Eight Black Horses

by Ed McBain

  ‘Me and this boy.’

  ‘I see. What time was this, Josie?’

  ‘Around one o’clock.’

  ‘One o’clock in the morning?’

  ‘Well, yeah.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘And this man came by,’ Josie said, and shrugged.

  ‘What did he look like, this man?’

  ‘He was tall and blond.’

  ‘Was he wearing a hearing aid?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see any hearing aid.’

  Of all the detectives on the squad Carella and Willis were the only ones who’d ever seen the Deaf Man face to face. Willis had glimpsed him only fleetingly, in the midst of a shoot-out in the back of a tailor shop. But Carella had remembered him from their first meeting...

  The Deaf Man turning from the hi-fi unit against the living room wall, Carella seeing the hearing aid in the right ear and then the shotgun in his hands. And suddenly it was too late, suddenly the shotgun exploded into sound. Carella whirled away from the blast. He could hear the whistling pellets as they screamed across the confined space of the apartment, and then he felt them lash into his shoulder like a hundred angry wasp, as he fired a shot at the tall blond man who was already sprinting across the apartment toward him. His shoulder felt suddenly numb. He tried to lift the hand the gun and quickly found he couldn‘t and just as he shifted the gun to his left hand and triggered off another shot, high and wide as the Deaf Man raised the shotgun and swung the stock at Carella’s head. A single barrel, Carella thought in the instant before the stock collided with the side of his head, a single barrel, no time to reload, and a sudden flashing explosion of rocketing yellow pain, slam the stock again, suns revolving, a universe slam the stock. . .

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Brown said, coming into the office and closing the door behind him.

  ‘This is my partner, Detective Brown,’ Carella said. ‘Artie, this is Josie Sears. She was just telling me what she saw in the park last month.’ He turned to Josie. ‘That was on October twenty-fourth, is that right?’

  ‘Well, the twenty-fifth, actually,’ she said. ‘It was one o’clock in the morning, you know.’

  ‘Right,’ Carella said. ‘And this tall blond man you just described...’

  ‘Was he wearing a hearing aid?’ Brown asked at once.

  ‘I didn’t see any,’ Josie said. She was looking at Brown, remembering all the things her father had said about niggers and wondering if he was a genuine detective. She didn’t want to be telling any nigger about what she and Eddie had been doing when she saw the man carrying the body. She hoped they wouldn’t ask her what she and Eddie had been doing.

  ‘What was he doing?’ Carella asked.

  For a panicky moment she thought he was referring to Eddie. Then she realized he meant the man she’d seen.

  ‘He was carrying a girl over his shoulder,’ Josie said.

  ‘What color was she?’ Brown asked.

  ‘White,’ Josie said, and wondered if that was a trick question.

  ‘What color hair did she have?’ Brown asked.

  ‘Blond.’

  ‘How old would you say she was?’ Carella asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you called her a girl.’

  ‘Well, yeah. I mean, she didn’t look like a lady, if that’s what you mean. Not like my mother or anything.’

  ‘How old is your mother?’ Carella asked.

  ‘Thirty-eight,’ Josie said.

  He almost sighed. ‘And this woman was younger than that?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Can you estimate how old she was?’

  ‘Well, in her twenties, I guess. I only had that glimpse of her when they passed the light.’

  ‘How far away from you were they? This man and woman.’

  ‘Five feet, something like that.’

  ‘You were where?’ Brown asked.

  ‘On this rock. Above the path.’

  ‘Doing what?’ Brown asked.

  Here we go, Josie thought.

  ‘Sitting with this boy,’ she said.

  ‘What boy?’

  ‘A boy I know.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Eddie.’

  ‘Eddie what?’

  ‘Hogan.’

  ‘Did he see this man, too? This man carrying a woman over his shoulder?’

  ‘No, he ... he didn’t see her.’

  ‘He was sitting with you, wasn’t he?’ Brown asked.

  ‘Yes, but...’

  ‘Both of you five feet from where the man...’

  ‘His eyes were closed,’ Josie said.

  ‘Eddie’s eyes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was he sleeping?’

  ‘No, but his eyes were closed.’

  Josie looked away. Brown looked at Carella. Carella nodded almost imperceptibly.

  ‘So you’re the only one who saw this man carrying the woman,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you say you guess she was dead. What made you think that?’

  ‘There was blood at the back of her head.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Right here,’ Josie said, and lifted her hair and touched the nape of her neck.

  ‘You saw blood?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘At the back of her head?’

