Calypso (87th Precinct), page 15
“Harry Caine.”
“You got it, mister. Owns a label called Hurricane. He’s a crook if ever there was one.”
“Thanks,” Carella said, and closed the notebook.
“Don’t forget to talk to your lieutenant about sendin’ a man up here.”
“I won’t,” Carella said.
“And get that flower tested,” Harding said.
The round-the-clock on Ambrose Harding’s apartment did not go into effect until 3:45 P.M. that afternoon. The reasons for the almost four-hour delay were many, and all of them authentic. To begin with, Carella did not go directly back to the office but instead went all the way downtown to Crescent Oval, where the offices of Hurricane Records were located. Crescent Oval was in that section of the city known as The Quarter, and number 17 Crescent Oval was a three-story brownstone set between a sandal maker’s shop and a store selling health foods. A brass escutcheon to the right of the doorbell carried only the engraved legend HURRICANE RECORDS. Carella rang the bell and waited. An answering buzz sounded within seconds. He opened the door, and moved into a paneled ground-floor landing, a flight of stairs angling upward dead ahead, a narrow corridor on the right of the steps, a door almost immediately to his right. On the door, another brass escutcheon engraved with the words hurricane records. No bell. Carella knocked on the door, and a woman’s voice said, “Come in.”
The door opened onto an informal reception room painted in varying shades of purple, all of them muted, complementary, and rather soothing to the eye. The girl sitting behind a white Formica-topped desk was eighteen or nineteen, he supposed, a good-looking black girl wearing a plum-colored suit that further complemented the coloring of the walls and the carpet. She smiled warmly and said, “May I help you, sir?”
“I’m a police officer,” Carella said, and immediately showed his shield.
“Oh,” the girl said, and smiled. “And here I thought you were a rock singer.”
“Is Mr. Caine in?” Carella asked.
“Let me check,” she said, and picked up the phone receiver. She punched a button in the base of the instrument, waited, and then said, “A police officer to see you, Mr. Caine.” She listened, laughed, said, “I don’t think so,” listened again, and then said, “I’ll send him right in.”
“What’d he say that was funny?” Carella asked.
“He wanted to know if you were tagging his car. He found a space up the block, but it’s alternate side of the street parking, and today is the other side of the street. But it’s raining and he didn’t want to go shlepping all the way over to the garage on Chauncey. I told him I didn’t think you were tagging the car. You’re not, are you?”
“I’m not,” Carella said.
“Okay, friend, pass,” the girl said, and smiled and indicated a door just beyond her desk. “Make a right when you’re inside,” she said. “It’s the second door in the corridor.”
Harry Caine was perhaps twenty-three years old, a dark-skinned black man wearing pearl gray trousers and a pink shirt, the sleeves rolled up over narrow wrists and slender forearms. He rose and extended his hand as Carella came into the room. Carella estimated his height at about five eleven. Thin, with narrow hips and shoulders, he could easily have passed for a teenage boy. The rock and roll album sleeves that decorated the walls all around his desk enlarged the initial impression—Carella might have been in some kid’s room someplace; all that was missing was the blare of a stereo.
“I’m sorry,” Caine said, “my secretary didn’t tell me your name. I’m Harry Caine.”
“Detective Carella,” he said, and took Caine’s hand.
“I’m illegally parked,” Caine said, and smiled. “I know it.”
“I’m here about another matter.”
“Phew!” Caine said, and wiped his hand across his brow in exaggerated relief. His eyes, Carella noticed for the first time, were almost yellow. Extraordinary eyes. He had never seen anyone with eyes like that in his life. “Sit down, please,” Caine said. “Would you like some coffee?”
“No, thank you,” Carella said.
“What can I do for you?”
“You had lunch with George Chadderton last Thursday,” Carella said.
“Yes?” Caine said.
“Yes, at one P.M.”
“Yes?”
“Did you?”
“I did,” Caine said.
“What’d you talk about?”
“Why do you want to know?” Caine said, looking extremely puzzled.
Carella looked back at him. “Don’t you know he’s dead?” he asked.
“Dead? No. George?”
“He was killed Friday night.”
“I’ve been out of town, I just got home last night. I didn’t know, I’m sorry.” He hesitated. “What happened to him?”
“Someone shot him.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Well, I’m…I’m shocked,” Caine said. “I can’t say I feel any real grief—George wasn’t the sort of person one felt much affection for. But I respected him as an artist and—I’m genuinely shocked.”
“How long had you known him, Mr. Caine?”
“Oh, six months, I would say. We’ve talked record possibilities on and off for the past six months.”
“Is that what you talked about this past Thursday?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. George called me last week sometime, said he had an album idea he wanted to discuss. Well,” Caine said, and smiled, “George always had an album idea to discuss. The problem, of course, was that he wanted to do calypso, which is about as vital to the record industry as buggy whips are to transportation.”
“Was this in fact another calypso album he wanted to discuss?”
“Yes. But with a twist.”
“What was the twist?”
“Well, to begin with…” Caine hesitated. “I’m not sure I should mention this. I wouldn’t want you to think Hurricane Records is a vanity label. It isn’t.”
