Blood Relatives (87th Precinct) Read online

  “Get your fuckin’ hands off me, you cocksucker!” Carella looked up from the diary. Meyer Meyer was shoving a husky white man toward the detention cage across the room. The man’s hands were cuffed behind his back, but he kept trying to butt Meyer with his head as Meyer shoved him along. Meyer would shove at him, and the man would stumble forward a few feet and then turn and lower his head like a goat and try to butt Meyer all over again. As he rushed forward, Meyer would put his hands out to stop the thrust, and then he would spin the man around and give him another shove toward the detention cage. At the cage, Hal Willis was waiting with the door open. There was an amused expression on his face. He was thinking that Meyer would have made a good bullfighter.

  “Leave me the fuck alone!” the man shouted, and lowered his head again, and started running forward again. This time Meyer didn’t shove him. This time he brought the hard edge of his right hand down on the back of the man’s neck, and then brought his knee up into his chest. Then he dragged the man over to the cage and pushed him into it, and angrily slammed the door shut.

  “You son of a bitch,” the man said.

  “Shut up!” Meyer said.

  “What’d he do?” Willis asked.

  “Stuck an icepick in his father’s eye,” Meyer said, and took out his handkerchief, and wiped his face, and then blew his nose, and glared at the man in the cage.

  Carella turned his attention back to the diary.

  On a Saturday afternoon in May, Muriel’s lover had taken her to a movie, and had kissed her for the first time. She described the kiss as being “sweet as falling rain,” and wrote that her “heart stopped dead.” Two days later her lover had met her downtown, after work. She explained to the diary again (although this information had appeared in an earlier entry) her reasons for having dropped out of high school. And she explained again, to the diary (or to her spectral audience), just how much she liked her job as a bookkeeper at the bank, and how good it made her feel to be able to contribute money to the house, though Uncle Frank and Aunt Lillian practically had to have the money forced upon them, but still they accepted it, and this made her feel good, to know she was independent and self-sufficient. But what made her feel better than anything in the world was knowing that she was loved, knowing that when he touched her she soared “to a sunrise of expectation. How long will it be before he wants from me the ultimate ecstasy? I will give him whatever he wishes,” she had written. “I will open myself fully unto him, for he is my love.”

  The telephone on Kling’s desk rang, and Carella looked up. Kling snatched the receiver from its cradle, and said, “87th Squad, Kling. Yeah, just a minute, I’ve got that right here on my desk someplace. Genero? Can you hold just a minute? Right, hold on. Okay, here it is, have you got a pencil? We’ve got a problem here because it could have been fired from two different guns. That’s right, Genero. Look, I’m telling you what Ballistics told me. You want an argument, call them. Guy I spoke to there is named Firbisher. Firbisher. F-I-R-B-I-S-H-E-R. He said the twist was sixteen inches left, and the groove diameter was .402 inches. Now this is what that means, Genero. That means it could’ve been either a .38-40 Colt or a .41 Colt, because both those revolvers have the same rate of twist and groove diameters. How can that be? What do you mean, how can that be? It is, that’s how it can be. Look, Genero, how do I know how he made his tests? Am I a Ballistics expert? He probably put the thing under a microscope, how the hell do I know what he did? You asked me to take a message if he called, and he called, and that’s what he told me, and that’s what I’m giving you. This is not my case, Genero, this is your case. That’s right, it is your case. I just said that, didn’t I? It’s your case, yes. Who’s sticking his nose into it? Genero, you want to know something? You’re a pain in the ass, Genero. How you ever got promoted into this squadroom is beyond me. That’s right. That’s what I said. Right. Sure, remember it. I hope you remember it. I hope you never forget it, Genero. I hope, in fact, you never ask me to do another favor for you, Genero, because you know what I’ll say? I’ll say no. That’s right. That’s what I’ll say. I’ll say no. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do. Good-bye, Genero.”

