The Big Bad City

by McBain, Ed

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Where in the hall?”

  “In the balcony.”

  “What were you doing up there?”

  “Listening to sound checks.”

  “While you were listening to these sound checks, did you happen to hear the sound of a gun going off?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the balcony?”

  “No.”

  “Then where?”

  “From somewhere down below.”

  “Where down below?”

  “The stage.”

  “Which side of the stage?”

  “I couldn’t tell.”

  “Right or left?”

  “I really couldn’t tell.”

  “Was anyone with you up there in the balcony?”

  “No, I was alone.”

  “Incidentally, Mr. Pierce,” Ollie said, turning to him, “did I hear you tell those reporters you went upstate with Mr. Henderson?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Where upstate?”

  “The capital.”

  “When?”

  “We flew up together on Saturday morning. I’m his aide. I was his aide,” he said, correcting himself.

  “Did you fly back together, too?”

  “No. I left on Sunday morning. Caught a seven A.M. plane.”

  “So he spent all day Sunday up there alone, is that it?”

  “Yes,” Pierce said. “Alone.”

  “You the detective in charge here?” the ME asked.

  “I am,” Ollie said.

  “Your cause of death is gunshot wounds to the chest.”

  Big revelation, Ollie thought.

  “You can move him out whenever you like. We may find some surprises at the morgue, but I doubt it. Good luck.”

  Monoghan was walking over with a man wearing a red bandana tied across his forehead, high-topped workman’s shoes, and bib overalls showing naked muscular arms, the left one tattooed on the bicep with the words SEMPER FIDELIS.

  “Weeks, this is Charles Mastroiani, man in charge of decorating the hall here, you might want to talk to him.”

  “No relation to Marcello,” Mastroiani promptly told Ollie, which was a total waste since Ollie didn’t know who the hell he was talking about. “My company’s called Festive, Inc.,” he said, exuding a sense of professional pride and enthusiasm that was all too rare in today’s workplace. “We’re listed in the city’s yellow pages under ‘Decoration Contractors.’ What we do is we supply everything you need for a special occasion. I’m not talking about a wedding or a bar-mitzvah, those we leave to the caterers. Festive operates on a much larger scale. Dressing the stage here at King Memorial is a good example. We supplied the bunting, the balloons, the banners, the audio equipment, the lighting, everything. We would’ve supplied a band, too, if it was called for, but this wasn’t that kind of affair. As it was, we dressed the hall and wired it, made it user-friendly and user-ready. All the councilman had to do was step up to the podium and speak.”

  All the councilman had to do, Ollie thought, was step up to the podium and get shot.

  “Will you get paid, anyway?” he asked.

  “What?” Mastroiani said.

  “For the gig. Him getting killed and all.”

  “Oh sure. Well, I suppose so.”

  “Who contracted for the job?”

  “The Committee.”

  “What committee?”

  “The Committee for Henderson.”

  “It says that on the contract?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  “Who signed the contract?”

  “I have no idea. It came in the mail.”

  “You still got it?”

  “I can find it for you.”

  “Good. I’d like to see who hired you.”

  “Sure.”

  “All these people who were onstage with you when he got killed,” Ollie said. “Were they regulars?”

  “What do you mean, regulars?”

  “Have you worked with them before?”

  “Oh sure. All the time.”

  “All of them reliable?”

  “Oh sure.”

  “None of them strangers to you, is that right? What I’m driving at, would any of these guys have come in here with a concealed …”

  “No, no.”

  “… weapon and popped Henderson, is what I’m asking.”

  “None of them. I can vouch for each and every one of them.”

  “Cause what I’ll have to do, anyway, I’m gonna have to send some of my colleagues from up the Eight-Eight around to talk to them individually, just in case one of them got a bug up his ass to shoot the councilman.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

  “Yeah, well, I worry about such things. Which is why I’ll need a list of all your people here on the job.”

  “Sure. But they’re all bonded, so I’m sure you won’t find anything out of the way.”

  “Why are they bonded?”

  “Well, we sometimes do these very big affairs where there’s jewelry and such laying around …”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Precious antiques, things like that, on these big estates, you know …”

  “You’re saying these men are honest individuals, is what you’re saying.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Wouldn’t harm a fly, is what you’re saying.”

  “Is basically what I’m saying.”

