there. She says the same thing.'
'What'd you do at home all night? Read the Bible,-do crossword puzzles, count the walls?'
'I watched television.'
'Yeah? What did you watch?'
'That's easy. We got cable, and I remember from nine to eleven there was a special on Home Box: Fifty, Years of Great Fights, 1930-1980. It was films from all the big fights, mostly heavyweights. I watched that.'
Calazo looked at him thoughtfully.
'I saw that show that night, Good stuff. But you could have chilled your shrink and checked TV Guide just to give yourself an alibi.'
'You fucker,' Bellsey said in a croaky voice, 'I really did--' But Calazo snapped the sap down on the back of Bellsey's left hand, and the bound man writhed with pain. Tears came to his eyes.
'See,' the detective said, 'you're crying already. Don't call me names, Ronald; it's a nasty habit.'
Calazo stood there, staring steadily down at his captive.
Bellsey's hands had ballooned into puffs of raw meat. They lay limply on the arms of the chair, already beginning to show ruptured blood vessels and discolored skin.
'I wish I didn't believe you,' Calazo said.
'I really wish I thought you were lying so I could keep it up for a while. I hate to say it, but I think you're telling the truth.'
'I am, I am! What reason would I have to kill Ellerbee?
The guy was my doctor, for Christ's sake!'
'Uh-huh. But you hurt five other guys for no reason, didn't you? Well, before I walk off into the sunset, let me tell you a couple of things.
Betty Lee had nothing to do with this. I told her if she didn't, she'd be in the clink. You understand that?'
Bellsey nodded frantically.
'If I find out you've been leaning on her,' Calazo continued, 'I'm going to come looking for you. And then it won't be only your hands; it'll be your thick skull. You got that?'
Bellsey nodded again, wearily this time.
'And if you want to come looking for me, I'll make it easy for you: The name is Detective Benjamin Calazo, and Midtown North will tell you where to find me. Just you and me, one on one. I'll blow your fucking head off and wait right there for them to come and take me away. Do you believe that?'
Ronald Bellsey looked up at him fearfully.
'You're crazy,' he said in a faltering voice.
'That's me,' Calazo said.
'Nutty as a fruitcake.'
With two swift, crushing blows, he slammed the sap against Bellsey's hands with all his strength. There was a sound like a wooden strawberry box crumpling. Bellsey's eyes rolled up into his skull and he passed out again. The stench of urine filled the air. The front of Bellsey's pants stained dark.
Detective Calazo packed his little gym bag. He put in the sap, the rolls of remaining tape. Then he stripped the tape from Bellsey's unconscious body, wadded it up, and put that in the bag, too. He donned fedora and overcoat. He looked around, inspecting. He remembered the glass he had used to throw water in Bellsey's face, and took that.
He opened the hallway door, wiped off the knob with Bellsey's handkerchief, and threw it back onto the slack body. He rode down in the elevator, walked casually through the lobby.
The guy behind the desk didn't even look up.
Calazo called the hotel from two blocks away.
'There's a sick man in room eight-D,' he reported to the clerk.
'I think he's passed out. Maybe you better call for an ambulance.'
Then he drove home, thinking of how he would word his report to Sergeant Boone, stating that, in his opinion, Ronald J. Bellsey was innocent of the murder of Dr. Simon Ellerbee.
The girls arrived at the Delaney brownstone on the afternoon of Christmas Eve: Mary and Sylvia, two bouncy young women showing promise of becoming as buxom as their mother. The first thing they did was to squeal with delight at the sight of the Christmas tree.
Sylvia: 'Fantastic!'
Mary: 'Ineredibobble!'
The second thing they did was to announce they would not be home for Christmas Eve dinner. They had dates that evening with two great boys.
'What boys?' Monica demanded sternly.
'Where did you meet them?'
Mother and daughters all began talking at once, gesturing wildly.
Delaney looked on genially.
It became apparent that on the train down from Boston, Mary and Sylvia had met two nice boys, seniors at Brown.
They both lived in Manhattan, and had invited the girls to the Plaza for dinner and then on to St. Patrick's Cathedral for Handel's Messiah and midnight mass.
'But you don't even know them,' Monica wailed.
'You pick up two strangers on the train, and now you're going out with them? Edward, tell them they can't go. Those men may be monsters.'
'Oh, I don't know…' he said easily.
'Any guys who want to go to St. Pat's for midnight mass can't be all bad. Are they supposed to pick you up here?'
'At eight o'clock,' Sylvia said excitedly.
'Peter-he's my date-said he thought he could borrow his father's car.'
'And Jeffrey is mine,' Mary said.
'Really, Mother, they're absolutely respectable, very well behaved.
Aren't they, Syl?'
'Perfect gentlemen,' her sister -vowed.
'They hold doors open for you and everything.'
'Tell you what,' Delaney said, 'when they arrive, ask them in for a drink. They're old enough to drink, aren't they?'
'Oh, Dad,' Mary said.
'They're seniors.'
'All right, then ask them in when they come for you. Your mother and I will take a look. If we approve, off you go. If they turn out to be a couple of slavering beasts, the whole thing is off.'
'They're not slavering beasts!' Sylvia objected.
'As a matter of fact, they're rather shy. Mary and I had to do most of the talking-didn't we, Mare?'
'And they're going to wear dinner jackets,' her sister said, giggling.
'So we're going to get all dressed up. Come on, Syl, we've got to get unpacked and dressed.'
'Oh, sure,' Delaney said solemnly.
'Go your selfish, carefree way. Your mother and I have been waiting months to see you, but that's all right. Go to the Plaza and have your partridge under glass and your Dam Perignon. Your mother and I will have our hot dogs and beans and beer; we don't mind.
Don't even think about us.' The two girls looked at him, stricken. But when they realized he was teasing, flew at him, smothering him with kisses.
He helped them upstairs with their luggage, then came down to find Monica in the kitchen, sliding a veal casserole into the oven.
'What do you think?' she asked anxiously.
He shrugged.
'We'll take a look at these 'perfect gentlemen' and see. At least they're picking up the girls at their home; that's a good sign.'
