Ed McBain: The Last Dance

"Or Manchester."

"Or wherever. Actually, we don't need him, Pete. Nellie says the overt act is enough."

"Conspiracy and the overt act, yes."

"Which she's already got."

"So let the Queen's mother worry," Byrnes said.

Ollie felt very nervous, like a teenager about to ask for a first date. He dialed the number on the card she'd given him, and let the phone ring three, four, five . . .

"Hello?"

"Miss Hobson?" he said.

"Yes?"

"This is Detective Weeks. We talked about piano lessons, do you remember?"

"No. Detective whoT

"Weeks. Oliver Wendell Weeks. I was investigating the murder of Althea Cleary, do you remember? Big Ollie, they sometimes call me," he said, which was a lie. "I wanted to learn five songs, remember?"

"Oh. Yes," she said.

"I still do."

"I see," she said.

"I got a list we can pick from," he said.

"Did you find him?"

"Who do you mean, Miss Hobson?"

"Whoever killed Althea."

"He's in London just now. We're leaving it to the

bobbies there, they're supposed to be very good. When can we start, Miss Hobson?"

"That depends on which songs you want to learn."

"Oh, they're easy ones, don't worry."

"That's so reassuring," she said drily. "But which ones are they exactly?"

"Guess," he said, and grinned into the mouthpiece.

They had no idea they were in the middle of a race riot until it was full upon them. Until that moment, they'd been peacefully watching television and drifting off to sleep, Kling knowing he was due back in the squadroom at eight tomorrow, Sharyn knowing her day would start at about the same time in her office at Rankin Plaza, neither anticipating an explosion, each surprised when it came.

A panel of talking heads was offering its collective opinion on the war, the election, the wedding, the crash, the trial, the disaster, the game, the whatever because in America, it wasn't enough merely to present the news, you then had to have half a dozen commentators parading their thoughts on what the news had just been all about. Over the background din, Kling was telling Sharyn there'd been an extraordinary number of people informing on other people in this case they'd just wrapped, a veritable chorus of rats singing to whoever would listen, when all at once a blond woman on the panel said something about the "so-called blue wall of silence," and Sharyn said, "Shhh," and someone else on the panel, a black man, shouted that the blue wall of silence wouldn't be holding in the Milagros case if the victim had been white, and someone else, a white man, shouted, "This poor victim you're talking about is a murdererl" and Kling said, "Milagros is one of the guys I mean," and Sharyn said "Shhh" again, when all he'd

wanted to say was that Hector Milagros had been given up by Maxie Blaine who'd been given up by Betty Young in a case virtually defined by perpetual snitchery.

"You don't know whether those men who went in there were white or black!" someone on the panel shouted.

"You don't even know if they were actually copsl" someone else shouted.

"They were cops and they were whitel"

"I'll bet they were," someone else said, but the voice wasn't coming from the television set, it was coming from the pillow next to Kling's. He turned to look at her.

The blonde on television very calmly said, "I do not believe that any police officer in this city would maintain silence in the face of such a brutal beating. The police . . ."

"Oh, come off it," Sharyn said.

". . . simply don't know who went in there, that's all. If they knew . . ."

On the television set, the black man said, "The guy who let them in knows."

"Every cop in this city knows," Sharyn said.

"I don't," Kling said.

And now there was a veritable Babel of voices pouring from the television set in a deluge of conflicting invective that rose higher and higher in volume and passion.

"Instead of maintaining their ridiculous posture of. . ."

"There are black cops, too, you know. I don't see any of them . . ."

"Would you come forward if ... ?"

"You're asking them to be rats."

"It's not informing if the person ..."

"Milagros was in custody!"

"He's a criminal!"

"So are the cops who beat him up!"

Ed McBam

"A murderer!"

". . . almost killed him!"

"He's blackl"

"Here we go," Kling said.

"That's why they beat him up!"

"Hang on, honey," Sharyn said.

Together, they huddled against the angry voices.

At last, Kling said, "Wanna dance?"

About the Author

is the only American to receive the Diamond Dagger, the British Crime Writers Association's highest award. He also holds the Mystery Writers of America's coveted Grand Master Award. His books have sold over one hundred million copies worldwide, ranging from his first bestselling novel, The Blackboard Jungle, to the recent bestseller Privileged Conversation, both written under his own name, Evan Hunter, which he used on his screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. His most recent th Precinct novel was The Big Bad City. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Dragica.

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of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act .

First published in Great Britain in by Hodder

and Stoughton

First published in paperback in by Hodder and Stoughton A division of Hodder Headline

A New English Library Paperback I

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious

and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead

is purely coincidental.

McBain, Ed, -

I . yth Precinct (Imaginary place)-Fiction . Detective and mystery stories I . Title i-'tF]

isbn o XL

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This, yet another time, is for my wife— DRAGICA DIMITRIJEVIC-HUNTER

winner of v

the crime writers'association/ -

cartier diamond dagger award '

A man with no enemies is found hanging in what appears to be a suicide. But Carella and company soon discover that, drugged and unconscious, he could not possibly have hanged himself. They are dealing with murder. The investigation takes them into the politics and passions of a musical in preparation. Or rather' two: one that happened half a century ago and one that is happening rjow ...

'One oi the masters oi crime fiction.'

? sunday telegraph - :

'McBain is so good he ought to be arrested.' ;

publishers weekly " ·-'!

'When it comes to the voices oi the city, McBaini the man with the golden ear.'

I new york times book review · · .

'A virtuoso.'

Many of 's dazzling mysteries are New English Library paperbacks - the latest th Precinct stories are The Big Bad City and Nocturne. The Last Best Hope features Florida detective Matthew Hope. Have you read thern ajl?

'

NEW ENGLISH LIBRARY Fiction: Crime

Author photograph by Dragica Dimitrijevic

Cover Photographs Tony Stone Images

ISBN ---X