Ed McBain: The House That Jack Built

“There was a meeting, I know that. She isn’t stupid.”

“Was she at the meeting?”

“There are fifty, sixty people in the group, no one keeps track of who’s there, or who leaves early, or…”

“Except you. Clocking her comings and goings, checking out her perfume and her cigarettes and her underwear…”

“Yes. That’s what I’ve been doing.”

“Has it occurred to you that she may be telling the truth?”

“One of the good guys, huh?”

“I’ve always thought so, Frank.”

“I know she was lying about the diaphragm.”

“You don’t know that for a fact. Maybe she did plan on…”

“Then why’d she say, ‘I don’t have anything on’? When she was already wearing the damn thing!”

“Maybe you misunderstood her. Maybe…”

“No.”

“Maybe she meant…”

“No.”

“Why don’t you ask her what she meant, Frank? Talk to her. For Christ sake, she’s your wife !”

“Is she?”

Their eyes met.

“How busy is Warren?” Frank asked.

“Very. Why?”

“I want to put him on her.”

“I don’t think you should do that, Frank.”

“I have to know. One way or the other, I have to know.”

Matthew sighed.

“Could… could you talk to him?” Frank said.

“If you really want me to.”

“Please.”

“I’ll have to tell him, you realize…”

“Yes, who she is. Yes. Of course.”

Matthew sighed again.

“I’ll put him to work,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“I hope you’re wrong about this.”

“I hope so, too,” Frank said.

First things first, Warren thought. If the lady’s running around, she’ll still be doing it tomorrow or a week from tomorrow. No hurry when it came to cheaters. Important thing now was to talk to the man in black.

Warren was sitting at a table nursing his fourth beer. He wondered if you could catch AIDS in a joint like this. The state of Florida ranked third in gay population after New York and California, but so far only seventy-five AIDS or AIDS-related cases had been reported in Calusa. On Warren’s block, that was seventy-five too many. Especially if you could get it from a beer mug.

The bartender had told him he would point out Ishtar Kabul the moment he walked in. Ishtar Kabul. The family name undoubtedly appropriated from the city in Afghanistan, the surname from the motion picture. Someone had told Warren that Ishtar in Arabic meant Howard the Duck .

Ever since he’d begun working this case — and except for last night when he’d shot the raccoon — Warren had been tracking down the witnesses the State Attorney intended to call. Twelve good men and true. Just like the jury who would hear them testify that Ralph Parrish and his brother had argued violently on the night before the murder.

He had located most of them at the addresses the State Attorney had supplied, and then had started looking for the rest of them in the city’s gay bars. There were only three such bars in all Calusa: Scandal’s, above the Greek restaurant in Michael’s Mews; Popularity, across from the airport on Route 41; and The Lobster Pot, here on the corner of Tenth and Citrus. The Lobster Pot was the oldest and sleaziest gay bar in town. The gay community called it The Shit Pot. It was Christopher Summers who’d told him that.

He had finally found Summers late this afternoon, in the public park across from Marina Lou’s, one of Calusa’s known homosexual cruising areas. Summers did not look at all like the drag queen Parrish had described. No mink stole or pearls or Japanese fan. Sitting on a bench in the rain, big blue-and-white WUSF public-radio umbrella over his head, wearing a tan tropical suit, looked like a respectable banker, which for all Warren knew he maybe was. Warren had taken a seat on the bench. In thirty seconds flat. Summers asked him if he wouldn’t care to run over to his place for a drink. Warren told him No, thanks, he was hoping instead to talk about the party at Jonathan Parrish’s house last Friday night.

Summers said, “Oh.”

So they’d talked.

Sat in the rain and talked. Both of them huddled like lovers under the big blue-and-white umbrella. Pitter-patter went the rain.

“Yes,” Summers said. “There was a man dressed in basic black at Jonathan’s party — black leather as I recall — a man named Ishtar Kabul.”

Warren asked if Kabul was himself of the black persuasion, a name like that.

Summers said, “Oh, no, he’s as white as you or I,” and then realized he was speaking only for himself, Kemosabe. But, yes, Kabul was in fact white, and in his twenties, and of course gay. Before the night of the party. Summers had run into him only once before, Kabul coming out of The Lobster Pot, Summers idly strolling past. “Are you sure,” he asked, “that you wouldn’t like to come up to my place for a drink? I can make a little fire, this dreadful rain. You certainly don’t intend to go to that place, do you?” Which was when he mentioned that the gays in Calusa called it The Shit Pot, because of its somewhat less than elegant appearance and reputation.

Somewhat less than elegant was definitely what you might call The Lobster Pot. Obligatory fishnets hanging on all the walls, dead red lobsters trying to claw their way free of them. Tables fashioned from hatch covers, the brass so tarnished you could almost taste it. Lighting out of Casablanca , dim and smoky. A long, scarred bar lined entirely with men. A jukebox blaring rock.

Ishtar Kabul came in at a quarter to eleven, his arrival noted by a discreet nod from the bartender.

Still wearing black, the guy had nerve, Warren had to say that for him. If indeed he was the cat who’d juked Jonathan Parrish and then run off into the rain, you’d think he’d have switched to shocking pink by now.

But no, black it was.

Furling a big black umbrella, shaking water all over the floor. Black hair and black jeans and a black V-necked sweater, sleeves shoved up to the elbows. Black boots. Black leather wrist band on his right wrist, black-strapped Seiko digital watch on his left. Big silver-and-turquoise necklace hanging on his chest. Little silver-and-turquoise earring in his left ear. Blue eyes to match. Flashing. Checking out the meat rack.

Warren raised his hand.

“Ishtar!” he called. “Here!”

Kabul turned, squinted into the near-darkness.

“Here!” Warren called again, and waggled the fingers on his right hand.

Kabul came over to the table.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“Now you do,” Warren said, and flashed a big watermelon-eating grin. “Sit down, Ish. We got some talking to do.”

“Nobody calls me Ish,” Kabul said, and started to walk away.

“What did Jonathan Parrish call you?” Warren said to his back.

Kabul stopped dead in his tracks. Black jeans tight across the buns he was advertising. Slowly he turned, like a man in a vaudeville routine.

“ Who?” he said.

“Jonathan Parrish,” Warren said. “Sit down.”

Kabul hesitated.

“Sit, darling, I won’t bite you,” Warren said, and flashed the Sambo grin again.

Kabul looked him over, blue eyes intense, wondering.

And finally sat.

He looped the handle of the black umbrella over the back of his chair.

He looked across the table at Warren.

“So?” he said.

“So where’ve you been all my life?” Warren said. “Or at least since last Saturday?”

“What are you?” Kabul asked. “Fuzz?”

“Semi,” Warren said.

“Meaning?”

“I’m a private investigator.”

“But you’re kidding! Are there really such things?”