by Ed McBain
The men fell silent.
The music rose in earsplitting crescendo. The bass drum beat was more insistent now, the trumpet shrieked higher and higher, a C above high C reached for and missed, the saxophone trilled impatiently, the piano pounded in the upper register, a tinny insistent honkytonk rhythm, cymbals clashed, the trumpet reached for the screech note again, and again missed. The lights were swirling now, the stage was inundated in color and sound. There was the stink of perspiration and lust in the theater as the girl ground out her coded message in a cipher broken long ago on too many similar stages, pounded out her promises of ecstasy and sin. come and get it, baby, Come and get it, Come and come and come and come.
The stage went black.
In the darkness, Calucci whispered, “What do you think?”
One of the baggy pants comics came on again to do a bit in a doctor’s office accompanied by a pert little blonde with enormous breasts who explained that she thought she was stagnant because she hadn’t fenestrated in two months.
“I hate the idea of knocking somebody off,” La Bresca whispered.
“If it’s necessary, it’s necessary.”
“Still.”
“There’s lots of money involved here, don’t forget it.”
“Yeah, but at the same time, there’s enough to split three ways, ain’t there?” La Bresca said.
“Why should we split it three ways when we can split it down the middle?”
“Because Dom’ll spill the whole works if we don’t cut him in. Look, what’s the sense going over this a hundred times? We got to cut him in.”
“I want to think about it.”
“You ain’t got that much time to think about it. We’re set for the fifteenth. Dom wants to know right away.”
“Okay, so tell him he’s in. Then we’ll decide whether he’s in or out. And I mean really out, the little son of a bitch.”
“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” the loudspeaker voice said, “it gives us great pleasure to present the rage of San Francisco, a young lady who thrilled the residents of that city by the Golden Gate, a young lady whose exotic dancing caused the pious officials of Hong Kong to see Red … it is with bursting pride that we turn our stage over to Miss … Anna … May … Zong!”
The house lights dimmed. The band struck up a sinuous version of “Limehouse Blues.” A swish cymbal echoed on the air, and a sloe-eyed girl wearing mandarin garb came into the follow spot with mincing steps, hands together in an attitude of prayer, head bent.
“I dig these Chinks,” Calucci said.
“You guys want to stop talking?” a bald-headed man in the row ahead said. “I can’t see the girls with all that gabbing behind me.”
“Fuck off, Baldy,” La Bresca said.
But both men fell silent. O’Brien leaned forward in his seat. Parker bent sideways over the armrest. There was nothing further to hear. Kapek, across the aisle, could not have heard anything anyway, so he merely watched the Chinese girl as she took off her clothes.
At the end of the act, La Bresca and Calucci rose quietly from their seats and went out of the theater. They split up outside. Parker followed Calucci to his house, and Kapek followed La Bresca to his. O’Brien went back to the squadroom to type up a report.
The detectives did not get together again until eleven o’clock that night, by which time La Bresca and Calucci were both hopefully asleep. They met in a diner some five blocks from the squadroom. Over coffee and crullers, they all agreed that the only thing they’d learned from their eavesdropping was the date of the job La Bresca and Calucci were planning: March the fifteenth. They also agreed that Freida Panzer had much larger breasts than Anna May Zong.
In the living room of a luxurious apartment on Harborside Oval, overlooking the river, a good three miles from where Detectives O’Brien, Parker, and Kapek were speculating on the comparative dimensions of the two strippers, the deaf man sat on a sofa facing sliding glass doors, and happily sipped at a glass of scotch and soda.
The drapes were open, and the view of warm and glowing lights strung on the bridge’s cables, the distant muted reds and ambers blinking on the distant shore gave the night a deceptively springtime appearance; the thermometer on the terrace outside read ten degrees above zero.
Two bottles of expensive scotch, one already dead, were on the coffee table before the sofa upholstered in rich black leather. On the wall opposite the sofa, there hung an original Rouault, only a gouache to be sure, but nonetheless quite valuable. A grand piano turned its wide curve into the room, and a petite brunette, wearing a miniskirt and a white crocheted blouse, sat at the piano playing “Heart and Soul” over and over again.
The girl was perhaps twenty-three years old, with a nose that had been recently bobbed, large brown eyes, long black hair that fell to a point halfway between her waist and her shoulder blades. She was wearing false eyelashes. They fluttered whenever she hit a sour note, which was often. The deaf man seemed not to mind the discord that rose from the piano. Perhaps he really was deaf, or perhaps he had consumed enough scotch to have dimmed his perception. The two other men in the room didn’t seem to mind the cacophony either. One of them even tried singing along with the girl’s treacherous rendition–until she hit another sour note and began again from the top.
“I can’t seem to get it,” she said, pouting.
“You’ll get it, honey,” the deaf man said. “Just keep at it.”
One of the men was short and slender, with the dustcolored complexion of an Indian. He wore narrow black tapered trousers and a white shirt over which was an open black vest. He was sitting at a drop-leaf desk, typing. The other man was tall and burly, with blue eyes, red hair, and a red mustache. There were freckles spattered over his cheeks and his forehead, and his voice, as he began singing along with the girl again, was deep and resonant. He was wearing tight jeans and a blue turtleneck sweater.
