Ice

by Ed McBain

  At this point, they only wanted to talk to two people connected with the show.

  The first was Miguel Roldan, who, coincidentally, was both Hispanic and a cocaine user. Sally Anderson had been a cocaine user, and Paco Lopez had been Hispanic. They wanted to ask Roldan where he got his stuff and whether Sally got it from the same place and whether that place happened to be Paco Lopez’s little candy stand. The second was Allan Carter, married producer of Fatback, who—according to Tina Wong—had been enjoying a little backstage romance with the Chinese dancer ever since September, when they’d discovered each other at the show’s opening-night party. They wanted to ask Carter why he had thought Sally Anderson was “a little redheaded thing.” Had Carter been involved in an extra extramarital fling with the blonde dancer as well? If not, why had he gone to such lengths to indicate he’d scarcely known her? They had not asked Tina anything at all about Carter’s seeming confusion. If there had existed any sort of relationship between him and the dead girl, it was entirely possible that Tina knew nothing about it, in which case they did not want her to alert him. They knew intuitively that he’d been lying when he denied remembering Sally Anderson. Now they wanted to find out why he’d been lying.

  They did not find out that late Sunday afternoon.

  The doorman at Carter’s building on Grover Park West told the detectives that both he and Mrs. Carter had left at close to 4:00 P.M. He did not know where they’d gone or when they’d be back. He suggested that perhaps Mr. Carter had gone down to Philadelphia again, but that didn’t seem to tie in with the fact that a chauffeured limousine had picked up the couple; Mr. Carter usually took the train to Philadelphia, and besides, he always went down alone. The Philadelphia possibility seemed unlikely to Carella as well. Carter had mentioned on the phone yesterday that he would not be going back to Philadelphia until late Wednesday. The detectives drove uptown and crosstown to the brownstone Miguel Roldan shared with Tony Asensio, the other Hispanic dancer in the show. No one was home there, either, and there was no doorman to offer suggestions or possibilities.

  Carella said good night to Meyer at ten minutes past 6:00, and only then remembered he had not yet bought Teddy a present. He shopped the Stem until he found an open lingerie shop, only to discover that it featured panties of the open-crotch variety and some that could be eaten like candy, decided this was not quite what he had in mind, thank you, and then shopped fruitlessly for another hour before settling on a heart-shaped box of chocolates in an open drugstore. He felt he was letting Teddy down.

  Her eyes and her face showed no disappointment when he presented the gift to her. He explained that it was only a temporary solution, and that he’d shop for her real present once the pressure of the case let up a little. He had no idea when that might be, but he promised himself that he would buy her something absolutely mind-boggling tomorrow, come hell or high water. He did not yet know that the case had already taken a peculiar turn or that he would learn about it tomorrow, when once again it would postpone his grandiose plans.

  At the dinner table, ten-year-old April complained that she had received only one Valentine’s card, and that one from a doofus. She pronounced the word with a grimace her mother might have used more suitably, managing to look very much like Teddy in that moment—the dark eyes and darker hair, the beautiful mouth twisted in an expression of total distaste. Her ten-year-old brother Mark, who resembled Carella more than he did either his mother or his twin sister, offered the opinion that anyone who would send a card to April had to be a doofus, at which point April seized her half-finished pork chop by its rib, and threatened to use it on him like a hatchet. Carella calmed them down. Fanny came in from the kitchen and casually mentioned that these were the same pork chops she’d taken out of the freezer the night before and she hoped they tasted okay and wouldn’t give the whole family trichinosis. Mark wanted to know what trichinosis was. Fanny told him it was related to a cassoulet and winked at Carella.

  They put the children to bed at 9:00.

  They watched television for a while, and then they went into the bedroom. Teddy was in the bathroom for what seemed an inordinately long time. Carella guessed she was angry. When she came into the bedroom again, she was wearing a robe over her nightgown. Normally, she wasn’t quite so modest in their own bedroom. He began to think more and more that his gift of chocolates without even a selection chart under the lid had truly irritated her. So deep was his own guilt (“Italians and Jews,” Meyer was fond of saying, “are the guiltiest people on the face of the earth”) that he did not remember until she pulled back the covers in the dark and got into bed beside him that she hadn’t given him anything at all.

