Tricks

by Ed McBain

  All of this bothered Brown.

  He also wondered why Brayne had killed his mentor and employer.

  "You think they're making it?" he asked Hawes.

  "Who?"

  "Brayne and the woman."

  "Marie?"

  The possibility had never occurred to Hawes. She had seemed so honestly grieved by her husband's disappearance and death. But now that Brown had mentioned it mdash;

  "I mean, what I'm looking for is some motive here," Brown said.

  "The guy could've just gone beserk, you know. Threw those tricks all over the driveway, ran off in the Citation hellip;"

  "Yeah, I'm curious about that, too," Brown said. "Let's try to dope out a timetable, okay? They come into the city together, Brayne in the van, Marie and her husband in the Citation hellip;"

  "Got to the school around a quarter past three."

  "Unloaded the car and the van hellip;"

  "Right."

  "And then Brayne went off God knows where, said he'd be back at five, five-thirty to pick up the big stuff."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Okay, they finish the act around five-fifteen. Sebastiani changes into his street clothes, goes out back to load the car while Marie's getting out of her costume. She comes out later, finds the stuff all over the driveway and the Citation gone."

  "Right."

  "So we got to figure Brayne dumped the van on Rachel Street sometime between three-thirty and five-fifteen, grabbed a taxi back to the school, and cold-cocked Sebastiani while he was loading the car."

  "That's what it looks like," Hawes said.

  "Then he chops up the body mdash;where'd he do that, Cotton? Blood stains in the Citation's trunk, you know, but nowhere else in the car."

  "Coulda done it anywhere in the city. Found himself a deserted street, an abandoned building hellip;"

  "Yeah, you could do that in this city. So he chops up the corpse, loads the pieces in the trunk, and starts dropping them all around town. When he gets rid of the last one, he leaves the car behind that A P and takes off."

  "Yeah."

  "So where's the motive?"

  "I don't know."

  "She's an attractive woman," Brown said.

  Hawes had noticed that.

  "If she was playing house with Brayne in that apartment over the garage hellip;"

  "Well, you've got no reason to believe that, Artie."

  "I'm snowballing it, Cotton. Let's say they had a thing going. Brayne and the woman."

  "Okay."

  "And let's say hubby tipped to it."

  "You're thinking movies or television."

  "I'm thinking real-life, too. Hubby tells Brayne to lay off, Brayne's still hungry for her. He chops up hubby, and him and the woman ride off into the sunset."

  "Except Brayne's the only one who rode off," Hawes said. "The woman's hellip;"

  "You think she's home yet?" Brown asked, and looked up at the clock.

  Ten minutes past eleven.

  "Half hour or so to Collinsworth," Hawes said. "She was catching the ten forty-five."

  "Whyn't we take a ride out there?" Brown said.

  "What for?"

  "Toss that apartment over the garage, see we can't find something."

  "Like what?"

  "Like maybe where Brayne's heading. Or better yet, something that links him to the woman."

  "We'll need a warrant to toss that garage."

  "We haven't even got jurisdiction across the river," Brown said. "Let's play it by ear, okay? If the lady's clean, she won't ask for a warrant."

  "You want to call her first?"

  "What for?" Brown said. "I love surprises."

  Kling waved so long to them as they headed out of the squad. He looked up at the clock. The graveyard shift should be here in half an hour or so mdash;O'Brien, Delgado, Fujiwara and Willis Fill them in on what had gone down on the four-to-midnight grab one of the sedans, and head for Calm's Point. Make himself invisible in the Zone, just another John looking for a little Friday-night sport. But keep an eye out for Eileen.

  He thought she was dead wrong about this one.

  His being there in the Zone could only help an undercover situation that had been hastily planned and recklessly undermanned.

  This time,he was the one who was dead wrong.

  They sat at the table talking in whispers, just another hooker and a potential trick. Negotiating the deal, Larry figured. Never seen the guy with the broken arm in here before, wondered who'd be on top in the sack, might get a little clumsy with that arm in a sling. Wondered about that and nothing else. The place was still busy, there was booze to be poured.