As the girl continued to play “Heart and Soul,” a feeling of lassitude spread through the deaf man. Sitting on the couch, watching the second phase of his scheme as it became a reality, he mused again on the beauty of the plan, and then glanced at the girl, and then smiled when she hit the same sour note (an E flat where it should have been a natural E) and then looked again to where Ahmad was typing.
“The beauty of this phase,” he said aloud, “is that none of them will believe us.”
“They will believe,” Ahmad offered, and smiled thinly.
“Yes, but not at this phase.”
“No, only later,” Ahmad said, and sipped at his scotch, and glanced at the girl’s thighs, and went back to his typing.
“How much is this mailing going to cost us?” the other man asked.
“Well, Buck,” the deaf man said, “we’re sending out a hundred pieces of first-class mail at five cents postage per envelope, so that comes to a grand total of five dollars–if my arithmetic is correct.”
“Your arithmetic is always correct,” Ahmad said, and smiled.
“This is the damn part I can’t get,” the girl said, and struck the same note over and over again, as though trying to pound it into her memory.
“Keep at it, Rochelle,” the deaf man said. “You’ll get it.”
Buck lifted his glass, discovered it was empty, and went to the coffee table to refill it, moving with the economy of an athlete, back ramrod stiff, hands dangling loosely at his sides, as though he were going back for the huddle after having executed a successful line plunge.
“Here, let me help you,” the deaf man said.
“Not too heavy,” Buck said.
The deaf man poured a liberal shot into Buck’s extended glass. “Drink,” he said. “You deserve it.”
“Well, I don’t want to get crocked.”
“Why not? You’re among friends,” the deaf man said, and smiled.
He was feeling particularly appreciative of Buck’s talent tonight, because without it this phase of the scheme would never have become a reality. Oh yes, a primitive bomb c
ould have been assembled and hastily wired to the ignition switch, but such sloppiness, such dependency on chance, had never appealed to the deaf man. The seriousness with which Buck had approached the problem had been truly heart-warming. His development of a compact package (the inverter had weighed a mere twenty-two pounds and measured only ten by ten by five) that could be easily transported and wired in a relatively short period of time, his specific demand for an inverter with a regulated sine-wave output (costing a bit more, yes, $64.95, but a negligible output in terms of the hoped-for financial realization), his insistence on a briefing session to explain the proper handling of the dynamite and the electric blasting cap, all were admirable, admirable. He was a good man, Buck, a demolition expert who had worked on countless legitimate blasting jobs, a background essential to the deaf man’s plan; in this state, you were not allowed to buy explosives without a permit and insurance, both of which Buck possessed. The deaf man was very pleased indeed to have him in his employ.
Ahmad, too, was indispensable. He had been working as a draftsman at Metropolitan Power & Light, earning $150 a week in the Bureau of Maps and Records, when the deaf man first contacted him. He had readily appreciated the huge rewards to be reaped from the scheme, and had enthusiastically supplied all of the information so necessary to its final phase. In addition, he was a meticulous little man who had insisted that all of these letters be typed on high-quality bond paper, with each of the hundred men receiving an original rather than a carbon or a photocopy, a touch designed to allay any suspicion that the letter was a practical joke. The deaf man knew that the difference between success and failure very often depended on such small details, and he smiled at Ahmad in appreciation now, and sipped a little more of his scotch, and said, “How many have you typed so far?”
“Fifty-two.”
“We’ll be toiling long into the night, I’m afraid.”
“When are we going to mail these?”
“I had hoped by Wednesday.”
“I will finish them long before then,” Ahmad promised.
“Will you really be working here all night?” Rochelle asked, pouting again.
“You can go to bed if you like, dear,” the deaf man said.
“What good’s bed without you?” Rochelle said, and Buck and Ahmad exchanged glances.
“Go on, I’ll join you later.”
“I’m not sleepy.”
“Then have a drink, and play us another song.”
“I don’t know any other songs.”
“Read a book then,” the deaf man suggested.
Rochelle looked at him blankly.
“Or go into the den and watch some television.”
“There’s nothing on but old movies.”
“Some of those old films are very instructive,” the deaf man said.
“Some of them are very crappy, too,” Rochelle replied.
The deaf man smiled. “Do you feel like licking a hundred envelopes?” he asked.
“No, I don’t feel like licking envelopes,” she answered.
“I didn’t think so,” the deaf man said.
“So what should I do?” Rochelle asked.
“Go get into your nightgown, darling,” the deaf man said.
“Mmm?” she said, and looked at him archly.
“Mmm,” he replied.
“Okay,” she said, and rose from the piano bench. “Well, good night, fellas,” she said.
“Good night,” Buck said.
“Good night, miss,” Ahmad said.
Rochelle looked at the deaf man again, and then went into the other room.
“Empty-headed little bitch,” he said.
“I think she’s dangerous to have around,” Buck said.
