Doors

by Ed McBain

  “Man of few words,” she said.

  “What do you want, Kitty?”

  “Money,” she said.

  “Forget it.”

  “Not for what you think. Not for dope.”

  “Whatever you need it for, I haven’t got it.”

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” she asked.

  “Should I? Six months ago you were shooting a hundred dollars a day.”

  “I’ve kicked it,” she said flatly.

  “Good. I still haven’t got any money to give you.”

  “All I want is a loan.”

  “Go to the shys.”

  “That’ll only get me in deeper. You know that, Alex.”

  “Kitty, I don’t care how deep you’re in, or how deep you’re gonna get in. That’s your business.”

  “You want me to get hurt, man?”

  “I don’t care what happens to you.”

  “That’s not true,” she said.

  “It’s true.”

  “What are you so sore about?” she asked. “You’re the one kicked me out, remember?”

  “Only because you lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie to you. You never asked me was I doing smack, and I never told you. Anyway, what’s that got to do with here and now? I’m off it, I just told you that.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I need two thousand dollars, Alex. I need it right away, or there’s somebody going to hurt me very bad. Now that’s the story, Alex. If we ever meant anything to each other …”

  “Kitty, you are hot stuff,” he said, and shook his head. “You are really the cat’s ass.”

  “I’m in very heavy trouble,” she said. “I took two thousand dollars from a john’s wallet, and it turns out I shouldn’t have done that. He’s not the kind of man anybody should take two thousand dollars from his wallet. He wants it back.”

  “So give it to him.”

  “I can’t. It’s gone.”

  “Who’s got it? Your pimp?”

  “I’m not working with a pimp.”

  “Then where’s the money?”

  “I spent it.”

  “Who’s the man?”

  “His name is Jerry Di Santis. He runs a numbers bank in East Harlem.”

  “Smart. Very smart, Kitty.”

  “I didn’t know what he was, he seemed like a square john. I was working the Algonquin, he picked me up in the bar. This was Saturday night. I waited till he was asleep, and then I …”

  “Saturday night? You mean to tell me you’ve spent two thousand bucks since Saturday?”

  “Sure,” Kitty said simply. “Alex, please, huh? This man isn’t kidding around, he’s been searching for me ever since I ran out with his money. He had a pair of gorillas with him today, they both looked like Sonny Liston, only white.”

  “I don’t have two thousand dollars to give you,” Alex said.

  “You scored last month,” she said. “Vito told me you scored for three grand just last month.”

  “Vito ought to learn to keep his mouth shut.”

  “He thought we were still living together, don’t blame it on Vito. He mentioned it casual, asked how I liked that three-grand score you made.”

  “That’s gone already,” Alex said. “I’ve got a hundred and fifty bucks in my wallet, and that’s it.”

  “Alex, don’t lie to me. This man is going to do terrible things if I don’t come up with his money.”

  “I told you. Go to the shys.”

  “If I once get into them for money, the next thing you know they’ll have me in a Hoboken whorehouse turning five-dollar tricks.”

  “Tough,” Alex said.

  “When will you be working again?” she asked suddenly.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “It’s got to be soon. If you’re down to only a hundred and fifty bucks, it’s got to be soon. I know you, Alex, I lived with you too long. When are you going out again?”

  He did not answer her.

  “Alex,” she said, “is there at least a chance you can help me before Saturday?”

  Again he did not answer.

  “Okay,” she said, and rose from the couch. “You told me what I want to know, I’ll be back tomorrow, Alex.”

  “I won’t be here.”

  “I’ll come, anyway. And if I don’t catch you tomorrow, I’ll be back on Thursday. And again on Friday.”

  “I’ll be out of town,” he said.

  “Alex,” she said, “we used to love each other.”

  “We don’t anymore,” he said.

  “Don’t we? The man said he’d throw acid in my face, Alex. You want the man to do that?”

  “Kitty …”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said.

  “Tomorrow won’t do you any good,” he told her.

  “Then when?”

  He wanted to say Never. He wanted to say Kitty, leave me alone, it’s over and done with, I don’t owe you anything, least of all two thousand dollars.

