Fiddlers

by Ed McBain

  ‘They used to have these Friday night dances at Our Lady of Grace,’ Geoffrey said. ‘The guys used to line up around the block, waiting to dance with her. Just to get close to her, you know? Those tits, you know?’

  Parker could just imagine.

  ‘And she fell right into my lap,’ Geoffrey said, rolling his eyes. ‘I mean, talk about letting the fox into the chicken coop.’

  Genero figured he’d got that backwards.

  Parker was a little envious. Beautiful, uninhibited fifteen-year-old coming to work in your father’s restaurant? His own father had never even owned a hot-dog stand!

  ‘How long did she work here, would you know?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course I know! Two years. Left when she was seventeen. Went to manicuring school to get a license. Never heard from her since.’ Geoffrey hesitated. ‘Best two years of my life,’ he said, and sighed longingly.

  Parker almost sighed with him.

  * * * *

  That Friday afternoon, as they sat at an outdoor table on the sidewalk of a place called Rimbaud’s in a small town perched on a river upstate, eating ice-cream sundaes and sipping thick black espressos, she said, out of the blue, ‘Chaz, from now on, I don’t want to charge you.’

  He looked across the table at her.

  And suddenly his eyes brimmed with tears.

  She was so startled, she almost began crying herself.

  ‘Chaz?’ she said. ‘Chaz?’ and reached across the table to take his hand. ‘What is it, honey? Please, what is it?’

  He shook his head.

  Tears spilling down his cheeks.

  He took out a handkerchief, dabbed at his eyes.

  ‘I wish I’d met you sooner,’ he said.

  ‘Any sooner, you’d be a pedophile,’ she said, and smiled across the table at him, and kept holding his hand.

  He began laughing through his tears.

  ‘Are you doing this because it hasn’t been working for us?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘It has been working.’

  ‘I meant… the sex.’

  ‘Oh, that’ll be fine,’ she said airily, ‘don’t worry about it. We just need more practice at it.’

  He nodded, said nothing.

  ‘We’ve just met each other,’ she said, enforcing her point. ‘We have to keep at it, is all. Learn each other. We have plenty of time.’

  He still said nothing.

  “The sex is nothing, I’m ready to wait forever for it to work,’ she said. ‘You want to know why? Because you’re not like anyone I’ve ever met. Some guys, in the middle of the night, they like to start complaining about their wives, you know? I know you haven’t got a wife, I’m just trying to explain something. They do that because they suddenly feel guilty about being in bed with a whore. So they blame it on the wife. The wife does this, the wife doesn’t do that, it’s all the wife’s fault.

  ‘Other guys, they like to tell you how brainy they are, or how macho they are. Middle of the night. This is because they’re paying to get laid, and they want you to realize they don’t have to pay for it if they choose not to, they are really something quite special, and they want you to appreciate this. Some of them, if you don’t appreciate how marvelous they are, they start smacking you around. Those are the ones who are so very marvelous that they may knock out a girl’s teeth or break her arm or suddenly pull a gun or a knife on her. Those are the ones you get the hell out of there fast. Run out in your panties, run out bare-assed, just get out before this truly gets dangerous. You weigh a hundred and ten pounds, and the gorilla in bed with you weighs two-fifty, never mind the Marines coming to the rescue.

  ‘I’ve never been to bed with anybody like you, Chaz,’ she said, and reached across the table, and took both his hands in her own again. ‘Never. You never try to show off, you never brag about yourself, you never tell me you have an IQ of three hundred and twelve, or biceps measuring eight inches around. You’re just… so full of life, Chaz. Just so… nice… and… gentle… and… and…

  ‘You always treat me like a lady, Chaz. Always. Well… that’s because I’m a whore, right? I know that. Always treat a lady like a whore, and a whore like a lady, right?’

  ‘You’re not a whore, Reggie.’

  ‘You keep saying that, I’ll start believing it.’

  ‘Believe it,’ he said.

