The Mugger

by Ed McBain

  “I dinn—”

  Havilland kicked him again. The boy was sobbing now. He climbed to his feet, and Havilland punched him once in the stomach and then again in the face. Sixto crumpled against the wall, sobbing wildly.

  “Why’d you kill her?”

  Sixto couldn’t answer. He kept shaking his head over and over again, sobbing. Havilland seized his jacket front and began pounding the boy’s head against the wall.

  “Why, you friggin spic? Why? Why? Why?”

  But Sixto only kept shaking his head, and after a while his head lolled to one side, and he was unconscious.

  Havilland studied him for a moment. He let out a deep sigh, went to the washbasin in the corner, and washed the blood from his hands. He lighted a cigarette then and went to the table, sitting on it and thinking. It was a damn shame, but he didn’t think Sixto was the man they wanted. They still had him on the Carmen thing, of course, but they couldn’t hang this mugger kill on him. It was a damn shame.

  In a little while, Havilland unlocked the door and went next door to Clerical. Miscolo looked up from his typewriter.

  “There’s a spic next door,” Havilland said, puffing on his cigarette.

  “Yeah?” Miscolo said.

  Havilland nodded. “Yeah. Fell down and hurt himself. Better get a doctor, huh?”

  In another part of the city, a perhaps more orthodox method of questioning was being undertaken by Detectives Meyer and Temple.

  Meyer, personally, was grateful for the opportunity. In accordance with Lieutenant Byrnes’s orders, he had been questioning known sex offenders until he was blue in the face. It was not that he particularly disliked questioning; it was simply that he disliked sex offenders.

  The sunglasses found alongside the body of Jeannie Paige had borne a small “C” in a circle over the bridge. The police had contacted several jobbers, one of whom identified the © as the trademark of a company known as Candrel, Inc. Byrnes had extricated Meyer and Temple from the sticky, degenerate web at the 87th and sent them shuffling off to Majesta, where the firm’s factory was located.

  The office of Geoffrey Candrel was on the third floor of the factory, a soundproofed rectangle of knotty-pine walls and modern furniture. The desk seemed suspended in space. A painting on the wall behind the desk resembled an electronic computing machine with a nervous breakdown.

  Candrel was a fat man in a big leather chair. He looked at the broken sunglasses on his desk, shoved at them with a pudgy forefinger as if he were prodding a snake to see if it were still alive.

  “Yes,” he said. His voice was thick. It rumbled up out of his huge chest. “Yes, we manufacture those glasses.”

  “Can you tell us something about them?” Meyer asked.

  “Can I tell you something about them?” Candrel smiled in a peculiarly superior manner. “I’ve been making frames for all kinds of glasses for more than fourteen years now. And you ask me if I can tell you something about them? My friend, I can tell you whatever you want to know.”

  “Well, can you tell us—”

  “The trouble with most people,” Candrel went on, “is that they think it’s a simple operation to make a pair of sunglass frames—or any kind of eyeglass frames, for that matter. Well, gentlemen, that’s simply not true. Unless you’re a sloppy workman who doesn’t give a damn about the product you’re putting out. Candrel gives a damn. Candrel considers the consumer.”

  “Well, perhaps you can—”

  “We get this sheet stock first,” Candrel said, ignoring Meyer. “It’s called zyl—that’s the trade term for cellulose nitrate, optical grade. We die-stamp the fronts and temple shapes from that sheet stock.”

  “Fronts?” Meyer said.

  “Temples?” Temple said.

  “The front is the part of the eyeglass that holds the lenses. The temples are the two gizmos you put over your ears.”

  “I see,” Meyer said. “But about these glasses—”

  “After they’re stamped, the fronts and temples are machined,” Candrel said, “to put the grooves in the rims and to knock off the square edges left by the stamping. Then the nose pads are cemented to the fronts. After that, a cutter blends the pads to the fronts in a ‘phrasing’ operation.”

