by Ed McBain
"This is another joke. Old guy, ninety-five years old. He tells the madam he's looking for a blowjob. The guy's so frail he can hardly stand up. The madam says, 'Come on, mister, you've had it.' He says, 'I have? How much do I owe you?'"
"Nowthat's funny," Larry said.
"I know a hundred jokes about old people."
"Thatfunny, it wasn't."
"This old guy is sitting on a park bench, crying his heart out. Another guy sits next to him, says hellip;"
"Hi."
He turned.
A good-looking blonde girl was sitting on the stool next to his.
"My name's Sheryl," she said. "Wanna party?"
CHAPTER 10
The minute he saw her, he knew she was going to be more fun than any of the others. Something in her eyes. Something in her smile. Something in the way she plumped her cute little bottom down on the bar stool, and crossed her legs, and propped one elbow on the bar, and her chin on her hand, and looked him mischievously in the eye mdash;a fun girl, he could tell that at once.
"Well, well, well, hello, Sheryl," he said.
"Well, well, well, hello to you," she said.
"Barkeep," he said, "see what the lady'll have."
"Barkeep, I love that," Sheryl said.
A fun girl. He knew it.
"So what'll it be?" he asked.
"What areyou drinking?"
"Gin and tonic."
"I'll have the same," she said.
"A gin and tonic for the lady," he said to Larry, and then immediately, "This guy walks into a bar hellip;"
"You already told this one," Larry said.
"This is another one. Guy walks into a bar, says, 'See that cat over there?' Everybody looks at the cat. Big tomcat with an enormous tail. The guys says, 'I'll bet any man in the house my penis is longer than that cat's tail.' Everybody wants to bet him. Hundred-dollar bills come out all over the place. The guy says to the bartender hellip;"
"Gin and tonic," Larry said, "three bucks, a bargain."
"You should learn not to interrupt a story," he said.
"Tell 'im," Sheryl said.
"The guy says to the bartender, 'Okay, measure us.' So the bartender takes out a tape measure, goes over to the cat, measures the cat's tail, and says, 'Fourteen inches.' They guy nods and says, 'Okay, now measure my penis.' The bartender measures the penis. 'Eight inches,' he says. 'You lose.' The guy looks at him. 'Excuse me,' he says, 'but exactlyhow did you measure that cat's tail?' The bartender says, 'I put one end of the tape against his asshole and the other end hellip;' and the guy says, 'Would you mind showing me the same consideration?' "
Sheryl burst out laughing.
Larry said, "I don't get it. You owe me three bucks."
He paid for the drink. Sheryl was still laughing.
A fun girl.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Robert Redford," he said, which wasn't too far from the truth in that his first name really was Robert.
"I believe you," she said, and winked at Larry. "What do people call you? Rob? Bob? Bobby?"
"Bobby," he said, which was absolutely the truth.
"And how doesyour tail measure up against that cat's, Bobby?"
"Want to find out?" he said.
"Oooo, yes," Sheryl said, and rolled her eyes.
"Think that might be fun, huh?" he said.
"I think it'd beloads of fun," she said. "I'll tell you what I get, Bobby. A handjob's hellip;"
"Not yet," he said.
"Well, you see, Bobby, I'm a working girl. So whereas there's nothing I'd enjoy more than sitting here all night with you hellip;"
He put a twenty-dollar bill on the bartop.
"Let's say we're running a tab," he said.
"You mean you and me? Or you and Larry?"
"You and me. The twenty's yours. It buys twenty minutes, a dollar a minute. We'll talk about renewing the option when the meter runs out. How's that sound, Sheryl?"
"No problem," she said, and scooped up the bill.
"Four bucks of that is mine," Larry said, and held out his hand. Sheryl made a face, but she gave him the twenty, and watched him as he walked down to the cash register to make change.
"So where you from, Bobby?" she asked.
"Most recently? Chicago. Before that, Kansas City."
Playing it recklessly. Those were the two cities exactly. But that's what made this so exciting. Playing the game for the ultimate risk.
Larry was back with her change. "Here's your sixteen," he said, handing her three fives and a single.
"You take out a fourteen-inch whanger in here," she said, "Larry'll want twenty percent of it."
"I never yet seen nobody with a fourteen-incher," Larry said.
"You been looking?" she asked, and winked at Bobby and put the bills into her handbag. "What Larry does, he checks out the men's room for fourteen-inchers."
"This soldier is in the men's room taking a shower," Bobby said. "All the other guys in his company hellip;"
"Is this another one?" Larry said.
"I thought I told you not to interrupt my stories," Bobby said.
