Ed McBain - Downtown

He dialed the number.

“Hello?”

A woman’s voice.

“Sarah Nichols?” he said.

“Yes?”

“Merry Christmas,” Michael said.

“Who’s this, please?” Sarah said.

“A friend of Charlie’s.”

“Is anything wrong?” she asked at once.

“No, no. I’ve been trying to locate him, I wonder if you’ve talked to him lately.”

“Not since this morning,” she said. “He was supposed to come here for an early dinner, I told him I was having some friends in, but he never showed. Well, you know how Charlie is.”

“Oh, yeah, Charlie,” Michael said, and chuckled. “What time this morning?”

“Oh, around eleven, it must have been. The minute Charlie hears I want him to meet some girl, he runs for the hills.”

“That’s Charlie, all right,” Michael said. “And you haven’t talked to him since, huh?”

“No. Would you like to leave your name? In case he does pop up? Though it’s really quite late, I doubt if even my brother would walk in at nine-thirty.”

“Your brother, uh-huh,” Michael said. “You don’t think he might be with Benny, do you?”

“Who’s Benny?”

“I don’t know. I thought you might know.”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“Do you think your mother might know Benny? Do you have a mother?”

“Everyone has a mother.”

“I mean, she isn’t dead or anything, is she?”

“Not that I know of.”

“What do you call her?”

“I call her... who did you say this was?”

“Do you call her Mama?”

“Sometimes.”

“Is she spry? Does she get around?”

“Yes, she’s very spry. Excuse me, but...”

“Would you know if someone named Arthur Crandall took her to meet someone named Benny last night?”

“I have no idea. Can you tell me who this is, please?”

“Michael.”

“Michael who?” she asked.

“Bond,” he said. “No relation. Please tell Charlie I called.”

“I will,” she said. “Good night, Mr. Bond.”

“Good night,” Michael said.

He put the receiver back on the cradle.

He was beginning to like that name.

Maybe he’d take it on as a middle name.

It was certainly a hell of a lot better than Jellicle.

“His sister,” he said.

“I gathered,” Connie said.

“Let’s see if there’s anything in the bedroom,” he said.

Charlie Nichols was in the bedroom.

On the bed.

All bloody.

Michael had seen a lot of dead bodies in his short lifetime, but none quite so messily dispatched as this one. Whoever had shot and killed Charlie seemed to have had a difficult time finding him. There were bullet holes in the headboard, bullet holes in the wall behind the bed, and several bullet holes in Charlie himself. If there were awards for sloppy murders, whoever had shot Charlie should start preparing an acceptance speech.

Connie looked as if she was about to throw up.

“You okay?” Michael asked.

She nodded.

He looked at the body again, went to the bed, and was leaning over the corpse when Connie yelled, “No!”

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Don’t touch him,” she said.

“Why not? Is that a Chinese superstition?”

“No, it’s not a Chinese superstition.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s disgusting.”

“I just want to see if he’s carrying a wallet,” Michael said, and tried the right-hand side pocket in his pants, and found what appeared to be several white rock crystals in a little plastic vial.

“Must collect these, huh?” he said, showing the vial to Connie.

Connie looked at him.

“Rocks, I mean,” Michael said.

“Crack, you mean,” Connie said.

“What?”

“That’s crack.”

“It is?” Michael said, and looked at the vial more closely. “I thought crystallography was perhaps his hobby.”

“Smoking cocaine is perhaps his hobby.”

“I’ll tell you something,” Michael said, “if this turns out to be another goddamn dope plot...”

“A single vial of cocaine doesn’t necessarily...”

“I’ve had dope plots up to here, I mean it. You can’t go to a movie nowadays, you can’t turn on television...”

“There is no reason to believe that this is linked to a dope plot.”

“Then what’s this?” he asked, and showed her the vial again.

“That’s crack.”

“And is crack dope?”

“Crack is dope.”

“And is this man dead?”

“He appears to be dead.”

“There you are,” Michael said, and rolled him over.

“Irrrgh,” Connie said, and covered her eyes with her hands.

Michael was patting down the right hip pocket. “Here it is,” he said, and reached into the pocket and yanked out a wallet.

Connie still had her hands over her eyes.

“You can look now,” he said, and opened the wallet.

The first thing he saw was a driver’s license with a picture of the man on the bed. The name on the license was Charles Robert Nichols.

“Well, it’s him,” Michael said.

“Good, give him back his wallet.”

“Let’s see what else is in it.”

There were three credit cards in the wallet.

And an Actors Equity card.

And a Screen Actors Guild card.

And an AFTRA card.

And three postage stamps in twenty-five-cent denominations, no longer any good for first-class mail.

And this year’s calendar, small and plastic and soon to expire.

And a TWA Frequent Flight Bonus Program card.

And a slip of paper with what looked like a handwritten telephone number on it.

“Here we go,” he said.

“Good idea,” Connie said. “Let’s.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t like being here with that person on the bed.”

“Is this a New York exchange?” he asked, and showed her the telephone number.

“Yes.”

“Let’s try it.”

“No. Let’s leave.”

“Connie...”

“Michael, that person on the bed is dead.”

“I know.”

“You’re already wanted for one murder...”

“I know.”

“You’ve already been shot ...”

“I know.”

“So let’s get out of here, okay? Before...”

“Let’s try this number first.”

“Michael, every time you try a number...”

“Maybe this time we’ll get lucky,” he said, and winked.

Connie did not wink back.

Instead, she followed him sullenly down the hallway and into the study again. He sat at the desk with the wall of black-and-white photographs in front of him, and he dialed the telephone number scrawled in a spidery handwriting on the slip of paper, and he waited, waited, waited...

“Hello?”

A woman’s voice.

“Yes, hello, I’m calling for Charlie Nichols,” he said.

“Sorry, he’s not here,” the woman said.

“I know he isn’t, I’m calling for him. Who’s this, please?”

“Judy Jordan,” she said. “Who’s this?”

“Hello?” he said.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hello, Miss Jordan?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Hello?” he said.

“I can hear you,” she said.

“I’ll have to call back,” he said, and hung up.

“Did you get cut off?” Connie asked.

“No,” he said.

He was already looking through Charlie’s address book again. He flipped rapidly through E, F, H...

“Here it is,” he said. “Jordan, Judy.”

Connie looked at the address. “The Seventh Precinct,” she said. “Where they found the body in your car.”

“Then we’d better go see her,” he said.

“Why?” Connie asked.