Ice

by Ed McBain

  “What for?” she asked, and clutched the robe closed tighter across her chest.

  “Take it off,” Brother Anthony said.

  She hesitated. She pulled the towel away from her nose. The flow of blood seemed to be tapering. She put the towel back again. Even the pain seemed to be ebbing now. Perhaps this would not be so bad, after all. Perhaps, if she just went along with them, played along with them—surely the fat woman wasn’t serious about cutting off her nose? Were the names of Paco’s customers really that important to them? Would they risk so much for so little? Anyway, they were her customers now, damn it! She would give them whatever else they wanted, but not the names that were her ticket to what she imagined as freedom. She did not know what kind of freedom. Just freedom. She would never give them the names.

  “Why do you want me to take off the robe?” she asked. “What is it you want from me?”

  “The customers,” Emma said.

  “Do you want to see my body?” she asked. “Is that it?”

  “The customers,” Emma said.

  “You want me to blow you?” she asked Brother Anthony.

  “Take off the robe,” Brother Anthony said.

  “Because if you want me to—”

  “The robe,” he said.

  She looked at him. She tried to read his eyes. Paco had told her she gave better head than most of the hookers he knew. If she could reach the priest—

  “Can I stand up?” she asked.

  “Stand up,” Emma said, and retreated several steps. The open razor was still in her hand.

  Judite put down the towel. Her nose had stopped bleeding entirely. She took off the robe and draped it over the back of the chair. She was wearing only a pale blue baby-doll nightgown. The nightgown ended just an inch below her crotch. She was not wearing the panties that had come with the nightgown when she’d bought it. The nightgown and panties had cost her $26. Money she could easily get back from her new cocaine trade. She saw where the priest’s eyes went.

  “So what do you say?” she asked, arching one eyebrow and trying a smile.

  “I say take off the nightgown,” Brother Anthony said.

  “It’s cold in here,” Judite said, hugging herself. “The heat goes off at ten.” She was being seductive and bantering, she thought. She had captured the priest’s eye—they were all supposed to be celibate, some joke—and now she thought she’d make it a bit more interesting and spicy, tease him along a little, make a big production out of taking off the nightgown. The fat woman would go along with whatever the priest decided; Judite knew women, and that’s the way it was.

  “Just take it off,” Brother Anthony said.

  “What for?” Judite said, the same light tone in her voice. “You can see what you’re getting, can’t you? I’m practically naked here, you can practically see right through this thing, so why do I have to take it off?”

  “Take off the fucking nightgown!” Emma said, and all at once Judite thought she’d made a big error in judgment. The fat woman was moving closer to her again, the razor flashing.

  “All right, don’t…just don’t get…I’ll take it off, okay? Just… take it easy, okay? But, really, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Paco’s customers, I swear to God I don’t know what you mean by—”

  “You know what we’re talking about,” Brother Anthony said.

  She pulled the gown up over her waist, lifted it over her breasts and shoulders, and without turning placed it on the seat of the wooden chair. Gooseflesh erupted immediately on her arms and across her chest and shoulders. She stood naked and trembling in the center of the kitchen, her bare feet on the cold linoleum, the ice-rimed window behind her. She was quite well formed, Brother Anthony thought. Her shoulders were narrow and delicately turned, and there was a gently rounded swell to her belly, and a ripe flare to her hips. Her breasts, too, were large and firm, quite beautiful except for the angry brown burn scars on their sloping tops. Very well formed, he thought. Not as opulent a woman as Emma, but very well formed indeed. He noticed that there was a small knife scar on her left shoulder. She was a woman who’d been abused before, perhaps regularly, a very frightened woman.

  “Cut her,” he said.

  The thrust of the razor came so swiftly that for a moment Judite didn’t even realize she’d been cut. The slash drew a thin line of blood across her belly, not as frightening as the blood pouring from her nose had been, really just a narrow line of blood oozing from the flesh, nothing so terribly scary. Even the searing aftermath of the razor slash was less painful than the blow to her nose had been. She looked down at her belly in amazement. But somehow, she was less frightened now than she’d been a moment earlier. If this was what it would be like, if this was the worst they would do to her—

  “We don’t want to hurt you,” the priest said, and she knew this meant they did want to hurt her, would in fact hurt her more than they already had if she did not give them the names they wanted. Her mind worked quickly, frantically searching for a way to protect her own interests, give them the names of the customers, why not, but withhold the name of the ounce dealer—you could always find new customers if you knew where to get the stuff. Hiding her secret, hiding her fear as well, she calmly gave them all the names they wanted, all of the twelve she had memorized, writing them down at their request, scribbling the names and addresses on a sheet of paper, trying to conceal the shaking of her fist as she wrote. And then, after she had given them all the names, and had even clarified the spelling of some of them, after she thought it was all over, thought they had what they wanted from her now, and would leave her alone with her broken nose and the bleeding slash across her belly, she was surprised to hear the priest ask, “Where did he get the stuff?” and she hesitated before answering, and realized all at once that her hesitation had been another mistake, her hesitation had informed them that she knew the source of Paco’s supply, knew the name of his ounce dealer and wanted it from her now.

