Big Man

by Ed McBain

  “Celia—”

  “I thought maybe you.” She grinned. “The pushover. Frankie the pushover. Wiggle an ankle, cock an eyebrow, and Frankie springs up like a switchblade knife. Young. Ripe. Delicious.” She paused. “I got news. It isn’t you. You’re not the shining white love.” She paused again. “It’s almost ridiculous that I thought you were. It makes me feel like a very old woman.” She sat suddenly. “Do you know what I am? The slut of the world. Everybody in the club has had me. I’m like the team letter. They wear me on their sweaters. They haven’t made varsity if they haven’t made Celia. Men. Didn’t any of them realize it was Celia doing all the making, Celia trying, trying, trying to find … what?” She gave a derisive little laugh. “Even Celia doesn’t know.”

  “You’ve been drinking too much,” I said, and I took a step toward her.

  “Yes. I’ve been drinking too much, and laughing too much, and oh, Jesus, crying too much, crying, crying.” She paused. “Period. End. We get out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Andy and me. Out. Good-by to Mr. Carfon and his tight little club. Good-by to Milt Hordzig and his fat wandering hands. Good-by to Frankie Taglio and his switchblade, click! Click, click, click! You delicious bastard, get the hell out of here!”

  I dropped down at her feet, and I grabbed her shoulders hard, and she said, “No.” She said it the way I’ve never heard that word spoken in my life. She didn’t mean yes, and she didn’t mean maybe, and she didn’t mean later. She meant no. N-O. Period. End.

  “We’re getting out,” she said tiredly. “As soon as possible. As soon as I can talk Andy into it. We are folding our tents and sneaking away into the night. You know why? Because this stinks. All of it. Mr. Carfon stinks, and his club stinks, and his money stinks, and you stink. And me. I’m the worst of all. Grab, grab, get it, get it all, put it all in Celia’s hot little hands, but how does Celia come out of it all, how does dear Celia wind up? She winds up empty. Empty house, empty life. Nothing. Nothing. We give nothing. I want a baby.”

  The last words surprised me because they didn’t seem to have anything to do with what had come before them.

  “Maybe there’s a chance,” Celia went on. “Maybe there’s still a chance.”

  “For what?”

  “For happiness,” she said quickly, and all at once she didn’t seem so drunk. She stared at me soberly and said, “We deserve more than this, Frankie.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I said. “Just ’cause you’re down in the dumps don’t mean everybody—”

  “Listen to me,” she said. “You’re not a bad kid. You can still—”

  “Thanks.”

  “If you were smart—”

  “I am smart,” I said. “Are you finished?”

  Celia sighed. “Yes. I’m finished.”

  “And you still want me to go?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So long.” I walked to the door. To tell you the truth, I felt a little relieved. I can’t stand dames who suddenly come on like big thinkers.

  “Frankie,” she said.

  I turned. “Yeah?”

  “If you were smart—” She studied my face a minute, and then she shook her head. “Never mind.”

  “That all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Then so long.”

  The last thing she said before I walked out of the apartment was, “It’s a goddamn shame.”

  She made me feel rotten.

  I mean, first of all I was expecting her, you know, and not her mind. Minds are cheap. You can buy talk for the price of a glass of beer. And if she was going to run for president, why’d she greet me in them goddamn clinging pajamas and then act like a starved nympho about to enter a convent? Dames. Jesus! I’ll never understand them as long as I live.

  Also, what she said made me feel rotten.

  I mean, what the hell, I never heard Mr. Carfon say a word against being married or having kids. He probably liked the idea. It added to the front. And whose fault was it but her own if she felt like flopping in the hay with everybody in the outfit? (And that got me sore, too, if you want to know.)

  But I guess the reason she really made me feel rotten was because all at once she made me feel alone.

  I don’t like to feel alone.

  I like a lot of people around, you know?

  She made me feel as if, I don’t know. Like I’d be alone. Like … I don’t know.

  Anyway, I went to Utica feeling like hell, and Utica ain’t exactly a town designed to cheer a guy up. Whenever I began thinking about what Celia had said, I began feeling sadder. And I was supposed to be there on business!

