The Frumious Bandersnatch

“Detective Carella,” he said.

“What’s your first name, Detective?”

“Steve.”

“Would you mind if I called you ‘Steve’?”

“Not at all.”

“I have trouble with Italian names, you see.”

And fuck you, too, Carella thought.

“Steve, is Mr. Loomis driving?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is there anyone else in the car with you?”

“No, sir.”

“Is this the only phone in the car?”

“Yes, sir.”

This was a lie. Carella had another cell phone in the side pocket on the right side of his windbreaker.

“Is it portable?”

“Sir?”

“Can it be taken out of the car?”

“Oh. Yes, sir, it can.”

“Let me talk to Mr. Loomis.”

Carella handed the phone to him.

“Hello?” Loomis said.

“Mr. Loomis, I want you to drive to Exit 17. That should take you ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Make a right turn at the top of the ramp. You’ll see a parking area for people who are sharing rides. Park there and wait. I’ll call again at four o’clock.”

There was a click on the line.

Loomis put down the phone.

“What’d he say?” Carella asked.

“Exit 17, park there and wait for his next call.”

The cell phone in Carella’s pocket rang. He yanked it out, hit the TALK button.

“Hello?” he said.

“Carella? This is Lieutenant Corcoran.”

“Yes, sir,” Carella said.

Back at the Academy, it used to be “Steve” and “Corky.” Now it was “Carella” and “Lieutenant Corcoran.”

“Have you heard anything yet?” Corcoran asked.

“Yes, sir, he just called.”

“What’d he say?”

“He wants us to…”

“What are you doing?” Loomis asked at once.

Carella turned to look at him, puzzled.

“What thehell are you doing?” Loomis shouted.

“Hold it a second,” Carella said into the phone, and turned to Loomis again. “Corcoran wants to know…”

“Give me that phone!” Loomis snapped and held out his right hand.

“Wants to talk to you, Lieutenant,” Carella said, and passed the phone to him.

“Lieutenant Corcoran?” Loomis said. “You listen to me,Lieutenant Corcoran. Are you fuckingcrazy? These people told us they’re going to kill Tamar if we try any tricks. I consider telling you where we’re going—and Christ knows what else you’ve got planned for the next few minutes —isexactly what they warned us about, it’s playing tricks. I don’t want you trying to find our location, I don’t want you sending in the fucking Marines, I just want to drop off the money and await further instructions, have you got that, Lieutenant Corcoran?” Loomis listened. “Yes, Lieutenant,” he said, “I am perfectly willing to take responsibility for whatever may happen to Tamar. So don’t call this number again, and don’t call the number in the car, and I hope to God you haven’t got anyone following us right this minute,” he said, glancing in the rear view mirror. “Because if anything happens to that girl, I will personally cut off your balls. Is that clear, Lieutenant Corcoran?” Loomis listened again. “Good. No more goddamntricks! ” he said, and nodded curtly, and handed the phone back to Carella.

“Hello?” Carella said. “Yes, I heard.” He listened. “Okay,” he said, “we play it his way. See you later,” he said, and hit the END button, and tossed the phone over his shoulder onto the back seat.

“I don’t like that man,” Loomis said. “I don’t likeany of them up there, you want the truth, Corcoran least of all. He’s too full of his own perfume.”

Carella said nothing.

“None of them on that task force has any concept that we’re dealing with a human life here,” Loomis said.

“Well, I think they know that, Mr. Loomis.”

“This is all one big game to them. The good guys and the bad guys. Never mind that the kidnappers spelled it all out, exposed their hole card, told us exactly what was at stake. It’s still all cops and robbers to them, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Loomis. But we’ll play it your way,” Carella said. “And hope for the best.”

They were approaching Exit 15 now. Loomis kept looking on and off into the rear view mirror, checking to see if anyone was following. Carella was wondering if maybe it wasn’t really all cops and robbers, after all.

That day long ago, it had been cops and robbers, all right, three real cops and three real robbers. The robbers were coming out of a bank on Twelfth and Culver, which was on Carella’s beat, and not too far from the station house. At the same time, a patrolman named Oscar Jackson was taking a five-minute break to run into the bank to cash his paycheck from last Friday while his partner, Patrolman Jimmy Ryan, sat at the wheel of their idling cruiser, which he’d just pulled into the curb outside the bank.

Police officers were still called patrolmen back then because there weren’t too many female uniforms on the force and there weren’t any real problems with gender identity. There weren’t many black patrolmen back then, either, but Oscar Jackson was indeed black, and he was just taking his wallet out of his pocket to remove the paycheck from it when these three guys wearing ski masks and carrying sawed-off shotguns came running down the bank steps. Nowadays, they’d be carrying Uzis or AK-47s, but this was back then, when you and I were young, Maggie.

Carella had just turned the corner when he saw Jackson—whom he’d noticed around the station house but whose name he didn’t yet know—look up and into the masked faces of the three armed men barreling down the wide front steps of the bank. Jackson didn’t need a program to tell him this was a robbery in progress. Neither did Carella. And neither did Patrolman Jimmy Ryan at the wheel of Charlie Two.

All three men unholstered their weapons, Jackson stepping to one side and immediately assuming a shooter’s crouch, Ryan coming out of the car and hunkering down behind the hood with his elbows on it and his gun in firing position, Carella fearlessly (but he was young) rushing toward the bank with his .38 in his right hand. All three fired in almost the same instant.

Only one of the robbers returned fire, and he directed his shotgun blast at the cop closest to him, who happened to be Oscar Jackson. Jackson fell to the pavement, bleeding from a devastating wound in his chest. The man who’d shot him dropped at the same moment, felled by three rounds from Ryan’s pistol. Carella had to empty his revolver before he dropped both of the other robbers. But the holdup attempt had been foiled and the only casualty was Oscar Jackson, who was dead even before Ryan and Carella knelt over him. His uncashed paycheck lay on the sidewalk beside him, in the widening pool of his own blood.

That day had been cops and robbers, all right, and maybe every day after that had been cops and robbers, too. But that day hadn’t been “one big game,” as Barney Loomis would have it, and neither was today a game, not when a twenty-year-old girl’s life was at stake. They’d been ready to proceed according to procedure, but Barney Loomis had called off the dogs. Carella just hoped nobody got hurt today.