"Stories like yours hellip;"
"Be quiet," he said.
He spoke the words very softly.
Larry looked at him.
"Do you understand?" he said. "When I'm telling a story, be quiet."
Larry looked into his eyes.
Then he shrugged and walked to the other end of the bar.
"Serves him right," Sheryl said. "Let me hear the story, Bobby."
"This soldier is taking a shower. All the other guys in his company are crowded around the stall, looking in at him, craning for a look at him. That's because the guy has a penis that's only an inch long. Finally, the guy can't take it anymore. He turns to them and yells, 'What's the matter? You never seen anybody with a hard-on before?' "
Sheryl burst out laughing again.
From the other end of the bar, Larry grimaced sourly, and said, "Very funny."
"So which one are you, Bobby?" Sheryl asked. "The fourteen-incher or the inch-long wonder?"
"I thought we weren't going to hurry," he said.
"Listen, it's your money," Sheryl said. "Take all the time you need."
"I mean, I thought we were having fun here," he said.
"We are," she said.
"I mean, isn't this fun?"
"I love your stories, Bobby," she said.
"You're a fun girl," he said. "I can tell that."
"That's what I've been told, Bobby."
"I mean, I'll bet you like to do new and exciting things, don't you?"
"Oh, sure," she said. "I even did it with a police dog once."
"That's not what I meant. I meantnew things. Exciting things.'
"Well, to me that was new. Six guys watching while I did it with a police dog? That was new."
"It may have been new, but I'll bet it wasn't exciting," Bobby said.
"Well, I have to admit, when the dog went down on me that was sort of exciting. He had like this very raspy tongue, you know? Like sandpaper. I guess you could say that was sort of exciting. I mean, once you got past the idea of him being adog , which was disgusting, of course."
"Sheryl," he said, "I think you're terrific, I really do. We're going to have a lot of fun together, you'll see."
"Oh, I'm sure."
"We're going to do some new and very exciting things."
"I can hardly wait," she said.
"Lots of laughs," he said.
"I already find you very funny," she said.
"This midget goes into a men's room," he said. "And there's a guy standing there at one of the hellip;"
This second party was even better than the first one had been.
Parker was having the time of his life.
At the first party, he'd got drunk enough to believe he was really a writer passing himself off as a cop who only wanted to be a writer. At this party, he didn't tell anyone he was a cop because no one w
as in costume here, it wasn't that kind of a party. But even without the masquerade, he was having a marvelous time. Maybe because there were all sorts of interesting people here, most of them women. Or maybe because these interesting women all foundhim interesting.
This was very amazing to him.
He thought he was just being his usual shitty self.
It turned out that the woman whose apartment they were in was celebrating her sixty-third birthday tonight, which was why there was a party in the first place, never mind Halloween. Her name was Sandra, and she was the one Peaches had been expecting a call from earlier tonight, which was the only reason she'd answered the phone after that heavy-breathing creep got off the line. Sandra was her next-to-best friend; her best friend was the woman who'd thrown the costume party. Still, Peaches liked Sandra a lot, especially because she never expected a present on her birthday. She was a bit surprised, therefore, and somewhat annoyed, when Parker flatly and rudely expressed the opinion that no one over the age of sixty should be asked to blow out all the candles on a birthday cake in a single breath. And she was even more surprised when Sandra burst out laughing and said, "Oh, baby, how true! Who the hell needs such a humiliating stress test?"
Everyone laughed. Even Peaches.
Sandra then blew out all the candles in a single breath, and pinched Parker on the behind and asked him if he'd like the candles onhis cake blown. "Out," she added.
Everyone laughed. Except Peaches.
A little later on, encouraged by the attention a lot of these very interesting women were paying to ideas he'd never even known he'd had, Parker ventured a bit closer to home and suggested to a lady trial lawyer thatanyone committing a murder was at least a little bit crazy and that therefore the "legal insanity" defense was meaningless. The lady lawyer said, "That's very interesting, Andy. I had a case last week where hellip;"
It was astonishing.
Parker said to a woman wearing horn-rimmed eyeglasses and no bra that he found pornographic movies more honest than any of the nighttime soaps on television, and the woman turned out to be a film critic who encouraged him to expand upon the idea.
Parker told a woman writer mdash;areal writer mdash;that he never spent more than five pages with any book if he wasn't hooked by then, and the woman expounded upon the importance of a book's opening and closing paragraphs, to which Parker said, "Sure, it's like foreplay and afterplay," and the woman writer put her hand on his arm and laughed robustly, which Peaches did not find at all amusing.
