by Ed McBain
Kling was thinking that this was a dead end here. The Herrera kid seemed to be at the bottom of the pecking order, a simple “toy” in the hierarchy of graffiti writers. Timmo, on the other hand, had been a well-known writer back in the days when subway cars were being decorated top to bottom. God alone knew where the lawyer fit into the scheme of things. Was he some kind of nut who filed briefs during the daytime and then put on a Batman costume and went around spraying buildings at night? Either way, Kling figured the killer for some vigilante type choosing his victims at random.
“I’m working today and tomorrow, but I’ve got all day Sunday off,” Parker said, and smiled into Cathy’s open blouse. “We can spend the whole day together, if you like, going over the list. Do you think you’d like to do that? Cathy?”
And to Kling’s everlasting surprise, she said, “Yes, I think that would be very nice, thank you, what time should I expect you?”
CHARLIE’S CLOTHEStold the same story.
Or rather, they didn’t tell any story at all.
Dr. Mookherji at St. Sebastian’s Hospital had told Meyer that all the labels had been cut out of the old man’s clothes, and Meyer had accepted the observation at face value. But Mookherji wasn’t a cop, and Meyer was still looking for a place to hang his hat—as Parker might have put it—which was what took him back to St. Sab’s that Friday.
True to Mookherji’s word, the labels had been cut out of everything, including Charlie’s bathrobe, his pajamas, and his bedroom slippers. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to make certain that neither of these two old people would be identified. Meyer had no real reason to believe that the dumpings were related, of course, except for the fact that he’d got an immediate response from the old woman when he’d described the man who’d dropped Charlie—“Buddy,” she’d said at once. Not to mention the remarkably similar M.O.’s, guy drives off with each of them, dumps them in the middle of the night….
“The slippers, too,” he told the woman behind the counter, and sighed heavily. “Which wasn’t easy, getting the labels out.”
The woman nodded. She was thinking she’d have to refold all these clothes when he got through with them. Put them back in their proper bin.
“Well, thanks a lot,” Meyer said, and gave the countertop a little farewell pat. “I appreciate your help.”
“Did you want to see his blanket, too?” the woman asked.
THEY HAD TOLD HERthe “rescue” workers would try to chain the doors of the clinic shut, looping a Kryptonite chain through the door handles, if that’s the way the doors were constructed, and then fastening the links with a Kryptonite lock. If the doors were fashioned differently—say a simple flush metal door with a dead-bolt keyway in it, or possibly a metal door with a wire-embedded glass panel in the upper half—they would try other ways to bar access to the clinic. They would chain themselves together, for example, and lie down in the walk leading to the entrance door so that if the police tried to remove them, they would be struggling with lifting or dragging twelve bodies chained together instead of a single body.
The idea was to make certain no one got in or out. Not the doctors who were murdering babies inside there, and not the girls or women who were carrying unwanted babies and who were seeking medical assistance to terminate their pregnancies—as was their right under the law of the land. The rescue group gathered outside the clinic this morning had deliberately chosen this location only three blocks from the Claremore College for Girls. Their strategy was to bring home the fact that many of the so-calledwomen seeking abortions weren’t women at all but were, in fact, merely uninformedgirls. These girls had to be taught that they were not exercising a right concerning their own bodies but were instead usurping a fundamental right of another human being—the fetus in the womb—trampling upon that right in the most fundamental way, terminating thelife of that human being,murdering that human being. Once this was made clear to the young girls in this country, why, then and only then could the slaughter of the unborn innocent be stopped.
None of these rescuers seemed to realize that abortion waslegal, that they were attempting to stop people from doing something that was entirelylegal. In their interference and harassment, they had been supported by a president who—though sworn to uphold the laws of the land—had given succor to them by telephoning whenever they were disrupting a clinic and telling them how much he admired their position. To Teddy’s way of thinking, this was akin to the Commissioner of Police calling a bank robber while he was inside a bank holding hostages and telling him how much he respected the courageous stand he was taking.
They usually hit the clinics before dawn.
Chained the doors shut, nailed them shut, anything to prevent access, anything to make it more difficult for someone in desperate need of help. Sometimes they got inside the clinics and chained themselves to radiators or heavy pieces of furniture, the better to disrupt the entirely legal activities within. Mischief was the name of the game. Do their mischief, create their havoc, make it so difficult to pursue a legal right that eventually the right would erode and the small minority of people hoping to destroy it would have triumphed.
Frequently, their mischief was illegal.
Targeting a doctor who performed abortions, telephoning him and screaming the word “Murderer!” into his ear was considered a crime in most states of the union. In this state, it was called Aggravated Harassment, and it was a Class-A misdemeanor, punishable by the same year in prison and/or thousand-dollar fine a graffiti writer could get for vandalizing a building. Calling that same doctor, reeling off the names of his children, and asking how they were feeling today, was the sort of veiled threat many states considered the crime of Coercion—which in this state was a Class-D felony, three to seven in the slammer, correct. Printing posters with an innocent doctor’s name and picture and the wordsWANTED FOR MURDER on them was in most states called “libel,” which, while not a crime, was a tort for which a person could seek punitive damages in court.
