by Ed McBain
“Mr. and Mrs. Giordano,” he said to the desk clerk.
“Yes, sir, they checked in a little while ago,” the clerk answered.
“What room are they in?”
“I’m sorry, sir, they left instructions not to be disturbed. They’re honeymooners, you see, and—”
“I’m from the police department,” Kling said, snapping open his wallet to his shield. “What room? Quick!”
“Is something…?”
“What room, damnit?”
“428. Is something…?”
Kling rushed to the elevator. Behind him, camera in hand, Jody Lewis dashed across the lobby.
“Four,” Kling said to the elevator boy. “Hurry!”
“What’s the rush?” the boy answered. Idling against the control panel, he gave Kling a bored sneer. Kling didn’t feel like arguing. Nor did he feel like earning the distinction of being the first Neptune guest to be treated with rudeness in the past ten years. He simply clutched one hand in the elevator boy’s tunic, yanked him away from the control panel, slammed him against the rear wall of the elevator just as Jody Lewis entered the car, and then pressed the button to close the doors and pressed another button marked with the numeral 4.
“Hey,” the elevator boy said, “you’re not allowed to—”
“Just shut the hell up,” Kling said, “or I’ll throw you down the shaft.”
The boy modulated into an injured silence. Sulking against the rear wall of the elevator, he silently cursed Kling as the car sped up the shaft. The doors slid open and Kling rushed into the hall with Lewis. Behind him, in a parting shot of defiance, the elevator boy yelled, “You louse!” and then hastily closed the doors.
“What room?” Lewis asked.
“428.”
“This way.”
“No, this way.”
“It says 420 to 428 here.”
“The arrow’s pointing this way.”
They rushed down the hall together.
“Here it is!” Lewis said.
Kling rapped on the door. “Open up!” he shouted.
“Who’s there?” Tommy’s voice shouted back.
“Police! Bert Kling! Open up! Hurry!”
“What? What?” Tommy said, his voice puzzled behind the wood of the door. A lock was thrown back. A key turned. The door opened. Tommy stood there with a wine glass in one hand. He was wearing a blue silk robe, and he seemed terribly embarrassed. Behind him, sitting in a love seat, Angela Giordano tilted a wine glass to her lips as she watched the door with a perplexed frown on her forehead.
Kling’s eyes opened wide. “Stop!” he shouted.
“Wh—?”
“Don’t drink that wine!”
He darted into the room past a startled Tommy Giordano, and then slapped the wine glass out of Angela’s hands.
“Hey, what the hell—” Tommy started and Kling said, “Did you drink any?”
“The wine?”
“Yes, yes, the wine!”
“No. We just opened one of the bottles. What…?”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. They’re both on the table there. What is this? Did the fellows put you up to this?”
Kling ran to the table and lifted the open bottle of wine. The card still hung from its neck. For the Bride. Suddenly, he felt like a horse’s ass. He picked up the second bottle, the one marked For the Groom and, greatly embarrassed, he started for the door.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Sorry to bust in on you. Wine was no good. Sorry. Excuse me, excuse me,” he said, backing toward the door.
Behind him, Jody Lewis said, “One last picture, please. Just put your shoes in the hall for me, would you? One last picture?”
“Oh, go to hell,” Tommy said, and he slammed the door on his visitors.
“Boy,” Lewis said, “what a temper.” He paused. “Is that wine you’ve got there?”
“Yes,” Kling said, still embarrassed.
“Why don’t we open it and have a drink?” Lewis said. “I’m exhausted.”
Steve Carella paced the floor of the hospital waiting room. Meyer, Hawes, and O’Brien, who’d followed the meat wagon and Sokolin to the hospital after depositing Oona Blake with the local precinct, paced the floor behind him.
“What’s taking so long?” Carella asked. “My God, does it always take this long?”
“Relax,” Meyer said. “I’ve been through this three times already. It gets longer each time.”
“She’s been up there for close to an hour,” Carella moaned.
“She’ll be all right, don’t worry. What are you going to name the baby?”
“Mark if it’s a boy, and April if it’s a girl. Meyer, it shouldn’t be taking this long, should it?”
“Relax.”
“Relax, relax.” He paused. “I wonder if Kling got to the kids in time.”
“Relax,” Meyer said.
“Can you imagine a nut like that? Putting arsenic—half a cup of it—into a small bottle of wine and thinking it would only make Tommy sick! A dental student! Is that what they teach dentists about chemistry?” He shook his head. “Attempted murder, I make it. We throw the book at the bastard.”
“Relax,” Meyer said. “We’ll throw the book at all of them.”
“How’s Sokolin making out?”
“He’ll live,” Meyer said. “Did you see Cotton’s face?”
“I hear a girl beat you up, Cotton,” Carella said.
“Yeah,” Hawes said shamefacedly.
“Here comes a nurse,” O’Brien said.
Carella whirled. With starched precision, the nurse marched down the corridor. He walked rapidly to greet her, his heels clicking on the marble floor.
“Is she all right?” the detectives heard him ask, and the nurse nodded and then took Carella’s arm and brought him to the side of the corridor where they entered into a whispered consultation. Carella kept nodding. The detectives watched him. Then, in a louder voice, Carella asked, “Can I go see her now?”
“Yes,” the nurse answered. “The doctor’s still with her. Everything’s fine.”
Carella started down the hallway, not looking back at his colleagues.
“Hey!” Meyer shouted.
Carella turned.
“What is it?” Meyer said. “Mark or April?”
And Carella, a somewhat mystified grin on his face, shouted, “Both!” and then broke into a trot for the elevators.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photograph © Dragica Hunter
Ed McBain was one of the many pen names of the successful and prolific crime fiction author Evan Hunter (1926-2005). Born Salvatore Lambino in New York, McBain served aboard a destroyer in the US Navy during World War II and then earned a degree from Hunter College in English and psychology. After a short stint teaching in a high school, McBain went to work for a literary agency in New York, working with authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and P.G. Wodehouse, all the while working on his own writing on nights and weekends. He had his first breakthrough in 1954 with the novel The Blackboard Jungle, which was published under his newly legal name Evan Hunter and based on his time teaching in the Bronx.
Perhaps his most popular work, the 87th Precinct series (released mainly under the name Ed McBain) is one of the longest running crime series ever published, debuting in 1956 with Cop Hater and featuring over fifty novels. The series is set in a fictional locale called Isola and features a wide cast of detectives including the prevalent Detective Steve Carella.
McBain was also known as a screenwriter. Most famously he adapted a short story from Daphne Du Maurier into the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). In addition to writing for the silver screen, he wrote for many television series, including Columbo and the NBC series 87th Precinct (1961-1962), based on his popular novels.
McBain was awarded the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement in 1986 by the Mystery Writers of America and was the first American to receive the Cartier Diamond Dagger a
ward from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. He passed away in 2005 in his home in Connecticut after a battle with larynx cancer.