by Ed McBain
“Big black man wearing a ski mask and gloves,” he said. “In June. Didn’t he know that’d look suspicious? A ski mask? And gloves? In June? How could anyone be so stupid?”
“How’d you know he was black?” Brown asked.
Being black himself—or rather, being more like the color of his name—he was naturally curious. Kling was curious, too, even though he was white and blond. They had responded to the call not ten minutes ago. The robber had cleaned out the cash register and taken a bottle of Johnny Walker Black from the shelf before he’d departed. Maybe that was why the owner thought he was black. The Johnny Black and all. Black by association, so to speak.
“You can tell,” the owner said.
“You call tell a man wearing a ski mask and gloves is black?” Brown said.
“The voice,” the owner said. “No offense meant.”
“None taken,” Brown said. “He sounded black, is that what you’re saying?”
“Is exactly what I’m saying,” the owner said. “No offense.”
Kling tended to agree that black people sounded different from white people. Brown was inclined to agree as well. Both men could instantly identify a black person on the phone, even if he wasn’t wearing gloves and a ski mask. So why were they both offended now—and they both were—by this scrawny little white man wearing a shabby maroon sweater and smoking a cigarette, telling them that he could tell the man who’d come in and stuck a gun in his face in broad daylight was black because he sounded black?
Was it because his identification was premised less on the robber’s voice than on the fact that he was wearing a ski mask and gloves on the ninth day of June? Was the liquor store owner saying, in effect, “Only a black man would be stupid enough to wear a ski mask and gloves on a holdup in June?”
Neither Kling nor Brown knew exactly why they were offended, but they were. They went about their business, nonetheless, saying nothing about the possibly racist ID, taking down all the details of the robbery, and then telling the owner, who was already on his fourth cigarette in the past twenty minutes, that they’d get back to him if they got anything, to which he replied simply, “Sure.”
Neither did they discuss the ID when they were alone in the car together, heading back to the stationhouse.
Kling wondered about this.
So did Brown.
AMONG THE MANY quotes attributed to Marlowe were:
Comparisons are odious and Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? and Come live with me, and be my love and Love me little, love me long (which was an Elvis Presley song, wasn’t it?) and Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships?
But when Carella typed in the keywords in that first little poem they’d received, he got nothing again. So Marlowe hadn’t written it, either. In which case, who was the culprit? Was it Sir Francis Bacon, another candidate for Shakespearean authorship, if Carella remembered correctly; college was a long time ago. Was it Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, or the Tenth Earl of Warwick, or whoever he might have been?
He Googled over to Bacon, typed in the keywords, and got nothing. He typed in de Vere, went through the exercise yet another time. Nothing again. No hits, all misses. Something like a Broadway season in New York. So who had written those lines?
Or was the Deaf Man himself the author?
THE FAMILY DISPUTE had turned violent. That’s why Genero and Parker were here. The woman, who’d had about enough of being slapped around by a husband half her size, grabbed a cast-iron skillet from the stove and swung it at her husband’s head, splashing fried peppers and eggs all over his face together with the blood that gushed from the big gash the skillet had opened.
The uniforms who’d responded earlier were still at the scene. An ambulance had carted Agustin Mendez to the hospital, but his wife, Milagros, was still here in the apartment, her arms folded across ample breasts. The detectives had to watch where they were stepping because peppers and eggs were still all over the kitchen floor.
“He slipped and fell in the oil on the floor,” Milagros said.
Perfect English, faintest trace of an accent. Damned if she was going to get sent up for finally striking back at her son of a bitch husband. Parker couldn’t blame her. Neither could Genero.
“How’d the oil get on the floor, ma’am?” he asked.
“Agustin spilled it.”
“Spilled the oil and then slipped in it, right?” Parker said.
“That’s how it happened, yes,” she said, and nodded defiantly.
In the street outside, walking back to the car, Parker said, “She’s lying, you know.”
“Oh, sure.”
“They lie, these spics.”