That morning at twenty minutes past ten, a man demonstrating outside the abortion clinic committedtwo crimes in rapid succession—threeif you counted the fact that he had ignored the court order prohibiting him from coming any closer than fifteen feet of the police barricade.
The first crime was called simple Harassment, as opposed to theaggravated kind. This was a mere violation, for which all the perpetrator could expect was fifteen days in jail. This was defined as “engaging in a course of conduct or repeatedly committing acts which alarm or seriously annoy another person and which serve no legitimate purpose.” The specific action in which the man was engaged happened to be repeatedly shouting the word “Murderer!” into a woman’s face from six inches away.
The second crime was more serious.
It consisted of hurling a bag of blood into that same woman’s face from six inches away.
The woman was Teddy Carella.
The man was wearing a black suit, and a black shirt, and a white collar.
He called himself a priest.
Tossing the blood still might have been simple harassment had it not damagedproperty. As it was, the blood drenched not only Teddy’s face and her hair and her neck but italso soaked the front of thePRO-CHOICE T-shirt—$6.99 including the lettering when purchased in bulk, but property nonetheless—and this escalated the crime into a Crim Mis Three and the penalty to a possible year behind bars. The priest who threw the open plastic bag of blood at Teddy may not have known this, or might not have cared. He simply shouted, “Suffer the blood of the children!” and tossed the blood into her face. Teddy was totally unprepared for the sudden splash of foul-smelling stuff and for a moment thought this was actuallyhuman blood, and then correctly deducted that it couldn’t possibly be human blood, it had to be some kind of animal blood that had been allowed to sit unrefrigerated in order to achieve its present odious stench, dripping from her hair and down her face, and tasting vile where it touched her lips.
She had removed her coat and
left it inside the clinic because the day had turned sunny and bright and mild, springwas truly here at last, though no one might have guessed from the anger roiling outside this place. ThePRO -CHOICET-shirt was short-sleeved, so there was nothing she could immediately use to wipe the blood from her face. As she fumbled for a possible tissue in the back pocket of her jeans, the priest put his face close to hers again and began screaming what sounded like a litany, flecks of spittle flying from his lips to mingle with the blood on her face.
“Taste the blood of the children!” he shouted. “Taste the blood of the innocent children,murderer who would slaughter them! Taste the blood of the unborn innocent,murderer who would pluck them from their mothers’ sacred wombs! Taste the blood of the defenseless progeny, slain by themurderers who would deny them birth! Drink the blood of the blessed unborn, fruit of the mother whose holy vessel themurderers would violate! Taste of the blood, drink of the blood, drown themurderers’ evil quest in the innocent blood of the issue torn from the sanctity and purity of all womankind!Murderers, give the childrenlife !Murderers, give the childrenlife !Murderers, give the childrenlife !”
And now a handful of anti-abortion protesters formed behind their frocked leader in a tight semicircle, the focal point of which was Teddy, for she was the one streaming blood, she was the one they’d singled out to drench in blood, to target as the symbolic murderer of innocent children, she was the focus of their chanting now, eight of them standing shoulder to shoulder, pointing fingers in accusation and shouting in unison, “Murderers,give the childrenlife! Murderers, give the childrenlife! Murderers, give the childrenlife! Murderers, give the childrenlife !”
She could find no tissue in her pocket.
The blood kept streaming down her face.
SONNY SANSONwas what he’d told Carter his name was, but Carter didn’t believe it for a minute. Big tall guy, blond, with a hearing aid in his ear, he’d make a good leading man if only he wasn’t deaf—hearing-impaired, excuse me, everything had to be so politicallycorrect these days. It sometimes drove Carter crazy, trying to remember what was acceptable and what wasn’t; fuckinbroads , it was all their fault. When he was in the slammer, a deaf man was adeaf man, period.
“The trouble with these uniforms you rent from costume supply houses,” the deaf man was saying, “is they all look fake.”
Carter tended to agree with him.
Carter didn’t like the idea to begin with—going in as agarbage man, which is what he gathered this was going to be—but he tended to agree that the stuff you rented always looked like it was for a summer-stock production ofMy Sister Eileen orArsenic and Old Lace orThe Price orGuys and Dolls orWest Side Story, none of which hadgarbage men in them. Carter knew. Before he’d got caught dealing dope—on a very minor level, by the way—he used to be an actor. In fact, he’d played Officer Krupke inWest Side Story and Officer Brophy inArsenic and Old Lace, and he’d been up for the role of the cop brother in the Miller play, he couldn’t recall the name of the character, for a production they were doing at the Provincetown Playhouse, if he remembered correctly. It just went to show, you could play a hundred cops on the stage, it didn’t make a fuckin difference if they decided to bust you.
This deaf man here—Sanson, whatever his name was—knew that Carter had done time—for such a lowball operation, too, selling dope to the kids inSound of Music —and he also knew that Carter had done some acting, which is what Carter supposed had caught his attention in the first place, the fact that he’d had acting experience—well, singing, too, for that matter. From what Carter could gather, the deaf man’s scheme had something to do with impersonatinggarbage men. Which was why he needed the uniforms. And this probably involved eyeball-to-eyeball contact, like theater in the round, which was why the uniforms couldn’t look fake. Carter was waiting to hear more about it, saying nothing for the moment, just listening. He had learned that the best actors in the world were also the best listeners.
