by Ed McBain
‘Mrs. Carella would like me to translate for her,’ Fanny said. She looked at Naomi sternly, her arms folded across her ample bosom. ‘Save a lot of time that way.’
‘Fine,’ Naomi said, looking just as stern.
Teddy’s fingers moved.
Fanny watched them and then said, ‘This man who picked you up wasn’t my husband.’
‘Your husband?’ Naomi said, looking suddenly puzzled.
‘Mrs. Carella’s husband,’ Fanny said. ‘I’m translating exactly what she signs.’
Teddy’s fingers were moving again.
‘My husband and I were together on the weekend you’re talking about,’ Fanny said.
‘You’re trying to protect him,’ Naomi said directly to Teddy.
Teddy’s fingers moved.
‘What did this man look like?’ Fanny asked.
‘He was tall and blond...’
Watching Teddy’s hands, Fanny said, ‘My husband has brown hair.’
‘What color eyes does he have?’ Naomi asked.
‘Brown,’ Fanny said, ahead of Teddy’s fingers.
Naomi blinked. She realized all at once that she couldn’t remember what color his eyes were. Damn it, what color were his eyes? ‘Does he wear a hearing aid?’ she asked in desperation.
This time Teddy blinked.
‘No, he doesn’t wear no damn hearing aid,’ Fanny said, though Teddy hadn’t signed a thing. ‘You’ve got the wrong man. Now what I suggest you do is get out of here before I...’
Teddy was signing again. Very rapidly. Fanny could hardly keep up.
‘This man you met is a criminal,’ Fanny said, translating. ‘My husband will want to talk to you. Will you please wait here for him? We’ll call him at once.’
Naomi nodded.
She suddenly felt as if she were in a spy novel.
* * * *
Carella did not get back to the house until six that night.
Naomi Schneider was still waiting there for him. Fanny had brought her a cup of tea, and she was sitting in the living room, her legs crossed, chatting with Teddy as Fanny translated, the two of them behaving like old college roommates, Teddy’s hands and eyes flashing, her face animated.
Naomi thought Carella was very good-looking, and wondered immediately if he fooled around. She was happy when Teddy excused herself to see how the children were doing. Twins, she explained with her hands as Carella translated. A boy and a girl. Mark and April. Ten years old. Naomi listened with great interest, thinking a good-looking man like this, burdened with a handicapped wife and a set of twins, probably did play around a little on the side. She waited for Fanny to leave the room, grateful when she did. She was going to enjoy telling the real Steve Carella all about what the fake Steve Carella had done to her. She wanted to see the expression on his face when she told him.
The real Steve Carella didn’t want to know what the fake Steve Carella had done to her.
Instead he started questioning her like a detective.
Which he was, of course, but even so.
“Tell me exactly what he looked like,’ he said.
‘He was tall and...’
‘How tall?’
‘Six-one, six-two?’
‘Weight?’
‘A hundred and eighty?’
‘Color of his eyes?’
‘Well, actually I don’t remember. But he did terrible things to...’
‘Any scars or tattoos?’
‘I didn’t see any,’ Naomi said. ‘Not anywhere on his body.’ She lowered her eyes like a maiden, the way she had learned in her magazines.
‘Did he say where he lived?’
‘No.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Oh, I thought you meant when he was doing all those...’
‘When you met him.’
‘A gray suit,’ she said. ‘Sort of a nubby fabric. An off-white shirt, a dark blue tie. Black shoes. A gold Rolex watch, all gold, not the steel and gold one. A gun in a shoulder holster. He used the gun to...’
‘What kind of gun?’
‘A Colt Detective Special.’
‘You know guns, do you?’
‘That’s what he told me it was. This was just before he...’
‘And you met him where?’
‘In a bar near where I work. I work for CBS. On Monday morning, when I went to work, he forced me to...’
‘What’s the name of the bar?’
‘The Corners.’
‘Where is it?’
‘On Detavoner and Ash. On the corner there.’
‘Do you go there a lot?’
‘Oh, every now and then. I’ll probably drop by there tomorrow after work.’ She raised one eyebrow. ‘You ought to check it out,’ she said.
‘Had you ever seen him in that bar before?’
‘Never.’
‘Sure about that?’
‘Well, I would have noticed. He was very good-looking.’
‘Did he seem familiar with the neighborhood?’
‘Well, we didn’t discuss the neighborhood. What we talked about mostly, he gave me sixty seconds to finish my drink, you see, because he was in such a hurry to...’
‘Did you get the impression he knew the neighborhood well?’
