Widows

by Ed McBain

  Tommy lifting his bride's veil and kissing her fleetingly and with much embarrassment. The organ music swelling again.

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  Smiling, the veil pulled back onto the white crown nestled in her hair, eyes sparkling, Angela . . .

  "Why does she think you're cheating, Tommy?"

  "Steve, she's pregnant, she's expecting any day now, you know what I mean? I think itts because we aren't having sex just now is why she thinks I've got somebody else . . ."

  ... a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing . . .

  "I'm being completely honest with you. That's all I think it is."

  "No other reason?"

  "None."

  "Nothing she could have got in her head . . .?"

  "Nothing."

  "Something you did . . .?"

  "No."

  "Something you said?"

  "No."

  "Tommy, look at me."

  Their eyes met.

  "Are you telling me the truth?"

  "I swear to God," Tommy said.

  Lieutenant Byrnes had advised him - everyone had advised him - to let the Four-Five run with it, stay out of it, he was too emotionally involved to do anything effective on the case. But this was now a week since his father had been shot and killed, and despite all the promises from the two detectives investigating the case, Carella hadn't heard a word from them. At nine o'clock that Tuesday morning, he called Riverhead.

  The detective who answered the phone in the squadroom up there said his name was Haley. Carella told him who he was, and asked for either Detective Bent or Detective Wade.

  "I think they're in the field already," Haley said.

  "Can you beep them and ask them to give me a call?"

  "What's this in reference to?"

  "A case they're working."

  "Sure, I'll beep them," Haley said.

  But the way he said it made Carella think he had no intention of beeping anybody.

  "Is your lieutenant in?" he asked.

  "Yeah?"

  "Would you put me through to him?"

  "He's got somebody in with him just now."

  "Just buzz him and tell him Detective Carella's on the line."

  "I just told you ..."

  "Pal," Carella said, and the single word was ominous with weight. "Buzz your lieutenant."

  There was a long silence.

  Then Haley said, "Sure."

  A different voice came on the line a moment later.

  "Lieutenant Nelson. How are you, Carella?"

  "Fine, thank you, Lieutenant. I was wond. . ."

  "I got a call from Lieutenant Byrnes a few days ago, asking me to give this case special attention, which I would have done anyway. Bent and Wade are out on it right this minute."

  "I was wondering how they made out with that witness."

  "Well, he turned out not to be as good as we thought. All of a sudden he couldn't remember this, couldn't remember that, you know what I mean? We figure he thought it over and chickened out. Which happens lots of times."

  "Yeah," Carella said.

  "But they're out right this minute, like I told you, chasing down something they came up with yesterday. So don't worry, we're on this, we won't..."

  "What was it they came up with?"

  "Let me see, I had their report here a minute ago, what the hell did I do with it? Just a second, okay?"

  Carella could hear him muttering as he shuffled papers. He visualized a mountain of papers. At last, Nelson came back on the line. "Yeah," he said, "they been looking for this kid who told his girlfriend he saw the punks who shot your father running out of the shop. They got his name and address ..."

  "Could I have those, sir? The name and . . ."

  "Carella?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "You want my advice?"

  Carella said nothing.

  "Let Bent and Wade handle it, okay? They're good cops. They'll get these guys, believe me. We won't disappoint you, believe me."

  "Yes, sir."

  "You hear me?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Better this way."

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  I "I know how you feel." ' "Thank you, sir."

  "But it's better this way, believe me. They're out on it right this minute. They'll find those punks, believe me. Trust us, okay? We'll get'em." "I appreciate that."

  "We'll stay in touch," Nelson said, and hung up. Carella wondered why the hell they hadn't stayed in touch till now.

  The kid began running the moment he saw them.

  He was standing on the corner, talking to two other guys, when Wade and Bent pulled up in the unmarked car. It was as if the car had neon all over it, blaring POLICE in orange and green. Wade opened the door on the passenger side and was stepping out onto the curb when the kid spotted him and started running. Bent, who'd been driving the car and who was also out of it by this time, yelled, "He's going, Randy!" and both men shouted, almost simultaneously, "Police! Stop!"

