Til Death

by Ed McBain

  “You want me to go home?” Ben asked sheepishly.

  “Go, stay, do what you want. Just keep away from Angela.”

  “I was only kidding,” Ben said.

  The men surrounding the body of Birnbaum the neighbor were not kidding at all. There was something very unfunny about murder. No matter when it happened, or where, it was still uncomical. There were some who maintained that the worst murders were those that dragged a man out in the wee hours of the morning. There were others who despised early evening murders. But each murder seemed the worst when it was happening, and each of the men who stood looking down at Birnbaum’s lifeless shape agreed—though they did not voice it—that the worst time to be killed was in the late afternoon.

  The 112th Squad had sent one detective over because the murder had been committed within its boundaries and because the case would officially be theirs from here on in. Homicide, informed that four bona fide detectives were at the scene, decided not to send anyone over. But a police photographer was taking pictures of the corpse fastidiously, if without the energetic grasshopperiness of a Jody Lewis. The assistant medical examiner was officially pronouncing Birnbaum dead and instructing the stretcher bearers on how to carry him out to the meat wagon waiting next to the curb in front of Birnbaum’s house. Some boys from the lab had put in an appearance, too, and they were attempting now to find foot imprints from which they could make a cast. All in all, everyone was pretty busy compiling the statistics of sudden and violent death. Unfortunately, none of the investigators felt the need to make a telephone call. Had the need presented itself, one or another of the men might have wandered into the Birnbaum house that stood forty feet from the shielding line of shrubbery behind which they worked.

  In the attic of the Birnbaum house, Cotton Hawes felt his strength returning. For the past ten minutes, he had lain silently, his eyes flicking from one corner of the attic to another, and then back to the patiently waiting powerhouse squatting on the floor near the window. The attic was filled with the discarded paraphernalia of living: bundles of old magazines, a green trunk marked “CAMP IDLEMERE” in white paint, a dressmaker’s dummy, a lawn mower without blades, a hammer, an Army duffel bag, a radio with a smashed face, three albums marked “Photographs” and numerous other items that had undoubtedly cluttered the busy life of a family.

  The only item that interested Hawes was the hammer.

  It rested on top of the trunk some four feet from where he lay.

  If he could get the hammer without being heard or seen, he would promptly use it on the sniper’s skull. Provided the sniper didn’t turn first and shoot him. It would not be too pleasant to get shot at close range with a rifle.

  Well, when? Hawes asked himself.

  Not now. I’m not strong enough yet.

  You’re never going to get any stronger, Hawes thought. Are you afraid of that big bastard crouched by the window?

  Yes.

  What?

  Yes, I’m afraid of him. He can break me in half even without using his rifle. And he may use it. So I’m afraid of him, and the hell with you.

  Let’s go, coward, Hawes thought. Let’s make our play for the hammer. There’s no time like the present, the man said.

  The man didn’t have to face Neanderthal.

  Look, are we…?

  All right, all right, let’s go.

  Silently, he rolled over onto his side. The sniper did not turn. He rolled again, completing a full turn this time, coming to rest a foot away from the trunk. Swallowing hard, he reached out for the hammer. Soundlessly, he slid it off the trunk and gripped it tightly in his right hand.

  He swallowed again and got to his knees.

  Okay, he thought, we rush him now, hammer raised. We crease his skull before he knows what hit him.

  Ready?

  He got to a crouching position.

  Set?

  He stood up and raised the hammer high.

  Go!

  He took a step forward.

  The door behind him opened suddenly.

  “Hold it, mister!” a voice said, and he whirled to face a big blonde in a red silk dress. She was reaching into her purse as he leaped at her.

  It cannot be said of Cotton Hawes that he did not ordinarily enjoy wrestling with blondes whose proportions matched this one’s. For here was truly a blonde. Here was a handful, and an armful, and an eyeful; here was the image that automatically came to mind whenever anyone muttered the magic words “big blonde.”