  He snapped on the bedside lamp.

  “Honey,” he said, “I’m really sorry. I know I should have done it earlier, it was stupid of me to leave it for the last minute. I promise you tomorrow I’ll—”

  She put her fingers to his lips, silencing him.

  She sat up.

  She lowered the strap of her nightgown.

  In the glow of the lamplight, he saw her shoulder. Where previously there had been only a single black butterfly tattoo, put there so long ago he could hardly remember when, he now saw two butterflies, the new one slightly larger than the other, its wings a bright yellow laced with black. The new butterfly seemed to hover over the original, as though kissing it with its outstretched wings.

  His eyes suddenly flooded with tears.

  He pulled her to him and kissed her fiercely and felt his tears mingling with hers as surely as did the butterflies on her shoulder.

  For some people, it was still St. Valentine’s Day.

  Many people do not believe a day ends at midnight. It is still the same day until they go to sleep. When they wake up in the morning, it is the next day. Two people who thought it was still St. Valentine’s Day were Brother Anthony and the Fat Lady. Even though it was 1:00 A.M. on the morning of February 15, they thought of it as still being a day for lovers, especially since they had learned the name of Paco Lopez’s girlfriend. Actually, they had learned her name when it was still St. Valentine’s Day, which they considered a good omen. But it was not until 1:00 A.M. that Brother Anthony knocked on the door of Judite Quadrado’s apartment.

  In this neighborhood, a knock on the door at 1:00 A.M. meant only trouble. It meant either the police coming around to ask about a crime that had been committed in the building, or it meant a friend or neighbor coming to tell you that a loved one had either hurt someone or been hurt by someone. Either way, it meant bad news. The people in this neighborhood knew that a knock on the door at 1:00 A.M. did not mean a burglar or an armed robber. Thieves did not knock on doors unless it was going to be a shove-in and in this neighborhood most thieves knew that doors were double-locked and often reinforced as well with a Fox lock, the steel bar hooked into the door and wedged into a floor plate. Brother Anthony knew that someone awakened at 1:00 in the morning would be frightened; that was why he and Emma had waited until that time, even though they’d had their information at 10:00 P.M.

  From behind the door, Judite said, “Who is it?”

  “Friends,” Brother Anthony said.

  “Friends? Who? What friends?”

  “Please open the door,” he said.

  “Go away,” Judite said.

  “It’s important that we speak to you,” Emma said.

  “Who are you?”

  “Open the door just a little,” Emma said, “and you’ll see for yourself.”

  They heard lock tumblers falling. One lock, then another. The door opened just a crack, held by a night chain. In the wedge of the open door, they saw a woman’s pale face. A kitchen light burned behind her.

  “Dominus vobiscum,” Brother Anthony said.

  “We have money for you,” Emma said.

  “Money?”

  “From Paco.”

  “Paco?”

  “He said to make sure we gave it to you if anything happened to him.”

  “Pac
o?” Judite said again. She had not seen Paco for at least two months before he was killed. It was Paco who had scarred her breasts, the rotten bastard. Who was this priest in the hallway? Who was this fat woman claiming they had money for her? Money from Paco? Impossible.

  “Go away,” she said again.

  Emma took a sheaf of bills from her pocketbook, the money remaining from what Brother Anthony had taken from the pool hustler. In the dim hallway light, she saw Judite’s eyes widen.

  “For you,” Emma said. “Open the door.”

  “If it’s for me, hand it to me,” Judite said. “I don’t need to open the door.”

  “Never mind,” Brother Anthony said, and put his hand on Emma’s arm. “She doesn’t want the money.”

  “How much money is it?” Judite asked.

  “Four hundred dollars,” Emma said.

  “And Paco said he wanted me to have it?”

