by Ed McBain
“Ma’am?” Brown said.
“You’re the detective, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Brown admitted.
“My name is Mrs. Farraday, how do you do?”
“Detective Brown,” he said, and nodded, and would have let it go at that, but Mrs. Farraday was holding out her hand. Brown clasped it, shook it, and smiled pleasantly. Mrs. Farraday returned the smile and released his hand.
“They told me to wait in here, said a detective would be along any minute. I’ve been waiting half the morning. It’s past ten-thirty now.”
“Well, Mrs. Farraday, I’ve been talking to people in the neighborhood since a little after eight o’clock. Takes a little while to get around to all of them.”
“Oh, I can well imagine,” she said.
“Patrolman outside says you’ve got some information for me, though. Is that right?”
“That’s right. I saw the two men who held up the store.”
“Where’d you see them?”
“Running around the corner. I was on my way home from church, I always go to six o’clock mass, and I’m generally out by seven, and then I stop at the bakery for buns, my husband likes buns with his breakfast on Sundays, or coffee cake.”
“Um-huh.”
“Never goes to church himself,” she said, “damn heathen.”
“Um-huh.”
“I was coming out of the bakery—this must have been, oh, close to seven-thirty—when I saw the two of them come running around the corner. I thought at first—”
“What were they wearing, Mrs. Farraday?”
“Black coats. And masks. One of them was a girl’s face—the mask, I mean. And the other was a monster mask, I don’t know which monster. They had guns. Both of them. But none of that’s important, Detective Brown.”
“What is important?”
“They took the masks off. As soon as they turned the corner, they took the masks off, and I got a very good look at both of them.”
“Can you describe them to me now?”
“I certainly can.”
“Good.” Brown took out his pad and flipped it open. He reached into his pocket for his pen—he was one of the few cops on the squad who still used a fountain pen rather than a ball-point—took off the cap, and said, “Were they white or black, Mrs. Farraday?”
“White,” Mrs. Farraday said.
“How old would you say they were?”
“Young.”
“How young? Twenty? Thirty?”
“Oh, no. In their forties, I would say. They were young, but they were definitely not kids, Detective Brown.”
“How tall were they?”
“One was about your height, a very big man. How tall are you?”
“Six four,” Brown said.
“My, that is big,” Mrs. Farraday said.
“And the other one?”
“Much shorter. Five eight or nine, I would guess.”
“Notice the hair color?”
“The short one was blond. The tall one had dark hair.”
“I don’t suppose you saw the color of their eyes.”
“They passed close enough, but I just didn’t see. They went by very quickly.”
“Any scars? Tattoos? Birthmarks?”
“Not that I could see.”
“Both clean-shaven?”
“Do you mean did they have beards or mustaches?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“No, both clean-shaven.”
“You say they took the masks off as they came around the corner, is that right?”
“Yes. They just ripped them off. It must be difficult to see through those things, wouldn’t you imagine?”
“Was there a car waiting for them?”
“No, I don’t think they had a car, Detective Brown. They were running too fast for that. It’s my guess they were trying to make their escape on foot. Wouldn’t that be your guess as well?”
“I really couldn’t say yet, Mrs. Farraday. I wonder if you could show me where that bakery store is.”
“Certainly. It’s right around the corner.”
They walked out of the grocery, and the patrolman outside said to Brown, “You know anything about when I’m supposed to be relieved here?”
“What do you mean?” Brown asked.
“I think there’s some kind of foul-up. I mean, this ain’t even my post.”
“Where is your post?”
“On Grover Avenue. Near the park.”
“So what’re you doing here?”
That’s just it. I collared this guy around quarter to seven, must’ve been, and took him back to the station house to book him—he was trying to bust into a Mercedes parked on South Second. By the time I got finished there, it was like seven-fifteen, and Nealy and O’Hara are going by in a patrol car, so I hail them and ask for a lift back to my post. We’re on the way when all of a sudden they catch the radio squeal about the shooting here at the grocery store. So we all rush over here, and there’s a big hullabaloo, you know, Parker caught some stuff, you know, and Nealy and O’Hara take off on a Ten-Thirteen, and the sergeant tells me to stay here outside the door. So I been here all morning. I was supposed to be relieved on post at eight o’clock, but how’s my relief supposed to know where I am so he can relieve me? You going back to the station house?”