  Standing on a runway in Union City, this girl would have caused heart stoppage. Third-row bald heads would have turned pale with trembling.

  On the legitimate Broadway stage, this girl would have set the theater on fire, set the customers on their ears, and set the critics rushing back to their typewriters to pound out ecstatic notices.

  In a bedroom—Hawes’s imagination reeled with the thought.

  But unfortunately, this girl was not on a runway or a stage or a bed. This girl was standing in the doorway to a room no bigger than an upper berth in a Pullman. This girl was obviously not planning to set anyone but Hawes on his ear. She reached into her purse with all the determination of a desert rat digging for water, and then her hand stopped, and a surprised look came over her lovely features. In clear, crystal-pure, ladylike tones, she yelled, “Where’s my goddamn gun?” and Hawes leaped on her.

  The sniper turned from the window at the same moment.

  The girl was all flesh and a yard wide. She was also all teeth and all nails. She clamped two rows of teeth into Hawes’s hand as he struggled for a grip, and then her nails flashed out wildly, raking the uninjured half of his face. The sniper circled closer, shouting, “Get away from him, Oona! I can’t do anything with you—”

  Hawes did not want to hit the girl. He especially did not want to hit her with the hammer. But the hammer was the only weapon he possessed and he reasoned correctly that if this girl got away from him, Neanderthal would either club him into the floorboards with the stock of the rifle or, worse, plunk a few slugs into his chest. Neither prospect seemed particularly entertaining. The blonde herself was not entertaining in the slightest. Wiggling in his arms, she delivered a roundhouse punch that almost knocked out his right eye. He winced in pain and swung at her with the hammer, but she ducked inside the blow and brought her knee to his groin in an old trick she’d probably learned in grammar school, so expertly did she execute it. Hawes had been kicked before. He’d also been kicked in the groin before. His reactions, he discovered, were always the same. He always doubled over in pain. But this time, as he doubled, he clutched at the blonde because the blonde was insurance. As long as her hot little body remained close to his, the sniper was helpless. He clutched at her, and he caught the front of her dress and it gave under his hand, tearing in a long rip that exposed the blonde’s white brassiere and three-quarters of her left breast.

  The material kept ripping, with the blonde at the end of it like an unraveling ball of wool in the paws of a playful kitten. He swung the hammer again, catching her on the shoulder, stopping her movement, clutching again, catching flesh this time, his fingers closing tightly as he pulled her toward him. The blonde’s dress was torn to the waist now, but Hawes wasn’t interested in anatomy. Hawes was interested in clubbing her with the hammer. He swung her around, and her backside came up hard against him, a solid muscular backside. He swung one arm around her neck, his elbow cushioned between the fleshy mounds of the girl’s breasts, and he brought back the hand with the hammer again, and the girl pulled another old grammar school trick.

  She bent suddenly from the knees, and then shot upward with the force of a piston, the top of her skull slamming into Hawes’s jaw. His arm dropped. The girl swung around and leaped at him, a nearly bare-breasted fury, clawing at his eyes. He swung the hammer. It struck her right arm, and she clutched at it in pain, her face distorted. “You son of a bitch!” she said, and she reached down, her knee coming up, her skirt pulling back over legs that would have
been magnificent on the French Riviera stemming from a bikini, and then she pulled off one high-heeled pump and came at Hawes with the shoe clutched like a mace.

  “Get the hell away from him!” the sniper yelled, but the girl would not give up the fight. Circling like wrestlers, the girl’s chest heaving in the barely restraining brassiere, Hawes panting breathlessly, one holding a hammer, the other a spiked-heeled shoe, they searched for an opening. The girl’s lips were skinned back over teeth that looked as if they could bite Hawes in two.

