Cut Me In (Hard Case Crime)

by Ed McBain

  “Well,” I said, gesturing to the couch, “have a seat, won’t you?” I was sure as hell not going to make him comfortable in my private office. I expected the phone to begin jangling at any moment, and I didn’t want to be tied up with a budding Shakespeare, even if he was a budding Shakespeare—which was extremely doubtful. I’ve read a great many first novels.

  “We’ll have to make this short,” I said apologetically. “I’m expecting some very important calls.”

  “We won’t take a minute, Mr. Blake,” he answered, unzipping his briefcase. I watched while he reached in and pulled out what looked like forty thousand typewritten pages. He slapped the manuscript down on his briefcase with all the flourish of a magician producing a rabbit from a hat, and then nodded in self-appreciation. “Ninety-five thousand words,” he said. “Is that too long?”

  “No,” I said, “That is, it all depends on what type of book it is.”

  “It’s based on my life,” he said, and I winced automatically. The phone rang just then, and I craned my neck toward it while Jeanette went through the ritual.

  “Gilbert and Blake, good morning.”

  “I was born in the South, you see, and this tells all about my family, fictionalized of course, and some of the things that happened right up to the time I was twenty-one.”

  “Just a moment, sir, I’ll see if he’s in.”

  I watched as Jeanette plugged in and said, “Mr. Gordon on six, Mr. Kennedy.”

  Kennedy was Tim. I slouched back against the cushions and let out my breath.

  “For example, Mr. Blake, one of my uncles was sheriff of Longduck County. Now he’s told me some stories which…”

  “Uh, Mr. Gunnison, I hate to interrupt you but…”

  “That’s quite all right, sir,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of time. What do you want to know?”

  “Well, as you know, this is Monday morning, and there are a great many things to be done. It’s a little unusual to drop in without an appointment, so perhaps I could have my secretary arrange a later appointment for you, and we could sit down and discuss your novel at length then.”

  “Well…” he started, but I was already on my feet and walking over to the reception desk.

  “Jeanette, will you ask Lydia to step outside, please?” I asked.

  “She’s not in yet, Mr. Blake,” Jeanette said. I looked up at the clock on the wall. It was nine-thirty.

  “Call her home,” I said, my voice getting a little annoyed. “Find out if she’s coming in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I turned and almost slammed into Gunnison, or whatever the hell his name was. A few pages of his manuscript fluttered to the floor and he stooped down to retrieve them. “You needn’t go to any trouble on my part,” he said, still smiling. “We can talk right now.”

  “Mr. Gunnison…”

  “I know you’re being considerate and all, but I really didn’t have any place else to go, anyway.”

  “I think you misunderstood me,” I said. He was beginning to really rub me the wrong way, and I was tempted to toss him out by the seat of his pants, except that his six-four gave him almost four inches on me, and this was Monday morning. If an important call came through while I was sitting here listening to this jackass rave…

  “No misunderstanding at all,” he said. “Just sit down, and I’ll show you what I mean.” He put one meaty hand on my shoulder and practically shoved me down through the bottom of the couch.

  I pushed myself up and said, “Look, my good friend…”

  “Listen to this,” he said.

  “Mr. Gunnison, can’t we…”

  The phone rang again, and this time I nearly leaped off the couch.

  “Gilbert and Blake, good morning.”

  “ ‘The sky was a pale bowl of inverted blue china. It was early morning, and the sounds of the day were lazy and unclear, as if they’d shaken themselves from sleep and…’ ”

  “I’m sorry, sir, Mr. Gilbert is out of town…No, sir, I don’t know when he’ll return…yes, sir, I will.”

  Jeanette yanked the plug from its socket and I jumped off the couch. “Who was that?” I asked.

  Gunnison had stopped reading and was staring at me with wide eyes.

  “He…he didn’t say, Mr. Blake,” Jeanette stammered.

  “Well, why in hell didn’t you ask?”

  “I…I didn’t think…”

  “Did you ask him if he’d speak to me?”