“On the contrary,” the deaf man said, “she soothes the nerves and eases the daily pressures. Besides, she thinks we’re respectable businessmen promoting some sort of hare-brained scheme. She hasn’t the vaguest notion of what we’re up to.”
“Sometimes I don’t have the vaguest notion either,” Buck said, and pulled a face.
“It’s really very simple,” the deaf man said. “We’re making a direct-mail appeal, a tried-and-true method of solicitation pioneered by businessmen all over this bountiful nation. Our mailing, of course, is a limited one. We’re only sending out a hundred letters. But it’s my hope that we’ll get a highly favorable response.”
“And what if we don’t?”
“Well, Buck, let’s assume the worst. Let’s assume we get a one-percent return, which is the generally expected return on a direct-mail piece. Our entire outlay thus far has been $86.95 for a lever-action carbine; $3.75 for a box of cartridges; $64.95 for your inverter; $7.00 for the electric clock; $9.60 for a dozen sticks of dynamite at eighty cents a stick; sixty cents for the blasting cap; $10.00 for the stationery; and $5.00 for the postage. If my addition is correct …” (He paused here to smile at Ahmad.) “… that comes to $187.85. Our future expenses–for the volt-ohm meter, the pressure-sensitive letters, the uniform, and so on–sould also be negligible. Now, if we get only a one-percent return on our mailing, if only one person out of the hundred comes through, we’ll still be reaping a large profit on our initial investment.”
“Five thousand dollars seems like pretty small change for two murders,” Buck said.
“Three murders,” the deaf man corrected.
“Even better,” Buck said, and pulled a face.
“I assure you I’m expecting much more than a one-percent return. On Friday night, we execute–if you’ll pardon the pun–the final phase of our plan. By Saturday morning, there’ll be no disbelievers.”
“How many of them do you think’ll come through?”
“Most of them. If not all of them.”
“And what about the fuzz?”
“What about them? They still don’t know who we are, and they’ll never find out.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I know I’m right.”
“I worry about fuzz,” Buck said. “I can’t help it. I’ve been conditioned to worry about them.”
“There’s nothing to worry about. Don’t you realize why they’re called fuzz?”
“No. Why?”
“Because they’re fuzzy and fussy and antiquated and incompetent. Their investigatory technique is established and routine, designed for effectiveness in an age that no longer exists. The police in this city are like wind-up toys with keys sticking out of their backs, capable of performing only in terms of their own limited design, tiny mechanical men clattering along the sidewalk stiff-leggged, scurrying about in aimless circles. But put an obstacle in their path, a brick wall or an orange crate, and they unwind helplessly in the same spot, arms and legs thrashing but taking them nowhere.” The deaf man grinned. “I, my friend, am the brick wall.”
“Or the orange crate,” Buck said.
“No,” Ahmad said intensely. “He is the brick wall.”
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* * *
Chapter 10
* * *
The first break in the case came at ten o’clock the next morning, when Fats Donner called the squadroom.
Until that time, there were still perhaps two thousand imponderables to whatever La Bresca and Calucci were planning. But aside from such minor considerations at where the job would take place, or at exactly what time on March fifteenth, there were several unknown identities to contend with as well, such as Dom (who so far had no last name) and the long-haired blond girl who had given La Bresca a lift last Friday night. It was the police supposition that if either of these two people could be located, the nature of the impending job might be wrung from one or the other of them. Whether or not the job was in any way connected with the recent murders would then become a matter for further speculation, as would the possibility that La Bresca was in some way involved with the deaf man. There were a lot of questions to be asked if only they could find somebody to ask them to.
Donner was put through immediately.
“I think I got your Dom,” he said to Willis.
“Good,” Willis said. “What’s his last name?”
“Di Fillippi. Dominick Di Fillippi. Lives in Riverhead near the old coliseum, you know the neighborhood?”
“Yeah. What’ve you got on him?”
“He’s with The Coaxial Cable.”
“Yeah?” Willis said.
“Yeah.”
“Well, what’s that?” Willis said.
“What’s what?”
“What’s it supposed to mean?”
“What’s what supposed to mean?”
“What you just said. Is it some kind of code or something?”
“Is what some kind of code?” Donner asked.
“The Coaxial Cable.”
“No, it’s a group.”
“A group of what?”
“A group. Musicians,” Donner said.
“A band, you mean?”
“That’s right, only today they call them groups.”
“Well, what’s the coaxial cable got to do with it?”
“That’s the name of the group. The Coaxial Cable.”
“You’re putting me on,” Willis said.
“No, that’s the name, I mean it.”
“What does Di Fillippi play?”
“Rhythm guitar.”
“Where do I find him?”
“His address is 365 North Anderson.”
“That’s in Riverhead?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know he’s our man?”
“Well, it seems he’s a big bullshit artist, you know?” Donner said. “He’s been going around the past few weeks saying he dropped a huge bundle on the championship fight, made it sound like two, three G’s. It turns out all he lost was fifty bucks, that’s some big bundle, huh?”