by Ed McBain
“Here we go,” Ollie said.
“Shhh,” Carella said again.
WIGGY:
No. But I could …
TIGO:
You goan tell him you shot this man Hoskins back of the head an dropped him in a garbage can? You goan do that, Wigg?
“Go for it, man,” Ollie said.
WIGGY:
I’m sayin’ it don’t seem right, what these mothahs are doin to our people.
TIGO:
They’s evil folk in this world, itis a shame.
WIGGY:
You know what the name Nettie stans for?
TIGO:
Nettie, you say?
WIGGY:
N-E-T-T-I-E. You know what word that name is hidin’ in?
TIGO:
No, I has to admit I do not.
WIGGY:
Counterfeit. That’s the word. You search that word, you find Nettie lurkin in there. You double-click on her name, you transported straight to Nettieland. You want to hear this, man, or you want to stay ignorant the ress of your life?
“This is all bullshit,” Ollie said.
“Let’s hear what the man …”
“He’s hallucinatin,” Ollie said.
“For Christ’ssake!” Carella said, and snapped off the recorder, and shot Ollie a look. Ollie dug into the bag of chips again. Carella hit the rewind button. Ollie looked offended.
WIGGY:
… hear this, man, or you want to stay ignorant the ress of your life? What these mothahs doin, they buyin fake money in I-ran. Hunnerd-dollar bills. So good you want to lick’em right off the page. They buy ’em at a fifty-percent discount. That means they pays half a century for a C-note, they ahead of the game by fifty already, you dig, man?
TIGO:
I’m listening.
WIGGY:
They takes this fake money to Mexico, where they buy high quality shit with it. You member what that white dude was sellin us aroun Christmastime?
TIGO:
The one you shot and thowed in the garbage can?
WIGGY:
The hunnerd keys we tested, you member it?
TIGO:
I member you shootin him. Why’d you kill that man, Wigg?
WIGGY:
Point I’m makin is them hunnerd keys was purchased with funny money, man. They gettintwice the dope they should be gettin cause they payin for it with bills coss ’em onyhalf what they face value is. You see the scam they got goin here, man?
TIGO:
Wish we’da thought of it, Wigg.
WIGGY:
Butweain’t gettin no fifty-percent payback here in Diamondback, man! We payin the full an honorable price for the shit. And they takin the big profit they make up here an usin it for financin all they activities all over the world, you know what I’m sayin? Man, we payin ’em good money, an they usin it to start some revolution inAfrica someplace!
TIGO:
Who you mean bythey, man? Who’sthey?
WIGGY:
I don’tknow who they is. But I’ll bet you any amount of money it’s right there in that folder markedMothah. You fine the password to that folder, man, you on the way to trackin downzackly who these people are.
TIGO:
Why you so keen on knowin that, man?
WIGGY:
What’s the matter with you, Teeg, you some kind of fool? They fuckin us six ways from the middle! You close Nettie and you double-click on Diana, you know what you fine in that Diamondback file? You fine what the plan is forus, man. You see what theyreally doin up here, you see how this thing comes full circle.
TIGO:
What is it they doin, Wigg? I’m sorry, but I don’t see what …
WIGGY:
They buildin a community ofdope fiends, man. They keepin the nigger in his place so he can’t work, he can’t vote, he can’t do a fuckin thing but shoot H in his arm or sniff coke up his nose! They turnin us into fuckin slaves all over again.
TIGO:
Man, Wiggy. wiggy: Yeah, man, is right. That’s why I called that fat hump cop. They got to know what’s goin on here, Teeg. Somebody got to put a stop to it.
TIGO:
One thing I don’t get, Wigg.
WIGGY:
What’s that?
TIGO:
These dudes in I-ran? The ones gettin paidreal money for the fake stuff?
WIGGY:
Who gives a shit about them, man? You unnerstan what I’msayin here?
TIGO:
I was juss wonderin what theydo with that money, that’s all.
The shots exploding from the recorder startled both detectives. Ollie actually dropped the bag of potato chips. Screams erupted over the ugly stutter of automatic gunfire. A woman’s voice shouted, “The window!” There was the sound of glass breaking. Heavy breathing. More shots. Footsteps clanging on metal. The breathing harsher now. Yet more shots. More footsteps pounding. And then Carella’s own voice came from the machine.
CARELLA:
You know who did this to you? Who, Tigo? Can you tell me?
TIGO:
Mother.
CARELLA:
Yourmother shot …?
TIGO:
Nettie.
CARELLA:
Is that your mother’s name?
TIGO:
Diana.
CARELLA:
I don’t under …
There was more shooting.
