Ed mcbain, p.6
Ed McBain, page 6
"They got him," Aiello said.
"Bull," I answered.
I kept watching the street. It was beginning to get dark now, and the cops were turning on their spots and playing them up at Harry's window. There wasn't a sound coming from the apartment.
"They got him," Aiello said again.
"You need straightening, you jerk," I told him.
The streetlights came on, and after about a half hour a few more cops went into the building.
"Harry!" I yelled from the window.
There was no answer.
"Harry!"
Then we heard the shots in the hallway, and then quiet again, and then the sound of a door being busted, and then that goddamn telephone someplace in the building began ringing again.
About ten minutes later, they carried Harry out on a stretcher.
Dead.
We hung around the streets late that night. There'd been a big fuss when they carried Harry out, everybody yelling and shouting from the rooftops, as if this was the Roman arena or something. They didn't realize what a guy Harry was, and what a tough fight he'd put up.
"They got him, all right," Ferdy said, "but it wasn't easy."
"He took two of them with him," I said.
"A guy like Harry, it pains you to see him go," Ferdy said.
"Yeah," I answered.
We were an quiet for a little while.
"Where's A?" Beef asked.
"I don't know," I told him. "The hell with that little jerk anyway."
"He got an inside wire, all right," Ferdy said. "He was the first cat to tumble to this."
"Yeah," I said. I was thinking about the look on Donlevy's face when those slugs ripped him up.
"How'd he tip to it, anyway?"
"He spotted Harry in the hall. Going up to Louise."
"Oh." Ferdy was quiet for a while. "Harry see him?"
"Yeah."
"He should have been more careful."
"A guy like Harry, he got lots of things on his mind. You think he's gonna worry about a snot nose like A?"
"No, but what I mean ... somebody blew the whistle on him."
"Sure, but that don't..." I cut myself dead. "Hey!" I said.
"What?"
"Aiello."
"Aiello what?"
"I'll bet he done it! Why, I'll bet that little crumb done it!"
"Tipped the cops to Harry, you mean?"
"Sure! Who else? Why, that little..."
"Now, hold it, Danny. Now don't jump to..."
"Who else knew it?"
"Anybody could have spotted Harry."
"Sure, except nobody did." I waited a minute, thinking, and then I said, "Come on."
We began combing the neighborhood. We went down to the poolroom, and we combed the bowling alley, and then we hit the rooftops, but Aiello was no place around. We checked the dance in the church basement, and we checked the Y, but there was still no sign of him.
"Maybe he's home," Ferdy said.
"Don't be a jerk."
"It's worth a try."
"Okay," I said.
We went to the building where Aiello lived. In the hallway, Beef said, "Somebody here."
"Shut up," Ferdy said. We went up to Aiello's apartment and knocked on the door. "Who is it?" he answered. "Me," I said. "Danny."
"What do you want, Danny?"
"I want in. Open up."
"I'm in bed."
"Then get out of bed."
"I'm not feeling so hot, Danny."
"Come on, we got some pot."
"I don't feel like none."
"This is good stuff."
"I ain't interested, Danny."
"Open up, you jerk," I told him. "You want the Law to know we're holding?"
"Danny, I..."
"Open up!" I began pounding on the door and I knew that'd get him out of bed, if that's where he was, because his folks are a quiet type who don't like trouble with the neighbors.
In a few seconds, Aiello opened the door.
I smiled at him and said, "Hello, A."
We all went inside. "Your people home?"
"They went visiting."
"Oh, visiting, huh? Very nice."
"Yeah."
"Like you was doing with Louise this afternoon, huh?"
"Yeah, I suppose," Aiello said.
"When you spotted Harry."
"Yeah."
"And then what'd you do?"
"I told you."
"You went into Louise's apartment, that right?"
"Yes, I..." Aiello paused, as if he was trying to remember what he'd told me before. "No, I didn't go in. I went down in the street to look for you."
"You like this gang, A?"
"Yeah, it's good," Aiello said. "Then why you lying to me?"
"I ain't lying."
"You know you wasn't looking for me."
"I was."
"Look, tell me the truth. I'm a fair guy. What do I care if you done something you shouldn't have."
"I didn't do nothing I shouldn't have," Aiello said. "Well, you did do something then, huh?"
"Nothing."
"Come on, A, what'd you do?"
"Nothing."
"I mean, after you left Louise?"
"I went to look for you."
"And before you found me?"
"Nothing."
"Did you blow the whistle on Harry?"
"Hell no!"
"You did, didn't you? Look, he's dead, what do I care what you done or didn't do? I ain't the Law."
"I didn't turn him in."
"Come on, A."
"He deserved what he got. But I didn't turn him in."
"He deserved it, huh?"
"Yeah. He was rotten. Anybody rotten like Harry..."
"Shut up!"
"...should have the whistle..."
"Shut up, I said!" I slapped him across the mouth. "Did you?"
He dummied up. "Answer me!"
"No."
I slapped him again. "Answer me!"
"No."
"You did, you punk! You called the cops on Harry, and now he's dead, and you ain't fit to lick his boots!"
