We put olive oil in a pan with a crushed garlic clove and some onion and let it work on medium heat. That is about my favorite smell in the world. If you aren't hungry when you start, you soon will be.
'Gee, I forgot to ask Kevin if he wanted to have dinner too. It was only polite. Sorry.'
'Forget it. Kev went up to Wonderland to play the puppies. Guy's got a real mania for the pups. Keep it just between us, Doc, but he dropped almost six grand last year on the pups.'
'Six grand? Wow. He's feeding a habit.'
'I know. And don't ask me where he gets the bread either. Okay, get out some flour, some eggs, and vino blanco and two bowls. I'm going to make some calls.'
He reappeared twenty minutes later, clean shaven. He said he'd called headquarters and the lab and asked them to keep him posted at our house. He'd also called Johnny's partner, Sam Bowman, who had agreed to meet us the next day at nine thirty at the Dependable Messenger Service.
Joe returned to the veal and resumed the gentle but steady thumping with the mallet. He could have been a Renaissance Florentine stonecutter. From the side his sharp and sensitive features stood out in profile. Like his sister, he had the straight brow and nose seen on Roman statues. He had the high, wide cheekbones so common in the people south of Naples. But unlike- Mary's face, which terminated in a neat chin and clean jawline, Joe's face, at its lower terminus, lacked definition. The fine features were hidden in thick jowls and heavy neck. His body too was heavy, with a paunch over the belt- which he wore lower and lower in front each year- and big legs. He had a powerful upper torso, and could be mistaken for a former boxer or street brawler, except for the eyes. His eyes protruded slightly and his mouth pouted. This gave him a gentle, cocker-spaniel face. His eyes were like those of Marcello Mastroianni. They were hardly killer eyes.
Joe concentrated on his tasks. He took the pounded scaloppine and drew them through unbleached flour, then tossed them quickly back and forth from hand to hand. I refilled the glasses while he beat up a couple of eggs and added a splash of white wine, seasoning, and a little milk.
'I saw you eyeing that Bulgari watch on that guy's wrist, Doc. I know your fetish for fine watches. You almost gleeped it.'
I nodded. I hate jewelry, but well-made watches are a weakness. I glanced at the one currently gracing my wrist. It had a big flat black face and band, a movable bezel, three separate dials on the face with different functions, all luminous numbers, and a bunch of buttons on the face rim. It looked great. It weighed as much as a hand grenade and with luck- with a whole lot of luck and twists of fate thrown inI might even actually use it once every decade or so. Joe was staring at me staring at it. He frowned.
'So tell me, what're all those buttons and dials for?'
'Well,' I explained, 'it's kind of complicated. They're all for different things. Now this dial here is for high- speed aviation. Now suppose you're in a military aircraft, say an F-4 Phantom. Okay. You pull out of a dive and go into a barrel roll. There's an enemy tighter on your tail at seven o'clock, what you do is-'
'I think you and I can skip that one, Doc. How about this one, the one with the red-and-blue outlines?'
'Glad you asked. Now this is the elapsed-time bezel. It's essential for scuba diving. Okay. Say you're down over two hundred feet- that's when it's really essential- and you're running low on air. This bezel here tells you when to start back, allowing for decompression, and that's important. Now if you've got a complication, like a shark after you-'
'Yeah yeah, Doc. You can use that in Walden Pond. How about that last one?'
'Oh, simple. Auto racing. Okay. You're negotiating a turn at, say, Watkins Glen, and you're in the middle of the pack and go into a four-wheel drift, why all you do is-'
'Can you check the eggplant, Doc? It should be about ready to dip. There's no apparatus on that watch for checking eggplant? Or timing eggs?'
'Of course not. This is an expensive watch.'
'Pardon me.'
'You can make fun, but remember, I went scuba diving, you know.'
'Wasn't it in the YMCA pool?'
'You've gotta start somewhere. And also, I thought about taking flying lessons at Hanscom. You never know. By the way, how come you don't even wear a watch?'
'Don't need to. Always got somebody yelling at me. To wake up I got my clock radio. Then before I even get to headquarters I got the dispatcher on the box: 'Brindelli, it's eight forty-five, where are you?' Later it's 'Lieutenant, hurry up! It's after eleven.' And so on. I always got people telling me what time it is; I don't need a watch. But that Bulgari, I bet it cost over a grand. Maybe two. What do you think?'
'Lots of bucks. And lots of class too. Look, I'm no fashion plate and neither are you. But I do notice nice things. The guy was dressed expensively and with taste. I would think your average Outfit hoodlum would be a tad more flashy.'
'I agree. Double-knit suit instead of wool and silk. He'd wear lizard-skin shoes, or something else obnoxious…'
The phone rang. Joe went to answer it and I kept talking. I followed him over to the wall phone and spoke loudly. 'There's two things here. On the one hand we assume it was a local grudge and done by the Outfit. On the other hand-'
'Hello,' said Joe into the phone. He was getting egg batter on the receiver.
'- there's this Italian thread,' I continued, 'if the guy in the chimney was really Italian. Maybe one of the killers double-crossed the other…'
Joe hugged the phone closer and held up his hand for silence. I saw his eyes widen a bit.
“Really?' he said. 'They just took the prints and there's no way? Uh-huh… uh-huh… snipped off? Like with wire cutters? Uh-huh
…'
Well, I assumed the phone call was for him. I went in and checked on Mary. I kissed her on the cheek. She murmured to me in the manner of dying. men in movies.
'… coffee…'
Of course. I'd forgotten Mary's all-purpose elixir. If she ever gets seriously injured, I'll just have the attendants hang a sterile bottle of coffee over her with an IV. The Krups machine whirred and whined and seconds later I handed her a big mug, and soon she appeared in the kitchen, her chipper self.
Joe hung up the phone, looked at it, wiped it off', and looked me in the eye.
'Guess what? What is it you always say, Doc? Funnier and funnier? No…'
'Curiouser and curiouser?'
'Yeah. Well get this: we found two fingers in the dog's mouth, right? And a guy with two missing fingers on the rubble heap, right? Well they don't match. They compared prints and the fingers the doggie had aren't the property of the guy with the fancy clothes and watch. Tommy did tear off those fingers lodged in his mouth. That's certain. But the guy in the chimney, his fingers were cut off with cutters. Curiouser and curiouser.'
'But there's some sense to be made of it,' I said after a few seconds' thought. 'It's a frame. Mr. X kills Robinson with a lethal gas bomb and in the process loses two fingers. He also kills this young Italian guy. Incidentally, we keep saying he's Italian but we don't know for sure-'
'He's Italian,' said Joe firmly.
'So he kills this second guy with a knife. He probably used a knife because it was silent.'.
'Or…' said Joe, 'or because he couldn't get a gun. He couldn't get a gun if… he's just come to the States. He couldn't buy a handgun here. And he couldn't bring one with him even in his checked luggage because of the possibility of a customs search.'
'Hey Joey, that's good,' said Mary. I
'Go on, Doc.'
'Well he's looking down at this young man he's just killed and gets an idea: if he removes the kid's fingers the police will automatically assume- at least for a while- that the kid did it.
This gives him an open field for an end run.'
Joe sipped his vino rosso meditatively.
'Shit!' he said, and jumped for the phone. He punched in a familiar number with lightning speed. He used his drill-sergeant tone of voice, telling headquarters to check all clinics and emergency wards in New England for treatment to amputated fingers.
