The Frumious Bandersnatch

by Ed McBain

  “No,” she said.

  “Lark Music, Laurence’s Records, Lewis Music & Video, Lexington Entertainment, Lion Heart Record Shop…”

  “No, none of those.”

  “Live Wire Compact Discs, Lone Star Records, Long John’s Music, Lorelei Records, Lotus…”

  “What was that Laura one?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Laura Lee, was that it?”

  “Lorelei Records? Is that what you mean?”

  “That’s it,” she said. “Laura Lie.”

  Lorelei Records was a chain of shops similar to Sam Goody’s. There were six of them in Isola alone, but only two of them were located in what might have been considered “downtown,” one of them on St. John’s Avenue in what was really “midtown,” the other one in the financial district at the very tip of the island. They struck paydirt on the first call they made.

  “I THOUGHT you said nothing fancy,” Patricia said.

  “Nah, this is just a little Italian joint,” Ollie said, and held open the door for her to enter before him.

  “This is fancy,” she said. “We’ll make it Dutch tonight.”

  “No, no, I invited you.”

  “Yeah, but I picked the movie.”

  “Makes no difference. This is my treat. You want to take me out sometime, then you ask me.”

  Patricia grinned.

  “Okay,” she said, “I’ll do that.”

  “Hey, Detective Weeks,” a man sitting at the bar said, and immediately rose with his hand extended. “Long time no see, how you been?”

  “Patricia,” Ollie said, “this is Artie Di Domenico, owner and proprietor of this fine restaurant. Artie, meet Patricia Gomez, a fellow police officer.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Di Domenico said, and took her hand and graciously kissed it. Patricia felt like the queen of England. “Come,” he said, “I have a nice table for you,” and led them across the room to a table near the windows. This was only five-thirty, the place was almost empty. They had walked here from the precinct, directly after the shift changed. It was not yet dark outside.

  “Something to drink?” Di Domenico asked.

  “Some wine, Patricia?”

  “I really can’t let you…”

  “Tut tut, m’dear,” Ollie said. “Artie, do you have any of that fine Simi chardonnay?”

  “Ma, certo,” Di Domenico said, spreading his hands wide the way Patricia had seen Henry Armetta do in an old black-and-white movie on television. “Subito, Detective Weeks!”

  “This is so nice of you, really,” Patricia said.

  “But we can’t eat too much,” Ollie said. “Because zee clock, she is ticking.”

  Patricia looked puzzled.

  “The movie starts at seven-forty-five,” he explained.

  “Ah,” she said. “Well, I don’t eat much, anyway.”

  “Ah, but I do,” Ollie said. “And this is very fine Italian food here.”

  “I should have dressed more elegantly,” she said, looking around at the neat little tables with their white tablecloths and the candles burning everywhere and the posters of Italian villages on the walls.

  “You are dressed to the nines,” Ollie said.

  She was, in fact, wearing tailored brown slacks, and a pumpkin-colored cashmere sweater with a neat little tan jacket over it, and a string of pearls around her throat. Ollie thought she looked beautiful. He looked at his watch.

  “Five-thirty-five,” he said.

  “Zee clock, she is ticking,” Patricia said.

  “I learned that from the smartest man I ever met,” Ollie said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Henry Daggert. Though, actually, I never met him in person.”

  “Is he a cop?”

  “No, he’s an editor. Though maybe a spook, too.”

  “A spy, you mean?”

  “CIA, maybe,” Ollie said, nodding.

  “Get out!”

  “I’m serious. Being an editor might have been just a cover. But he certainly gave me some good advice. To use in my work.”

  “On the job, you mean?”

  “No. Writing books, I mean.”

  “I sure hope you catch that guy.”

  “Oh, me, too.”

  “Cause if for no other reason, I’d love to read your book.”

  “I’d love you to read it. It’s called Report to the Commissioner. This cross-dressing hooker named Emilio Herrera stole it, the little prick, excuse my French. I’ll get him, though. What he don’t realize is zee clock, she is ticking.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean, anyway?” Patricia asked. “I mean, as it pertains to writing books?”