  ‘Chaz,’ she said, and paused, and looked across the table at him, and said, ‘do you trust me?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘Then tell me what happened last night.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. When last night?’

  ‘Where’d you go, for example? What’d you do?’

  ‘I had some business to take care of. I told you.’

  ‘Late at night? You didn’t get back to the hotel till…”

  ‘Yes, Reggie. Late at night.’

  ‘Please don’t get angry with me. I’m only trying to…’

  ‘I’m not getting angry.’

  ‘Was that really a nightmare you had, Chaz?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because, the way you were clutching yourself…”

  ‘It was a nightmare, Reg.’

  ‘… you seemed to be in pain.’

  ‘It was a painful nightmare.’

  ‘You’ve got a lot of pain pills in the bathroom, Chaz.’

  The table went silent.

  ‘Chaz? What are all those pills for?’

  ‘I sometimes get headaches. Remembering Nam.’

  ‘Headaches in your belly?’

  ‘Let it go, Reg.’

  ‘Don’t get angry, please don’t.’

  ‘I’m not angry.’

  ‘Where are you going tonight, Chaz? What business do you have to take care of tonight? That’s stopping us from staying at a bed and breakfast up here?’

  ‘Old business.’

  ‘You told me this would be the end of it…”

  ‘It will.’

  ‘The end of what, Chaz?’

  ‘All this old business.’

  ‘What old business? Chaz, if I’m not a whore, then trust me, okay? Let me help you with whatever…”

  ‘I’m all right, Reggie. There’s nothing you can do to help, believe me.’ He squeezed her hands. ‘Believe me.’

  She looked into his eyes.

  ‘Believe me,’ he said again.

  She wished she could.

  She wished she didn’t feel that something very terrible was going to happen very soon.

  * * * *

  ‘Christine and I were both fresh out of college,’ Susan Hardigan told them. ‘Both of us very young, and very arrogant, and I fear not very attractive.’

  She was sitting in a wheelchair in fading sunlight, a fading woman herself, in her late sixties now, they guessed, frail in a blue nursing home robe and woolly blue slippers, her gray hair pulled to the back of her head in a tidy bun. They suspected she had never been a pretty woman, but age had not been kind to her, either. Her crackling mind came filtered through a quavering voice, and she sat wrinkled and shriveled, as if cowering from death itself.

  They had found her name on a stack of letters in Christine Langston’s desk, the most recent dated April 24, almost nine weeks ago. They had called ahead and asked if they might come talk to her, and an administrator at the Fairview Nursing Home had told them that would be fine if they made the visit a short one. The drive out to Sands Spit had taken a bit more than two hours. Now, at seven in the evening, they sat on a porch in a wide bay window, dusk falling swiftly around them.

  ‘And you’ve kept your friendship all these years?’ Kling asked. He sounded surprised. He was still young enough to believe that friendships fell into clearly defined periods of a person’s life: Childhood, High School, College, Grown Up. He couldn’t quite imagine a friendship that endured into a person’s old age, perhaps even to his death. But here was Susan Hardigan, who had known Christine Langston when they were both young teachers at Warren G. Harding
High School in Riverhead.

  ‘Yes, all these years,’ she said. ‘Well, we don’t see each other all that often, especially since I began having trouble with my legs. But we correspond regularly, and we talk to each other on the phone, yes. We’re still very good friends.’

  It occurred to both detectives, almost simultaneously, that she did not yet know Christine Langston was dead. Brown glanced at Kling, found him turning to him at the same moment. So who would tell her? They both suddenly wished they hadn’t driven all the way out here today.

  ‘Miss Hardigan,’ Brown said, ‘there’s something you should know.’

  His voice, his eyes transmitted the message before he said the words.

  ‘Has something happened to her?’ Susan asked at once. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

  ‘Ma’am,’ Brown said, ‘she was murdered.’

  ‘I dreamt it,’ she said. ‘The other night. I dreamt someone had stabbed her.’