  A lot of time I had for business. I was barely getting the feel of the joint when everything kind of happened at once. To begin with, I got a telephone call from Mr. Carfon in New York telling me to look in on a guy named Osikras, and explaining what he wanted to know from this Osikras. It was around six o’clock when I got the call. I figured I’d drop in on Osikras that night, so I took a shower and I was dressing when a knock came on the hotel-room door. I went to open it.

  “Hello,” May said.

  She was standing in the doorway with a small suitcase in one hand. She was wearing a coat with a little fur collar, and she had a fur hat on her head that looked like something the Russian Cossacks used to wear. I was too surprised to say a word.

  “It’s me, all right,” she said, and she walked into the room and put her suitcase down on the floor, and then looked around the place and then nodded sort of, and then turned to me and said, “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

  “Well, sure, I—” She came to me, and I kissed her, and she looked at me sort of sideways and then kissed me again and said, “Mmmmmm.”

  “Wh … what are you doing here?” I asked. “In Utica.”

  “I came to find you,” May said.

  “How … how’d you know where …?”

  “I met Andy Orelli the other day. He told me where you were staying.”

  “Oh,” I said. I thought for a minute. “But … why’d you want to find me? I don’t get it. Is something …?”

  May unbuttoned her coat, took it off, and threw it onto one of the chairs. She was wearing a blue suit under the coat. A white blouse showed under the blue jacket to the suit.

  “We’re going to get married,” May said.

  “What? Who? What?”

  “We,” she answered. “You and me,” she answered. “Married,” she answered.

  “Hey, now—”

  “Don’t you love me?” she said, and she took off the suit jacket and threw it over the coat.

  “Well, I don’t know. I mean, Jesus, you don’t believe in rushing a guy, do you?”

  “Yes, I believe in rushing a guy,” she said, and cool as a cucumber, she began unbuttoning her blouse.

  “May, listen—”

  “I want to marry you,” she said flatly. She pulled the blouse out of her skirt and flipped it onto the chair. She was wearing a white bra, and she moved across the room toward me slowly, and then she undid the button on the side of her skirt. “Don’t you want to marry me?”

  “I … I … don’t know.”

  Her hand paused on the zipper of her skirt. “Think about it.”

  “May,” I said. “You better … you better put on your clothes. Come on, put on your clothes.”

  “Why?” she asked, and she pulled down the zipper, and then shoved the skirt off her hips and stepped out of it when it hit the floor. She wasn’t wearing a slip. She looked at me with cold, calculating eyes, as if all this was part of a plan, and she put her hands on her hips, and she sucked in a deep breath, and she stood with her legs just slightly apart, the panties cutting into the flesh of her thighs.

  “Don’t you want to marry me?” she said. “Don’t you want me, Frankie?”

  Want her? I was scared of her. That’s the plain honest goddamn truth. I was scared to death of her. She took a step closer to me. Her hands
reached behind her to unclasp the bra, and suddenly she stopped, and she ran to me and threw herself into my arms, and began crying and saying, “Oh, Frankie, I’m so ashamed, I’m so ashamed of myself,” and I said, “Come on, May, don’t cry,” and she said, “I’ll get dressed. I’m sorry. I’m so ashamed, don’t look at me, I’ll die if you look at me,” and I said, “Come on May, get ahold of yourself,” and all the while she was in my arms, and her skin was warm under my fingers and suddenly I pulled her close to me, and I grabbed her hair and yanked her head back and she came up against me, and I kissed her harder than I’ve ever kissed any girl in my entire life, and then my hands were all over her because she was the softest, sweetest thing I’d ever held, her mouth was like honey, honey.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “I love you, I love you.”

  “May, May baby …”

  “Say it.”

  “May, baby …”

  “Frankie, say it to me. Frankie, say it!”

  “I love you!” I said, and it was almost like a moan of some kind. “Oh, May, I love you. I love you, May. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

  We got married by a magistrate in Utica as soon as we’d got the wedding license and the blood test which New York State requires. I called Mr. Carfon to tell him about it, but he wasn’t in. Milt Hordzig took the message and said he would let Mr. Carfon know. He also told me not to forget the business I had with the Greek. By the Greek, he meant Osikras, which is what he was.