  “When, Alex?” she asked.

  “I must be out of my fuckin mind,” he said.

  “When will you have the money, Alex? Will you have it by Friday?”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Alex, tell me yes or no. Please. If I can’t count on you, I’ve got to start running. I’ve got to run to China, if that’s far enough.”

  “I’ll have the money for you Friday,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, and went to him, and put her arms around his neck, and gently pressed her body against his.

  “Now get out of here,” he said.

  “You don’t want to?” she said.

  “No.”

  “It doesn’t feel that way,” she said.

  “That’s my wallet.”

  “You afraid of me?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why? You didn’t used to be afraid of me.”

  “I am now. Get out of here, Kitty. I’ll have the money for you Friday. I want it back in a week, I don’t care if you have to roll drunken sailors to get it.”

  She lowered her arms, smiled, and then went out to the foyer, where she put on her shoes and her coat. “You sure?” she asked.

  “Just go,” he said.

  In the morning, he was sorry he’d told Kitty she could have the money. All the while he shaved,” he worried about it. It only made sense that if she didn’t have the money to pay that numbers racketeer, then she wouldn’t have it to pay him, either. In fact, she’d probably spent the two grand on junk, probably rounded up all her junkie friends and had a gay old time shooting up round the clock. So now he was about to hand her another two grand, which she’d probably spend the same way, and the numbers racketeer still wouldn’t get his money back, and she’d still be in trouble, only now Alex would be out two grand as well. He’d been out of his mind, he should have kicked her out the way he’d done six months ago.

  The day was sunny and bright, at least that much was going for him. He was on the corner of Sixty-ninth and Madison by nine-thirty. The mailman arrived at nine-forty-five, and as soon as he was gone, Alex walked up to the coffee shop on Seventieth. He ordered a grapefruit juice and a cup of coffee, drank both, and then went to the phone booth and called the Rothman apartment. It was five past ten. The maid answered the telephone.

  “Hello, may I speak to Mrs. Rothman, please?” he asked.

  “She just went down,” the maid said.

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “A little past twelve.”

  “I’ll call her then. Thank you,” he said, and hung up.

  He paid for the juice and coffee, and then walked down to Sixty-ninth again. The doorman was standing under the awning, his hands on his hips, watching a woman trying to park a Benz across the street. It was twelve minutes past ten, and Alex wanted to check the mailboxes, but he didn’t want to be seen by either the doorman or the elevator operator. He walked to the building, and knelt to tie his s
hoelace just outside the entrance doors. Inside the lobby, he could see women coming out of the elevators and going directly to the mailboxes. They knew what time the mailman came, rain or shine, hail or sleet, and they wanted to get down there as soon as possible to see what he had brought.

  Alex was interested only in finding out what Mrs. Rothman’s habit was. Did she pick up the mail when she left the apartment at ten, or did she pick it up when she returned at noon? It wasn’t imperative that he know this, but it could be helpful tomorrow morning, especially if she normally picked it up at ten. It never hurt to double-check. Suppose he called the apartment tomorrow and got no answer only because Mrs. Rothman was in the shower and couldn’t hear the phone? So he’d go upstairs and find a sixty-one-year-old lady with a towel wrapped around her. On the other hand, if he called and got no answer, and then checked the lobby mailbox and found she’d already picked up her mail, then he could be relatively certain she was out of the apartment as she was supposed to be. Percentages. You tried to weigh them in your favor. He moved away from the building, walked halfway down the street, and then looked back. Old Fat Ass was still at the curb. Alex sighed, walked all the way to Park Avenue, and then started back toward the building again, wondering how he could get the doorman away from those entrance doors.

  He didn’t like this.

  On Monday morning, the doorman had been pretty active running after taxicabs, and that had been a sunny day like today. Alex discounted yesterday’s activity because it had been raining. But it occurred to him that on Monday most of the cab chasing had taken place between nine and nine-thirty. He should have stuck around longer, instead of running off shortly after the mailman arrived. Because if this was normal, if all the doorman had to do between ten and twelve was hang around outside watching the street, Alex would be in trouble tomorrow morning.

