Tricks

by Ed McBain

  "Yes, please," she said, "excuse me," and stepped back to let them in.

  Small entryway, a sense of near-shabbiness. Worn carpeting, scarred and rickety piece of furniture under a flaking mirror.

  "I thought hellip; when you told me who you were hellip; I thought you'd found Jimmy," she said.

  "Not yet, Mrs. Sebastiani," Hawes said. "In fact, the reason we came out here hellip;"

  "Come in," she said, "we don't have to stand here in the hall."

  She backed off several paces, reached beyond the door jamb for a light switch. A floor lamp came on in the living room. Musty drapes, a faded rug, a thrift-shop sofa and two upholstered armchairs, an old upright piano on the far wall. Same sense of down-at-the-heels existence.

  "Would you like some coffee or anything?" she asked.

  "I could use a cup," Brown said.

  "I'll put some up," she said, and walked back through the hall and through a doorway into the kitchen.

  The detectives looked around the living room.

  Framed photographs on the piano, Sebastian the Great doing his act hither and yon. Soiled antimacassars on the upholstered pieces. Brown ran his finger over the surface of an end table. Dust. Hawes poked his forefinger into the soil of a potted plant. Dry. The continuing sense of a house too run down to care about mdash;or a house in neglect because it would soon be abandoned.

  She was back.

  "Take a few minutes to boil," she said.

  "Who plays piano?" Hawes asked.

  "Frank did. A little."

  She'd grown used to the past tense.

  Mrs. Sebastiani," Brown said, "we were wondering if we could take a look at Brayne's room."

  "Jimmy's room?" she said. She seemed a bit flustered by their presence, but that could have been normal, two cops showing on her doorstep at midnight.

  "See if there's anything up there might give us a lead," Brown said, watching her.

  "I'll have to find a spare key someplace," she said. "Jimmy had his own key, he came and went as he pleased."

  She stood stock still in the entrance door to the living room, a thoughtful look on her face. Hawes wondered what she was thinking, face all screwed up like that. Was she wondering whether it was safe to show them that room? Or was she merely trying to remember where the spare key was?

  "I'm trying to think where Frank might have put it," she said.

  A grandfather clock on the far side of the room began tolling the hour, eight minutes late.

  One hellip; two hellip;

  They listened to the heavy bonging.

  Nine hellip; ten hellip; eleven hellip; twelve.

  "Midnight already," she said, and sighed.

  "Your clock's slow," Brown said.

  "Let me check the drawer in the kitchen," she said. "Frank used to put a lot of junk in that drawer."

  Past tense again.

  They followed her into the kitchen. Dirty dishes, pots, and pans stacked in the sink. The door of the refrigerator smudged with handprints. Telephone on the wall near it. Small enamel-topped table, two chairs. Worn linoleum. Only a shade on the single window over the sink. On the stove, the kettle began whistling.

  "Help yourselves," she said. "There's cups there, and a jar of instant."

  She went to a drawer in the counter, opened it. Hawes spooned instant coffee into each of the cups, poured hot water into them. She was busy at the drawer now, searching for the spare key. "There should be some milk in the fridge," she said. "And there's sugar on the counter there." Hawes opened the refrigerator. Not much in it. Carton of low-fat milk, slab of margarine or butter, several containers of yogurt. He closed the door.

  "You want some of this?" he asked Brown, extending the carton to him.

  Brown shook his head. He was watching Marie going through the drawer full of junk.

  "Sugar?" Hawes asked, pouring milk into his own cup.

  Brown shook his head again.

  "This may be it, I really don't know," Marie said.

  She turned from the drawer, handed Brown a brass key that looked like a house key.

  The telephone rang.

  She was visibly startled by its sound.

  Brown picked up his coffee cup, began sipping at it.

  The telephone kept ringing.

  She went to the wall near the refrigerator, lifted the receiver from its hook.

  "Hello?" she said.

  The two detectives watched her.

  "Oh, hello, Dolores," she said at once. "No, not yet, I'm down in the kitchen," she said, and listened. "There are two detectives with me," she said. "No, that's all right, Dolores." She listened again. "They want to look at the garage room." Listening again. "I don't know yet," she said. "Well, they hellip; they have to do an autopsy first." More listening. "Yes, I'll let you know. Thanks for calling, Dolores."

  She put the receiver back on its hook.