  He slammed the receiver down onto the cradle, muttered, “You no-good bastard,” and then realized that Carella—sitting at his own desk not three feet away—was watching him. “Genero,” Kling said in explanation, and went back to his typing.

  Carella went back to reading Muriel’s diary.

  The “sunrise of expectation” continued all through the month of May. As Carella waited patiently for Muriel’s defloration, the suspense became almost unbearable. He followed the girl’s panting declarations of undying love with bated breath, wondering when her anonymous lover would make the move that would at once rob her of her virginity and at the same time satisfy a sunrise that was becoming increasingly more purple as the summer approached. By the end of May, Carella began to think her lover didn’t exist at all. Muriel had invented him, he was a figment of her imagination, a true phantom, a character created only to add a little zip to the diary. Or, if he did exist, he was certainly a shy and cautious soul whose explorations thus far had been limited to touching her breasts “naked beneath the bra,” as she put it. In the first few weeks of June, Muriel began wondering when he would “move below the waist.”

  Carella, by this time, was hoping the lover would move to Alaska. He kept turning the pages of the diary, though, trapped in a pornographic treatise that lacked not only socially redeeming value but also specific gravity. As Carella read about all the various “aches,” “tingles,” “throbs,” and “tremors” Muriel was feeling above the waist (and below), he couldn’t help thinking that if only her nameless lover had been treated to a prepublication glimpse of her diary, he’d have leapt upon her in broad daylight and violated her in public, even if it frightened the horses. But through most of June her mysterious lover remained blithely unaware that Muriel was longing to be “taken in passionate delight,” as she put it, a ripe blossom waiting to be plucked, so to speak. Carella lived through the agonizing details of a stealthy finger-walk up the inside of Muriel’s thigh, a trembling hand sliding into her panties to probe at last “the aching mound where my sweet womanhood lies.” This was on the twenty-eighth of June, a Saturday. On the Fourth of July, while fireworks exploded overhead (symbolically and cinematically, and perhaps realistically as well), Muriel Stark lost her virginity on a deserted Sands Spit beach. The entry concerning this gala event had been made on July 4, but immediately beneath the printed date on that page, Muriel had written, “Really July 5, since it’s now 3:00 A.M., and I’ve just returned from Sands Spit.” There followed a passage describing in detail the steamy adolescent intensity that had led to the sandy seduction anticipated for months by thousands of breathless fans. Reading the diary with a critical eye, Carella had to admit that the big seduction scene was given all the space it required, spilling over from the page allotted to July 4 and onto the pages for NOTES at the back of the diary. Nor had Muriel ever written better. What with the fireworks and all, the big seduction scene was a critical and commercial smash.

  And then the tone of the diary changed abruptly.

  Where there had been almost daily entries before the night of Muriel’s defloration, the first entry after the one for July 4 was July 15. Carella kept turning blank pages, vaguely disappointed, wondering if the diary had ended with the big sex scene, and beginning to think again that the whole damn thing had been invented for the dubious pleasure of the reader. When he came to the July 15 entry, he read through it with a rising feeling of disorientation, scarcely able to believe it had been written by the same person who’d written the preceding pages. It was as though he’d been reading a novel (he still could not shake the belief that none of this was real) by a writer whose style he’d begun to understand if not particularly admire, and suddenly another writer had been brought in to finish the book. The entry was brief, the language plain, the gushing adolescent seemed to have di
sappeared overnight (or rather in the space of eleven days, the time that had elapsed since the entry of July 4 and the entry of July 15), to be replaced by someone who sounded strangely sober and…well, troubled.

  He did not know why Muriel suddenly seemed unable to handle what she’d been yearning for since that first kiss in the balcony of a movie house in the merry month of May. He did not know until he read the entry for August 1. It was then that he learned who her lover was, and realized he was not a phantom, and understood why she had not named him till now. She had kept the secret until it became impossible to bear, but now she was forced to share it—if only with her diary. On August 1 her diary became her confessor and her confidante, and Carella was certain she locked it from that night forward. And whatever else he had previously believed about Muriel (and all other diarists), he changed his mind abruptly when he realized she was now putting down her thoughts only in an attempt to find answers to problems that were suffocating her. The unfortunate thing was that by the time of her last entry on September 5, the night before her murder, she seemed to have found none of the answers she was so desperately seeking.

