Ed McBain - The Last Brief

The peculiar thing about the following collection is that only one of the stories in it has ever been published under the Ed McBain byline, and even that — if memory serves — first appeared under my own name, Evan Hunter, as did several of the other stories. For the rest, I used either the pseudonym Richard Marsten (from the surnames of my three sons, Richard, Mark and Ted) or else Hunt Collins (derived from my alma mater, Hunter College in New York). Since McBain writes exclusively about matters criminous, you may well ask why his name did not appear on any of these stories that most certainly deal with crime.

I wish I knew.

The oversight might seem understandable in view of the fact that some of the stories appeared in print before 1956, when the Ed McBain byline first saw the light of day with the publication of Cop Hater. But many of these stories were written after the debut of the 87th Precinct novels, and still Ed McBain was rudely shunted aside by Hunter, Marsten and Collins, a trio of literary muggers to rival the infamous Totting Hill Triplets (whom I made up this very minute). As a drawing-room detective might have muttered over her knitting needles, ‘It’s all very baffling.’

Is it possible that the reasoning at the time may have gone something like this: Well, this McBain chap writes police novels, so let the shoemaker stick to his last, let’s not confuse the reader by giving him a McBain story that has nothing whatever to do with cops. All well and good, except for the fact that many of these stories do deal with policemen and police work. (Oddly, the only one that McBain’s name adorned before now was not a police story.) Or is it possible that those three hoodlums — Hunter, Marsten and Collins — once commanded higher prices in the literary marketplace than did poor, struggling, honest Ed McBain? Was a venal agent, editor, publisher, all or any of the above, responsible for the malfeasance? If so, is there no higher court to which an appeal can be made? Must Ed McBain, in the face of such despicable strong-arm tactics, continue to hide his light under a bushel for the remainder of his days? Is there no way to rectify what has surely been a gross miscarriage of justice?

There is a way.

This is the way.

You may well argue that using the McBain byline to foist upon an unsuspecting public the crime-related stories that follow is an offence even more heinous than the one perpetrated by those three gangsters whose names I refuse even to mention again. I hope not. I hope indeed that you will enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them (however many other literary thugs may lay claim to that distinction). I am, in fact, rather fond of the little tales that follow, including the one I wrote when I was eighteen years old and serving as a radarman aboard a U. S. destroyer in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. (If you guess Hot, you’re cold.) I also like... but that’s another story.

I promised you a ‘brief introduction’. And so, ladies and germs, I give you, for the first time together anywhere in the entire universe, the one, the only (I hope)...

Ed McBain

He sat in the police van with the collar of his leather jacket turned up, the bright silver studs sharp against the otherwise unrelieved black. He was seventeen years old, and he wore his hair in a high black crown. He carried his head high and erect because he knew he had a good profile, and he carried his mouth like a switch knife, ready to spring open at the slightest provocation. His hands were thrust deep into his jacket pockets, and his grey eyes reflected the walls of the van. There was excitement in his eyes, too, an almost holiday excitement. He tried to tell himself he was in trouble, but he couldn’t quite believe it. His gradual descent to disbelief had been a spiral that had spun dizzily through the range of his emotions. Terror when the cop’s flash had picked him out; blind panic when he’d started to run; rebellion when the cop’s firm hand had closed around the leather sleeve of his jacket; sullen resignation when the cop had thrown him into the RMP car; and then cocky stubbornness when they’d booked him at the local precinct.

The desk sergeant had looked him over curiously, with a strange aloofness in his Irish eyes.

‘What’s the matter, Fatty?’ he’d asked.

The sergeant stared at him implacably. ‘Put him away for the night,’ the sergeant said.

He’d slept overnight in the precinct cell block, and he’d awakened with this strange excitement pulsing through his narrow body, and it was the excitement that had caused his disbelief. Trouble, hell! He’d been in trouble before, but it had never felt like this. This was different. This was a ball, man. This was like being initiated into a secret society some place. His contempt for the police had grown when they refused him the opportunity to shave after breakfast. He was only seventeen, but he had a fairly decent beard, and a man should be allowed to shave in the morning, what the hell! But even the beard had somehow lent to the unreality of the situation, made him appear — in his own eyes — somehow more desperate, more sinister-looking. He knew he was in trouble, but the trouble was glamorous, and he surrounded it with the gossamer lie of make-believe. He was living the storybook legend. He was big time now. They’d caught him and booked him, and he should have been scared but he was excited instead.

There was one other person in the van with him, a guy who’d spent the night in the cell block, too. The guy was an obvious bum, and his breath stank of cheap wine, but he was better than nobody to talk to.

‘Hey!’ he said.

The bum looked up. ‘You talking to me?’

‘Yeah. Where we going?’

‘The line-up, kid,’ the bum said. ‘This your first offence?’

‘This’s the first time I got caught,’ he answered cockily.

‘All felonies go to the line-up,’ the bum told him. ‘And also some special types of misdemeanours. You commit a felony?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, hoping he sounded nonchalant. What’d they have this bum in for anyway? Sleeping on a park bench?

‘Well, that’s why you’re going to the line-up. They have guys from every detective squad in the city there, to look you over. So they’ll remember you next time. They put you on a stage, and they read off the offence, and the Chief of Detectives starts firing questions at you. What’s your name, kid?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Don’t get smart, punk, or I’ll break your arm,’ the bum said.

He looked at the bum curiously. He was a pretty big guy, with a heavy growth of beard, and powerful shoulders. ‘My name’s Stevie,’ he said.

‘I’m Jim Skinner,’ the bum said. ‘When somebody’s trying to give you advice, don’t go hip on him.’

‘Yeah, well what’s your advice?’ he asked, not wanting to back down completely.

‘When they get you up there, you don’t have to answer anything. They’ll throw questions, but you don’t have to answer. Did you make a statement at the scene?’

‘No,’ he answered.

‘Good. Then don’t make no statement now, either. They can’t force you to. Just keep your mouth shut, and don’t tell them nothing.’

‘I ain’t afraid. They know all about it anyway,’ Stevie said.

The bum shrugged and gathered around him the sullen pearls of his scattered wisdom. Stevie sat in the van whistling, listening to the accompanying hum of the tires, hearing the secret hum of his blood beneath the other louder sound. He sat at the core of a self-imposed importance, basking in its warm glow, whistling contentedly, secretly happy. Beside him, Skinner leaned back against the wall of the van.