Doors
Page 26
They walked down the road together and then scaled the wall around the Reed property. The rain pattered gently on the leaves as they worked their way through the woods toward the house; a faint mist was rising underfoot. They came out onto the driveway and walked directly to the front door of the house. There was no one in sight. Archie reached out and pressed the bell button. They heard chimes inside. They waited. No one came to the door. Archie rang again, and again, the chimes sounded.
“What do you think?” he whispered.
“Give it a few minutes,” Alex said.
“Don’t want Reed to hear the chimes over in the fuckin studio.”
“Kitty’s taking care of him, don’t worry.”
Archie pressed the bell button again. There was the sound of the chimes. There was the sound of the falling rain.
“What do you say?” Archie whispered.
“Let’s hit it,” Alex said.
They celebrated in Daisy’s apartment that night.
There was whiskey and beer and deli they’d sent out for. They ate a lot and drank a lot, but mostly they went over what had happened that afternoon at the Reed house, telling the same stories two and three times over, and laughing each time. They were like a troupe of amateur actors at the cast party following a performance. Their stories were anecdotal, they were there less to inform Daisy than to relive for themselves the highlights of the action. They broke in on each other often, Kitty remembering something that had happened out in the studio, Archie interrupting with a story of his own, barely able to get it out before Alex broke in. Daisy sat there on the sofa, listening mostly. There was green eye shadow on her lids, bright red lipstick on her mouth. She looked like a great Egyptian whore or something, amber eyes darting from face to face as they told their stories, cat eyes, a faint smile on her mouth.
“… we’d never find that fuckin box,” Archie said. “First time I ever run across one like that,” Alex said.
“I like that man you got out there,” Kitty said. “I really do like him. He’s a gentleman.”
“Oh, he’s a gentleman, all right,” Daisy said. She held out her glass for Alex to fill, shifting her weight on the couch, her dress riding up on the thigh of her good leg. She caught his glance and lifted her eyebrows in surprise, and watched him steadily as he filled her glass, cat eyes, Egyptian whore eyes.
“Oh, shit,” Archie said, and burst out laughing. “When you knocked over that vase, man, I thought I’d have a hemorrhage. Daise, you never heard anything so loud in your life. Thing hit that stone floor, sounded like a bomb going off. You didn’t hear it out there, Kitty?”
“Man, we didn’t hear nothing out there,” Kitty said. “That Reed’s got a one-track mind, you coulda been starting World War III in that house, he wouldn’t have heard nothing.”
“Wait’ll he sees that bedroom,” Archie said, and laughed.
“He’s already seen it by now,” Alex said.
“We made a mess in there, you never seen such a mess. Now that was your World War III, Kitty. We took that fuckin room apart looking for the box. You know where the box was?”
“You already told us where the box was,” Kitty said.
“In the floor!” Archie said, as though revealing a fresh secret. “Had the box under one of the stones in the floor. Alex was the one found the box.”
“No, you found it, Arch.”
“No, all I did was say one of the stones was loose, watch you don’t trip over it.”
“That’s what gave me the clue, though. You ever see anything like that? You ever come across a box in the floor?”
“Never.”
“That was no cinch box either, I got to tell you.”
Kitty suddenly began laughing, and then said to Daisy, “He says going, Reed does. Instead of coming, he says going. He asked me did I go? I said What you mean did I go? He says did I make you go? Then I realize he means did I come? I told him Why sure, honey, I went clear to California and back. What you got him thinkin up there, Daise? You got him thinkin he brings you off?”
“He damn near did once,” Daisy said.
“Got a new muscle on my arm, workin on that box,” Archie said.
“Thought we’d never beat that fuckin box,” Alex said.
“How come you don’t know furs?” Archie asked Daisy.
“I know mink, man, that’s what I know,” Daisy said.
“That one mink in there, it was a black diamond mink, full-length,” Archie said.
“That was sable on the collar,” Alex said.
“That coat alone was worth six grand,” Archie said. “You know how much them furs were worth altogether? How come you don’t know about furs, Daise? Seventeen thousand bucks, those furs. Vito looks at them, he nods his head, he says Very nice, boys. He’s like a fuckin college professor, Vito.”
“Right, a college professor,” Alex said, and laughed.
“Very nice, boys, and he hands us five thousand bucks, says he’s rounding it off. Alex says Whutchoo mean, man, rounding it off? Those furs are worth seventeen grand, we want fifty-one hundred, never mind rounding it off. Fuckin Vito, tryin to shortchange us a lousy C-note.”
“We got it, though,” Alex said. “How you doin there, Daise? You want a little more of this?”
“Sure,” she said, and held out her glass. Alex got up from where he was sitting and walked to the sofa with the bottle in his hand. Leaning over her, he poured into the glass, and she watched him steadily with her Egyptian cat eyes, and then said, “Easy, man. You get me drunk, I’ll be no good to you.”
“You gonna be good to me?” he said.
“Depends,” she said, and smiled.
“Opened that box, near fell over dead,” Archie said. “The stuff in that fuckin box! Man has to be crazy keepin stuff like that in the house.”
“Well, where’s he gonna keep it?” Alex said. “Wife wants to put on one of those bracelets, what’s she gonna do, run over to the bank?”
“I couldn’t believe that one bracelet. An inch wide, musta been five hundred round diamonds in the …”
“Was the marquise diamonds gave it the value,” Alex said.
“Sixty-five grand, holy shit!” Archie said, and slapped his thigh.
“Sure, they totaled twenty-seven carats, those marquise diamonds.”
