by Ed McBain
“Because… I found out what you did.”
“Yeah? What did I do? Ouch! For Christ’s sake, Alf…”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Miscolo said. “I’m not a doctor, you know,” he added petulantly. “I’m only a lousy clerk. Next time, go to the hospital instead of messing up the whole damn squadroom.”
“What did I do?” Carella asked again.
“You killed my girl,” Bandler said.
“What?”
“You killed my girl.”
For a moment, no one in the room made a connection. They stared at Bandler in silent puzzlement, and then Bandler said, “Blanche. Blanche Mattfield,” and the name still meant nothing to anyone but Carella.
Carella nodded. “She jumped, Bandler,” he said. “I had nothing to do with her jumping.”
“You told her to jump.”
“I was trying to get her off that ledge.”
“You got her off, all right.”
“How do you know what I said to her?”
“The landlady told me. She was in the room behind you, and she heard you tell her to jump.” Bandler paused and then said, “Why didn’t you just shove her off that ledge? It would have amounted to the same thing.”
“Do you have any idea why she was on that ledge to begin with?” Carella asked.
“What difference does it make? She wouldn’t have jumped if it hadn’t been for you!”
“She wouldn’t have been out there if it hadn’t been for you!” Carella said.
“Sure,” Bandler said.
“Why’d you leave her?”
“Who left her?”
“You did, you did. Come on, Bandler, don’t get me sore again. She wanted to die because you left her. ‘Goodbye, Blanche, it’s been fun.’ Those were your exact words.”
“I loved that girl,” Bandler protested. “She knew I was coming right back. She knew it was just a temporary job. I told her…”
“You walked out on her, Bandler.”
“I tell you I didn’t. I loved her, don’t you understand? She knew I was coming back. I told her so. How do I know why she decided to… to kill herself?”
“She killed herself because she knew you were finished with her. Do you feel better now?”
“Wh… what do you mean?”
“After beating me up? After shoving all the blame onto me?”
“You killed her!” Bandler shouted, and he came out of the chair angrily, and Carella put both hands on his shoulders and shoved him back down again.
“What’s the name of this friend of yours on the Coast?”
“Wh… what friend?”
“Your director friend. Who was doing the ninety-minute special.”
“It… uh…”
The room went silent.
“Or was there a friend?”
“Ask anybody in the business. I’m one of the best a.d.’s around.”
“Did you go out there to work, Bandler? Or did you go out there with a dame?”
“A dame,” Meyer said, nodding. “I’m telling you I loved Blanche. Why would I go to California with another woman?” “Why, Bandler?” Hawes asked.
“Why, Bandler?”
“I… loved . . . Blanche. I… what… what the hell was the harm of a little… a little innocent fun with… with somebody else? She… she knew I’d come back to her. She knew that girl meant nothing to me. She knew that.”
“Apparently she didn’t.”
Bandler was silent for a long time. Then he said, “I saw it in the papers out there. Just a little item. About… about Blanche jump… jumping off that building. I saw it the day after she did it. I… I ditched the girl and got a plane back as fast as I could. Saturday. That was the earliest I could book. But she’d been buried by the time I got here and… and when I talked to the landlady of her building, she told me what he’d heard you say, so I… I figured you had it coming to you. For… for killing the girl I loved.”
“You just go on believing that,” Carella said.
“Huh?”
“It’ll make the time pass more quickly.”
“Huh?”
“You can get up to ten years for first-degree assault.” Carella paused. “What was the harm of a little innocent fun, huh, Bandler?”
* * * *
13
Love was in riotous bloom on the day that Fred Hassler came back to the squadroom and set the merry-go-round in violent motion once again. He had no idea he was reactivating the carousel, no knowledge that it had just about ran down, or that the Tommy Barlow-Irene Thayer suicide was in danger of being thrown into the Open File. Police work is always a race against time, especially in a precinct like the 87th. A crime is committed, and the bulls go to work on it quickly and efficiently because anything that’s likely to turn up is going to turn up soon or not at all. They’ll go over the ground a hundred times, asking the same questions over and over again in hope of getting a different answer. But a case goes cold too quickly, and in a place like the 87th, there are always new cases, there is always a steady press of crime, there is always a fresh occurrence demanding investigation, there is always the Open File. The Open File is a convenience which allows cops to close a case while keeping it open. Once a case is dumped into the Open File, they can stop thinking about it, and concentrate instead on the three dozen other cases that have miraculously become a part of their working day routine. The case in the Open File is not officially closed since it hasn’t officially been solved-there has been no arrest and conviction. But if it is not officially closed, neither is it truly active; it is simply laying there like a bagel. The Tommy Barlow-Irene Thayer case had lost all its momentum, and the cops of the 87th were almost ready to throw it into the Open File on the day Fred Hassler reappeared at the squadroom railing, on the day love was in riotous bloom.