  “What it means is that a vital element of all good suspense fiction is a ticking clock. Take a truly great master of literature like James Patterson, are you familiar with his uv?”

  “His what?”

  “His uv. That’s French for ‘body of work,’ an uv, they call it.”

  “I forgot you were learning languages.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “That’s so impressive, you have no idea.”

  “Patterson always has a ticking clock in his books. If I may quote Henry Daggert, fiction editor and master spy for all I know, ‘You Must Introduce a Ticking Clock.’ ”

  “Introduce it to who?” Patricia asked.

  “Introduce it into your story. ‘You must give your protagonist only a limited amount of time to solve his problem,’ quote unquote. And to quote once again, ‘The reader should be regularly reminded of the urgency via Countdown Cues,’ quote unquote.”

  “Gee, I never realized it was so complicated,” Patricia said.

  “Ah yes, there are many tricks of the trade,” Ollie assured her, and looked at his watch again. “Five-forty-one,” he said. “Shall I get menus?”

  Patricia waggled her eyebrows.

  “Zee clock, she is ticking,” she said.

  A HUGE POSTER of Tamar Valparaiso standing spread-legged in her torn and tattered “Bandersnatch” costume was in each front window of Lorelei Records on St. John’s Avenue. The poster did not show the actual beast attacking her, but its frumious shadow fell over her body, the jaws and claws threatening by implication. Scattered everywhere around each of the framed posters were stacks of the jewel-boxed CDs containing the title song and the album itself.

  The manager was a black man named Angus Held.

  Tall and narrow, he was wearing black jeans, a black sports shirt, and a gray sweater with a shawl collar when he came out of his office at the back of the shop. He knew why they were there; they had called ahead.

  “Is Cal in some kind of trouble?” he asked at once.

  Same thing he’d asked on the phone.

  Same thing they always asked.

  This time, they played it straight.

  “He’s broken parole,” Carella said.

  “Didn’t even know he was onparole,” Held said, shaking his head.

  “When’s the last time you saw him?” Hawes asked.

  “When he left the job. Middle of April, must’ve been. Right around Easter time.”

  “Did he say he was going to Jamaica?”

  “No. Is that where he went?”

  “We don’t know where he went,” Carella said. “We’re trying to find him.”

  “How long did he work here?” Hawes asked.

  “Started just before Christmas. Comes and goes with the holidays, seems like. What was he in jail for?”

  “A bank holdup.”

  “Whoo,” Held said.

  “Did he give you any trouble while he was here?”

  “None at all. You say he was on parole, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can’t understand why he broke it. Had himself a good job here.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Worked in the stock room. This is a good location, we do lots of volume here. Wonder why he broke parole.”

  Carella was wondering the same thing. Wil
kins left a job as a dishwasher, got a better job here, you’d think he’d run to his parole officer and ask for a medal. Instead, he absconds. To do what? Kidnap Tamar Valparaiso? Whose picture was now in both front windows?

  “Mind if we talk to some of the people in your stock room?” Hawes asked.

  “I’ll take you back,” Held said.

  THERE WERE three people in the Lorelei stock room. One was Hispanic, one was Asian, one was black. Only the Asian guy had known Wilkins while he was still working here.

  “Quiet type,” he said.

  Which was what most of them said about people who’d committed crimes of violence.

  “Kept mostly to himself.”

  Which is what they also said.

  “Can’t imagine him doing anything wrong.”

  Ho-hum, Carella thought.

  “Did he mention why he was quitting the job?” Hawes asked.

  “Said he had bigger plans.”

  “Like what?”

  “Said he was going to retire to Jamaica.”

  Jamaica again.

  “Did he say how he planned to do that?”

  “Nossir, he did not.”

  “Mention any get-rich-quick scheme?”

  “Nossir. I told you. He kept mostly to himself.”

