by Ed McBain
“I’ve got the printout right here in my hand,” the supervisor in the Dispatcher’s Office said. “That was last July twenty-eighth, eight-oh-two P.M., 621 North Greenfield, room 207. Adam Car responded at eight-twelve.”
“What’d they find?”
“Radioed back with a Ten-Twenty. That’s a Robbery Past.”
Kling knew what a 10-20 was.
“Which precinct was that?”
“Midtown East,” the supervisor said.
“Would you know who handled the case there?”
“That’s not on the printout.”
“Okay, thanks,” Kling said, and pressed the lighted 6 button in the base of his phone. “Kling,” he said.
“Bert, it’s Eileen.”
“I didn’t get a chance to look for that earring,” he said.
“Didn’t turn up in the squadroom, huh?”
“Well, we’ve got a lost-and-found box, but there’s nothing in it.”
“How about the car?”
“I haven’t checked the car yet,” he said. “I haven’t used that particular car since Saturday night.”
“Well, if you do get a chance—”
“Sure,” he said.
“It’s just that…they’re sort of my good-luck earrings.”
Kling said nothing.
“I feel naked without them,” she said.
He still said nothing.
“Can’t go around wearing just one good-luck earring, can I?” she said.
“I guess not,” he said.
“Cut my luck in half,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“How’s the weather up there?” she asked.
“Cold.”
“Here, too,” she said. “Well, let me know if you find it, okay?”
“I will.”
“Thanks,” she said, and hung up.
On the same slip of paper Brown had placed on his desk, Kling scrawled “E’s earring,” and then put the slip of paper in his jacket pocket. He flipped his precinct directory till he found the number for Midtown East, dialed it, told the desk sergeant there what he was looking for, and was put through to a detective named Garrido, who spoke with a Spanish accent and who remembered the case at once because he himself had been staked out in the back of the Greenfield Street pawnshop when the armed robber walked in trying to hock all the stuff he’d stolen from Edelman two days earlier and three doors south.
“The whole list,” Garrido said, “ever’ting on it from soup to nuts. We had him cold.”
“So what happened?” Kling asked.
“Guess who we got for the jutch?” Garrido asked.
“Who?” Kling asked.
“Harris.”
Kling knew the Honorable Wilbur Harris. The Honorable Wilbur Harris was known in the trade as Walking Wilbur. His specialty was allowing criminals to march out of his courtroom.
“What happened?” Kling asked.
“The kid wass a junkie, first time he did any ting like this. He wass almos’ cryin’ in the cour’room. So Harris less him off with a suspended sentence.”
“Even though you caught him with the goods, huh?”
“All of it!” Garrido said. “Ever’ting on the list! Ah, wha’s the sense?”
“What was the kid’s name?”
“Andrew someting. You wann me to pull the file?”
“If it’s not any trouble.”
“Sure,” Garrido said. “Juss a secon’, okay?”
He was back five minutes later with a name and a last known address for the seventeen-year-old boy who had held up Marvin Edelman the summer before.
The apartment Allan Carter had described as “one of those big old rent-controlled apartments on the park” was in fact on the park, and most certainly old, and possibly rent-controlled, but only a dwarf would have considered it “big.” Lonnie Cooper, one of the two black dancers in Fatback, was almost as tall as the two detectives she admitted into her home that late Tuesday morning; together, the three of them caused the tiny place to assume the dimensions of a clothes closet. Compounding the felony, Miss Cooper had jammed the place chock-full of furniture, knickknacks, paintings, and pieces of sculpture so that there was hardly an uncovered patch of wall or floor surface; both Meyer and Carella felt they had wandered into the business office of a fence selling stolen goods.
“I like clutter,” the dancer explained. “Most dancers don’t, but I do. On stage, I can fly. When I’m home, I like to fold my wings.”
She was even more beautiful than Carella remembered her on stage, a lissome woman with skin the color of cork, high cheekbones, a nose like Nefertiti’s, a generous mouth, and a dazzling smile. She was wearing a man’s red woolen shawl-collared sweater over a black leotard top and black tights. She was barefooted, but she was wearing striped leg warmers over the tights. She asked the detectives if they would like some coffee or anything, and when they declined, she asked them to make themselves comfortable. Carella and Meyer took seats beside each other on a sofa cluttered with throw pillows. Lonnie Cooper sat opposite them in an easy chair with antimacassars pinned to the back and the arms. A coffee table between them was covered with glass paperweights, miniature dolls, letter openers, campaign buttons, and a trylon-and-perisphere souvenir ashtray from New York City’s 1939 World’s Fair. Catching Carella’s glance, she explained, “I collect things.”
“Miss Cooper,” he said, “I wonder if—”
“Lonnie,” she said.
“Fine,” he said. “Lonnie, I—”
“What’s your first name?” she asked.
“Steve,” he said.
“And yours?” she asked Meyer.
“Meyer,” he said.
“I thought that was your last name.”
“It is. It’s also my first name.”
“How terrific!” she said.