Heavy breathing.
OLLIE:
That’s two, Steve.
“Who the fuck is Mother?” Ollie asked.
FROM WHERE SVI COHEN stood center stage, he could see the vast enclosing arms of Clarendon Hall, from the orchestra level soaring upward to the first and second tiers, and the dress circle, and the front and rear balconies. A giant of a man himself, he felt dwarfed by the golden sweep of the most prestigious concert hall in the United States. It was here that Jascha Heifetz, a seventeen-year-old Russian violinist, made his explosive American debut in 1917. It was here—not a decade later—that a ten-year-old prodigy named Yehudi Menuhin stunned the world of classical music with a violin style that combined the elegance of Kreisler, the sonority of Elman, and the technique of Heifetz himself. Here, too, on this very stage, the great Russian pianist Svetlana Dyalovich had made her American debut. Svi stood staring out at the red-carpeted space, overwhelmed.
“So how does it look to you?” Arthur Rankin asked, beaming.
Rankin was the Philharmonic’s conductor, a man in his sixties, a man who’d been playing violin since he was four years old and conducting since he was thirty, but in the presence of this thirty-seven-year-old genius from Tel Aviv, he was virtually awe-stricken.
“Wait till you hear the sound,” he said.
“I can imagine,” Svi said.
The orchestra was beginning to tune up.
Tonight’s program would start with “La Gazza Ladra”—the “Thieving Magpie” overture from Rossini’sThe Barber of Seville. They would then play Mozart’s no. 40 in G Minor to conclude the first half of the evening. There would be a twelve-minute intermission, and then Svi Cohen would take the stage. The orchestra had been rehearsing all of the pieces for the past week now, but this was the first time they would be playing the Mendelssohn E Minor with the Israeli violinist.
Rankin tapped his baton for silence.
“Gentlemen?” he said. “May I introduce our honored guest?”
THE PLAN was a simple one.
They had been trained to believe that all good plans were simple ones.
Part of the seed money had been spent for false identity papers created for them by a master forger who’d been trained in Bucharest and who now lived in a small town upstate, where he sold antiques as a sideline. Passports, green cards, driver’s licenses, social security cards, credit cards—all that anyone might need to move freely around the United States, or indeed around the world. From the stock of a Cadillac dealership in the state across the river, Nikmaddu—using
the assumed name on his new driver’s license—had purchased outright a black DeVille sedan. The car would be used in the attack tonight, and then driven to Florida, where it would be disposed of before all four men parted company. Akbar, Mahmoud, and Jassim would board separate flights to Zurich, Paris, and Frankfurt, and would then disperse to the far corners of the Arab world. Nikmaddu would leave first for Chicago, and then San Francisco, and finally Los Angeles. The attack here in this city would have put only a small dent in the cash he’d carried from home. Activities elsewhere in the United States required money, too. Money was what made the world of terrorism—or, as he preferred to call it, liberation—go round. Money was both the engine and the fuel.
At seven-forty-five tonight Akbar, wearing a chauffeur’s uniform, would drive the Cadillac—
They called this luxurious car a Caddy, the Americans. They also used this word to describe the menial who carried a golfer’s clubs. A strange country.
He would drive the Caddy, then, to the front door of Clarendon Hall. Jassim, barbered and bathed and manicured and groomed, well-tailored in a black business suit, carrying a man’s handbag purchased at Gucci on Hall Avenue, would present his ticket and enter the hall. If he was asked to open the bag, which was highly unlikely, they would find in it only a package of cigarettes, a gold and enamel cigarette lighter also purchased at Gucci, a Coach leather wallet, and a paperback copy ofCatcher in the Rye. It was not until later that Jassim would re-enter the hall carrying the armed bomb.
“Where will you be during the first part of the concert?” Nikmaddu asked.
Akbar, who had assembled the bomb, and who would be responsible for arming it before Jassim went back in, said, “I’ll be parked just across the street.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to park directly outside?”
“It is forbidden to park in front of the hall. Or, in fact, anywhere on that side of the street. Most of the limo drivers park across the way or around the corner. Jassim knows where I’ll be. We’ve run this through many times already.”
Mahmoud looked at him skeptically.
“Half the taxicab and limousine drivers in this city are from the Middle East,” Akbar said. “I will not arouse any suspicion. I will sit behind the wheel quietly, minding my own business, smoking a cigarette and waiting for my fat Jew employer to come out of the hall. Jassim and I will find each other, don’t worry.”
“You’ve got only twelve minutes to find each other,” Mahmoud reminded them.
“I’ll be watching for him to come out,” Akbar said. “We’ll have more than enough time, believe me.”
