The Heckler

Carella winked slyly and stepped into the elevator. He got off at the ninth floor and walked the flight to the roof, opening the fire door and stepping out onto the asphalt. He could see the city spread out around him as he crossed the roof, the sharp, vertical rectangles of the apartment buildings slit with open windows, the water tanks atop each roof nesting like shining dark birds, the blue sky beyond and the tracery of the bridges that connected Isola to the other parts of the city, the solid heavy lines of the old bridges, and the more delicate soaring lines of the newer bridges, and far below him the sound of street traffic and the hum of a city rushing with life, kids flying kites from neighboring rooftops, a man down the street swinging his long bamboo pole at his pigeons, the pigeons fluttering into the air in a sudden explosion of gray, beating wings, the April sun covering the asphalt of the roof with yellow warmth.

He walked to the edge of the roof and glanced down the nine stories to the interior courtyard below. Gripping the ladder tightly, he swung over the tiled parapet and began working his way down to the fire escape on the ninth floor. He did not glance into the windows. He didn’t want any women screaming for a cop. He kept working his way downward, not looking to the right or the left, going down the ladder hand over hand, and then marching across the fire escape, and onto the next ladder until he reached the sixth floor. He squatted outside apartment 6C and looked through the window. The apartment was empty. He tried the window.

It was locked.

“Dammit,” he said, and he moved along the fire escape to the second window. He was beginning to feel like a burglar, and he wished he had a small hand drill with which to bore into the wood and a hunk of wire to slip into the hole to lift the window catch. He was beginning to feel like an ill-equipped thief until he tried the second window and lo and begorrah, the goddam window was unlocked. He looked into the apartment again, and then slowly slid the window up and climbed over the sill.

The place was silent.

He dropped onto the thick rug and hastily scanned an apartment done in expensive good taste, sleek modern furniture set low against muted wall tones. His eyes touched each piece of furniture, lighted on the Danish desk in one corner of the living room. He went to it instantly and pulled down the drop-leaf front. He hoped to find some letters or an address book or something which could give him a further lead onto the people Smith had known, and especially the identity of the deaf man. But there was nothing of value. He closed the desk and oriented himself, figuring the kitchen to be that way, off the dining room, and the bedrooms to be that way, at the other end of the living room. He walked through the living room, his shoes whispering against the thick rug, and through the open arch and into the first of three bedrooms flanking a Spartan white corridor.

There was a faint trace of perfume in the bedroom.

The bed was neatly made, a black nightgown folded at its foot. Carella picked up the gown and looked for a label. It had come from one of the most expensive stores in the city. He sniffed it, smelled the same perfume that was in the air, and then dropped it onto the bed again, wondering if the gown belonged to Lotte Constantine, wondering too if she’d been lying when she said she didn’t know where John Smith had lived. He shrugged, snapped on a lamp resting on one of the night tables, and pulled open the top drawer of the table.

The first thing he saw was a series of crude drawings, either maps or floor plans, none of them labeled, all of them had several things in common. To begin with, each of the maps on floor plans, (it was difficult to tell exactly what they were supposed to represent) was marked with X’s scattered onto the face of the drawing. There was no clue anywhere on any of the drawings as to just what the X’s were supposed to represent. The maps had something else in common. Each of them had a name scrawled onto the right-hand corner. There were six maps in all.

The name on three of the maps was: CHUCK.

The remaining three maps had first carried one name, and that name was: JOHNNY. But the name had been crossed off all three, and another name written in its place: POP.

Johnny,Carella thought.John Smith?

The second thing in the drawer was a portion of a blueprint, neat and professional. He unfolded it and studied it for a moment:

He was folding the blueprint again when the telephone rang, startling him. He hesitated a moment, debating whether or not he should answer it. He put the blueprint down on the night table, wiped his hand across his sweating upper lip, and then picked up the receiver.

“Hello,” he said.

“This is Joey,” the voice on the other end told him.

“Yes?”

“Joey, the doorman. The guy who took you upstairs.”

“Oh, yes,” Carella said.

“I see you got in.”

“Yes.”