by Ed McBain
“Oh, getting her errands done, mostly. Running here and there. We saw each other, of course, but only rarely. Did a little window-shopping together, went to the zoo every now and then, or the museum, like that. For the most part, Sally liked her privacy on Sundays. During the daytime, anyway.”
“Mr. Moore, did you ever go uptown with her? On the times you saw her, those Sundays you saw her, did you ever go uptown?”
“Well, sure. Uptown?”
“All the way uptown,” Carella said. “Culver and Eighteenth.”
“No,” Moore said. “Never.”
“Do you know where that is?”
“Sure.”
“But you never went up there with Sally?”
“Why would I? That’s one of the worst neighborhoods in the city.”
“Did Sally ever go up there alone? On a Sunday?”
“She may have. Why? I don’t under—”
“Because Lonnie Cooper told us that Sally went uptown every Sunday to pick up cocaine for herself and several other people in the show.”
“Well, now we’re back to cocaine again, aren’t we? I’ve already told you that as far as I know, Sally wasn’t involved with cocaine or any other drug.”
“Except marijuana.”
“Which I don’t consider a drug,” Moore said.
“But definitely not cocaine. Which you don’t consider habit-forming.”
“That’s not my opinion, Mr. Carella, it happens to be…look, what is this, can you please tell me?”
“Did you know that Sally was supplying the cast with cocaine?”
“I did not.”
“She kept this from you, did she?”
“I didn’t think there were any secrets between us, but if she was engaged in…in this…illicit traffic or whatever you want to call it—”
“That’s what we call it,” Carella said.
“Then, yes, she kept it from me. I had no idea.”
“How big a spender was she, Mr. Moore?”
“Pardon?”
“Did she ever seem to spend beyond her means?”
“Her means?”
“What she was earning as a dancer.”
“Not that I noticed. She always dressed well, and I don’t think she denied herself much…Mr. Carella, if you can tell me what you’re looking for, perhaps—”
“Someone we talked to hinted at Sally earning extra cash. We’re certain she was supplying cocaine in at least a limited way. We’d like to know if her activities in the drug market extended beyond that.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I could help you with that, but I really didn’t know until just now that she was in any way involved with drugs.”
“Except marijuana,” Carella said again.
“Well, yes.”
“Can you think of any other way she might have been earning extra cash?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
“She wasn’t hooking, was she?” Meyer asked.
“Of course not!”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Positive. We were very close, we spent virtually every day together. I’d certainly know—”
“But you didn’t know about the coke.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Did she ever mention any kind of outside activity to you? Anything that might have been bringing in this extra cash?”
“I’m trying to remember,” Moore said.
“Please,” Carella said.
Moore was silent for what seemed like a very long time, thinking, his head bent. Then, suddenly, as if the idea had just occurred to him, he nodded and looked up at the detectives.
“Of course,” he said. “I didn’t realize what she was saying at the time, but of course, that has to be it.”
“Has to be what?”
“How she was getting the extra cash you’re talking about.”
“How was she getting it?”
Meyer said.
“What was she into?” Carella said.
“Ice,” Moore said.
They had not been able to reach Allan Carter the night before, and when they called his apartment early this morning, they learned that he had already left for his office. They considered the delay a stroke of good luck; it gave them time to do a little homework on the subject they planned to broach with the producer. The sky was clear and the temperature was surprisingly mild on that Wednesday, February 17. This was bad news. If they knew this city, and they did, the springtime bonanza would be followed immediately by a howling blizzard; God gave with one hand and took away with the other. In the meantime, the snow and the ice were melting.
Carter’s office was in a building a block north of the Stem, in Midtown East territory. The building was flanked by a Spanish restaurant on one side and a Jewish delicatessen on the other. A sign in the restaurant window read: WE SPEAK ENGLISH HERE. A sign in the deli window read AQUI HABLA ESPANOL. Meyer wondered if the Spanish restaurant served blintzes. Carella wondered if the Jewish deli served tortillas. The building was an old one, with massive brass doors on the single elevator in the lobby. A directory opposite the elevator told them that Carter Productions, Ltd., was in room 407. The elevator was self-service. They took it up to the fourth floor, searched for room 407, and found it in the middle of the corridor to the left of the elevator.
A girl with frizzied blonde hair was sitting behind a desk immediately inside the entrance door. She was wearing a brown jumpsuit and she was chewing gum as she typed. She looked up from the machine, said, “Can I help you?” and picked up an eraser.
“We’d like to see Mr. Carter, please,” Carella said.
“We’re not auditioning till two o’clock,” the girl said.
“We’re not actors,” Meyer said.
“Even so,” the girl said, and erased a word on the sheet she’d typed, and then blew at the paper.
“You should use that liquid stuff,” Meyer said. “You use an eraser, it clogs the machine.”
“The liquid stuff takes too long to dry,” the girl said.
