by Ed McBain
“Scotch and soda,” Carella said.
“Wrong,” the girl answered, and moved closer to him.
“What is it then?” he asked.
“Kiss me,” she said.
“Some other time,” he answered.
“That isn’t a command,” she said, giggling, “it’s only the password.”
“Good,” he said.
“So if you want to get to the bar,” the girl said, “say the password.”
“Kiss me,” he said, and was moving past her when she threw her arms around his neck and delivered a wet, open-mouthed, tongue-writhing kiss that shook him to his socks. She held the kiss for what seemed like an hour and a half, and then, with her arms still around his neck, she moved her head back a fraction of an inch, touched her nose to his, and said, “I’ll see you later, stranger. I have to go to the Ladies.”
At the bar, Carella wondered when he had last kissed anyone but his wife, Teddy. As he ordered a drink, he felt a soft pressure against his arm, turned to his left, and found one of the hookers, a black girl in her twenties, leaning in against him and smiling.
“What took you so long to get here?” she said. “I’ve been waiting all night.”
“For what?” he said.
“For the good time I’m going to show you.”
“Wow, have you got the wrong number,” Carella said, and turned to Fletcher, who was already lifting his martini glass.
“Welcome to Fanny’s,” Fletcher said, and raised his glass in a toast, and then drank the contents in one swallow and signaled to the bartender for another. “You will find many of them on exhibit,” he said.
“Many what?”
“Many fannies. And other things as well.” The bartender brought a fresh martini with lightning speed and grace. Fletcher lifted the glass. “I hope you don’t mind if I drink myself into a stupor,” he said.
“Go right ahead,” Carella answered.
“Merely pour me into the car at the end of the night, and I’ll be eternally grateful.” Fletcher lifted the glass and drank. “I don’t usually consume this much alcohol,” he said, “but I’m very troubled about that boy . . .”
“What boy?” Carella said immediately.
“Listen, honey,” the black hooker said, “aren’t you going to buy a girl a drink?”
“Ralph Corwin,” Fletcher said. “I understand he’s having some difficulty with his lawyer, and . . .”
“Don’t be such a tight-ass,” the girl said. “I’m thirsty as hell here.”
Carella turned to look at her. Their eyes met and locked. The girl’s look said, What do you say? Do you want it or not? Carella’s look said, Honey, you’re asking for big trouble. Neither of them exchanged a word. The girl got up and moved four stools down the bar, to sit next to a middle-aged man wearing bell-bottomed suede pants and a tangerine-colored shirt with billowing sleeves.
“You were saying?” Carella said, turning again to Fletcher.
“I was saying I’d like to help Corwin somehow.”
“Help him?”
“Yes. Do you think Rollie Chabrier would consider it strange if I suggested a good defense lawyer for the boy?”
“I think he might consider it passing strange, yes.”
“Do I detect a note of sarcasm in your voice?”
“Not at all. Why, I’d guess that ninety percent of all men whose wives have been murdered will then go out and recommend a good defense lawyer for the accused murderer. You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not. Look, I know that what I’m about to say doesn’t go over very big with you . . .”
“Then don’t say it.”
“No, no, I want to say it.” Fletcher took another swallow of his drink. “I feel sorry for that boy. I feel . . .”
“Hello, stranger.” The brunette was back. She had taken the stool vacated by the hooker, and now she looped her arm familiarly through Carella’s and asked, “Did you miss me?”
“Desperately,” he said. “But I’m having a very important conversation with my friend here, and . . .”
“Never mind your friend,” the girl said. “I’m Alice Ann, who are you?”
“I’m Dick Nixon,” Carella said.
“Nice to meet you, Dick,” the girl answered. “Would you like to kiss me again?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have these terrible sores inside my mouth,” Carella said, “and I wouldn’t want you to catch them.”