“Not right away.”
“Listen, I hate to leave here, because the sarge might get sore, you know? He told me to stay right here.”
“I’ll call in from the nearest box,” Brown said.
“Would you do that? I certainly would appreciate it.”
“Right away,” Brown said.
He and Mrs. Farraday walked around the corner to the bakery shop. “This is where I was standing when they ran by,” Mrs. Farraday said. “They were taking off the masks as they came around the corner, and they had them off by the time they passed me. Then they went racing up the street there and…oh, my goodness!” she said, and stopped.
“What is it, Mrs. Farraday?”
“I just remembered what they did with those masks, Detective Brown. They threw them down the sewer there. They stopped at the sewer grating and just threw them away, and then they started running again.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Farraday,” Brown said, “you’ve been most helpful.”
“Oh, well,” she said, and smiled.
Flora and Frieda did not get back to their apartment on North Eighth until seven minutes past 11:00. They were both pretty women in their late twenties, both wearing pants suits and short car coats. Flora was a blonde, Frieda a redhead. Flora wore big gold hoop earrings. Frieda had a tiny black beauty spot near the corner of her mouth. They explained to the detectives that they always walked in the park on Sunday mornings, rain or shine. Flora offered them tea, and when they accepted, Frieda went upstairs to the kitchen, to put the kettle on.
Their apartment was in a brownstone that had run the gamut from luxury dwelling fifty years back, to crumbling tenement for as many years, to reconverted town house in a block of similar buildings trying desperately to raise their heads above the slime of the neighborhood. The women owned the entire building, and Flora explained now that the bedrooms were on the top floor, the kitchen, dining room, and spare room on the middle floor, and the living room on the ground floor. The detectives were sitting with her in that room now, sunlight streaming through the damask-hung windows. A cat lay before the tiled fireplace, dozing. The living room ran the entire length of the ground floor and was warmly and beautifully furnished. There was a false sense here of being someplace other than the city—some English country home in Dorset perhaps or some Welsh manor, quiet and secluded, with gently rolling grassy hills just outside the door. But it was one thing to convert a slum building into a beautiful town house, and quite another to ignore the whirlpool surrounding it. Neither Flora nor Frieda were fools; there were iron gates over the windows facing the backyard, and a Fox lock on the front door.
“The store hasn�
�t been burglarized, has it?” Flora asked. Her voice was somewhat throaty. She sounded very much like a torch singer holding the mike too close to her lips.
“No, no,” Willis assured her. “We merely want to ask about some articles of clothing that may have been purchased there.”
“Thank heavens,” Flora said. Frieda had come down from the kitchen and stood now behind Flora’s wingback chair, her hand delicately resting on the lace antimacassar just behind her partner’s head.
“We’ve been burglarized four times since we opened the store,” Frieda said.
“Each time they’ve taken, oh, less than a hundred dollars worth of merchandise. It’s ridiculous. It costs us more to replace the broken glass each time. If they’d just come in the store and ask for the damn stuff, we’d give it to them outright.”
“We’ve had the locks changed four times, too. That all costs money,” Frieda said.
“We operate on a very low profit margin,” Flora said.
“It’s junkies who do it,” Frieda said. “Don’t you think so, Flora?”
“Oh, no question,” Flora said. “Hasn’t that been your experience?” she asked the detectives.
“Well, sometimes,” Willis said. “But not all burglars are junkies.”
“Are all junkies burglars?” Frieda asked.
“Some of them.”
“Most of them?”
“A lot of them. Takes quite a bit of money to support a habit, you know.”
“The city ought to do something about it,” Flora said.
The cat near the fireplace stirred, stretched, blinked at the detectives, and then stalked out of the room.
“Pussy’s getting hungry,” Flora said.
“We’ll feed her soon,” Frieda answered.