  “N…n…no, sir.”

  “What the hell kind of an office is this anyway? Where the hell is Lydia? What did you mean when you told him ‘I will’?”

  “Sir?”

  “That guy on the phone. He said something, and you said ‘Yes, sir, I will.’ What did he say?”

  “He said, “Will you tell him I called?’ ”

  “Who? Who called?”

  “He didn’t say, sir.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s…”

  “Mr. Blake?”

  I whirled and found Gunnison at my elbow again. “What is it?”

  “My novel,” he said. “How’d you like that part I read?”

  “I didn’t!” I snapped. “It was lousy. Now leave me alone, will you?”

  His eyes popped wide, but I didn’t stay to watch them. I turned and walked to my office, slamming the door behind me. Goddamn it, this morning was starting off fine, just fine. A strange girl in the apartment, a lunatic with a novel, a receptionist who can’t get a name straight over the phone…

  I sat down behind my desk and pushed a toggle on the intercom.

  “Yep.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Charlie. That you, Josh?”

  “This is me. Is everybody out there?”

  “Why, sure.”

  “All right.”

  I pushed another toggle, and recognized Tim’s voice when it came over the speaker.

  “Who called you this morning, Tim?”

  “Two calls,” he said. “A sale to Standard, and a pick-up at Cosmo.”

  “All right. Don’t disturb me for the rest of the morning, Tim. I expect to be tied up.”

  “Right, Josh.”

  I buzzed Jeanette then, and when she came on I asked, “Did you get Lydia?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No answer?”

  “No, sir. But the switchboard operator there…”

  “Yes?”

  “The switchboard operator said Lydia is on her way in.”

  “Send her in as soon as she arrives.”

  “Yes, sir. And, sir…”

  “What is it?”

  “That man is still here.”

  “What man?”

  “The man you were talking to. Mr. Gunnison, I believe.”

  “Tell him to go away.”

  “I did, sir. He just…”

  “Tell him again. I’m busy. Don’t bother me.”

  I clicked off and leafed through the morning mail on my desk, holding the envelopes up to the light streaming through the window, looking for checks. I found a letter with an Arizona postmark, and I recognized Frank Gorman’s handwriting. Now what the hell was eating him? I started to rip open the flap of the envelope when I heard excited shouting in the reception room. I was about to buzz Jeanette to ask her what all the noise was about when the door burst open and Gunnison rushed in with his briefcase tight against his chest. Jeanette was right behind him, her face pale.

  “I’m s…sorry, sir,” she stammered.

  “That’s all right,” I told her. She backed out of the office, and I shoved my chair away from the desk and walked over to Gunnison. “What the hell do you think this is?” I asked. “A gymnasium?”

  “Why won’t you read my book?” he said softly. His thick black brows were knotted ominously, and his lips were compressed into a tight line through which he forced out his words.

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t read it,” I answered, beginning to get angry with the guy all over again. “I told you to make an app
ointment. That was before you came barging in here like Army’s eleven. Now you can take your book and…”

  “You’re all the same,” he mumbled. “All of you. Not one of you will give a new writer a break.”

  “All writers are new writers once,” I said. “I think you’d better go.”

  I was turning to walk back to my chair when his hand clamped down on my shoulder. He yanked his arm back, spinning me around and grabbing my lapels up in his other hand. He gave a vicious jerk that pulled me off my feet, and then, with his face about two inches from mine, he said, “This isn’t the end of this, you bastard.”

  I do not like being called names, and I do not like being threatened. I also do not like the lapels of my suits crushed in anybody’s mitts, even if the anybody is six-four. I lifted my foot about six inches off the floor, and then brought the heel down on his instep.

  He dropped my lapels, let out a yell, and then grabbed for his foot. I shoved the palm of my hand against his chest and he went flying back, butt over teacups, the briefcase jumping into the air. I reached down, grabbed the seat of his pants and the collar of his suit, and propelled him to the front door as fast as I could. He swore all the way, and he wiggled like a snake when I let go with one hand to open the door. He was ready to turn on me when I shoved him out into the hallway. His shoes hit the waxed floors and he skidded for about four feet, his arms flaying like a comic ice-skater’s. He went down, then, all at once, and the building shook a little when he hit the floor.