“Sure.”
“Ollie’s dating one, you know,” Parker said.
“I didn’t know.”
“A mistake,” Parker said, and shook his head gravely.
CARELLA LOOKED at the note again.
726+627=1353
If the Deaf Man was reversing the number and then adding it to itself, then why not…
Well, let’s try it, he thought.
He picked up a pen, pulled a pad in front of him, and wrote 1353 on it. He reversed the number…3531…and then added them together:
1353
+3531
4884
I’ll be damned, he thought.
Unless he was mistaken, 4884 was the nonexistent postal box number the Deaf Man had used on his early messenger-service deliveries.
He was leading them back to the very beginning again.
He was telling them to go back.
Backward, men! Backward, you backward men!
And then something sprang off the pad, almost hitting Carella in the left eye.
4884
The number read the same forwards and backwards!
11.
THE DRIVER FROM Regal Limousine was waiting outside 328 River Place South when his customer—a Mr. Adam Fen—came out of the luxury apartment building at precisely one-thirty that Wednesday afternoon. He tipped his peaked hat and immediately went to the curbside rear door, snapping it open, holding it open as his customer stepped in, and then closing the door behind him. Coming around to the driver’s side of the car, he climbed in behind the wheel, and said, “I’m David, Mr. Fen.”
“How do you do, David?”
“Nice day, i’n it, sir?”
Slight Cockney accent, the Deaf Man noticed. Or Australian, perhaps? Sometimes, they sounded alike. David was a man in his late forties, the Deaf Man guessed, some five-feet eight-inches tall, quite thin, a slight man by anyone’s reckoning. He was wearing black trousers and a matching jacket, black shoes and socks, little black cap with a shiny black peak, white shirt, and black tie.
“And where shall it be this afternoon, Mr. Fen?”
“Clarendon Hall, please.”
“Clarendon it is, sir.”
The Deaf Man had ordered what Regal called its “luxury sedan” because this was the type of limo Konstantinos Sallas and his bodyguard would be riding to Clarendon this Saturday afternoon. He was not at all interested in the backseat reading lamps or vanity mirrors or any of the other amenities, preferring instead to concentrate on how much room there was in the front seat, where David sat behind the wheel with a blank smile on his face.
The weapon the Deaf Man had chosen was an Uzi submachine gun. Manufactured in Israel, the Oo-zee, as it was pronounced, was a boxy, lightweight weapon measuring only some 470 millimeters, and weighing but 3.5 kilograms. When converted to inches and pounds, this came to a sweet little firearm that was a bit more than eighteen inches long, and weighed a bit less than eight pounds. Certainly small enough to fit in a sports bag on the front seat alongside the driver. Glancing there now, he saw that David had placed on that front seat a folded black raincoat.
“I like the way Regal outfits its drivers,” he said.
“Do you now, sir?”
“Indeed. Do they pay for the uniforms? Or do you…?”
“Sir?”
“I asked whether they pay for the uniforms, or do you supply them yourselves?”
“They gives us an allowance, sir. We can go to any outfitter we choose, so long as the uniform meets Regal specifications, yes, sir.”
“And where did you get your uniform?”
“There’s a uniform supply house downtown on Baxter Street, yes, sir. That’s where I was outfitted.”
“The raincoat, too?”
“Yes, sir, the raincoat. They know Regal’s specifications, they’re most accommodating.”
“What’s it called?”
“Sir?”
“The supply house.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, I’m a bit hard of hearing.”
“So am I,” the Deaf Man said.
“Then you know what it’s like.”
More or less, the Deaf Man thought.
“It’s Conan Uniforms, sir, the second floor at 312 Baxter. They have a full line of chauffeur, butler, maid, doorman, janitorial, security, and medical uniforms. Was Regal recommended them, in fact. They have all Regal’s specifications. Nice people to deal with, too. Are you thinking of becoming a chauffeur, sir?” he asked, smiling at the absurdity of such a notion even as the words left his lips.
