by Ed McBain
“He didn’t ask for your help in some plan he had?”
“No. No, he didn’t.”
“Did he write to you after the reunion?”
“No.”
“But you gave him your address, isn’t that so?”
“Yes.”
“And he gave you his address, right?”
“Yes.”
“When’s the last time you were here in this city?”
“August. On the way to the reunion.”
“Haven’t been back since?”
“No.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Hang up the phone, look at your notes, compare what you just got from Tanner with what you already have from Tataglia and Hopewell and Poole. Think about it. Wonder about it. Wonder especially about Jimmy’s nightmares, which his doctor said were rooted in a basement rape that never took place. Make a note to call the police psychiatrist—what the hell was his name? Consider the possibility that the murders were motiveless.
There used to be a time when most murders started as family quarrels resolved with a hatchet or a gun. Find a lady dead on the bathroom floor, go look for her husband. Find a man with both legs broken and a knife in his heart besides, go look for his girlfriend’s husband, and try to get there fast before the husband threw her off the roof in the bargain. Those were the good old days. Hardly ever would you get a murder where everything had been figured out in advance—woman wanted to get rid of her husband, she worked out a complicated plot involving poison extracted from the glands of a green South American snake, started lacing his cognac with it every night, poor man went into convulsions and died six months later while the woman was on the Riviera living it up with a gigolo from Copenhagen. Nothing like that. In the good old days your average real-life murder was a woman coming into the apartment and finding her husband drunk again, and shaking him, and then saying the hell with it, and going out to the kitchen for an ice pick and sticking him sixteen times in the chest and the throat. That was real life, baby. You wanted bullshit, you went to mystery novels written by ladies who lived in Sussex. Thrillers. About as thrilling as Aunt Lucy’s tatted nightcap.
In the good old days you wrapped a thing up in three, four hours sometimes—between lunch and cocktails, so to speak. And usually it wasn’t the butler who did it, nor even the foul fiend flibbertigibbet, but instead your own brother or your brother’s wife or your Uncle Tim from Nome, Alaska. Nowadays it was different. One-third of all the homicides committed in this city involved a victim and a murderer who didn’t even know each other when the crime was committed. Perfect strangers, total and utter, locked in the ultimate intimate obscenity for the mere seconds it took to squeeze a trigger or plunge a blade. So why not believe that Jimmy and Isabel and Hester were victims of someone totally unknown to any of them, some bedbug who had a hang-up about blind people?
Why not? Knew them only from their respective neighborhoods, saw them around all the time, shuffling along, their very presence disgusted him. Decided to do away with them. Why not?
Maybe.
Carella sighed, dialed the area code 215 for Philadelphia, and then dialed Danny Cortez’s number. It was almost 5:30 on the squadroom clock, he hoped the man would be home from work already. The phone rang three times, and then a woman picked up.
“Hello?” she said. In that single word he thought he detected a Spanish accent, but that may have been because he knew Danny’s surname was Cortez.
“I’d like to talk to Danny Cortez, please,” he said.
“Who’s this?” the woman asked, the accent unmistakable now.
“Detective Carella, 87th Squad in Isola.”
“Who?” the woman said.
“Police department,” he said.
“Police? Que desea usted?”
“I’d like to talk to Danny Cortez. Who’s this, please?”
“His wife. Qual es su nombre?”
“Carella. Detective Carella.”
“He knows you, my husband?”
“No. I’m calling long distance.”
“Ah, long distance,” she said. “One minute, por favor.”
Carella waited. He could hear voices in the background, talking softly in Spanish. Silence. Someone picked up the phone.
“Hello?” a man’s voice said.
“Mr. Cortez?”
“Yes?”
“This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad in Isola. I’m calling in reference to a murder we’re investigating.”
“A murder?”
“Yes. A man named James Harris. He was in the Army with you, would you happen to remember him?”
“Yes, sure. He was murdered, you say?”
“Yes. I was wondering if you’d answer some questions for me.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“When’s the last time you saw him, Mr. Cortez?”
“Jimmy? In August. We had a reunion of the company. I went there to New Jersey. That was when I saw him.”
“Did you talk to him then?”
“Oh, sure.”
“What about?”
“Oh, many things. We were in the same squad, you know. He was Alpha Fire Team, I was Bravo. We were the ones got them out the day he was wounded. They were trapped there, we got them out.”
“Were you very friendly with him?”
“Well, only so-so. We were in the same hootch, Alpha and Bravo, but—”
“The same what?”
“Hootch.”
“What’s that?”
“A hootch? You know what a hootch is.”
“No, I don’t.”
“It’s what we lived in. On the base. There were eight of us in a hootch, the noncoms had their own Playboy pad.”
“Was it like a Quonset hut or something?”
“Well, it was more like a tent, you know, with wooden frames and the top half screened. Our hootch had a metal roof, but not all of them did.”
“And eight of you lived in this hootch, is that right?”