  “For what he did to you,” Emma said, lowering her voice and her eyes.

  “Just a minute,” Judite said.

  The door closed. They heard nothing. Brother Anthony shrugged. Emma returned the shrug. Had their information been wrong? The man who’d told them about Judite was her cousin. He said she’d been living with Paco Lopez before he was killed. He said Paco had burned her breasts with cigarettes. Which was one of the reasons Brother Anthony had suggested they call on her at 1:00 in the morning. It was Brother Anthony’s opinion that no woman allowed herself to be treated brutally unless she was a very frightened woman. One o’clock in the morning should make her even more frightened. But where was she? Where had she gone? They waited. They heard the night chain being removed. The door opened wide. Judite Quadrado stood in the open doorway with a pistol in her fist.

  “Come in,” she said, and gestured with the pistol.

  Brother Anthony had not expected the pistol. He looked at Emma. Emma said, “No hay necesidad de la pistola,” which Brother Anthony did not understand. Until that moment, in fact, he hadn’t known Emma could speak Spanish.

  “Hasta que yo sepa quien es usted,” Judite said, and again gestured with the gun.

  “All right,” Emma answered in English. “But only until you know who we are. I don’t like doing favors for a woman with a gun in her hand.”

  They went into the apartment. Judite closed and locked the door behind them. They were in a small kitchen. A refrigerator, sink, and stove were on one wall, below a small window that opened onto an areaway. The window was closed and rimed with ice. A table covered with white oilcloth was against the right-angled wall. Two wooden chairs were at the table.

  Brother Anthony did not like the look on Judite’s face. She did not look like a frightened woman. She looked like a woman very much in command of the situation. He was thinking they’d made a mistake coming up here. He was thinking they’d lose what was left of the money he’d taken from the pool hustler. He was thinking maybe the ideas he and Emma hatched weren’t always so hot. Judite was perhaps five feet six inches tall, a slender, dark-haired, brown-eyed girl with a nose just a trifle too large for her narrow face. She was wearing a dark blue robe; Brother Anthony figured that was why she’d left them waiting in the hall so long. So she could go put on the robe. And get the gun from wherever she kept it. He did not like the look of the gun. It was steady in her hand. She had used a gun before; he sensed that intuitively. She would not hesitate to use it now. The situation looked extremely bad.

  “So,” she said. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Brother Anthony,” he said.

  “Emma Forbes,” Emma said.

  “How did you know Paco?”

  “A shame what happened to him,” Emma said.

  “How did you know him?” Judite said again.

  “We were friends for a long time,” Brother Anthony said. It kept bothering him that she held the gun so steady in her hand. The gun didn’t look like any of the Saturday-night specials he had seen in the neighborhood. This one was at least a .38. This one could put a very nice hole in his cassock.

  “If you’re his friends, how come I don’t know you?” Judite said.

  “We’ve been away,” Emma said.

  “Then how did you get the money, if you’ve been away?”

  “Paco left it for us. At the apartment.”

  “What apartment?”

  “Where we live.”

  “He left it for me?”

  “He left it for you,” Emma said. “With a note.”

  “Where’s the note?”

  “Where’s the note, Bro?” Emma said.

  “At the apartment,” Brother Anthony said, assuming an attitude of annoyance. “I didn’t know we’d need a note. I didn’t know you needed a note when you came to deliver four hundred dollars to—”

  “Give it to me then,” Judite said, and extended her left hand.

  “Put away the gun,” Emma said.

  “No. First give me the money.”

  “Give her the money,” Brother Anthony said. “It’s hers. Paco wanted her to have it.”

  Their eyes met. Judite did not notice the glance that passed between them. Emma went to the table and spread the bills in a fan on the oilcloth. Judite turned to pick up the bills and Brother Anthony stepped into her at the same moment, smashing his bunched fist into her nose. Her nose had not looked particularly lovely beforehand, but now it began spouting blood. Brother Anthony had read somewhere that hitting a person in the nose was very painful and also highly effective. The nose bled easily, and blood frightened people. The blood pouring from Judite’s nose caused her to forget all about the pistol in her hand. Brother Anthony seized her wrist, twisted her arm behind her back, and yanked the pistol away from her.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Judite was holding her hand to her nose. Blood poured from her nose onto her fingers. Emma took a dish towel from where it was lying on the counter and tossed it to her.