  ‘Yes. Her head was hanging down, you know? He was carrying her over his shoulder with her head hanging down. And her hair was hanging, too, and I could see blood at the back of her head.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Well, he just kept walking. I mean, I didn’t see him after that.’

  ‘Where was this?’ Brown asked. ‘What part of the park?’

  ‘You know where the service road is?’ Josie said. ‘Near Macomber?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Right near there. The entrance there. We were a little bit past the service road. That’s how come I heard the car when it drove in.’

  ‘Did Eddie hear the car?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Didn’t hear the car, didn’t see the man.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But he wasn’t sleeping.’

  ‘No, he was awake.’

  Wide awake, she thought, and remembered the salty taste in her mouth.

  ‘So you were near the Macomber Street service road,’ Carella said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘About ten blocks west of here.’

  ‘Well, whatever.’

  ‘When the man walked off, did he head in this direction? Or did he go west?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Was he heading toward the police station here or away from it?’

  ‘Toward it.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘Well, I yelled to Jessica...’

  ‘Who’s Jessica?’ Brown asked.

  ‘My girlfriend. She was with another boy.’

  ‘Same place?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know where exactly. But nearby.’

  ‘Did she see this man?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did her boyfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay, you yelled to Jessica...’

  ‘Yes, and we went to look at the car. The one that came in the service road.’

  ‘You saw the car?’ Carella said.

  ‘Yes. A blue car. Eddie said it was a Buick Century.’

  ‘Did you happen to look at the license plate?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Would you happen to remember...?’

  ‘WL-seven,’ Josie said, ‘eight-one-six-four.’

  Brown and Carella looked at each other in surprise.

  ‘Are you sure that’s the number?’ Carella asked.

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘You wrote it down?’ Brown asked.

  ‘I memorized it,’ Josie said.

  ‘Smart girl,’ Carella said, and smiled.

  * * * *

  It
was beginning to snow lightly.

  Naomi stood under the lamppost across the street from the old house and wondered for perhaps the tenth time whether she should go in or not. Her shrink, whom she used to see three years ago, would have said she was conflicted. That had been one of Dr. Hammerstein’s favorite words, ‘conflicted.’ If she couldn’t decide between the vanilla or the chocolate ice cream, that was because she was conflicted. She once protested about his use of the word ‘conflicted,’ and he said, ‘Good, ve are making progress.’ That wasn’t what he’d really said, he didn’t even have a German accent. But Naomi always thought of him as having a German accent.

  The house across the street looked cozy and warm.

  Well, Thanksgiving.

  The reason Naomi felt conflicted was because she didn’t want to lay this heavy stuff on this bastard Carella’s wife, but at the same time nobody should have the right to do to her what he’d done to her, which she wouldn’t have let him do if she’d known he was married, which he’d lied about. A cop, no less! A detective! Lying to her, taking advantage of her, doing disgusting things to her, and then not even calling her again. She’d called every damn Carella in the Isola phone book and had come down six Carellas in the Riverhead directory before she’d struck pay dirt earlier today with T. F. Carella. Who the hell was T. F. Carella? Was Steve even his right name? She’d never have gone to bed with somebody who didn’t even give a person his right name. A married man. She’d never have gone to bed with a married man who’d picked her up in a bar. Well, maybe she would have. Isadora Wing went to bed with married men, didn’t she? That wasn’t the point. This wasn’t a question of her own morality here, this was a question of whether a man sworn to uphold the laws of the city, state, and nation should be allowed to get away with not calling up a person after the person had allowed him to do such things to her. You weren’t even supposed to take your gun out of your holster without justification, were you? No less what he had done with it.

  She could imagine telling that to Hammerstein.

  Ja? Dat is very inner-estink. Are you avare vot a symbol der gun is?

  She wondered what Hammerstein was doing these days, the crazy old bastard.

  Conflicted, she thought, and started across the street toward the house.

  The snow was sticking. She shouldn’t have come all the way up here. If the snow got really bad, it would raise hell with mass transit. Well, some things simply had to be done. One thing she’d learned about being conflicted was that if you took action, the confliction disappeared. Better you than me, Steve, she thought, and knocked on the door.

  A short fat lady with blue hair answered it.

  Is this his wife? Naomi thought. No wonder he picks up girls in bars.

  ‘Yes?’ the woman said.

  ‘I’m looking for Steve Carella,’ Naomi said.

  ‘I’m sorry, he’s not here just now,’ the woman said.