Peaches, in fact, was becoming more and more irritated by the fact that Sandra had invited her to a party where the women outnumbered the men by an approximate two-to-one and where Parker was suddenly the center of all this female attention. She had liked it better when they were a couple pretending to be a cop and a victim. They weresharing something then. Now Parker seemed to be stepping out on his own, the small-time flamenco dancer who'd been offered a movie contract provided he ditched his fat lady partner. This miffed Peaches because for Christ's sake she was the one who'd introduced him to show biz in the first place!
When the female midget walked in at twenty-five minutes to twelve, Peaches immediately checked out the man with her. Burly guy going a bit bald, but with a pleasant craggy face, and a seemingly gentle manner. Five-ten or -eleven, she guessed, merry blue eyes, nice speaking voice now that she heard him wishing Sandra a happy birthday. Sandra took their coats and wandered off, muttering something about mingling. Peaches moved in fast before the other sharks smelled blood on the water. She introduced herself to the man and the midget mdash;
"Hi, I'm Peaches Muldoon."
"Quentin Forbes. Alice hellip;"
mdash;and then took the man's arm before he could finish the midget's name, and said, "Come on, I'll get you a drink," and sailed off with him, leaving the midget standing there by the door looking forlornly and shyly into the room.
Parker had never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.
He went over to her at once.
"Small world," he said.
And to his enormous surprise mdash;the night was full of surprises mdash;she burst out laughing, and said, "I feel like a fire hydrant waiting for an engine company. Where's the bar?"
Hal Willis came into the squadroom at twenty minutes to midnight. The teams usually relieved at a quarter to the hour, and so he was early mdash;which was a surprise. Nowadays, ever since he'd taken up with Marilyn Hollis, he was invariably late. And rumpled-looking. He was rumpled-looking tonight, too, giving the impression of a man who'd leaped out of bed and into his trousers not five minutes earlier.
"Getting a bit brisk out there," he said.
He was wearing a short car coat over slacks and a sports jacket, no tie, the top button of his shirt unbuttoned. At five-feet eight-inches tall, he was the shortest man on the squad mdash;even shorter than Fujiwara, who was of Japanese descent mdash;but Willis knew judo and karate, and he'd fooled many a cheap thief who'd figured him for a pushover. He took off the coat and hung it on the coatrack, glanced idly at the bulletin board, and then looked at the duty chart to see who'd be sharing the shift with him. He moved like a man underwater nowadays. Kling attributed his eternal weariness to Marilyn Hollis. Eileen said Marilyn Hollis was poison. Maybe she was right. Kling looked up at the clock.
"Let me fill you in," he said.
He told Willis about the four teenagers Genero had shot.
"Genero?" Willis said, amazed.
He told Willis about the four midgets who'd held up a series of liquor stores.
"Midgets?" Willis said, amazed.
He told Willis that Carella and Meyer had taken three bullets between them and were both at Buenavista Hospital.
"You going over there?" Willis asked.
"Maybe later. I have to run out to Calm's Point."
He looked up at the clock again.
"Brown and Hawes caught a homicide," he said, "all the paperwork is on Brown's desk. There's a picture of the victim, too, a magician. They found him in four separate pieces."
"Four pieces?" Willis said, amazed.
"Here's a number you can reach them at in Collinsworth, case anything breaks. They got an all-points out on a guy named Jimmy Brayne."
"Good evening, gentlemen," O'Brien said from the slatted rail divider, and then pushed his way through the gate into the squadroom. "Winter's on the way." He was indeed dressed for winter, wearing a heavy overcoat and a muffler, which he took off now and carried to the coatrack. Willis wasn't happy to be partnered with O'Brien. O'Brien was a hard-luck cop. You went on a call with O'Brien, somebody was bound to get shot. This wasn't O'Brien's fault. Some cops simply attracted the lunatics with guns. On Christmas Day, not too long ago mdash;well, not too long ago byprecinct time, where sometimes an hour seemed an eternity mdash;O'Brien and Meyer had stopped to check out a man changing a flat tire on a moving van. A moving van? Working on Christmas Day? The man turned out to be a burglar named Michael Addison, who'd just cleaned out half a dozen houses in Smoke Rise. Addison shot Meyer twice in the leg. Brown later dubbed the burglar Addison and Steal. This was pretty funny, but the bullets in Meyer's leg weren't. Willis mdash;and everyone else on the squad mdash;was convinced Meyer had got himself shot only because he'd been partnered with O'Brien. Still, he'd been shot again tonight, hadn't he? And he'd been working with Carella. Maybe in this line of work, there were bullets waiting out there with your name on them. In any event, Willis wished O'Brien was home in bed, instead of here in the squadroom with him.