“We’re from the police,” Carella said, showing his shield. “Would you tell Mr. Carter that Detectives Meyer and Carella are here?”
“Why didn’t you say so?” the girl said, and immediately picked up the phone. As she waited, she leaned over the desk to study the shield more carefully. “Mr. Carter,” she said, “there’s a Detective Meyer and Canella here to see you.” She listened. “Yes, sir,” she said. She put up the phone. “You can go right in,” she said.
“It’s Carella,” Carella said.
“What did I say?” the girl asked.
“Canella.”
The girl shrugged.
They opened the door to Carter’s office. He was sitting behind a huge desk littered with what Carella assumed were scripts. Three walls of the office were covered with posters advertising his shows before Fatback, none of which Carella recognized. The fourth wall was a window wall streaming early-morning sunlight. Carter rose when they came into the room, indicated a sofa facing the desk, and said, “Sit down, won’t you?” The detectives sat. Carella got straight to the point.
“Mr. Carter,” he said, “what is ice?”
“Ice?”
“Yes, sir.”
Carter smiled. “What water becomes when it freezes,” he said. “Is this a riddle?”
“No riddle,” Carella said. “You don’t know what ice is, huh?”
“Oh,” Carter said. “You mean ice.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Theater ice, do you mean?”
“Theater ice,” Carella said.
“Well, certainly, I know what ice is.”
“So do we,” Carella said. “Check us and see if we’re right.”
“I’m sorry, but what—”
“Bear with us, Mr. Carter,” Carella said.
“I have an appointment at ten.”
“That’s fifteen minutes away,” Meyer said, glancing up at the wall clock.
“We’ll make it fast
,” Carella said. “First we’ll talk, then you’ll talk, okay?”
“Well, I really don’t know what—”
“The way we understand this,” Carella said, “ice is a common practice in the theater—”
“Not in my theater,” Carter said.
“Be that as it may,” Carella said, and went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “A common practice that accounts for something like twenty million dollars a year in cash receipts unaccountable to either the tax man or a show’s investors.”
“That figure sounds high,” Carter said.
“I’m talking citywide,” Carella said.
“It still sounds high. Ice isn’t practical unless a show is a tremendous hit.”
“Like Fatback,” Carella said.
“I hope you’re not suggesting that anyone involved with Fatback—”
“Please listen, and tell me if I’ve got it right,” Carella said.
“I’m sure you’ve got it right,” Carter said. “You don’t seem like the sort of man who’d come in unprepared.”
“I simply want to make sure I understand it.”
“Uh-huh,” Carter said, and nodded skeptically.
“From what I can gather,” Carella said, “a great many show business people have become rich on the proceeds of ice.”
“There are stories to that effect, yes.”
“And the way it works—please correct me if I’m wrong—is that someone in the box office puts aside a ticket, usually a house seat, Mr. Carter, and later sells it to a broker for a much higher price. Am I right so far?”
“That’s my understanding of how ice works, yes,” Carter said.
“The going price for a choice seat to Fatback is forty dollars,” Carella said. “That was for sixth row center, the house seats you generously made available to me.”
“Yeah,” Carter said, and nodded sourly.
“How many house seats would you say are set aside for any performance of any given musical?” Carella asked.
“Are we talking about Fatback now?”
“Or any musical. Take Fatback as an example, if you want to.”
“We’ve got about a hundred house seats set aside for each performance,” Carter said.
“Who gets those house seats?”
“I get some of them as producer. The theater owner gets some. The creative people, the stars, some of the unusually big investors, and so on. I think we already discussed this once, didn’t we?”
“I just want to get it straight,” Carella said. “What happens to those seats if the people they’re set aside for don’t claim them?”
“They’re put on sale in the box office.”
“When?”
“In this city, it’s forty-eight hours before any given performance.”
“For sale to whom?”
“Anyone.”
“Some guy who walks in off the street?”
“Well, not usually. These are choice seats, you realize.”
“So who does get them?”
“They’re usually sold to brokers.”
“At the price printed on the ticket?”
“Yes, of course.”
“No, not of course,” Carella said. “That’s where the ice comes in, isn’t it?”
“If someone connected with a show is involved in ice, yes, that’s where it would come in.”
“In short, the man in charge of the box office—”
“That would be our company manager.”
“Your company manager, or someone on his staff, would take these unclaimed house seats and sell them to a broker—or any number of brokers—at a price higher than the established price for the ticket.”
“Yes, that would be the ice. The difference between the legitimate ticket price and whatever the iceman can get for it.”
“Sometimes twice the ticket price, isn’t it?”
“Well, I really wouldn’t know. As I told you—”
“Eighty dollars for a forty-dollar ticket, wouldn’t that be possible?”
“It would be possible, I suppose. For a tremendous hit.”
“Like Fatback.”
“Yes, but no one—”
“And the broker would then take this ticket for which he’s paid eighty dollars, and he’ll sell it to a favored customer for something like a hundred and fifty dollars, isn’t that so?”