“What time does the concert start?” Nikmaddu asked.
“It’s supposed to begin at eight. Experience has taught me that it always starts some five or ten minutes later.”
“And the intermission is when?”
“The Rossini overture can take anywhere between nine and eleven minutes and the Mozart symphony between twenty-five and thirty-five. On average, I would expect the first half of the concert to run some forty minutes. The intermission should start at around nine or a little bit after.”
“Can you not be more precise?” Nikmaddu asked.
“I’m sorry,” Akbar said. “Western music is not always precise. In any case, I’ll arm the bomb when Jassim returns to the limousine. I’ll place it in his bag, and he’ll go back into the hall. You’d be surprised how long a time twelve minutes is.”
“I hope so. I wouldn’t want the bomb to explode while he’s still outside on the sidewalk.”
“No, that can’t possibly happen. The intermission will end, let’s say, at nine-fifteen. They will allow at most five minutes for everyone to get settled again. Let’s say the Jew comes on stage at nine-twenty. The bomb will be set to explode at nine-thirty. Jassim will be long gone by then.”
“Inshallah,”Mahmoud said.
“Inshallah,”the others repeated.
The men fell silent.
“The weather is supposed to be clear and cold tonight,” Nikmaddu said at last.
“Good,” Mahmoud said. “Then our drive to Florida should be trouble free.”
“Someday, I would love to spend some time in Florida,” Akbar said, almost wistfully.
THE BLONDE Ollie had shot in the back was in a room on the sixth floor of Hoch Memorial. A male police officer was stationed outside the door to the room. The clock on the wall behind him read twelve-fortyP.M. The blonde had plastic tubes trailing out of her nose. The blonde had lines running into her arm. Neither Carella nor Ollie felt the slightest bit of pity or compassion for her on this cold December afternoon at the end of the year.
“Want to tell us who you are?” Carella asked.
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” she said. “You’re making a grave mistake here.”
“You’re the one who made the grave mistake,” Ollie said.
“Threeof them,” Carella said.
The blonde smiled.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“I don’t have to tell you that.”
“You killed two civilians and tried to kill a police officer. Do you know what kind of trouble you’re in here?”
“I’m not in any trouble at all.”
“Two counts of Murder Two …”
“Another count of Attempted …”
“On our block, that’s pretty serious,” Ollie said.
“On my block, it’s routine,” she said.
“And where’s that, Miss?”
“What’s your name, Miss?”
“Where do you live?”
“How come you weren’t carrying any identification?”
The blonde smiled again.
“You think this is pretty funny, don’t you?” Ollie said. “Trying to kill a police officer.”
“How about a police officer shooting me in the back?” she said. “Do you thinkthat’s funny?”
“Not as funny as it might have been if I’d killed you,” Ollie said. “That really would’ve been comical.”
“You think so, huh? Just wait, Mister.”
“For what?” Ollie said.
“Just wait.”
“What it is, you see, we don’t like cops getting shot in this city.”
“Then cops in this city should keep their noses out of other people’s business.”
“Which people are you talking about?”
“People with more important matters on their minds than two piss-ant dope dealers.”
“Oh?” Carella said.
“Oh?” Ollie said.
“You knew they were dealing, huh?”
The blonde smiled.
“What else did you know about them?”
She shook her head.
“Did you know one of them killed a man named Jerry Hoskins?”
She kept smiling, shaking her head.
“Ever hear that name?”
“Jerry Hoskins?”
“Got himself shot on Christmas Eve by one of the guysyou shot last night? Think there might be a connection?”
“Stop blowing smoke up my skirt,” she said.
“Jerry Hoskins? Frank Holt?” Ollie said.
“One and the same person,” Carella said.
“Sold Wiggins a hundred keys of coke on Christmas Eve …”
“Got paid for it with a bullet at the back of his head. Ever hear of him?”
“Jerry Hoskins?”
“Frank Holt?”
The blonde said nothing.
“Ever hear of a woman named Cass Ridley?” Ollie said.
“Cassandra Ridley?” Carella said.
“Flew a hundred keys of shit out of Mexico for Jerry Hoskins. Ever hear ofher?”
“I’m not saying anything until my people contact you.”
“Oh? Your people? Who are these people?”
“You’ll find out.”
“You got friends in high places?” Ollie asked.
“The Mayor’s office?”
“The Governor’
s mansion?”
“The White House?”
“Go ahead, laugh,” she said.
“Nobody’s laughing,” Ollie said. “What it looks like is you knew Walter Wiggins was dealing drugs, and maybe you also knew Hoskins was in the same business …”
“Keep blowing smoke,” she said.
