Tricks

by Ed McBain

  But Eileen had already found them.

  The earlier photographs had shown slashed faces, slit throats.

  These showed rampant mutilation below.

  "Used the knife top and bottom," Shanahan said.

  "Uh-huh," Eileen said.

  "Slashed the first girl in a doorway two blocks from the bar."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Second one in an alleyway on East Ninth. Last one on Canal-side."

  "Uh-huh."

  "What I'm saying is watch your step," Shanahan warned. "This ain't your garden variety weirdo jumpin' old ladies in the park. This is a fuckin' animal, and he means business. You get in the slightest bit of trouble, you holler. I'll be there in zero flat."

  "I'm not afraid to holler," Eileen said.

  "Good. We ain't trying to prove nothing here, we only want to catch this guy."

  "I'm the one who catches him," Alvarez said, "I'll cut off his balls."

  Eileen looked at him.

  "What'd these other girls tell you?" Annie asked.

  She did not want Eileen to keep studying those pictures. Once around the park was once too often. She took them from her hand, glanced at them only cursorily, and put them back into the folder. Eileen looked up at her questioningly. But Alvarez was already talking.

  "You familiar with the Canal Zone, you know most of the girls work on the street," he said. "A car pulls up, the girl leans in the window, they agree on a price, and she does the job while the trick drives them around the block. It's Have Mouth, Will Travel, is what it is. But there's a bar near the docks where you get a slightly better-class hooker. We're talking comparative here. None of these girls are racehorses."

  "What about this bar?" Annie said.

  "It's called Larry's, on Fairview and East Fourth. The girls working the cars go in there every now and then, shoot up in the toilet, fix their faces, whatever. But there's also some girls a little younger and a little prettier who hang out there looking for tricks. Again, we're talking comparative. The girls on the meat rack outside get only five bucks for a handjob and ten for a blow-job. The ones working the bar get double that."

  "The point is," Shanahan said, "the three girls he ripped were working the bar."

  "So that's where you're planting me," Eileen said.

  "Be safer all around," Alvarez said.

  "I'm not looking for safe," she said, bristling.

  "No, and you're not a real hooker, either," Alvarez said, bristling himself. "You stand out there on the street, you keep turning down tricks, the other girls'll make you for fuzz in a minute. You'll be standing out there all alone before the night's ten minutes old."

  "Okay," she said.

  "I want this guy," he said.

  "So do I."

  "Not the way I want him. I got a daughter the age of that little girl in there," he said, wagging his finger at the folder.

  "Okay," Eileen said again.

  "You work the bar," Alvarez said, "you get a chance to call your own shots. You played hooker before?"

  "Yes."

  "Okay, so I don't have to tell you how to do your job."

  "That's right, you don't."

  "But there are some mean bastards down there in the Zone, and not all of them are looking to carve you up. You better step easy all around. This ain't Silk Stocking work."

  "None of it is," Eileen said.

  They both glared at each other.

  "What'd they say about him?" Annie asked, jumping in.

  "What?" Alvarez said.

  Still angry. Figuring Homicide had sent him an amateur. Figuring she'd be spotted right off as a plant. Fuck you and your daughter both, Eileen thought. I know my job. And it's stillmy ass out there.

  "These girls you talked to," Annie said. "What'd they say?"

  "What?"

  "About the guy, she means," Shanahan said. "This ain't gospel, Annie, this is maybe just hookers running scared, which they got every right to be. But on the nights of the murders, they remember a guy sitting at the bar. Drinking with the victims. The three he ripped. Same guy on three different Friday nights. Big blond guy, six-two, six-three, maybe two hundred pounds, dressed different each time, but blending in with everybody else in the joint."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning Friday-night sleaze. No uptown dude looking for kicks."

  "Do you get any of those?" Eileen asked.

  "Now and then," Shanahan said. "They don't last long in the Zone. Hookers ain't the only predators there. But this guy looked like one of the seamen off the ships. Which don't necessarily mean hewas , of course."

  "Anything else we should know about him?"