  Friday, August 1

  I’m sure I’m pregnant.

  Today I told him. I told him I hadn’t mentioned it before because I was sure I’d get my period, but now it was almost a week, it was six days to be exact, and I had to tell him. He was very calm about it. He said I shouldn’t worry. He said I’d have to see a doctor, take the rabbit test, make sure I was really pregnant, and then we’d see what we had to do.

  I said, Andy what can we do? If I’m pregnant, what can we do? We’re cousins, Andy. We’re first cousins. Dear God, if you’re listening, let me get my period.

  Saturday, August 2

  I love him so much, that’s the trouble. But I know it’s wrong. We both know it’s wrong. We shouldn’t have done it, we shouldn’t have started it. He said I have to make an appointment with a doctor, but what doctor should I go to? I’m so embarrassed. Should I tell the doctor the truth? Or should I just pretend Andy is some boy I know, and not my cousin?

  Monday, August 4

  This morning I asked Heidi if she knew a good gynecologist. I told her I was itching and didn’t know anybody to go to, and was embarrassed to ask my aunt. Heidi is twenty-four years old, she said she’d been going to this one man, a Dr. Henry Keller, since she was eighteen, in fact got her first diaphragm from him. I called him on my lunch hour, and his nurse told me the first appointment she could give me was for the tenth. I said this was an emergency, and she said, What sort of emergency, and I said, I think I’m pregnant. Did you want a rabbit test? she asked. Yes, I said, that’s what I want. She asked me how late I was, and I said it was nine days now, and she said if I didn’t get my period by tomorrow, then on Wednesday I should go directly to a lab for the test. She gave me the name of a lab that did tests, and I thanked her and hung up.

  Andy picked me up after work, and I told him I was going to wait another day and then go to a lab. He said okay. We were walking along toward his car. I told him I hoped I wasn’t pregnant. I asked him what we would do if I was pregnant. He said we would see.

  Tuesday, August 5

  I did not get my period, so I called the lab today and made an appointment for tomorrow during my lunch hour. Andy looks so worried. I’m sure the whole family knows something is going on.

  Wednesday, August 6

  I’m so happy I could scream! It’s only 7:00 in the morning, but I had to put this down before I start getting dressed for work. Yes, yes, yes! Thank you, God! I’m going to knock on Andy’s door, and wake him up and tell him. I don’t care if everybody in the house hears us. Well, I do care. But, oh Jesus, I’m so damn happy!

  Thursday, August 7

  Andy told me today he was ready to marry me if it turned out I was pregnant. He said there was nothing wrong with cousins getting married, and he was in fact thinking of telling his mother that’s what we planned to do. I said I didn’t think that was such a good idea, telling his mother, I meant. He said, Why not, don’t you love me, Mure? I told him I loved him more than life itself. And that’s true, that’s really true. But I didn’t want him to be making any wild promises just because he’d been so scared about my being pregnant. And I also said I was sure there was something wrong with cousins getting married, I was sure there was something in the Bible about it. He asked me where in the Bible? I told him I didn’t know exactly where, but I was sure it was in there someplace.

  Saturday, August 9

  I went to see Dr. Keller today, but not to find out if I’m pregnant, which thank God I’m not. I went to ask him to prescribe birth control pills for me. I did this because from now on, I want to make sure we’re absolutely safe. Andy still wants to tell his mother that we love each other and want to get married, but I’m sure I’m right about her going through the ceiling, and also I’m sure Uncle Frank will throw me right out of the house if he ever finds out.

