by Ed McBain
“You know,” she said, “that this probably means no vacation, don’t you?”
“I don’t know that at all,” Kling said. “I have no reason to believe that.”
“You are not, if you’ll pardon my pointing it out, writing up a traffic ticket at the moment.”
“Nor did I intend to sound as if I were,” Kling said, amazed by the high level of their argument, thinking at the same time that Claire looked quite lovely when she was angry and wanting simultaneously to kiss the fury off her mouth.
“I realize that the 87th Precinct is just loaded with super masterminds who have all sorts of priority over a dumb rookie who just got promoted. But, for God’s sake, Bert—”
“Claire—”
“You did crack a murder case, you know! And the commissioner did personally commend you and did personally promote you! What do you have to do in order to get a vacation spot that jibes with your fiancée’s schedule? Stop mass fratricide? Cure the common cold?”
“Claire, it’s not a question of—”
“Whatever you have to do, you should have done it!” Claire snapped. “Of all the idiotic times for a vacation, June tenth absolutely takes the brass bologna! Of all the incredibly ridiculous—”
“It’s not my fault, Claire. Claire, the schedule is made out by Lieutenant—”
“…incredibly ridiculous times for a vacation, June tenth positively wins the fur-lined bathtub!”
“All right,” Kling said.
“All right?” she repeated. “What’s all right about it? It reeks! It’s bureaucracy in action! Hell, it’s totalitarianism!”
“It’s a hell of a thing, all right,” Kling agreed. “Would you like me to quit my job? Shall I get a nice democratic position like shoemaker or butcher or—”
“Oh, stop it.”
“If I were a midget,” Kling said, “I could probably get a job stuffing Vienna sausages. Trouble is—”
“Stop it,” she said again, but she was smiling.
“You better?” he asked hopefully.
“I’m sick,” she answered.
“It’s a tough break.”
“Let’s have a drink.”
“Rye neat,” he said.
Claire looked at him. “No need to go all to pieces, Officer,” she said. “It’s not the end of the world. Worst comes to worst, you can go on vacation with some other girl.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Kling said, snapping his fingers.
“And all I’ll do is break both your arms,” Claire said. She poured two hookers of rye and handed one of them to Kling. “Here’s to a solution.”
“You just hit the solution,” Kling said, raising the glass to his lips. “Another girl.”
“Don’t you dare drink to that!” Claire said.
“You’re sure finals don’t begin until the seventeenth?”
“Positive.”
“Can you swing something?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Kling looked into the eye of his glass. “Aw, hell,” he said, “here’s to a solution,” and he threw it down.
Claire swallowed hers without batting an eyelid. “Let’s think,” she said.
“How many tests are there?” Kling asked.
“Five,” she answered.
“When is school over?”
“Classes end on the seventh of June. The next week is a reading week. And then finals start on the seventeenth.”
“When do they end?”
“Two weeks later. That’s when the semester is officially over.”
“June twenty-eighth?”
“Yes.”
“That’s great. I need another drink.”
“No more. We need clear heads.”
“How about you taking your tests during that last week of classes?”
“Impossible.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It just is.”
“Has it ever been done before?”
“I doubt it strongly.”
“Hell, this is an emergency.”
“Is it? Bert, Women’s U is an all-girls school. Can I go to the dean and say I’d like to have permission to take my finals the week of the third because my boyfriend and I are leaving on vacation the following week?”
“Why not?”
“They’d probably expel me. Girls have been expelled for less.”
“Hell, I can’t see anything wrong with that.” Kling thought it over for a moment and then nodded emphatically. “There is nothing at all wrong with going on vacation with your fiancé— not boyfriend, if you please, but fiancé—especially if you plan on getting married soon.”
“You make it sound worse than I did.”
“Then your mind is as evil as your dean’s.”
“And yours, of course, is simon-pure.”
Kling grinned. “Absolutely,” he said.
“It still wouldn’t work.”
“Then give me another drink, and we’ll resort to all kinds of subterfuge.”
Claire poured two more hookers. “Here’s to all kinds of subterfuge,” she toasted. Together, they tossed off the shots, and she refilled the glasses.
“We could, of course, say you were having a baby.”
“We could?”
“Yes. And that you were going to be confined to the hospital during finals, so could you please take them a little earlier? How does that sound?”
“Very good,” Claire said. “The dean would appreciate that.” She tossed off her drink and poured another.
“Go easy there,” Kling advised. He drank his whiskey and held out his glass for a refill. “We need a clear head here—heads, I mean.”
“Suppose…” Claire said thoughtfully.
“Um?”
“No, that wouldn’t work.”
“Let me hear it.”
“No, no, it wouldn’t work.”
“What?”
“Well, I was thinking we could get married and say I had to miss finals because I was going on my honeymoon. How’s that?”
“If you’re trying to scare me,” Kling said, “you’re not.”
“I thought you wanted to wait until I graduated.”
“I do. Don’t tempt me.”