  “We’ll have to talk to them anyway,” Ollie said. “So what I’m saying, after you give me all their names, you might advise them not to leave the city for the next couple of days, till my people have a chance to talk to them.”

  “I’ll be happy to do that.”

  “Good. So tell me, Mr. Master-yonny …”

  “It’s Mastroiani.”

  “Ain’t that what I said?”

  “No, you said … I don’t know what you said, but it wasn’t Mastroiani.”

  “You know, have you ever thought of changing your name?”

  “No.”

  “To something simpler?”

  “No. Like what?”

  “Like Weeks, for example. Short and sweet and easy to say. And people would think you’re related to an American police detective.”

  “I don’t think I’d like to do that.”

  “Entirely up to you, my friend, ah yes,” Ollie said.

  “And I am American,” Mastroiani said.

  “Of course you are,” Ollie said. “But tell me, Charles, may I call you Charles?”

  “Most people call me Chuck.”

  “Even though most Chucks are fags?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re not Chuck?”

  “I’m not a fag.”

  “Then should I call you Charles?”

  “Actually, I’d prefer being called Mr. Mastroiani.”

  “Sure, but that don’t sound American, does it? Tell me, Chuck, where were you exactly when the councilman got shot?”

  “I was standing near the podium there.”

  “And?”

  “I heard shots. And he was falling.”

  “Heard shots from the wings there?”

  “No. From the balcony.”

  “Tell me what happened, Chuck. In your own words.”

  “Who else’s words would I use?” Mastroiani asked.

  “That’s very funny, Chuck,” Ollie said, and grinned like a dragon. “Tell me.”

  The way Mastroiani tells it, the councilman is this energetic little guy who gets to the Hall at about a quarter to nine, dressed for work in jeans and a crewneck cotton sweater, loafers, real casual, you know? He’s all over the place, conferring with his aide and this kid he has with him looks like a college boy, giving directions to Mastroiani and his crew, arms waving all over the place like a windmill, running here, running there, going out front to check how the stage looks every time a new balloon goes up, sending the college kid up to the balcony to hear h
ow the sound is, then going up there himself to listen while his aide talks into the mike, then coming down again and making sure the podium is draped right and the sign is just where he wants it, and checking the sound again, waving up to the kid in the balcony who gives him a thumbs-up signal, and then starting to check the lights, wanting to know where the spot would pick him up after he was introduced …

  “That’s what he was doing when he got shot. He was crossing the stage to the podium, making sure the spot was following him.”

  “Where were you?”

  “At the podium, I told you. Looking up at the guy in the booth, waiting for the councilman to …”

  “What guy in the booth?”

  “The guy on the follow spot.”

  “One of your people?”

  “No.”

  “Then who?”

  “I have no idea. My guess is he works here at the Hall.”

  “Who would know?”

  “You got me.”

  “I thought you supplied everything. The sound, the lighting …”

  “The onstage lighting. Usually, when we do an auditorium like this one, they have their own lighting facilities and their own lighting technician or engineer, they’re sometimes called, a lighting engineer.”

  “Did you talk to this guy in the booth? This technician or engineer or whatever he was?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Who talked to him?”

  “Mr. Pierce was yelling up to him—Henderson’s aide—and so was the councilman himself. I think the college kid was giving him instructions, too. From up in the balcony.”

  “Was the kid up there when the shooting started?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, didn’t you look up there? You told me that’s where the shots came from, didn’t you look up there to see who was shooting?”

  “Yes, but I was blinded by the spot. The spot had followed the councilman to the podium, and that was when he got shot, just as he reached the podium.”

  “So the guy working the spot was still up there, is that right?”

  “He would’ve had to be up there, yes, sir.”

  “So let’s find out who he was,” Ollie said.

  A uniformed inspector with braid all over him was walking over. Ollie deemed it necessary to perhaps introduce himself.

  “Detective Weeks, sir,” he said. “The Eight-Eight. First man up.”

  “Like hell you are,” the inspector said, and walked off.

  DRAGICA DIMITRIJEVIC-HUNTER

  Ed McBain is the only American to receive the Diamond Dagger, the British Crime Writers Association’s highest award. He also holds the Mystery Writers of America’s coveted Grand Master Award. His books have sold more than one hundred million copies, ranging from his most recent 87th Precinct novel, Nocturne, to the bestselling novels The Blackboard Jungle and Privileged Conversation, written under his own name, Evan Hunter. He is also the author of the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Dragica.