“Not just yet, no,” the Deaf Man said, smiling with him, the oaf. “Are you from London, David?”
“Yes, sir. The part what’s called Cheapside, do you know it, sir?”
“I do indeed.”
“Yes, sir,” David said. “Sir, we’re about there now, would you care for the main entrance or the stage door?”
“The main entrance, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
David made his turn at the corner, and pulled up in front of the concert hall.
“I shouldn’t be long,” the Deaf Man said.
“I may have to move, sir, if the police come by. But I’ll just circle the block till I see you.”
“Fine, David, thank you,” he said, and stepped out of the car.
In the glass-covered display frame to the right of the main entrance doors, there was a poster for this weekend’s “Three at Three” series. It showed a black and white photograph of Konstantinos Sallas holding his violin by the neck, and grinning at the camera. Pasted across the lower half of the photo was a narrow banner that read SAT 6/12 AND SUN 6/13.
The Deaf Man nodded and walked into the lobby.
BERRIGAN SQUARE WAS NEAR the westernmost end of the Stem, where a largely Jewish citizenry merged seamlessly with an increasingly Hispanic population that changed in a flash to what the real estate agents referred to in code as “a colorful neighborhood.” Poison Park, as it was familiarly known to police and drug abusers alike, was a triangular-shaped patch of scrawny grass surrounding a bronze statue of Maxwell Wilkerson, Civil War general and later biographer of Abraham Lincoln.
Wilkerson was a witty man with a cheery smile (even in uniform) and graying hair (even in bronze) whose bravery and scholarship had enlightened an entire age. Standing at the apex of the triangle, surrounded by benches peeling dark green paint, sword upraised to the pigeons that soared overhead intent on defecation, and the traffic that zoomed on each of his flanks, east and west, he boldly dominated the small park and indeed the large thoroughfare itself. The shabby assortment of drug addicts and dealers assembled in the park didn’t give a shit who Maxwell Wilkerson was or had been. Intent on scoring, each in his own way, they milled about the small triangle in the middle of the avenue, transparently exchanging folded bills for packets of white powder.
The cops in this city—and in most American cities—had long ago decided that the prisons were too full of petty drug abusers and had given up on making small busts. Being an addict was not a crime, but having in one’s possession certain circumscribed amounts of controlled substances was. Even so, the law enforcement agencies concentrated instead on destroying the crops in South America and arresting the upper-level chieftains of the posses engaged in the traffic. They probably figured they were doing as good a job in the War on Drugs as the government was doing in its War on Terror even though they didn’t have eighty-seven billion dollars at their disposal.
Fat Ollie Weeks figured it all had to do with money.
Not too long ago, he had busted a vast conspiracy linking counterfeit money to illegal drugs to terrorism. So you didn’t have to tell him, thanks, that what was going on in Poison Park, or on the desert sands of Iraq, was all about money. Didn’t have to tell that to his good buddy Steve Carella, either, who—Ollie had to admit—had helped a little in busting the big “Money, Money, Money Case,” as he still fondly thought of it.
With the possible exception of Carella—and, well, Patricia Gomez now, he supposed—Ollie didn’t like many people, and he didn’t trust anybody at all.
He knew that any of the junkies here in Poison Park would sell his mother to an Arabian rug merchant if he thought the transaction would pay for his next fix. He knew that any of the dealers passing out drugs here would happily kill any of his competitors or indeed Ollie himself if he felt his lucrative livelihood was being threatened. None of these people cared about bringing democracy to Iraq because they knew that nobody gave a damn about sharing the pie with them right here in America.
None of these people had benefited from a tax cut because none of them paid taxes. The junkies didn’t vote because they didn’t give a shit about anything but heroin or cocaine or meth or you name it. The dealers didn’t vote because either they weren’t weren’t citizens or they felt that whoever was President or Vice President didn’t affect their lives in the slightest; in fact, if you asked them, they probably couldn’t tell you who was now holding those elected positions.