  “I don’t know where,” she said.

  Her teeth were beginning to chatter. She kept looking at the razor in the fat woman’s hand.

  “Cut off her nipple,” the priest said, and her hands went instinctively to her scarred breasts as the fat woman approached with the razor again, and suddenly she was more frightened than she’d ever been in her life, and she heard herself telling them the name, heard herself giving away her secret and her freedom, saying the name over and over again, babbling the name, and thought that would truly be the end of it, and was astonished to see the razor flashing out again, shocked beyond belief when she saw blood spurting from the tip of her right breast and knew, Oh dear Jesus, that they were going to hurt her anyway, Oh sweet Mary, maybe kill her, Oh sweet mother of God, the razor glinting and slashing again and again and again until at last she fainted.

  In the station house, the squadroom looked exactly the same every day of the week, weekends and holidays included. But on Monday mornings, everyone knew it was Monday, the feel was just different. Like it or not, it was the start of another week. Sameness or not, it was somehow different.

  Carella was at his desk at 7:30 A.M., fifteen minutes before he was scheduled to relieve the graveyard shift. The men on the night watch were wrapping it up, winding down over coffee and crullers from an all-night greasy spoon on Crichton, talking softly about the events that had transpired in the empty hours of the night. The shift had been a relatively quiet one. They kidded Carella about coming in fifteen minutes early; was he bucking for detective/1st? Carella was bucking for a conversation with Karl Loeb, the med-student friend Timothy Moore claimed to have telephoned several times on the night Sally Anderson was shot to death.

  There were three columns of Loebs in the Isola telephone directory, but only two of the listings were for men named Karl Loeb, and only one of those listed an address on Perry Street, three blocks from Ramsey University. Moore had told Carella that he could be reached at the school during the daytime. Carella didn’t know whether or not Rams
ey would be observing a cockamamie holiday like Presidents’ Day, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Besides, if the school was closed today, Loeb might decide to go out for a picnic or something. He wanted to catch him at home, before he left one way or the other. He dialed the number.

  “Hello?” a woman said.

  “Hello, may I speak to Karl Loeb, please?” Carella said.

  “Who’s this, please?” the woman asked.

  “Detective Carella of the 87th Squad.”

  “What do you mean?” the woman said.

  “Police department,” Carella said.

  “Is this a joke?” she said.

  “No joke.”

  “Well…just a sec, okay?”

  She put down the phone. He heard her calling to someone, presumably Loeb. When Loeb came onto the line, he sounded puzzled.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Mr. Loeb?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Detective Carella, 87th Squad.”

  “Yes?”

  “If you have a few minutes, I’d like to ask you some questions.”

  “What about?” Loeb said.

  “Do you know a man named Timothy Moore?”

  “Yes?”

  “Were you at home Friday night, Mr. Loeb?”

  “Yes?”

  “Did Mr. Moore call you at any time on Friday night? I’m talking now about Friday, February twelfth, this past Friday.”

  “Well…can you tell me what this is about, please?”

  “Is this an inconvenient time for you, Mr. Loeb?”

  “Well, I was shaving,” Loeb said.

  “Shall I call you back?”

  “No, but…I would like to know what this is about.”

  “Did you speak to Mr. Moore at any time this past Friday night?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Do you remember what you discussed?”

  “The exam. We have a big exam coming up. In Pathology. Excuse me, Mr. Coppola, but—”

  “Carella,” Carella said.

  “Carella, excuse me. Can you tell me what this is about, please? I’m not really in the habit of getting mysterious phone calls from the police. In fact, how do I even know you’re a policeman?”

  “Would you like to call me back here at the precinct?” Carella said. “The number here—”

  “Well, no, I don’t think that’s necessary. But, really—”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Loeb, but I’d rather not tell you what it’s about just yet.”

  “Is Timmy in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then what…I just don’t understand.”

  “Mr. Loeb, I’d appreciate your help. Do you remember when Mr. Moore called you?”

  “He called me several times.”

  “How many times, would you estimate?”

  “Five or six? I really couldn’t say. We were swapping information back and forth.”

  “Did you call him at any time?”

  “Yes, two or three times.”

  “So between the two of you—”

  “Maybe four times,” Loeb said. “I really couldn’t say. We were sort of studying together on the phone.”

  “So you exchanged calls nine or ten times, is that right?”

  “Roughly. Maybe a dozen times. I don’t remember.”

  “Throughout the night?”

