The Heckler

by Ed McBain

  “I’d have to check that with the building manager. And he won’t be here until later this afternoon.”

  “Call him,” Carella said.

  “Well, I—”

  “It’s very important,” Carella said. He smiled. “Call him, won’t you?”

  The doorman seemed dubious for a moment. Then he smiled back at Carella and said, “Sure, I’ll call him.”

  Carella followed him into the building. The lobby had been redecorated recently, the furniture looking shining and new and unused. The doorman went into a small office, made his call and returned to Carella, still smiling. “Miracles will never cease,” he said. “The old bastard said okay. Only thing is we ain’t got a pass key or anything. I mean, he said if you can get in, okay, he don’t want any trouble with the police. But everybody buys their own locks, and we don’t have keys to none of the apartments.”

  “Well, just take me up, and I’ll try some of my keys, okay?” Carella said.

  “You carry skeleton keys, huh?” the doorman said, grinning knowingly.

  Carella winked slyly. Together they took the elevator up to the sixth floor, and then walked down the corridor to apartment 6C.

  “There it is,” the doorman said. “Nice apartment. Seven rooms. Very nice. It has this sunken living room.”

  Carella reached into his pocket and took out a ring of keys.

  “Skeleton keys, how about that!” the doorman said, still grinning. The doorman watched him as he began trying the keys in the lock. There were, in addition to his own house keys, perhaps half a dozen skeleton keys hanging from the ring. He tried them all. Not one of them turned the lock.

  “No good?” the doorman asked.

  “Not very,” Carella said, shaking his head. “How many floors to this building?”

  “Nine.”

  “Fire escapes?”

  “Sure.”

  “Think you can take me up to the roof?”

  “You going to come down the fire escape?” the doorman asked.

  “I’m going to try,” Carella said. “Maybe Smith left his window open.”

  “Man, you guys sure work for your money, don’t you?” the doorman said admiringly.

  Carella winked slyly and stepped into the elevator. He got off at the ninth floor and walked the flight to the roof, opening the fire door and stepping out onto the asphalt. He could see the city spread out around him as he crossed the roof, the sharp, vertical rectangles of the apartment buildings slit with open windows, the water tanks atop each roof nesting like shining dark birds, the blue sky beyond and the tracery of the bridges that connected Isola to the other parts of the city, the solid heavy lines of the old bridges, and the more delicate soaring lines of the newer bridges, and far below him the sound of street traffic and the hum of a city rushing with life, kids flying kites from neighboring rooftops, a man down the street swinging his long bamboo pole at his pigeons, the pigeons fluttering into the air in a sudden explosion of gray, beating wings, the April sun covering the asphalt of the roof with yellow warmth.

  He walked to the edge of the roof and glanced down the nine stories to the interior courtyard below. Gripping the ladder tightly, he swung over the tiled parapet and began working his way down to the fire escape on the ninth floor. He did not glance into the windows. He didn’t want any women screaming for a cop. He kept working his way downward, not looking to the right or the left, going down the ladder hand over hand, and then marching across the fire escape, and onto the next ladder until he reached the sixth floor. He squatted outside apartment 6C and looked through the window. The apartment was empty. He tried the window.

  It was locked.

  “Dammit,” he said, and he moved along the fire escape to the second window. He was beginning to feel like a burglar, and he wished he had a small hand drill with which to bore into the wood and a hunk of wire to slip into the hole to lift the window catch. He was beginning to feel like an ill-equipped thief until he tried the second window and lo and begorrah, the goddam window was unlocked. He looked into the apartment again, and then slowly slid the window up and climbed over the sill.

  The place was silent.

  He dropped onto the thick rug and hastily scanned an apartment done in expensive good taste, sleek modern furniture set low against muted wall tones. His eyes touched each piece of furniture, lighted on the Danish desk in one corner of the living room. He went to it instantly and pulled down the drop-leaf front. He hoped to find some letters or an address book or something which could give him a further lead onto the people Smith had known, and especially the identity of the deaf man. But there was nothing of value. He closed the desk and oriented himself, figuring the kitchen to be that way, off the dining room, and the bedrooms to be that way, at the other end of the living room. He walked through the living room, his shoes whispering against the thick rug, and through the open arch and into the first of three bedrooms flanking a Spartan white corridor.