The lovers were fifty-eight and fifty-five years old respectively, and they were standing before Detective Meyer’s desk arguing heatedly. The man wore a sports jacket which he had thrown on over his undershirt when the arresting patrolman had knocked on the door. The woman wore a flowered house dress.
“All right, now who’s pressing charges?” Meyer wanted to know.
“I’m pressing charges,” the man and woman said together.
“One at a time.”
“I’m pressing charges,” the woman said.
“I’m pressing charges,” the man said.
Hassler, standing at the slatted railing, tried to catch the attention of someone in the squadroom, but they all seemed to be busy filing or typing, except Meyer who was busy listening to the lovers.
“Who called the police?” Meyer asked.
“I called the police,” the woman said.
“Is that true, sir?”
“Sure,” the man said “Big mouth called the police.”
“All right, ma’am, why’d you call the police?”
“Because he pinched me,” the woman said.
“Big mouth,” the man said.
“Because he pinched you, huh?” Meyer asked patiently. “Are you married, folks?”
“We’re married,” the man said. “Big mouth can’t stand a little pinch from her own husband. Right away, she has to yell cop.”
“Shut up, you rotten animal,” the woman said. “You grabbed a hunk, I thought you were gonna rip it off.”
“I was being friendly.”
“Some friendly.”
“I should have been the one who called the cops,” the man protested. “But I’m not a big mouth.”
“You pinched me!” she insisted.
“Wash our dirty laundry,” the man muttered. “Call the cops. Why didn’t you call the F.B.I already?”
“Let’s try to calm down,” Meyer said. “Lady, if your husband pinched you…”
“She hit me with a frying pan!” the man said suddenly. “Ah!” the woman shouted. “Ah! Listen!
Just listen!”
“That’s right, she hit me with a…”
&n
bsp; “And he calls me big mouth! Listen to him!”
“You hit me, Helen, it’s the truth.”
“You pinched me, and that’s the truth!”
“I pinched you ‘cause you hit me.”
“I hit you ‘cause you pinched me.”
“Look, one at a time,” Meyer warned.
“Now what happened?”
“I was washing the dishes,” the woman said. “He came up behind me and pinched me.”
“Tell him, tell him,” the man said, shaking his head. “Nothing sacred between a man and a wife. Blab it all to the police.”
“Then what happened?”
“Then I took a frying pan from the sink, and I hit him with it.”
“On the head,” the man said. “You want to see what she done? Here, just feel this lump.”
“Go ahead, tell him everything,” the woman said.
“You were the one who called the police!” the man shouted.
“Because you threatened to kill me!”
“You hit me with the goddamn frying pan, didn’t you?”
“You got me angry, that’s why.”
“From a little pinch?”
“It was a big pinch. I got a mark from it. You want to see the mark, officer?”
“Sure, go ahead, show him,” the man said. “We’ll make this a burlesque house. Go ahead, show him.”
“How long have you been married?” Meyer asked patiently.
“Twenty-five years,” the man said.
“Twenty-three years,” the woman corrected.
“It seems more like twenty-five,” the man said, and then burst out laughing at his own wit.
“In addition to beating his wife,” the woman said, “he’s also, as you can see, a comedian.”
“I didn’t beat you, I pinched you!”
“Why don’t you both go home and patch it up?” Meyer asked.
“With him? With this rotten animal?”
“With her? With this loud mouth?”
“Come on, come on, it’s springtime, the flowers are blooming, go home and kiss and make up,” Meyer said. “We got enough troubles around here without having to lock you both up.”
“Lock us up?” the man said indignantly. “For what? For a little love tap with a frying pan?”
“For a friendly pinch between husband and wife?” the woman asked.
“We love each other,” the man protested.
“I know you do. So go on home, okay?” Meyer winked at the man. “Okay?”
“Well…”
“Sure,” Meyer said, rising, scooping them both in his wide-spread arms, shoving them toward the gate in the railing. “Nice young couple like you shouldn’t be wasting time arguing. Go on home, it’s a beautiful day, how do you do, sir, can I help you?”