  I guess maybe I was hoping Mr. Carfon would call back to tell me how pleased he was. Actually, I didn’t know whether he’d be pleased or not, though I couldn’t see any reason for him to object. Lots of guys in the organization were married.

  On Saturday morning, just as were were getting out of bed, a wire came. It was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Frank Taglio. It said:

  CONGRATULATIONS AND ALL GOOD WISHES.

  FRED CARFON

  About a half-hour after that, two dozen red roses came from Mr. Carfon. They were addressed to May, and there was a small card inside and on the card it said, in Mr. Carfon’s own handwriting, “For the new bride who, I’m sure, is lovely.”

  “You see?” I said. “Now is he such a bad guy?”

  “It was very considerate of him,” she said.

  “Come here,” I told her.

  We had a wonderful time all the while we were in Utica. Of course, I was also there on business, and that cut into our time a lot, but May understood. Or at least I thought she did.

  My business was with this guy named Ralph Osikras, mostly.

  What he done, this Greek, he disposed of hot stuff that Mr. Carfon sent up to him. He was a skinny guy who wore black all the time, like an undertaker. His eyes were dark brown, and his brows and hair were black. He had a lot of blackheads all over his face, the dirty Greek. He gave you the impression of some kind of vulture when you looked at him.

  The rumble had got to him about my arriving, of course, and the first time I met him he was very cordial. His front was a drugstore, and he took me into the back room and shooed out his pharmacist and then he sat me down and broke out some vintage wine. One thing I learned since working for Mr. Carfon was how to tell good stuff from junk. When I saw that jug of wine, I already began thinking this Greek was a guy with luxury taste.

  “So,” he said. “So what’s on Mr. Carfon’s mind, hah?”

  “Mr. Carfon wants me to check into the operation here,” I said.

  “There’s something wrong with the operation?”

  “We don’t know yet, Greek. That’s why I’m here.”

  “You’re a new man, hah?”

  “Yeah. What of it?”

  “No, I just wonder, that’s all. I mean, we have checks before, but always from one of the Utica boys. You come all the way from New York, so I wonder.”

  “Yeah, well don’t wonder so much. Mr. Carfon wanted it done right this time, that’s all.” I paused. “Maybe Mr. Carfon don’t trust the usual Utica boys.”

  “What’s to trust?” Osikras said. “You send me the stuff, I fence it. What’s to trust?”

  “You got books, Greek?”

  “Books? Hey, you crazy? Books! You think maybe I’m in the wholesale dress business or something?”

  “You better start keeping them, Greek. Right this minute.”

  “What about the police?”

  “Never mind the police. We been keeping our own books for a little while now, Greek, and we been wondering about the sudden drop in figures.”

  “Money not so loose any more,” Osikras said. “Times are bad.”

  “That’s what I’m here to check on.”

  “So check.” He shrugged. “I’m clean. Mr. Carfon knows that. He knows I’m clean.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “This stuff he sends me, this not diamonds, you know. It’s hard to peddle hot furs, hot cars. A diamond, you chop it up, it’s not recognize. You can’t do that with this other stuff. Money’s tight.”

  “We don’t expect a fortune, we only expect fair prices.”

  “The money’s been fair,” Osikras said. “It’s just tight, that’s all. My young friend, you can’t squeeze blood from a stone.”

  “No,” I said, “but you can sure as hell squeeze it from a head,” and the Greek looked at me very peculiarly.

  I did a lot of nosing around. I traced the operation from the warehouse where the hot stuff was stashed, down to the receiver who kept contact with our New York man, right up the line to the big buyers who later peddled the stuff themselves for whatever it would bring. I checked all the figures. I checked the receiving dates and the disposal dates, and I began checking the books Osikras started to keep. I wired New York for the figures we had, and I checked the Greek’s new figures against our old ones, and all of a sudden it seemed money wasn’t so tight any more, all of a sudden there was a big increase in prices being paid, everything got real loose, a miracle must have suddenly happened in Utica. From the buyers, I found out what prices were being paid—and what prices had been for the past six months. Maybe Osikras thought he was dealing with the local hicks again, but this was New York on the wire, man, that long distance phone was ringing, man, this was the real stuff.