  Nobody was stopping.

  Neither were any guns coming out.

  In this city, police rules and regs strictly limited the circumstances in which a weapon could be unholstered or fired. There was no felony in progress here, nor did the detectives have a warrant authorizing the arrest of a person known to be armed. The kid pounding pavement up ahead hadn't done anything, nor was he threatening them in any way that would have warranted using a firearm as a defensive weapon. The guns stayed holstered.

  The kid was fast, but so were Wade and Bent. A lot of detectives in this city, they tended to run to flab. You rode around in a car all day long, you ate hamburgers and fries in greasy-spoon diners, you put on the pounds and you had a hell of a time taking them off again. But Wade and Bent worked out at the Headquarters gym twice a week, and chasing the kid hardly even made them breathe hard.

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  Bent was six-two and he weighed a hundred and ninety pounds, all of it sinew and muscle. Wade was five-eleven and he weighed a solid hundred and seventy, but the knife scar over his left eye made him look meaner and tougher than Bent, even though he was smaller and lighter. The kid up ahead was seventeen, eighteen years old, lean and swift, and white in the bargain. Just to make sure he hadn't mistaken them for a pair of bad black dudes looking to mug him, they yelled "Police!" again, "Stop!" again, and then one more time for good measure, "Police! Stop!" but the kid wasn't stopping for anybody.

  Over the hills and dales they went, the kid leaping backyard fences where clothes hung listlessly on the sullen air, Wade and Bent right behind him, the kid leading the way and maintaining his lead because he knew where he was going whereas they were only following, and the guy paving the way usually had a slight edge over whoever was chasing him. But they were stronger than he was, and more determined besides - he had possibly seen the two people who'd killed the father of a cop. The operative word was cop.

  "There he goes!" Wade yelled.

  He was ducking into what had once been a somewhat elegant mid-rise apartment building bordering Riverhead Park but which had been abandoned for some ten to twelve years now. The windows had been boarded up and decorated with plastic stick-on panels made to resemble half-drawn window shades or open shutters or little potted plants sitting on windowsills, the trompe-l'oeil of a city in decline. There was no front door on the building. A bloated ceiling in the entryway dripped collected rainwater. It was dark in here. No thousand points of light in here. Just darkness and the sound of rats scurrying as the detectives came in.

  "Hey!" Wade yelled. "What are you running for?'

  No answer.

  The sound of the water dripping.

  His voice echoing in the hollow shell of the building with the fake window shades and shutters and potted plants.

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  "We just want to talk to you!" Bent yelled. Still no answer.

  They looked at each other.

  Silence.

  And then a faint sound coming from upstairs. Not a rat this time, the rats had done
all their scurrying, the rats were back inside the walls. Bent nodded. Together, they started up the stairs.

  The kid broke into a run again when they reached the first floor. Wade took off after him and caught him as he was rounding the steps leading up to the second floor. Pulled him over and backward and flat on his back and then rolled him over and flashed his police shield in the kid's face and yelled as loud as he could, "Police, police, police! Got it?"

  "I didn't do nothin'," the kid said.

  "On your feet," Wade said, and in case he hadn't understood it, he yanked him to his feet and slammed him up against the wall and began tossing him as Bent walked over.

  "Clean," Wade said.

  "I didn't do nothin'," the kid said again.

  "What's your name?" Bent asked.

  "Dominick Assanti, I didn't do nothin'."

  "Who said you did?"

  "Nobody."

  "Then why'd you run?"

  "I figured you were cops," Assanti said, and shrugged.

  He was five-ten or -eleven, they guessed, weighing about a hundred and sixty, a good-looking kid with wavy black hair and brown eyes, wearing blue jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt with a picture of Bart Simpson on it.

  "Let's talk," Bent said.

  "I didn't do nothin'," Assanti said again.

