Ed McBain - The Last Brief

‘In my pocket.’

‘What were you doing with the gun, Gus?’

‘I was just carrying it.’

‘Why?’

‘Listen, I’m not going to answer any questions,’ Assisi said. ‘You’re gonna put me through a third-degree, I ain’t answering nothing. I want a lawyer.’

‘You’ll get plenty opportunity to have a lawyer,’ the Chief of Detectives said. ‘And nobody’s giving you a third-degree. We just want to know what you were doing with a gun. You know that’s against the law, don’t you?’

‘I’ve got a permit for the gun,’ Assisi said.

‘We checked with Pistol Permits, and they say no. This is a Navy gun, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What?’

‘I said yeah, it’s a Navy gun.’

‘What were you doing with it? Why were you carrying it around?’

‘I like guns.’

‘Why?’

‘Why what? Why do I like guns? Because...’

‘Why were you carrying it around?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, you must have a reason for carrying a loaded .45. The gun was loaded, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah, it was loaded.’

‘You have any other guns?’

‘No.’

‘We found a .38 in your room. How about that one?’

‘It’s no good.’

‘What?’

‘The .38.’

‘What do you mean, no good?’

‘The firin’ mechanism is busted.’

‘You want a gun that works, is that it?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You said the .38’s no good because it won’t fire, didn’t you?’

‘Well, what good’s a gun that won’t fire?’

‘Why do you need a gun that fires?’

‘I was just carrying it. I didn’t shoot anybody, did I?’

‘No, you didn’t. Were you planning on shooting somebody?’

‘Sure,’ Assisi said. ‘That’s just what I was planning.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know,’ Assisi said sarcastically. ‘Anybody. The first guy I saw, all right? Everybody, all right? I was planning on wholesale murder.’

‘Not murder, maybe, but a little larceny, huh?’

‘Murder,’ Assisi insisted, in his stride now. ‘I was just going to shoot up the whole town. Okay? You happy now?’

‘Where’d you get the gun?’

‘In the Navy.’

‘Where?’

‘From my ship.’

‘It’s a stolen gun?’

‘No, I found it.’

‘You stole government property, is that it?’

‘I found it.’

‘When’d you get out of the Navy?’

‘Three months ago.’

‘You worked since?’

‘No.’

‘Where were you discharged?’

‘Pensacola.’

‘Is that where you stole the gun?’

‘I didn’t steal it.’

‘Why’d you leave the Navy?’

Assisi hesitated for a long time.

‘Why’d you leave the Navy?’ the Chief of Detectives asked again.

‘They kicked me out!’ Assisi snapped.

‘Why?’

‘I was undesirable!’ he shouted.

‘Why?’

Assisi did not answer.

‘Why?’

There was silence in the darkened room. Stevie watched Assisi’s face, the twitching mouth, the blinking eyelids.

‘Next case,’ the Chief of Detectives said.

Stevie watched as Assisi walked across the stage and down the steps on the other side, where the uniformed cop met him. He’d handled himself well, Assisi had. They’d rattled him a little at the end there, but on the whole he’d done a good job. So the guy was lugging a gun around, so what? He was right, wasn’t he? He didn’t shoot nobody, so what was all the fuss about? Cops! They had nothing else to do, they went around hauling in guys who were carrying guns. Poor bastard was a veteran, too, that was really rubbing it in. But he did a good job up there, even though he was nervous, you could see he was very nervous.

A man and a woman walked past him and onto the stage. The man was very tall, topping the six-foot marker. The woman was shorter, a bleached blonde turning to fat.

‘They picked them up together,’ Skinner whispered. ‘So they show them together. They figure a pair’ll always work as a pair, usually.’

‘How’d you like that Assisi?’ Stevie whispered back. ‘He really had them bulls on the run, didn’t he?’

Skinner didn’t answer. The Chief of Detectives cleared his throat.

‘MacGregor, Peter, aged forty-five, and Anderson, Marcia, aged forty-two, Bronx one. Got them in a parked car on the Grand Concourse. Back seat the car was loaded with goods including luggage, a typewriter, a portable sewing machine, and a fur coat. No statements. What about all that stuff, Pete?’

‘It’s mine.’

‘The fur coat, too.’

‘No, that’s Marcia’s.’

‘You’re not married, arc you?’

‘No.’

‘Living together?’

‘Well, you know,’ Peter said.

‘What about the stuff?’ the Chief of Detectives said again.

‘I told you,’ Pete said. ‘It’s ours.’

‘What was it doing in the car?’

‘Oh. Well, we were... uh...’ The man paused for a long time. ‘We were going on a trip.’

‘Where to?’

‘Where? Oh. To... uh...” Again he paused, frowning, and Stevie smiled, thinking what a clown this guy was. This guy was better than a sideshow at Coney. This guy couldn’t tell a lie without having to think about it for an hour. And the dumpy broad with him was a hot sketch, too. This act alone was worth the price of admission.

‘Uh...’ Pete said, still fumbling for words. ‘Uh... we were going to... uh... Denver.’

‘What for?’

‘Oh, just a little pleasure trip, you know,’ he said, attempting a smile.

‘How much money were you carrying when we picked you up?’

‘Forty dollars.’

‘You were going to Denver on forty dollars?’

‘Well, it was fifty dollars. Yeah, it was more like fifty dollars.’

‘Come on, Pete, what were you doing with all that stuff in the car?’

‘I told you. We were taking a trip.’

‘With a sewing machine, huh? You do a lot of sewing, Pete?’

‘Marcia docs.’

‘That right, Marcia?’

The blonde spoke in a high reedy voice. ‘Yeah, I do a lot of sewing.’

‘That fur coat, Marcia. Is it yours?’

‘Sure.’

‘It has the initials G.D. on the lining. Those aren’t your initials, are they, Marcia?’

‘No.’

‘Whose arc they?’

‘Search me. We bought that coat in a hock shop.’

‘Where?’

‘Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn. You know where that is?’

‘Yes, I know where it is. What about that luggage? It had initials on it, too. And they weren’t yours or Pete’s. How about it?’

‘We got that in a hock shop, too.’

‘And the typewriter?’

‘That’s Pete’s.’

‘Are you a typist, Pete?’

‘Well, I fool around a little, you know.’

‘We’re going to check all this stuff against our Stolen Goods list, you know that, don’t you?’

‘We got all that stuff in hock shops,’ Pete said. ‘If it’s stolen, we don’t know nothing about it.’

‘Were you going to Denver with him, Marcia?’

‘Oh, sure.’

‘When did you both decide to go? A few minutes ago?’

‘We decided last week sometime.’

‘Were you going to Denver by way of the Grand Concourse?’

‘Huh?’ Pete said.

‘Your car was parked on the Grand Concourse. What were you doing there with a carload of stolen goods?’

‘It wasn’t stolen,’ Pete said.

‘We were on our way to Yonkers,’ the woman said.

‘I thought you were going to Denver.’

‘Yeah, but we had to get the car fixed first. There was something wrong with the...’ She paused, turning to Pete. ‘What was it, Pete? That thing that was wrong?’

Pete waited a long time before answering. ‘Uh... the... uh... the flywheel, yeah. There’s a garage up in Yonkers fixes them good, we heard. Flywheels, I mean.’