Tricks

by Ed McBain

  Up ahead.

  Four teenagers.

  Running into the building on the corner.

  Just a glimpse of them.

  Blue jeans and denim jackets.

  Something in their hands.

  Trouble?

  Shit, he thought.

  He eased the car over. No parking spaces on the street, he double-parked in front of the building and picked up the walkie-talkie.

  "Eight-Seven," he said, "D.D. Four."

  Calling home, identifying himself. One of the six unmarked sedans used by the Detective Division.

  "Go ahead, Four."

  "Genero," he said. "10-51, four in number, at twelve-seven-teen North Eleventh."

  "Stay in touch, Genero."

  He'd identified the four teenagers as a roving band, a non-crime incident, and he hoped that was what it turned out to be. Getting out of the car, he pulled back the flap of his jacket and was clipping the walkie-talkie to his belt when a loud whooshing sound erupted from inside the building. He almost dropped the walkie-talkie. He looked up sharply. Flames! In the lobby there! And running out of the building, the four teenagers, one of them still carrying in his right hand what looked like a Molotov cocktail. Instinctively, Genero yelled, "Stop! Police!" and yanked his service revolver from its holster.

  The kids hesitated for only a moment.

  "Police!" he shouted again.

  The one with the firebomb held a Zippo lighter to the wick and hurled the bottle at Genero.

  The bottle crashed at his feet. Flames sprang up from the sidewalk. He threw both hands up to protect his face, and then immediately stepped back and brought his right hand down again, pistol level, firing into the wall of fire, through the wall of fire, two quick shots in succession.

  Somebody screamed.

  And suddenly they were on him. They jumped through the names like circus performers, three of them hitting him almost simultaneously, knocking him to the pavement. He rolled away from the fire, tried to roll away from their kicks. He brought the gun hand up again, fired again, three shots gone now, heard someone grunt. Don't waste any, he thought, and one of them kicked him in the head. He went blank for an instant. His finger tightened reflexively on the trigger. The gun exploded wild, close to his own ear. He blinked his eyes. He was going. He fought unconsciousness. Someone kicked him in the shoulder, and the sharp pain rocketed into his brain and brought him back. Four shots gone, he thought. Make the next ones count. He rolled away again. He blinked them into focus. Only two of them on their feet now. The third one flat on his back near the entrance to the building. Fourth one lying on the sidewalk dangerously close to the fire. He'd hammered two of them, but there were still two to go, and only two shots left in the gun.

  His heart was pounding.

  But he took his time.

  Waited till the lead kicker was almost on him, and then shot for his chest.

  Second one right behind him, almost knocked off his feet when his buddy blew back into him. Genero fired again. Took the second one in the left shoulder, sent him spinning around and staggering back toward the wall of the building.

  Genero could hardly breathe.

  He got to his feet, fanned the empty gun at them.

  Nobody seemed to be going anywhere.

  He backed off a pace, pulled cartridges from his belt, loaded them into the cylinder, counting hellip; four, five, six and ready again.

  "Move and you're dead," he whispered, and yanked the walkie-talkie from his belt.

  Detective/Third Grade Richard Genero had come of age on the eve of All Hallows' Day.

  The school custodian who answered the night bell was the same one who'd locked Sebastian the Great's tricks in a storeroom earlier this afternoon. Peering through the grilled upper glass panel of the door at the back of the building, he recognized Hawes at once, unlocked the door, and let him in.

  " 'Evening, Mr. Buono," Hawes said.

  "Hey, how you doing?" Buono said.

  He was a man in his late sixties, thinning gray hair, thin gray mustache over his upper lip. Pale blue eyes, somewhat bulbous nose. He was wearing coveralls. A flashlight was in one of the pockets. He clipped his ring of keys to a loop on the pocket.

  "This is my partner, Detective Brown," Hawes said.

  "Nice to meetcha," Buono said. "You come back for the stuff?"

  "Well, no," Hawes said. "Few questions we'd like to ask you."

  Buono immediately figured they knew he was stealing supplies from the classroom closets.

  "Hey, sure," he said, and tried to look innocent. He locked the door behind them, and said, "Come on over the office, we can talk there. My friend and me were playing checkers."

