by Ed McBain
But in spite of his resolve, and perhaps because he too had something to celebrate—the supermarket score on Monday, the newly acquired knowledge that the Reed house alarm could be knocked out simply by cutting the telephone wires—or perhaps because he truly did feel more relaxed with her than with any square girl he had ever known, he found himself drinking along with her, not as much as she was drinking, pacing himself so that he was always at least a drink behind her, but drinking nonetheless. When she started getting a little silly—this was after her fourth martini, he was beginning to think the girl had a hollow leg and the drinks would never affect her—he told himself it was no good sitting with somebody who was getting high unless you were getting a little high yourself. And partly because he didn’t want to be left behind when the fun started, partly because she kept urging him to catch up, he decided another one or two wouldn’t hurt, so long as he kept the situation well in control, so long as he remembered there were secrets to guard, this girl was a square, he must never forget she was a square.
He found this difficult to remember after they’d finished the pitcher of martinis and were making love on the living-room sofa, Jessica opening the robe but not taking it off, the towel falling loose from her head, he found it very difficult to remember that she wasn’t a practiced whore. He told her this, told her in an unguarded moment (though he was still in complete control, even if they were both laughing a lot), told her she was better than half the whores he’d ever laid, and she laughed and said Oh, have you laid a lot of whores? He told her he’d laid a thousand of them at least, and they both laughed again, and she asked him to tell her the things whores did, and he started to tell her, and then remembered she was a square, and quickly said I’m putting you on, I’ve never laid a whore in my life.
He felt good making love to this girl, he’d actually told her the truth (though in an unguarded moment), it really was better with her than with the whores. But the lovemaking took the edge off the good fine high they’d been building, and when she suggested that he mix them another pitcherful of martinis (The idea is to get smashed, Alex, you’re forgetting the whole idea), he got off the sofa and went to the bar, and began pouring gin into the pitcher, and she told him to go a little easier on the vermouth this time, You’ve got a very heavy hand with the vermouth, Alex. Stirring, he listened to the ice rattling in the pitcher, and felt the sides of the pitcher growing colder and colder under his hand, and remembered the time he’d lost his gloves, it was a job he was on in the wintertime, he’d lost his gloves, his fuckin hands got so cold he almost couldn’t pick the lock on the front door—and quickly put this out of his mind because it was a secret, he had to be very careful about guarding his secrets.
He carried the martini pitcher back to the sofa and poured their glasses full again, and Jessica drank a toast to her husband Michael the prick and said Dear God, now please make him sign the agreement, and Alex clinked his glass against hers and said Amen. They got into a discussion about God then, whether they believed in God, whether they considered themselves religious or not, a very serious solemn discussion in a boozy way, and then Jessica asked if he thought God was a woman, and Alex replied that God was probably a Polish woman, and this reminded Jessica of the latest Polish joke she’d heard. This Polish man comes home, finds his wife in bed with his best friend, runs to his dresser drawer, pulls out a gun, and holds it to his own head, planning to shoot himself in the head. His wife bursts out laughing. He looks at her, the gun still to his head, and he says Don’t laugh, you’re next! Alex burst out laughing and then poured her glass full again when she held it out to him. He swallowed what was left in his own glass and then poured himself another drink. Tell me about all those whores, Jessica said. What do all those whores do, Alex?
He wasn’t about to tell her anything about the whores, hell with her. He glanced down at the way she was sitting, and suddenly and impulsively said The Open Robe, by Seymour Hair, and Jessica laughed and said Oh, do you know book-title jokes, I love book-title jokes, and then told one of her own, The Russian Revenge by I. Kutcha Kokoff. Alex said Some kind of publishing business you must’ve been in, and then said The Yellow Stream by I. P. Daley, and Jessica said Hawaiian Paradise by Awana Lei-A Hua, and Alex said The Chinese Lament by Wun Hung Low, and Jessica said I just made one up, The Rapist’s Tale by Dick Daring, and they both burst out laughing again.