“Job would have been worth it for the bracelet alone.”
“The ring and the bracelet. Them two alone would’ve made it a big one.”
“You shoulda seen that ring, Kitty,” Archie said. “Three diamonds in it, an engagement ring. Two pear-shaped diamonds, each about two carats. Ain’t that what Henry said, Alex? About two carats each?”
“Give or take.”
“And this big round diamond in the middle, how many carats did he say that was?”
“Eighteen.”
“Man!” Archie said.
“You know how much that ring is worth?” Alex asked Daisy.
“How much, honey?” she said.
“Seventy-five thousand. That ring and the bracelet, them two would’ve made it a big score all by themselves.”
“Biggest score I ever made in my fuckin life,” Archie said. “Even splitting it. Biggest ever. You ever make a bigger score, Alex?”
“Never.”
“You girls’ll be able to retire, your end of it,” Archie said.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Kitty said.
“You think I’m foolin? You know how much we took out of that place?”
“How much?”
“The jewels was more than four hundred alone, and another seventeen for the furs …”
“It was four twenty-two total,” Alex said. “Close to what we figured, Arch. Damn close to what we figured.”
“Four twenty-two, right. So what’s thirty percent of that?”
“Close to a hun twenty-seven.”
“Right, and you girls get to split fifteen percent of that …”
“I thought you said we’d get ten thousand each,” D
aisy said.
“That’s if it was half-a-million,” Archie said.
“I was countin on ten thousand.”
“That’s when we were countin on half-a-million. But it’s only four twenty-two, that’s the fair count, we ain’t short-changin you like that fuckin Vito. Now what’s fifteen percent of our end, Alex?”
“Give them the ten,” Alex said.
“What for?”
“They’re supposed to split close to nineteen grand. So make it an even ten each, what the hell.”
“Man, you mighty generous with my money,” Archie said.
“Break your heart, Archie,” Kitty said.
“What the hell,” Archie said, and laughed. “Give them ten each, you’re right, what the hell. This is the biggest fuckin score I ever made, what the hell. We all worked for it, am I right? What the hell.”
They sat around drinking and talking till close to midnight, and then Kitty asked if she could have her piece of the money, or at least her piece of what they’d got so far, cause she was anxious to go find Transit and pay off what she owed him, tell the son of a bitch he ever came near her again she’d have him busted for molesting her. They had received fifty-one hundred from Vito and seventy-five thousand from Henry, so they did a little arithmetic and decided they could let the girls have six thousand apiece right now, and another four when Henry paid them the balance. Kitty counted the bills and then immediately handed two thousand dollars to Alex.
“We’re even now, right?” she said.
“That does it,” Alex said.
“Okay,” she said. “I got to run now, go tell Transit what I think of him.”
“I’ll go with you,” Archie said. “I want to head uptown, see my social worker.”
“Think I’ll hang around, have a little nightcap,” Alex said. “That okay with you, Daisy?”
“Yeah, fine,” Daisy said.
She got up onto her crutches and went to the door to let Archie and Kitty out, leaving her money on the coffee table. Archie and Kitty said good night, and then went out, and Daisy locked the door behind them and put the Fox lock in place, wedging the buttress bar against the door. On the stairwell outside, Archie yelled something to them, but they couldn’t understand what he’d said. In a few minutes, they heard Kitty’s laughter on the sidewalk outside.
“Better put this away,” Daisy said, picking up the money. “Next thing I know you’ll be ripping me off.” She hobbled toward the bedroom, and then hesitated in the doorway, and turned toward him, and said, “So you’re gonna have a little nightcap with ole Daisy, huh?”
“That’s my plan,” he said.
“Mm,” she said, and smiled. “Fix one for me, too, okay? I won’t be a minute.”
She went into the bedroom, and he heard a dresser drawer opening and closing. Daisy started humming something then, a tune he didn’t recognize. He poured the drinks and listened to her humming in there, and then he sat on the sofa to wait for her. When she came back into the room, she was wearing a long silk robe belted at the waist. She sat beside him on the sofa and said, “That was nice of you, Alex. Going to the full ten, I mean.”
“Well, we all worked for it,” Alex said.
“What you gonna do with your share of it?”
“Who the hell knows?” he said. “It never lasts that long.”
“That’s right, it never does.”
“This was a big one, but shit, it wasn’t no once-in-a-lifetime score. It wasn’t nothin’ a man could retire on. Anyway, I get itchy,” he said. “I sit around too long, I get itchy.”
“Mm,” she said. “Give me your hand, baby.” At two in the morning, he woke up in Daisy’s bed, and for a moment didn’t know where he was. He sat up against the pillows and blinked into the room, trying to distinguish shapes in the darkness, and saw her crutches leaning against the foot of the bed, and remembered then where he was. And remembered, too, that he’d promised to call Jessica the minute he got back to the city. He debated getting out of bed and going into the living room, where the phone was, call her now, tell her something important had come up, tell her …
Fuck her, he thought, and lay down again beside Daisy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ed McBain is one of the many pen names of legendary author Evan Hunter (1926–2005). Named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, Hunter is best known for creating the long-running 87th Precinct series, which followed an ensemble cast of police officers in the fictional city of Isola. A pioneer of the police procedural, he remains one of the best-loved mystery novelists of the twentieth century. Hunter also wrote under the pseudonyms Richard Marsten, Hunt Collins, John Abbott, Ezra Hannon, Curt Cannon, and others.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The poem on page 20 originally appeared in the New Yorker © 1963.
Copyright © 1975 by Ed McBain
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3928-4
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