  They walked down a yellow-tiled, locker-lined corridor. They passed a wall clock that read twenty minutes past ten. They made a left turn. More students' lockers on either wall. A bulletin board. A poster reading:

  COME CHEER THE TIGERS!

  Saturday, Nov. 1, 2:00 p.m.

  RAUCHER FIELD

  To the right of that, another poster announcing:

  SEBASTIAN THE GREAT!

  HALLOWEEN MAGIC!

  Auditorium. 4:00 p.m.

  Beneath the lettering was a black-and-white photograph of a good-looking young man wearing a top hat and bow tie, grinning into the camera.

  "Okay to take that poster?" Brown asked.

  "Which one?" Buono said.

  "The magician."

  "Sure," Buono said, and shrugged.

  Brown began pulling out the tacks.

  "Come in handy, we find the head," he said to Hawes, and then folded the poster and put it in his inside jacket pocket.

  Buono led them further down the hall, opened a door at the end of it. A sparsely furnished room. An upright locker, green in contrast to the reds, yellows, and oranges of the lockers in the halls. Long oak table, probably requisitioned from one of the administration offices. Four straight-backed chairs around it, checker board on one end of it. Coffee pot on a hot plate on one wall of the room, clock over it. Framed picture of Ronald Reagan on the wall opposite.

  "This here's my friend, Sal Pasquali," Buono said.

  Pasquali was in his late sixties, early seventies, wearing brown trousers, brown shoes and socks, a pale yellow sports shirt, and a brown sweater buttoned up the front. He looked like a candy-store owner.

  "These people here are detectives," Buono said, and looked at Pasquali, hoping he would understand what the look meant: Watch your onions about the chalk, and the paste, and the pencils, and the erasers, and the reams of paper.

  Pasquali nodded sagely, like a Mafia don.

  "Pleased to meetcha," he said.

  "So," Buono said, "sit down. You want some coffee?"

  "Thanks, no," Hawes said.

  The detectives pulled out chairs and sat.

  Buono could see Brown's gun in a shoulder holster under his jacket.

  "We were just playing checkers here," Pasquali said.

  "Who's winning?" Brown asked.

  "Well, we don't play for money or nothing," Pasquali said.

  Which meant that they did.

  Brown suddenly wondered what these two old farts were hiding-"I wanted to ask whether you saw anything that happened outside there this afternoon," Hawes said.

  "Why?" Buono said at once. "Is something missing?"

  "No, no. Missing? What do you mean?"

  "Well, what doyou mean?" Buono said, and glanced at Pasquali.

  "I meant when the cars were being loaded."

  "Oh."

  "When Mr. Sebastiani was out there loading his tricks in the Citation."

  "I didn't see him doing that," Buono said.

  "You weren't out there after he finished the act, huh?"

  "No. I didn't come on till four o'clock."

  "Well, he'd have been out there around five-thirty."

  "No, I didn't see him."

  "Then you have no idea who might've dumped that stuff out of his car hellip;"

 
"No idea at all."

  "And driven off with it."

  "No. Five-thirty, I was prolly down the north end of the building, starting with the classrooms there. I usually start cleaning the classrooms down the north end, it's like a routine, you know. Tradition."

  "That's near the driveway, isn't it? The north end?"

  "Yeah, the back of the building. But I didn't see anything out there. I mean, Imighta seen something if I was looking mdash;there's windows in the classrooms, you know. But I wasn't looking for nothing. I was busy cleaning up the classrooms." You say you came on at four hellip;"

  "That's right. Four to midnight."

  "Like us," Brown said, and smiled.

  Yeah?" Buono said. "Is that your shift? Whattya know? You hear this, Sal? They got shifts like us."

  "What a coincidence," Pasquali said.

  Brown still wondered what they were hiding.

  "So you came on at four hellip;" Hawes said.

  "Yeah. Four to midnight. There's a man relieves me at midnight." He looked at the clock on the wall. "Be here in a few hours, well, less. But he's like just a watchman, you know."

  "If you came on at four hellip;"

  "Yeah." A nod.

  "Then you weren't here when the Sebastianis arrived, were you? They would've got here about a quarter after three. You weren't here then, is that right?"

  "No. Sal was here."

  Pasquali nodded.