  "Yeah, he had them in stitches."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Kept telling them jokes."

  Eileen looked at him.

  "Yeah, I know what you're thinking," Shanahan said. "A stand-up comic with a knife."

  "Anything else?"

  "He wears eyeglasses," Alvarez said.

  "One of the girls thinks he has a tattoo on his right hand. Near the thumb. She's the only one who mentioned it."

  "What kind of tattoo?"

  "She couldn't remember."

  "How many girls did you talk to?"

  "Fourdozen altogether," Alvarez said, "but only two of them gave us a handle."

  "What time was this?" Annie asked. "When they saw him at the bar with the victims?"

  "Varied. As early as nine, as late as two in the morning."

  "Gonna be a long night," Annie said, and sighed.

  Shanahan looked up at the clock.

  "We better work out our strategy," he said. "So we can move when he does. Once he gets Eileen outside hellip;"

  He let the sentence trail.

  The clock ticked into the silence of the squadroom.

  "Do they know you down there in the Zone?" Eileen asked.

  Shanahan looked at her.

  "Do they?"

  "Yes, but hellip;"

  "Then what the hell hellip; ?"

  "I'll be hellip;"

  "What good's a backup who hellip;?"

  "You won't recognize me, don't worry."

  "No? What does the bartender say when you walk in? Hello, Detective Shanahan?"

  "Six-to-five right this minute, you won't know me when I walk in," Shanahan said.

  "Don't take the bet," Annie said.

  "Will I know you if I have to holler?"

  "You'll know me then. Because I'll be there."

  "You're on," Eileen said. "But if I make you, I go straight home. I walk out of there and go straight home. Understood?"

  "I'd do the same. But you won't know me."

  "I hope not. I hope I lose the bet."

  "You will," Annie promised.

  "I didn't like your shooting him," the blonde at the wheel of the station wagon said. "That wasn't at all necessary, Alice."

  Alice said nothing.

  "You fire the guns in the air to scare them, to let them know you mean business, that's all. If that man you shot is dead, the rest of the night could be ruined for us."

  Alice still said nothing.

  "The beauty part of this," the blonde said, "is they never expect lightning to strike twice in the same night. Are you listening, kiddies?"

  None of the kids said a word.

  The digital dashboard clock read 7:04.

  They figure you do a stickup, you go home and lay low for a while. That's the beauty part. We play our cards right tonight, We go home with forty grand easy. I mean, a Friday night? Your liquor stores'll be open, some of them, till midnight, people stocking up for the weekend. Plenty of gold in the registers, kids, there for the taking. No more shooting people, have you got that?"

  The kids said nothing.

  The eyes behind the masks darted, covering both sides of the avenue. The slits in the masks made all the eyes look Oriental, even the blue ones.

  "Especially you, Alice. Do you hear me?"

  Alice nodded stiffly.

  "There
she is," the blonde said, "number two," and began easing the station wagon in toward the curb.

  The liquor store was brightly lighted.

  The lettering on the plate-glass window read FAMOUS BRANDS WINE WHISKEY.

  "Have fun, kids," the blonde said.

  The kids piled out of the car.

  "Trick or treat, trick or treat!" they squealed at an old woman coming out of the liquor store.

  The old woman giggled.

  "Howcute !" she said to no one.

  Inside the store, the kids weren't so cute.

  The owner had his back to them, reaching up for a half-gallon of Johnny Walker Red.

  Alice shot him at once.

  The thirty-year-old account executive standing in front of the counter screamed.

  She shot him, too.

  The kids cleaned out the cash register in less than twelve seconds. One of them took a fifth of Canadian Club from the shelves. Then they ran out of the store again, giggling and yelling, "Trick or treat, trick or treat!"

  "Hello, Peaches?" the man on the telephone said.

  "Yes?"

  "I've been trying to reach you all day. My secretary left your number, but she didn't say which agency you're with."

  "Agency?"

  "Yes. This is Phil Hendricks at Camera Works. We're shooting some stuff next week, and my secretary thought you might be right for the job. How old are you, Peaches?"