  "My sister-in-law," she said.

  "Taking it hard, I'll bet," Hawes said.

  "They were very close."

  "Let's check out that room," Brown said to Hawes.

  "I'll come over with you," Marie said.

  "No need," Brown said, "it's getting cold outside."

  She looked at him. She seemed about to say something more. Then she merely nodded.

  "Better get a light from the car," Hawes said.

  Marie watched them as they went out the door and made their way in the dark to where they'd parked their car. Car door opening, interior light snapping on. Door closing again. A moment later, a flashlight came on. She watched them as they walked up the driveway to the garage, pool of light ahead of them. They began climbing the steps at the side of the building. Flashlight beam on the door now. Unlocking the door. Should she have given them the key? Opening the door. The black cop reached into the room. A moment of fumbling for the wall switch, and then the light snapped on, and they both went inside and closed the door behind them.

  The bullet had entered Carella's chest on the right side of the body, piercing the pectoralis major muscle, deflecting off the rib cage and missing the lung, passing through the soft tissue at the back of the chest, and then twisting again to lodge in one of the articulated bones in the spinal column.

  The X rays showed the bullet dangerously close to the spinal cord itself.

  In fact, if it had come to rest a micrometer further to the left, it would have traumatized the cord and caused paralysis.

  The surgical procedure was a tricky one in that the danger of necrosis of the cord was still present, either through mechanical trauma or a compromise of the arterial supply of blood to the cord. Carella had bled a lot, and there was the further attendant danger of his going into heart failure or shock.

  The team of surgeons mdash;a thoracic surgeon, a neurosurgeon, his assistant, and two residents mdash;had decided on a posterolateral approach, going in through the back rather than entering the chest cavity, where there might be a greater chance of infection and the possibility of injury to one of the lungs. The neurosurgeon was the man who made the incisions. The thoracic surgeon was standing by in the event they had to open the chest after all. There were also two scrub nurses, a circulating nurse, and an anesthesiologist in the room. With the exception of the circulating nurse and the anesthesiologist, everyone was fully gowned and gloved. Alongside the operating table, machines monitored Carella's pulse and blood pressure. A Swan-Ganz catheter was in place, monitoring the pressure in the pulmonary artery. Oscilloscopes flashed green. Beeps punctuated the sterile silence of the room.

  The bullet was firmly seated in the spinal column.

  Very close to the spinal cord and the radicular arteries.

  It was like operating inside a matchbox.

  The River Dix had begun silting over during the heavy September rains, and the city had awarded the dredging contract to a private company that started work on the fifteenth of October. Because there was heavy traffic on the river during the daylight hours, the men working the barges started as soon as it
was dark and continued on through until just before dawn. Generator-powered lights set up on the barges illuminated the bucketsful of river slime scooped up from the bottom. Before tonight, the men doing the dredging had been grateful for the unusually mild weather. Tonight, it was no fun standing out here in the cold, watching the bucket drop into the black water and come up again dripping all kinds of shit.

  People threw everything in this river.

  Good thing Billy Joe McAllister didn't live in this city; he'd have maybe thrown a dead baby in the river.

  The bucket came up again.

  Barney Hanks watched it swinging in wide over the water, and signaled with his hand, directing it in over the center of the disposal barge. Pete Masters, sitting in the cab of the diesel-powered dredge on the other barge, worked his clutches and levers, tilting the bucket to drop another yard and a half, two yards of silt and shit. Hanks jerked his thumb up, signaling to Masters that the bucket was empty and it was okay to cast the dragline out over the river again. In the cab, Masters yanked some more levers and the bucket swung out over the side of the barge.

  Something metallic was glistening on the surface of the muck in the disposal barge.

  Hanks signaled to Masters to cut the engine.

  "What is it?" Masters shouted.

  "We got ourselves a treasure chest," Hanks yelled.

  Masters cut his engine, climbed down from the cab, and walked across the deck toward the other barge.

  "Time for a coffee break, anyway," he said. "What do you mean a treasure chest?"

  "Throw me that grappling hook," Hanks said.

  Masters threw the hook and line to him.

  Hanks tossed the hook at what appeared to be one of those aluminum cases you carried roller skates in, except that it was bigger all around. The case was half-submerged in slime, it took Hanks five tosses to snag the handle. He pulled in the line, freed the hook, and put the case down on the deck.

