Tricks

by Ed McBain

  "Twenty-twos maybe," he said, and shrugged.

  Mrs. Davis leaned over to look at the technician's palm.

  "So, okay, lady," Monroe said, "you got any further business here?"

  "Cool it," Carella said.

  Monroe looked at him.

  "I'll have one of our cars drop you home, Mrs. Davis," Carella said.

  "A taxi service, they run up here," Monroe said to the air.

  "Cool it," Carella said again, more softly this time, but somehow the words carried greater menace.

  Monroe looked at him again and then turned to Meyer.

  "Bag them bullets and get them over to Ballistics," he said. "Call Robbery and tell them we got another one."

  "Sounds like good advice," Meyer said.

  Monroe missed the sarcasm. He glared again at Carella, and then walked to where his car was parked at the curb.

  Wait'll I tell my daughter! Mrs. Davis thought. A ride in a police car!

  The patrolmen riding Charlie Four were approaching the corner of Rachel and Jakes, just cruising by, making another routine run of the sector when the man riding shotgun spotted it.

  "Slow down, Freddie," he said.

  "What do you see, Joe?"

  "The van there. Near the corner."

  "What about it?"

  Joe Guardi opened his notebook. "Didn't we get a BOLO on a Ford Econoline?" He snapped on the roof light, scanned the notebook. "Yeah, here it is," he said. In his own handwriting, he saw the words "BOLO tan 79 Ford Econoline, RL 68-7210. Blue '84 Citation, DL 74-3681." The word BOLO stood for Be On the Lookout.

  "Yeah," he said again. "Let's check it out."

  The two men got out of the car. They flashed their torches over the van. License plate from the next state, RL 68-7210.

  They tried the door closest to the curb.

  Unlocked.

  Freddie slid it all the way open.

  Joe came around to the passenger side of the van. He slid the door open there, leaned in, and thumbed open the glove compartment.

  "Anything?" Freddie asked.

  "Looks like a registration here."

  He took the registration out of a clear-plastic packet containing an owner's manual and a duplicate insurance slip.

  The van was registered to a Frank Sebastiani whose address was 604 Eden Lane in Collinsworth, over the river.

  The movie had let out at seven o'clock, and they had stopped for a drink on the Stem later. They had begun arguing in the bar, in soft, strained voices, almost whispers, but everyone around them knew they were having a fight because of the way they leaned so tensely over the small table between them. At first, the fight was only about the movie they'd seen. She insisted it had been based on a novel calledStreets of Gold , by somebody or other, and he insisted the movie'd had nothing whatever to do with that particular novel, the movie was an original. "Then how come they're allowed to use the same title?" she asked, and he said, "They can do that 'cause you can't copyright a title. They can make the shittiest movie in the world if they want to, and they can call itFrom Here to Eternity orThe Good Earth or evenStreets of Gold , like they did tonight, and nobody in the world can do a damn thing about it." She glared at him for a moment, and then said, "What the hell do you know about copyright?" and he said, "A hell of a lot more than you know aboutanything ," and by now they were really screaming at each other in whispers, and leaning tensely over the table, eyes blazing, mouths drawn.

  They were still arguing on the way home.

  But by now the argument had graduated to something more vital than an unimportant little novel calledStreets of Gold or a shitty little movie that hadn't been based upon it.

  They were arguing about sex, which is what they almost always argued about. In fact, maybe that's what they'd really been arguing about back there in the bar.

  It was almost eight-thirty but the streets were already beginning to fill with teenagers on the prowl. Not all of them were looking for trouble. Many of them were merely seeking to let off adolescent energy. The ones out for fun and games were wearing costumes that weren't quite as elaborate as those the toddlers and later the teenyboppers had worn. Some of the teenage girls, using the excuse of Halloween to dress as daringly as they wished, walked the streets looking like hookers or Mata Haris or go-go dancers or sexy witches in black with slits up their skirts to their thighs. Some of the teenage boys were dressed like combat marines or space invaders or soldiers of fortune, most of them wearing bandoliers and carrying huge plastic machine guns or huge plastic death-ray guns. But these weren't the ones looking for trouble. The ones looking for trouble weren't dressed up for Halloween. They wore only their usual clothing, with perhaps a little blackening on their faces, the better to melt into the night. These were the ones looking to smash and to burn. These were the ones who had caused Lieutenant Byrnes to double-team his detectives tonight. Well,almost double-team them. Seven men on instead of the usual four.