  “Don’t come back,” I said. “The police are only a phone call away.”

  “You bastard,” he muttered. “You still have my book.”

  “I’ll send it out. Goodbye, friend.”

  “You bastard,” he said again.

  I closed the door on him, walked straight to my office, and then buzzed Jeanette. When she came in, I handed her Gunnison’s briefcase. “Give this to the gentleman sitting in the hallway,” I told her.

  She turned to go, and I said, “Has Lydia come in yet?”

  “No, sir.”

  When she left, I picked up Frank Gorman’s letter again. Frank was a mystery writer who’d been with the agency for about five years. He wrote pulps mostly, with a few scattered slick tries, but he was a steady producer, the kind of old reliable any agent likes in his stable. I tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter. It was written on yellow lined paper, the way all Frank’s letters were, and it began, “Dear Josh, I’d like to cancel our contract as of today.”

  That tied it! That bloody well tied it. It was like someone’s own father stabbing him. I read through the letter, getting angrier every second. I crumpled it into a ball and threw it at the bookcase across the room, missing. I buzzed Jeanette.

  “Has our alleged secretary shown up yet?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Have there been any calls?”

  “No, sir.”

  “All right.”

  I got up and walked across the room to pick up Gorman’s letter. I wondered when his contract expired, and then I decided to find out. I’d be goddamned if I was just going to let him walk out on us after five years of building his name and steering him along, I took out my keys and unlocked the door between my office and Del’s. The safe was in Del’s office, and we kept all our contracts in the safe. I put the keys back into my pocket and swung the door wide.

  The first thing I saw almost caused the top of my skull to blow off because I thought it was just another glaring example of office inefficiency. The safe was open and a sheaf of papers was spilled all over the floor. I tightened my fists and barged into the office, ready to start screaming bloody murder.

  Then I saw Del, and I had every right to scream just that.

  2.

  He was lying on the floor. In front of the couch, which was perfectly all right since this was his office, after all. But three holes had very carelessly been left in his face. Two were set close together on his forehead, and the third rested just beneath his left eye, like a small dark tunnel. His head was tilted to one side, and his mouth was open, and the rivers of blood that criss-crossed over his face formed a soggy red pool on the rug beneath his head.

  There was another pool on the floor, beneath the aquarium in which Del had kept his tropical fish. The tank was empty of water now, with a few fish still wriggling on its damp bottom. The glass front had been smashed in, and I wondered idly why anyone would want to smash a fish tank.

  The mind works like that sometimes. I knew Del was dead, and I knew those were bullet holes in his head, but I didn’t stop to wonder who had killed him. In fact, I don’t think I even realized at the moment that someone had killed him. I simply accepted the corpse and then wondered about the aquarium.

  I took my eyes from the tank, and looked down at Del again. A sudden desire to laugh seized me, and I wondered about my own sanity. I stared at the body, looking at the blood and the holes, and then the buzzer on Del’s desk sounded.

  I turned my head slowly, listening to the insistent hum. I walked across the room to the desk, pushed down one of the toggles and asked, “Yes?” The hoarseness of my own voice surprised me.

  “I figured you were in Mr. Gilbert’s office,” Jeanette said proudly. “Lydia is here, sir.”

  “Who?” I asked. My eyes were on Del’s body.

  “Lydia, sir.”

  “Oh. Oh, send her right in, will you?”

  “Yes, si…”

  “No!” I said suddenly. “No, ask her…ask her to wait outside, will you? Tell her to wait. I…I’ll buzz you.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jeanette’s voice was puzzled when she clicked off.

  I collapsed into the chair behind Del’s long, wide desk, looking over its polished top to where Del lay bleeding on the rug. My brows were pulled together, and I looked at him the way I’d look at a modern painting I didn’t understand. I let out a sigh and pushed down Tim’s toggle.