Come on, Jessica said, tell me about all your whores. He told her again he didn’t know any whores, but he said a guy he knew, an electrician in the theater, had told him about a one-legged whore up in Harlem, the guys were always after her, it was a remarkable thing. Jessica wanted to know did she do it standing up on crutches, and Alex said he didn’t know how she did it, he had never had the pleasure, though she was supposed to be something special. Am I something special, Jessica asked, and he told her she was something very special indeed, and she asked How special am I? and he said Very very special, and then she said Do you love me, Alex? and he said Sure, I love you. Then tell me about your whores, she said.
He poured himself another drink instead of telling her about the whores, and she held out her glass for him to fill, and they sat there drinking, and suddenly he found himself telling her his mother was an alcoholic, did she know his mother was an alcoholic? Jessica said No, she hadn’t known that, and again got very serious in a boozy way and asked Alex to tell her about it, and he just shrugged and said Well, she’s a drunk, she was a drunk even when I was a kid, even before my father left home; I think that’s why he left, in fact, cause she was always drinking all the time. And then, without warning, he certainly hadn’t planned to tell her this, he’d felt in fact that he was in complete control of the situation (he hadn’t told her about the whores, had he?) he heard himself telling her about the first burglary he’d ever committed. He told it to her in detail, it had been a very crude burglary, he’d just gone in through the window, climbed the fire escape and gone in through the window, this was in the Bronx, a building maybe six blocks from where he lived at the time. He was only seventeen, all he got out of it was a portable radio and $30 in cash, didn’t even know about fences then, kept the radio in his room, told his mother he’d won it at a church bazaar.
Jessica didn’t seem shocked by the revelation, didn’t even seem to understand completely that he’d just admitted to a burglary, said instead she used to steal things when she was a kid, too, went into the five-and-ten with a friend of hers, stole things from the counter. And then, maybe because it annoyed him that she hadn’t quite understood what he’d just told her (Was he talking to the goddamn wall?), he heard himself telling her all about the burglary that time he got busted, that time the Hawk busted him. And then he told her all about Sing Sing, and about meeting Tommy Palumbo up there, and about the things guys did in prison, though they’d never got to him, he wasn’t one of your penitentiary punks, he wasn’t weak like some of the other guys. Jessica laughed and said Come on, you got that out of a book, and he said What book? I could write a fuckin book on the subject, that’s the book I got it out of. And he went on to tell her about the Rothman burglary he’d done just two weeks ago, and about running into that old lady in White Plains—Jesus, she stunk of death, do you know what that smells like, do you know the stink of death? Jessica said he got that out of a book, too, that was in Ernest Hemingway’s book (she had a little trouble pronouncing his name, it came out more like Erns Hemway) where Pilar is telling about death, about kissing the women in the marketplace, that’s where he’d got that one. Alex said No, this happened only last week, I went in there and this old lady was sitting there in bed, I nearly shit my pants, I’m telling you. Then he told her about being lay-in man on Archie’s supermarket job, and he told her all about the job they were planning for next Thursday, about how simple the job was, all they had to do was cut the telephone wires, though finding the box once they got inside there was another matter, they still didn’t know where the box was. He mentioned the one-legged whore again, mentioned
her by name, said Daisy, the one-legged whore I was telling you about, and this time Jessica looked at him through her lidded eyes, and she hiccupped, and then kept right on looking at him, and finally said Oh, come on. He told her it was true, would he lie to her, for Christ’s sake? And she said he was just making all this up, the way he’d made up the story about the two bank robbers when they were up in Stockbridge (she had a little trouble with the name of the town, too, pronouncing it Starbridge), she’d had such a good time that weekend, wasn’t that a great weekend, Alex?