  The arguing couple came up the street toward the building where they lived, passing a group of teenage girls dressed like John Held flappers, sequined dresses with wide sashes, long cigarette holders, beaded bands around their foreheads, giggling and acting stoned, which perhaps they were. The couple paid no attention to them. They were too busy arguing.

  "What it is," he said, "is there's never any spontaneity to it."

  "Spontaneity, sure," she said. "What you mean by spontaneity is jumping on me when I come out of the shower hellip;"

  "There's nothing wrong with hellip;"

  "When I'm all clean."

  "When do youwant to make love?" he asked. "When you're all dirty?"

  "I sure as hell don't want to get allsweaty again after I've just taken a shower."

  "Then how aboutbefore you take your shower?"

  "I don't like to make love when I feel all sweaty."

  "So you don't like to do it when you're sweaty and you don't like to do it when you'renot sweaty. Whendo you hellip;?"

  "You're twisting what I'm saying."

  "No, I'm not. The point I'm trying to make hellip;"

  "The point is you're a sex maniac. I'm trying to cook, you come up behind me and shove that humongous thing at me hellip;"

  "I don't see anything wrong with spontaneous hellip;"

  "Not while I'm cooking!"

  "Then how about when you'renot cooking? How about when I get home, and we're having a martini, how about hellip;?"

  "You know I like to relax before dinner."

  "Well, what the hell is making love?I find making love relaxing, I have to tell you. Ifyou think making love is some kind of goddamn strenuousobstacle course hellip;"

  "I can't enjoy my cocktail if you're pawing me while I'm trying to re hellip;"

  "I don't considerfondling youpawing you."

  "You don't know how to be gentle. All you want to do is jump on me like a goddamnrapist !"

  "I do not consider passion rape!"

  "That's because you don't know the difference between making love and hellip;"

  "Okay, what's this all about? Tell me what it's all about, okay? Do you want to quit making loveentirely? You don't want to do itbefore your shower, you don't want to do itafter your shower, you don't want to do it while we'redrinking or while you'recooking or while we're watching television, or when we wake up in the morning, when the helldo you want to do it, Elise?"

  "When I feel like doing it. And stop shouting!"

  "I'm notshouting , Elise! When do you want to do it? Do youever want to do it, Elise?"

  "Yes!" she shouted.

  "When?"

  "Right now, Roger, okay? Right here, okay? Let's do it right here on the sidewalk, okay?"

  "Fine by me!"

  "You'd do it, too, wouldn't you?"

  "Yes! Right here!Anywhere !"

  "Well, I wouldn't! You'd have done it at the goddamnmovies if I'd let you."

  "I'd have done it in the bar, too, if you hadn't startedarguing about that dumb movie!"

  "You'd do
it in church!" she said. "You're a maniac, is what you are.

  "That's right, I'm a maniac! You're driving me crazy is why I'm a maniac!"

  They were entering their building now. He lowered his voice.

  "Let's do it in the elevator, okay?" he said. "You want to do it in the elevator?"

  "No, Roger, I don't want to do it in the goddamn elevator."

  "Then let's take the elevator up to the roof, we'll do it on the roof."

  "I don't want to do it on the goddamn roof, either."

  He stabbed angrily at the elevator button.

  "Wheredo you want to do it, Elise?When do you want to do it, Elise?"

  "Later."

  "When later?"

  "When Johnny Carson goes off."

  "Ifwe were on television," he said, "and Johnny Carson was watchingus ," he said, "and he had a big hard-on hellip;"

  "We happen tolive here, Roger."

  " hellip; do you think Johnny Carson would wait tillwe were off to do it? Or would Johnny Carson hellip; ?"

  "I don't care what Johnny Carson would do or wouldn't do. I don't evenlike Johnny Carson."

  "Then why do you want to wait till he's off?"

  The elevator doors opened.

  At first they thought it was a stuffed dummy. The lower half of a scarecrow or something. Blue pants, blue socks, black shoes, black belt through the trouser loops. A Halloween prank. Some kids had tossed half a stuffed dummy into the elevator.

  And then they realized that a jagged, bloody edge of torn flesh showed just above the dummy's waist, and they realized that they were looking at the lower torso of a human being and Elise screamed and they both ran out of the lobby and out of the building and up to the pay phone on the corner, where Roger breathlessly dialed 911.

  The cruising cops in Boy Two responded within three minutes.