  There was a faint trace of perfume in the bedroom.

  The bed was neatly made, a black nightgown folded at its foot. Carella picked up the gown and looked for a label. It had come from one of the most expensive stores in the city. He sniffed it, smelled the same perfume that was in the air, and then dropped it onto the bed again, wondering if the gown belonged to Lotte Constantine, wondering too if she’d been lying when she said she didn’t know where John Smith had lived. He shrugged, snapped on a lamp resting on one of the night tables, and pulled open the top drawer of the table.

  The first thing he saw was a series of crude drawings, either maps or floor plans, none of them labeled, all of them had several things in common. To begin with, each of the maps on floor plans, (it was difficult to tell exactly what they were supposed to represent) was marked with X’s scattered onto the face of the drawing. There was no clue anywhere on any of the drawings as to just what the X’s were supposed to represent. The maps had something else in common. Each of them had a name scrawled onto the right-hand corner. There were six maps in all.

  The name on three of the maps was: CHUCK.

  The remaining three maps had first carried one name, and that name was: JOHNNY. But the name had been crossed off all three, and another name written in its place: POP.

  Johnny,Carella thought.John Smith?

  The second thing in the drawer was a portion of a blueprint, neat and professional. He unfolded it and studied it for a moment:

  He was folding the blueprint again when the telephone rang, startling him. He hesitated a moment, debating whether or not he should answer it. He put the blueprint down on the night table, wiped his hand across his sweating upper lip, and then picked up the receiver.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “This is Joey,” the voice on the other end told him.

  “Yes?”

  “Joey, the doorman. The guy who took you upstairs.”

  “Oh, yes,” Carella said.

  “I see you got in.”

  “Yes.”

  “Listen, I didn’t know what to do. So I figured I’d call and tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Mr. Smith. John Smith, you know?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s on his way upstairs,” the doorman said.

  “What?” Carella said, and at that instant he heard a key being turned in the front door.

  14.

  CARELLA STOOD IN the bedroom with the telephone receiver in one hand, the blueprint on the night table before him, the sound of the turning lock clicking into his mind. He put down the phone at once, turned off the light and moved to the right of the door, his hand going instantly to his service revolver. He flattened himself against the wall, the gun in his right hand, waiting. He heard the front door open, and then close again.

  The apartment was silent for a moment.

  Then he heard the cushioned sound of footsteps against the rug.

  Did I leave that living-room window open?he wondered.

  The footsteps hesit
ated, and then stopped.

  Did I leave the desk open?he wondered.

  He heard the footsteps again, heard a board squeak in the flooring, and then heard the sound of another door opening. A fine sheen of sweat covered his face now, clung to his chest beneath his shirt. The .38 Police Special was slippery in his fist. He could hear his own heart leaping in his chest with the erratic rhythm of an African bongo. He heard the door closing again, a closet he imagined, and then footsteps once more, and he wonderedDoes he know I’m here? Does he know? DOES HE KNOW? And then he heard a sound which was not familiar to him, a clicking metallic sound, as of metal grating against metal, an unfamiliar sound and yet a sound which was curiously familiar, and then the floor board squeaked again, and the cushioned footsteps came closer to the open arch at the end of the living room, and hesitated, and stopped.

  Carella waited.

  The footsteps retreated.

  He heard another click, and then a twenty-second spell of dead silence; and then music erupted into the apartment, loud and raucous, and Carella instantly knew this man in the apartment was armed and would begin shooting within the next few moments, hoping to use the music as a cover. He did not intend to give his opponent the opportunity of being the one to start the festivities. He hefted the gun in his right hand, sucked in a deep breath, and stepped into the arch.

  The man turned from the hi-fi unit alongside the wall.