  "Howie Cantrell is his real name," Shanahan whispered. "Used to be with Vice in Philly, that's all straight goods. Went off his rocker six years ago, first started beating up hookers in the street, then began preaching salvation to them. The Philly P.D. didn't so much mind the beatings. Worse things than beatings go down in Vice. But they didn't like the idea of a plainclothes minister on the force. They sent him up for psychiatric, and the shrinks decided he was under considerable stress as a result of his proximity to the ladies of the night. Retired him with full pension, he drifted first to Boston, then here, started his missionary work all over again in the Zone. Everybody calls him the Preacher. He looks for the young ones, spouts Jesus to them, tries to talk them out of the life. Takes one of them to bed every now and then, for old times' sake. But he's harmless. Hasn't raised a hand to anybody since Philly let him go."

  "I thought he was our man," Eileen said.

  "We did, too, at first. Dragged him in right after the first murder, questioned him up and down, but he was clean as a whistle. Talked to him again after the second one, and again after the third. Alibis a mile long. We shoulda warned you about him. Be easy to make the mistake you made. How's it going otherwise?"

  "I almost lost my virginity, but Alvarez bailed me out."

  "Who'd he send?"

  "Guy named Ortiz. Narcotics."

  "Good man. Looks eighteen, don't he? He's almost thirty."

  "You coulda told me I'd have help."

  "We're just full of tricks," Shanahan said, and smiled.

  "You gonna plant yourself in here?" Eileen asked.

  "Nope. I'll be outside. Watching, waiting."

  "Who grizzled up your hair?" she asked.

  "The Chameleon," he said, and grinned.

  "I hope you cansee through that eye."

  "I can see just fine."

  "And I hope our man doesn't want to arm wrestle," she said, glancing at the cast.

  Across the room, Annie was coming back into the bar. She walked to where Larry was standing, put four dollars on the bar-top and said, "Your end, pal."

  "Why, thank you, honey," he said, "much obliged," and tucked the bills into his shirt pocket, figuring the four represented twenty percent of whatever she'd got for her last trick. Ido love an honest hooker, he thought, and immediately wondered if she'd short-changed him.

  Annie wandered over to where Eileen and Shanahan were sitting.

  "Your blond friend went home," she said. "Caught a bus on the corner."

  "That's okay," Eileen said, "I'm still waiting for Mr. Right."

  Annie nodded, and then walked over to a table on the other side of the room. She wasn't alone for more than a minute when a big black guy sat down next to her.

  "She needs help," Eileen whispered.

  "Bring her outside," Shanahan said, and then rose immediately and said in a voice loud enough for everyone in the bar to hear, "I'll see you around the corner, honey."

  Eileen went over to Annie and the black man.

  "I got a one-armed bandit waiting in a car around the corner," she said. "He's looking for a hands-on trio, me driving, him in the middle, both of us dancing his meat around the block. You interested in a dime for ten minutes' work?"

  "Dimes add up," Annie said, and immediately got to her feet.

  "Hurry on back, hear?" the black man said.

/>   "I did not appreciate all the shooting," Quentin Forbes said, looking petulant. He was still wearing the dress, pantyhose, and low-heeled walking shoes he'd worn while driving the station wagon, but the long blonde wig was hooked over the arm of a ladder-backed wooden chair. "There was no need for such violence, Alice. I warned you repeatedly hellip;"

  "It was only insurance," she said, and shrugged.

  "The costumes were all the insurance we hellip;"

  "The costumes were bullshit," Alice said.

  She was a beautiful little blonde woman in her late thirties, blue eyes and a Cupid's-bow mouth, perfect legs and breasts, four-feet two-inches tall and weighing a curvaceous seventy-one pounds. In the circus, she was billed as Tiny Alice. This went over big with homosexual men. She had changed out of the clown costume they'd worn on the last two holdups, and was now wearing a dark green dress and high-heeled pumps. To Forbes, she looked wildly sexual.

  "Did you want the cops to think threeseparate gangs of kids were holding up those stores?" she asked.

  "I wanted to confuse the cops, was all," Forbes said. "If you want to know whatI think, Alice, I think your shooting spree was what brought them down on us, is what I think."

  "We should have finished them off," she said. "If you hadn't started honking the horn hellip;"

  "I honked the horn to warn you. The moment I saw them coming from the back room hellip;"

  "We should have finished them off," she said again, and took a tube of lipstick from her handbag and went to the mirror on the wall.

