Tricks

by Ed McBain

  "Steve and Meyer took a couple, did you hear?" he said.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Some midgets shot them," Kling said.

  "Come on, midgets," O'Brien said.

  Kling looked up at the clock again.

  "I'll be checking out a car," he said to no one.

  "You want a cup of coffee?" O'Brien asked Willis.

  It was only fifteen minutes before the beginning of All Hallows' Day.

  In the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, the first day of November is a feast day upon which the church glorifies God for all his saints, known or unknown. The word "hallow" derives from the Middle Englishhalowen , further derived from the Old Englishhalgian , and it means "to make or set apart as holy; to sanctify; to consecrate." All Hallows' Day and Hallowmass are now archaic names for this feast; today mdash;except in novels mdash;it is called All Saints' Day. But it has always been celebrated on the first day of November, which in Celtic times was coincidentally the first day of winter, a time of pagan witches and ghosts, mummery and masquerade. Wholly Christian in origin, however, are the vigil and fasting that occur on the day before.

  On the eve of All Hallows' Day, a Christian and a Jew kept vigil in a corridor of the Ernest Atlas Pavilion on the fourth floor of Buenavista Hospital.

  The Christian was Teddy Carella.

  The Jew was Sarah Meyer.

  The clock on the corridor wall read 11:47 p.m.

  Sarah Meyer had brown hair and blue eyes and lips her husband had always considered sensual.

  Teddy Carella had black hair and brown eyes, and lips that could not speak, for she had been born deaf and mute.

  Sarah had not seen the inside of a synagogue for more years than she cared to count.

  Teddy scarcely knew the whereabouts of her neighborhood church.

  But both women were silently praying, and they were both praying for the same man.

  Sarah knew that her husband was out of danger.

  It was Steve Carella who was still in surgery.

  On impulse, she took Teddy's hand and squeezed it.

  Neither of the women said a word to the other.

  Neither of the women said a word to the other.

  They spotted him the moment they came back into the bar. Annie knew he was their man. So did Eileen. They headed immediately for the ladies' room.

  A black hooker wearing a blonde wig was standing at the sink, looking into the mirror over it, touching up her lipstick. She was a woman in her early forties, Eileen guessed, wearing a black dress and a short, fake fur jacket, going a bit thick in the middle and around the ankles. Eileen was certain she had just come in off the meat rack on the street outside.

  "Getting chilly out there, ain't it?" the woman said.

  "Yeah," Annie said.

  "I'd park in here a while, but Larry gets twenty percent."

  "I know."

  "My man take a fit I give away twenty percent of the store."

  There was a knife scar across the bridge of her nose.

  She must have been pretty once, Eileen thought.

  "One last pee," she said, and went into one of the stalls.

  Annie lighted a cigarette. They chatted idly about how cold it was. The black hooker chimed in from behind the closed door of the stall, reporting on the really cold weather in Buffalo, New York, where she used to work years ago. They waited for her to flush the toilet. They waited while she washed her hands at the sink.

  "Have a nice night," she said, and was gone.

  "He's our man, isn't he?" Eileen said at once.

  "Looks like him."

  "Hitting on the wrong hooker."

  "You'd better move in," Annie said.

  "Sheryl won't like it."

  "She'll like a slab even less."

  "Will Shanahan know he's here?" Eileen asked.

  "He'll know, don't worry."

  Eileen nodded.

  "You ready for this?" Annie asked.

  "I'm ready."

  "You sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  Annie searched her face.

  "Because if you hellip;"

  "I'm ready," Eileen said.

  Annie kept searching her face. Then she said, "Let's go then," and tossed her cigarette into one of the toilet bowls.

  The cigarette expired with a short tired hiss.

  He was telling another joke when Eileen took the stool on his right.

  Blond. Six-two, six-three. Two hundred and ten easy. Eyeglasses. A tattoo near his right thumb, a blue heart lined in red, nothing in it.