  "Forty-nine," she said without hesitation. Lying a little. Well, lying by eleven years, but who was counting?

  "That's perfect," he said, "this is stuff for the Sears catalogue, a half-dozen mature women modeling housedresses. If you'll give me the name of your agency, I'll call them in the morning."

  "I don't have an agency," Peaches said.

  "You don't? Well, that's strange. I mean hellip; well, how long have you been modeling?"

  "I'm not a model," Peaches said.

  "You're not? Then how'd my secretary hellip; ?"

  There was a long, puzzled silence on the line.

  "This is Peaches Muldoon, isn't it?" he said.

  "Yes," she said, "but I've never hellip;"

  "349-4040?"

  "That's the number. But your secretary must've hellip;"

  "Well, here's your name and number right here in her handwriting," he said. "But you say you're not a model?"

  "No, I'm an RN."

  "A what?"

  "A registered nurse."

  "Then how'd she hellip; ?"

  Another puzzled silence.

  "Have you everthought of modeling?" he asked.

  "Well hellip; not seriously."

  "Because maybe you mentioned to someone that you were looking for modeling work, and this got to my secretary somehow. That's the only thing I can figure."

  "What's your secretary's name?"

  "Linda. Linda Greeley."

  "No, I don't know anyone by that name."

  "Didyou mention to someone that you might be interested in modeling?"

  "Well hellip; you know hellip; people are always telling me I should try modeling, but you know how people talk. I never take them seriously. I mean, I'm not a kid anymore, you know."

  "Well, forty-nine isn't exactlyancient ," he said, and laughed.

  "Well, I suppose not. But people try to natter you, you know. I'm not really beautiful enough to do modeling. There's a certain type, you know. For modeling."

  "What typeare you, Peaches?" he asked.

  "Well, I don't know how to answer that."

  "Well, how tall are you, for example?"

  "Five-nine," she said.

  "How much do you weigh?"

  "I could lose a little weight right now," she said, "believe me."

  "Well, there isn't a woman on earth who doesn't think she could stand to lose a few pounds. How muchdo you weigh, Peaches?"

  "A hundred and twenty," she said. Lying a little. Well, lying by ten pounds. Well, twenty pounds, actually.

  "That's not what I'd callobese ," he said. "Five-nine, a hundred-twenty."

  "Well, let's say I'm hellip; well hellip; zoftig, I guess."

  "Are you Jewish, Peaches?"

  "What?"

  "That's a Jewish expression, zoftig," he said. "But Muldoon isn't Jewish, is it?"

  "No, no. I'm Irish."

  "Red hair, I'll bet."

  "How'd you guess?" she asked, and laughed.

  "And isn't that a faint Southern accent I detect?"

  "I'm from Tennessee originally. I didn't think it still showed."

  "Oh, just a trace. Which is why zoftig sounded so strange on your lips," he said. "Well, I'm sorry you're not a model, Peaches, truly. We're paying a hundred and twenty-five a hour, and we're shooting something like two dozen pages, so this could've come to a bit of change. Do you work full time as a nurse?"

  "No. I do mostly residential work."

  "Then you might be free to hellip;"

  He hesitated.

  "But if you're not experienced hellip;"

  He hesitated again.

  "I just don't know," he said. "What we're looking for, you see, is a group of women who are mature and who could be accepted as everyday housewives. We're not shooting any glamor stuff here, no sexy lingerie, nothing like that. In fact hellip; well, I don't really know. But your inexperience might be a plus. When you say you're a zoftig type, you don't mean hellip; well, you don't looktoo glamorous, do you?"

  "I wouldn't say I look glamorous no. I'm forty-nine, you know."

  "Well, Sophia Loren's what? In her fifties, isn't she? And she certainly looks glamorous. What I'm saying is we're not looking for any Sophia Lorens here. Can you imagine Sophia Loren in a housedress?" he said, and laughed again. "Let me just write down your dimensions, okay? I'll discuss this with the ad agency in the morning, who knows? You said five-nine hellip;"