“Yeah, four of us from Alpha and four from Bravo. The sergeants—the two team leaders and the squad leader—had their own hootch. But what I’m saying is the guys in Alpha were closer to each other than they were to the guys in Bravo, even though we were all in the same squad. That’s because a fire team, you know, is a very tight-knit unit. You depend for your life on the guys in your own fire team, you understand me? You go through a lot together. Like Bravo went through a lot together, and Alpha went through a lot together, but on their own, you understand? Even though we were all in the same squad.”
“Mm-huh,” Carella said. “What did Alpha go through on its own?”
“Oh, lots of things. I mean, in combat and also off the base, you understand me?” His voice lowered. “In the bars, you know? And with whores, you know?”
“What did they go through in combat together?” Carella asked.
“Well, vill sweeps, you know. And on Ala Moana—that was a big operation—they were there when the lieutenant got killed.”
“Lieutenant Blake, would that be?”
“Yeah, Lieutenant Blake. The platoon commander.”
“Alpha was there but Bravo wasn’t, is that it?”
“Well, we were already going up the hill. There was a patrol out, and the RTO radioed back that they found half a dozen bunkers and a couple of tunnels up the hill. We were moving out to join them.”
“Bravo was?”
“Yeah. Alpha was resting.”
“Resting,” Carella said.
“Yeah. We’d all been through heavy fighting that whole month. Alpha was down where the lieutenant had set up a command post near some bamboo at the bottom of the hill.”
“A command post,” Carella said.
“Yeah. Well, not really a post. I mean, not buildings or tents or whatever. A command post is wherever the officer in command is. From where he directs the action, you understand me?”
“Mm-huh,” Carella said. “And that’s where the lieutenant was when he go
t killed? Down there with Alpha?”
“Yeah. Well, no, not exactly. This is what happened. Alpha was down there with the platoon sergeant—”
“Tataglia?”
“Yeah. Johnny Tataglia. Bravo was going up the hill to where the enemy was dug in. The lieutenant went back down to see where the hell Alpha was. To get Alpha so they could bring up the rear, you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“That’s when the mortar attack started. Bastards had zeroed in on the bamboo and were pounding the shit out of it.”
“And that’s when the lieutenant got killed?”
“Yeah, in the mortar attack. Frag must’ve got him. It was a terrible thing. Alpha took cover when the attack started, and then they couldn’t get to the lieutenant in time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, in the war over there, you had to pick up your own dead and wounded because if you didn’t they dragged them off and hacked them to pieces. The enemy, you understand me?”
“Is that what happened to Lieutenant Blake?”
“Yeah. He must’ve got hit while he was going down the hill. Alpha told us later they couldn’t go after him because of the mortars. All they could do was watch while he was dragged in the jungle. They found him later in an open pit—cut to ribbons. The bastards used to cut the bodies up and leave them in open pits.”
“Mm-huh,” Carella said.
“With bayonets, they did it,” Cortez said.
“Mm-huh.”
“So what I’m saying, you go through these terrible things together, you naturally get close to the guys who are in your own fire team. You understand me?”
“Yes, I do,” Carella said. “This happened on the third of December, is that right?”
“I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you that. We weren’t even there, you understand me? We were on our way to where they’d found those bunkers. It turned out there was a big cache up there. What I’m saying, there are things that are important to a person in combat because he’s in them. But if he isn’t there to experience them, well, then it’s just another day for him. So I couldn’t tell you if the lieutenant was killed on the third or the fourth or whenever. To me, it was just another day. I was out there on a search-and-destroy, I was in no danger at all. The mortars didn’t come anywhere near us. All we heard was the noise. You ever been in a mortar attack? It makes a lot of noise, even from a distance.”
“Mm-huh. Mr. Cortez, when you were at that reunion in New Jersey, did Jimmy talk to you about a plan he was considering?”
“A plan? No. We talked about what it was like overseas. What do you mean, a plan?”
“For making money.”
“I wish he would’ve talked to me about it,” Cortez said, and laughed. “I could use some money.”
“You wouldn’t know whether he’d approached any of the other men about such a plan?”
“No, I wouldn’t know. I’ll tell you, none of us are doing too hot, you understand me? In New Jersey we were all bitching about what a lousy deal we got. As veterans, I mean. If Jimmy had some plan to make money…Hey, I got to tell you, we’d have gone in with him in a minute.” Cortez laughed again. “Long as it didn’t cost us nothing.”
“But you didn’t know about any such plan?”
“No.”
“Did you give Jimmy your address?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he write to you after the reunion?”
“No.”
“Did he telephone you, or try to contact you in any other way?”
“No.”
“Mm,” Carella said. “Well,” he said, and sighed. “Thanks a lot, Mr. Cortez, I appreciate the time you gave me.”
“I wish you luck,” Cortez said, and hung up.
Sergeant Dave Murchison looked toward the iron-runged steps as Carella came down them into the muster room. In the swing room, two patrolmen had taken off their tunics and were sitting in their suspendered trousers and long-sleeved underwear, drinking coffee. One of them had just told a joke, and both men were laughing.
Carella glanced briefly through the open door to the room, and then walked to the muster desk. “I’m heading home,” he said.
“What about the dog?” Murchison asked.
“What? Oh, Jesus, I forgot all about him. Did somebody pick him up?”
“He’s downstairs in one of the holding cells. What do you plan to do with him?”