  “Ever see him with a redheaded girl and a…”

  “Nope.”

  “…guy about my height?” Carella said. “They might’ve been friends of his. Brown eyes, curly black hair, good build.”

  “Sounds almost like Ave.”

  “Ave? Who’s Ave?”

  “Avery, I guess was his complete name. Feller worked outside selling records. I saw them together a few times.”

  “Avery what?” Hawes asked.

  “AVERY HANES,” the manager told them. “He used to work at The Wiz, selling computers and such. I hired him last year around this time.”

  “We understand he was friends with Wilkins.”

  “I guess maybe so. They’d talk music together all the time. Avery knew every record ever made. Always coming to me with ideas about how we could sell more records. Was him who suggested we put in the listening booths. I was about to give him a raise when he left. Come to think of it, they both left around the same time. Around Easter.”

  “Maybe something bigger came along,” Carella suggested.

  “Maybe so. He was opportunistic, that’s for sure.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Oh, alert to possibilities. I’d hear him talking with customers, not just the usual do you like jazz, do you dig hip-hop, are you a Tony Bennett fan? He’d inquire what line of work they were in, were they musicians, were they in advertising, were they in publishing? I had the feeling he was looking for a better job. Didn’t want to sell records all his life, was all the time trawling, you know whut I mean, trawling?”

  “Yes, sir,” Carella said. “I know what you mean.”

  “So maybe he hooked something,” Held said.

  “Maybe he did,” Carella said.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have his address, would you?” Hawes asked.

  IF CARELLA and Hawes had walked around the corner from Lorelei Records on St. John’s Avenue at precisely five past seven that evening, they’d have seen first a black Lincoln Town car pulling out of the garage under the Rio Building, and next two unmarked Mercury sedans behind it. Barney Loomis was at the wheel of the limo. Corcoran was sitting beside him, a dispatch case with $750,000 in new hundred-dollar bills on his lap. Endicott and Lonigan were in the lead Mercury, the blue one. Feingold and Jones were in the white Mercury behind it. The rest of The Squad was back at Number One Fed, manning the computers. This time, they were playing it their way. This time, the Joint Task Force had every intention of winning the horse race the Commissioner had created.

  Carella and Hawes did not walk around the corner to the building in which Bison Records had its offices. Nor did either of the men connect the proximity of Lorelei Records to the company not a hundred yards away on Monroe Street.

  Instead, while the caravan made its way south through the last of the evening’s rush hour traffic, the detectives drove in the opposite direction toward 8412 Winston Road, which was the last address the manager of Lorelei Records had for Avery Hanes.

  It was beginning to get dark.

  13

  THE CELL PHONE in Barney Loomis’ Lincoln Town car rang at precisely seven-fifteen P.M. By that time he and Corcoran were on the River Dix Drive heading downtown in thinning traffic. Loomis picked up at once.

  “Hello?”

  “Where are you?” Avery asked.

  “On the Drive. Approaching the Headley Building. Exit 12.”

  “Get off at Exit 5, park in the little parking area there. I’ll call you again in ten minutes. Any tricks and the girl dies,” Avery said, and hung up.

  “What?” Corcoran asked.

  “Exit 5 parking area. He’ll call again when we’re there.”

  Corcoran was on his own phone at once.

  “He said any tricks…”

  “Yeah, well, we have a few tricks of our own,” Corcoran said.

  “Endicott.”

  “He’s taking us to Exit 5. The parking area there. Why don’t one of you get there before us? Keep circling, low profile.”

  “Will do,” Endicott said.

  “He said he’d kill Tamar if we tried any tricks,” Loomis said.

  “What he considers tricks is not what we consider tricks,” Corcoran said. “Do you want the girl back, or don’t you?”

  “That’s all I want.”

  “Well, the only way to get her is to get these guys first.”

  “That’s not my view.”

  “We tried your way already, Mr. Loomis. And you got double-crossed. Leave this to people who know what they’re doing, okay?”