  Dr. Keller was an old man in his sixties, he prescribed the pills without a fuss, but he also gave me a little lecture about not using them as a license for promiscuity. I told him I was engaged to be married, and he said that was nice to hear and he wished me luck. I told him my period had started on the sixth, and he said I should take the first pill on the eleventh, and then keep taking them till all twenty-eight pills were gone. Then I could expect my next period a few days after that, and counting the day I got my period, I should allow five days and then begin taking the pill again the very next day. It sounds very simple.

  Thursday, August 14

  I didn’t realize Andy could be such a jealous person.

  I was waiting for him outside the bank today, he must’ve been about ten minutes late, he explained that he’d got caught in traffic. But I was talking to Mr. Armstrong, who’s head of the bookkeeping department, a very nice person who’s old enough to be my father, I really mean it. Well, he’s at least thirty, anyway, and he’s married and has a small daughter. Anyway, we were just standing there talking, passing the time, when Andy pulled up in his car. I said good-bye to Mr. Armstrong, I don’t even know his first name, and I got in the car, and the first thing Andy wanted to know was who was that I was talking to. I told him it was a man who worked in the bank, Mr. Armstrong from the bookkeeping department. So Andy wanted to know what we were talking about. I told him I’d been waiting there on the sidewalk, and when Mr. Armstrong came out he saw me standing there and we started chatting, that was all. So Andy still wanted to know what we were talking about. I said, Why, are you jealous? And he said he would kill me if ever I started up with another man.

  I think he meant it.

  Saturday, August 16

  Today Andy told me his plan.

  Everybody was out of the house this afternoon, they all went to the beach—Uncle Frank, and Aunt Lillian, and Patricia. I told them I had shopping to do, that I needed some new clothes for the fall, and Andy lied and said he had a date. So we got to stay home alone. We made love in Andy’s bed for the first time. I really feel great now that I’m taking the pill. Andy says it’s turned me into a wild animal, whatever that means. Maybe he’s right. I just don’t worry about a thing now.

  His plan sounds stupid to me.

  His plan is not to go to college in the fall. After he’s been accepted and everything. Instead, he says he wants to work full-time at the steak joint, as a waiter no less. He says he can make plenty of money waiting tables, and he says with both our salaries, we could live very well. In short, he wants to marry me as soon as possible, forget about college, take our own apartment, etc. I told him that’s all his mother has to hear. First that he wants to marry his own cousin, and next that he’s dropping out of college to do it. Andy says he doesn’t give a damn about his mother, but I told him I’d have to give this a lot of thought. He said, Why? What’s there to think about? We love each other, don’t we? I said I loved him dearly, but dropping out of college before he even started was really kind of stupid. And besides, I
was only seventeen, I wouldn’t be eighteen till March, which made me underage. His mother was my guardian and she’d never sign for me to get married. He said the hell with her, we’d elope. I said, Andy, let me think about it, okay? Then we made love again before they got home.

  I really do feel like a wild animal when we make love.

  Monday, August 18

  Mr. Armstrong stopped me on the way out to lunch today, and asked me if that was my boyfriend who picked me up all the time. I said, No, it was my cousin. That’s really the truth, but of course the other is the truth, too. Andy is my boyfriend. Mr. Armstrong asked me where I was going, and I said out to lunch, and he said, Of course, how stupid of me. Where else would you be going at 12:30? He asked if he could walk with me, and I said, Sure, Mr. Armstrong, why not, and he said I should please call him Jack, which is his name. He said he’d taken a lot of ribbing about being named Jack Armstrong, but I didn’t know what he meant, and he explained that there used to be a radio show, oh, back in the thirties he guessed it was, and the hero of it was Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. He said that was before my time. I said that was probably before his time, too, wasn’t it, and he said, Oh, yes, I don’t remember it personally, my parents told me about it. He said he was twenty-six years old, which really came as a surprise to me, because honestly he looks much older. Anyway, he dropped me outside the R&R, and I went in for a sandwich, and didn’t see him the rest of the afternoon. He really does look a lot older than twenty-six.