Ed McBain - The Last Dance

"How does this guy spell his name?" Carella asked, fishing.

"Ho ho," Danny said. "There's a street in New York,

you know, it's spelled exactly the same as the city in Texas, but it's pronounced House-ton Street. Instead, we say Youse-ton, Texas, after Sam Youse-ton, is the way he pronounced his name. Which is peculiar, don't you think?"

"How does this hit man pronounce his name?"

"Ho, ho, ho," Danny said, and shook his finger.

"Who hired him?" Carella said. "Can you tell me that?"

"I don't know who hired him."

"Why was the old man killed?"

"Somebody wanted what he had and he wouldn't turn

it over. So they took him out of the picture."

"They?"

"Whoever."

"More than one person?"

"I don't know that for sure."

"You said 'they.'"

"Just an expression. All I know is the only way to get

what they wanted was to have him dusted."

"The old man didn't have a pot to piss in, Danny."

"I'm telling you what I heard."

"From who?"

"My friend. Who got it straight from the hitter."

"He told your friend he killed somebody?"

"Of course not."

"I didn't think so."

"But he told him enough."

Ed McBam

"Like what?"

"Drunk talk. Suppose this, suppose that."

"Suppose what, Danny?"

"Okay, suppose there's this old fart got something

somebody else wants real bad and he won't part with it?

And suppose this something is worth a lotta money? And

suppose . .

."

"This is our man talking?"

"This is him. Suppose somebody's willing to pay a person five large to get rid of the old man and make it

look like an accident? And suppose . . ."

"Did he use that word? Accident?"

"Yeah."

"And the price was five grand?"

"The same five he brought into the poker game."

"When did he tell your friend all this?"

"Saturday night. After the game. They went back to his hotel room, had a few drinks, smoked a few joints."

"Who supplied them?"

"The drinks?"

"The drinks, the pot."

"The hitter. It was his party. I gotta tell you something,

Steve. When a guy makes a big score, and then he quadruples it in a card game, he wants to talk about it, you dig? He's proud of it. That's the way these guys' minds work. They want to tell you how great they are. My friend lost his shirt in that game Saturday night. Well, winners like to shit all over losers. So your hitter took pity on my friend, asked him to share a bottle and a couple of joints with him so he could tell him how fuckin terrific he is, gettin five grand to dust an old fart."

"But he didn't tell him that."

"The five grand, yes. The actual dusting, no."

"Then you've got nothing to sell."

"Oh, I've got plenty to sell. Remember what you told

me on the phone? You asked did I hear anything on this

old man got doped with R before somebody hung him

in the closet. That ain't the kind of detail a person forgets,

Steve. Well, before my friend left the hotel room—I think

they had sex, by the way. My friend and the hitter. He's

gay, my friend. Anyway, the hitter handed him a little present. A gift for the loser, you know? A consolation

prize. Said it'd help his sex life. Grinning, right? It'll help your sex life, Harpo, give it a try. That's my friend's name, Harpo. So Harpo figured the guy was laying a Viagra cap on him. But instead, it was this." Danny reached into his coat pocket. He opened his hand. A blister-pack strip of white tablets was on the palm, the word Roche echoing over and again across its face. "Roach," Danny said. "Same as your hangman used."

"Who gave you that?"

"Harpo."

"Harpo what?"

"Marx," Danny said, and grinned like a barracuda.

"Let me get this straight."

"Sure."

"Poker game Saturday night . . ."

"Right on Lewiston Avenue."

"Guy who killed Andrew Hale comes into the game

with five grand, leaves it with twenty. Invites your friend

Harpo up for a drink, some pot, a little sex, starts boasting

about the hit, lays a strip of roach on him before they part

company."

"You've got it."

"And you say the hitter's leaving town the day after

tomorrow?"

"From what I understand."

"This isn't any high-pressured bullshit, is it, Dan

ny?"

"Me? High-pressured?"

"I mean, he really is going back to Houston this Wednesday?"

"Is what Harpo told me."

"And he also told you the guy's name . . ."

"He did."

". . . and where he's staying."

"That's right."

"Out of the goodness of his heart."

"He's a friend. Also, I'll probably pass a little something on to him if your lieutenant comes through."

"I'll have to get back to you on this," Carella said.

"Sure, take your time," Danny said. "You got till Wednesday."

"I'll let you know," Carella said, and started to move

out of the booth, suddenly remembering how cold it was

outside on this eighth day of November. You got to be forty, and suddenly it was cold out there. He was sliding across the leatherette seat, swinging his legs out, starting to rise, Danny doing the same thing on the other side of the table, when the first shot pierced the din of the abnormally crowded room, silencing it in an instant. Even before the second shot sounded, people were diving under tables. It took a moment for Carella to spot the two gunmen advancing swiftly toward the booth, one black, one white, equal opportunity employment. It took another moment for him to realize Danny Gimp was their target.

His coat was already unbuttoned, he reached across

his waist for a cross-body draw, the nine-millimeter Clock snapping out of its holster with a spring-assisted click. There were more shots. Someone screamed. Danny was scrambling across the floor on his hands and knees, trailing blood. A man running for the entrance doors knocked over one of the serving counters, and pizza toppings spilled all over the floor, tomato sauce running into anchovies and mushrooms and grated cheese and slippery slices of pepperoni. Carella upended a table, and ducked behind it. There was more screaming, two

more shots very close by, footsteps pounding. He raised

his head in time to see the gunmen running toward the

front of the place, leaped to his feet, began chasing after

them. There was still too much background for him to

risk firing. He followed them out into the street, thought

he had a clear shot, but they turned the corner in that instant and were gone. Shit, he thought.

The last two shots Carella heard had been fired at close

range into Danny's head. The shot near his cheek was

fired with the muzzle of the gun almost touching the skin; there was a cluster of soot on the flesh but hardly any gunpowder around the wound itself. The shot closer to Danny's chin was fired from a few inches away; gunpowder particles were diffused over a two-inch diameter and the wound was encircled by a small area of soot. Danny was already dead when Carella knelt beside him.

A patrolman pounded into the pizzeria with his gun

drawn, scaring the patrons even further, yelling "Stand

back, everybody keep back," like an extra in an action-

adventure movie. Tables and chairs had been overturned

in the mad rush that virtually cleared the place of cus

tomers. But many of the patrons still lingered, either curious to see what a bleeding body looked like close up, or else hoping to wave to the television cameras if and when they got here. There was nothing jackasses liked better than to grin and wave at the camera while tragedy was unfolding in the foreground.

"I'm on the job," Carella told the patrolman. "Get an

ambulance here."

A second patrolman entered the place now, his gun