Ed McBain: Downtown

“What ring?” he said.

“The ring that was right here on this finger before we started holding hands. A star sapphire ring that was a gift from my father. I want it back, mister. Right now.”

“But I don’t have it,” he said. He realized there was a foolish grin on his face. As if she were in the middle of a joke and he was smiling in anticipation of the punch line.

She looked at him. Eyes as blue and as hard as the star sapphire she claimed was missing from her hand. Eyes somewhat incredulous, too. She’d told him she was a lawyer, a criminal lawyer, no less; was he some kind of idiot to have stolen her ring? This was in her eyes.

“Listen,” she said, her voice rising, “just give me the goddamn ring, and we’ll forget...”

“I don’t have your...”

“What’s going on here?”

Michael turned on the stool.

Big, burly guy standing there at his right shoulder, between the two stools. Tweed overcoat. Shoulders looked damp. Crew-cut hair looked damp, too. As if he’d just come in from outside. Beard stubble on his face. Hard blue eyes. Tonight was a night for hard blue eyes. If you had brown eyes tonight, you were out of luck.

“Detective Daniel Cahill,” he said, and opened a small leather case and flashed a blue-enameled gold shield. He snapped the case shut. “This man bothering you?” he asked Helen.

“It’s all right, officer,” she said.

“I’d like to know what’s happening here,” Cahill said.

“I don’t want to make any trouble for him,” she said.

“Why? What’d he do?”

It occurred to Michael that they were both talking about him as if he were no longer there. Somehow this sounded ominous.

“If he’ll just give it back to me,” Helen said.

“Give what back, miss?”

“Look, officer,” Michael said.

“Shut up, please,” Cahill said. “Give what back?”

“The ring.”

“What ring?”

“Officer...”

“I asked you please to shut up,” Cahill said, and suddenly looked around, as if aware for the first time that there were other people in the bar. “Let’s step outside a minute, please,” he said. “You, too, miss.”

“Really, I don’t want to make any trouble for him,” Helen said.

“Please,” Cahill said, and gestured slightly with his chin and his raised eyebrows, which seemed to indicate he had some concern for the owner of the place and did not want to make trouble for him, either. Which Michael considered a good sign. Helen got off her stool and put on her overcoat and picked up her briefcase, and Michael followed her and Cahill to where he’d hung his coat on the rack to the left of the entrance door. He was digging for the coat under the pile of other coats on top of it, when Cahill said, “You won’t need it, this won’t take a minute.”

Together the three of them went outside, Helen first, then Michael, and then Cahill. It was still snowing. Bigger flakes now. Floating gently and lazily out of the sky. The temperature was in the low thirties, Michael guessed, perhaps the high twenties. He hoped this little conference out here in front of the bar really would be a short one.

“Okay, now what is it?” Cahill said.

Sounding very reasonable.

“He has my ring,” Helen said.

Also sounding very reasonable.

“Officer,” Michael said, “I never even saw this woman’s...”

“Over here,” Cahill said, and indicated the brick wall to the right of the bar’s plate-glass front window. “Hands flat against the wall, lean on ’em,” Cahill said.

“Hey, listen,” Michael said.

“No, you listen,” Cahill said. “The lady says you’ve got her ring... what kind of ring, lady?”

“A star sapphire.”

“So you just put your hands on the wall here and lean on them, and spread your legs, and if you ain’t got her ring, you got nothin’ to worry about.”

“You’ve got no right to...”

“Then you want to go down the precinct? Okay, fine, we’ll go down the precinct, we’ll talk there. Let’s go, my car’s up the street.”

“Why don’t you just give me the ring, mister?” Helen said. “Save yourself a lot of trouble.”

“I don’t have your goddamn...”

“Okay, fine, let’s go down the precinct,” Cahill said.

“All right, all right,” Michael said angrily, and leaned against the wall, his arms spread, his legs spread, his fingers spread, “let’s get this over with, okay? I don’t have the ring, you can search me from now to...”

“Fine, we’ll just see what you got,” Cahill said.

Michael’s immediate impulse was to attack; the army had taught him that. But the army had also taught him never to start up with an M.P. Indignantly, angrily, he endured the frisk. Cahill ran his hands up and down Michael’s legs, and then tossed up Michael’s jacket and reached into the right hip pocket of his trousers, and took out his wallet. Behind him, Michael could hear him rummaging through the wallet.

“This you?” Cahill asked. “Michael Barnes?”

“Yes.”

“This your driver’s license?”

“Yes.”

“You from Florida?”

“Yes.”

“These your credit cards?”

“Yes, everything in the wallet is mine.”

“Okay, fine,” Cahill said, and put the wallet back into Michael’s hip pocket and then began patting down the pockets of his jacket.

“If you don’t mind,” Michael said, “it’s goddamn cold out here. I wish you’d...”

“Well, well, well,” Cahill said, and his hands stopped. Michael felt a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Cahill was reaching into the right-hand pocket of Michael’s jacket. “What have we here?” he said.

Michael held his breath.

“Off the wall,” Cahill said, “off it! Turn around!”

Michael shoved himself off the wall. He turned. Cahill was holding a star sapphire ring between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

“This your ring, miss?” he asked Helen.

“Yes,” she said.

“Officer,” Michael said, “I don’t know how that got in my pocket, but...”

“Let’s go,” Cahill said, “we all three of us got some work to do down the precinct.”

“Could I have my ring, please?” Helen said.

“This is evidence, miss,” Cahill said.

“No, it isn’t evidence, it’s a gift from my father, and I’d like it back, please.”

“Miss, when we get down the precinct...”

“I’m not going down the precinct...”

“Miss...”

“ ... or up the precinct or around the...”

“Miss, this individual here stole your ring...”

“Yes, but now we’ve got it back, so let me have it.”

“Miss...”

“I told you I don’t want to make any trouble for him.”

“This individual is a thief, miss.”

“I don’t care what he is, just let me have the ring,” Helen said.

Cahill looked at her.

“I do not wish to press charges, okay?” she said. “Do you understand that?”

“That’s how criminals go free in this city,” Cahill said. “Because people are afraid to...”

“Just give me the goddamn ring !” Helen said.

“Here’s the goddamn ring,” Cahill said sourly, and handed it to her.

“Thank you.”

She put the ring on her finger.

“Good night,” she said, and walked off.

“You’re a very lucky thief,” Cahill said, and walked off in the opposite direction.

“I’m not a goddamn thief !” Michael shouted to the empty air.

The words plumed out of his mouth, carried away on the wind, the vapor dissipating into the lazy swirl of snowflakes. His dark brown hair was covered with snow, the shoulders of his brown jacket were covered with snow, he had not been in a snowstorm for a good long time now — since before his mother sold the hardware business in Boston and loaned Michael the money for the groves in Florida — but now he was up to his ass in snow. Well, not quite. Not yet. Only up to the insteps of his shoes so far. He realized all at once that he was shivering. He shoved open the door to the bar.