‘I got the feeling he knew his way around, yes.’
‘Around that particular neighborhood?’
‘Well, the city. I got the feeling he knew the city. When we were driving toward my apartment later, he knew exactly how to get there.’
‘You drove there in his car?’
‘Yes.’
‘What kind of car?’
‘A Jaguar.’
‘He was driving a Jaguar?’
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t find that surprising? A detective driving a Jaguar?’
‘Well, I don’t know any detectives,’ she said. ‘You’re only my second detective. My first, as a matter of fact, since he wasn’t a real detective, was he?’
‘What year was it?’
‘What?’
‘The Jag.’
‘Oh. I don’t know.’
‘What color?’
‘Gray. A four-door sedan. Gray with red leather upholstery.’
‘I don’t suppose you noticed the license plate number.’
‘No, I’m sorry, I didn’t. I was sort of excited, you see. He was a very exciting man. Of course, later, when he started doing all those things to me...’
‘And you say he knew how to get there? From the bar on Detavoner and Ash to where you live?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Where do you live, Miss Schneider?’
‘On Colby and Radner. Near the circle there. If you’d like to come over later, I can show you…’
‘Did you ask him for any sort of identification? A shield? An ID card?’
‘Well, when he was undressing, I said, “Let me see your badge.” But I was just kidding around, you know. It never occurred to me that he might not be a real detective.’
‘Did he show you a badge?’
‘Well, what he said was, “Here’s my badge, baby.” And showed me his ... you know.’
‘You simply accepted him as a cop, is that right?’
‘Well ... yeah. I’d never met a cop before. Not socially. Of course, you must meet a lot of young, attractive women in your line of work, but I’ve never had the opportunity to...’
‘Did he say anything about coming back to that bar? The Corners?’
‘No, he just said he’d call me.’
‘But he never did.’
‘No. Actually I’m glad he didn’t. Now that I know he wasn’t a real detective. And, also, I might never have got to meet you, you know?’
‘Miss Schneider,’ Carella said, ‘if he does call you, I want you to contact me at once. Here’s my card,’ he said, and reached into his wallet. ‘I’ll jot down my home number, too, so you’ll have it...’
>
‘Well, I already know your home number,’ she said, but he had begun writing.
‘Just so you’ll have it handy,’ he said, and gave the card to her.
‘Well, I doubt if he’ll call me,’ she said. ‘It’s already three weeks, almost.’
‘Well, in case he does.’
He looked suddenly very weary. She had an almost uncontrollable urge to reach out and touch his hair, smooth it back, comfort him. She was certain he would be very different in bed than the fake Steve Carella had been. She suddenly wondered what it would be like to be in bed with both of them at the same time.
‘How are you getting home?’ he asked.
End of interview, she thought.
Or was he making his move?
‘By subway,’ she said, and smiled at him. ‘Unless someone offers to drive me home.’
‘I’ll call the local precinct,’ he said. ‘See if I can’t get a car to take you down.’
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Thanksgiving Day, they might not be too busy.’
He rose and started for the phone.
‘Miss Schneider,’ he said, dialing, ‘I really appreciate the information you’ve given me.’
Yeah, she thought, so why the fuck don’t you come home with me?
* * * *
The man who arrived at the station house at a quarter past eight that night was wearing a shabby overcoat and a dilapidated felt hat. The desk sergeant on duty looked at the envelope he handed across the muster desk, saw that it was addressed to Detective Stephen Louis Carella, and immediately said, ‘Where’d you get this?’ The Deaf Man was famous around here. There wasn’t a cop in the precinct who didn’t know about those pictures hanging on the bulletin board upstairs.
‘Huh?’ the man said.
‘Where’d you get this?’
‘Guy up the street handed it to me.’
‘What guy?’
‘Guy up the street. Blond guy with a hearing aid.’
‘What?’ the desk sergeant said.
‘You deaf, too?’ the man said.
‘What’s your name?’ the desk sergeant asked.
‘Pete MacArthur. What’s yours?’
‘Don’t get smart with me, mister,’ the desk sergeant said.
‘What is this?’ MacArthur said. ‘Guy gives me five bucks, asks me to deliver this for him, that’s a crime?’
‘Sit down on the bench over there,’ the desk sergeant said.
‘What for?’
‘Sit down till I tell you it’s okay to go.’
He picked up a phone and buzzed the squadroom. A detective named Santoro picked up the phone.
‘We got another one,’ the desk sergeant said.
‘There ain’t no mail deliveries today,’ Santoro said.
‘This one came by hand.’