  In a split second, Carella saw the hearing aid in the man’s right ear, and then the shotgun the man was holding, and suddenly it was too late, suddenly the shotgun exploded into sound.

  Carella whirled away from the blast. He could hear the whistling pellets as they screamed across the confined space of the apartment, and then he felt them lash into his shoulder like a hundred angry wasps, and he thought onlyOh Jesus, not again! and fired at the tall blond man who was already sprinting across the apartment. His shoulder felt suddenly numb. He tried to lift the hand with the gun and quickly found he couldn’t and just as quickly shifted the gun to his left hand and triggered off another shot, high and wide, as the deaf man raised the shotgun and swung the stock at Carella’s head. A single barrel, Carella thought in the split second before the stock collided with the side of his head, a single barrel, no time to reload, and a sudden flashing explosion of rocketing yellow pain, slam the stock again, suns revolving, a universe slam the stock, Oh Jesus, oh Jesus! and tears sprang into his eyes because the pain was so fierce, the pain of his shoulder and the awful pain of the heavy wooden stock of the shotgun crashing into crashing into—oh God oh mother oh God oh God

  WHEN CARELLA WAS CARRIEDto the hospital later that day, the doctors there knew that he was still alive, but most of them were unwilling to venture a guess as to how long he would remain that way. He had lost a lot of blood on the floor of that apartment. He had not been discovered lying there unconscious until some three hours after he’d been repeatedly clobbered with the rather unbending stock of the shotgun. It was the doorman of the building, Joey, who had discovered him at six o’clock that evening. Lieutenant Byrnes, interrogating the doorman in the presence of a police stenographer, got the following information:

  BYRNES: What made you go up there, anyway?

  JOEY: Well, like I told you, he’d been up there a very long time. And I had already seen Mr. Smith come downstairs again. So I—

  BYRNES: Can you describe this Mr. Smith?

  JOEY: Sure. He’s around my height, maybe six-one, six-two, and I guess he weighs around a hun’ eighty, a hun’ ninety pounds. He’s got blond hair and blue eyes, and he wears this hearing aid in his right ear. He’s a little deaf. He come downstairs carrying something wrapped in newspaper.

  BYRNES: Carrying what?

  JOEY: I don’t know. Something long. Maybe a fishing rod or something like that.

  BYRNES: Maybe a rifle? Or a shotgun?

  JOEY: Maybe. I didn’t see what was under the paper.

  BYRNES: What time did he come down?

  JOEY: Around three, three-thirty, I guess.

  BYRNES: And when did you remember that Detective Carella was still in the apartment?

  JOEY: That’s hard to say, exactly. I had gone over to the candy store where there’s this very cute little blonde, she works behind the counter. And I was shooting the breeze with her while I had an egg cream, and then I guess I went back to the building, and I wondered if Car—What’s his name?

  BYRNES: Carella.

  JOEY: He’s Italian?

  BYRNES: Yes.

  JOEY: How about that? I’m Italian, too. Apaisan, huh? How about that?

  BYRNES: That’s amazing.

  JOEY: How about that? So I wondered if he was still up there, and I buzzed the apartment. No answer. Then—I don’t know—I guess I was just curious, I mean, Mr. Smith having come down already and all that, so I hopped in the elevator and went up to the sixth floor and knocked on the door. There was no answer and the door was locked.

  BYRNES: What’d you do then?

  JOEY: I remembered that Car—What’s his name?

  BYRNES: Carella, Carella.

  JOEY: Yeah, Carella, how about that? I remembered he’d gone up on the roof, so I figured I’d go take a look up there, which I done. Then, while I was up there, I figured I might as well go down the fire escape and take a peek into 6C, which I also done. And that was when I seen him laying on the floor.

  BYRNES: What’d you do?

  JOEY: I opened the window, and I went into the apartment. Man, I never seen so much blood in my life. I thought he was dead. I thought the poor bast—Are you taking downeverything I’m saying?

  STENO: What?

  BYRNES: Yes, he’s taking down everything you say.

  JOEY: Then cut out that word, huh? Bastard, I mean. That don’t look nice.