  One of the cops got on the walkie-talkie to the Eight-Seven.

  The other cop, although he should have known better, went through the stiff's trousers and found a wallet in the right hip pocket.

  Inside the wallet, which he also shouldn't have touched, he found a driver's license with a name and an address on it.

  "Well, here's who he is, anyway," he said to his partner.

  CHAPTER 5

  "What this is," Parker said, "you had an obscene phone call, is what this is."

  "That's what I figured it was," Peaches said.

  She still looked pretty good. Maybe like a woman in her early fifties. Good legs mdash;well, the legs never changed mdash;breasts still firm, hair as red as he remembered it, maybe with a little help from Clairol. Wearing a simple skirt and blouse, high-heeled shoes. Legs tucked up under her on the couch. He was glad he'd shaved.

  "They're not all of them what you think they're gonna be," Parker said. "I mean, they don't get on the phone and start talking dirty right away mdash;well, some of them do mdash;but a lot of them have a whole bagful of tricks, you don't realize what's happening till they already got you doing things."

  "That'sjust what happened," Peaches said. "I didn't realize what was going on. I mean, he gave me hisname and hellip;"

  "Phil Hendricks, right?" Parker said. "Camera Works."

  "Right. And his address and his phone number hellip;"

  "Did you try calling that number he gave you?"

  "Ofcourse not!"

  "Well, I'll give it a try if you like, but I'm sure all that was phony. I had a case once, this guy would call numbers at random, hoping to get a baby-sitter. He'd finally get a sitter on the phone, tell her he was doing research on child abuse, smooth-talked these fifteen-, sixteen-year-old girls into slapping around the babies they were sitting."

  "What do you mean?"

  "He'd tell them how important it was in their line of work to guard against their own tendencies, everybody has such tendencies mdash;this is him talking mdash;and child abuse is an insidious thing. And he'd have them interested and listening, and he'd say, 'I know you yourself must have been tempted on many an occasion to slap the little kid you're sitting, especially when he's acting up,' and the fifteen-year-old sitter goes, 'Oh, boy, you said it,' and he goes, 'For example, haven't you been tempted at least once tonight to smack him around?' and she goes, 'Well hellip;' and he goes, 'Come on, tell me the truth, I'm a trained child psychologist,' and before you know it, he's got her convinced that the best way tocurb these tendencies is torelease them, you know, in a therapeutic manner, slap the kid gently, why don't you go get the kid now? And she runs to get the kid and he tells her to give the kid a gentle slap, and before you know it he's got her beating the daylights out of the kid while he's listening and getting his kicks. That was this one case I had, I may write a book about it one day."

  "That's fascinating," Peaches said.

  "Another case I had, this guy would look in the paper for ads where people were selling furniture. He was looking for somebody selling a kid's bedroom set, you know? Getting rid of the kiddy furniture, replacing it with more mature stuff. He knew he'd get either a youngish mother or a teenage girl on the phone mdash;usually the girls who want their furniture changed when they get into their teens. And he'd start talking to them about the furniture, either the mother if she was home, or the teenage girl if the mother was out, and while he was talking to them, because it would be a long conversation, you know, what kind of bed is it, and how's the mattress, and how many drawers in the dresser, like that, while he was on the phone he'd be hellip; well hellip;"

  "He'd be masturbating," Peaches said.

  "Well, yes."

  "Do you think the man who called me tonight was masturbating while he talked to me?"

  "That's difficult to say. From what you told me, he eitherwas already, or was leading up to it. He was trying to get you to talk about your body, you see. Which is still very nice, by the way."

  "Well, thank you," Peaches said, and smiled.

  "Sounds to me like that's what would've set him off. Getting you to strip in front of the mirror there. You'd be surprised how many women go along with something like that. He hooks them into thinking they've got a shot at modeling mdash;there isn't a woman alive who wouldn't like to be a model mdash;and then he gets them looking at themselves while he does his number."

  "That's when I began to realize," Peaches said.

  "Sure."

  "When he told me to take off my blouse."

  "Sure. But lots of women don't realize even then. You'd be surprised. They just go along with it, thinking it's legit, never guessing what's happening on the other end."

  "I'm afraid he might come here," Peaches said.

  "Well, these guys don't usually do that," Parker said. "They're not your rapists or your stranglers, usually. Don't quote me on that, you got allkinds of nuts out there. But usually your telephone callers aren't your violent ones."