“I don’t know,” Carella said. “I guess I’ll turn him over to Harris’s mother.”
“When?” Murchison said. “Steve, it’s against regulations to keep animals here at the station house.”
“Miscolo has a cat in the clerical office,” Carella said.
“That’s different. That’s not in a holding cell downstairs.”
“Shall I take the dog up to Clerical?”
“He’d eat Miscolo’s cat. He’s a very big dog, Steve. Have you seen this dog?”
“He’s not so big. He’s an average-sized Labrador.”
“An average-sized Labrador is a very big dog. I’d say he weighs ninety pounds, that’s what I’d say. Also, he won’t eat.”
“Well, I’ll take him over to Harris’s mother in the morning. I have to talk to her, anyway.”
“You better hope Captain Frick doesn’t decide to take a stroll down to the holding cells. He finds a dog down there, he’ll take a fit.”
“Tell him it’s a master of disguise.”
“What?” Murchison said.
“Tell him it’s a criminal wearing a dog suit.”
“Ha-ha,” Murchison said mirthlessly.
“I’ll get him out of here first thing in the morning,” Carella said. “Dave, I’m tired. I want to go home.”
“What the hell time is it, anyway?” Murchison said, and looked up at the clock. “I got a call from Charlie Maynard an hour ago, he said he’d be a little late. He’s supposed to relieve me at a quarter to four, he calls at a quarter to five, tells me he’ll be a little late. Now it’s a quarter to six, and he still ain’t here. When he called, I told him to get on Tarzan and ride over here as quick as he could.”
“Get on Tarzan? What do you mean?”
“Tarzan was Ken Maynard’s horse,” Murchison said.
“No, Tarzan was Tom Mix’s horse.”
“Tony was Tom Mix’s horse.”
“Then who was Trigger?” Carella asked.
“I don’t know who Trigger was. Buck Jones’s horse, maybe.”
“Anyway, Charlie Maynard isn’t Ken Maynard.”
“What difference does it make?” Murchison said. “He’s two hours late either way, ain’t he?”
Carella blinked. “Good night, Dave,” he said, and walked across the room to the entrance doors, and through them to the steps outside. A fierce wind was blowing in the street.
The wind tore at the blind man’s coat.
He clung to the harness of the German shepherd leading him, cursing the wind, cursing the fact that he had to go to the bathroom and he was still three blocks from his building. The trouble with running a newsstand was that you had to go in the cafeteria or the bookstore every time you had to pee. They were nice about it, they knew a man couldn’t be out there on the corner all day long without going to the bathroom, but still he hated to bother them all the time.
He wondered what astronauts did. Did they pee inside their space suits? Was there a tube they had? He should have gone in the cafeteria before heading home. The bookstore was already closed, but the cafeteria was open twenty-four hours, and the manager said he didn’t mind him coming in to use the men’s room downstairs. Still, you couldn’t go in there every ten minutes, take advantage of the man’s hospitality that way. Tried to limit his necessity calls to lunchtime and then maybe once again mid-afternoon. Always took his lunch at the cafeteria so he could stay on friendly terms with the manager. He went in the bookstore only every now and then, when he felt embarrassed about going in the cafeteria. But it was different in the boo
kstore because he only bought from them every now and then, when he wanted to give a present to one of his sighted friends, and also they sold magazines same as he did, and he guessed they maybe thought he was in competition with them.
God, he had to pee!
The dog suddenly stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk.
“What is it, Ralph?” he said.
The dog began growling.
“Ralph?” he said. “What’s the matter, boy?”
He smelled something sickeningly sweet in that instant, cloying, medicinal—chloroform, it was chloroform. The dog growled again, an attack growl deep in his throat, and suddenly the harness jerked out of his hand and someone yelled in pain. He heard the shuffle of feet on the sidewalk, heard harsh breathing, the dog’s low growl again, and then footsteps running into the night, fading. The dog was barking. The dog would not stop barking.
“All right,” he said, “all right,” and groped for the harness and found it. He patted the dog’s head. “Take me home, boy,” he said. “Home now. Home, Ralph.”
At home, there was a telephone.
He called the police, not because he thought they’d do anything about it—police in this damn city never did anything about anything—but only because he felt outraged by the attack. The patrolman who arrived at his apartment immediately challenged him.
“How do you know it was an attack, Mr. Masler?”
The man’s name was Eugene Maslen, with an “n.” He had corrected the patrolman twice, but the patrolman kept saying Masler. Maybe he was hard of hearing. He tried again.
“It’s Maslen,” he said, “with an ‘n,’ and I know it was an attack because the dog wouldn’t have begun growling that way if someone wasn’t threatening us.”
“Mm,” the patrolman said. His name was McGrew, and he worked out of the Four-One downtown in the Financial District, near the Headquarters building. “And you say you smelled chloroform?”
“It smelled like chloroform, yes. From when I had my tonsils out.”
“When was that, Mr. Masler?”
“When I was seven.”
“And you remember what the chloroform smelled like, huh?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“So what is it you’re saying, Mr. Masler? Are you saying this person was trying to chloroform the dog?”