Tricks

by Ed McBain

  "Think they're Brayne's?" Hawes asked drily.

  "What size you think the lady wears?" Brown asked.

  "Could be a five," Hawes said, and shrugged.

  "I thought you were an expert."

  "Onbras I'm an expert."

  Men's socks, undershorts, sweaters, handkerchiefs in the other dresser drawers. Two sports jackets, several pairs of slacks, a suit, an overcoat, and three pairs of shoes in the single small closet. There was also a suitcase in the closet. Nothing in it. No indication anywhere in the apartment that Brayne had packed and taken off in a hurry. Even his razor and shaving cream were still on the sink in the tiny bathroom.

  A tube of lipstick was in the cabinet over the sink.

  Brown took off the top.

  "Look like the lady's shade?" he asked Hawes. "Pretty careless if it's her, leavin' her o.c.p.'s in the dresser and her hellip;"

  "Herwhat ?"

  "Her open-crotch panties."

  "Oh."

  "You think she was dumb enough to be makin' it with him right here in this room?"

  "Let's see what else we find," Hawes said.

  What else they found was a sheaf of letters rubber-banded together. They found the letters in a cardboard shoe box on the top shelf of the closet. The letters were inside lavender-colored envelopes, but none of the envelopes had been stamped or mailed. The name "Jimmy" was scrawled on the front of each envelope.

  "Hand-delivered," Hawes said.

  "Mmm," Brown said, and they began reading the letters. The letters were written in purple ink. The first letter read:

  Jimmy,

  Just say when.

  Marie

  >

  It was dated July 18.

  "When did he start working for them?" Brown asked.

  "Fourth of July."

  "Fast worker, this lady," Brown said.

  The second letter was dated July 21. It described in excruciatingly passionate detail all the things Marie and Jimmy had done together the day before.

  "This is dirty," Brown said, looking up.

  "Yes," Hawes said. He was reading over Brown's shoulder.

  There were twenty-seven letters in all. The letters chronicled a rather active sex life between the lady and the sorcerer's apprentice, Marie apparently having been compulsive about jotting down everything she had done to Jimmy in the recent past, and then outlining everything she hadn't yet done to him but which she planned to do to him in the foreseeable future, which mdash;if the chronology was faithful mdash;she did indeed get around to doing to him.

  She did a lot of things to him.

  The last letter was dated October 27, four days before the murder and dismemberment of the lady's husband. She suggested in this last letter that one of the things she wanted to do to Jimmy on Halloween night was tie him to the bed in his black silk undershorts and spread herself open over him in her black crotchless panties and then mdash;

  "You see any black silk undershorts in the dresser there?" Brown asked.

  "No," Hawes said. "I'm reading."

  "A celebration, do you think?" Brown asked. "All this stuff she planned to do to him on Halloween?"

  "Maybe."

  "Do hubby in, chop him up in little pieces, then come back here and have a witch's sabbath."

  "Where does she call it that?"

  "Call it what?"

  "Witch's sabbath."

  "I'mcalling it that," Brown said. "Black silk undershorts, black o.c.p's hellip;"

  "So where's Brayne?" Hawes asked. "If they were planning a celebration hellip;"

  "Did you look under the bed?" Brown asked, and then turned suddenly toward the window.

  Hawes turned at exactly the same moment.

  An automobile had just pulled into the driveway.

  At ten minutes to one mdash;ten minutes after Bobby had suggested that they go outside mdash;Eileen excused herself and went to the ladies' room. Annie, sitting at a table with an Italian sailor who was having difficulty making his needs understood, watched her as she crossed the room and made a left turn at the phone booths.

  "Excuse me," Annie said.

  By the time she got to the ladies' room, Eileen was already in one of the stalls. Annie did a quick check for feet. The other stalls were empty.

  "Yes or no?" she asked.

  "Yes," Eileen said.

  Her voice from behind the closed door sounded odd.

  "Are you sure?"

  "I think so."

  "You okay?"

  "Fine. Checking out the hardware."

  The door opened. Eileen looked pale. She went to the sink, touched up her lipstick, blotted it.

  "You going out now?" Annie asked.

  "Yes."