“What clothes did you want to ask about?” Flora said.
“Well, primarily a jacket you had in the window last week. A fur jacket with—”
“The llama, yes, what about it?”
“With an orange sun painted on the back?” Genero said.
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Would you remember who you sold it to?” Willis asked.
“I didn’t sell it,” Flora said. She glanced up at her partner. “Frieda?”
“Yes, I sold it,” Frieda said.
“Would you remember who bought it?”
“A boy. Long blond hair and a mustache. A young boy. I explained to him that it was really a woman’s coat, but he said that didn’t matter, he thought it was groovy and wanted it. It has no buttons, you realize, so that wasn’t any problem. A woman’s garment buttons differently…”
“Yes, I know that.”
“This particular coat is held closed with a belt. I remember him trying it with the belt and then without the belt.”
“Excuse me,” Genero said, “but is this a coat or a jacket?”
“Well, it’s a short coat, actually. Mid-thigh. It’s really designed for a woman, to go with a miniskirt. It’s about that length.”
“I see.”
“I guess a man could wear it, though,” Frieda said dubiously.
“Do you know who the boy was?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t. I’d never seen him before.”
“How much did the coat cost?”
“A hundred and ten dollars.”
“Did he pay for it in cash?”
“No, by…oh, of course.”
“Yes?” Willis said.
“He gave me a check. His name would be on the check, wouldn’t it?” She turned to Flora. “Where are the checks we’re holding for deposit tomorrow?” she asked.
“Upstairs,” Flora said. “In the locked drawer.” She smiled at the detectives and said, “One drawer in the dresser locks. Not that it would do any good if someone decided to break in here.”
“Shall I get it for you?” Frieda asked.
“If you would,” Willis said.
“Certainly. The tea must be ready, too.”
She went out of the room. Her tread sounded softly on the carpeted steps leading upstairs.
“There was one other item,” Willis said. “Dick, have you got that blouse?”
Genero handed him a manila envelope. Willis unclasped it and removed from it the black silk blouse they had found on Scott’s bathroom floor, the police evidence tag dangling from one of its buttons. Flora took the blouse and turned it over in her hands.
“Yes, that’s ours,” she said.
“Would you know who bought it from you?”
Flora shook her head. “I really couldn’t say. We sell dozens of blouses every week.” She looked at the label. “This is a thirty-four, a very popular size.” She shook her head again. “No, I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” Willis said. He put the blouse back into the envelope. Frieda was coming into the room with a tray upon which was a teapot covered with a cozy, four cups and saucers, a milk pitcher, a sugar bowl, and several sliced lemons in a low dish. A check was under the sugar bowl. Frieda put down the tray, lifted the sugar bowl, and handed the check to Willis.
A name and an address were printed across the top of the check:
ROBERT HAMLING
3541 Carrier Avenue
Isola
The check was made out to the order of The Monkey Wrench for $135.68; it was signed by Hamling in a broad, sprawling hand. Willis looked up. “I thought the coat cost a hundred and ten dollars. This check—”
“Yes, he bought a blouse as well. The blouse cost eighteen dollars. The rest is tax.”
“A black silk blouse?” Genero asked.
“Yes,” Frieda said.
“This one?” Genero asked, and pulled the blouse from its envelope like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat.
“Yes, that’s the blouse,” Frieda said.
Genero nodded in satisfaction. Willis turned the check over. On the back of it were the penned words “Drivers Lic” and the numbers “21546 68916 506607-52.”
“Did you write this?” Willis asked.
“Yes,” Frieda answered.
“He showed you identification, I take it.”
“Oh yes, his driver’s license. We never accept checks without proper identification.”
“Can I see that?” Genero asked. Willis handed him the check. “Carrier Avenue,” Genero said. “Where’s that?”
“Downtown,” Willis answered. “In The Quarter.”
“What do you take in your tea, gentlemen?” Flora asked.
They sat sipping tea in the living room streaming with sunlight. Once, during a lull in the small talk over their steaming cups, Genero asked, “Why’d you name your store The Monkey Wrench?”