Meyer shrugged. He had never thought of his name as being particularly terrific, except once when a lady fiction writer used it as the title of a novel about a college professor. He had called Rollie Chabrier in the DA’s office, wanting to know if he could sue. Chabrier told him he should feel honored. Meyer guessed he’d felt a little bit honored. But it continued to bother him that somebody out there had used the name of a real person for a mere character in a work of fiction. A college professor, no less.
“Are you sure you don’t want any coffee?” Lonnie asked.
“Positive, thanks,” Carella said.
“We’re about coffeed out,” Meyer said. “This weather.”
“Yeah, do you find yourself drinking a lot of coffee, too?” Lonnie said.
“Yes,” Meyer said.
“Me, too,” she said. “Gee.”
There was something very girlish about her, Carella decided. She looked to be about twenty-six or twenty-seven, but her movements and her facial expressions and even her somewhat highpitched voice were more like those of a seventeen-year-old. She curled up in the easy chair now, and folded her legs under her, the way his daughter April might have.
“I guess you realize we’re here about Sally Anderson,” Carella said.
“Yes, of course,” she said, and her face took on the studied, sober look of a child trying to cope with grown-up problems.
“Miss Cooper—”
“Lonnie,” she said.
“Lonnie—”
“Yes, Steve?”
Carella cleared his throat. “Lonnie, we understand there was a party here a week ago last Sunday, that would’ve been the seventh of February. Do you recall such a party?”
“Yeah, wow,” she said, “it was a great party!”
“Was Sally Anderson here?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“And Tina Wong?”
“Yep.”
“And Allan Carter?”
“Sure, lots of people,” Lonnie said.
“How about Mike Roldan and Tony Asensio?” Meyer asked.
“You guys really do your homework, don’t you?” Lonnie said.
<
br /> Meyer had never thought of it as homework; he smiled weakly.
“They were here, too, Meyer,” Lonnie said, and smiled back—dazzlingly.
“From what we’ve been able to determine,” Carella said, “there was some cocaine floating around that night.”
“Oh?” she said, and the smile dropped from her face.
“Was there?”
“Who told you that?”
“Several people.”
“Who?”
“That’s not important, Miss Cooper.”
“It’s important to me, Steve. And please call me Lonnie.”
“We’ve had it from three different sources,” Meyer said.
“Who?”
He looked at Carella. Carella nodded.
“Tina Wong, Mike Roldan, and Tony Asensio,” Meyer said.
“Boy,” Lonnie said, and shook her head.
“Is it true?” Carella said.
“Listen, who am I to contradict them?” Lonnie said, and shrugged and grimaced, and then shifted her position in the chair. “But I thought this was about Sally.”
“It is.”
“I mean, is this going to turn into a cocaine thing?”
“It’s already a cocaine thing,” Meyer said. “We know Sally was doing coke that night, and we also know—”
“You’re talking about last Sunday?”
“A week ago last Sunday, yes. You do remember that Sally was doing coke, don’t you?”
“Well…yes. Now that you mention it.”
“Plus some other people as well.”
“Well, a few others.”
“Okay. Where’d the stuff come from?”
“How would I know?”
“Miss Cooper—”
“Lonnie.”
“Lonnie, we’re not looking for a drug collar here. Sally Anderson was murdered, and we’re trying to find out why. If cocaine had anything to do with her death—”
“I don’t see how it could have.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she’s the one who brought the coke.”
“We know that. But where’d she get it, would you know?”
“Uptown someplace.”
“Where uptown?”
“I have no idea.”
“How far uptown? Are we talking about below the park or—”
“I really don’t know.”
“How often did she bring the stuff in?”
“Usually once a week. On Monday nights, before the show. We’re dark on Sunday—”
“Dark?”
“No performances. So she usually got the stuff on Sundays, I guess, went uptown for it on Sundays, or else had it delivered, I really don’t know. Anyway, she brought it to the theater on Monday nights.”
“And distributed it among the cast.”
“Those who wanted it, yes.”
“How many of those were there?”
“Half a dozen? Seven? Something like that.”
“How much money was involved here, would you say?”
“You don’t think she was in this for the money, do you?”
“Why was she in it?”
“She was doing us a favor, that’s all. I mean, why duplicate the effort? If you’ve got a good contact and he delivers good dust, why not make one big buy every week instead of six or seven small buys from dealers you maybe can’t trust? It only makes sense.”
“Uh-huh,” Carella said.
“Well, doesn’t it?”
“So what are we talking about here?” Meyer said. “For the six or seven grams, what’d she—”
“Well, sometimes more than that. But she only charged what she herself was paying for it, believe me. I know street prices, and that’s all she was getting.”
“Nothing for all the trouble of having to go uptown?”
“What trouble? She had to go anyway, didn’t she? And besides, maybe the man was delivering it, who knows? You’re really barking up the wrong tree if you think that’s how Sally—”
She stopped suddenly.
“How Sally what?” Carella asked at once.
“How she…uh—”
Lonnie grimaced and shrugged as though utterly baffled as to how she might finish the sentence she had started.
“Yes?” Carella said. “How she what?”
“Earned her living,” Lonnie said, and smiled.