  The same odd voice.

  "Give me three minutes to get on the street," Annie said.

  "Okay."

  Annie went to the door.

  "I'll be there," she said simply.

  "Good," Eileen said.

  Annie took one last look at her, and then went out.

  "What I'm talking about is decency and honor," Peaches said.

  It was very cold and they were walking along the street rapidly.

  "I'm talking about a person's responsibility to another person," Peaches said, clinging to Parker's arm for warmth and nothing else.

  Parker was beginning to feel married.

  "You went to that party withme ," Peaches said, "and not with Little Miss Muffet."

  "If a person can't have a simple conversation with another person hellip;"

  "That wasn't a conversation," Peaches said. "That was a person-and-a-half exchanging deep sighs and meaningful glances."

  "I don't think it's nice of you to make midget jokes," Parker said.

  "Oh, was she a midget?" Peaches said. "I thought maybe she'd shrunk in the wash."

  "That's just what I mean," Parker said.

  "I thought maybe she was E.T. in drag."

  "I'm sorry if you're upset," he said.

  "I am upset."

  "And I'm sorry."

  Hewas sorry. He was thinking it was getting to be a very cold night after a lovely day in the tropics, and he would much prefer spending the winter in Peaches' probably warm and generous bed here in town instead of in his own narrow, mean bed in his grubby little apartment away the hell out in Majesta. He was also thinking tomorrow was time enough to give Alice a call.

  "What bothers me is I thought we were having such a good time together," Peaches said.

  "We were. We still are. The night is young," he said.

  "I thought you sort of liked me."

  "I do like you. I like you a lot."

  "I like you, too," Peaches said.

  "So where's the problem? There's no problem. I don't see any problem. What we'll do," Parker said, "is we'll go back to your place, and we'll have a drink, and maybe watch some television hellip;"

  "That sounds nice," she said, and hugged his arm.

  "It does, doesn't it?" he said. "It does sound nice."

  "And we'll forget all about Eeansie-Beansie Spider."

  "Who?" Parker said.

  "Your little friend," Peaches said.

  "I already forgot about her," Parker said.

  They were just passing one of those subway-kiosk newsstands on the corner. The blind owner was kneeling over a stack of newspapers on the pavement, cutting the cord around them. Parker came up beside him. The blind man knew he was there, but he took his good sweet time cutting the cord. Parker waited; he prided himself on never having hassled a blind man in his life. The blind man finally hefted the papers up onto the newsstand and then walked around to the little door on the side of the stand and went in behind the counter.

  "So?" he said.

  Parker was looking down at the headline.

  "You want a paper?" the blind man said.

  The headline read:

  2 COPS SHOT

  4 MIDGETS SOUGHT

  The car in the driveway of the Sebastian! house was a 1979 Cadill
ac Seville, silver-sided with a black hardtop, still in seemingly excellent condition. The woman who got out of the Caddy was in excellent condition herself, tall and leggy and wearing a black cloth coat the color of her hair. Hawes and Brown watched her from the upstairs window of the garage as she went directly to the front door of the house and rang the bell.

  Hawes looked at his watch.

  A few minutes before one in the morning.

  "Who the hell is that?" he said.

  They came out of Larry's Bar at exactly 1:00 a.m., twenty minutes after Bobby had first suggested they leave. A strong wind was blowing off the canal. He had insisted that she continue wearing his jacket, and she still had it draped over her shoulders. She hoped it wouldn't get in the way when she yanked the gun. Her hand hovered over the open top of her bag, seemingly resting there close to the shoulder strap. But close to the butt of the gun, too.

  Bobby had his right hand in his pants pocket.

  On the knife, she thought.

  He had slashed his first victim in a doorway two blocks from the bar.

  The second one in an alleyway on East Ninth.

  The third on Canalside itself, heavily trafficked with hookers.

  "Pretty cold out here," he said. "Not exactly what I had in mind."

  Annie was the first of the three detectives to spot them coming out of the bar.