  She feinted with the shoe, and he brought up his left arm to ward off the blow, and then she moved swiftly to one side, and he saw only the blur of the red shoe coming at his face, felt only the crashing pain as the stiletto-like spike hit his temple. He felt his fingers loosen from the handle of the hammer. He felt himself pitching forward. He held out his arms to stop his fall, and the girl caught him as he came toward her and his head bounced against her shoulder, slid, and he felt the warm cushion of her breast for an instant before she viciously pushed him away from her.

  He struck the floor and the last shamed thought he had was A girl. Jesus, a girl…

  A boy or a girl, the baby was kicking up a storm.

  Sitting with her father-in-law who had surely had too much to drink, Teddy Carella could not remember the heir apparent ever having raised such a fuss.

  It was difficult for her to appreciate the oncoming dusk with her son-or daughter-to-be doing early-evening calisthenics. Every now and then the baby would kick her sharply, and she’d start from the sudden blow, certain that everyone at the reception was witnessing her wriggling fidgets. The baby seemed to have a thousand feet, God forbid! He kicked her high in the belly, close under her breasts, and then he kicked her again, lower in the pelvic region, and she was sure he’d turned a somersault, so widely diverse had the kicks been.

  It’ll be over next week, she thought, and she sighed. No more backaches. No more children pointing fingers at me in the street. Hey, lady, what time does the balloon go up? Ha-ha, very funny. She glanced across the dance floor. The redhead from Teaneck or Gowanus or wherever had latched onto a new male, but it hadn’t helped Teddy very much. Steve hadn’t been anywhere near for the past few hours, and she wondered now what it was that could possibly be keeping him so occupied. Of course, it was his sister’s wedding, and she supposed he was duty bound to play the semihost. But why had Tommy called him so early this morning? And what where Bert and Cotton doing here? With the instincts of a cop’s wife, she knew that something was in the wind—but she didn’t know quite what.

  The baby kicked her again.

  Damn, she thought, I do wish you’d stop that.

  Tony Carella had drunk a lot of whiskey and a lot of wine and a lot of champagne. He had not drunk so much since the time Steve got married and that was years ago.

  In the glow of his stupor, he began to like the Weddings-Fetes, Incorporateds. They were really nice fellows. It was worth all the money he was giving them. Oh, madonna, how much money he was giving them! But it was worth it. Every penny. They were nice boys, all of them. Look at the nice dance floor they had made, bringing in that big flat platform and laying it right down in the center of his lawn, Santa Maria, my lawn! But they were nice boys. Look at the nice thing they had built for the fireworks at the end of the property. They would be nice, the fireworks. He loved the Weddings-Fetes, Incorporateds. He loved his wife. He loved his son and his daughterin-law, and his daughter and his son-in-law. He loved everybody.

  He loved Birnbaum.

  Where was Birnbaum, anyway?

  Why wasn’t Birnbaum sitting next to him on this day of his joy, drinking wine and champagne? If he knew Birnbaum, the old man was probably off in a corner someplace weeping.

  My old friend, Tony thought, weeping.

  I will find him. I will find him and give him a cigar.

  He was starting out of his chair when he heard the scream from the edge of his property.

  Carella had dispatched the boys from the 112th, the photographer, the assistant medical examiner, and the laboratory assistants, wondering all the while where Cotton Hawes had gone. He’d asked Cotton to stay with the body. Well, the body was now gone—and nearly everyone concerned with the body was also gone. And so was Cotton.

  But where?

  He had not been working with Hawes for too long a time, but he felt certain the man would not have pulled a stunt so childish as walking out on his date. Still, he’d been pretty angry back there a little while ago. And Christine, as cute as she was, had certainly been asking for trouble. She’d wanted Cotton to do a burn, and he had, but she’d stumbled onto a corpse in the bargain, which proves you shouldn’t play with fire, girls.

  But would Cotton have walked out on her?