  ‘He was here an hour and a half ago,’ Naomi said. ‘He was here having coffee with his wife.’

  The woman studied her more closely.

  ‘Are you the person who called here?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m the person who called here,’ Naomi said. ‘I’m Naomi Schneider. Are you his wife?’

  ‘No, I’m not his...’

  Another woman appeared suddenly behind her. Dark eyes and hair the color of a raven’s wing, good breasts and legs, an inquisitive look on her face. God, she’s gorgeous! Naomi thought. Why is that son of a bitch fooling around?

  ‘Mrs. Carella?’ she asked.

  The woman nodded.

  ‘I’m Naomi Schneider,’ she said. ‘I’d like to talk to you about your husband. May I come in?’

  The other woman was studying her mouth as she spoke. All at once, Naomi realized she was deaf. Oh God, she thought, what am I doing here? But the woman was gesturing her into the house.

  She stepped inside.

  I’m going to bring this house down around your ears, Steve, she thought, and followed the woman into the living room.

  * * * *

  The man from Motor Vehicles got back to them not ten minutes after they’d called.

  ‘Blue Buick Century,’ he said, ‘tag number WL-seven, eight-one-six-four. Registered to a Dr. Harold Lasser, One-twenty-seven Hall avenue.’

  ‘One-twenty-seven ...’ Carella repeated, writing.

  ‘This is marked with an “Auto” flag,’ the man from Motor Vehicles said. ‘May have been recovered by now, I don’t know. You’d better check with them.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Carella said.

  * * * *

  Teddy listened motionless as Naomi told her all about the man she’d met in a bar some three weeks ago, a man she claimed was Steve Carella. Detective Carella had told her he was not married. They had gone to her apartment afterward. Naomi detailed all the things they had done together in her apartment, her eyes unflinching, the words spilling soundlessly from her lips. They had spent the entire weekend together. He had told her he wanted her to go to work on Monday morning without anything under her...

  Teddy held up her hand. Not quite like a traffic cop, but with much the same effect. She rose, crossed the room to a rolltop desk standing near a Tiffany-type floor lamp, and took from it a pencil and pad. She walked back to where Naomi was sitting.

  On the pad she wrote: Are you sure the name was Detective Stephen Louis Carella?

  ‘He didn’t give me his full name,’ Naomi said. ‘He just said Steve Carella.’

  Did he say where he worked? Teddy wrote.

  Naomi began talking again.

  Teddy watched her lips.

  The man—she kept referring to him as ‘your husband’—had told her he worked uptown at the Eight-Seven, right across the street from Grover Park. He’d told her he was working a homicide he’d caught on the twenty-fifth of October. Dead woman in the park, about your age, he’d said.

  ‘I’m twenty-five,’ Naomi said, a challenging look on her face.

  Told her the woman had been shot in the back of the head. Totally naked, not a stitch on her. Not much to go on, he’d told her, but we’re working on it.

  How can she know all this? Teddy wondered.

  On the pad she wrote: When was this?

  ‘November fourth,’ Naomi said. ‘A Friday night. He left on Monday morning, the seventh. When I went to work that morning—does your husband ask you to run around naked under your dress? Does he tie you to the bed and stick his goddamn...’

  Teddy held up the traffic-cop hand again. She rose and went to the desk again. She picked up her appointment calendar. On Friday night, November 4, she and Carella had had dinner with Bert Kling and his girlfriend, Eileen. They had talked about the plastic surgery Eileen was considering. It had been painful for Eileen to discuss the scar a rapist had put on her left cheek. On Saturday, November 5, she and Carella had taken the kids to see a magic show downtown. On Sunday, November 6, they had gone to visit Carella’s parents. She went back to where Naomi was sitting. On the pad she wrote. Please wait, and then went down the hall to fetch Fanny.

  * * * *

  The man at Auto Theft said, ‘This vehicle is still missing, Carella.’

  ‘When was it stolen?’ Carella asked.

  ‘We got it down for October twenty-third.’

  ‘From what location?’

  ‘Outside the doctor’s office. One-twenty-seven Hall.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Six p.m. Well, that’s when he discovered it was missing. He was going home from work, thought at first it might’ve been towed way by us. He had it parked in a no-parking zone. He called Traffic, they told him they hadn’t towed his fuckin’ car away, and he shouldn’t have parked it in a no-parking zone to begin with. He told them he was an M.D. Big deal. They told him to call Auto, which is what he done. Anyway it ain’t been recovered yet.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Carella said.

  * * * *