Alice Ann looked at him and blinked. She reached for his drink then, apparently wishing to wash her possibly already contaminated mouth, realized it was his filthy drink, turned immediately to the man on her left, pushed his arm aside, grabbed his glass, and hastily swallowed a mouthful of disinfectant alcohol. The man said, “Hey!” and Alice Ann said, “Cool it, Buster,” and got off the stool, throwing Carella a look even more scorching than her kiss had been, and swiveling off toward a galaxy of young men glittering in a corner of the crowded room.
“You won’t understand this,” Fletcher said, “but I feel grateful to that boy. I’m glad he killed her, and I’d hate to see him punished for what I consider an act of mercy.”
“Take my advice,” Carella said. “Don’t suggest this to Rollie. I don’t think he’d understand.”
“Do you understand?” Fletcher asked.
“Not entirely,” Carella said.
Fletcher finished his drink. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said. “Unless you see something you want.”
“I already have everything I want,” Carella answered, and wondered if he should tell Teddy about the brunette in the peekaboo blouse.
The Purple Chairs was a bar farther downtown, apparently misnamed, since everything in the place was purple except the chairs. Ceiling, walls, bar, tables, curtains, napkins, mirrors, lights, all were purple. The chairs were white.
The misnomer was intentional.
The Purple Chairs was a Lesbian bar, and the subtle question being asked was: Is everybody out of step but Johnny? The chairs were white. Pure. Pristine. Innocent. Virginal. Then why insist on calling them purple? Where did perversity lie, in the actuality or in the labeling?
“Why here?” Carella asked immediately.
“Why not?” Fletcher answered. “I’m showing you some of the city’s more frequented spots.”
Carella strenuously doubted that this was one of the city’s more frequented spots. It was now a little past eleven, and the place was only sparsely populated, entirely by women—women talking, women smiling, women dancing to the jukebox, women touching, women kissing. As Carella and Fletcher moved toward the bar, tended by a bull dagger with shirt sleeves rolled up over her powerful forearms, a rush of concerted hostility focused upon them like the beam of a death ray. The bartender verbalized it.
“Sightseeing?” she asked.
“Just browsing,” Fletcher answered.
“Try the public library.”
“It’s closed.”
“Maybe you’re not getting my message.”
“What’s your message?”
“Is anybody bothering you?” the bartender asked.
“No.”
“Then stop bothering us. We don’t need you here, and we don’t want you here. You like to see freaks, go to the circus.” The bartender turned away, moving swiftly to a woman at the end of the bar.
“I think we’ve been invited to leave,” Carella said.
“We certainly haven’t been invited to stay,” Fletcher said. “Did you get a good look?”
“I’ve been inside dyke bars before.”
“Really? My first time was in September. Just goes to show,” he said, and moved unsteadily toward the purple entrance door.
The cold December air worked furiously on the martinis Fletcher had consumed, so that by the time they got to a bar named Quigley’s Rest, just off Skid Row, he was stumbling along drunkenly and clutching Carella’s arm for support. Carella suggested that perhap
s it was time to be heading home, but Fletcher said he wanted Carella to see them all, see them all, and then led him into the kind of joint Carella had mentioned earlier, where he knew instantly that he was stepping into a hangout frequented by denizens, and was instantly grateful for the .38 holstered at his hip. The floor of Quigley’s Rest was covered with sawdust, the lights were dim, the place at twenty minutes to midnight was crowded with people who had undoubtedly awoken at 10 P . M . and who would go till ten the next morning. There was very little about their external appearances to distinguish them from the customers in the first bar Fletcher and Carella had visited. They were similarly dressed, they spoke in the same carefully modulated voices, they were neither as blatant as the crowd in Fanny’s nor as subdued as the crowd in The Purple Chairs. But if a speeding shark in cloudy water can still be distinguished from a similarly speeding dolphin, so were the customers in Quigley’s immediately identified as dangerous and deadly. Carella was not sure that Fletcher sensed this as strongly as he, himself, did. He knew only that he did not wish to stay here long, especially with Fletcher as drunk as he was.
The trouble started almost at once.