“My name’s Fred Hassler,” Hassler said. “I’ve been here before, but…”
“You mean we can just go?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Meyer said, “go, go. Before I change my mind. Go on, scram.” He turned to Hassler and said, “Yes, sir, I remember you now. Won’t you come in? Don’t pinch her any more, mister! And you lay off the frying pans. Have a seat, Mr. Hassler.”
“Thank you,” Hassler said. He did not seem very interested in the color or atmosphere of the squadroom this time. He seemed very serious, and a trifle angry, and Meyer wondered what had provoked his visit, and then called across the squadroom to where Carella was typing at his own desk.
“Steve, Mr. Hassler’s here. You remember him, don’t you?”
Carella got up from his desk, walked to where Hassler was sitting, and extended his hand. “Hello, Mr. Hassler, how are you?” he asked.
“Fine, thank you,” Hassler said a bit brusquely.
“What can we do for you?” Meyer asked.
“You can get back my stuff,” Hassler replied.
“What stuff?”
“I don’t know if it was you or the Forty Thieves who took it, but somebody took it, and I want it back.”
“Is something missing from your apartment, Mr. Hassler?” Carella asked.
“Yes, something is missing from my apartment. I’m not saying it was the police. It might have been the firemen. But…”
“You think the firemen took it?”
“I’m saying it’s possible. They break into an apartment and next thing you know, everything is sticking to their fingers. Well, this time a citizen is complaining. A citizen has a right to complain, hasn’t he?”
“Certainly, Mr. Hassler. What’s missing?”
“To begin with, I’m a good sleeper.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes. I don’t usually have trouble. But they’ve begun construction on our block, and last night they were making such a terrible racket that I went to the medicine chest to get some of these sleeping pills that I had one time when I had the flu, it must have been in nineteen fifty-nine.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, I had this high fever, a hundred and two, almost a hundred and three, and I couldn’t sleep, so I got these pills, they’re called Barbinal, you take one and it knocks you out like a light for the whole night. I had four of those pills left in a bottle from the time I had the flu in nineteen fifty-nine.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Yes, well last night I couldn’t sleep so I went to the medicine chest figuring I would take one of those Barbinals, and I found the bottle all right, but it was empty.”
“The pills were gone?”
“All four of them. So I knew the firemen had been in the apartment at the time of the explosion, and I also knew the police had been crawling all over it, so I automatically figured. That was the first thing.”
“Something else was missing, Mr. Hassler?”
“Mmmm,” Hassler said grimly. “This morning, when I got up, I thought I’d just make a check of the apartment to see what else had been stolen. Well, a whole reel of film is missing.”
“Film?”
“Movie film. I told you I was a bug on movies, I keep them all stored in my living room, the reels, in these metal containers, you know? And on the cover of each container, there’s a strip of adhesive tape and it gives the date and tells what’s on the reel. Well, a reel is missing.”
“Perhaps you misplaced it, Mr. Hassler.”
“I didn’t misplace it. Those reels are all filed chronologically in a wooden case I made myself, with a space for each reel, and one of those spaces is empty. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like my pills back, and also my film.”
“We haven’t got either, Mr. Hassler.” Carella paused. “It’s possible, you know, that Tommy and Irene took those pills. To put themselves to sleep.”
“I thought they drank themselves to sleep.”
“They may have taken the pills, Mr. Hassler.”
“Did they take my film, too? They were both half-naked and dead, and my film wasn’t anywhere on them. Besides, Tommy didn’t like that particular reel.”
“Tommy saw this reel?”
“Saw it? He was in it.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Hassler?”
“I told you the first time I was up here that Tommy used to help me with my movies. I got this bug, you know, can I help it? So this one was the story of a guy who’s broke, and he’s walking in the park and he finds a hundred-dollar bill. So Tommy and I went over to Grover Park one afternoon, and we shot the whole thing, almost three hundred feet in one afternoon. There’s only Tommy in it-no, wait a minute, there’s also a little kid we found in the park and asked him to be in the picture. The way the plot goes, you see, Tommy finds this bill and then has to decide…”
“Tommy acted in this film, Mr. Hassler, is that right?”
“That’s right.” Hassler paused. “He wasn’t a professional actor, you know, but what the hell, we were doing it for kicks, anyway. It came out pretty good.” He shrugged. “Tommy didn’t like it, though. He said he needed a haircut, and it made his face look too thin. Anyway, I liked it, and I want it
back.”
“But you see, we haven’t got it,” Carella said.