Эд Макбейн - Running From Legs and Other Stories

“I don’t know. Anything.” The room grew silent. Patiently, Randolph waited.

“I’m... I’m sorry the place isn’t nicer,” the girl said.

“It’ll do.”

“I meant—” She shrugged.

“What?”

“I don’t know. A girl likes to think—” She stopped, shrugging again. “Would you like a beer or something? I think we have some cold in the Frigidaire.”

“No, thanks,” Randolph said. He grinned. “We’re not allowed to drink on duty.”

The girl missed his humour. She nodded and then sat opposite him at the table. Silence crowded the room again.

“Have you been a cop long?” the girl asked.

“Eight years.”

“It must be terrible. I mean, being a cop in this neighbourhood. ‘

For a moment, Randolph was surprised. He looked at the girl curiously and said, “What do you mean?”

“All the... all the dirt here,” she said.

“It...” He paused, studying her. “You get used to it.”

“I’ll never get used to it,” she said.

She seemed about to cry. For a panicky instant, he wanted to bolt from the room. He sat undecided at the table, and then he heard himself saying, “This isn’t so bad. This is a nice apartment.”

“You don’t really mean that,” she said.

“No,” he answered honestly. “I don’t.”

The girl seemed to want to tell him about the apartment. Words were perched on the edge of her tongue, torrents of words, it seemed, but when she spoke she only said, “I haven’t got my own room.”

“That’s all right,” he said. “We can use...” And then he stopped his tongue because he sensed the girl had meant something entirely different, and the sudden insight surprised him and frightened him a little.

“Where do you live?” she asked.

“In a hotel,” he said.

“That must be nice.”

He wanted to say, “No, it’s very lonely.” Instead, he said, “Yeah, it’s all right.”

“I’ve never been to a hotel. Do people wait on you?”

“This is an apartment hotel. It’s a little different.”

“Oh.”

She sat at the table, and he watched her, and suddenly she was trembling.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because of... of what I almost did. What I almost became.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m glad you arrested me,” she said. “I’m glad I got caught the first time, I don’t want to be—”

She began crying. Randolph watched her, and he felt inordinately big, sitting across from her, awkwardly immense,”

“Look,” he said, “what do you want to bawl for?”

“I... I can’t help it.”

“Well, cut it out!” he said harshly.

“I’m sorry.” She turned and took a dish towel from the sink, daubed at her eyes with it. “I’m sorry. Let’s... let’s do it.”

“Is this really your first time?” he asked suspiciously.

“Yes.”

“What made you... well... I don’t understand.”

“I got tired,” she said. “I got so damned tired. I don’t want to fight any more.”

“Fight what?”

“Fight getting dirty. I’m tired of fighting.” She sighed wearily and held out her hand. “Come,” she said.

She stood stock-still, her hand extended, her shoulders back.

“Come,” she repeated.

There was a strength in the rigidity of her body and the erectness of her head. In the narrow stillness of her thin body, there was a strength and he recognized the strength because he had once possessed it. He rose, puzzled, and he reached out for her hand, and he knew that if he took her hand, if he allowed this girl to lead him into the other room, he would destroy her as surely as he had once destroyed himself. He knew this, and somehow it was very important to him that she be saved, that somewhere in the prison of the precinct, somewhere in this giant, dim, dank prison there should be someone who was not a prisoner. And he knew with sudden painful clarity why there were potted plants on the barred fire escapes of the tenements.

He pulled back his hand.

“Keep it,” he said harshly, swiftly.

“What?”

“Keep it,” he said, and he knew she misunderstood what he was asking her to keep, but he did not explain. He turned and walked from the room, and down the steps past the stacked garbage cans in the hallway and then out into the street.

He walked briskly in the afternoon sunshine. He saw the pushers and the pimps and the prostitutes and the junkies and the fences and the drunks and the muggers.

And when he got back to the precinct, he nodded perfunctorily at the desk sergeant and then climbed the stairs to the Detective Division.

Gene Fields met him just inside the slatted rail divider. Their eyes met, locked.

“How’d you make out?” Fields asked.

Unwaveringly, unhesitatingly, Randolph replied, “Fine. The best I’ve ever had,” and Fields turned away when he added, “Any coffee brewing in the Clerical Office?”

The man on the other end of the wire was somewhat intoxicated. I kept telling him I was calling from Chicago and that I wanted to speak to my wife, Abby Eisler. I spelled her name three times for him.

“You should see the crowd here,” he said. “This’s a real nice crowd here.”

“Yes, I can hear it,” I said. “Would you please...?”

“This’s a real nice party,” he said. “Who’s this calling?”

“Sam Eisler,” I said. “I want to talk to my wife, Abby.”

“Sam, whyn’t you come on up here?” he said. “This’s a real nice party.”

“I’m supposed to come up there,” I said, “that’s just it. I’m in Chicago. My plane put down...” I hesitated and then looked at the telephone receiver as if it had somehow beguiled me into detailing my predicament to a drunk. “Look,” I said, “would you please yell out my wife’s name and tell her she’s wanted on the telephone?”

“Sure,” he said. “What’s your wife’s name?”

“Abby Eisler.”

“Who’s this calling?”

“Sam Eisler. Her husband.”

“Sure, Sam, wait just one minute.”

I waited. I heard the small plastic rattle of the receiver as he put it down, and then I heard him bellowing, “Annie Iceman! Telephone! Annie Iceman wanted on the telephone,” his voice receding as he went further and further away from the instrument, until finally it was drowned out by all the party noises. Wonderful, I thought. He’s wandered away and left the phone off the hook. Now I’ll never get through to her. I kept waiting.

“Hello?” a voice said at last. It was Abby.

“Is this Annie Iceman?” I said.

“Sam!” she said immediately. “Are you back?”

“Not quite.”

“What do you mean not quite? How can you be not quite back?”

“I can be in Chicago,” I said. “At O’Hare. The whole eastern seaboard’s socked in. They put us down here in Chicago.”

“How can they do that? You bought a ticket for New York, didn’t you?”

“Yes, of course I... Abby, are you drunk, too? Is everybody at that goddamn party drunk already?”

“Of course I’m certainly not drunk,” Abby said. “How long is it from Chicago?”

“How long is what, Abby?”

“The train ride, naturally.”

“I don’t know. Overnight, I would guess. Anyway, I’m not about to take a train.”

“Randy, would you please fill this for me, please?” Abby said.

“Who’s Randy?”

“He’s the head of creation someplace.”

“Only God is the head of creation,” I said.

“Well, somebody said Randy is, too. I was just now sitting out on the fire escape with him when you called.”