Fletcher shoved his way into position at the bar, and a thin-faced young man wearing a dark blue suit and a flowered tie more appropriate to April than December turned toward him sharply and said, “Watch it.” He barely whispered the words, but they hung on the air with deadly menace, and before Fletcher could react or reply, the young man shoved the flat of his palm against Fletcher’s upper arm, with such force that he knocked him to the floor. Fletcher blinked up at him, and started to get drunkenly to his feet. The young man suddenly kicked him in the chest, a flatfooted kick that was less powerful than the shove had been but had the same effect. Fletcher fell back to the floor again, and this time his head crashed heavily against the sawdust. The young man swung his body in preparation for another kick, this time aiming it at Fletcher’s head.
“That’s it,” Carella said.
The young man hesitated. Still poised on the ball of one foot, the other slightly back and cocked for release, he looked at Carella and said, “What’s it?” He was smiling. He seemed to welcome the opportunity of taking on another victim. He turned fully toward Carella now, balancing his weight evenly on both feet, fists bunched. “Did you say something?” he asked, still smiling.
“Pack your bag, sonny,” Carella said, and bent down to help Fletcher to his feet. He was prepared for what happened next, and was not surprised by it. The only one surprised was the young man, who threw his right fist at the crouching Carella and suddenly found himself flying over Carella’s head to land flat on his back in the sawdust. He did next what he had done instinctively since the time he was twelve years old. He reached for a knife in the side pocket of his trousers. Carella did not wait for the knife to clear his pocket. Carella kicked him cleanly and swiftly in the balls. Then he turned to the bar, where another young man seemed ready to spring into action, and very quietly said, “I’m a police officer. Let’s cool it, huh?”
The second young man cooled it very quickly. The place was very silent now. With his back to the bar, and hoping the bartender would not hit him on the head with a sap or a bottle or both, Carella reached under Fletcher’s arms and helped him up.
“You okay?” he said.
“Yes, fine,” Fletcher said.
“Come on.”
He walked Fletcher to the door, moving as swiftly as possible. He fully recognized that his shield afforded little enough protection in a place like this, and all he wanted to do was get the hell out fast. On the street, as they stumbled toward the automobile, he prayed only that they would not be cold-cocked before they got to it.
A half-dozen men came out of the bar just as they climbed into the automobile. “Lock that door!” Carella snapped, and then turned the ignition key, and stepped on the gas, and the car lurched away from the curb in a squeal of burning rubber. He did not ease up on the accelerator until they were a mile from Quigley’s, by which time he was certain they were not being followed.
“That was very nice,” Fletcher said.
“Yes, very nice indeed,” Carella said.
“I admire that. I admire a man who can do that,” Fletcher said.
“Why in hell did you pick that sweet dive?” Carella asked.
“I wanted you to see them all,” Fletcher said, and then eased his head back against the seat cushion, and fell promptly asleep.
11
E arly Monday morning, on Kling’s day off, he called Cindy Forrest. It was only seven-thirty, but he knew her sleeping and waking habits as well as he knew his own, and since the phone was on the kitchen wall near the refrigerator, and since she would at that moment be preparing breakfast, he was not surprised when she answered it on the second ring.
“Hello?” she said. She sounded rushed, a trifle breathless. She always allowed herself a scant half hour to get out of the apartment each morning, rushing from bedroom to kitchen to bathroom to bedroom again, finally running for the elevator, looking miraculously well-groomed and sleek and rested and ready to do battle with the world. He visualized her standing now at the kitchen phone, only partially clothed, and felt a faint stirring of desire.
“Hi. Cindy,” he said, “it’s me.”
“Oh, hello, Bert,” she said. “Can you hold just a second? The coffee’s about to boil over.” He waited. In the promised second, she was back on the line. “Okay,” she said. “I tried to reach you the other night.”
“Yes, I know. I’m returning your call.”
“Right, right,” she said. There was a long silence. “I’m trying to remember why I called you. Oh, yes. I found a shirt of yours in the dresser, and I wanted to know what I should do with it. So I called you at home, and there was no answer, and then I figured you probably had night duty, and I tried the squadroom, but Steve said you weren’t on. So I decided to wrap it up and mail it. I’ve already got it all addressed and everything.”