  He walked past the building again, behind the doorman, who was standing at the curb. The lobby phone was ringing as he went by, and the doorman hurried into the building to answer it. Alex stationed himself on Madison Avenue and watched the entrance doors. The doorman came out a moment later, crossed directly to a parking garage across the street, and then hurried down the ramp. Alex debated making his move, and decided it had better be now or never. He did not know how long the doorman would be over there, but he had to chance getting into the lobby. He looked at his watch. It was ten-twenty.

  He walked immediately to the building and into the lobby. At the elevator bank, he paused to look up at the floor indicator. The elevator was on the twelfth floor and, as he watched the illuminated bar, the numeral 11 flashed, and then the numeral 10. The elevator was on the way down and would be in the lobby within seconds. Alex stepped quickly into the alcove containing the mailboxes. He knew the Rothmans were in Apartment 16A, and he quickly found the box. There was no mail in it.

  He was starting out of the lobby when the elevator doors opened. He did not break his stride, he continued walking toward the entrance doors, but he could feel the elevator operator’s eyes on him, and he knew he would be challenged.

  “Help you, sir?” the elevator operator said behind him.

  Alex turned with a look of surprise on his face. The elevator operator was a redheaded man with shaving nicks on his chin and cheeks. He was short and squat and ugly and suspicious. His right hand kept twitching at his side as he walked toward Alex, almost as if he were longing to draw a nonexistent six-shooter from a holster.

  “Where’s the doorman?” he asked Alex.

  “I have no idea,” Alex said.

  The elevator operator peered out into the street, as though suspecting Alex had done something to the doorman. Turning back to Alex, he said, “Were you looking for someone, sir?” The “sir” was his insurance. If Alex had legitimate business in the building, the elevator operator could then apologize all to hell, explaining that one couldn’t be too careful these days, sir.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact I am,” Alex said. “I checked the mailboxes, but maybe you can help me.” He reached into his coat pocket and took out a scrap of paper upon which he had scrawled a name and address before leaving his apartment this morning. He had chosen the name at random from the telephone book. The address was the address of this building—except that it was on East Sixty-eighth, a block further downtown. He showed the scrap of paper to the elevator operator.

  “No Ralph Peabody in this building,” the elevator operator said, and then saw the address. “Anyway, you’re too far uptown. “That’s Sixty-eighth you’re looking for.”

  “Isn’t this Sixty-eighth?” Alex asked.

  “This is Sixty-ninth.”

  “Thank you,” Alex said, and took back the scrap of paper. Shaking his head, he walked out of the building. Across the street, the doorman was driving a ’73 Cadillac up from the garage. Alex looked at his watch. The time was ten-twenty-four. As Alex walked up the street to Madison Avenue, the doorman parked the Caddy in front of the building. Not two minutes later, an elderly man in a dark topcoat and a gray homburg came out of the building, followed by the doorman, who went around to the driver’s side of the car and held the door open. The time was ten-twenty-six. Between then and eleven-fifty, the doorman did not move away from the entrance doors. Not once. At noon sharp, Alex was in the coffee-shop phone booth again, dialing the Rothman apartment. The maid answered the phone.

  “Rothman residence,” she said.

  “Mrs. Rothman, please.”

  “She’s not home. Who’s calling, please?”

  “I called a little while ago,” Alex said. “You told me she’d be back by twelve.”

  “I said a little past twelve,” the maid said.

  “All right, I’ll try again in a few minutes,” Alex said, and hung up. At twelve-oh-three, he dialed the number again, and again the maid answered.

  “Rothman residence,” she said.

  “Is Mrs. Rothman back yet?” he asked.

  “Is this you again?” the maid said, and giggled.

  “I’m anxious to talk to her,” Alex said, “I’m sorry to keep bothering you this way.”

  “She should be back any minute,” the maid said. “You want to leave your number, I’ll ask her to call you.”

  “No, I’ll try again,” Alex said. “Thank you.”

