right. Why would I? Is that what this is about?'
'Yes.'
'Because I already told Jimmy I didn't know anything about that guy's gun.'
'Jimmy Jackson?'
'Yeah, the day manager. He asked me did I see a gun, I told him what gun? I didn't see no gun.'
'But you did work on the Caddy all day Friday.' 'Yeah. Well not all day. It was a three-, four-hour job. What it was, somebody put styrene in the crankcase.'
'So we understand.'
'Styrene is what they use to make fiberglass. It's this oily shit you can buy at any marine or boat supply store, people use it to patch their fiberglass boats. But if you want to fuck up a guy's engine, all you do you mix a pint of it with three, four quarts of oil and pour it in his crankcase. The car'll run maybe fifty, sixty miles, a hundred max, before the oil breaks down and the engine binds. Pratt's engine was shot. We had to order a new one for him. Somebody didn't like this guy so much, to do something like that to his car, huh?
Maybe that's why he packed a gun.'
Maybe, Carella was thinking.
'Anybody else go near that car while you were working on it?'
'Not that I saw.'
'Give us some approximate times here,' Hawes said. 'When did you start working on it?'
'After lunch sometime Friday. I had a Buick in needed a brake job, and then I had a Beamer had something wrong with the electrical system. I didn't
get to the Caddy till maybe twelve-thirty, one o'clock.
That's when I put it up on the lift.'
'Where was it until then?'
'Sitting out front. There's like a little parking space out front, near where the air hose is?' 'Was the car locked?' 'I don't know.'
'Well, were you the one who drove it into the bay and onto the lift?'
'Yeah.'
'So, was the car locked when you... ?'
'Come to think of it, no.'
'You just got into it without having to unlock the door.'
'That's right.'
'Was the key in the ignition?'
'No, I took it from the cabinet near the cash register.'
'And went to the car...'
'Yeah.'
'And found it unlocked.' 'Right. I just got in and started it.' 'What time did you finish work on it?' 'Around four, four-thirty.' 'Then what?'
'Drove it off the lift, parked it outside again.' 'Did you lock it?' 'I think so.'
'Yes or no? Would you remember?'
'I'm pretty sure I did. I knew it was gonna be outside all night, I'm pretty sure I would've locked it.'
'What'd you do with the key after you, locked it?'
'Put it back in the cabinet.'
'You weren't there on Thursday night when Mr.
Pratt brought the car in, were you?' Carella asked.
'No, I go home six o'clock. We don't have any mechanics working the night shift. No gas jockeys,
either. It's all self-service at night. There's just the night manager there. We mostly sell gas to cabs at night. That's about it.'
'What time did you get to work on Friday morning?'
'Seven-thirty. I work along day.'
'Who was there when you got there?'
'The day manager and two gas jockeys.'
Carella took out the list Ralph had written for him.
'That would be Jimmy Jackson...'
'The manager, yeah.'
'Jose Santiago ...'
'Yeah.'
... 'And Abdul Sikhar.'
'Yeah, the Arab guy.'
'See any of them going in that Caddy?'
'No.'
'Hanging around it?'
'No. But I have to tell you the truth, I wasn't like watching it every minute, you know? I had work to do.'
'Mr. Mondalvo, the gun we're tracing was used in a homicide earlier tonight...'
'I didn't know that,' Mondalvo said, and looked around quickly, as if even mere possession of this knowledge was dangerous.
'Yes,' Hawes said. 'So if you know anything at all . . .'
'Nothing.'
... 'About that gun, or who might have taken off the cross
gun from the car...'
'Nothing, I swear.'
'Then you should tell us now. Becaus otherwise...'
'I swear to God,' Mondalvo said, and made the sl
'Otherwise you'd be an accessory after the fact. Carella said.
'What does that mean?'
'It means you'd be as guilty as whoever pulled the trigger.'
'I don't know who pulled any trigger.'
Both cops looked at him hard.
'I swear to God,' he said again. 'I don't know.' Maybe they believed him.
The three kids were all named Richard.
Because they were slick-as-shit preppies from a New England school, they called themselves Richard the First, Second, and Third, after Richard the Lion-Hearted, Richard the son of Edward, and Richard who perhaps had his nephews murdered in the Tower of London. They were familiar with these monarchs through an English history course they'd had to take back in their sophomore year. The three Richards were now seniors. All three of them had been accepted at Harvard. They were each eighteen years old, each varsity football heroes, all smart as hell, handsome as devils, and drunk as skunks. To coin a few phrases.
Like his namesake Richard Coeur de Lion, Richard Hopper for such was his real name was six feet tall and