  “Yep?”

  “Tim?”

  “Yes, Josh.”

  “Will you come in here a minute? I’m in Del’s office.”

  “Sure, be right there. Important?”

  “Yes. Yes, Tim, it’s important.”

  “Be right in.”

  I clicked off, and then leaned back to wait. After a little while, Del’s front door opened, and Tim came in.

  He was a tall, lanky boy with bushy black hair and deep brown eyes. Tim Kennedy, and he looked about as Irish as Sinbad the Sailor.

  “What’s up, Josh?” he asked. He leaned over, putting his palms flat on the desk. He still had his back to the body, and I didn’t know quite how to tell him about what was lying behind him on the rug.

  “What time did you get in this morning, Tim?”

  “About nine.” He grinned broadly, exposing teeth that were too large for his thin lips. “Another shakedown, huh? Okay, boss, let’s see. I got in at nine-oh-five on the button. Jeanette was already here, and so were Charlie and Sam. Burry got in at about…”

  “Did anyone come into this office?”

  Tim paused and eyed me skeptically. “Here? Del’s office? Why, no. Is something missing?” He turned rapidly, then, to glance automatically at the safe. I couldn’t see his face because his back was to me. But his spine seemed to buckle, and he backed up several paces until he collided with the desk, and I knew he’d seen Del.

  “Oh my God,” he said. “Oh, sweet mother of God.”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to find my voice.

  He turned to me, his face working, his Adam’s apple moving fitfully in his throat. “When…when…”

  “I just found him, Tim. Just before I buzzed you.”

  He took another look at the body, and then turned away quickly. He reached behind him for the chair alongside the desk, found it and pulled himself into it. He buried his face in his hands then, and I said, “I’d better call the police.”

  “Yes. Yes,” he said.

  I threw down Jeanette’s toggle.

  “Yes, sir?”
>
  “Get me the police.”

  “Sir?”

  “The police, Jeanette. Please hurry.”

  “Y-y-yes, sir.”

  I suddenly wondered why I’d asked her to hurry. Del was already dead, and nothing the police could do would bring him back to life.

  “Josh,” Tim said.

  “Um?”

  “Josh, this is…terrible. Who…who do you suppose…?”

  “I have no idea, Tim.”

  “But why? I mean…”

  The door opened then, and Lydia Rafney burst into the office like a fresh breeze into a mausoleum. She was wearing a trim linen suit, with her auburn hair pulled back in a saucy ponytail. She was built like a best-seller, with as much of a following, and there was a bright grin on her face.

  “Good morning, good morning,” she started, and then her features froze. Her mouth fell open, the full, red lips parting over a small ‘O’. Her eyebrows jerked up onto her forehead, and I saw terror strike deep within the greenness of her eyes.

  “No!” She stared at the body and then whirled away, covering her face with her hands. Her next word was screamed. “No!”

  I went to her and put one arm around her, and if she was faking she was a damned good actress. Her body was trembling, with deep, racking sobs that started at her toes and forced their way up into her throat.

  “Josh,” she whimpered, “oh, Josh, he’s dead, he’s dead.”

  It’s uncomfortable to hold your secretary in your arms, especially when you know she was shacking up with your partner, and your partner has three extra holes in his face.

  “Take it easy, Lydia,” I said. I felt like the stereotype of a brave brother patting his anguished sister on the shoulder. I felt foolish as hell, but death has a way of making almost anything seem foolish. “Sit down, honey,” I said. “Here, sit down.” I steered her over to an easy chair alongside the broken aquarium, snatching a cigarette from the canister on the coffee table and lighting it for her. She accepted it gratefully, sucking in a deep drag. There were no tears in her eyes, but she was still trembling.

  The buzzer sounded.

  “Yes?”

  “I have the police on eight, sir.”

  “Thank you.” I snapped off the toggle and picked up the phone, stabbing the button on the instrument with my forefinger. “Hello.”