  Brown told her what had actually happened. He told her they’d been talking to associates of hers, students she’d taught, trying to get a handle on the case. Susan listened intently. He didn’t know quite how he should broach the matter of Christine Langston’s… sexuality? This was an elderly woman sitting here in a wheelchair, a spinster woman who reminded him of his aunt Hattie in North Carolina, albeit white. How did you ask her if she knew her close friend had once phoned in a false rape charge back then when you and I were young, Maggie?

  ‘Did you know of any trouble she’d reported to the police?’ Kling said, gingerly picking up the ball.

  ‘What sort of trouble?’ Susan asked.

  ‘Curried favors from a cab driver,’ Kling sort of mumbled.

  Curried, Brown thought. Well, an Indian cab driver.

  ‘A cab driver curried favors from her?’

  ‘No,’ Kling said, and cleared his throat. ‘Miss Langston curried favors from him.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Susan snapped. ‘What kind of favors?’

  Kling cleared his throat again.

  ‘Sexual favors,’ he said.

  Brown wished he was dead.

  ‘Are you talking about that trick she played one time?’ Susan said. ‘Is that what you’re referring to?’

  ‘What trick would that be, ma’arn?’

  ‘Back at Harding? The young man who needed an A?’

  ‘Tell us about it,’ Brown said.

  ‘But he wasn’t a cab driver. He was a student.’

  Plainly about to enjoy this, almost rubbing her hands together in anticipation, Susan shifted in her wheelchair, leaned forward as if to share a delicious secret, lowered her voice, and said, ‘This boy desperately needed an A in the course Christine was teaching. Basic Elements of Composition, whatever it was. This was high school, he was a graduating senior, eighteen years old. But he needed an A from her to pull up his average from a C to a B. He’d applied to a college, some dinky little school in Vermont, and acceptance was contingent on his maintaining a B average.’

  Susan grinned. Her teeth were bad, Brown noticed. She suddenly didn’t remind him of Aunt Hattie at all.

  ‘Well… this is really rich, I must tell you. As a joke, Christine told the boy…” She suddenly winked at the detectives. ‘I don’t know if either of you are old enough to hear this.’

  ‘Try us,’ Brown said.

  ‘She told him if he’d go to bed with her, she’d give him an A. Joking, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Brown said.

  ‘But he took her up on it!’

  ‘Who wouldn’t?’ Brown said.

  ‘Can you imagine! She’s joking with the boy, and he thinks she’s truly propositioning him?’

  ‘So she explained that she was just kidding, right?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Susan said, chuckling. ‘He was eighteen, she was twenty-three, this was consensual. Nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Kling said. ‘What was this boy’s name, would you remember?’

  ‘She never said. Told me the story one night while we were having dinner together.’

  ‘You’re saying she went to bed with him,’ Brown said.

  ‘Isn’t that delicious?’ Susan said, and actually clapped her hands. She leaned closer, conspiratorially. Her voice lowered to a whisper. ‘But that wasn’t the end of it.’

  Neither of them dared ask what the end of it was.

  ‘She gave him a C, anyway!’ Susan said gleefully.

  The detectives said nothing for a moment.

  ‘Was he accepted at that college in Vermont?’ Brown asked at last.

  ‘No! He got drafted into the Army!’

  Brown nodded.

  ‘Isn’t that the supreme irony!’ Susan said.

  * * * *

  ‘You know something,’ Brown said in the car on the way back to the city. ‘There are people who are ugly when they’re young, and they’re still ugly when they’re old. Nothing changes there. Ugly is ugly.’

  They were caught in inexplicable post-rush-hour traffic. Brown was driving. The car windows were open. An incessant buzz seemed to hang over everything.

  ‘I’ll tell you something else,’ he said. ‘If you’re getting a picture here of a mean old lady, then ten to one she was a mean young lady, too. And probably a mean little brat. Nothing changes. Mean is mean. Susan Hardigan enjoyed telling that damn story. They must have been two prize bitches back then, her and her good friend Christine. Both of them ugly, both of them mean.’

  ‘Yep,’ Kling said.