  "Sal works from eight to four," Buono said. "He's theday custodian."

  "Shifts," Pasquali said. "Like you."

  "He can't stay away from the place," Buono said. "Comes back to play checkers with me every night."

  "I'm a widower," Pasquali explained, and shrugged.

  "Did you see the cars when they arrived?" Brown asked him. "Tan Ford Econoline, blue Citation?"

  "I seen one of them out there," Pasquali said. "But not when it came in."

  "Which one did you see?"

  "Little blue car."

  "When was this? When you saw it?"

  "Around hellip; three-thirty, was it?"

  "You asking me?" Buono said. "I wasn't here three-thirty."

  "Three-thirty, it musta been," Pasquali said. "I remember I was heading out front, where the school buses come in. I usually go out there, talk to the drivers."

  "They'd have been setting up the stage by then," Hawes said.

  Brown nodded.

  "And the van was already gone."

  Brown nodded again.

  "Did you see any people out there?" Hawes asked Pasquali. "Carrying things in? Unloading the cars?"

  "All I saw was the one car mdash;"

  "Blonde woman in her late twenties? Two men in their early thirties?"

  "No," Pasquali said, and shook his head.

  "Were the doors open?"

  "What doors?"

  "On the car."

  "They looked closed to me."

  "Anything lying in the driveway there?"

  "Nothing I could see. What do you mean? Like what?"

  "Tricks," Hawes said.

  "Tricks?" Pasquali said, and looked at Buono.

  "They done a magic show this afternoon," Buono said. "For the kids."

  "Oh. No, I didn't see no tricks out there."

  "You didn't happen to wander by that driveway later on, did you? Around five-thirty? When they were loading the hellip;"

  "Five-thirty I was home eating my dinner. I made a nice TV dinner for myself."

  Hawes looked at Brown.

  "Anything?" he asked.

  Brown shook his head.

  "Well, thanks a lot," Hawes said, and shoved back his chair.

  "I'll let you out the building," Buono said.

  The detectives followed him out of the office.

  As soon as they were gone, Pasquali took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow.

  At twenty minutes past ten, Larry's Bar was buzzing with activity.

  Not a table empty. Not a stool unoccupied at the bar.

  Eileen was sitting at one of the tables now, talking to a blonde hooker named Sheryl who was wearing a red skirt slit up one side, and a white silk blouse unbuttoned three buttons down. There was nothing under the blouse. Sheryl sat with her legs spread, her high heels hooked on the chair's top rung. Eileen could see track marks on her naked white thighs. She was telling Eileen how she'd come to this city from Baltimore, Maryland. Eileen was scanning the room, trying to figure out which one of these guys in here was her backup. Two waitresses, who could have passed for hookers themselves mdash;short black skirts, high heels, overflowing white peasant blouses mdash;were busily scooting back and forth between the tables and the bar, avoiding grabs at their asses.

  "Got off the bus," the girl said, "first thing happens to me is this kindly old man asks can he help me with my valise. Had to be forty years old, am I right, a nice old man being friendly. Asks me have I got a place to stay, offers to get me a taxi to the Y, says 'I'll bet you're starving,' which I was, takes me to a hamburger joint, stuffs me with burgers and fries, tells me a nice young girl like me mdash;I was only seventeen mdash;had to be careful in the big, bad city, lots of people out there waiting to victimize me."

  "Same old bullshit," Eileen said.

  She figured there were only two men who could be Shanahan. Guy sitting there at one of the tables, talking up a hooker with frizzied brown hair, he had a hook nose that could've been a phony, black hair and blue eyes like Shanahan's, about his height and weight, wearing horn-rimmed eyeglasses. He could've been Shanahan.

  "Well, sure, you know the story already," the girl said. "Mr. Nice turns out to be Big Daddy, takes me to his apartment, introduces me to two other girls living there, nice girls like me, he says, has me smoking pot that same night and shooting horse before the week is out. Turned me out two days later with a businessman from Ohio. Guy ast me to blow him, I didn't know what the fuck he meant. Man, that seems like ages ago."

  "How old are you now?" Eileen asked.

  "Twenty-two," Sheryl said. "I'm not with Lou no more hellip; that was his name, Lou hellip; I got me a new man, takes good care of me. Who you with?"