“I give in,” Ted Kelly said ruefully. “They warned me you were hard to dupe, but I had to try. The last thing I need or want is anyone at Cornucopia thinking I might be in your league at sniffing out wrongdoers. I want Ulysses to think I’m a dumb official of a dumb institution, and so do my bosses. It’s okay for you, you’re hunting a murderer. You can get farther by spreading your tail and peacocking your skill, but my quarry’s different. I have to pretend I haven’t got to first base even when I’m stealing home. My man doesn’t make mistakes.”
“He is these days,” Carmine said, leaning forward in his chair. “All of a sudden, Mr. Kelly, you and I are hunting the selfsame predator. I’ve known for some time that my killer is your Ulysses. No, it’s not a guess. It’s fact.” He glanced at his railroad clock. “Got a spare half hour?”
“Sure.”
“Then I’ll hang out the Do Not Disturb signs.”
This consisted in closing his doors and routing all his calls through Delia. Then Carmine returned to his desk and told Ted Kelly why he knew that Ulysses had murdered eleven people who sat down to enjoy a charity banquet five months ago.
“So you see,” he concluded, “it may end in our getting hard evidence not of espionage but of murder. Is that going to be a problem for the FBI?”
“Anything but,” Special Agent Ted Kelly said. “Learning there are spies inside the city gates is very alarming for the general populace. You’re welcome to the glory. I’ll slink back to Washington happily looking like a fool. That way, I’m in good shape for the next traitor.”
“I’m not after glory!” Carmine snapped.
“I know, but if we catch the fucker, someone has to shine and it can’t be me. All I can say is, if you do catch him—no, when you catch him!—he can’t ever be let out of prison.”
“He won’t have done anything to warrant a federal trial or a federal prison,” Carmine said, “and Connecticut is a liberal-minded state. None of us can predict what some fool parole board of the future might decide. They’re always stacked with idealists.”
Kelly rose to his immense height and held out his hand to shake Carmine’s warmly. “I wouldn’t worry,” he said cheerfully. “His parole board will be stacked with believers in recidivism. I forgive you for calling me a cunt. I behaved atrociously.”
“In public,” Carmine said, steering him toward the outer door, “we continue the pretense—flattened ears, bared teeth and snarls every time we meet. What, by the way, was on the film you took from the telescope camera?”
“Nothing worth reporting on,” Kelly said. “Just Holloman Harbor’s shoreline from the Long Island ferry wharf clear to the point beyond East Holloman. Tide in, tide out. We figured it might have had something to do with a meeting or a drop.”
There was no one in the hall; Special Agent Ted Kelly went down it in three long strides and vanished into the stairwell. As soon as he had gone, Carmine went to see Delia.
“Our federal turkey is no turkey,” he said, grinning. “He’s an eagle, but if you catch sight of his wingspan while he’s in turkey mode, he’ll convince you he’s really a buzzard.”
“A very strange bird,” said Delia solemnly.
“Any news?” he asked.
“Not a sausage. Abe and Corey have exhausted their lists of those who might have sat at Peter Norton’s table, without any responses. I daresay people simply forget. No, don’t go! The Commissioner wants to see you. Now, he shouted. I fear Uncle John is not in a good mood.”
If the expression on Commissioner Silvestri’s face was an indication, “not in a good mood” was putting it mildly. Carmine stood to take his medicine.
“What’s the bastard going to do next?” Silvestri asked.
An innocuous question; he was going to be oblique. “That depends on whether he was in my boat shed himself or not.”
“Why?”
“The assistant is extremely valuable, yes, sir, but expendable nonetheless. My feeling is that he stayed in the Bat Cave and sent Robin to my boat shed.”
“Slimy rodent! How’s Desdemona?”
“No different than she was the last time you asked, sir.” Carmine looked at his watch. “That was an hour ago.”
“And your mother?” Silvestri asked, squirming in his seat.
“Ditto.”
“I hear Myron’s managed to get Erica Davenport’s body out of police custody and is flying her to L.A. for burial.”
Carmine eyed his boss curiously. “Where did you hear that?”