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you?"
    "What?"
    "You weren't plann ..."
    "Hell, no. Where would I go?"
    "Back to sleep is as good a place as any," the blonde said.
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter FIVE
     
    the pistol permit was on Steve Carella's desk when he reported for work at 4:00 P.M. on the afternoon of July 24th. He had worked until eight in the morning, gone home for six hours sleep, and was back at his desk now, looking a little bleary-eyed but otherwise none the worse for wear.
    The heat had persisted all day long, a heavy yellow blanket that smothered the city in its wooly grip. Carella did not like the heat. He had never liked Summer, even as a kid, and now that he was an adult and a cop, the only memorable characteristic Summer seemed to have was that it made dead bodies stink quicker.
    He loosened his collar the instant he entered the squad room, and when he got to his desk, he rolled up his sleeves, and then picked up the pistol permit.
    Quickly, he scanned the printed form:
     
    PISTOL LICENSE APPLICATION
    I Hereby Apply for License to
    Carry a Revolver or Pistol upon my person or
    Possession on premises:    37-12 Culver Avenue
    For the following reasons:    Make deliveries for jewelry firm.
    Clarke     Francis     D.     37-12 Culver Ave.
    There was more, a lot more, but it didn't interest Carella. Clarke had indeed owned a pistol permit—but that didn't mean he hadn't used the pistol on a cop named Mike Reardon.
    Carella shoved the permit to one side of his desk, glanced at his watch, and then reached for the phone automatically. Quickly, he dialed Bush's home number and then waited, his hand sweating on the receiver. The phone rang six times, and then a woman's voice said, "Hello?"
    "Alice?"
    "Who's this?"
    "Steve Carella."
    "Oh. Hello, Steve."
    "Did I wake you?"
    "Yes."
    "Hank's not here yet. He's all right, isn't he?"
    "He left a little while ago," Alice said. The sleep was beginning to leave her voice already. Alice Bush was a cop's wife who generally slept when her husband did, adjusting her schedule to fit his. Carella had spoken to her on a good many mornings and afternoons, and he always marveled at the way she could come almost instantly awake within the space of three or four sentences. Her voice invariably sounded like the first faint rattle of impending death when she picked up the receiver. As the conversation progressed, it modulated into the dulcet whine of a middle-aged Airedale, and then into the disconcertingly sexy voice which was the normal speaking voice of Hank's wife. Carella had met her on one occasion, when he and Hank had shared a late snack with her, and he knew that she was a dynamic blonde with a magnificent figure and the brownest eyes he'd ever seen. From what Bush had expansively delivered about personal aspects of his home life, Carella knew that Alice slept in clinging black, sheer nightgowns. The knowledge was unnerving, for whenever Carella roused her out of bed, he automatically formed a mental picture of the well-rounded blonde he'd met, and the picture was always dressed as Hank had described it
    He generally, therefore, cut his conversations with Alice short, feeling somewhat guilty about the artistic inclinations of his mind. This morning, though, Alice seemed to be in a talkative mood.
    "I understand one of your colleagues got knocked off," she said.
    Carella smiled, in spite of the topic's grimness. Alice sometimes had a peculiar way of mixing the King's English with choice bits of underworld and police vernacular.
    "Yes," he said.
    "I'm awfully sorry," she answered, her mood and her voice changing. "Please be careful, you and Hank. If a cheap hood is shooting up the streets ..."
    "We'll be careful," he said. "I've got to go now, Alice,"
    "I leave Hank in capable hands," Alice said, and she hung up without saying goodbye.
    Carella grinned and shrugged, and then put the receiver back into the cradle. David Foster, his brown face looking scrubbed and shining, ambled over to the desk.