Ed McBain - The House That Jack Built

The rain beat steadily on the roof.

A faint trace of steam was already rising from the blue sock.

“Better be careful it doesn’t burn,” she said.

And smiled.

“Are you just visiting Calusa?” she asked. “Or do you live here?”

“I live here.”

Their eyes met again.

“Then maybe you can come help me fill in that hole,” she said. “Come summer.”

Silence.

Except for the rain.

A steamy, wet silence.

And the certain knowledge that he had been in this musty room before. The worn linoleum. The louvered windows. Even the calendar on the wall. The rain. Primarily the rain. Enclosing them. Containing them. Beating on the roof.

“Think you might like to do that?” she said.

“Your husband might want to take care of that,” he said.

“Not likely,” she said.

“No, huh?”

“Seeing as he’s been dead for four years.”

“I’m sorry,” Matthew said.

“Not me.”

Matthew smiled.

“How’s my sock doing?” he asked.

“You seem in a big hurry to see this Hurley,” Irene said.

“I don’t want to miss him.”

“Maybe you ought to consider what else you might be missing.”

She went to the heater, touched the sock. “Still damp,” she said.

“I’ll have to wear it anyway,” he said.

She shrugged, took the sock off the heater, and carried it to where he was sitting on the sofa.

“How long will you be with him?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll be having a drink along around four,” she said. “You’re welcome to join me. If you’re interested.”

“I’m interested,” he said. “But I have another appointment at five.”

“Oh,” she said.

She watched him as he put on the sock.

“You’ve got nice feet,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“I’ve got the ugliest feet in the world,” she said, and fell silent.

He put on his shoe.

“I don’t know your name,” she said.

“Matthew Hope.”

“How do you do. Matthew?”

She extended her hand.

He took it.

“Call me sometime,” she said.

“I will,” he said.

“Whenever,” she said. “I’ll be here.”

“I will,” he said again, and released her hand. He walked to the door, picked up his umbrella, searched for the release catch on it.

“Any other potholes out there?” he asked.

He was smiling.

“There’s one just outside unit number ten, about five yards from the front door. Just skirt wide of it.”

She was smiling, too.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t get lost now,” she said.

“I won’t,” he said.

He snapped open the umbrella and stepped out into the rain. She came to the screen door and stood watching him as he started across the courtyard.

He resisted the temptation to show off for her, dash across the courtyard like a Marine storming a machine-gun nest, stomp heedlessly into the mud, bullets flying everywhere around him. Instead, he proceeded slowly and cautiously, not wanting to step into another tureen of muddy water, wanting only to talk to Hurley now, find out what Hurley had to say.

He approached unit number eleven.

The venetian blinds on the unit’s windows were drawn.

He climbed the low wooden stoop, approached the door, and knocked on it.

“Who is it?” a woman’s voice asked.

In the Computer Room of the Public Safety Building some five miles south and four blocks west. Officer Charles Macklin yanked several sheets of paper from the dot matrix printer. He had not three minutes earlier typed Arthur Nelson Hurley’s name into the computer, and then the letters RS for “Record Search,” and the letters AC for “A Capo” (the technician who’d devised this particular program was Italian), which called for a search as far back as the records went rather than a limited search going back say five, six, seven years, which would have been called for by typing in a numeral when the prompt appeared on the screen. At the next prompt, Charlie had typed in the letters FL for “Florida” instead of US for “Nationwide” because Charlie knew a state-by-state search had to tap into FBI files and that would have taken hours.

Charlie — although he was not at the moment sitting the Parrish house — was nonetheless still moonlighting because here he was doing work for Warren Chambers while collecting a salary from the Calusa PD. Charlie could not figure out why he liked that nigger so much. He just knew that he wanted Chambers to bust whatever it was he was working on. In fact, he couldn’t wait to tell Chambers that he’d run a routine check on Hurley and had fallen into what looked at first glance to be a whole big potful of shit.

Without bothering to tear off the detachable margin strips on the printout, Charlie began reading it. Hurley’s record — a full page of printout — went back some twenty years, to when he was first arrested for assault. His most recent arrest had taken place eight years ago, in Tallahassee; he had been charged with aggravated battery and attempted murder because he’d attacked a man with a broken beer bottle and almost killed him.

Charlie let out a long, low whistle.

The girl who opened the door to unit number eleven at the Calais Beach Castle could not have been older than nineteen. She was wearing baggy white shorts and a white smocklike blouse that hung loose over the shorts. The yoke neck of the blouse was embroidered with a yellow-and-blue floral design that matched the color of her long straight hair and her wide-set eyes. Matthew guessed from the size of her belly that she was at least six months pregnant.

“Yes?” she said.

“I’m looking for Mr. Hurley,” Matthew said. “Arthur Nelson Hurley.”

“Art isn’t here just now,” she said.

“Is he expected?”

“Tell me your name again?”

“Matthew Hope.”

“Does Art know you?”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“You should’ve told me that before I opened the door. I wouldn’t have opened the door for a stranger.”

“If you’ll let me in out of the rain,” Matthew said, “perhaps we can…”

“Who is it, Hel?”

A young man’s voice, coming from somewhere inside.

“Somebody named Matthew Hope,” she called over her shoulder.

The young man suddenly appeared behind her. Twenty-two or — three years old, Matthew guessed, red hair and blue eyes, face covered with freckles. He was wearing faded blue jeans, a pale blue T-shirt, a silver-studded belt, and sandals.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I’m an attorney,” Matthew said. “I’d like to…”

“Did Grandma send you?” the girl asked suddenly, her eyes opening wide. “Why didn’t you say so? Come on in.”

“Thank you,” Matthew said.

He closed his umbrella, shook it out while he was still standing in the doorway, and then stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

He was thinking: Grandma.

There were two beds in the room, side by side. A couple of suitcases in the corner. A television set. An open door, bathroom beyond it. Nobody in the bathroom.

He wondered if he should tell them Grandma hadn’t sent him.

“Are you Arthur Hurley?” he asked the young man.

“Nope. I’m Billy Walker.”

“Is this your wife, Mr. Walker?”

“Nope.”

“I’m Helen Abbott,” the girl said. “I knew she’d come around eventually, Billy, didn’t I tell you?”

“That’s what you said, all right.”

“But why’d she send you looking for Art?” she asked Matthew. “Art only talked to her on the phone.”

“Well…” Matthew said.