"He was a killer!" Aiello yelled. "That's why I called them. He was no good. No damn good. He was a stink in the neigh..."
But I wasn't listening no more.
We fixed Mr. Aiello, all right.
Just the way Harry would have liked it.
WOMEN IN JEOPARDY
When I was twelve, and the family moved to the Bronx, my commute to school was a short one because we lived on 217th Street between Barnes and Bronxwood avenues, right across the street from Olinville Junior High School. Later, I would walk the ten blocks every weekday morning to Evander Childs High School on Gun Hill Road. But when I won a scholarship to the Art Students League and was later accepted as an art student at Cooper Union, subways and elevated trains from the Bronx to Manhattan became a routine part of my life. It was inevitable, I suppose, that a native New Yorker would one day write a story set in a subway car. This one was published in Manhunt in September of 1953. It carried the Hunt Collins byline.
The Molested
SHE WAS SHOVED INTO THE SUBWAY CAR AT GRAND CENtral. It was July, and the passengers reeked of sweat and after-office beers. She wore a loose silk dress, buttoned high on the throat, and she wished for a moment that she had worn something lower cut. The overhead fans in the cars were going but the air hung over the packed passengers like a damp clinging blanket.
She was packed in tightly, with a stout woman standing next to her on her right, a tall thin man on her left, and a pair of broad shoulders in front of her. The fat woman was wearing cheap perfume, and the aroma assailed her nostrils, caused her senses to revolt. The thin man on her left held a thinly folded copy of the New York Times. He sported a black mustache under his curving nose. The nose was buried in the newspaper, and she glanced at the paper and then took her eyes away from the headlines.
There was a slight movement behind her. She leaned forward. The broad shoulders in front of her shoved back indignantly. Whoever was behind her moved again, and she felt a knee pressing into the backs of her own knees.
She moved again, away from the pressure of the knee, and then she tried to look over her shoulder, turning slightly to her left. Her elbow brushed the Times, and the thin man lifted the paper gingerly, shook it as if it were crawling with ants, and then went back to his reading.
The knee was suddenly removed.
She thought, No, I didn't mean you should...
She was suddenly aware of something warm touching the back of her leg. She almost leaped forward because the touch had surprised her with its abruptness. Her silk dress was thin, and she wore no girdle. She felt the warmth spread until it formed the firm outline of fingers touching her flesh.
A tremor of excitement traveled the length of her body, spreading from the warmth on her leg. She moved again, and the stout woman on her right shot her an angry glance, but the hand was taken from her leg.
The excitement in her ebbed.
She stood stock-still, wondering when it would start again. She almost didn't breathe.
It seemed as if there would be no more. She moved her leg impatiently, but the excitement that had flared within her was dead, and now she felt only the oppressive heat of the train. The car jogged along, and she cursed her foolishness in trying the subway to begin with. She thought of the thousands of girls who rode home every night and then the heat overwhelmed her again, and she was sorry for herself once more.
The train rounded a curve, and she lost her balance. She lurched backward, felt the smooth, gentle hands close on her, then release her instantly as she righted herself.
The train pulled into 86th Street, and the door slid open. She was pushed onto the platform, and shoved past the man and woman who had been standing behind her in the train. The man was short and squat, and he wore a battered panama. His hands were thin, with long fingers that clung innocently to the lapels of his suit. She looked at the tall girl, and the girl's eyes met hers sympathetically. She smiled quickly, darting her eyes away, and the girl smiled. The embarking passengers rushed by her, and suddenly everyone on the platform was scrambling to get into the car again. She stepped in quickly, moving deliberately in front of the tall girl, and away from the man. He pushed into the car behind her, and she felt the girl shoved rudely against her, too. She heard the door close behind them, and she sucked in a deep breath as the heat descended again.
She knew what was going to happen, and she waited expectantly. The excitement was mounting in her again, and she found herself wishing desperately for the warmth. When it came she almost sighed aloud. The hands were gentle, as before, as she knew they had to be. They touched her, and then held tight. She shivered and the hands moved slowly, deliberately. For a moment there was sudden doubt in her mind, and then she put the doubt aside and thought only of the moving hands, the deliberate pressure of the hands.
They became more insistent, strangely so, strongly so. A perplexed frown creased her brow, and the doubt returned, and she was almost tempted to turn and look. But that was absurd ... that was...
The hands continued, moving feverishly, and suddenly she realized there was wild strength in the fingers. She looked down in panic. This wasn't ... couldn't be...
The hand she saw was covered with hair.
Long slender fingers, but dark masculine hair.
"I thought..." she murmured, and then she began screaming.
When the train pulled into 125th Street, she was still Screaming. The tall girl who'd also been standing behind her left the car with the other passengers, all shaking their heads.
The policeman held the short, squat man firmly.
"He was molesting me!" she told the policeman. "A man. A man!" And then, because he was looking at her so strangely, she added, "This man, Officer."
This story carried the Richard Marsten byline when it was first published in Manhunt in February of 1953. As a twist on a Woman in Jeopardy yarn, it combines an exotic locale with a sort of action-adventure hero and a true bandito-style villain. It is an absolute coincidence that the bad guy in this story is called Carrera whereas the good guy in the 87th Precinct series, three years later, would be called Carella.