“Well, we know how she earned her living, don’t we?” Meyer said. “She was a dancer.”
“Well, yes.”
“Then why would we think she earned her living some other way?”
“Well, you’ve been talking about coke here, and asking how much money was involved—”
“Yes, but you told us she wasn’t making any profit on the coke.”
“That’s right.”
“Was she earning extra cash someplace else?” Carella asked.
“I don’t know anything about any extra cash.”
“But there was extra cash someplace, wasn’t there?”
“Gee, did I say that?” Lonnie said, and rolled her eyes.
“You seemed to indicate—”
“No, you misunderstood me, Steve.”
“Where’d she get this extra cash?” Carella asked.
“What extra cash?” Lonnie said.
“Let’s start all over again,” Carella said. “What did you mean when you used the words ‘how she earned her living’?”
“As a dancer,” Lonnie said.
“That’s not what I’m asking you.”
“I don’t know what you’re asking me.”
“I’m asking you where she earned additional income.”
“Who said she did?”
“I thought that’s what you implied.”
“Anyway,” Lonnie said, “sometimes a performer will do a nightclub gig or something. While she’s still in a show that’s running.”
“Uh-huh,” Carella said. “Was Sally doing nightclub gigs?”
“Well…no. Not that I know of.”
“Then what was she doing?”
“I only said—”
Lonnie shook her head.
“You said she was doing something that earned her a living. What was it?”
“It goes on all over town,” Lonnie said.
“What does?”
“If Sally was lucky enough to get cut in on it, more power to her.”
“Cut in on what?”
“It isn’t even against the law, that I know of,” Lonnie said. “Nobody gets hurt by it.”
“What are we talking about?” Meyer asked. It sounded as if she’d been describing prostitution, but surely she knew that was against the law. And besides, who said nobody got hurt by it?
“Tell us what you mean,” Carella said.
“I don’t have anything else to tell you,” she said, and folded her arms across her chest like a pouting six-year-old.
“We can subpoena you before a grand jury,” Carella said, figuring if the ploy had worked at least a thousand times before, it might work yet another time.
“So subpoena me,” Lonnie said.
When Brown went out back to where the precinct’s vehicles were parked, he was surprised first to see that it was the same rotten decrepit automobile they’d pulled last Saturday night, and next to see Kling on his hands and knees in the back seat.
“I told them I didn’t want this car again,” he said to Kling’s back. “What are you doing?”
“Here it is,” Kling said.
“Here’s what?”
“Eileen’s earring,” he said, and held up a small gold circle.
Brown nodded. “You want to drive?” he asked. “I hate this car.”
“Sure,” Kling said.
He put the earring in his coat pocket, dusted off the knees of his trousers, and then climbed in behind the wheel. Brown got in beside him on the passenger side. “This door doesn’t close right,” he said, slamming and reslamming the door until it seemed at last to fit properly
into the frame. He turned on the heater at once. The heater began rattling and clanging. “Terrific,” he said. “Where we headed?”
“Diamondback,” Kling said, and started the car.
“Terrific,” Brown said.
A police department adage maintained that the best time and place to get killed in this city was at 12:00 midnight on a Saturday in the middle of August on the corner of Landis Avenue and Porter Street. Brown and Kling were happy that they reached that particular corner at 12:00 noon on a freezing day in February, but they weren’t particularly delighted to be in Diamondback at all. Brown appreciated their destination even less than did Kling. Diamondback, in the 83rd Precinct, was almost exclusively black, and many of the residents here felt that a black cop was the worst kind of cop in the world. Even the honest citizens up here—and they far outnumbered the pimps, pushers, junkies, armed robbers, burglars, hookers, and assorted petty thieves—felt that if you had any kind of law trouble it was better to go to Whitey than to one of your own brothers. A black cop was like a reformed hooker who’d gone tight and dry.
“What’s this kid’s name?” Brown asked.
“Andrew Fleet,” Kling said.
“White or black?”
“Black,” Kling said.
“Terrific,” Brown said.
The last known address for Fleet was in a row of grimy tenements on St. Sebastian Avenue, which started at the eastern end of Grover Park, and then ran diagonally northward and eastward for a total of thirteen blocks between Landis and Isola avenues, to become—inexplicably—another thoroughfare named Adams Street, presumably after the second president of the United States, or perhaps even the sixth. St. Sab’s, as it was familiarly called by everyone in the neighborhood, looked particularly dismal that Tuesday afternoon. You could always tell a neighborhood of poor people in this city because the streets were always the last to be plowed and sanded, and the garbage, especially in bad weather, was allowed to pile up indefinitely, presumably as an inducement to free enterprise among the rat population. It was not unusual in Diamondback to see rats the size of alley cats striding boldly across an avenue at high noon. It was ten minutes past 12:00 when Kling pulled up alongside a snowbank outside Fleet’s building. There was not a rat in sight, but all the garbage cans along the street were overflowing, and the sidewalks were cluttered with the loose debris of urban waste, much of it frozen into the icy pavement. Up here, people didn’t use plastic garbage bags. Plastic garbage bags cost money.