“Okay,” Claire said. “Whoosh, I’m beginning to feel that booze.”
“Keep a tight grip,” Kling said. He thought silently for a moment. “Get me a pen and some paper, will you?”
“What for?”
“Letter to the dean,” Kling said.
“All right,” Claire answered.
She walked across the room to the secretary, and Kling said, “You wiggle very nice.”
“Keep your mind on your work,” Claire said.
“You are my work. You’re my life’s work.”
Claire giggled and came back to him. She put her hands on his shoulders, leaned over, and kissed him fiercely on the mouth.
“You’d better go get the pen and paper,” he said.
“I’d better,” she answered. She walked away again, and again, he watched her. This time, she returned with a fountain pen and two sheets of stationery. Kling put the paper on the coffee table, uncapped the pen, and asked, “What’s the dean’s name?”
“Which one? We have several.”
“The one in charge of vacations.”
“None such.”
“Permissions?”
“Anna Kale.”
“Miss or Mrs.?”
“Miss,” Claire said. “There are no such things as married deans.”
“Dear Miss Kale,” Kling said out loud as he wrote. “How’s that for a beginning?”
“Brilliant,” Claire said.
“Dear Miss Kale: I am writing to you on behalf of my daughter, Claire Townsend—”
“What’s the penalty for forgery?” Claire asked.
“Shhhh,” Kling said. “On behalf of my daughter, Claire Townsend, who requests permission to take her final examinations during the week of
June third rather than during the scheduled examination period.”
“You should have been a writer,” Claire said. “You have a natural style.”
“As you know,” Kling went on, writing, “Claire is an honor student…” He paused. “Are you?”
“Phi Bete in my junior year,” Claire said.
“A bloody genius,” Kling said and then went back to the letter. “Claire is an honor student and can be trusted to take her exams without revealing their content to any students who will be tested at a later date. I would not make such an urgent request were it not for the fact that my sister is leaving for a tour of the West on June tenth—”
“A tour of the West!” Claire said.
“…a tour of the West on June tenth,” Kling went on, “and has offered to take her niece with her. This is an opportunity that should not be bypassed, adding—I feel—more to a young girl’s education than a strict compliance to schedule could offer. I hope you will agree the experience should be a rewarding one, and I know you would not put red tape into the way of a trip that would undoubtedly enrich one of your students. Trusting your decision will be the right one. I remain respectfully yours, Ralph Townsend.” Kling held the letter at arm’s length. “How’s that?” he asked.
“It’ll make a fine Exhibit A for the state,” Claire said.
“Screw the state,” Kling said. “How about the letter?”
“My father hasn’t got any sisters,” Claire said.
“A slight oversight,” Kling said. “What about the drama of the appeal?”
“Excellent,” Claire said.
“Think she’ll buy it?”
“What have we got to lose?”
“Nothing. I need an envelope.” Claire rose and went to the secretary.
“Stop wiggling,” he called after her.
“It’s natural,” she answered.
“It’s too natural,” Kling said. “That’s the trouble.”
He began doodling while she searched for an envelope. She found the envelope and started back across the room, walking as rigidly as she could, inhibiting the instinctive sway of her hips.
“That’s better,” Kling said.
“I feel like a robot.”
She handed him the envelope, and he quickly scrawled Miss Anna Kale across its face. He folded the letter, put it into the envelope, sealed the envelope, and then handed it to Claire. “You are to deliver this tomorrow,” he said. “Without fail. The fate of a nation hinges on your mission.”
“I’m more interested in your doodling,” Claire said, looking down at the drawing Kling had inked onto one of the stationery sheets.
“Oh, that,” Kling said. He expanded his chest. “I was an ace in art appreciation, you know.”
He had drawn a heart on the sheet of paper. He had put lettering into the heart. The completed masterpiece looked like this:
“For that,” Claire said, “you deserve a kiss.” She kissed him. She probably would have kissed him anyway, heart or no. Kling was, nonetheless, surprised and delighted. He accepted Claire’s kiss, and her lips completely wiped out of his mind any connection he may have made between his own artistic endeavor and the tattoos found on the 87th’s floaters.
He never knew how close he’d come to solving at least one mystery.
The second floater’s name was Nancy Mortimer.
Her body had been identified by her parents who’d come from Ohio at the request of the police. She was thirty-three years old, a plain girl with simple tastes. She had left home two months ago, heading for the city. She had taken $2,000 in cash with her. She had told her parents she was going to meet a friend. If things went well, she’d told them, she would bring the friend home for them to meet.
Things, apparently, had not gone well.
The girl had been in the River Harb, according to the autopsy report, for at least a month.
And, according to the same report, the girl had died of arsenic poisoning.
There is an old Arab saying.
Actually, it is said by young Arabs, too. It fits many occasions, and so it is probably used with regularity. It is:
Show them the death, and they will accept the fever.