‘Who delivered it?’
‘A guy named Pete MacArthur.’
‘Hold him there,’ Santoro said.
Santoro talked to MacArthur until they were both blue in the face. MacArthur kept repeating the same thing over and over again. A tall blond guy wearing a hearing aid had handed him the envelope and offered him five bucks to deliver it here. He’d never seen the guy before in his life. He’d taken the five bucks because he figured an envelope so skinny couldn’t have a bomb in it and also because it was a cold, snowy night, and he thought maybe he could find an open liquor store, even though it was Thanksgiving, and buy himself a bottle of wine. Santoro figured MacArthur was telling the truth. Only an exceedingly stupid accomplice would march right into a police station. He took his address—which happened to be a bench in Grover Park—told him to keep his nose clean, and sent him on his way.
These days Carella’s mail was everybody’s mail.
Santoro took the envelope up to the squadroom and opened it.
He looked at what was inside, shrugged, and then tacked it to the bulletin board:
* * * *
CHAPTER EIGHT
Carella had been shot twice since he’d been a cop, one of those times by the Deaf Man. He did not want to get shot ever again. It hurt, and it was embarrassing. There was something even more embarrassing than getting shot, however, and the Deaf Man had been responsible for that, too.
Once upon a time, when the Deaf Man was planning a bank holdup for which he’d fairly and scrupulously prepared the Eight-Seven far in advance, two hoods jumped Carella and Teddy on their way home from the movies. The men got away with Teddy’s handbag and wristwatch as well as Carella’s own watch, his wallet with all his identification in it, and—most shameful to admit—his service revolver.
The most recent message from the Deaf Man depicted eleven Colt Detective Specials.
The pistol the Deaf Man had shown to Naomi Schneider had been a Colt Detective Special, probably the same one he’d photographed and then Xeroxed for his pasteup. The pistol Carella had been carrying for some little while now was also a Colt Detective Special. In fact, this was the pistol of choice for most of the cops on the squad.
Pinned to the bulletin board, slightly to the left of the picture of the eleven revolvers, was the picture of the six police shields.
Carella’s shield and his ID card had been used during the bank job the day alter they’d been stolen from him. The man who’d gone in claiming to be Detective Carella was also carrying the gun he had taken from Carella the night before.
Was there some connection between that long-ago theft of pistol and shield and the current messages depicting pistols and shields?
There were now seven messages in all, each posted to the bulletin board in ascending numerical order:
Two nightsticks.
Three pairs of handcuffs.
Four police hats.
Five walkie-talkies.
Six police shields.
Eight black horses.
Eleven Colt Detective Specials.
One thing Carella knew for certain about the Deaf Man was that he worked with different pickup gangs on each job, rather like a jazz soloist recruiting sidemen in the various cities on his tour. In the past any apprehended gang members did not know the true identity of their leader; he had presented himself once as L. Sordo, another time as Mort Orecchio, and—on the occasion of his last appearance—simply as Taubman. In Spanish el sordo meant ‘the Deaf Man.’ Loosely translated, mort’orecchio meant ‘dead ear’ in Italian. And in German der taube Mann meant ‘the Deaf Man.’ If indeed he was deaf. The hearing aid itself may have been a phony, even though he always took pains to announce that he was hard of hearing. But whatever he was or whoever he was, the crimes he conceived were always grand in scale and involved large sums of money.
Nor was conceiving crimes and executing them quite enough for the Deaf Man. A key element in his M.O. was telling the police what he was going to do long before he did it. At first Carella had supposed this to be evidence of a monumental ego, but he had come to learn that the Deaf Man used the police as a sort of second pickup gang, larger than the nucleus group, but equally essential to the successful commission of the crime. That he had been thwarted on three previous occasions was entirely due to chance. He was smarter than the police, and he used the police, and he let the police know they were being used.
Knowing they were being used but not knowing how, knowing he was telling them a great deal about the crime but not enough, knowing he would do what he predicted but not exactly, the police generally reacted like hicks on a Mickey Mouse force. Their behavior in turn strengthened the Deaf Man’s premise that they were singularly inept. Given their non-demonstrated ineffectiveness, he became more and more outrageous, more and more daring. And the bolder he became, the more they tripped over their own flat feet.
And yet, he always played the game fair.
Carella hated to think of what might happen if all at once he decided not to play the game fair.
What if those seven messages on the bulletin board had nothing whatever to do with the crime he was planning this time around? Wha
t if each of them taken separately had nothing to do with all of them as a whole? In short, what if he was cheating this time?