Ed McBain - Downtown

“How about you, Alice?” Michael asked.

“How about me, what? I’m bleeding to death here, that’s how about me.”

“Do you know anybody named Cahill?”

“No.”

“How about Helen Parrish?”

“No.”

“Charlie Nichols?”

“No.”

“Did you kill Charlie Nichols?”

“How could I kill somebody I don’t even know?”

“Charlie Nichols. Mama sent you to kill him, didn’t she?”

“This man is deaf,” Alice said to the air. “I’m telling you I don’t know anybody by that name.”

“Charlie Nichols. An actor.”

“Is he related to Charlie Belafonte?”

“You mean Harry Belafonte,” Larry said. “I know because his name is almost like mine.”

“Can you sing ‘Day-O’?” Silvio asked him.

“Charlie Nichols?” Michael said. “Nice little apartment in Knickerbocker Village?”

“Where’s that? Westchester County?”

“The Fifth Precinct,” Connie said.

“Go ahead, call the cops,” Alice said.

“How about Judy Jordan?” Michael asked.

“Call her, too.”

“Do you know her?”

“I don’t know any of these people. Go call the goddamn cops. Just for spite, I’ll be dead when they get here.”

“Good,” Connie said.

“You don’t know any of them, huh?” Michael asked.

“You’re deaf, am I right?” she said, and turned to Larry. “He’s deaf.”

“My uncle in Chicago is deaf, too,” Larry said sympathetically.

“And I suppose you don’t know anything about what happened to me on Christmas Eve, either,” Michael said.

“The first time I laid eyes on you was through a telescopic sight. I was told to put you away because you’d been snooping around Benny’s downtown, and that’s all I know. Mama likes things clean and neat.”

“She’s a neat, clean illegal alien, huh?” Michael said.

Alice said nothing.

“Why would killing me make things clean and neat?” he asked.

“Go ask Mama.”

“I will. Where do I find her?”

Alice shook her head.

“Where is she?”

Alice shook her head again.

“You’re that scared of her, huh?”

Alice said nothing.

“Tell me where to find her.”

She just kept staring at him.

“Then it’s the cops, right?” he said. “You want me to call the cops, right?”

“Sure,” she said. “Call them.”

The last time Michael had stood in this hallway outside the door to Judy Jordan’s apartment, he’d been alone. And someone, either Larry or Silvio, had come up behind him and hit him on the head with one of his own guns. Or rather, guns that had previously belonged to Frankie Zeppelin and Arthur Crandall. This time, Connie was by his side. With Connie by his side, he figured he would not get hit on the head again. The only thing that happened to him when Connie was by his side was that he got shot. Or, at best, shot at.

He wondered if the police had ever before walked into a warehouse full of stolen goods to discover a safe full of a million dollars’ worth of crack, and three thieves swathed in furs and trussed with the electric cords from sundry household appliances. He did not think Alice — despite her dire warnings or perhaps promises — could possibly have bled to death by the time the police arrived. An axiom of the killing and maiming profession was that if a person was feeling good enough to laugh he wasn’t about to die in the next ten minutes. He wished, however, that Alice had chosen to tell him who Mama was.

It was a little unsettling to know that somewhere out there in this wonderful city there was a woman who wielded enough power to order Ju Ju Rainey’s murder first and next to order Michael’s own, a woman who could generate such fear that three grown thieves had chosen to face the police rather than reveal who or where she was. Michael wasn’t sure he ever wanted to meet Mama. He knew intuitively, however, that before this was over he would have to look her in the face and demand to know all the whys and wherefores. He tried to visualize her.

She would be fat, he knew that. As Connie had suggested, a woman named Mama had to be fat. Bloated and fat and as pale as a slug, a female with a breath that reeked of gunpowder and piss. She would have breasts like dugs, and she would obscenely expose them to Michael, threatening to suckle him if he did not do as she commanded. Standing before Mama, he would search her slightly crossed eyes for some sign that here was reason, here was cause, here was sanity, but there would be none. The .22 caliber pistols he was now carrying in the pockets of the bomber jacket would be of no use to him. He would be staring into the darkest part of evil, and he would be doomed. He did not want to find Mama, did not want to face what he knew was inescapable if this ever was to be resolved — but he knew that he had to. Mama was fate. If you had an appointment in Samarra, you did not drive instead to Newark, New Jersey.

But in the beginning, there’d been Judy Jordan.

Or Helen Parrish, if you preferred.

And to get to the end, you went to the beginning.

And prayed that somewhere along the way—

The village looked abandoned at first. Not a soul in sight.

Michael knocked on the door to the apartment.

“Cops listen first,” Connie said.

Belatedly, he put his ear to the door and listened.

He did not hear anything.

“Nobody home,” he said.

Charlie musta flew the coop, Sergeant Mendelsohnn said.

Michael knocked on the door again. And waited. No answer. He studied the locks. Four of them. One under the other. To get into this apartment, you would need a battering ram. He wondered if they should try the fire escape again. But how many fire escapes could you climb before someone yelled fire?

Careful, Andrew said.

An old man had appeared in the doorway to one of the thatched huts. Nodding. Smiling. Scared shitless. Six automatic rifles suddenly trained on him.

“We’d better go,” Michael said.

Cover me, Mendelsohnn said.

Rain coming down. A light rain. Everything looking so green. So fresh. Waiting in the rain. The whisper of the rain. Mendelsohnn talking quietly to the old man. Scraps of Vietnamese, snippets of French, bits and pieces of English. Other gooks peering around doorways now. Women mostly. Some other old men. Watching solemnly. Looking scared. Big American liberators standing in the rain with their guns. All but one of them no older than twenty, scaring women and old men to death.

Says Charlie went through about three days ago, Mendelsohnn said.

All of them listening.

Took all their rice, Mendelsohnn said. Got to be miles away by now.

“Maybe you ought to knock again,” Connie said.

“No,” Michael said. “Let’s go.”

Looka the one in the blue over there, the RTO said.

Yeah. Andrew said.

Givin’ us the eye.

Give her some big Indian cock, Long Foot said.

Let’s move it out, Mendelsohnn said.

The rain still falling lightly.

A breeze coming up over the rice paddies.

They were coming down the steps when Michael heard the footsteps below. Coming up. Moving up toward them. Another tenant, he thought. Or maybe — but no, that would be too lucky. But why not? Judy Jordan coming home. By her own admission, she’d been naked the last time he was here, probably dressing to go out, it had been only ten o’clock. So she’d put on a robe and peeked out into the hallway to find nobody there, this city was full of mysteries, and she’d finished dressing, and had gone out on the town. But the night had vanished all at once, and this was now one o’clock in the morning on Boxing Day, and here she was, folks, home sweet home again, coming up the steps to the second floor, reaching the second-floor landing just as Michael and Connie came down from the third floor, hand on the banister, hello there, Judy, long time no—