  BYRNES: What did you think when you found Carella?

  JOEY: I thought he was dead. All that blood. Also, his head looked caved in.

  BYRNES: What did you do? (No answer) I said what did you do then?

  JOEY: I passed out cold.

  As it turned out, not only had Joey passed out cold, but he had later revived and been sick all over the thick living-room rug, and had only then managed to pull himself to a telephone to call the police. The police had got to the apartment ten minutes after Joey had made the call. By this time, the living-room rug had sopped up a goodly amount of Carella’s blood, and he looked dead. Lying there pale and unmoving, he looked dead. The first patrolman to see him almost tagged the body D.O.A. The second patrolman felt for a pulse, found a feeble one, and instantly called in for a meat wagon. The interne who admitted Carella to the Emergency Section of the Rhodes Clinic estimated that he would be dead within the hour. The other doctors refused to commit themselves in this day and age of scientific miracles. Instead, they began pumping plasma into him and treating him for multiple concussion and extreme shock. Somebody in the front office put his name on the critical list, and somebody else called his wife. Fanny Knowles took the call. She said, “Oh, sweet loving mother of Jesus!” Both she and Teddy arrived at the hospital not a half hour later. Lieutenant Byrnes was already there waiting. At 1A.M . on April 29, Lieutenant Byrnes sent both Teddy and Fanny home. Steve Carella was still on the critical list. At 8A.M ., Lieutenant Byrnes called Frankie Hernandez at home.

  “Frankie,” he said, “did I wake you?”

  “Huh? Wha’? Who’s this?”

  “This is me. Pete.”

  “Pete who? Oh, oh, OH! Hello, Lieutenant. Whattsa matter? Something wrong?”

  “You awake?”

  “Is he dead?” Hernandez asked.

  “What?”

  “Steve. Is he all right?”

  “He’s still in coma. They won’t know for a while yet.”

  “Oh, man, I was just having a dream,” Hernandez said. “I dreamt he was dead. I dreamt he was laying face down on the sidewalk in a puddle of blood, and I went over to him, crying for him, saying ‘Steve, Steve, Steve’ again and again, and then
I rolled him over, and Pete, it wasn’t Steve’s face looking up at me, it was my own. Oh man, that gave me the creeps. I hope he pulls through this.”

  “Yeah.”

  Both men were silent for several seconds. Then Byrnes said, “You awake?”

  “Yes. What is it?”

  “I wouldn’t cut in on what’s supposed to be your day off, Frankie. I know you were up all last night…”

  “What is it, Pete?”

  “I want you to check out the apartment where Steve got it. I wouldn’t ask you ordinarily, Frankie, but I’m in one hell of a bind here. You know, we’ve got these damn stores under surveillance because Meyer and Kling’ve got me convinced this nut’s gonna hit one of them. Well, Captain Frick let me have the patrolmen I needed, but he reserved the right to pull them if he needs them anyplace else. So I had to work out some kind of a system where a team of detectives would be on the prowl ready to relieve any of these cops if something else came up. I couldn’t pull Parker out of the candy store, and I couldn’t get those two men back from Washington where they’re taking that damn FBI course, so I had to pull two men off vacation, and I’ve got these two teams cruising around now, Meyer and Kling, and this other pair, ready to either relieve or assist, whichever is necessary. I’m practically running the squad single-handed, Frankie. Steve’s in the hospital, and I’m going out of my mind worrying about him, that guy is like a son to me, Frankie. I’d check this out myself, believe me, but I got to go down to City Hall this afternoon to make arrangements for that damn ball game tomorrow—of all times the Governor’s got to come down to throw out the ball, and the damn ball park has to be in my precinct, so that’ll mean—I don’t know where I’m gonna get all the men, Frankie. I just don’t know.”

  He paused.

  There was another long silence.

  “His face is all smashed in,” Byrnes said at last. “Did you see him, Frankie?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to go over there yet, Pete. I had—”

  “All smashed in,” Byrnes said.

  The silence came back. Byrnes sighed.