  " hellip; so he says to the old man, 'What's the matter? Why are you crying?' The old man just keeps sitting there on the park bench, crying his eyes out. Finally he says, 'A year ago, I married this beautiful twenty-six-year-old girl. I've never been happier in my life. Before breakfast each morning, she wakes me up and blows me, and then she serves me bacon and eggs and toasted English muffins and piping hot coffee, and I go back to bed and rest till lunchtime. Then she blows me again before lunch, and she serves me a hot, delicious lunch, and I go back to bed again and rest till dinnertime. And she blows me again before dinner and serves me another terrific meal, and I fall asleep until morning when she wakes me up again with another blowjob. She's the most wonderful woman I've ever met in my life.' The guy looks at him. 'Then why are you crying?' he asks. And the old man says, 'I forgot where Ilive !' "

  Sheryl burst out laughing.

  Eileen was thinking about the dead hookers he'd had in stitches.

  "This guy's marvelous," Sheryl said, still laughing, leaning over to talk across him. "Linda, say hello to Bobby, he's marvelous."

  "Hello, Bobby," Eileen said.

  Terrific name for a slasher, she thought.

  "Well, well, well, hello, Linda," he said, turning to her.

  "Me and Bobby's running a tab," Sheryl said. "Which by the way, time's almost up."

  "That right?" Eileen said.

  "Just having a little fun here," Bobby said.

  "The real fun comes later, honey," Sheryl said. "This is just the warm-up."

  "I hear redheads are a lot of fun," Bobby said. "Is that true?"

  "I haven't had any complaints," Eileen said.

  She was wondering how she could get rid of Sheryl. If they were running a bar tab hellip;

  "But they burn in the sun," Bobby said.

  "Yeah, I have to watch that."

  "Just don't go out except at night, that's all," Sheryl said. "Listen, Bobby, I hate to be pushy, but your time's running out. You said twenty bucks for twenty minutes, remember?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "So take a look at the clock. You got about a minute left."

  "I see that."

  "So what do you say? We're having fun here, am I right?"

  "Lots of fun."

  "So how about another twenty, take us into Saturday?"

  "Sounds like a good idea," he said, but he made no move for his wallet. Sheryl figured she was losing him.

  "Matter of fact," she said, "whyn't you put Linda on the tab, too?"

  "Thanks, no, I've been drinking too much tonight," Eileen said.

  "This ain't a booze tab," Sheryl said. "This is accounts receivable. What do you say, Bobby? Lay a couple of twenties on the bar there, you buy both of us till a quarter past. Double your pleasure, double your fun. And later on, you still interested, we do a triad."

  "What's a triad?" he asked.

  "I read it in a book. It's like a two-on-one. A triad."

  "I'm not sure I could handle two of you," he said.

  But Eileen could see the sudden spark of ambition in his eyes. Blue to match the blue in the tattooed heart near his thumb. Seriously considering the possibility now. Take themboth outside, slash them both, maybe go for a third one later on, do the hat trick tonight.

  She didn't want a civilian getting in the way.

  She had to get rid of Sheryl.

  "I don't work doubles," she said.

  A risk.


  "How come?" Bobby asked.

  "Why should I share this?" she said, and put her left hand on his thigh. He thought she was going for the meat. She was frisking him for the knife. Found it, too. Outlined in his right-hand pants pocket, felt like a six-incher at least. Maybe eight.

  A shiver ran up her spine.

  Sheryl was getting nervous. Her eyes flicked up to the clock again. The twenty minutes were gone, and she didn't see another twenty bucks coming out of his wallet. She was afraid she'd already lost him. So she tried again, appealing not tohim now, but to the redheaded hooker sitting on his right, a sorority sister, so to speak, someone who knew how tough it was to earn a buck in a dog-eat-dog world.

  "Change your mind, Linda," she said.

  There was something almost plaintive in her voice.

  "Come on, okay? It'll be fun."

  "I think Linda might be more fun alone," Bobby said.

