by Ed McBain
'I can check it out.'
'But how could he have killed her?' Joyce asked. 'He didn't even know she existed.'
'Well, we would like to talk to him, if we can find him,' Carella said. Miss Chapman, does the name Scott Handler mean anything to you?'
'No.'
'He isn't anyone you might have known?'
'No.'
'Or might have met somewhere even casually?'
'Like at a disco? she said, her voice turning suddenly hard and mean. 'I told you, Mr Carella, I'm not promiscuous.'
'No one said you were, Miss Chapman.'
'You stressed the word "casually" . . .'
'I didn't intend to.'
'But you did! How the hell am I supposed to know who this Scott…'
'Handler.'
'Whoever the fuck, how am I supposed to know him?'
'I was only asking if his name sounded . . .'
'No, you wanted to know if I'd met him casually . . .'
'Yes, but I . . .'
'The way I'd met Mike?'
Carella sighed.
'I don't know him,' Joyce said.
'Okay,' he said.
There was a long awkward silence. 'Listen,' she said.
'Yes?'
'If you . . . if you find who . . . who . . . who killed . . .'
It was hard for her to say it. It seemed as if she would never say it. But at last the name formed on her lips and came over the telephone wires like a whisper.
'Susan,' she said. 'If you find who killed Susan . . .'
Her voice caught.
'Let me know, okay?' she said, and hung up.
* * * *
Eileen was taking her measure.
This was only the second time she'd seen the woman, and she wasn't sure she'd be seeing her again. Like a cop studying a suspect, she scrutinized Karin Lefkowitz.
Big-city Jewish-girl looks. Barbra Streisand, but prettier. Brown hair cut in a flying wedge. A sharp intelligence in her blue eyes. Good legs, she probably looked terrific in heels, but she was wearing Reeboks. A dark blue business suit - and Reeboks. Eileen liked what she saw.
'So,' Karin said. 'Shall we begin with the rape?'
Straight for the jugular.
Eileen liked that, too - she guessed.
'It's not the rape I want to talk about,' she said.
'Okay.'
'I mean, that's not why I'm here. The rape.'
'Okay.'
'The rape was a long time ago. I've learned to live with it.'
'Good. So what did you want to discuss?'
'As I told you last week ... I want to quit the force.'
'But not because you were raped.'
'The rape has nothing to do with it.' Eileen crossed her legs. Uncrossed them again. 'I killed a man.'
'So you told me.'
'That's why I want to quit.'
'Because you killed a man in the line of duty.'
'Yes. I don't want to have to kill anyone else. Ever again.'
'Okay.'
'I think that's reasonable.'
'Uh-huh.'
Eileen looked at her.
'What are we supposed to do here?' she asked.
'What would you like to do?' Karin asked.
'Well, first off,' Eileen said, 'I'd like you to understand I'm a cop.'
'Uh-huh.'
'A Detective/Second Grade . . .'
'Uh-huh.'
'. . . who knows a little bit about interrogation.'
'Uh-huh.'
'As for example answering questions with questions to get a suspect talking.'
'Uh-huh,' Karin said, and smiled.
Eileen did not smile back.
'So when I ask you what we're supposed to do here, I don't like you asking me what I'd like to do here. You're the trained person, you're the one who's supposed to know how to proceed here.'
'Okay,' Karin said.
'And by the way I know the Uh-Huh-Okay routine, too,' Eileen said. 'You got yourself a suspect? Good. Just keep him talking, just okay and uh-huh him to death.'
'But you're not a suspect,' Karin said, and smiled.
'What I'm saying . . .'
'I understand what you're saying. You'd appreciate my treating you like the professional you are.'
'Yes.'
'Good. I will. If you'll extend the same courtesy to me.'
Eileen looked at her again.
'So,' Karin said. 'You want to quit the force.'
'Yes.'
'And that's why you're here.'
'Yes.'
'Why?' Karin asked.
'I just told you. I want to . . .'
'Yes, quit the force. But that doesn't tell me why you're here. If you want to quit the force, why did you come to see me?'
'Because I was talking to Sam Grossman at the lab . . .'
'Yes, Captain Grossman.'
'Yes, and I was telling him I forget what now, something about, I don't remember, I guess looking for a job in some other line of work, and we got to talking, and he asked me if I knew about Pizzaz, and I said I did, and he suggested that I give Dr Lefkowitz a call, she might be able to help me with this problem I seemed to have.'
'And what is this problem you seem to have?'
