The Heckler

Lotte shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said wistfully. “What’s serious?”

“Were you…more than just friends, Miss Constantine?”

“Yes,” she said abruptly. She nodded, as if lost in thought, as if alone in the silent lobby that reminded Carella of Venice. “Yes.” She nodded again. “Yes, we were more than just friends.” She lifted her eyes and then tossed her head and brushed a long strand of red hair away from her forehead. Defiantly she said, “We were lovers.”

“All right,” Carella said. “Any idea who’d want him dead, Miss Constantine?”

“No,” She paused. “How—how did he die?”

“I was wondering when you’d get to that.”

Lotte Constantine looked Carella straight in the eye. “What the hell are you?” she asked. “A tough cop?”

Carella did not answer.

“Do Ihave to want to know how he died?” she said. “Isn’t it enough that he’s dead?”

“Most people would be curious,” Carella said.

“I’m notmost people,” she answered. “I’m me. Lotte Constantine. You’re a great one, aren’t you? A regular little IBM machine, aren’t you? Punch-punch, put in the card and out comes the right answer. You come here telling me Johnny is dead and then you start asking a lot of fool questions and then you tell me what the reaction ofmost people would be, well the hell with you, Detective Whatever-your-name-is,most twenty-two-year-old girls wouldn’t fall in love with a man who’s sixty-six years old, yes, sixty-six, don’t look so goddamned surprised, that’s how old Johnny was, so don’t go telling me whatmost people would do, you can takemost people and drown them, for all I care.”

“He was shot at close range with a shotgun,” Carella said, and he did not take his eyes from her face. Nothing crossed that face. No expression, not the slightest nuance of emotion.

“All right,” she said, “he was shot at close range with a shotgun. Who did it?”

“We don’t know.”

“Ididn’t.”

“Nobody said you did.”

“Then what the hell are you doing here?”

“We’re only trying to make a positive identification, Miss Constantine.”

“Well, you’ve made it. Your dead man is John Smith.”

“Would you say that name was a great deal of help, Miss Constantine?”

“What the hell do you want from me? It washis name, not mine.”

“And he never told you his real name?”

“He said his name was John Smith.”

“And you believed him?”

“Yes.”

“Suppose he’d told you his name was John Doe?”

“Mister, I’d have believed him if he told me his name was Joseph Stalin. Now how about that?”

“That’s how it was, huh?” Carella asked.

“That’s how it was.”

“What’d he do for a living?” Carella asked.

“Retired. He was getting social security.”

“And the uniform?”

“What uniform?” Lotte Constantine asked with wide open eyes.

“The uniform. The one somebody stripped off of him and dumped into an incinerator.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You never saw him in a uniform?”

“Never.”

“Did he have any job? Besides the retirement money. Did he run an elevator or anything?”

“No. I gave him—” Lotte stopped suddenly.

“Yes?”

“Nothing.”

“You gave him money? Is that what you were about to say?”

“Yes.”

“Where did he live, Miss Constantine?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you—”

“I don’t know where he lived. He…he came here a lot.”

“To stay?”

“Sometimes.”

“For how long?”

“The…the longest he ever stayed was…was for two weeks.”

“Pitt know about this?”

Lotte shrugged. “I don’t know. What difference does it make? I’m a good customer. I’ve been living in this hotel ever since I came to the city four years ago. What difference would it make if an old man—” She caught herself, stopped speaking, and returned Carella’s level gaze. “Stop staring at me as if I was Lolita or something. I loved him.”

“And he never mentioned a uniform, is that right? Or a job?”

“He mentioned a deal.”

“What kind of a deal?” Carella asked, leaning forward.

The girl uncrossed her legs. “He didn’t say.”

“But he did mention a deal?”

“Yes.”

“When was this?”

“The last time I saw him.”

“What did he say?”

“Only that he had a deal cooking with the deaf man.”

They were sitting in velvet chairs around a small coffee table in an ornate lobby which suddenly went as still as death.

“The deaf man?” Carella said.

“Yes.”

He sucked in a deep breath.

“Who’s the deaf man?”

“I don’t know.”

“But Johnny had some kind of a deal with him, right?”

“Yes. That’s what he said. He said he had a deal with the deaf man, and that he’d be very rich soon. He was going—We were going to get married.”

“The deaf man,” Carella said aloud. He sighed heavily. “Where can I reach you if I need you, Miss Constantine?”

“Either here or at The Harem Club.”

“What do you do there?”

“I’m a cigarette girl. I sell cigarettes. That’s where I met Johnny. At the club.”

“He bought cigarettes from you?”

“No. He smokes—hesmoked —a pipe. I sold him pipe tobacco.”

“Smoker’s Pipe?” Carella asked. “Was that the brand?”

“Why…why, yes. How—”

“Here’s my card, Miss Constantine,” Carella said. “If you should think of anything else that might help me, give me a call, won’t you?”

“Like what?”

“What do you mean?”