There was another silence.
“So I guess I’ll drop it off at the post office on my way to work this morning,” Cindy said.
“Okay,” Kling said.
“If that’s what you want me to do,” Cindy said.
“Well, what would you like to do?”
“It’s all wrapped and everything, so I guess that’s what I’ll do.”
“Be a lot of trouble to unwrap it, I guess,” Kling said.
“Why would I want to unwrap it?”
“I don’t know. Why did you call me Saturday night?”
“To ask what you wanted me to do with the shirt.”
“What choices did you have in mind?”
“When? Saturday night?”
“Yes,” Kling said. “When you called.”
“Well, there were several possibilities, I guess. You could have stopped here to pick up the shirt, or I could have dropped it off at your place or the squadroom, or we could have had a drink together or something, at which time . . .”
“I didn’t know that was permissible.”
“Which?”
“Having a drink together. Or any of those things, in fact.”
“Well, it’s all academic now, isn’t it? You weren’t home when I called, and you weren’t working, either, so I wrapped up the goddamn shirt, and I’ll mail it to you this morning.”
“What are you sore about?”
“Who’s sore?” Cindy said.
“You sound sore.”
“I have to get out of here in twenty minutes and I still haven’t had my coffee.”
“Wouldn’t want to be late for the hospital,” Kling said. “Might upset your friend Dr. Freud.”
“Ha-ha,” Cindy said mirthlessly.
“How is he, by the way?”
“He’s fine, by the way.”
“Good.”
“Bert?”
“Yes, Cindy?”
“Never mind, nothing.”
“What is it?”
“Nothi
ng. I’ll put the shirt in the mail. I washed it and ironed it, I hope it doesn’t get messed up.”
“I hope not.”
“Good-bye, Bert,” she said, and hung up.
Kling put the receiver back onto its cradle, sighed, and went into the kitchen. He ate a breakfast of grapefruit juice, coffee, and two slices of toast, and then went back into the bedroom and dialed Nora Simonov’s number. When he asked her if she would like to have lunch with him, she politely refused, saying she had an appointment with an art director. Fearful of being turned down for dinner as well, he hedged his bet by asking if she’d like to meet him for a drink at about five, five-thirty. She surprised him by saying she would love it, and they agreed to meet at The Oasis, a quiet cocktail lounge in one of the city’s oldest hotels, near the western end of Grover Park. Kling went into the bathroom to brush his teeth.
434 North Sixteenth Street was a brownstone within the precinct territory, between Ainsley and Culver avenues. Meyer and Carella found a listing for an L. Kantor in one of the mailboxes downstairs, tried the inner lobby door, found it unlocked, and started up to the fourth floor without ringing the downstairs bell. They had tried calling the number listed in Sarah’s address book, but the telephone company had reported it temporarily out of service. Whether this was true or not was a serious question for debate.
“The Telephone Blues” was a dirge still being sung by most residents of the city, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult these days to know if a phone was busy, out of order, disconnected, temporarily out of service, or stolen in the night by an international band of telephone thieves. The direct-dialing system had been a brilliant innovation, except that after directly dialing the digits necessary to place a call, the caller was more often than not greeted with: (a) silence; (b) a recording; (c) a busy signal, or (d) a series of strange beeps and boops. After trying to direct-dial the same number three or four times, the caller was inevitably reduced to dealing with one or more operators (all of whom sounded as if they were in a trainee program for people with ratings of less than 48 on the Standford-Binet scale of intelligence) and sometimes actually got to talk to the party he was calling. On too many occasions, Carella visualized someone in desperate trouble trying to reach a doctor, a policeman, or a fireman. The police had a number to call for emergency assistance—but what the hell good was the number if you could never get the phone to work? Such were Carella’s thoughts as he plodded up the four flights to the apartment of Lou Kantor, the third man listed in Sarah’s address book.