He Who Hesitates

by Ed McBain

  "Call a cop, Tommy," one of the boys said.

  "Go on, do it," the other boy said.

  Roger got to his feet. Laughing, he glanced over his shoulder once, quickly, and began running.

  He wondered how much time had passed. Was it five or ten minutes already, would Amelia be back?

  He laughed again. That ride had really been something, he'd left those little yelling bastards clear up at the top of the hill, boy that had really been something. He shook his head in bemused wonder and then suddenly stopped and threw back his head and shouted "Yahoooo!" to the falling snowflakes, and then began running again, out of the park. He stopped running when he reached the sidewalk. He put his hands into his coat pockets and began walking at a very gentlemanly dignified pace. He could remember him and his father and the fun they used to have together before Buddy was born, and even when Buddy was just a little baby. And then of course when Buddy was two, his father had got killed, and it was Roger who'd had to take care of the family, that was what his mother had told him at the time, even though he was only seven years old, It's you who's the man in the family now, Roger. Riding down the hill on that kid's sled had been just like it was before his father died, just a lot of fun, that was all. And now, walking like a gentleman on the sidewalk, this was the way it got after his father was killed in the train wreck, you couldn't kid around too much anymore, you had to be a man. It's you who's the man in the family now, Roger.

  Seven years old, he thought.

  How the hell can you be a man at seven?

  Well, I was always big for my age.

  Still.

  He shrugged.

  He was beginning to feel depressed, he didn't know why. His face was wet with snow, and he wiped one hand over it, and then reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, and wiped his face again. He guessed he should try Amelia. He guessed he should go talk to that detective.

  He began making bargains with himself. If the next car that comes down the street is a black Chevrolet, then I'll go to the police station and talk to the detective. But if the next car that comes down is a taxicab, I'll call Amelia. If it's a truck, though, I'll go back to my room and pack my bag and just go home, probably be best anyway, people worrying about me back home. No cars were coming down the street for a while because the snow was so thick, and when one finally did pass, it was a blue Ford convertible, for which he had made no provisions. He said the hell with it and found a phone booth and dialed Amelia's number.

  The same woman answered the phone.

  "What do you want?" she said.

  "This is Roger Broome again," he said. "I want to talk to Amelia."

  "Just a minute," the woman said, and then she partially covered the mouthpiece and Roger heard her shout, '"Melia! It's your Mr. Charlie!"

  Roger waited.

  When Amelia came to the phone, he said immediately, "Who's Mr. Charlie?"

  "I'll tell you later. Where are you?"

  "I don't know, somewhere near the park."

  "Did you want to see me?" Amelia asked.

  "Yes."

  "I can't come down for a while. I'm helping my mother with the curtains."

  "Was that your mother who answered the phone?"

  "Yes."

  "She sounds very sweet."

  "Yes, she's a charmer," Amelia said.

  "What did you say you were helping her with?"

  "The curtains. She made some new curtains, and we were putting them up."

  "Can't she do that alone?"

  "No." Amelia paused. "I'll meet you later, if you like."

  "All right. When later?"

  "An hour?"

  "All right. Where?"

  "Oh, gee, I don't know. How about the drugstore?"

  "Okay, the drugstore," Roger said. "What time is it now?"

  "It's about two-twenty, I guess. Let's say three-thirty, to be sure."

  "Okay, the drugstore at three-thirty," Roger said.

  "Yes. You know where it is, don't you?"

  "Sure I do. Where is it?"

  Amelia laughed. "On the corner of Ainsley and North Eleventh."

  "Ainsley and North Eleventh, right," Roger said.

  "Three-thirty."

  "Three-thirty, right." Roger paused. "Who's Mr. Charlie?"

  "You're Mr. Charlie."

  "I am?"

  Amelia laughed again. "I'll tell you all about it when I see you. I'll give you a course in black-white relations."

  "Oh, boy," Roger said.

  "And other things," Amelia whispered.

  "Okay," Roger said. His heart was pounding. "Three-thirty at the drugstore. I'll go home and put on a clean shirt."

  "Okay."

  "So long," he said.

  "So long," she said.

  A squad car was parked at the curb when he got back to the rooming house.

  The car was empty. The window near the curb was lowered, and he could hear the police radio going inside. He looked up the steps leading to the front door. Through the glass panels on the door he could see Mrs. Dougherty in conversation with two uniformed policemen.

  He was about to turn and walk off in the opposite direction when one of the cops looked through the f glass-paneled door directly at him. He couldn't turn and walk away now that he'd been seen, so he walked casually up the steps and kicked snow from his feet on the top step and then opened the door and walked into the vestibule. A radiator was hissing behind the fat cop, who stood with his hands behind his back, the fingers spread toward the heat. Mrs. Dougherty was explaining something to the cops as Roger stepped into the vestibule. ". . . only discovered it half an hour ago when I went down to the basement to put in some laundry, so that was when I called you, hello, Mr. Broome."