“Uh-huh,” Carella said.
“Although from time to time, in order to help launch the careers of individuals who might not otherwise be granted a forum…”
“Uh-huh…”
“…we will charge a fee. But only in order to defray the cost of recording, packaging, and distribution.”
“I see,” Carella said.
“But even in those instances, we pay royalties the same as Motown or RCA or Arista or any other label you might care to mention.”
“It’s just every now and then…”
“Yes, every so often…”
“…that you’ll accept a fee.”
“Yes, to reduce our risk.”
“It’s our understanding that C.J. Hawkins…does that name mean anything to you?”
“Yes, that’s the girl George and I discussed.”
“…was ready to put up three thousand dollars…”
“Yes.”
“…to have an album made by your company.”
“Yes.”
“Was George Chadderton supposed to get any of that money?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“A thousand.”
“And Hurricane Records was to get the remaining two thousand, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that low? It’s my understanding that most companies charging fees will get somewhere between two and three hundred dollars a song.”
“That’s right,” Caine said.
“What does Hurricane charge per song?”
“Two fifty.”
“And how many songs do you normally put on an LP?”
“Eight or nine on each side.”
“Which would come to, oh, four thousand dollars an album, isn’t that right?”
“More or less.”
“But Hurricane was willing to do C.J.’s for two thousand.”
“Three thousand all together.”
“Your share was only two. Eighteen songs for two thousand bucks. How come?”
“Well,” Caine said, “not eighteen.”
“Ah,” Carella said. “How many?”
“This was to be more like a demo album. As opposed to an album for distribution to disc jockeys and retail outlets.”
“How many songs on it?”
“We planned to press only one side.”
“Nine songs?”
“Eight.”
“For a three-thousand-dollar fee.”
“Hurricane’s share was only two.”
“Why were you giving a thousand to Chadderton? Because he brought the girl to you?”
“No, he was getting paid for writing the songs and recording them.”
“What kind of songs?”
“Well, calypso, of course. That’s what George wrote and performed. Calypso.”
“Which would suddenly become vital to the record industry, huh?” Carella said.
Caine smiled. “Not vital perhaps, but worth a shot. Miss Hawkins had a great deal of information George was prepared to put into the songs.”
“Were they going to collaborate on them, is that it?”
“That part of it hadn’t been worked out yet. I think it was George’s intention only to pick her brain. Apparently, she had hundreds of stories to tell. She’d only been in the life since April, from what I understand, but apparently one learns very quickly in the streets.”
“Too bad she didn’t learn a little more quickly off the streets,” Carella said.
“I’m sorry,” Caine said. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean you were charging her three thousand bucks to record eight songs, which on my block comes to three hundred and seventy-five bucks a song, or a hundred and twenty-five more than you usually charge.”
“George was getting a thousand of that.”
“I see. You were getting only your usual fee, right?”
“If you care to look at it that way.”
“How would you care to look at it, Mr. Caine. Together, you were leading that kid straight down the garden.”
“She wasn’t a virgin,” Caine said, smiling.
“No,” Carella answered, “but usually she charged for the screwing.”
The smile dropped from Caine’s face. “I’m sure you’ve got a million things to do,” he said. “I don’t want to keep you.”
“Nice meeting you, Mr. Caine,” Carella said, and walked out of the office. He stopped at the desk in the reception room, and asked the girl there what kind of car Mr. Caine drove. The girl gave him the year, make, and color, and then said, “Uh-oh, did I do something wrong just then?” Carella assured her she had not.
Outside in the pouring rain, he searched the street from end to end till he found the car answering the girl’s description. From a phone booth on the corner, he called Communications and asked for a computer check on the license plate. Within minutes, he learned that the car was registered to a Mr. Harry Caine, who lived in Riverhead, and that it had not been reported stolen. For the next ten minutes, Carella walked in the rain looking for the beat cop. When he found him, he identified himself and then led him back to where Caine’s car was illegally parked on the wrong side of the street.
“Ticket it,” he said.
The patrolman stared at him. The rain was drumming on Carella’s uncovered head, the rain had soaked through his coat and his shoes and his trouser legs; altogether he looked like a drowned rat. The patrolman kept staring at him. At last he shrugged and said, “Sure,” and began writing out the summons. The time he scrawled into the righthand corner was 1:45 P.M.
Carella did not get back to the office until 2:30 that afternoon, at which time the lieutenant had a reporter from the city’s morning paper in with him, wanting to know not about the relatively obscure calypso singer found dead in the 87th Precinct this past Friday night, nor even about the more obscure hooker found dead in Midtown South four and a half hours later, but instead about a rash of jewelry-store robberies that seemed to have leaped the dividing line that separated the scuzzy Eight-Seven from its posh neighboring precinct to the west. The reporter was asking Lieutenant Byrnes whether he felt the robbers who’d held up a store on Hall Avenue just west of Monastery Road were the same thieves who’d been raising havoc in the Eight-Seven for, lo, these many months. Byrnes refused to admit to any reporter on earth that any damn thieves were raising havoc in his damn precinct, and besides, he didn’t consider six jewelry-store hold-ups to be havoc, nor did he even consider them to be a rash. In any event, he was occupied with the reporter until a quarter to 3:00, at which time Carella gained access to his office, carrying with him a box with a blue and green fleur-de-lis design. A handkerchief tented over his head, Carella lifted the lid from the box.