'I just told you. I want to quit the force.'
'So why don't you?'
'Well, that's the problem. Every time I'm about to hand in my resignation, well, I ... I can't seem to do it.'
'Uh-huh. Have you actually written a resignation letter?'
'No. Not yet.'
'Uh-huh. And this shooting occurrence took place when?'
'This killing occurrence, you mean. I killed a man, Dr. Lefko . . . what am I supposed to call you, anyway?'
'What would you like to call me?'
'You're doing it again,' Eileen said.
'Sorry, but it's habit.'
Eileen sighed.
'I'd still like to know what I should call you,' she said.
'Are you uncomfortable with Dr Lefkowitz?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'I don't know why. Do you plan to call me Detective Burke?'
'I don't know what I plan to call you. What would you like me to . . . ?'
'I don't think this is going to work,' Eileen said.
'Why not?'
'Because I realize you've got to ask a question every time I ask a question, but that's the same game we play with any cheap thief off the street.'
'Yes, but this isn't a game here,' Karin said.
Their eyes met.
'The same way questioning a thief isn't a game,' Karin said.
Eileen kept looking at her.
'So maybe you should concentrate less on my technique and more on our getting comfortable with each other.'
'Maybe.'
'That is, if you can overlook my clumsiness.'
Karin smiled.
Eileen smiled, too.
'So,' Karin said. 'What would you like me to call you?'
'Eileen.'
'And what would you like to call me?'
'What would you like me to call you?' Eileen said.
Karin burst out laughing.
'Karin, okay?' she said.
'Karin, okay,' Eileen said.
'Will you be comfortable with that?'
'Yes.'
'Good. Can we get to work now?'
'Yes.'
'All right, when did you kill this man?'
'On Halloween night.'
'This past Halloween?'
'Yes.'
'Less than three months ago.'
'Two months and nine days,' Eileen said.
'Where did it happen?'
'In a rented room in the Canal Zone.'
'On the docks?'
'Yes.'
'Over in Calm's Point?'
'Yes.'
'The Seven-Two?'
'That's the precinct, yes. But I was working with Annie Rawles out of Rape. It gets complicated. Homicide called her in, and she co
ntacted me because they needed a decoy.' Eileen shrugged. 'I'm supposed to be a good decoy.'
'Are you?'
'No.'
'Then why'd Annie call you in?'
'I was then.'
'A good decoy.'
'Yes. But I'm not anymore.'
'Is that why you want to quit the force?'
'Well, if I can't do the job right, I might as well quit, no?' She shrugged again. 'That's the way I look at it, anyway.'
'Uh-huh. What was this man's name?'
'The one I killed?'
'Yes. Why? Who did you think I meant?'
'I thought you meant the one I killed. That's what we were talking about, wasn't it? Halloween night?'
'Yes.'
'His name was Robert Wilson. Well, Bobby. He called himself Bobby.'
'Why did you kill him, Eileen?'
'Because he was coming at me with a knife.'
'Uh-huh.'
'He'd already killed three hookers here in this city.'
'Nice person.'
'He was, actually. I mean . . . this sounds stupid, I know . . .'
'Go on.'
'Well, 1 had to keep reminding myself I was dealing with a killer. A man who'd killed three women. One of them only sixteen years old. They showed me pictures up the Seven-Two, he'd really done a job on them. I'm talking genital mutilation. So I knew this, I knew he was very dangerous but he seemed charming. I know that's crazy.'
'Uh huh.'
'Kept telling jokes.'
'Uh huh.'
'Very funny jokes. It was strange. I was sitting there with a killer, and I was laughing. It really was strange.'
'What did he look like?'
'Bobby? He was blond. Six-two, six-three, in there. Two hundred pounds or so, well, a bit over. Maybe two-ten, fifteen. A big man. With a tattoo near his right thumb. A blue heart outlined in red.'
'Anything in it?'
'What do you mean?'
'The heart. Any lettering in it?'
'Oh. No. Nothing. I thought that was strange, too.'
'At the time?'
'No. Later on. When I thought about it. A heart without a name in it. Usually there's a name, isn't there?' Eileen shrugged. 'All the thieves I've dealt with, if they've got a heart tattoo, there's always a name in it. But not him. Strange.'
'So let me understand this. He was telling jokes while you were in this rented room with him?'
'No, earlier. In the bar. They planted me in a bar. In hooker's threads. Because . . .'
'Because the previous three victims were hookers.'
'Yes. And he hit on me in the bar, and I had to get him out of there so he could make his move. So we went to this rented room.'