  Masters watched him from the other barge.

  Hanks tried the catches on the case.

  "No lock on it," he said, and opened the lid.

  He was looking at a head and a pair of hands.

  Kling arrived in the Canal Zone at thirteen minutes past midnight.

  He parked the car on Canalside and Solomon, locked it, and began walking up toward Fairview. Eileen had told him they'd be planting her in a joint called Larry's Bar, on Fairview and East Fourth. This side of the river, the city got all turned around. What could have been North Fourth in home territory was East Fourth here, go figure it. Like two different countries, the opposite sides of the river. They even spoke English funny over here.

  Larry's Bar.

  Where the killer had picked up his three previous victims.

  Kling planned on casing it from the outside, just to make sure he was still in there. Then he'd fade out, cover the place from a safe vantage point on the street. Didn't want Eileen to know he was on the scene. First off, she'd throw a fit, and next she might spook, blow her own cover. All he wanted was to be around in case she needed him.

  He had put on an old pea jacket he kept in his locker for unexpected changes of weather like the one tonight. He was hatless and he wasn't wearing gloves. If he needed to pull the piece, he didn't want gloves getting in the way. Navy-blue pea jacket, blue jeans mdash;too lightweight, really, for the sudden chill mdash;blue socks and black loafers. And a .38 Detective Special in a holster at his waist. Left hand side. Two middle buttons of the jacket unbuttoned for an easy reach-in and cross-body draw.

  He came up Canalside.

  The Beef Trust was out in force, despite the cold.

  Girls huddled under the lamp posts as though the overhead lights afforded some warmth, most of them wearing only short skirts and sweaters or blouses, scant protection against the cold. A lucky few were wearing coats provided by mobile pimps with an eye on the weather.

  "Hey, sailor, lookin' for a party?"

  Black girl breaking away from the knot under the corner lamp post, swiveling over to him. Couldn't be older than eighteen, nineteen, hands in the pockets of a short jacket, high-heeled ankle-strapped shoes, short skirt blowing in the fresh wind that came off the canal.

  "Almos' do it for free, you so good-lookin'," she said, grinning widely. "Thass a joke, honey, but the price is right, trust me."

  "Not right now," Kling said.

  "Well,when , baby? I stann out here much longer, my pussy turn to ice. Be no good to neither one of us."

  "Maybe later," Kling said.

  "You promise? Slide your hand up under here, take a feel of heaven."

  "I'm busy right now," Kling said.

  "Too busy forthis ?" she said, and took his hand and guided it onto her thigh. "Mmmmm-mmmmm," she said, "sweet chocolate pussy, yours for the takin'."

  "Later," he said, and freed his hand and began walking off.

  "You come on back later, man, hear?" she shouted after him. "Ask for Crystal."

  He walked into the darkness. On the dock, he could hear rats rustling along the pilings. Another lamp post, another huddle of hookers.

  "Hey, Blondie, lookin' for some fun?"

  White girl in her twenties. Wearing a long khaki coat and high heels. Opened the coat to him as he went past.

  "Interested?" she said.

  Nothing under the coat but garter belt and long black stockings. Quick glimpse of rounded belly and pink-tipped breasts.

  "Faggot!" she yelled after him, and twirled the coat closed as gracefully as a dancer. The girls with her laughed. Fun on the docks.

  Made a right turn onto Fairview, began walking up toward Fourth. Pools of light on the sidewalk ahead. Larry's Bar. Two plate-glass windows, beer displays in them, entrance door set between them. He went to the closest window, cupped his hands on either side of his face, peered through the glass. Not too crowded just now. Annie. Sitting at a table with a black man and a frizzied brunette. Good, at least one backup was close by. There at the bar. Eileen. With a big blond guy wearing glasses.

  Okay, Kling thought.

  I'm here.

  Don't worry.

  From where Shanahan sat slumped behind the wheel of the two-door Chevy across the street, he saw only a big blond guy looking through the plate-glass window of the bar. Six feet tall, he guessed, give or take an inch, broad shoulders and narrow waist, wearing a seaman's pea jacket and blue jeans.

  Shanahan was suddenly alert.

  Guy was still looking through the window, hands cupped to his face, motionless except for the dancing of his blond hair on the wind.

  Shanahan kept watching.

  The guy turned from the window.

  No eyeglasses.

  Might not be him.

  On the other hand hellip;