“You’re talking about scalping now. Scalping is against the law. A ticket broker can legally charge only two dollars more than the price on the ticket. That’s his markup. Two dollars. By law.”
“But there are brokers who break the law.”
“That’s their business, not mine.”
“Incidentally,” Carella said, “ice is also against the law.”
“It may be against the law,” Carter said, “but in my opinion, it doesn’t really hurt anyone.”
“It’s just a victimless crime, huh?” Meyer said.
“In my opinion.”
“Like prostitution,” Meyer said.
“Well, prostitution is another matter,” Carter said. “The girls themselves are, of course, victimized. But with ice…” He shrugged. “Let’s assume someone in a show’s box office is doing ice. He doesn’t steal those house seats, you know. If the ticket costs forty dollars, he’ll put forty dollars in the cash drawer before he sells that ticket to a broker.”
“For twice the price,” Carella said.
“That doesn’t matter. The point is the show got the forty dollars it was supposed to get for the ticket. The show doesn’t lose any money on that ticket. The investors don’t lose any money.”
“But the people running the ice operation make a lot of money.”
“There’s not that much involved,” Carter said, and shrugged again. “I’ll tell you the truth, on some shows I was involved with, I’ve had general managers come to me proposing ice, but I always turned them down cold—no pun intended,” Carter said, and smiled. “Why risk a brush with the law when peanuts are involved?”
“Peanuts? You said there were a hundred house seats—”
“That’s right.”
“At a forty-dollar markup per seat, that comes to four thousand dollars a performance. How many performances are there a week, Mr. Carter?”
“Eight.”
“Times four thousand is thirty-two thousand a week. That comes to something like…what does it come to, Meyer?”
“What?” Meyer said.
“In a year.”
“Oh. Close to two million dollars a year. Something like a million six, a million seven.”
“Is that peanuts, Mr. Carter?”
“Well, you know, the ice on a show is usually split up. Sometimes four or five ways.”
“Let’s say it’s split five ways,” Carella said. “That would still come to something like two, three hundred thousand dollars a person. That’s a lot of money, Mr. Carter.”
“It’s not worth going to jail for,” Carter said.
“Then why are you doing it?” Meyer asked.
“I beg your pardon?” Carter said.
“Why are you taking ice on Fatback?”
“Is that a flat-out accusation?” Carter said.
“That’s what it is,” Carella said.
“Then maybe I ought to call my lawyer.”
“Maybe you ought to hear us out first,” Carella said. “You always seem to be in a hurry to call your lawyer.”
“If you’re accusing me of—”
“Mr. Carter, isn’t it true that Sally Anderson was a courier in your ice operation?”
“What ice operation?”
“We’ve been told Sally Anderson delivered house seats to various brokers, and collected cash for those seats, and then brought the cash back to your company manager. Isn’t that true, Mr. Carter? Wasn’t Sally Anderson, in effect, a bag lady for your ice operation?”
“If someone in my theater is making money on ice—”
“Someone is, Mr. Carter.”
�
�Not me.”
“Let’s take this a step further, shall we?” Carella said.
“No, let’s call my lawyer,” Carter said, and picked up the phone receiver.
“We have proof,” Carella said.
He was lying; they had no proof at all. Lonnie Cooper had hinted that Sally had been earning extra cash someplace. Timothy Moore had told them she’d been running ice money for Carter. None of that was proof. But Carella’s words stopped Carter dead in his tracks. He put the receiver back onto the cradle. He shook a cigarette free from the package on his desk and lighted it. He blew out a cloud of smoke.
“What proof?” he said.
“Let’s go back a bit,” Carella said.
“What proof?” Carter said again.
“Why’d you tell us you hardly knew Sally?” Carella asked.
“Here we go again,” Carter said.
“Once more ‘round the mulberry bush,” Meyer said, and smiled.
“We think it’s because she was involved in this ice operation with you,” Carella said.
“I don’t know anything about any ice operation.”
“And maybe wanted a bigger piece of the pie—”
“Ridiculous!”
“Or maybe even threatened to blow the whistle—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carter said.
“We’re talking about murder.”
“Murder? For what? Because you think Sally was somehow involved with ice?”
“We know she was involved,” Meyer said. “And not somehow. She was involved with you, Mr. Carter. She was your goddamn courier. She delivered tickets and she picked up—”
“Once!” Carter shouted.
The room went silent.
The detectives looked at him.
“I had nothing to do with her murder,” Carter said.
“We’re listening,” Meyer said.
“It was only once.”
“When?”
“Last November.”
“Why only once?”
“Tina was sick.”
“Tina Wong?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She couldn’t make the rounds that day. She asked Sally to substitute for her.”
“Without your knowledge?”
“She checked with me first. She was sick in bed with the flu, she had a fever. I told her it would be okay. Sally was her closest friend, I figured we could trust her.”