“You have to stop bringing me flowers,” Byrnes said. “The men are beginning to talk.”
“Left outside Harding’s apartment a little while ago,” Carella said. “He thinks it means something.”
“Mm,” Byrnes said.
“Whether it does or not isn’t important,” Carella said. “He’s damn scared, and I think he may have a point. Whoever tried to blow him away—”
“May try it again,” Byrnes said, and nodded.
“Can we spare a patrolman up there?”
“For how long?”
“At least till we pick up Joey Peace.”
“Have you talked to Meyer yet?”
“Yes, and he told me it’s José La Paz. I’ve already called the Gaucho to let him know.”
“How long do you think it’ll be before we flush him out?”
“I’ve got no idea, Pete. It could be ten minutes, it could be ten days.”
“How long do you want the cover on Harding?”
“Can you let me have a week? Round-the-clock?”
“I’ll check it with the captain.”
“Would you, Pete? I want to get this down to the lab. Sam promised me a report by morning if I can get it to him right away.” Both men looked at their watches. Byrnes was picking up the phone receiver as Carella left the office.
Captain Frick enjoyed being in command of the entire Eight-Seven, including those plainclothes cops who inhabited the ruckus room on the second floor of the station house. There were 186 patrolmen assigned to the Eight-Seven, and together with the sixteen detectives upstairs, the small army under Frick’s command constituted a formidable bulwark against the forces of evil in this city. Byrnes was now asking that three men in the uniformed ranks be taken from active duty elsewhere to be placed outside the door of a black business manager (not that his blackness mattered) on a round-the-clock basis, one man for every eight hours, three men each and every day of the week for the next week. Frick did not want to take this responsibility upon himself. Frick felt that three men fewer against the forces of evil were three men more on the side of the forces of evil. He told Byrnes he would get back to him, and at exactly one minute past 3:00, he placed a call to the Chief of Field Services in Headquarters downtown on High Street, and asked if he might feel free to release three patrolmen each day for the next week for a round-the-clock on a black business manager whose client had been a homicide victim this past Friday night up here. The COFS wanted to know what the business manager’s blackness had to do with a goddamn thing on God’s green earth, and Frick said, at once, “Nothing, sir, it has nothing whatever to do with anything whatever,” and the COFS granted permission to assign the three men on a round-the-clock. It was by then 3:09 P.M., and it was still raining.
Frick knew, from his years of duty on the streets before he made desk sergeant and then lieutenant and then captain, that the 8:00-to-4:00 tour of duty ended at 3:45 P.M., when the relieving patrolmen stood roll call in the muster room, after which the preceding shift was supposed to be relieved on post. He further knew that any smart criminal in this city should have planned the commission of his crimes for the fifteen minutes preceding 8:00 A.M., 4:00 P.M., and 12:00 midnight, since it was then that an overlap took place between those patrolmen who were returning prematurely to the station house, and those patrolmen who were standing roll call prior to going out on the street to “relieve on post.” A tour of duty is a long eight hours, and one can perhaps forgive a bit of eagerness on the part of men who’ve been pounding a beat. Anyway, Frick knew it would be senseless to assign an off-going patrolman to the first watch on Harding’s apartment, so he called down to the desk and asked that the sergeant assign a man from the 4:00-to-midnight to the first segment of a round-the-clock that would continue through the next week at least, or certainly until further notice.
The first patrolman assigned to Harding’s apartment was a rookie named Conrad Lehmann. He was also the last patrolman assigned there, since when he got there, he found the door ajar and a black man lying dead on the kitchen floor with two neatly spaced bullet holes in his face.
Carella could not get used to thinking of Sam Grossman as Captain Sam Grossman, not after he’d been Lieutenant Sam Grossman for such a long time. High in a window in a tower to the east—or rather on the Police Laboratory floor of the new tower-like glass, steel, and stone Headquarters Building downtown on High Street—Grossman half sat upon, half leaned against a long white table bearing a row of black microscopes. He was wearing a white laboratory smock over a gray suit, and his eyeglasses reflected gray rain oozing along the window panes, gray sky stretching across a dull horizon, black pencil-line bridges sketched from the island to the distant gray reaches of the city. The effect was starkly modern, almost monochromatic—the whites, blacks, and grays broken only by the cool blue and green of the fleur-de-lis box and the hot pink of the orchid on the lab counter.
“Which do you want first?” Grossman asked. “The box or the flower?” There was in his voice a gentleness in direct contradiction to the coldness of the scientific knowledge he was expected to dispense. Listening to Grossman talk about the results of his various lab tests was rather like hearing a drawling New England turnip farmer explaining that contrary to Galilean or Newtonian concepts, time and space should be viewed as relative to moving systems or frames of reference.
“Let’s start with the box,” Carella said.