  They drove in silence for some time, pondering the vast mysteries of life.

  ‘Got time for a drink?’ Kling asked. ‘Caroline’s waiting,’ Brown said.

  * * * *

  When Carella got home that night, he explained that the reason he was late was there’d been another murder, and the Loot had them running all around town again.

  ‘In the Eight-Eight this time, an old priest, same Glock,’ he told Teddy. ‘Ollie Weeks caught it, lucky us.’

  How many does this make? Teddy signed.

  ‘Four.’

  Is it some nutcase shooting people at random?

  The word ‘nutcase’ was difficult to sign.

  At first, Carella read it as ‘Nazi.’

  ‘Oh, nutcase,’ he said, after she’d repeated it three times. ‘Maybe.’

  But he didn’t think so.

  * * * *

  First thing Kling thought was, She’s a hooker.

  Sliding onto the stool next to his, She’s a hooker. Or was that racial profiling? Or had he been drinking too much? Or did he just miss Sharyn too much? When you’re in love, the whole world’s black. Sharyn’s words. The girl smiled at him. Very black girl, very white smile. Short skirt, crossed her legs. Smooth black legs, bare, shiny. He almost put his hand on her knee. Reflexive action. Been with Sharyn too long a time now. Once you taste black, there’s no going back. Sharyn’s words, too.

  ‘Dirty martini,’ the girl told the bartender.

  ‘What’s that?’ Kling asked. ‘A dirty martini.’

  The girl turned to him. ‘You don’t know whut a dirty martini is?’ she said, and then, to the bartender, ‘He aon’t know whut a dirty martini is, Louis.’

  ‘Tell him what it is, Sade,’ the bartender said.

  Sadie Harris,’ the girl said, and held out her hand. Kling took it.

  ‘Bert Kling,’ he said.

  ‘Nice’t’meet you, Bert. Way I make a dirty martini,’ she said, and again to the bartender, ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Louis.’

  ‘You’re the one taught me how to make ‘em,’ Louis said, grinning.

  ‘You take two shots of gin,’ Sadie said, ‘and you add three teaspoons of olive juice. No vermouth. Just the olive juice. Then you either shake it or stir it

  ‘I prefer stirring it,’ Louis said, actually working on the drink now.

  ‘… over ice,’ Sadie said, ‘and you pour it in an up glass, and add an olive. I like a jalapefio olive in mine, as Louis well knows. T
hank you, Louis,’ she said, and accepted the stemmed glass. ‘You want a little taste of this, Bert?’ she asked. ‘Li’l sip of this?’

  ‘Why not?’ he said.

  She held the glass for him, brought it to his mouth. He sipped.

  ‘Nice,’ he said.

  ‘Yummy,’ she said, and brought the glass to her own mouth. Thick lips, berry ripe with lipstick. Black hair in corn rows. Earrings dangling. Legs crossed, skirt high on her thighs, one foot jiggling a strappy sandal, half on, half off. Low-cut silk blouse unbuttoned three buttons down. No bra. Silk puckered. Nipple on one breast almost showing. Not quite.

  ‘So what do you do, Bert?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m a cop,’ he said.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Sadie said.

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘Be funny if I was a hooker, wouldn’t it?’ she said, and winked at Louis.

  ‘What are you?’ Kling asked.

  ‘A librarian.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘I’ll bet you’re a cop, too.’

  ‘You’d win.’

  “What are you, Narcotics?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Street Crime?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Vice?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Cause if you was Vice, and I was a hooker, I’d have to be real careful here, you know whut I’m saying?’

  ‘I guess you’d have to be careful, yes.’

  ‘Good thing I’m just a librarian.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And you’re just a plain old cop.’

  ‘Just a plain old Detective/Third Grade.’

  ‘Whut precinct?’

  ‘The Eight-Seven.’

  ‘You think he’s really a cop, Louis?’

  ‘Man says he’s a cop, I got no reason to doubt his word.’

  ‘Let me see your badge,’ Sadie said.