I promise.
Carrera's Woman
THE MEXICAN SKY HUNG OVER OUR HEADS LIKE A PALE blue circus tent. We crouched behind the rocks, and we each held .45s in our fists. We were high in the Sierra Madres, and the rocks were jagged and sharp, high outcroppings untouched by erosive waters. Between us was a stretch of pebble-strewn flatland and a solid wall of hatred that seemed alive in the heat of the sun. We were just about even, but not quite.
The guy behind the other .45 had ten thousand dollars that belonged to me.
I had something that belonged to him.
His woman.
She lay beside me now, flat on her belly, her hands and her feet bound. She was slim and browned from the sun. Her legs were long and sleek where her skirt ended. Her head was twisted away from me, her hair as black as her boyfriend's heart.
"Carrera!" I shouted.
"I hear you, señor," he answered.
His voice was as big as he was. I thought of his paunch, and I thought of the ten G's in the money belt pressed tight against his sweaty flesh. I'd worked hard for that money. I'd sweated in the Tampico oil fields for more than three years, socking it away a little at a time, letting it pile up for the day I could kiss Mexico good-bye.
"Look, Carrera," I said, "I'm giving you one last chance."
"Save your breath, señor," he called back.
"You'd better save yours, you bastard," I shouted. "You'd better save it because pretty soon you're not going to have any."
"Perhaps," he answered.
I couldn't see him because his head was pulled down below the rocks. But I knew he was grinning.
"I want that ten thousand," I shouted.
He laughed aloud this time.
"Ah, but that is where the difficulty lies," he said. "I want it, too."
"Look, Carrera, I'm through playing around," I told him. "If you're not out of there in five minutes, I'm going to put a hole in your sweetie's head." I paused, wondering if he'd heard me. "You got that, Carrera? Five minutes."
He waited again before answering.
"You had better shoot her now, señor. You are not getting this money."
The girl began laughing.
"What's so damn funny?" I asked her.
"You will never outwait Carrera," she said. Her voice was as low and as deep as her laugh. "Carrera is a very patient man."
"I can be patient, too, sister," I said. "I patiently saved that ten thousand bucks for three years, and no tinhorn crook is going to step in and swipe it."
"You underestimate Carrera," she said.
"No, baby, I've got Carrera pegged to a tee. He's a small-time punk. Back in the States, he'd be shaking pennies out of gum machines. He probably steals tortillas from blind old ladies down here."
"You underestimate him," she repeated.
I shook my head. "This is Carrera's big killing—or so he thinks. That ten thousand is his key to the big time. Only it belongs to me, and it's coming back to me."
"If you were smart," she said, "you would leave. You would pack up and go, my friend. And you wouldn't stop to look back."
"I'm not smart."
"I know. So you'll stay here, and Carrera will kill you. Or I will kill you. Either way, you will be dead, and your money will be gone, anyway." She paused. A faint smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "It is better that you lose only your money."
I glanced at my watch.
"Carrera has about two minutes, honey."
"And after that?"
"It's up to him," I said. As if to check, I shouted, "You like your girlfriends dead, Carrera?"
"Ten thousand dollars will buy a lot of girlfriends," he called back.
I looked down at her.
"Did you hear your boyfriend?" I asked.
"I heard."
"He doesn't seem to give a damn whether I shoot you or not."
She shrugged. "It is not that," she said. "He simply knows that you will not kill me."
"Don't be too surprised, baby."
The smile flitted across her face again, was gone almost before it started. "You will not kill me," she said.
I didn't answer her. I kept looking at my watch until the time was up. Nothing came from Carrera. Not another word.
"Now what?" she asked.
"What's your name?"
She didn't answer.
I shrugged. "Suit yourself," I said.
"My name is Linda," she said.
"Make yourself comfortable, Linda," I told her. "We're going to be here for quite some time."
I meant that. I still hadn't figured out how I was going to get my money from Carrera, but I knew damn well I was staying here until I did get it. Crossing the open dirt patch would have been suicide. But at the same time, Carrera couldn't cross it, either. Not unless he wanted a slug through his fat face. I thought of that, and I began to wish he would try to get across the clearing. Nothing would have pleased me more than to have his nose resting on the sight at the end of my gun muzzle.
Ten thousand bucks! Ten thousand, hard-earned American dollars. How had Carrera found out about it? Had I talked too much? Hell, it was general knowledge that I was putting away a nest egg to take back to the States. Carrera had probably been watching me for a long time, planning his larceny from a distance, waiting until I was ready to shove off for home.
"It's getting dark," Linda said.
I lifted my eyes to the sky.
The sun was dipping low over the horizon, splashing the sky with brilliant reds and oranges. The peaks of the mountains glowed brilliantly as the dying rays lingered in crevices and hollows. A crescent moon hung palely against the deepening wash of night, sharing the sky with the sinking sun.
And suddenly it was black.
There was no transition, no dusk, no violets or purples. The sun was simply swallowed up, and stars appeared against the blackness. A stiff breeze worked its way down from the caps of the mountains, spreading cold where there had once been intolerable heat.