  At twelve-oh-seven, he dialed the apartment again. The maid recognized his voice this time. “Just a moment,” she said, “I’ll get her for you.”

  Alex waited.

  “Hello?” a woman’s voice said.

  “Mrs. Rothman?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Arthur Platt calling for the Association of Handicapped Workers. We’re soliciting telephone orders for light bulbs made by the handicapped …”

  “No, I’m sorry.” Mrs. Rothman said. “We have all the light bulbs we need, thank you.”

  “You may order as few as you …”

  “No, I’m sorry,” she said, and hung up.

  He knew all he had to know about the Rothmans now, but he was still worried about that damn lobby. This didn’t look too simple anymore. In fact, it was beginning to look like a bigger risk than he was ready to take. In fact, he began considering calling it off.

  He had a lot of thinking to do.

  Troubled, he headed uptown.

  He caught a hot dog and a bottle of soda pop from a stand on Broadway and then walked up to the park on Riverside Drive. Sitting on a bench in the sunshine, he tried to work out the percentages.

  He was reasonably certain now that Mr. Rothman left the apartment at nine each morning, and that Mrs. Rothman left it at ten. The gambler had reported that Thursday was the maid’s day off, and Alex had no cause to doubt this; Thursday was the usual day off for maids everywhere. He would have to make only one call tomorrow morning, to check on whether the Rothmans had both left the apartment. Once he got into the lobby, he would double-check at the mailbox. If there was no mail in it, then he would go upstairs and make the apartment, certain that it was empty.

 
; The trouble, as he saw it, was getting into the damn lobby. The lobby door was a cinch, and he didn’t expect anything tougher upstairs. But getting into the lobby, and through it to the fire door—that was the problem. If the doorman stayed glued to the entrance between ten and twelve …

  Now, wait a minute, Alex thought.

  At ten-twenty, the doorman had taken a call in the lobby and then rushed across the street to the garage. He’d come out of the garage driving a Caddy about five minutes later, and a few minutes after that a guy in a homburg had come downstairs and driven off. Now if this was a regular thing, if the guy in the homburg called the lobby every morning at twenty after, and told the doorman he was coming down in five minutes, to have his car ready for him, well that meant the doorman would be away from the front of the building for at least five minutes tomorrow morning, and that was plenty of time for Alex to get in and pick the lobby door. If this was a regular thing. But even if it was a regular thing, that meant Alex couldn’t get into the building till ten-twenty, which cut the working time from two hours to only an hour and forty minutes, and that was cutting it real close.

  He didn’t know what to do.

  If it turned out to be a Mickey Mouse box, hell, he could be in and out of the apartment in five minutes flat. But suppose it was something impossible? Damn it, if only he didn’t need the money so bad, he’d … well, what? What else could he do? The maid didn’t know what kind of box it was, Henry’s gambler had pumped her about it, and all she could say was that it was a wall safe. Getting into the lobby was going to be tough as hell, anyway; there’d be no chance for a dry run on this job. Do your dry run, check out the box. If it was a ball-breaker, forget it, man. He wondered now if the job was worth it. He kept stacking a possible seven years against the nine grand he’d be getting. He just didn’t know whether it was worth the risk.

  An hour and forty minutes. To get in the lobby, pick the lobby door, climb sixteen flights of stairs to the Rothman apartment, open the door to the apartment—and who the hell knew what kind of lock he’d run into there—get inside, open the box, and get out before Mrs. Rothman came back at noon. Well, wait a minute, she didn’t get back till about five after twelve this morning, that gave him an extra few minutes. But he wasn’t planning on waiting till she was right outside the front door of the apartment. In fact, to play it perfectly safe, he’d like to be out of there by ten to twelve, five to at the very latest, just in case she decided to cut her walk short. So figure he got in the lobby at twenty past ten and out of the apartment at ten to twelve, that gave him only ninety minutes—it was getting better and better all the time. The hell with this job, he’d call Henry Green and tell him to shove his fuckin job. Let Henry go in there and make the place in ninety minutes. Still, he needed the money. If only he didn’t need the money so bad …