He told her it had been a very good weekend, and he apologized for having forced her to run out and buy a bra, it was just that he knew so many whores, he didn’t want anybody thinking she was a whore, too. Jessica said What do they do, these whores? Tell me what they do. Give me a few pointers, Alex. He said No, no, whattya wanna know about whores for, you think it’s good to be a whore, it ain’t good to be a whore. It ain’t good to be a burglar either, you think it’s good to be a burglar? What I’m gonna do after the Reed job, I’m gonna pull out, buy myself a house someplace, this is gonna be a terrific score, Jess, I can afford to pull out after this one. This is the one I been lookin for all along, I knock this one off, I’m gonna get out of it, that’s the truth. Well, good, she said, you get out of it, and I’ll get out of it down in Haiti, and then we’ll both be out of it.
That’s right, he said, we’ll both be out of it.
I feel like dancing, she said, and got up off the sofa and without turning on any music began dancing, using the robe like a stripper, opening and closing it, twirling it around her, and then beginning to giggle helplessly. She collapsed in the middle of the living-room floor, still giggling, sitting there with her legs crossed Indian fashion, and then she asked Alex to bring her her glass, and he brought it to her and sat down beside her, and they clinked glasses, and she said Here’s to getting out of it, and solemnly they drank. Though I don’t believe a word of what you told me, she said.
In the morning, she remembered all of it, and believed it then, and phoned up to his apartment and said Oh, Alex, what are we going to do?
His head was pounding when he put down the phone. They had talked for close to ten minutes, and she confirmed for him the uneasy suspicion that had kept him awake half the night—he had told her everything, it had not been a drunken fantasy, he had told her and she knew. He stumbled out of the bedroom and went directly to the bathroom to brush his teeth, thinking Jesus, I told her. Bending over the sink increased the throbbing at the back of his head, but he brushed his teeth vigorously, trying to obliterate the taste of dead liquor and the memory of what he’d done, the fuckin stupidity of it. She had cried on the phone just now. I love you, Alex, we’ll work this out. Tears. Work shit out, he thought. I’m a burglar. You don’t like what I am, tough.
But as he showered, he remembered some of the other things he’d told her last night. About pulling out. About getting out of it if the Reed job shaped up as big as it looked. Buy a house someplace, maybe ask Jessica to move in with him. They didn’t have to get married, that could wait. They could get married later, if that’s what they decided, but in the meantime they could just live together, there were plenty people just living together these days, even squares. The kid liked him, she’d said herself the kid liked him. Settle down, what the hell. Reed job turned out to be a really good one, he’d have plenty to sock away, live on that a while, on the interest, maybe even get a nine-to-five later on.
Well, he wasn’t so sure about that, putting on a monkey suit and going to an office every day, but there were other things a man could do. Maybe look for a house down there in Miami, where his mother lived with Mr. Tennis Pro, get himself some kind of job that wasn’t a desk job, something outside maybe, the weather down there was terrific, you couldn’t knock the weather down there. And then, you know, he could tell people, he could say This is my wife, Jessica, this here’s my stepson, even before they were married he could do that. Lay around in the sun half the day, he wouldn’t even mind if she went around without a bra down there in Miami, it was different down there, you expected people to dress for the climate, she’d look terrific down there. He’d say This is my wife, and all the squares would shake her hand and say How do you do, Mrs. Hardy?, wanting to get her in the sack but of course they wouldn’t, couldn’t. Go to the races a lot, the fronton, maybe even buy a boat, maybe Lauderdale was the place to go, all those canals down there in Lauderdale, get himself a little boat, park it right outside the house. Kid would love a boat, just see him sitting there holding his bear up to the wind. It was possible. If the Reed score turned out to be what he hoped, why then it was possible.