  “Wipe yourself,” she said.

  Judite was whimpering.

  “And stop crying. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  Judite didn’t exactly believe this. She had already been hurt. She had made a mistake, opening the door at one in the morning, even with the gun. Now the gun was in the priest’s hand, and the fat woman was picking up the money on the table and stuffing it back into her shoulder bag.

  “Wh…what do you want?” Judite said. She was holding the towel to her nose now. The towel was turning red. Her nose hurt; she suspected the priest had broken it.

  “Sit down,” Brother Anthony said. He was smiling now that the situation was in his own capable hands.

  “Sit down,” Emma repeated.

  Judite sat at the table.

  “Get me some ice,” she said. “You broke my nose.”

  “Get her some ice,” Brother Anthony said.

  Emma went to the refrigerator. She took out an ice tray and cracked it open into the sink. Judite handed her the bloodstained towel, and Emma wrapped it around a handful of cubes.

  “You broke my nose,” Judite said again, and accepted the towel and pressed the ice pack to her nose. On the street outside, she could hear the rise and fall of an ambulance siren. She wondered if she would need an ambulance.

  “Who were his customers?” Brother Anthony asked.

  “What?” She didn’t know who he meant at first. And then it occurred to her that he was talking about Paco.

  “His customers,” Emma said. “Who was he selling to?”

  “Paco, do you mean?”

  “You know who we mean,” Brother Anthony said. He tucked the gun into the pouchlike pocket at the front of his robe, and gestured to the fat woman. The fat woman reached into her bag again. For a dizzying moment, Judite thought they were going to let her go. The priest had put the gun away, and now the fat woman was reaching into her bag again. They were going to give her the money, after all. They were going to let her go. But when the fat woman’s hand came out of the bag, there was something long and narrow in it. The fat woman’s th
umb moved, and a straight razor snapped open out of its case, catching tiny dancing pinpricks of light. Judite was more afraid of the razor than she had been of the gun. She had never in her life been shot, but she’d been cut many, many times, once even by Paco. She bore the scar on her shoulder. It was a less hideous scar than the ones he had burned onto her breasts.

  “Who were his customers?” Brother Anthony asked again.

  “I hardly even knew him,” Judite said.

  “You were living with him,” Emma said.

  “That doesn’t mean I knew him,” Judite said, which, in a way, was an awesome truth.

  She did not want to tell them who Paco’s customers had been because his customers were now her customers, or at least would be as soon as she got her act together. She had reconstructed from memory a list of an even dozen users, enough to keep her living in a style she thought would be luxurious. Enough to have caused her to buy a gun before she embarked on her enterprise; there were too many bastards like Paco in the world. But the gun was now in the priest’s pocket, and the fat woman was turning the razor slowly in her hand, so that its edge caught glints of light. Judite thought, and this in itself was an awesome truth, that life had a peculiar way of repeating itself. Remembering what Paco had done to her breasts, she pulled the robe instinctively closed over her nightgown, using her free left hand. Brother Anthony caught the motion.

  “Who were his customers?” Emma said.

  “I don’t know. What customers?”

  “For the nose candy,” Emma said, and moved closer to her with the razor.

  “I don’t know what that means, nose candy,” Judite said.

  “What you sniff, my dear,” Emma said, and brought the razor close to her face. “Through your nose, my dear. Through the nose you won’t have in a minute if you don’t tell us who they were.”

  “No, not her face,” Brother Anthony said, almost in a whisper. “Not her face.”

  He smiled at Judite. For another dizzying moment, Judite thought he was the one who would let her go. The woman seemed menacing, but surely the priest—

  “Take off the robe,” he said.