"Yes," Pratt said. "Stolen."

Unlike Carella, he did stress the word. "When did you say this was?"

Hawes asked. "Thursday night."

"That would've been..."

Hawes had taken out his notebook and was pointing to the calendar page.

"The eighteenth," Pratt said. "A hoodoo jinx ofa day. First my car quits dead, and next somebody takes my gun from the glove compartment."

"Let's back up a little," Hawes said.

"No, let's back up a lot," Pratt said. "Reason putting me through this shit at three A.M. in the mornin is I'm black. So just do your little ritual dance and get the hell out, okay? You've got the wrong party here."

"We may have the wrong party," Carella said, "but we've got the right gun. And it happens to be yours."

"I don't know anything about what that gun was doing earlier tonight. You say it killed somebody, I'll

take your word for it. I'm telling you the gun has not been in my possession since Thursday night, when my car quit and I stopped at an all-night gas station to have it looked at."

"Where was that?"

"Just off the Majesta Bridge."

"Which side of it?"

"This side. I'd driven a diamond merchant home and was coming back to the city."

The location marked him as a native. This sprawling city was divided into five separate distinct geographical zones, but unless you'd just moved here from Mars, only one of these sectors was ever referred to as "the city."

"Started rattling on the bridge," Pratt said. "Time I hit Isola, she quit dead. Brand-new limo. Less than a thousand miles on it." He shook his head in disgust and disbelief. "Never buy a fuckin American car," he said.

Carella himself drove a Chevrolet that had never given him a moment's trouble. He said nothing. "What time was this?" Hawes asked.

"Little before midnight." "This past Thursday."

"Hoodoo jinx of a day," he said again. "Remember the name of the gas station?" "Sure."

"What was it?"

"Bridge Texaco."

"Now that's what I call inventive," Hawes said. "You think I'm lying?"

Pratt said at once. "No, no, I meant..."

"When did you discover the gun was missing?" Carella asked.

Get this thing back on track, he thought. Pratt wasn't quite getting all this. He thought two white cops here hassling him only because he was black when instead they were hassling him only because he owned the gun used in a murder. So let's hear about the gun, okay?

"When I picked the car up," Pratt said, turning on him. He still suspected a trap, still figured they were setting him up somehow.

"And when was that?"

"Yesterday morning. There weren't any mechanics on duty when I pulled in Thursday night. The man told me they'd have to work on it the next day." "Which they did, is that right?"

"Yeah. Turned out somebody'd put styrene in my fuckin crankcase."

Carella wondered what styrene in the crankcase had to do with buying an American car.

"Broke down the oil and mined the engine," Pratt said. "They had to order me a new one, put it in on Friday."

"And you picked the car up yesterday?" "Yes." "What time?"

"Ten o'clock in the morning."

"So the car was there all night Thursday and all day Friday."

"Yeah. And two hours yesterday, too. They open eight."

"With the gun in the glove compartment." "Well, it disappeared during that time." "When did you realize that?"

"When I got back here. There's a garage in the

I parked the car, unlocked the glove conpartment to take out the gun, and saw it was gone."

"Always take it out of the glove compartment when you get home?"

"Always."

"How come you left it at the garage?"

"I wasn't thinking. I was pissed off about the car quitting on me.

It's force of habit. I get home, I unlock the box, reach in for the gun. The garage wasn't home. I just wasn't thinking."

"Did you report the gun stolen?"

"No."

"Why not?" Hawes asked.

"I figured somebody steals a piece, I'll never see it again, anyway. So why bother? It not like a TV set.

A piece isn't gonna turn up in a hockshop. It's gonna end up on the street."

"Ever occur to you that the gun might be used later in the commission of a crime?"

"It occurred to me."

"But you still didn't report its theft?"