Tricks

by Ed McBain

  "Yes."

  "A hundred and twenty pounds."

  "Yes."

  "What are your other dimensions, Peaches? Bust size first."

  "Thirty-six C."

  "Good, we don't want anyone who lookstoo , well hellip; you get some of these so-calledmature models, they're big-busted, but very flabby. You're not flabby, are you?"

  "Oh, no."

  And your waist size, Peaches?"

  "Twenty-six."

  "And your hips?"

  "Thirty-six."

  "That sounds very good," he said. "Are your breasts firm?" he asked.

  "What?"

  "Your breasts. Forgive me, but I know the ad agency'll want to know. They've had so many of these so-called mature models who come in with breasts hanging to their knees, they're getting a little gun-shy. Are your breasts good and firm?"

  Peaches hesitated.

  "What did you say your name was?" she asked.

  "Phil Hendricks. At Camera Works. We're a professional photography firm, down here on Hall Avenue."

  "Could I have your number there, please?"

  "Sure. It's 847-3300."

  "And this is for the Sears catalogue?"

  "Yes, we begin shooting Monday morning. We've already signed two women, both of them in their late forties, good firm bodies, one of them used to model lingerie in fact. Do me a favor, will you, Peaches?"

  "What's that?" she said.

  "Is there a mirror in the room there?"

  "Yes?"

  "Does the phone reach over there? To where the mirror is?"

  "Well, it's right there on the wall,"

  "Stand up, Peaches, and take a look at yourself in that mirror."

  "Why should I do that?"

  "Because I want an objective opinion. What are you wearing right now, Peaches?"

  "A blouse and a skirt."

  "Are you wearing shoes?"

  "Yes?"

  "High-heeled shoes?"

  "Yes?"

  "And a bra? Are you wearing a bra, Peaches?"

  "Listen, this conversation is making me a little nervous," she said.

  "I want your objective opinion, Peaches."

  "About what?"

  "About whether your breasts are good and firm. Can you see yourself in the mirror, Peaches?"

  "Listen, this is really making mevery nervous," she said.

  "Take off your blouse, Peaches. Look at yourself in your bra, and tell me hellip;"

  She hung up.

  Her heart was pounding.

  A trick, she thought. He tricked me! How could I have been so dumb? Kepttalking to him! Keptbelieving his pitch! Gave him all the answers he hellip;

  How'd he know my first name?

  I'm listed as P. Muldoon, how'd he hellip; ?

  The answering machine. Hi, this is Peaches, I can't come to the phone just now. Of course. Said he'd been trying to reach me all day. Hi, this is Peaches, I can't come to the phone just now. Got the Muldoon and the number from the phone book, got my first name from the answering hellip;

  Oh, God, myaddress is in the book, too!

  Suppose hecomes here?

  Oh dear God hellip;

  The telephone rang again.

  Don't answer it, she thought.

  It kept ringing.

  Don't answer it.

  Ringing, ringing.

  But Sandra's supposed to call about the party.

  Ringing, ringing, ringing.

  If it's him again, I'll just hang up.

  She reached out for the phone. Her hand was trembling. She lifted the receiver.

  "Hello?" she said.

  "Peaches?"

  Was it him again? The voice didn't sound quite like his. "Yes?" she said.

  "Hi, this is Detective Andy Parker. I don't know if you remember me or not, I'm the one who locked up your crazy hellip;"

  "Boy, am I glad to hear fromyou !" she said.

  "How about that?" Parker said, putting up the phone. "Remembered me right off the bat, told me to hurry on over!"

  "You're unforgettable," Brown said. He was at his desk, typing a report on the torso they'd found behind the Burgundy Restaurant. Genero was looking over his shoulder, trying to learn how to spell dismembered.

  The squadroom was alive with clattering typewriters.

  Meyer sat in his dapper tan sports jacket typing a report on the kids who'd held up the liquor store and killed the owner.