  “Yes, sir, but—”

  “Nor is that the end of it,” Candrel said. “To blend the nose pads further, they are rubbed on a wet pumice wheel. Then the fronts and temples go through a roughing operation. They’re put into a tumbling barrel of pumice, and the tumbling operation takes off all the rough machine marks. In the finishing operation, these same fronts and temples are put into a barrel of small wooden pegs—about an inch long by three-sixteenths of an inch wide—together with a lubricant and our own secret compound. The pegs slide over the fronts and temples, polishing them.”

  “Sir, we’d like to get on with—”

  “After that,” Candrel said, frowning, a man obviously not used to being interrupted, “the fronts and temples are slotted for hinges, and then the hinges are fastened with shields, and then fronts are assembled to temples with screws. The corners are mitred, and then the ends are rounded on a pumice wheel in the rubbing room. After that—”

  “Sir—”

  “After that, the frames are washed and cleaned and sent to the polishing room. All of our frames are hand-polished, gentlemen. A lot of companies simply dip the frames into a solvent to give it a polished look. Not us. We hand-polish them.”

  “That’s admirable, Mr. Candrel,” Meyer said, “but—”

  “And when we insert plain glass lenses, we use a six-base lens, a lens that has been ground and is without distortion. Our plano sunglasses are six-diopter lenses, gentlemen. And remember, a six-base lens is optically correct.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Meyer said tiredly.

  “Why, our best glasses retail for as high as twenty dollars,” Candrel said proudly.

  “What about these?” Meyer asked, pointing to the glasses on Candrel’s desk.

  “Yes,” Candrel said. He poked at the glasses with his finger again. “Of course, we also put out a cheaper line. We injection-mold them out of polystyrene. It’s a high-speed die-casting operation done under hydraulic pressure. Semiautomatic, you understand. And, of course, we use less expensive lenses.”

  “Are these glasses a part of your cheaper line?” Meyer asked.

  “Ah…yes.” Candrel seemed suddenly embarrassed.

  “How much do they cost?”

  “We sell them to our jobbers for thirty-five cents a pair. They probably retail anywhere from seventy-five cents to a dollar.”

  “What about your distribution?” Temple asked.

  “Sir?”

  “Where are these glasses sold? Any particular stores?”

  Candrel pushed the glasses clear to the other side of his desk, as if they had grown suddenly leprous.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “you can buy these glasses in any five-and-ten-cent store in the city.”

  At 2:00 on the morning of Thursday, September 21, Eileen Burke walked the streets of Isola in a white sweater and a tight skirt.

  She was a tired cop.

  She had been walking the streets of Isola since 11:45 the previous Saturday night. This was her fifth night of walking. She wore high-heeled pumps, and they had definitely not been designed for hikes. In an attempt to lure the mugger, whose basic motivation in choosing women might or might not have been sexually inspired, she had hitched up her brassiere a notch or two higher so that her breasts were cramped and upturned, albeit alluring.

  The allure of her mammary glands was not to be denied by anyone, least of all someone with so coldly analytical a mind as Eileen Burke possessed.

  During the course of her early-morning promenades, she had been approached seven times by sailors, four times by soldiers, and twenty-two times by civilians in various styles of male attire. The approach had ranged from polite remarks such as, “Nice night, ain’t it?” to more direct opening gambits like, “Walking all alon
e, honey?” to downright unmistakable business inquiries like, “How much, babe?”

  All of these Eileen had taken in stride.

  They had, to be truthful, broken the monotony of her otherwise lonely and silent excursions. She had never once caught sight of Willis behind her, though she knew with certainty that he was there. She wondered now if he was as bored as she, and she concluded that he was possibly not. He did, after all, have the compensating sight of a backside, which she jiggled jauntily for the benefit of any unseen, observant mugger.

  Where are you, Clifford? she mentally asked.

  Have we scared you off? Did the sight of the twisted and bloody young kid whose head you split open turn your stomach, Clifford? Have you decided to give up this business, or are you waiting until the heat’s off?

  Come on, Clifford.

  See the pretty wiggle? The bait is yours, Clifford. And the only hook is the .38 in my purse.

  Come on, Clifford!