We don’t have to look for hidden meanings in this gem of Arabian wisdom. The Freudian con men would probably impart thanatopsic values to what is undoubtedly an old folk saying. We don’t have to do that. We can simply look at it for what it is and understand it for what it says.
It says:
Feed a man gravel, and he will then appreciate hardtack.
It says:
Bed a man down with an aged old crone, and he will then appreciate a middle-aged mah-jongg player.
It says:
Show them the death, and they will accept the fever.
Priscilla Ames had seen the death and was ready to accept the fever. In her native town of Phoenix, Priscilla Ames had gone out with many men who had considerably lowered her estimation of the species. She had seen the death, and after a considerably lengthy correspondence with a man whose address she’d got from a pen pal magazine, she was now ready to accept the fever.
To her delighted surprise, the fever turned out to be a delirium.
A blind date, after all, is something about which you exercise a little caution. When you travel away the hell from Phoenix to meet a man—even though you’ve already seen that man’s picture, even though the picture looked good, but hadn’t she sent a somewhat exotic pose, too, hadn’t she cheated a little in the exchange of photos—you don’t expect to meet a knight in shining armor. You approach cautiously.
Especially if you were Priscilla Ames, who had long ago dismissed such knights as figments of the imagination.
But here, by God, was a knight in shining armor.
Here, by all that was holy, was a shining resplendent man among men, a towering blond giant with a wide, white grin and laughing eyes, and a gentle voice, and a body like Apollo!
Here, by the saints, was the answer to every young maiden’s prayer, the devoutly sought answer, the be-all and the end-all!
Here—was a man!
You could have knocked Priscilla over with a Mack truck. She had stepped off the plane, and there he was, coming toward her, grinning, and she had felt her heart quickening and then immediately thought, No, he’s made a mistake; it’s the wrong man, and then she knew it was the right man, the man she’d possibly been waiting for all her life.
That first day had sung, absolutely sung. Being in this magical, wonderful city, and drinking in the sights, and hearing the noise and the clamor, and feeling wonderfully alive again, and feeling above all his presence beside her, the tentative touch of his fingers on her arm, gentle with the promise of force. He had taken her to lunch and then to her hotel, and she had not been out of his sight since. It had been two weeks now, and she still could not adjust to the miracle of him. Ecstatically, she wondered if her life with this man would always be like this, would always be accompanied by a reckless headiness. Good Lord, she was drunk on him!
She stood before the mirror in her hotel bedroom now, waiting for him. She looked prettier, she felt. Her hair looked browner, and her eyes had more sparkle, and her breasts seemed fuller, and her hips seemed more feminine, and all because of him, all because of what he did to her. She wore his love like bright-white armor.
When she heard his knock on the door, she ran to open it. He was wearing a deep-blue trench coat, and the rain had loosened a wisp of his blond hair so that it hung boyishly on his forehead. She went into his arms instantly, her mouth reaching for his.
“Darling, darling,” she said, and he held her close to him, and she could smell tobacco on him and aftershave, and she could smell, too, the close smell of rain-impregnated cloth.
“Pris,” he said, and the word was a caress. No one had ever said her name the way he said it. No one had ever made it an important name, a name that was hers alone. He held her at arm’s length and looked down at her. “You’re beautiful,” he sai
d. “How come I’m so lucky?”
She never knew what to say in answer to his compliments. At first, she suspected he was simply flattering her. But there was sincerity and honesty about this man, and she could read truth in his eyes. Whatever her shortcomings, she felt this man honestly believed she was beautiful, and witty, and vivacious.
“I’ll get an umbrella,” she said.
“We don’t need one,” he answered. “It’s a nice rain, Pris, warm. Do you mind? I like to walk in the rain. I’d like to walk in the rain with you.”
“Whatever you say,” she answered. She looked up at him. I must look like a complete idiot, she thought. He must surely see adoration in my eyes. He must think I’m a stupid child instead of a grown woman. “Where…where are we going tonight?” she asked.
“A wonderful place for dinner,” he said. “We have a lot of talking to do.”
“Talking?”
“Yes,” he said. He saw the frown on her face, and his eyes twinkled. His fingers touched her forehead, smoothing out the frown. “Stop looking so serious,” he chided. “Don’t you know I love you?”
“Do you?” she asked, and there was fear in her eyes for a moment.
Then he pulled her to him and said, “Of course, I love you, Pris. Pris, I love you,” and the fear vanished.
She buried her head in his shoulder, and there was a small smile of contentment on her mouth.
They walked in the rain.
It was, as he had promised, a warm rain. It touched the city gently. It roved the concrete canyons like a wistful maiden looking for her lost lover. It spoke in whispers, spoke to the buildings and the gutters and the park benches deserted and alone, and it spoke to the new green of the trees and to the growing things pushing to the sky, pushing through the warm, moist earth. It spoke in syllables as old as time, and it spoke to Priscilla and her man, spoke to two lovers who threaded their way across the city arm in arm, cradled in the warmth of the song of the rain.