Right here in America, the people here in Poison Park were as much slaves to using narcotics or selling narcotics as the black man had been a slave to King Cotton.
Right here in America.
So who cared what happened in Iraq?
Not Ollie, that was for sure.
Sitting on one of the benches as General Wilkerson’s shadow slowly encroached on the tips of his brown shoes, Ollie merely hoped he was passing as either a junkie or a dealer because he had no intention of getting shot on this fine June afternoon.
True enough, he had never met a junkie of his size in his life. But he was dressed as seedily as every other addict in the park (the dealers fancied expensive leather, of course) and he had not shaved or bathed in preparation for the stakeout, and he tried to appear needy if not desperate. The addicts figured him for a new kid on the block; here in Dopeland, there was always a new kid on the block. The dealers approached him more warily; sometimes the new kid was carrying tin.
Ollie couldn’t tell whether the man who sat down next to him on the bench was (a) an addict (b) a dealer or (c) an undercover like himself. This was the One-Oh-One Precinct; he knew some of the cops up here, but not all of them. In character (he felt) he scoped the man suspiciously. Neither said anything for several moments. Traffic whizzed by on either side of them, east and west. Another sort of traffic moved briskly in the park everywhere around them. Business as usual on this sunny June day.
At last, the man sitting beside him said, “You a cop?”
“Sure,” Ollie said. “Ain’t we all?”
The man laughed.
Five of him would have made one Ollie, he was that thin. Wearing jeans that hadn’t been washed in months, it looked like, and a thin cotton sweater, its sleeves pulled down to the wrists to hide his track marks, Ollie guessed. Must’ve been twenty-five, thirty, hard to tell with some of these needle freaks. Hollow cheeks, darting blue eyes. The needy look Ollie was trying to emulate. Trying so hard he almost forgot he was here looking for a murderess. Murderer. Whatever, these days.
“You selling?” the man asked.
“No,” Ollie said.
“So what’re you looking to buy?”
Was he a dealer? He sure as hell didn’t look like one.
“
Actually, I’m a little short of bread just now,” Ollie said.
“Ain’t we all,” the man said, and laughed again. “How about if you wasn’t short?”
“I do a little Harry, is all. I just dip and dab.”
“Don’t we all,” the man said again, but this time he didn’t laugh. “I’m Jonesy,” he said, but did not extend his hand.
“Andy,” Ollie said.
A name he had used many times before. Andy. Sounded like a large man’s name. Andy Fulton was the whole handle he often used on undercover. Big large name. “Reason I’m here…”
“Yeah, Andy?”
“…is I heard some chick was handing out hundred-dollar bills…”
“Wish I knew a chick like that.”
“…for delivering letters, was what I heard.”
“Right,” Jonesy said.
Ollie didn’t know whether the man thought he was shitting him or whether he knew something about Melissa Summers buying messengers. He waited. Nothing seemed to be forthcoming.
“Figured I might pick me up some change,” Ollie offered.
“Right,” Jonesy said again.
Ollie waited.
Traffic zipped by, horns honking, this city.
“You know who might know about that?” Jonesy said.
“Who?” Ollie asked.
Jonesy stood up abruptly. He swung one arm over his head, waved to a bench on the other side of the statue, and yelled out, “Emma? C’mere a sec, okay?”
Which is how Ollie came face to face with the man who’d stolen his priceless manuscript.
“DO I REALLY HAVE to read all this stuff?” Melissa asked.
He hated questions that did not require answers. Would he have gone to all the trouble of picking up a program and all these reviews if he hadn’t wanted her to read them?
“It will familiarize you with what’s about to come down,” he said, falling into the vernacular, but perhaps that was all she understood.
Melissa pulled a face.
She looked at her watch.
In twenty minutes, she would have to leave here for Grover Park, where she would watch the stationhouse from across the street, to make sure the last letter of the day was delivered by the Chosen Junkie of the Hour. Meanwhile…