  Kling was at his own desk, typing a follow-up report on a burglary he'd caught three days ago. He was thinking about Eileen. He was thinking that right about now Eileen was in Calm's Point, getting ready to hit the Zone. He was thinking he might just wander over there later tonight. He looked up at the clock. Seven-fifteen. Maybe when he got off at midnight. See what was happening over there. She didn't have to know he was there looking around. A third backup never hurt anybody.

  "So," Parker said, "if nobody needs me here, I think I'll mosey on over."

  "Nobody needs you, right," Meyer said. "We got two homicides here, nobody needs you."

  "Tell me the truth, Meyer," Parker said. "You think those two homicides are gonna be closed out tonight? In all your experience, have you ever closed out a homicide the same day you caught it? Have you?"

  "I'm trying to think," Meyer said.

  "In all my experience, that never happened," Parker said. "Unless you walk in and there's the perp with a smoking gun in his hand. Otherwise, it takes weeks. Months sometimes. Sometimesyears ."

  "Sometimescenturies ," Brown said.

  "So what's your point?" Meyer said.

  "My point is hellip;here's my point," he said, opening his arms wide to the railing as Carella came through the gate. "Steve," he said, "I'm very glad to see you."

  "You are?" Carella said.

  He was a tall slender man with the build and stance of an athlete, brown hair, brown eyes slanting slightly downward to give his face a somewhat Oriental look. Tonight he was wearing a plaid sports shirt under a blue windbreaker, light cotton corduroy trousers, brown loafers. He went directly to his desk and looked in the basket there for any telephone messages.

  "How's it out there?" Brown asked.

  "Quiet," Carella said. "You got back okay, huh?" he asked Kling.

  "I caught a taxi."

  Carella turned to Parker. "Why are you so happy to see me?" he asked.

  " 'Cause my colleague, Detective Meyer Meyer there, sitting at his desk there in his new jacket and his bald head, is eager to crack a homicide he caught, and he needs a good partner."

  "That lets me out," Carella said. "What kind of homicide, Meyer?"

  "Some kids held up a liquor store and shot the owner."

  "Teenagers?"

  "Eleven-year-olds."

  "No kidding?"

  "You gotta get yourself some lollipops," Brown said, "bait a trap with them."

  "So is everybody all paired up nice now?" Parker asked. "You got Genero hellip;"

  "Thanks very much," Brown said.

  "Meyer's got Steve hellip;"

  "I only stopped by for some coffee," Carella said.

  "And I got Peaches Muldoon."

  "Who's that?"

  "A gorgeous registered nurse who's dying to see me."

  "Sixty years old," Brown said.

  "That's an oldlady !" Genero said, shocked.

  "Tell him."

  "You ever date a nurse?" Parker said.

  "Me?" Genero said.

  "You, you. You ever date a nurse?"

  "No. And I never dated a sixty-year-old lady, either."

  "Tell him," Brown said.

  "There is nothing like a nurse," Parker said. "It's a fact that in the book business if you put the word nurse in a title, you sell a million more copies."

  "Who told you that?"

  "It's a fact. A publisher told me that. In this office where they stole all his typewriters, this was maybe a year ago. A nurse in the title sells a million more copies."

  "I'm gonna write a book
calledThe Naked and the Nurse ," Brown said.

  "How aboutGone with the Nurse ?" Meyer said.

  "OrNurse-22 ?" Carella said.

  "Kid around, go ahead," Parker said. "You see me tomorrow morning, I'll be a wreck."

  "I think you'd better stick around," Brown said. "Cotton's all alone out there."

  "Bert can go hold his hand, soon as he finishes writing his book there."

  "What book?" Kling asked, looking up from his typewriter.

  "Me," Parker said, "I'm gonna go do a follow-up on a homicide investigation."

  "Ten years old," Brown said.

  "I thought you said eleven," Carella said, puzzled.

  "The homicide. Ten years ago. He arrested a nut was killing priests. The nurse is his mother."

  "Thekids are eleven years old," Meyer said. "The ones who did the liquor store guy. Or twelve."

  "That's what I thought," Carella said. He still looked puzzled.

  "Any further objections?" Parker asked.

  They all looked at him sourly.