  "Broken record," Wade said.

  "Where were you last Tuesday night around nine-thirty?" Bent asked.

  "Who remembers?"

  "Your girlfriend does."

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  "Huh?"

  "She told us you were near the A & L Bakery Shop on Harrison. Is that right?"

  "How does she know where I was?"

  "Because you told her."

  "I didn't tell her nothin'."

  "Were you there or weren't you?"

  "I don't remember."

  "Try remembering."

  "I don't know where I was last Tuesday night."

  "You went to a movie with your girlfriend ..."

  "You walked her home ..."

  "And you were heading back to your own house when you passed the bakery shop."

  "I don't know where you got all that."

  "We got it from your girlfriend."

  "I don't even have no girlfriend."

  "She seems to think you're going steady."

  "I don't know where you got all this, I swear."

  "Dominick . . . pay attention," Wade said.

  "Your girlfriend's name is Frankie," Bent said, "For Doris Franceschi."

  "Got it?" Wade said.

  "And you told her you were outside that bakery shop last Tuesday night at around nine-thirty. Now were you?"

  "I don't want no trouble," Assanti said.

  "What'd you see, Dominick?"

  "I'm scared if I tell you ..."

  "No, no, we're gonna put these guys away," Bent said, "don't worry."

  "What'd you see?" Wade asked. "Can you tell us what you saw?"

  "I was walking home ..."

  He is walking home, he lives only six blocks from Frankie's house, his head is full of Frankie, he is dizzy with thoughts of Frankie. Wiping lipstick from his mouth, his handkerchief coming away red with Frankie's lipstick, he can remember her

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  ¦ tongue in his mouth, his hands on her breasts, he thinks I they're backfires at first. The shots. But there are no cars on

  ¦ the street.

  I So he realizes these are shots he just heard, and he thinks

  I Uh-oh, I better get out of here, and he's starting to turn, I thinking he'll go back to Frankie's house, ring the doorbell, I tell her somebody's shooting outside, can he come up for a I minute, when all at once he sees this guy coming out of the liquor store with a brown paper bag in his hands, and he thinks maybe there's a holdup going on in the liquor store, the guy is walking in his direction, he thinks again I better get out of here. Then ...

  Then there were . . .

  "I... I can't tell you," Assanti said. "I'm scared." "Tell us," Wade said. , "I'm scared." "Please," Wade said.

  "There were . . . two other guys. Coming out of the bakery next door."

  "What'd they look like?" Assanti hesitated.

  "You can tell us if they were black," Bent said. "They were black," Assanti said. "Were they armed?" "Only one of them." "One of them had a gun?" "Yes."

  "What'd they look like?'

  "They were both wearing jeans and black T-shirts." "How tall?" "Both very big."

  "What kind of hair. Afro? Dreadlocks? Hi-top fade? Ramp? Tom?"

  "I don't know what any of those things are," Assanti said. "All right, what happened when they came out of the bakery?"

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  "They almost ran into the guy coming out of the liquor store. Under the street light there. Came face to face with him. Looked him dead in the eye. Told him to get the hell outta their way."

  Bent looked at Wade knowingly. Their star witness, the guy coming out of the liquor store. Chickenhearted bastard.

  "Then what?"

  "They came running in my direction."

  "Did you get a good look at them?"

  "Yeah, but..."

  "You don't have to worry, we're gonna send them away for a long time."

  "What about all their friends! You gonna send them away, too?"

  "We want you to look at some pictures, Dominick,"

  "I don't want to look at no pictures."

  "Why not?"

  "I'm scared."

  "No, no."

  "Don't tell me no, no. You didn't see this Sonny guy. He looked like a gorilla."

  "What are you saying?"

  "You saying a name?"

  "You saying Sonny?"

  "I don't want to look at no pictures," Assanti said.

  "Are you saying Sonny?"

  "Was that his name? Sonny?"

  "You know these guys?"

  "Was one of them named Sonny?"