  I went to him the last week May and me was in Utica. I showed him the figures the buyers had given me, and I showed him how they tallied against what we’d been raking in from this part of our operation in Utica. I also showed him how suddenly the miracle had come to pass and prices were now back to what they’d been in those good old free-swinging, loose-moneyed days, how all of a sudden prices jumped back up again when I appeared on the scene.

  “What’s the story, Greek?” I said.

  “What you mean, what’s the story? To begin with, those bastards lying. No matter what they say, they were paying lower prices a few months back. That’s the truth.”

  “Yeah? And how about now? All the prices jumping back up again?”

  “I don’t control the market,” Osikras said. “I only sell for what I can get, and I send New York the proper amount. I’m to blame because those bastards lying?”

  “Only one person lying, Greek. That’s you.”

  “Me? Me?”

  “What’s Mr. Carfon paying you, Greek?”

  “Ten per cent of what I get. Whatever I sell for, my take is ten per cent.”

  “Ain’t that enough for you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I will write it on the wall for you, Greek. In the month of May, you pocketed an extra grand. In June, you put away three grand. In July, fifteen hundred. In August—a bad month, huh, Greek?—four hundred and fifty bucks. In September, twenty-two fifty. Last month—”

  “No, you mistaken,” Osikras said.

  “No, you’re mistaken,” I told him. “You’re mistaken if you think you’re going to fool around with us. You’re taking money out of Mr. Carfon’s pocket, Greek, and that means
you are also taking money out of my pocket.”

  “No,” Osikras said. “No, I am not.”

  “Figures don’t lie, Greek. Only Greeks do.” I took out the .45.

  “Wh—what you going to do?” Osikras said, backing away from me.

  “Mr. Carfon wants you to know you ain’t indispensable, Greek. He wants you to know the next time you step out of line, the next time there’s even a goddamn penny short in the reckoning, I’ll use the other end of this gun on you.”

  “The other end? What you … what you …” He was backing up against the wall. He was beginning to shake, a skinny stinking Greek vulture with all his feathers shaking.

  “The other end, Greek. The end with the hole. For now, I use the butt. I use the butt to teach you a lesson, you understand? No more dipping in the kitty, Greek. This is the last warning. You understand, Greek? We want all the dough you pull in, less your ten per cent. No padding that percentage, Greek, you understand?”

  I brought the .45 up, and then I slashed the butt down across his face, ripping open his cheek.

  “No,” he said. “Please, no, please, I—”

  “You understand, Greek?” I said, and then I hit him again. And then I kept slashing the gun across his face, hitting him again and again and again, and finally leaving him on the floor to think over what I’d said.

  I think he understood. I think, at last, he understood.

  7

  When we got back to New York, I wanted to take May around to meet Mr. Carfon, but she said no. Actually, I couldn’t understand her attitude. Mr. Carfon had been real pleased with the work I done in Utica and had laid a little extra cash on me, which was just what we needed at the time. I mean, when you’re first married you got to furnish an apartment and all. Mr. Carfon understood that. As a matter of fact, he seemed pretty pleased that I’d taken the plunge. He kept calling me “the respectable married man.” I guess that idea of respectability appealed to him, even though he ain’t a bum. Nobody could ever think Mr. Carfon was a bum, not with that pad he’s got.

  The pad we had, May and me, was the one I’d been living in all along. I didn’t like the idea of moving in with my mother, but we couldn’t find an apartment just like that, so we had to do it. A guy feels eerie messing around with a girl, even though she’s his wife, when his own mother is in the next room. Anyway, that’s the way I felt. So May and me went out looking for an apartment every day. That’s how I spent most of my time after I got back from Utica. Until the jewelry store job came up. That goddamned job, I needed it like a hole in the head.