Ed McBain - Downtown

Growling deep in his throat.

The medic backed off.

A colonel came over to him later.

“Let’s go, soldier,” he said, “we’ve got work to do.”

“Fuck you, sir,” Michael said.

And growled at him, too.

Click.

A sound to his right. He whirled, terrified.

The door to apartment 2B was opening. A girl the color of cinnamon toast was standing in the doorway. She was wearing only a half-slip. Nothing else. Naked from the waist up. She stared blankly into the hall.

“You lookin’ for Mama?” she asked.

“Yes,” Connie said.

“Try the club,” the girl said.

Michael felt a tremendous rush of relief.

Mama was at the club.

She was not behind this closed door.

She would not have to be faced just yet.

He put the pistol back into his pocket.

“What club?” he asked.

He did not want to know.

He hoped the girl would not tell him.

Stoned out of her mind, she would not be able to remember the name of the club. No older than sixteen, stoned beyond remembrance. He had seen that same glazed look in Vietnam. Young Americans going into battle stoned. To face the faceless enemy and the nameless horror in the jungle. For Michael, here and now, inexplicably here in this hallway in downtown Manhattan, the honor was an unseen, unknown woman named Mama, and he did not wish to face that honor again. Because this time it would destroy him. This time, the honor would explode in his hands, and he would run weeping all the way to Boston, his stumps spurting blood, only to learn that his Mama had given away even his best blue jacket. No cause, he thought. No cause on earth.

“Oz,” the girl said.

“All the way downtown,” Connie said. “Over near the river.”

No cause, Michael kept thinking.

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m fine.”

Oz was a disco on a peninsula that hugged the exit to the Battery Tunnel. Located on Greenwich Street, as opposed to Greenwich Avenue farther uptown, it seemed undecided as to whether it wished to be closer to Edgar or to Morris, which were streets and not people. In any event, the club was so far downtown that in the blink of an eye the West Side could suddenly and surprisingly become the East Side. Or rather, and more accurately, the West Side could become the South Side, for it was here at the lowest tip of the island that West Street looped around Battery Park to become South Street.

“It’s all very confusing,” Connie explained, “but not as confusing as the borough of Brooklyn.”

They had parked the open convertible in an all-night garage on Broadway, and had walked two blocks south and one block west to the disco, passing several young girls shivering in the cold in short fake-fur jackets, high-heeled shoes, and lacy lingerie. Michael wondered if any of these girls had earlier been at the Christmas party where he’d met Frankie Zeppelin. He did not think he recognized Detective O’Brien among them.

At three o’clock in the morning on Boxing Day, there were at least a hundred people standing on the yellow brick sidewalk outside Oz. Not a single one of them appeared to be over the age of twenty, and most of them were dressed like characters from The Wizard of Oz. Standing on line in the shivering cold were a dozen or more Tin Men, half again that number of Scarecrows, six Cowardly Lions, eight Wicked Witches of the East, a handful of Glindas, three or four Wizards, a great many people wearing monkey masks on their faces and wings on their backs, some shorter folk chattering in high voices and pretending to be Munchkins, and a multitude of Dorothys wearing short skirts, red shoes, and braids, Michael felt a bit out of place in his jeans and bomber jacket.

The sidewalk outside the disco was not merely painted a yellow brick, it actually was yellow brick. The building itself had once been a parking garage, shaped like a flatiron to conform to the peninsula-like dimensions of the plot. Its old brick facade was now covered with thick plastic panels cut and fitted and lighted from within to resemble the many facets of a sparkling green emerald rising from the sidewalk. The name of the club was spelled out in brighter green neon wrapped around the front and sides of the building, just below the roof. There were no visible entrance doors. There was only the yellow brick leading to this huge green, multifaceted crystal growing out of the sidewalk.

The girls and boys standing on line outside were talking noisily among themselves, trying to look supremely confident about their chances of getting into the place. The man in charge of granting admission was about six and a half feet tall, and Michael guessed he weighed at least three hundred pounds. He had bushy black eyebrows, curly black hair, wide shoulders, a narrow waist, and hands like hamhocks. Despite the cold, he was wearing only a black jacket over a white turtleneck shirt, black loafers, white socks, and gray trousers that were too short. Michael heard one of the kids on the line referring to him as Curly.

There was a sudden buzz of excitement when what earlier had appeared to be part of the building’s seamless facade now parted to reveal two green panels that served as entrance doors. An intense green light spilled out onto the sidewalk. There was the blare of heavy metal rock. Two youngsters walked out — the girl dressed as a somewhat precocious Dorothy in a pleated skirt that showed white panties and half her ass, the boy wearing a gray suit and a funnel on his head. Both were wearing grins that indicated they’d been allowed to meet the Wizard and all their wishes had been granted.

On the line, all faces turned expectantly toward Curly, who was now parading the sidewalk like a judge at a dog show. He chose two people at random, pressed a button that snapped the doors open again, and, with a surly nod, admitted the couple. The girl was dressed as a Munchkin with a frizzed blonde hairdo. The boy was wearing blue jeans and a long cavalry officer’s overcoat. Apparently, then, admission to the club was not premised on fidelity to the film. The doors swung shut again. The sound of music was replaced by the keening of the wind blowing in fiercely off the Hudson. Nobody on the line complained, not even the kids standing at the head of it. This was simply the way it was. Curly decided who would go in, Curly decided who would stand out here in the cold. Nor was there any way of knowing upon which criteria he premised his choice. Either you waited for his approving nod or you went home with your dreams. That was it, and this was Oz, take it or leave it.

Michael walked over to where Curly was disdainfully glaring out over the crowd.

“Mama’s expecting me,” he said.

Curly looked him over.

“Expecting who?” he said.

“Silvio,” Michael said.

“Silvio who?”

“Just say Silvio.”

“Mama ain’t here yet.”

“I’ll wait. Inside.”

Curly hesitated.

“Push your button,” Michael said.

Curly shrugged. But he pushed the button.

The panels sprang open. Connie and Michael stepped together into the interior of the jewel, and were immediately inundated by a mortar explosion of battering sound and emerald-green light. The place was thronged with Tin Men, Cowardly Lions, Flying Monkeys, Dorothys, Wicked Witches, Munchkins, Wizards, Glindas, Scarecrows, and even ordinary folk. Green smoke swirled on the air. Bodies twisted on the small dance floor. On the bandstand, five blond men wearing black leather trousers, pink tank-top shirts, and long gold chains played guitar and electric-keyboard backup to a young black woman standing at the microphone and belting out a song that seemed to consist only of the words “Do me, baby, do me good” repeated over and over again. She had a big, brassy gospel singer’s voice. She was wearing brown high-heeled boots and what appeared to be draped animal skins. The thudding of the bass guitars sounded like enemy troops shelling the perimeter. The room reverberated with noise, skidded with dazzling light. Out of the deafening din of the music and the refracted green glare of the lights and the dense hanging fog of smoke, a young man in a red jacket materialized.