Ed McBain - The Last Brief

‘She ate breakfast this morning,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Miss. Come on, Donny.’

There was an Automat on West 72nd Street, a few doors from Broadway. Mary Chang wouldn’t have gone to the Automat because Mary Chang had to be at work at nine, and she got off the train at nine. We walked down the street, all the way up to the building that housed the offices of Gotham Lobster, close to Columbus Avenue. There was a luncheonette on the ground floor of that building. Donny and I went inside and took seats at the counter, and then we ordered coffee.

When our coffee came, we showed the counter man our buzzers. He got scared all at once.

‘Just a few questions,’ we told him.

‘Sure, sure,’ he said. He gulped. ‘I don’t know why...’

‘You know any of the people who work in this building?’

‘Sure, most of ‘em. But...’

‘Did you know Mary Chang?’

He seemed immensely relieved. ‘Oh, her. There’s some trouble with her, ain’t there? She got shot, or stabbed, or something, didn’t she?’

‘Did you know her?’

‘I seen her around, yeah. Quite a piece, you know? With them tight silk dresses, slit up there on the side.’ He smiled. ‘You ever seen her? Man, I go for them Chinese broads.’

‘Did she ever eat here?’

‘No.’

‘Breakfast?’

‘No.’

‘She never stopped here in the morning for coffee?’

‘No, why should she do that?’

‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

‘Well, what I mean, he always come down for the coffee, you know.’

I felt Donny tense beside me.

‘Who?’ I asked. ‘Who came down for the coffee?’

‘Why, Freddie. From the lobster joint. Every morning like clockwork, before he went upstairs. Two coffees, one heavy on the sugar. That Chinese broad liked it sweet. Also a jelly doughnut and a toasted English. Sure, every morning.’

‘You’re sure about this?’

‘Oh yes, sure. The boss didn’t know nothing about it, you know. Mr. Godrow. He don’t go for that junk. They always had their coffee before he come in in the morning.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Did Freddie come down for the coffee this morning?’

‘Sure, every morning.’

We left the luncheonette and went upstairs. Freddie was working the addressing machine when we came in. The machine made a hell of a clatter as the metal address plates fed through it. We said hello to Mr. Godrow and then walked right to the machine. Freddie fed postcards and the address plates banged onto the cards and then dropped into the tray below.

‘We’ve got an idea, Freddie,’ I said.

He didn’t look up. He kept feeding postcards into the machine. The cards read MAINE LIVE LOBSTERS AT FANTASTIC PRICES!

‘We figure a guy who kept asking Mary Chang out, Freddie. A guy who constantly got refused.’

Freddie said nothing.

‘You ever ask her out, Freddie?’

‘Yes,’ he said under the roar of the machine.

‘We figure she drove the guy nuts, sitting there in her tight dresses, drinking coffee with him, being friendly, but never anything more, never what he wanted. We figured he got sore at all the Chinese boys who could date her just because they were Chinese. We figure he decided to do something about it. Want to hear more, Freddie?’

‘What is this?’ Godrow asked. ‘This is a place of business, you know. Those cards have to...’

‘You went down for your customary coffee this morning, Freddie.’

‘Coffee?’ Godrow asked. ‘What coffee? Have you been...’

‘Only this time you dumped strychnine into Mary Chang’s. She took her coffee very sweet, and that probably helped to hide the bitter taste. Or maybe you made some comment about the coffee being very bitter this morning, anything to hide the fact that you were poisoning her.’

‘No...’ Freddie said.

‘She drank her coffee and ate her English muffin, and then — the way you did every morning — you gathered up the cups and the napkins and the crumbs and whatever, and you rushed out with them before Mr. Godrow arrived. Only this time, you were disposing of evidence. Where’d you take them? The garbage cans on Columbus Avenue? Do they collect the garbage early, Freddie?’

‘I... I...’

‘You knew the symptoms. You watched, and when you thought the time was ripe, you couldn’t resist boasting about what you’d done. Mary was making a call. You also knew how these calls worked because you made them yourself. There was usually a pause in the conversation while someone checked with the chef. You waited for that pause, and then you asked Mary if she knew why she was feeling so ill. You asked her because you weren’t making a call, Freddie, you were plugged in on her extension, listening to her conversation. She recognized your voice, and so she answered you in English. You told her then, and she jumped up, but it was too late, the convulsion came. Am I right, Freddie?’

Freddie nodded.

‘You’d better come with us,’ I said.

‘I... I still have to stamp the quotations on these,’ Freddie said.

‘Mr. Godrow will get along without you, Freddie,’ I said. ‘He’ll get himself a new boy.’

‘I... I’m sorry,’ Freddie said.

‘This is terrible,’ Godrow said.

‘Think how Mary Chang must have felt,’ I told him, and we left.

Sir, ever since the Sardinian accident, you have refused to grant any interviews...

I had no desire to join the circus.

Yet you are not normally a man who shuns publicity.

Not normally, no. The matter on Sardinia, however, was blown up out of all proportion, and I saw no reason for adding fuel to the fire. I am a creator of motion pictures, not of sensational news stories for the press.

There are some ‘creators of motion pictures’ who might have welcomed the sort of publicity the Sardinian...

Not I.

Yet you will admit the accident helped the gross of the film.

I am not responsible for the morbid curiosity of the American public.

Were you responsible for what happened in Sardinia?

On Sardinia. It’s an island.

On Sardinia, if you will.

I was responsible only for directing a motion picture. Whatever else happened, happened.

You were there when it happened, however...

I was there.

So certainly...

I choose not to discuss it.

The actors and technicians present at the time have had a great deal to say about the accident. Isn’t there anything you’d like to refute or amend? Wouldn’t you like to set the record straight?

The record is the film. My films are my record. Everything else is meaningless. Actors are beasts of burden and technicians are domestic servants, and refuting or amending anything either might care to utter would be a senseless waste of time.

Would you like to elaborate on that?

On what?

On the notion that actors...

It is not a notion, it is a simple fact. I have never met an intelligent actor. Well, let me correct that. I enjoyed working with only one actor in my entire career, and I still have a great deal of respect for him — or at least as much respect as I can possibly muster for anyone who pursues a profession that requires him to apply makeup to his face.

Did you use this actor in the picture you filmed on Sardinia?

No.

Why not? Given your respect for him...

I had no desire to donate fifty percent of the gross to his already swollen bank account.

Is that what he asked for?

At the time. It may have gone up to seventy-five percent by now, I’m sure I don’t know. I have no intention of ever giving a ploughhorse or a team of oxen fifty percent of the gross of a motion picture I created.