  Eileen's hand was still on his thigh. Off the knife now, like finding the knife was an accident. Fingers spread toward his crotch.

  Sheryl looked up at the clock again.

  "Tell you what," she said. "I'll make it only ten bucks for the next twenty minutes, how's that? We'll sit here, I'll let you tell me some more of your jokes, be a lot of fun, what do you say?"

  A last desperate try.

  "I say it's up to Linda here. What do you say, Linda?"

  "I told you. I don't do doubles."

  Flat out. Get rid of her.

  "You heard her," he said.

  "Hey, come on, what kinda hellip; ?"

  "So long, Sheryl," he said.

  She got off the stool at once.

  "You're some cunt, you know that?" she said to Eileen, and turned away angrily and walked toward a table where three men were sitting drinking beer. "Who wants me?" she said angrily, and pulled out a chair and sat.

  "I hate it when the fun goes out of it," Bobby said.

  "We'll have lots of fun, don't worry," Eileen whispered, and tightened her hand on his thigh. "You want to get out of here this minute? I get ten bucks for a handjob hellip;"

  "No, no, let's talk a while, okay?" He reached into his right hip pocket, pulled out his wallet. Big killer, she thought, keeps his wallet in the sucker pocket. "Same deal as with Sheryl, okay? A buck a minute, here's a twenty" mdash;reaching into the wallet, pulling out a bill, looking up at the clock mdash;"we'll see how it goes, okay?"

  "What is this?" Eileen asked. "An audition?"

  "Well, I'd like to get to know you a little before I hellip;"

  He cut himself short.

  "Before you what?" she said.

  "You know," he said, and smiled, and lowered his voice. "Do it to you."

  "What would you like to do to me, Bobby?"

  "New and exciting things," he said.

  She looked into his eyes.

  Another shiver ran up her back.

  "You cold?" he asked.

  "A little. The weather's changing all of a sudden."

  "Here," he said. "Take my jacket."

  He shrugged out of the jacket. Tweed. He was wearing a blue flannel shirt under it, open at the throat. Blue to match his eyes and the tattooed heart near his thumb. He draped the jacket over her shoulders. There was the smell of death on the jacket, as palpable as the odor of smoke hanging on the air. She shivered again.

  "So what do you say?" he asked her. "A buck a minute, does that sound all right?"

  "Sure," she said.

  "Well, good," he said, and handed her the twenty-dollar bill.

  "Thanks," she said, and looked up at the clock. "This buys you till twenty past," she said, and tucked the bill into her bra. She didn't want to open her bag. She didn't want to risk him spotting the .44 in her bag, under the silk scarf. She was going to blow his brains out with that gun.

  "Nothing for our friendly barkeep?" he asked.

  "Huh?"

  "I thought he got twenty percent."

  "Oh. No, we have an arrangement."

  "Well, good. I'd hate to think you were cheating him. You don't cheat people, do you, Linda?"

  "I try to give good value," she said.

  "Good. 'Cause you promised me a lot of fun, didn't you?"

  "Show you a real good time," she said, and nodded.

  Across the room, Annie was in conversation with the frizzied brunette who'd earlier partnered with Sheryl. The place was beginning to thin out a bit. There'd be a new shift coming in, Eileen guessed, the morning people, the denizens of the empty hours. He'd paid for twenty minutes of her time, but he'd dumped Sheryl without a backward glance, and she couldn't risk losing him to any of the other girls here. Twenty minutes unless he laid another bill on the bar. Twenty minutes to get him outside on the street, where he'd moved on the other three women. Show him a real good time, all right. Punish him for what he'd done. Make him pay for the three women he'd killed. Make him pay, too, for what a man named Arthur Haines had done to her face hellip; and her body hellip; and her spirit.

  "So where are all the jokes?" she asked.

  "Jokes?"

  "Sheryl said you're full of jokes."

  "No, Sheryl didn't say that."

  "I thought she said hellip;"