  "Nobody's gonna hurt you, Dominick."

  "Was his name Sonny?"

  "Sonny what?"

  "We won't let anybody hurt you, Dominick."

  "Sonny what?"

  He looked at them for a long time. He was clearly frightened, and they thought for sure they were going to lose him just the way they'd lost the guy coming out of the liquor store.

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  He did, in fact, shake his head as if to say he wasn't going to tell them anything else, but he was only shaking it in denial of something inside him that was telling him he'd be crazy to identify anyone who had killed a man.

  "The one with the gun," he said softly.

  "What about him, Dominick?"

  "His name was Sonny."

  "You know him?"

  "No. I heard the other guy calling him Sonny. When they were running by. Come on, Sonny, move it. Something like that."

  "Did you get a good look at them, Dominick?"

  "I got a good look."

  "Can we show you some pictures?"

  He hesitated again. And again he shook his head, telling himself he was crazy to be doing this. But he sighed at last and said, "Yeah, okay."

  "Thank you," Wade said.

  The only white man he could trust with this was Carella. There were things you just knew.

  "My goddamn skin," Brown said, as if Carella would understand immediately, which of course he didn't.

  "All that crap I got to use," Brown said.

  Carella turned to look at him, bewildered.

  They were in the unmarked car, on their way downtown, Brown driving, Carella riding shotgun. So far, it had been an awful morning. First the disappointing promises-promises conversation with Lieutenant Nelson at the Four-Five and then Lieutenant Byrnes of their very own Eight-Seven asking them into his office and telling them he'd had a call from a lawyer named Louis Loeb, who'd wanted to know why a grieving widow named Margaret Schumacher had been harassed in her apartment yesterday morning by two detectives respectively named Carella and Brown.

  "I realize you didn't harass her," Byrnes s
aid at once. "The problem is this guy says he's personally going to the chief of

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  detectives if he doesn't get written apologies from both of you."

  "Boy," Carella said.

  "You don't feel like writing apologies, I'll tell him to go to hell," Byrnes said.

  "Yeah, do that," Brown said.

  "Do it," Carella said, and nodded.

  "How does the wife look, anyway?" Byrnes asked.

  "Good as anybody else right now," Brown said.

  But, of course, they hadn't yet talked to anyone else. They were on their way now to see Lois Stein, Schumacher's married daughter, Mrs Marc with-a-c Stein. And Brown was telling Carella what a pain in the ass it was to be black. Not because being black made you immediately suspect, especially if you were big and black, because no white man ever figured you for a big, black cop, you always got figured for a big black criminal, with tattoos all over your body and muscles you got lifting weights in the prison gym.

  The way Brown figured it - and this had nothing to do with why being black was such a very real pain in the ass - drugs were calling the tune in this America of ours, and the prime targets for the dealers were black ghetto kids who, rightly or wrongly (and Brown figured they were right) had reason to believe they were being cheated out of the American dream and the only dream available to them was the sure one they could find in a crack pipe. But a drug habit was an expensive one even if you were a big account executive downtown, especially expensive uptown, where if you were black and uneducated, the best you could hope for was to serve hamburgers at McDonald's for four-and-a-quarter an hour, which wasn't even enough to support a heavy cigarette habit. To support a crack habit, you had to steal. And the people you stole from were mostly white people, because they were the ones had all the bread. So whenever you saw Arthur Brown coming down the street, you didn't think here comes a protector of the innocent sworn to uphold the laws of the city, state, and nation, what you thought was here comes a big

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  black dope-addict criminal in this fine country of ours where the vicious circle was drugs-to-crime-to-racism-to-despair-to-drugs and once again around the mulberry bush. But none of this was why it was a supreme pain in the ass to be black.

  "You know what happens when a black man's skin gets dry?" Brown asked.

  "No, what?" Carella said.

  He was still thinking about Brown's vicious circle.

  "Aside from it being damn uncomfortable?"

  "Uh-huh," Carella said.