“Which is why we’ll have tosteal them,” the deaf man said. “The uniforms.”
“You plan to steal sanitation-department uniforms,” Carter said.
Deadpan delivery, like a take in itself, he’d learned that a long time ago. You just blankly repeated a man’s words, it made them sound preposterous.
“Yes,” Sonny said. “Or rather, I was hopingyou’d steal them for me.”
“You want me to steal sanitation-department uniforms,” Carter said.
No emphasis on any of the words, just repeating the man’s statement flat out, deadpanned and deadeyed, you want me to steal sanitation-department uniforms, like adouble take this time.
“Yes,” the deaf man said.
“From off the backs of garbage men?” Carter asked, and smiled, making a little joke, heh-heh.
“If that’s what it requires, yes.”
“Must be some other way to get them,” Carter said.
“I’m not too sure about that.”
“Without stealing them.”
“Stealing is sometimes the easiest way.”
“Stealing could also fuck up a job from minute one. You do something stupid like stealinggarbage man uniforms, it could make the whole thing explode in your face. Which I don’t suppose you want to happen.”
“No.”
“So how many uniforms will you need?”
“Four of us will be going in.”
“Who are these four people? Cause I’ll need sizes, you realize.”
“Of course.”
“So who are they?”
“You, me, a man named Florry Paradise…”
“Florry Paradise.”
Same deadpan delivery.
“Yes, and another man yet to be selected.”
“How risky is this thing going to be?” Carter asked and gave him The Look. He had cultivated The Look when he was playing a small-time drug dealer in an episode ofMiami Vice; this was before he himself became a real-life small-time drug dealer and got sent away on a five-and-dime, reduced to two-and-a-half for good behavior and an Academy Award performance before the parole board during which he convinced them that acting was a legitimate form of making a worthwhile contribution to society. Actually, he hadn’t acted a lick since he’d got out six years ago. Actually, he’d drifted into burglary was what he’d done, the things a man can learn in prison if only he pays attention. The Look said I am a reasonable man, so don’t fuck with me.
“Because,”he said, still wearing The Look, “the riskier this is, the more money I want for the part, the uh participation.”
“That’s understandable,” the deaf man said. “So suppose I tell you up front exactly what I’ll need from you, and then you can tell me whether or not you feel the risk is worth whatever it is I’m willing to pay for your participation, isn’t that the word you used?”
“Yes,” Carter said.
He had the feeling he was being put on, the fuckin hearing-impaired jackass.
“So tell me what you need,” he said.
“First the uniforms. Four in all. I don’t care if you buy them or steal them or find them under a rock. You know your own size, I’ll give you mine and Florry’s, and I’ll have the other one for you by the end of the week.”
“What are you thinking here? A wheel man and three to go in?”
“Something like that.”
“Cause I know a good wheel man, if you need one. Guy I met in the joint. Very good. Hands like a brain surgeon. He can drive you in and out of a pay toilet without putting in a quarter.”
“Can he drive a garbage truck?”
“A what?”
“A garbage truck.”
“What kind of heistis this, anyway?”
“A very big one.”
“With just four men involved?”
“That’s all it’ll take.”
“What kind of security are we talking about?”
“Virtually none.”
“Like what? What does virtually none mean?”
“A handful of p
olicemen at most.”
“Does this involve taking out cops? Cause I have to tell you, I draw the line at doing cops. Except on the English-speaking stage, if you follow me.”
“I don’t plan on injuring any policemen.”
“But does the possibility exist?”
“Yes, it does. If things govery very wrong. But I don’t…”
“That’s what I…”
“…expect anything…”
“…meant. Taking out a cop…”
“…to go wrong.
“Well, you never know. And what I’m trying to say, you box a cop, you never get the bastards off your back. They’ll hound you till you’re old and gray, those bastards. They stick up for their own, it’s like a fuckintribe they’ve got.”
“I recognize the risks.”
“I’m glad you do. I don’t mean the uniforms. For all I know you can walk in some store and buy them right off the rack. It’s not like a police uniform, where it could mean trouble if the wrong person got hold of it. Who the hell would want to wear agarbage man’s uniform except agarbage man?”
“Me,” the deaf man said, and smiled.
“And me, apparently. And twoother guys.”
“Correct.”
“One on the wheel…”
“Yes, and another on the front seat beside him.”
“And the other two?”
“Hanging off the truck. The way garbage men do.”
“We’re going to ride a garbage truck to a bank stickup, right?”
“No, we’re not going to stick up a bank. This is so much simpler. But yes, we’ll be using a garbage truck.”
“Where are we going toget this garbage truck?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to steal one.”
“Here we go with the risk element again,” Carter said. “The uniforms, I’m not too worried about. A garbage truck is another thing again. You can’t just walk off with a fuckingarbage truck. That’s taking a very big risk, ripping off something as big as a garbage truck. Insize , I mean.”
“But I heard you’re very good.”