Ed McBain - The House That Jack Built

“Sorry.”

“Boy,” Toots said, and shook her head.

“How do you feel about that? People calling you Toots.”

“That’s my name. Toots.”

“It’s a good thing you’re not a feminist,” Warren said.

“Who says I’m not?”

“I mean… if Gloria Steinem happened to be around when somebody called you Toots…”

“Well, fuck Gloria Steinem, I don’t like her name, either. Tell me about the job, okay?”

“First tell me you’re clean,” Warren said.

“Why? Do I look like I’m not?”

“You look suntanned and healthy. But that doesn’t preclude coke.”

“I like that word. Preclude. Did you make it up?”

“How do you like the other word? Coke.”

“I used to like it just fine. I still think of it every now and then. But the thought passes. I’m clean, Mr. Chambers.”

“How long has it been?”

“Almost two years. Since right after Otto fired me.”

“And now you’re clean.”

“Now I’m clean.”

“Are you sure? Because if you’re still on cocaine, I wish you’d tell me.”

“I am not on cocaine. Or to put it yet another way, I do not do coke no more. I am clean. K-L-double E, clean. What do you need, Mr. Chambers? A sworn affidavit? You’ve got my word. I like to think it’s still worth something.”

“There was a time when it wasn’t.”

“That was then, this is now,” she said, and sighed heavily. “Mr. Chambers, are you here to offer me a job, or are we going to piss around all morning?”

“Call me Warren,” he said, and smiled.

“What’s the job, Warren?”

“Are you still licensed?”

“Class A. Paid the hundred-dollar renewal fee last June. What’s the job?”

“Matrimonial surveillance. Man wants to know if his wife’s playing around.”

“How come you’re not handling it yourself?”

“I got made,” Warren said.

“Oh my.”

“Yeah.”

“Shame on you,” she said. “Who’s the client?”

“Man named Frank Summerville. Partner in a law firm I do work for.”

“And the lady?”

“Leona Summerville.”

“When do I start?”

“Do you have a car?”

“A very good car.”

“What kind?”

“The nondescript kind.”

“Best kind there is.”

“Otto used to drive a faded blue Buick Century.”

“I drive a faded gray Ford.”

“Mine’s a faded green Chevy,” Toots said.

Warren took an envelope from his inside jacket pocket. He put it on the table, tapped it with his hand, and said, “The lady’s address and phone number. Case you need to use it for whatever nefarious purpose.”

Toots smiled as if she already had in mind a possible use for Leona Summerville’s phone number.

“Five pictures of her,” Warren said, “one in color, the rest black-and-white. A phone number where you can reach me, and a drop box you can use, all right here in the envelope.”

“The drop box is in the envelope?” Toots asked, deadpan.

“No, wise guy, the drop box is at Mail Boxes, Etc., on Lucy’s Circle. The key’s in the envelope. Aren’t you going to ask how much the job pays?”

“I’m assuming I’ll get what Otto paid me.”

“And what’s that?”

“Fifty an hour.”

“Nice try.”

“It’s what Otto paid me,” Toots said, and shrugged innocently.

“Bullshit,” Warren said.

Toots shrugged again.

“So how much are you paying?” she asked.

“One-sixty for an eight-hour day.”

“Nice try.”

“Hey, come on, that’s twenty dollars an hour.”

“I know how to divide, thanks. Thanks for the coffee, too,” Toots said, and stood up. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Sit down,” Warren said.

“Why? So you can buy a reformed user for coolie wages? No way, Mr. Chambers.”

“We’re back to Mr. Chambers, huh?”

“Only because you’re fucking me around.”

“Sit down, okay?”

She sat.

“How does twenty-five an hour sound?” he said.

“Forty sounds better,” she said.

“Toots,” he said, “we both know the going rate.”

“I guess we do.”

“The going rate is thirty-five an hour.”

“That’s right. So why’d you offer me twenty?”

“Because if you’re still doing coke, you’d have grabbed it.”

“Which means you didn’t believe me, right?”

“Not when you asked for fifty. Fifty sounded like somebody figuring how much dope that kind of money would buy.”

“No, fifty was to show you I wasn’t desperate for the job.”

“Are you desperate?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her.

“I am,” she said.

He kept looking at her.

“I need the job,” she said. “You want to give me twenty, that’s fine, I’ll take it. But that doesn’t mean I’m doing dope.”

“I’ll give you thirty-five,” he said. “Plus expenses. The going rate.”

“Thank you,” she said, and nodded.

“You want some more coffee?” he asked.

“No. I want to get to work,” she said, and picked up the envelope.

The security guard at the gate weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds. He was wearing a brown uniform, and there was a very large pistol in a holster at his waist.

“Yes?” he said to Matthew.

The unadorned word bordered on rudeness.

The man had jug ears, a little black mustache, black hair trimmed close to his head, and brown eyes spaced too closely together. Except for his size, he bore an unfortunate resemblance to Adolf Hitler. The few words he’d spoken had been delivered without a trace of a redneck accent. Matthew figured him for imported talent.

“I have an eleven o’clock appointment with Mrs. Brechtmann,” he said.

“Your name?”

“Matthew Hope.”

The guard pressed a button on the intercom.

“Mrs. Brechtmann?”

“Yes, Karl?”

“Man named Matthew Hope to see you. Says he has an eleven o’clock appointment.”

Says he has an appointment.

“Show him in.”

“Yes, m’am.”

He hit another button. The gate began sliding open.

“Follow the road straight back,” he said. “Park on the right.”

Morrie Bloom had once told Matthew that a cop was trained to think of all lawbreakers as bad guys. The good guys versus the bad guys. Ask any cop. The trouble with this sort of thinking, however, was that it left no room for differentiating between a man who’d illegally parked his car and a man committing a murder. This was what caused too many cops to behave like storm troopers when they approached a man who had exceeded the speed limit by two miles an hour. The man had broken the law. Hence the man was a bad guy. Hence he could expect the same treatment afforded a rapist. Argue with the cop, try to tell him he didn’t have to behave this way with an honest citizen, and he’d slap you in handcuffs for resisting arrest, and then toss you into the backseat of his car like a plastic bag of garbage.

It took one highway patrolman thirty seconds to destroy the television, motion picture, and book image of the law enforcer as a sympathetic hero.

Thirty seconds.

Morrie said cops should think about that every now and then.

It had taken Karl Hitler here thirty seconds to raise the hackles on Matthew’s neck, and he was only a security guard.

Matthew nodded icily, put the Ghia in gear, and drove through the open gate and up the road. In the rearview mirror, he could see Karl standing in the middle of the road, hands on his hips, staring at the car as it moved away from the gate.

The level road wound leisurely through stands of pine and palm.

Sunshine glanced off the polished tan hood of the car.