'Where he came at you with a knife and you had to shoot him.'
'Yes.'
'Where were your backups?'
'I lost them. But that's another story.'
'Let me hear it?'
'Well,' Eileen said, and sighed. 'My SO thought I needed a little help on the job. So he . . .'
'What's his name?'
'Kling. Bert Kling. He's a detective up in the Eight-Seven.'
'Do you think of him as that?'
'As what? A detective?'
'No, your Significant Other.'
'Yes. Well, I did.'
'Not any longer?'
'I told him I didn't want to see him for a while.'
'Why'd you do that?'
'I figured while I was trying to sort things out . . .'
'Uh-huh.'
'. . . it might be best if we didn't see each other.'
'When did this happen?'
'Well, I told him Friday night.'
'How'd he take it?'
'He didn't like it very much.'
'What'd he say?'
'First he said he didn't think it was such a good idea, and then he said it was a lousy idea. He also wanted to know whether you were the one who'd suggested it.'
'And what'd you tell him?'
'I said it was my own idea.' Eileen paused, and then said, 'Would you have suggested it?'
'I really couldn't say at this point.'
'But do you think it's a good idea? Until I get myself straightened out?'
'How long have you known him?' Karin asked.
'Quite a while now. I was doing a job for the Eight-Seven, and we met up there. A laundromat. This guy was holding up laundromats. They planted me like a lady with a basket full of dirty laundry.'
'Did you catch him?'
'Oh, yeah.'
'And this was when?'
'A long time ago. I sometimes feel I've known Bert forever.'
'Does he love you?'
'Oh, yes.'
'And do you love him?' Eileen thought about this.
'I guess so,' she said at last.
'I'm assuming you've been intimate . . .'
'Oh, sure. Ever since . . . well, I had another job shortly after the laundromat, some guy who was raping nurses in the park outside Worth Memorial. The Chinatown Precinct, you know?'
'Uh-huh. Did you catch him, too?'
'Oh, yeah.'
'Then you must have been very good.'
'Well, I was okay, I guess. But that was then.'
'But you were saying . . .'
'Only that when it was over, the thing in the park, I went up to Bert's place and we, you know.'
'And that was the start of it.'
'Yes.'
'And you've been intimate since.'
'Yes. Well, no.'
'No?'
'Not since . . .' Eileen shook her head.
'Not since when?'
'Halloween,' Eileen said. 'But that's another story, too.'
Maybe they're all the same story,' Karin said.
* * * *
Andrew Fields was waiting outside José Herrera's apartment building when he came downstairs at three o'clock that Tuesday afternoon. It was a cold gray shitty day like the ones you always got in January in this city. In Jamaica, you never got days like this. Never. It was always sunny and bright in Jamaica. Even when it rained it was a different kind of rain than you got here in this shitty city. There were times when Fields was sorry he'd ever left Jamaica except for the money. Here there was money. In Jamaica, you wiped your ass on last year's newspaper.
Herrera was wearing his overcoat like a cloak, thrown over his shoulders, unbuttoned to accommodate the cast on his left arm. Fields wondered what he had on under the coat. A sweater with only one sleeve? After he shot him, he would take a look under the coat, see what he was wearing. He would also steal the wristwatch he saw glinting on Herrera's left wrist, which looked like gold from this distance, but which may have been only junk. Lots of spics wore fake jewelry.
Fields planned to approach Herrera soon as he found an opportunity, fall into step beside him, tell him in English - if the fuckin' spic understood English - that this was a gun here in Fields's pocket and that he should walk very nice and quiet with him and keep walking till they came to 704 Crosley, which was an abandoned building in this lovely spic neighborhood Herrera lived in. Fields planned to walk him up to the third floor of that building and shoot him in the back of the head. Very clean, very simple. No fuss, no muss.
Herrera stood on the front stoop, looking up and down the street.
Playing it like a cool television gangster.
Only ten thousand blacks in his immediate vicinity, so the dumb spic was trying to pick his exterminator from the bunch.
Fields smiled.
On New Year's Day, when they'd gone after him with the baseball bats, they were wearing jeans and leather jackets, boots, red woolen watch caps, they'd looked like some kind of street gang. Today, Fields was dressed like a banker. Dark suit and overcoat, black shoes, pearl gray stetson, black muffler. Briefcase in his left hand. So his right hand could be on the piece in his coat pocket when he caught up with Herrera and advised him that they were about to take a healthful little morning walk.