  It was possible. Carella had to concede that it was definitely possible. There was no second-guessing the ways of maids and men. He’d handled many a suicide where a seemingly levelheaded young man had thrown himself out the nearest hotel window because a sweet young thing in a skirt had refused a date. Why, take his own Teddy. Annoyed because he’d been dancing with that wench from Flemington. God, that had been a long time ago, he could remember every detail of that night as if it were happening now. Faye, grrrr, she’d been a wonderful, wonderful—

  Hey now.

  Steady, lad.

  He saw Teddy sitting near his father. He grinned and began walking toward her.

  From the woods behind him, he heard someone scream, “Help! Help!”

  He whirled and broke into a trot, crashing into the bushes. His service revolver was in his fist before he’d covered three feet.

  The boys had been standing on the corner watching all the girls go by. They had been standing there all afternoon, they said. They had been standing right under that same lamppost near the el structure. Just standing. Just watching the girls. June was a good time for watching the girls, the boys said.

  “Did you happen to notice the people who came down off the train?” Meyer asked.

  “Yeah, we noticed the girls,” the boys said.

  “Did you notice anybody else?”

  “Yeah,” the boys said, “but mostly we noticed the girls.”

  “Did you happen to see a man carrying a trombone case?”

  “What does a trombone case look like?”

  “You know,” O’Brien said. “A trombone case. Black leather. Long. With a sort of a flaring bell on one end.”

  “Gee,” the boys said. “You’d better ask Charlie.”

  “Which one of you is Charlie?”

  “Charlie’s in the candy store. Hey, Charlie! Charlie, come on out here!”

  “Is Charlie a musician?” Meyer asked.

  “No, but his sister is taking piano lessons. She’s eight years old.”

  “How old is Charlie?” Meyer asked skeptically.

  “Oh, he’s a grown man,” the boys said. “He’s sixteen.”

  Charlie came out of the candy store. He was a thin boy with a crew cut. He wore khaki trousers and a white tee shirt, and he ambled over to the boys under the lamppost with a curious expression on his face.

  “Yeah!” he said.

  “These guys have some questions.”

  “Yeah!” He delivered the word as a cross between a question and an exclamation, as if surprised by his own query.

  “Do you know what a trombone case looks like, Charlie?”

  “Yeah!” he said, and again it was both a question and an exclamation.

  “Did you see anyone come down those steps carrying one?”

  “A trombone case?” This time it was purely a question.

  “Yes,” Meyer said.

  “Today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Down those steps?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah!” he said, the exclamation preceding the question.

  “Which way did he go?”

  “How do I know?” Charlie said.

  “You saw him, didn’t you?”

>   “Yeah! Why? You need a trombone player? Does it have to be a trombone player? My kid sister plays piano.”

  “Think, Charlie. Which way did he go?”

  “Who remembers? You think I followed him or something?”

  “He came down those steps?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Did he turn right or left?”

  Charlie thought for a moment. “Neither,” he said at last. “He walked straight up the avenue.”

  “And then what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did he turn at the corner?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You lost him after he walked past that corner?”

  “I don’t know whether he walked past that corner or not. Who lost him? I wasn’t even trying to find him. Who was interested in him?”

  “Do you think he passed that corner?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think he turned at the corner?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Could he have crossed the street?”

  “I’m telling you, I don’t know.” He paused. “Listen, why don’t you ask the guy in the deli on the next corner. Maybe he seen him.”

  “Thanks, son,” Meyer said, “we’ll do that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Charlie said. “Does it have to be a trombone player?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “‘Cause my kid sister plays some gone piano, I mean it.” Meyer looked at Charlie sadly. Charlie shrugged. “So some guys go for horns,” he said resignedly, and he went back into the candy store.

  Meyer and O’Brien started up the avenue.

  “What do you think?” O’Brien said.

  “Sounds as if it might be him. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have some luck in the delicatessen.”

  They did not have any luck in the delicatessen.

  The man behind the counter wore bifocals, had been busy all day waiting on Sunday customers, and wouldn’t have known a trombone case from a case of crabs, good day.