  From where Willis jogged doggedly along behind Eileen, he could make out only the white sweater and occasionally a sudden burst of bright red when the lights caught at her hair.

  He was a tired cop.

  It had been a long time since he’d walked a beat, and this was worse than walking any beat in the city. When you had a beat, you also had bars and restaurants and sometimes tailor shops or candy stores. And in those places you could pick up, respectively, a quick beer, cup of coffee, snatch of idle conversation, or warmth from a hissing radiator.

  This girl Eileen liked walking. He had followed behind her for four nights now, and this was the fifth, and she hadn’t once stopped walking. This was an admirable attitude, to be sure, a devotion to duty that was not to be scoffed aside.

  But good Christ, man, did she have a motor?

  What propelled those legs of hers? (Good legs, Willis. Admit

  it.)

  And why so fast? Did she think Clifford was a cross-country track star?

  He had spoken to her about her speed after their first night of breakneck pacing. She had smiled easily, fluffed her hair, and said, “I always walk fast.”

  That, he thought now, had been the understatement of the year.

  What she meant, of course, was, “I always run slow.”

  He did not envy Clifford. Whoever he was, wherever he was, he would need a motorcycle to catch this redhead with the paperback-cover bosoms.

  Well, he thought, she’s making the game worth the candle.

  Wherever you are, Clifford, Miss Burke’s going to give you a run for your money.

  He had first heard the tapping of her heels.

  The impatient beaks of woodpeckers riveting at the stout mahogany heart of his city. Fluttering taps, light-footed, strong legs and quick feet.

  He had then seen the white sweater, a beacon in the distance, coming nearer and nearer, losing its two-dimensionality as it grew closer, expanding until it had the three-sidedness of a work of sculpture, then taking on reality, becoming woolen fiber covering firm, high breasts.

  He had seen the red hair then, long, lapped by the nervous fingers of the wind, enveloping her head like a blazing funeral pyre. He had stood in the alleyway across the street and watched her as she pranced by, cursing his station, wishing he had posted himself on the other side of the street instead. She carried a black patent-leather sling bag over her shoulder, the strap loose, the bag knocking against her left hipbone as she walked. The bag looked heavy.

  He knew that looks could be deceiving, that many women carried all sorts of junk in their purses, but he smelled money in this one. She was either a whore drumming up trade or a society bitch out for a late-evening stroll—it was sometimes difficult to tell them apart. Whichever she was, the purse promised money, and money was what he needed pretty badly right now.

  The newspapers shrieking about Jeannie Paige!

  They had driven him clear off the streets. But how long can a murder remain hot? And doesn’t a man have to eat?

  He watched the redhead swing past, and then he ducked into the alleyway, quickly calculating a route that would intersect her apparent course.

  He did not see Willis coming up behind the girl.

  Nor did Willis see him.

  There are three lampposts on each block, Eileen thought.

  It takes approximately one and a half minutes to cover the distance between lampposts. Four and a half minutes a block. That’s plain arithmetic.

  Nor is that exceptionally fast. If Willis thinks that’s fast, he should meet my brother. My brother is the type of person who rushes through everything—breakfast, dinner…

  Hold it now!

  Something was moving up ahead.

  Her mind, as if instantly sucked clean of debris by a huge vacuum cleaner, lay glistening like a hard, cut diamond. Her left hand snapped to the drawstrings on her purse, wedging into the purse and enlarging the opening. She felt the reassuring steel of the .38, content that the butt was in a position to be grasped instantly by a cross-body swipe of her right hand.

  She walked with her head erect. She did not break her stride. The figure ahead was a man, of that much she was certain. He had seen her now, and he moved toward her rapidly. He wore a dark-blue suit, and he was hatless. He was a big man, topping six feet.

  “Hey!” he called. “Hey, you!” and she felt her heart lurch into her throat because she knew with rattling certainty that this was Clifford.

  And, suddenly, she felt quite foolish.

  She had seen the markings on the sleeve of the blue suit, had seen the slender white lines on the collar. The man she’d thought to be Clifford was only a hatless sailor. The tenseness flooded from her body. A small smile touched her lips.