  "In that case, gentlemen, I bid you a fond adoo."

  "You gonna leave a number where we can reach you?" Brown asked.

  "No," Parker said.

  The phone rang as he went through the gate and out into the corridor.

  Watching him go, Brown shook his head and then picked up the phone receiver.

  "Eighty-Seventh Squad, Brown."

  "Artie, this is Dave downstairs," Murchison said. "You're handling that body in the garbage can, ain't you?"

  "Pieceof a body," Brown said.

  "Well, we just got another piece," Murchison said.

  CHAPTER 4

  Hawes had to keep telling himself this was strictly business.

  Bermuda had been one thing, Bermuda was a thousand miles away, and besides he'd asked Annie to go along with him. This was another thing. This was the big bad city, and Annie lived here and besides he had a date with her tomorrow night, and furthermore Marie Sebastiani was married.

  As of the moment, anyway.

  The possibility existed that her husband had run off on his own to get away from her, though why anyone would want to abandon a beautiful, leggy blonde was beyond Hawes. If that's what had happened, though mdash;Sebastian the Great tossing his junk all over the driveway and then taking off in the Citation mdash;then maybe he was gone forever, in which case Marie wasn't as married as she thought she was. Hawes had handled cases where a guy went out for a loaf of bread and never was heard from since. Probably living on some South Sea island painting naked natives. One case he had, the guy told his wife he was going down for aTV Guide. This was at eight o'clock. The wife sat through the eleven o'clock news, and then the Johnny Carson show, and then the late movie, and still no hubby with theTV Guide. Guy turned up in California six years later, living with two girls in Santa Monica. So maybe Sebastian the Great had pulled the biggest trick of his career, disappearing on his wife. Who knew?

  On the other hand, maybe the lady's concern was well-founded. Maybe somebody had come across Frank Sebastiani while he was loading his goodies in the car, and maybe he'd zonked the magician and thrown his stuff out of the car and took off with the car and the magician both. Dump the magician later on, dead or alive, and sell the car to a chop shop. Easy pickings on a relatively quiet Halloween night. It was possible.

  Either way, this was strictly business.

  Hawes wished, however, that Marie wouldn't keep touching him quite so often.

  The lady was very definitely a toucher, and although Hawes didn't necessarily buy the psychological premise that insisted casual body contact was an absolute prerequisite to outright seduction, he had to admit that her frequent touching of his arm or his shoulder or his hand was a bit unsettling. True enough, the touching was only to emphasize a conversational point mdash;as when she told him again how grateful she was that he was taking her to dinner mdash;or to indicate this or that possible restaurant along the Stem. He had parked the car on North Fifth, and they were walking westward now, heading downtown, looking for a place to eat. At seven thirty-five on a Friday night there were still a lot of restaurants open, but Marie had told him she felt like pizza and so he chose a little place just south of the avenue, on Fourth. Red-checkered tablecloths, candles in Chianti bottles, people waiting in line for tables. Hawes rarely pulled rank, but now he casually mentioned to the hostess that he was a detective working out of the Eight-Seven and he hadn't had anything to eat since he came on at four o'clock.

  "This way, officer," the hostess said at once, and led them to a table near the window.

  As soon as the hostess was gone, Marie said, "Does that happen all the time?"

  "Does what happen?"

  "The royal treatment."

  "Sometimes," Hawes said. "You sure you only want pizza? There's plenty other stuff on the menu."

  "No, that's what I really feel like. Cheese and anchovies."

  "Would you like a drink?" he asked. "I'm on duty, but hellip;"

  "Do you really honor that?"

  "Oh, sure."

  "I'll just have beer with the pizza."

  Hawes signaled to the waiter, and then ordered a large pizza with cheese and anchovies.

  "Anything to drink?" the waiter asked.

  "A draft for the lady, a Coke for me."

  "Miller's or Michelob?"

  "Miller's," Marie said.

  The waiter went off again.

  "This is really very nice of you," Marie said, and reached across the table to touch his hand briefly. A whisper touch. There, and then gone.