  "Hello, Mrs. Dougherty," he said. "Is something wrong?"

  "Oh, nothing important," she said, and turned back to the policemen as he went past. "It's not that it was new or anything," she said to the fat cop. Roger opened the inner vestibule door. "But I suppose it was worth maybe fifty or sixty dollars, I don't know. What annoys me is that somebody could get into the basement and . . ."

  Roger closed the door and went up the steps to his room.

  He had just taken off his coat when the knock sounded on his door.

  "Who is it?" he said.

  "Me. Fook."

  "Who?"

  "Fook. Fook Shanahan. Open up."

  Roger went to the door and unlocked it. Fook was a small, bald, bright-eyed man of about forty-five, wearing a white shirt over which was an open brown cardigan sweater. He was grinning as Roger opened the door, and he stepped into the room with an air of conspiracy, and immediately closed and locked the door behind him.

  "Did you see the cops downstairs?" he asked at once.

  "Yes," Roger said.

  "Something, huh?" Fook said, his eyes gleaming.

  "What do they want?"

  "Don't you know what happened?"

  "No. What?"

  "Somebody robbed the bloodsucker."

  "Who do you mean?"

  "Dougherty, Dougherry, our landlady, who do you think I mean?"

  "She's a nice lady," Roger said.

  "Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy," Fook said. "A nice lady, oh boy oh boy."

  "She seems like a nice lady to me," Roger said.

  "That's because you've only been here a few days," Fook said. "I've been living in this dump for six years now, six years, and I'm telling you she's a bloodsucker and a tightwad and the meanest old bitch who ever walked the earth, that's what I'm telling you."

  "Well," Roger said, and shrugged.

  "I'm glad they robbed the old bitch."

  "What'd they take?"

  "Not enough," Fook said. "You got a drink in here?"

  "What? No, I'm sorry."

  "I'll be right back."

  "Where are you going?"

  "My room. I've got a bottle in there. Have you got some glasses?"

  "Just the one on the sink there."

  "I'll bring my
own," Fook said, and went out.

  Well, Roger thought, I suppose she had to find out it was missing sooner or later. It was just that I didn't expect her to find out so soon. Or maybe I didn't expect her to call the police even if she did find out. But she did and she has, and they're downstairs now, so maybe this is as good a time as any to get drunk with Fook. No, I'm supposed to meet Amelia at three-thirty.

  I should have been more careful.

  Still, at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.

  Maybe it was.

  A knock sounded on the door.

  "Come in," he said.

  It was Fook. He came in carrying a partially filled bottle of bourbon with a water glass turned upside down over the neck of the bottle. He put the bottle down on the dresser and then walked quickly to the sink, where he picked up Roger's glass. He went back to the dresser, put Roger's glass down, lifted the upturned glass from the neck of the bottle, put that one down beside the other and then lifted the bottle.

  "Say when," he said.

  "I'm not a drinker," Roger said.

  "Neither am I," Fook said, and winked and poured half a tumblerful of whiskey.

  "That's too much for me," Roger said.

  "All right, I'll have this one," Fook said, and began pouring into the other glass.

  "That's enough," Roger said.

  "Have a little more. We're celebrating."

  "What are we celebrating?"

  Fook poured another finger of whiskey into Roger's glass and then carried it to him. He extended his own glass and said, "Here's to Mrs. Dougherty's loss, may the old bitch be uncovered."

  "Uncovered?"

  "By insurance." Fook winked, raised his glass to his lips, and took a healthy swallow of the bourbon. "Also, may this be only the first of a long line of losses to come. May some no-good thief sneak into the lady's basement tomorrow night and steal perhaps her washtub, and the next night her oil burner, and the next night her underwear hanging on a line down there. May all the crooks in this crumby city come to Mrs. Dougherty's basement night after night and pick it clean like a bunch of vultures going over her bones. May loss pile upon loss until the old bitch has nothing left but the clothes on her back, and then may some bold rapist climb through her window one night and do a job on the scrawny wretch, leaving her nary a nightgown to keep her warm. Amen," Fook said, and drained his glass. He poured it full again, almost to the brim. "You're not drinking, my friend," he said.

  "I'm drinking," Roger answered, and sipped at the bourbon.

  "An icebox," Fook said.

  Roger said nothing.

  "It strikes me as amusing that anybody would come into Mrs. Dougherty's basement and steal an icebox, I beg your pardon, a refrigerator, that has been sitting there for God knows how long gathering dust. It raises a great many questions which to me are both amusing and amazing," Fook said.

  "Like what?"

  "Like number one, how would anyone know the old bitch had an icebox, I beg your pardon a refrigerator, in the basement? How many times have you been in the basement of this building?"

  "I've never been in the basement," Roger said.

  "Exactly. I've lived in this crumby dump for six full years, and I've been down there only twice, once to put an old trunk of mine on a shelf and another time when Mother Dougherty fainted at the sight of a rat down there and screamed loud enough to wake the whole building, me included, who went down there to find the scrawny witch spreadeagled on the floor unconscious with her dress up round her skinny ass, a sight to make a man puke, have another drink."