  She had hit the street the moment she'd left Eileen in the ladies room, and had taken up position in the darkened doorway or a closed Chinese noodle factory. It was very cold out here on the street, and she wasn't dressed for it. Skirt too damn short, blouse too flimsy. Eileen came out of the bar like a flare, red hair blowing on the wind, the guy's jacket draped over her shoulders, made an immediate left turn, walking on the guy's right, her own right hand on the curb side and resting on her bag. The guy's right hand was in his pants pocket.

  Two of the lamp posts on Fairview had been vandalized, and there were wide stretches of darkness between the light on the corner and the third one up. On the distant corner, a traffic light turned to red as flaming as Eileen's hair. The red hair was a plus. Easy to keep her in view. Annie gave them a twenty-yard lead, and then fell into step behind them, keeping close to the buildings on her left, the guy's blind side because he was turned to the right as he walked and talked. She cursed the hooker heels she was wearing because they made such a clatter on the sidewalk, but the guy seemed unaware of her presence behind them, just kept chatting up Eileen as they dissolved into the darkness between the lighted lamp posts.

  Eileen's red hair was the beacon.

  Kling, scanning the street from a vantage point diagonally across from the bar, was the second detective to spot them.

  The street was dark where he waited in the shadow of an abandoned tool works, the lamp post globe shattered, but the woman was unmistakably Eileen. Never mind the red hair, he'd have known her if she was wearing a blonde wig. Knew every nuance of her walk, the long stride, the swing of her shoulders, the rhythmic jiggle of her buttocks. He was about to move out, cross the street and fall in behind them, when he saw Annie.

  Good, he thought, she's in place.

  He stayed on the opposite side of the street, ten feet behind Annie who was working hard to keep up without showing herself. Eileen and the guy were walking very fast, up toward the traffic light on the corner, which changed now, throwing a green wash onto the roadway. The formation could have been a classic tailing triangle mdash;one cop behind the quarry, another cop ahead of them on the same side of the street, a third cop on the opposite side of the street mdash;except that it was lacking the third cop.

  Or so Kling thought.

  Shanahan was the third cop.

  He had been tailing Kling from the moment he'd spotted him peering through the plate-glass window of the bar. Pacing the street impatiently, always circling back to the bar, checking out the front door from across the street, then drifting off again, and back again, behaving very much like a person waiting for somebody to come out of there. When Eileen finally came out of the bar with asecond blond guy, Shanahan's blond took off after them. Annie was up ahead, she had Eileen andher blond covered and in sight. But this other blond guy was still showing too much interest. Shanahan gave him a lead, and then fell in behind him again.

  Up ahead, Eileen and her blond turned left at the traffic light, and disappeared around the corner.

  Shanahan's blond hesitated only a moment.

  Seemed undecided whether to make his move or not.

  Then he pulled a gun and started across the street.

  Annie recognized Kling at once.

  He had a gun in his hand.

  She didn't know whether she was more surprised by his presence here or by the gun in his hand. Too many thoughts clicked through her mind in the next three seconds. She thought He's going to blow it, the guy hasn't made his move yet. She thought Does Eileen know he's here? She thought mdash;

  But Eileen and her man were already around the corner and out of sight.

  "Bert!" she shouted.

  And in that instant Shanahan came thundering up yelling, "Stop! Police!"

  Kling turned to see a man pointing an arm in a plaster cast at him.

  He turned the other way and saw Annie running across the street.

  "Mike!" Annie shouted.

  Shanahan stopped dead in his tracks. Annie was waving her arms at him like a traffic cop.

  "He's on the job!" she shouted.

  Shanahan had earlier told Eileen that he and Lou Alvarez were just full of tricks. He hadn't realized, however, that Alvarez had sent another man to the Zone without telling him about it. That tricky, he didn't think Alvarez was. Shanahan's own little trick was a .32 revolver in his right hand, his finger inside the trigger guard, the gun and the hand encased in the plaster cast. He felt like an asshole now, the plaster cast still pointed at a guy Annie had just identified as a cop.

  The realization came to all three of them in the same instant.

  The traffic light on the corner turned red again as though signaling the coming of their mutual dawn.

  Without a word, they looked up the street.

  It was empty.

  Eileen and her man were gone.

  A minute ago, she'd had three backups.

  Now she didn't have any.