“Why not?” Frieda answered.
It was clearly time to go.
The curious thing about fishing in the sewer for those Halloween masks was that it filled Brown with a sense of exhilaration he had not known since he was a boy. He could remember a hundred past occasions when he and his childhood friends had removed an iron sewer grating and climbed down into the muck to retrieve a rubber ball hit by a stickball bat, or an immie carelessly aimed, or even now and then a dime or a quarter that had slipped from a clenched fist and rolled down into the curbside drain. He was too large now to squeeze through the narrow opening of the sewer, but he could see at least one of the masks some five feet below him, resting on the pipe elbow in a brownish paper-littered slime. He stretched out flat on the pavement, head twisted away from the curb, and tried to reach the mask. His arm, as long as it was, was not long enough. His fingertips wiggled below, touching nothing but stagnant air. He got to his feet, brushed off the knees of his trousers and the elbows of his coat, and then looked up the block. Not a kid in sight. Never a kid around when you needed one. He began searching in his pockets. He found a paper clip holding a business card to one of the pages in his pad. He removed the clip, put the card into his wallet, and then took a sheaf of evidence tags from his inside jacket pocket. Each of the tags had a short length of string tied through a hole at
one end. He unfastened the strings from ten tags, knotted them all together, and came up with a five-foot-long piece of string. He opened the paper clip so that it resembled a fishhook and then tied it to one end of the string. Weighting the line with the duplicate key to his station house locker, he grinned and began fishing in the sewer. On the twentieth try, he hooked the narrow piece of elastic clipped to the mask. Slowly, carefully, patiently, he reeled in his line.
He was looking at a somewhat soiled Snow White, but this was the ‘70s, and nobody expected to find virgins in sewers anymore.
Still grinning, Brown replaced the grating, brushed himself off again, and headed back for the squadroom.
In the city for which Brown worked, the Identification Section and the police laboratory operated on weekends with only a skeleton force, which was often only slightly better than operating with no force at all. Most cases got put over till Monday, unless they were terribly urgent. The shooting of a police detective was considered terribly urgent, and so the Snow White mask Brown dispatched to the lab downtown on High Street was given top priority. Detective-Lieutenant Sam Grossman, who ran the lab, was of course not working on a Sunday. The task of examining the mask for latent fingerprints (or indeed any clue as to its wearer’s identity) fell to Detective 3rd/Grade Marshall Davies, who, like Genero, was a comparatively new detective and therefore prone to catching weekend duty at the lab. He promised Brown he would get back to him as soon as possible, mindful of the fact that a detective had been shot and that there might be all kinds of pressure from upstairs, and then set to work.
In the squadroom, Brown replaced the telephone on its cradle and looked up as a patrolman approached the slattedrail divider with a prisoner in tow. At his desk, Carl Kapek was eating an early lunch, preparatory to heading for the bar in which the Marine had encountered the girl with the bewitching behind, bars in this city being closed on Sundays until 12:00, at which time it was presumably acceptable for churchgoers to begin getting drunk. The clock on the squadroom wall read fifteen minutes to noon. The squadroom was somewhat more crowded than it might have been at this hour on a Sunday because Levine, Di Maeo, and Meriwether, the three detectives who had been called in when they were supposed to be on vacation, were sitting at one of the desks waiting to see the lieutenant, who at the moment was talking to Captain Frick, commander of the precinct, about the grocery store shooting and the necessity to get some more men on it. The three detectives were naturally grumbling. Di Maeo said that next time he was going to Puerto Rico on his vacation because then the lieutenant could shove it up his ass if he wanted him to come back. Cooperman was on vacation, too, wasn’t he? But he was in the Virgin Islands, and the loot sure as hell didn’t call him down there and drag him in, did he? Besides, Levine pointed out, Andy Parker was a lousy cop, and who the hell cared if he got shot or even killed? Meriwether, who was a mild-mannered hairbag in his early sixties, and a detective/1st to boot, said, “Now, now, fellows, it’s all part of the game, all part of the game,” and Di Maeo belched.