  “Tamar is with a confederate, you know that. If we try anything funny…”

  “Let me tell you something, Mr. Loomis, okay? Tamar Valparaiso…”

  “I don’t want to hear…”

  “…may already be dead.”

  “OH JESUS,” Kellie said.

  She had just entered the room, and the first thing she saw was blood.

  She closed the door behind her, went swiftly to where Tamar lay huddled near the radiator, her hand still cuffed to it, her wrist torn and caked with blood where she had tried to pull the hand free. Her nose was crusted with blood as well, her lips swollen, her eyes puffed and discolored. There was blood on her thighs and higher up on her legs.

  “Oh, baby, what did he do to you?” Kellie asked, and put the rifle down on the floor, and took Tamar’s free hand in her own.

  “YOU GONNA not talk to me forever?” Cal asked.

  “Just shut up, you freak,” Avery told him. “Soon as we get this money, you’re history.”

  “She asked for it,” Cal said. “Wasn’t my fault what happened.”

  “I said shut up. You jeopardized this whole deal. This whole deal was we send her back safe. You wrecked her looks, you fucked up the whole deal, you fuckin moron.”

  “He’ll bring the money, anyway. He don’t know what she looks like, all he knows is we got her. He don’t know nothin happened to her. He’ll bring the seven-fifty, you’ll see, and we’re on our way.”

  “Just keep quiet, I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”

  Avery looked at his watch.

  It was seventeen minutes past seven.

  THE SUPERINTENDENT of the building at 8412 Winston Road told them his name was Ralph Hedrings. Hawes thought he’d said “Ralph Headrinse.” That was okay because Hedrings thought Hawes had said “Detective Horse.” When they got there at seven-twenty, the super was still at dinner. He didn’t particularly enjoy being interrupted by a pair of detectives looking for someone who’d moved out last month. Particularly someone who Hedrings considered had a superior attitude. But he asked his wife to keep his “supper” warm, was what he called it, and then stepped outside the
building with them and lit a cigarette.

  “She doesn’t know I still smoke,” he explained, letting out a self-satisfied poisonous cloud. “Her brother had his larynx removed last month, she thinks everybody in the world’s gonna get throat cancer now. I been smoking since I was sixteen, I don’t even cough. Why are you looking for Avery Hanes?”

  “Few questions we need to ask him,” Carella said. “Would you know where…?”

  “Him and his girlfriend were living here for almost a year. All of a sudden, he tells me he’s moving when the lease expired.”

  “When was that, Mr. Hedrings?”

  “April one,” Hedrings said.

  “Any idea where he went?”

  “None at all.”

  “And you say he was living here with his girlfriend?”

  “Redheaded girl.”

  “Would you know her name?”

  “Kellie. With an i.e.”

  “Kellie what?”

  “Don’t know. He was the one signed the lease.”

  So now they had three names.

  Or, more accurately, two and a half names.

  JUST AS LOOMIS pulled the town car off Exit 5, he spotted the blue Mercury with Endicott and Lonigan in it driving past the parking lot as though looking for an address somewhere on the street, cruising slowly, stop-and-go-ing. He pulled the car into the lot, and sat there, looking out over the wheel at the headlights zipping by on the Drive. Sitting beside him, Corcoran said into his phone, “We’re here. See anything yet?”

  “Nothing,” Endicott said.

  The car’s cell phone rang a moment later.

  It was seven-twenty-six P.M.on the dashboard clock.

  “WHERE are you?” Avery asked.

  “Off Exit 5,” Loomis said.

  “Take a left onto Fairlane. Drive downtown to the Grace Wagner School of Design on Cronley. Park in front of the statue there. No tricks.”

  There was a click on the line.

  “What’d he say?”

  “The Wagner School of Design on Cronley. Wants us to park in front of the statue there.”

  Corcoran tapped a button on the face of his cell phone.

  “Endicott.”

  “Heading downtown to Cronley, Wagner School of Design. He wants us to park there. Check out the building. Careful, they may be watching, same as before.”