  The sailor came closer to her, and she saw now that he was weaving unsteadily, quite unsteadily. He was, to be kind, as drunk as a lord, and his condition undoubtedly accounted for his missing white hat.

  “Wal now,” he bawled, “if’n it ain’ a redhaid! C’mere, redhaid!”

  He grabbed for Eileen, and she knocked his arm aside quickly and efficiently. “Run along, sailor,” she said. “You’re in the wrong pew!”

  The sailor threw back his head and guffawed boisterously. “Th’ wrong pew!” he shouted. “Wal now, Ah’ll be hung fer a hoss thief!”

  Eileen, not caring at all what he was hung for so long as he kept his nose out of the serious business afoot, walked briskly past him and continued on her way.

  “Hey!” he bellowed. “Wheah y’goin’?”

  She heard his hurried footsteps behind her, and then she felt his hand close on her elbow. She whirled, shaking his fingers free.

  “Whutsamatter?” he asked. “Doan’choo like sailors?”

  “I like them fine,” Eileen answered. “But I think you ought to be getting back to your ship. Now, go ahead. Run along.” She stared at him levelly.

  He returned her stare soberly and then quite suddenly asked, “Hey, you-all like t’go to bed wi’ me?”

  Eileen could not suppress the smile. “No,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

  “Why not?” he asked, thrusting forward his jaw.

  “I’m married,” she lied.

  “Why, tha’s awright,” he said. “Ah’m married, too.”

  “My husband is a cop,” she further lied.

  “Cops doan scare me none. On’y the SOBSP ah got to worry ‘bout. Hey now, how ‘bout it, huh?”

  “No,” Eileen said firmly. She turned to go, and he wove quickly around her, skidding to a stop in front of her.

  “We can talk ‘bout yo’ husbin an’ mah wife, how’s that? Ah got th’ sweetes’ li’l wife in th’ whole wide world.”

  “Then go home to her,” Eileen said.

  “Ah cain’t! Dammit all, she’s in Alabama!”

  “Take off, sailor,” Eileen said. “I’m serious. Take off before you get yourself in trouble.”

  “No,” he said, pouting.

  She turned and looked over her shoulder for Willis. He was nowhere in
sight. He was undoubtedly resting against an alley wall, laughing his fool head off. She walked around the sailor and started up the street. The sailor fell in beside her.

  “Nothin’ ah like better’n walkin’,” he said. “Ah’m goan walk mah big feet off, right here ‘longside you. Ah’m goan walk till hell freezes over.”

  “Stick with me, and you will,” Eileen muttered, and then she wondered how soon it would be until she spotted an SP. Dammit, there never was a cop around when you needed one!

  Now she’s picking up sailors, Willis thought.

  We’ve got nothing better to do than humor the fleet. Why doesn’t she conk him on the head and leave him to sleep it off in an alleyway?

  How the hell are we going to smoke Clifford if she insists on a naval escort? Shall I go break it up? Or has she got something up her sleeve?

  The terrible thing about working with women is that you can never count on them to think like men.

  He watched silently, and he cursed the sailor.

  Where had the fool materialized from? How could he get that purse now? Of all the goddamn rotten luck, the first good thing that had come along on his first night out since the papers started that Jeannie Paige fuss, and this stupid sailor had to come along and louse it up.

  Maybe he’d go away.

  Maybe she’d slap him across the face and he’d go away.

  Or maybe not. If she was a prostitute, she’d take the sailor with her, and that would be the end of that.

  Why did the police allow the Navy to dump its filthy cargoes into the streets of the city, anyway?

  He watched the wiggle of the girl’s backside, and he watched the swaying, bobbing motion of the sailor, and he cursed the police, and he cursed the fleet, and he even cursed the redhead.

  And then they turned the corner, and he ducked through the alley and started through the backyard, hoping to come out some two blocks ahead of the pair, hoping she’d have gotten rid of him by then, his fingers aching to close around the purse that swung so heavily from her left shoulder.