  "The point of the costumes," Forbes insisted, "was to hellip;"

  "The point was you wanted to put on a dress," Alice said. "I think you enjoy being in drag."

  "I do indeed," Forbes said. "First time I've been in a woman's pants in more than a month."

  "Braggart," Corky said.

  She was slightly taller than Alice, a bad failing for a midget, but she was prettier in a delicate, small-boned, almost Oriental way. She, too, had changed into street clothes, a black skirt and a white silk blouse, a pink cardigan sweater, high-heeled patent leather pumps. She looked like a tiny, young Debbie Reynolds.

  The two men who'd been in on the holdups were sitting at the table, still wearing their clown suits, counting the money.

  "That's five thousand here," one of them said.

  High Munchkin voice, wearing glasses, brown eyes intent behind them. His name was Willie. In the circus, he was billed as Wee Willie Winkie. Next month, he'd be down in Venice, Florida, rehearsing for the season. Tonight he was helping to stack and count the money from four stickups mdash;well,three actually, since they hadn't got anything but cops on the last one. The stickups had been Forbes' idea, but Corky was the one who talked Willie into going along, said it'd be a good way to pick up some quick off-season change. Corky was his wife, and Alice was her best friend. This made Willie nervous. Alice was the only one who'd shot anyone tonight. The others had all fired their pistols all over the heads of the store owners, the way Forbes had told them to.

  "What we should do," Willie said to the other man at the table, "we should both of us count each stack."

  His hands were sweating. He was still very nervous about this whole thing. He was sure the police would come breaking in here any minute. All because of Alice. He had never heard of a midget doing time in prison. Or getting the electric chair. He did not want to be the first one in history.

  "Can I trust you little crooks to give me a true count?" Forbes asked.

  "You can help count it, you want to," the other man at the table said.

  He was older than the other midgets, shorter and more delicate than even the women. His name was Oliver. In the circus, he was billed as Oliver Twist. He never understood why. He had red hair and blue eyes, and he was single, which was just the way he wanted it. Oliver was a great ladies' man. Full-sized women loved to pick him up and carry him to bed. Full-sized women considered him too darling for words, and they were never threatened by his tiny erect pecker. Full-sized women were always amazed that they could swallow him to the hilt without gagging. In some ways, being a midget had its benefits.

  "Here's another five," Willie said, and slid the stack to Oliver, who began riffling the bills like a casino dealer.

  "My rough estimate," Forbes said, "is we took in something like forty thousand."

  "I think that's high," Alice said.

  Standing at the mirror, putting on her lipstick. Lips puckered to accept the bright red paint, pretty as a little doll. Forbes had tried making her last year when they were playing the Garden in New York. She'd turned him down cold, said he would break her in half, although he knew she was sleeping with half the Flying Dutchmen. Corky watched her intently, as if hoping to pick up some makeup tricks.

  "Twelve, thirteen thousand each store," Forbes said, "that's what I figure. Thirty-five, forty thousand dollars."

  "There wasn't any thirteen in that store with the lady owner," Oliver said.

  He was the one who'd cleaned out the register after Alice shot that lady in the third store. They weren't supposed to talk in the stores, but he'd yelled, "Hold itopen , Alice!," because Alice's hands were trembling, and the bag was shaking as if there was a snake in it trying to get out.

  "Mark my words, forty," Forbes said.

  "Here's another five," Willie said.

  "Fifteen already," Forbes said. "Mark my words."

  Turned out, when all was said and done, that there was only thirty-two thousand.

  "What'd I tell you?" Alice said.

  "Somebody must be skimming," Forbes said, and winked at her.

  "What does that come to?" Corky asked. "Five into thirty-two?"

  "Something like sixty grand apiece," Oliver said.

  "Youwish ," Alice said.

  "Six, I mean."

  Willie was already doing the long division on a scrap of paper.

  "Six-four," he said.

  "Which ain't bad for a night's work," Forbes said.

  "We should've finished those cops," Alice said idly, blotting her lipstick with a piece of Kleenex. Willie shivered. He looked at his wife. Corky was staring at Alice's mouth, a look of idolatrous adoration on her face. Willie shivered again.