  “Well, not all night.”

  “When was the first call?”

  “Around ten o’clock, I guess.”

  “Did you call Mr. Moore, or did—”

  “He called me.”

  “At ten o’clock.”

  “Around ten. I’m not sure of the exact time.”

  “And the next call?”

  “I called him back about a half hour later.”

  “To swap information.”

  “To ask him a question, actually.”

  “And the next one?”

  “I really couldn’t say with any accuracy. We were on the phone together constantly that night.”

  “When you made your three or four calls…was Mr. Moore at home?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You called him at his home number?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to him?”

  “It must’ve been about two in the morning, I guess.”

  “Did you call him? Or did he—”

  “I called him.”

  “And you got him at home?”

  “Yes. Mr. Carella, I would like to—”

  “Mr. Loeb, did you exchange any phone calls between eleven o’clock and midnight this past Friday night?”

  “With Timmy, do you mean?”

  “Yes, with Mr. Moore.”

  “Between eleven and midnight?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “Did he call you, or did you call him?”

  “He called me.”

  “Can you remember the exact times?”

  “Well, no, not the exact times.”

  “But you’re certain those calls came between eleven and midnight.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “How many calls during that hour?”

  “Two, I believe.”

  “And Mr. Moore made both those calls?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you try to remember the precise times of—”

  “I really couldn’t say with any accuracy.”

  “Approximately then.”

  “I guess he called at…it must’ve been a little past eleven, the first call. The news was just going off. It must’ve been about five past eleven, I guess.”

  “The news?”

  “On the radio. I was studying with the radio on. So was Timmy. I like to study with background music, do you know? I find it soothing. But the news was on when he called.”

  “And you say he was listening to the radio, too?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I could hear it. In fact, he said something about turning it down.”

  “I’m sorry, turning it—”

  “His radio. He said something like…I really don’t remember exactly…‘Let me turn this down a minute, Karl,’ something like that.”

  “And then he turned down the radio?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The volume on the radio?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you had your conversation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How long did you talk to him during that call? This was at five after eleven, you say?”

  “Yes, sir, approximately. We talked for five or ten minutes, I guess. In fact, when he called back, there were still some things he didn’t understand about—”

  “When was that, Mr. Loeb? The next call, I mean.”

  “A half hour later? I can’t say exactly.”

  “Sometime around eleven thirty-five?”

  “Approximately.”

  “Was his radio still on?”

  “What?”

  “His radio. Could you still hear it in the background?”

  “Yes, sir, I could,”

  “What did you talk about that time?”

  “The same thing we’d talked about at eleven. Well, five after eleven, actually. The test is on diseases of the bone marrow. We went over the material on leukemia. How specific do you want me to get?”

  “Went over the same material again, is that it?”

  “Well, leukemia isn’t quite as simple as it may sound, Mr. Carella.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t,” Carella said, feeling reprimanded. “And you say the last time you spoke to him was at two in the morning or thereabouts?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you speak to him at any time between eleven thirty-five and two A.M.?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “Who called who?”

  “We called each other.”

  “At w
hat time?”

  “I don’t remember exactly. I know the phone was busy at one point, but—”

  “When you called him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What time would that have been?”

  “I really couldn’t say with any accuracy.”

  “Before midnight? After midnight?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “But you did speak again after that eleven-thirty-five call?”

  “Yes, sir. Several times.”

  “Calling back and forth.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “To discuss the exam again.”

  “Yes, the material that would be on the exam.”

  “Was his radio still on?”

  “I think so.”

  “You could hear the radio?”

  “Yes, sir. I could hear music.”

  “The same sort of music you’d heard earlier?”

  “Yes, sir. He was listening to classical music. I heard it in the background each time he called.”

  “And the last time you spoke was at two in the morning.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When you called him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “At home.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Loeb, I really appreciate—”

  “Well, what is this all about, Mr. Carella? I really—”

  “Routine,” Carella said, and hung up.

  Blue Monday.

  The threatening blue glare of ice. The brilliant robin’s-egg blue of a sky that stretched from horizon to horizon over the city’s towers and peaks, the kind of sky that always came as a surprise in January and February even though—like the snow and the wind and the freezing rain—it was not an unusual occurrence in this city. The darker blue of smoke pouring from the tall stacks of the factories across the river Dix in Calm’s Point. The almost-black blue of the uniforms on the cops who stood outside the tenement on Ainsley Avenue and looked down at the mutilated woman on the icebound sidewalk.

  The woman was naked.

  A trail of blood led from where she lay on the sidewalk to the front door of the tenement behind her, and into the tenement hallway, bloody palm prints on the inner vestibule door, blood on the stairs and banisters leading to the upper stories.

  The woman was still bleeding profusely.

  The woman’s breasts had been brutally slashed.