Ed McBain - Downtown

He left the tray at the cash register, walked over to Isadore Onions’s table, pulled out a chair, sat, and said, “Mr. Onions?”

“Mr. Omstein,” the man said. “No relation.”

“To who, honey?” the blonde asked.

“Nick Omstein, the gangster who was Fanny Brice’s husband.”

“That was Nick Arn stein,” the blonde said.

“Exactly,” Omstein said. “So who are you?” he asked Michael.

“Mr. Omstein,” Michael said, “there’s a contract out on you.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Omstein said, “but what else is new?”

“What else is new is that I’m the one who’s supposed to shoot you,” Michael said.

“Don’t make me laugh,” Omstein said.

“But you won’t have to worry about that if you give me seven dollars and forty cents to pay for my food over there.”

“Who is this person?” Omstein asked the blonde.

“Michael Barnes, sir.”

“You look familiar,” the blonde said.

“You’ve probably seen me on television,” Michael said. “I’m already wanted for a murder I committed earlier tonight. So another one won’t matter at all to me. I work cheap, Mr. Omstein. All I want is seven dollars and forty cents to forget the whole matter.”

“Get lost,” Omstein said.

“Mr. Omstein, I’m a desperate man.”

“Who isn’t?”

“I’m starving to death...”

“So starve.”

“If I don’t get something to eat soon, I’ll fall down on the floor here.”

“So fall.”

“I think it was nice of him to tell you,” the blonde said, and shrugged.

“Sure, very nice,” Omstein said. “He comes in, he sits down, he tells me he’s supposed to shoot me, this is a nice thing to say to a person? And then ask him for a loan besides? This is nice by you?”

“He only asked for seven dollars,” the blonde said.

“And forty cents, don’t forget,” Omstein said. “On my block, seven dollars and forty cents don’t grow on trees.”

“Come on, Izzie, it’s Christmas.”

“Too bad I’m Jewish.”

“If this man falls down on the floor...”

“Let him, who cares?”

“If there’s a commotion, there’ll be cops in here.”

“I hope not,” Michael said.

“Me, too,” Omstein said. “Here,” he said, immediately taking out his wallet and reaching into it and handing Michael a ten-dollar bill. “Get lost.”

“Thank you, Mr. Omstein,” Michael said, “thank you very much, sir,” and got up at once and went to the counter to pay for his order and to pick up his tray. He looked around the room. The only vacant chair was at Omstein’s table. He went to it, said, “Hello, again,” sat, and began eating.

“I thought I told you to get lost,” Omstein said.

“No, it’s better he came back,” the blonde said.

“Why?”

“Because now he can tell us who put out the contract on you.”

“Yeah, who?” Omstein asked Michael.

Michael was busy eating.

“I never seen such a fresser in my life,” Omstein said.

“He’s cute when he eats,” the blonde said, and smiled at him.

Michael had the distinct impression that she had just put her hand on his knee.

“Who sent you to kill me?” Omstein asked.

In the army, they had told Michael that if he was ever captured by the enemy, he should tell them nothing but his name, rank, and serial number. He was not to tell them where the Fifth Division was, or the Twelfth, or the Ninth, he was not even to tell them where the nearest latrine was.

“Frankie Zeppelin,” he said.

“Of course,” Omstein said, and nodded to the blonde.

“Of course,” she said, and her hand moved up onto Michael’s thigh.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Irene,” she said, and smiled.

“You know why he wants me killed?” Omstein asked Michael.

“No, why?”

“Because of her,” Omstein said.

“Really?” Michael said.

“He’s insanely jealous,” Omstein said. “So am I.”

“I think I’d better go,” Michael said. “If you’ll let me have your name and address, I’ll...”

“Finish your meal,” Irene said, and smiled again.

Her hand was still on his thigh.

“What I was going to say...”

“Yes?” Irene said.

“... was I’ll send Mr. Omstein a check. When I get home.”

“Frankie Zeppelin will kill anyone so much as looks at this girl,” Omstein said.

“That’s true,” Irene said, and smiled again at Michael.

Michael was very careful not to look at her.

“So you can imagine how he feels about us sleeping together,” Omstein said.

“I can imagine,” Michael said.

“But who can blame him?”

“Not me,” Irene said.

“Not me, neither,” Omstein said, and belched. His hairpiece almost fell off his head. He adjusted it with both hands, looked across the table at Michael as if wondering if he’d noticed either the belch or the adventurous wig, and then said, “I myself would kill anyone got funny with her.”

“Oh my,” Irene said.

“I would,” Omstein said.

Michael kept eating. He wondered if Omstein knew he had a terrible wig. He wondered if Omstein knew that Irene’s hand was on his thigh. He wondered if Frankie Zeppelin was still outside in the Buick, counting the money in Michael’s wallet and waiting to shoot him. He was beginning to think he had a better chance of getting killed here in this city than he’d ever had in Vietnam.

“So, Michael,” Omstein said, “this is what I... it is Michael, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Is what I thought it was, what a dumb name. Michael, I want you to go back to that goniff...”

“Which means thief,” Irene said, and smiled.

“... and tell him if he ever sends anybody else around here to shoot me...”

“Oh my,” Irene said.

“... I’ll send him back in a box,” Omstein said. “You think you can remember that, Michael?”

“I think I can remember it,” Michael said.

“So go tell him,” Omstein said.

Michael stood up, pulling his coat around him like a cloak.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t mention it,” Irene said.

“For the loan,” he said.

“Of course for the loan,” Omstein said. “What else?”

He almost started for the front door, and then remembered that Frankie Zeppelin was sitting out there in the red Buick with a .38 caliber Detective Special in his fist. He turned abruptly, almost knocking over a woman carrying a tray of what appeared to be four bowls of soup, incurring her wrath and a question he assumed to be strictly New York: “Whattsamatter you’re cockeyed?”

The men’s room was at the rear of the deli, in a corridor that dead-ended at a door marked EMERGENCY EXIT. A sign warned that this was to be used only in an emergency, and advised that a bell would sound if anyone opened the door. Michael went into the men’s room, washed his hands at one of the sinks, tried the window over the toilet bowl, discovered it was painted shut, and then went out into the corridor again.

The sign was still there on the door.

A push bar was set on the door about waist-high.

Michael read the sign yet another time.

Then he shoved out at the bar.

The door flew open.

Sergeant Mendelsohnn had told him that the war in Vietnam was merely a piss-ant war compared to the one in Korea, in which noble war he had been proud to serve because it had been a true test of manhood. In Nam, the way Charlie scared you shitless was he crept around the jungle in his black pajamas and you never saw him. It was a phantom army out there. That’s what was so terrifying. You imagined Charlie to be something worse than he really was. But in Korea... ah, Korea. Mendelsohnn waxed entirely ecstatic about Korea. In Korea, the Chinese lit up the whole battlefield at night! Could you imagine that? You were advancing in the dark and whappo, all of a sudden these floodlights would light up the whole place, it was like having your ass hanging on the washline in broad daylight. And also in Korea — man, what a war that had been — there were Chinese cavalry charges! Could you imagine that? Cavalry charges! With bugles and gongs! Unlike the gooks in Nam, the ones in Korea made all the noise they possibly could. They terrified you with their noise. You were ready to die just from the noise alone.