Ed McBain - Downtown

Like now.

The minute Michael shoved open the door, the instant the door opened just the tiniest little crack, the bells went off. Not a bell, as had been promised on the warning sign, A Bell Will Sound. These were bells. Bells in the plural, bells in the multiple, bells that would have deafened the hunchback of Notre Dame, bells that would have sent the entire American Army in Korea fleeing in terror with or without bugles or horses or floodlights, bells that if Hitler had mounted them instead of whistles on his Stuka dive-bombers, there would now be his picture on American hundred-dollar bills.

Michael reeled back as if he’d been struck in the face with a hammer.

And then he remembered that when the going got tough the tough got going, and he pushed the door open wider and hurled himself out into the night, the cold air joining with the bells to assault his ears in fierce combination as he stepped onto and into the unshoveled snow behind the diner. The bells would not stop. Or perhaps they had stopped and he was now hearing only their echo. Perhaps—

And suddenly there were lights!

And horns!

The goddamn Chinese were coming!

This was Korea, and this was the test of his manhood!

Standing there trapped in the glaring lights, with the gongs still echoing in his ears and the horns blowing, Michael knew they would come riding out of the night on their Mongolian ponies and slash him to ribbons with their sabers. And then...

Oh Jesus...

The first Chinese soldier came out of the glare of the lights and moved toward him slowly as if in a dream, white snow underfoot, white covering the world, white and green and long black hair and...

“Michael!” she shouted.

“Connie!” he shouted back.

“This way! Quick!”

She grabbed his hand in hers, and together they crashed through the fans of brilliant illumination coming from the limo’s headlights. Snow thick underfoot. Shoes sodden. Socks wet. They reached the car. She ran around to the driver’s side. He opened the door on the passenger side. No bells went off. The bells were still ringing in his head, though. He got in.

“You okay?” she asked. “I’ve been searching all over for you.”

“Yes,” he said.

Her voice reverberated inside his head.

He pulled the door shut. The good solid sound of a luxury car’s door settling snugly and securely into its frame. And then a small, expensive electric-lock click that miraculously cleared his ringing ears.

Behind them, he heard someone shouting.

He didn’t know who and he didn’t care why.

“Where to now?” Connie asked, and eased the limo into the night again.

St. Luke’s Place was a tree-shaded street with a public park on one side of it, and a row of brownstones on the other. It was exactly one block long, a narrow oasis between the wider thoroughfares that flanked it. At three in the morning, the only house with lights showing was in the middle of the block. Michael looked up at the third-floor window, located the name Wales in the directory set in a panel beside the door, rang the bell, identified himself as the man who’d telephoned not five minutes ago, and was immediately buzzed in.

The woman who answered the door to the third-floor apartment was perhaps thirty-three years old, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike with a Carly Simon mouth. She had short blonde hair (“The same color hair all bimbos have”) and wide brown eyes, and she was wearing high-heeled silver slippers and a long silver robe belted at the waist. Michael did not think either the robe or the slippers were real silver, but they certainly did look authentic. Like the gun in Detective O’Brien’s hand had looked authentic. All those many years ago, it seemed. Was it still only Christmas morning? Had it been only three hours since he’d first learned from Albetha Crandall on the telephone that there was a bimbo with red silk panties in her husband’s life? He wondered if Jessica Wales was wearing red silk panties now.

“Please come in,” she said.

Little tiny breathless Marilyn Monroe voice.

Carly Simon smile.

She stepped back and away from the door, the robe parting over very long, very shapely Cher legs. It suddenly occurred to Michael that Jessica Wales was not wearing red silk panties or anything else under that robe. There was nothing and nobody but Jessica Wales under there. Here I am with a famous movie star who’s wearing nothing under her robe, he thought.

A Christmas tree was in one corner of the large living room, festively decorated with ornaments that looked expensively German in origin, and minuscule white lights and angel’s hair spun into tunnels that seemed to recede into a distant childhood where sugarplum fairies danced in everyone’s head. Wrapped Christmas packages in different sizes and colors were spread under the tree and a pair of bulging red stockings with white cuffs were hanging over a fireplace in which cannel coal was burning. The record player, or the radio, Michael couldn’t tell which, was playing what sounded like Old English carols. He stepped past Jessica, the scent of Poison wafting up from her, and heard the door clicking shut behind him. She turned the lock, put on the safety chain.

“So,” she said, “how can I help you?”

“Well, as I told you on the phone...”

“Yes. But I don’t know where he is.”

“I thought he might be here.”

“No. In fact, until you called, I still thought he was dead.”

“No, he’s alive.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. I saw him on television.”

“I’m so happy to hear that,” she said, “would you like a drink?”

“No, thank you. Miss Wales, it’s urgent that I find Mr. Crandall.”

“Yes, so you told me. Are you sure? A little cognac?”

“Well, just a little, thank you.”

Jessica moved like molten silver to a built-in bar on the wall alongside a unit containing a television set, a VCR, a turntable, a tuner, a tape deck, and a compact disc player. Michael still didn’t know whether he was listening to a recording or to the radio. He looked around as Jessica began pouring the cognac. The living room adjoined the dining room, an open swinging door between them. Beyond the dining room, he could see only a portion of a kitchen with sand-colored cabinets. On the other side of the room there was an open door with a small library beyond it, and a closed door leading to what Michael guessed was the bedroom. The place was luxuriously furnished. He wondered how long Jessica had been a famous movie star he’d never heard of.

On the radio — it was the radio, he now discovered — an announcer was telling the world or at least the tri-state area that this was WQXR and that an uninterrupted program of Christmas music would continue immediately after the three A.M. news. Michael moved closer to one of the speakers. Jessica handed him a snifter half full of cognac.

“Roll it around in your hands,” she said. “Like this.”

She was holding her own snifter in both hands, close to her abundant breasts, rolling it gently between her palms. Michael was suddenly reminded of the commercial Jonah Hillerman had pitched at lunch yesterday. Eat ’em. Squeeze ’em. Mmmm, good. Mmmm, sweet.

“To bring out the bouquet,” Jessica said.

On the radio, a newscaster was giving the latest on the continuing conflict in the Middle East.

Jessica kept rolling the snifter between the palms of her hands.

The newscaster said that a large American corporation had sold one of its divisions to the Japanese for a billion dollars.

“Mmmm, good,” Jessica said, and brought the snifter to her nose.

The newscaster said that a United States senator had been indicted for violating the law against...