  "I haven't finished this one yet."

  "So how would anyone know there was a refrigerator down there, that's number one. And if he did know about the refrigerator, then he also knew it was a vintage appliance, circa 1939 or '40, and worth perhaps ten dollars, if not less. Why would a man go to the trouble of stealing a decrepit wreck like that? Why, lifting the thing alone would be enough to give a man a hernia." Fook poured another drink and then said, "I'm talking about a normal man like myself. A man your size could lift it without batting an eyelash."

  "Well, I don't know," Roger said, and shrugged.

  "In any case," Fook said, "how would anyone know it was down there, number one — and number two, why would anyone want to steal a piece of garbage worth at most five or six dollars?"

  "Maybe he had some need for it," Roger suggested.

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know," Roger said.

  "What, whyever he did it, I'm glad he did it. I only wish he'd taken more while he was at it. Isn't it just like that old bitch, though, to go screaming to the cops immediately over a piece of junk like that old refrigerator? She's tying up the whole damn police force over a machine that was worth three or four bucks."

  "Well, there were only two cops down there," Roger said.

  "Those are the beat cops," Fook said. "In a burglary, they always precede the bulls. You wait and see. The bulls'll be here today asking questions and snooping around, wasting the taxpayers' time and money, and all for a lousy refrigerator that wouldn't bring two and a half bucks on the open market, have another drink."

  "Thanks," Roger said, and extended his glass.

  9

  The knock on the door awakened him.

  Fook had left at about a quarter to three, taking the remainder of the bourbon with him. Roger had drunk only the two drinks, but he wasn't used to hard whiskey, and he must have begun dozing shortly afterward. He wondered what time it was now. He couldn't have been asleep too long. He sat up in bed and looked around the room, dazed, and then blinked as the knock sounded again.

  "Who is it?" he asked.

  "Police," the voice answered.

  Police, he thought.

  "Just a moment," he said.

  It was probably about the refrigerator. Fook had said detectives would come around asking about the refrigerator. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and went to the door. It was unlocked. He twisted the knob and opened the door wide.

  Two men were standing in the hallway. One was very tall, and the other was short. The tall one had red hair with a jagged white streak across the right temple.

  "Mr. Broome?" the short one said.

  "Yes?" Roger answered.

  "I'm Detective Willis," the short one said. "This is my partner, Detective Horse. We wonder if we could ask you a few questions."

  "Sure, come in," Roger said.

  He moved back and away from the door. Willis entered the room first and then Horse — had he said Horse? — came in after him and closed the door. Roger sat on the edge of the bed and then indicated the two chairs in the room and said, "Have a seat, won't you?"

  Willis sat in the hard-backed chair near the dresser. Horse — his name couldn't be Horse — stood just behind the chair, one hand resting on the dresser. They were both wearing heavy overcoats. Willis kept his buttoned. The other one had opened his; he was wearing a plaid sports jacket. Roger could see a leather gun holster clipped to his waist in the opening of the coat and jacket.

  "I'm sorry,'" he said, "what did you say your name was?"

  "Me?"

  "Yes. Um-huh."

  "Hawes."

  Roger nodded.

  "H-A-W-E-S," the detective said.

  "Oh." Roger smiled. "I thought you said Horse."

  "No."

  "That would be a funny name. Horse, I mean."

  "No, it's Hawes."

  "Sure," Roger said.

  The room went silent.

  "Mr. Broome," Willis said, "we got a list of all the tenants from your landlady, Mrs. Dougherty, and we're just making a routine check through the building. I guess you know a refrigerator was stolen from the basement sometime last night."

  "Yes," he said.

  "How did you hear about it, Mr. Broome?" Hawes asked.

  "Fook told me. Fook Shanahan. He has a room down the hall."

  "Fook?" Hawes said.

  "I think his real name is Frank Hubert Shanahan,
or something like that. Fook is a nickname."

  "I see," Hawes said. "When did he tell you about it, Mr. Broome?"

  "Oh, I don't know. What time is it now?"

  Willis looked at his watch. "Three o'clock."

  "About a half-hour ago, I guess. Or maybe fifteen minutes, I don't know. He stopped in to tell me about it, and we had a few drinks."

  "But you hadn't known about the refrigerator until he told you, is that right?"

  "That's right. Well, actually, I knew something was wrong when I got home a little while ago because I saw Mrs. Dougherty downstairs talking to two policemen."

  "But you didn't know exactly what was wrong until Mr. Shanahan told you about the refrigerator."

  "That's right."

  The two detectives looked at him and said nothing. It almost seemed for a moment that they had no further questions. Willis cleared his throat.

  "You understand, Mr. Broome," he said, "that this is all routine, and we're in no way implying—"

  "Oh, sure," Roger said.