He’d talk it over with her. Soon as he was dressed, he’d go downstairs and talk it over with her. Well, no, he didn’t want her thinking she owned him or anything, give a girl the idea you were doing all this for her, no, that put her in a position of power, no, he didn’t want to do that. Square girls, you let them think they were running the show, they started holding out on you, it was different with whores. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to just, you know, get his thoughts out in the open. Sober. Tell her sober he was seriously thinking of pulling out after this one, find a house in Lauderdale, go down there with her and the kid. Maybe even go with her when she went to Haiti for the divorce. No strings, there’d be no strings on either one of them, they’d just try it a while, see how it worked out. He wouldn’t even mention marriage to her, not yet he wouldn’t. Anyway, she was just about to get out of one marriage, she probably wouldn’t be in such a hurry to jump into another one. Give it a little time, see how they liked living with each other, that was the way to do it. Girl like Jessica, she’d understand that. He liked that girl, he really liked that goddamn … had he told her he loved her? Last night, had he said I love you, Jess? He supposed he had. He supposed he loved her.
He took two aspirins when he got out of the shower, and then he went into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of tomato juice, and drank two cups of coffee black. He was dressed and ready to go downstairs when the doorbell rang. He went to the door, and threw back the peephole flap, and looked outside. There were two guys standing out there in the hall; he had never seen either of them in his life.
“Yeah, what is it?” he said.
One of them held up a shield. “Police officer,” he said.
The Thirteenth Precinct was on East Twenty-first Street, between Second and Third Avenues. Alex knew the building because the Hawk had taken him there the time he got busted good. It was one of the newer station houses in the city, backing onto the Police Academy, which was on Twentieth Street. Twenty-first was lined with gun shops, and there were always hundreds of rookies in the area; you wandered down there around Gramercy Park, you had the feeling you were in the middle of an enemy army. The building was constructed of white brick, glass, and a polished metal Alex assumed was steel. Even the lettering to the left of the entrance doors was done in the same metal trim: 13th Precinct, it was supposed to read, but the “th” had fallen away from the brick, leaving only its outline. The green lights on either side of the entrance doors were tubular, unlike the globes you found on some of the older precincts. The paint on the one to the right of the doors had chipped away so that there appeared to be one green light and one white light. A huge American flag hung on the outside of the building.
The detectives who’d picked him up led him through the doors, and past the muster desk, and directly to the elevator. Inside the elevator, one of the detectives pressed the button for the second floor. Neither of them said anything to Alex. When they got out of the elevator on B-deck, they went down a corridor Alex remembered well, that fuckin sign on the wall reading DETECTIVES, with a black hand-drawn arrow under it. The blue doors at the end of the corridor opened onto the office of what was called, in the new police setup, the Thirteenth Precinct Investigating Unit. A detective in shirt sleeves sat at a folding table just inside the doors. He was wearing a clamshell shoulder holster, and he was typing. He scar
cely looked up as they came in.
The room looked different to Alex. There were three doors on the wall to his right, they had been there when he’d got busted years ago. But a row of gray metal filing cabinets divided the larger room how, and a hand-lettered sign Scotch-taped to the cabinets read First Detective District, Homicide Squad. As they led him into the room and past the filing cabinets, Alex saw a detective printing a black girl, and it seemed to him that he’d been printed in a different part of the room that time he’d got busted. Everything looked different except the doors to the three offices, and one of them was marked Homicide, and that was the one they were leading him to, and for a minute he got scared because he thought they’d dragged him in here on some fuckin homicide he’d had nothing to do with. But then he saw Detective Hawkins sitting inside the office there, and he knew Hawkins wasn’t in Homicide, so he figured the guys up here were just cramped for space and using whatever offices they could lay their hands on. As he went into the office, in fact, one of the detectives turned over a cardboard sign hanging on the door. On the one side of the sign there was only a lieutenant’s name, but stenciled on the other side were the words INTERROGATION IN PROGRESS. Which meant they didn’t even have an interrogation room up here, he sometimes wondered how cops managed to get any work done at all. One of the detectives closed the door behind him.
“Sit down,” Hawkins said. “You want a cup of coffee or something?”
“What is this?” Alex said.
“It’s a social visit.”
“What kind of social visit, you send two bulls to drag me down here?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” Hawkins said.
“Then why didn’t you come uptown?”