Эд Макбейн - Learning to Kill - Stories

“When was this? That you told Mrs. Tse?”

“Yesterday, I think. I don’t really remember. There’s been so damned much confusion around here...”

She shook her head.

“You’ve been very helpful,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, and went back to her typing.

I’d been walking for two blocks before I realized I was being followed. I quickened my pace, hurried down narrow twisting streets, ducked into an alley, and sprinted for the other end. My followers knew Chinatown better than I did. Lun Ching and his pal Tommy were waiting for me at the other end of the alley.

“You son of a bitch,” Lun shouted.

The sap in his hand went up over his head and came down on the side of my neck, knocking me flat against one wall of the alley. I grabbed at the bricks for support, but the sap went up and down again, and this time it peeled back a half inch of flesh from my cheek.

“You’re going to the morgue, you bastard,” Lun said. He brought back the sap again, swung it at my head. I fell to my knees and Tommy kicked me quickly and expertly. Lun bent over me, the sap a sledgehammer now, up and down, hitting me everywhere, on my shoulders, my face, my upraised hands and arms.

“Break up the card game, will you? Come acting tough, huh?”

And always the sap, up and down, viciously pounding me closer and closer to the cement until my head was touching it and Tommy’s kick to my temple made everything go black.

The brick wall was a mile high. It stretched out above me and leaned dangerously against the sky. I watched it, wondering when it would fall; and after a while I realized it wasn’t going to fall at all.

I stumbled to my knees then and touched the raw pain that was my face. I ached everywhere, and I ached more when I remembered Tommy and Lun. But I wasn’t angry at them. They’d given me a hell of a beating, but they’d also given me an idea, and it was an idea any stupid bastard should have got all by himself. So I filed them away under unfinished business and stumbled my way out of the alley.

Lun Ching had said I was going to the morgue, and he was right.

It was cool inside the morgue.

I thanked the respite from the heat and followed the attendant down the long, gloomy corridor.

“This is it,” he said. He pulled out the drawer and I looked down into Joey’s lifeless face, at the flabby whiskey-sodden features that even death could not hide.

“That’s him,” I said.

“Sure, I know it’s him,” the attendant answered, his voice echoing off the windowless walls.

“I was wondering about his personal effects,” I said.

“You a relative?”

“No. I don’t think he had any relatives. I was his friend.”

The attendant considered this.

“Not a hell of a lot there,” he said at last. “Sent all of it up to Homicide because they’re still investigating this. Got a list, though, and I can tell you what was on him.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“Sure. No trouble at all.” I followed him to a desk at the end of the corridor. He sat down and picked up a clipboard, and then began flipping the pages. “Let’s see. Yeah, here he is, Joseph H. Gunder.”

I hadn’t even known Joey’s last name. The anonymity of the Bowery is almost complete.

“Yeah, he didn’t have much,” the attendant said. “Want me to read this off?”

“Yes, please.”

“A dollar bill, and thirty-five cents in change. Want that broken down?”

“No, that’s fine.”

“Okay, let’s see. Handkerchief, switchblade knife, pint of Carstairs, almost empty, some rubber bands, package of Camels, two butts in it. Wallet with identification. That’s it.”

“A pint of Carstairs?”

I was thinking of the fifth of Imperial Joey had brought to me and how we’d killed it.

“Yep, that’s right.”

“And... a switchblade knife?”

“Yeah.”

“And money, too?”

“Say, you want me to repeat the whole damn list?”

“No, that’s fine. Thanks.” I paused. “Did they decide what killed him?”

“Sure. Hole in the head. Want to see him again?”

“No. I meant, what caliber pistol?”

“ .22. Why?”

“Just curious. I’ll be going.”

“Drop in again sometime,” he said.

I walked out into bright sunshine. For me, the beginning was in the morgue, after all, and I owed Lun Ching a debt. But the end was somewhere else, and I headed there now.

The door opened when I knocked and gave my name.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just came across something.”

“That’s all right.”

“May I come in?”

“Certainly.”

I followed her into the living room again, and I sat down in the same easy chair. I didn’t look at the floor or my clasped hands this time. I looked directly at her.

“Ever walk through the Bowery, Mrs. Tse?”

Her eyes were still troubled. “Yes?” she said.

“Often?”

“I know the neighborhood.”

“Do you own a gun, Mrs. Tse?”

She hesitated. “Why... yes. Yes, I do.”

“A .22 maybe?”

She hesitated again, for a long time. She sighed deeply then and lifted her eyes to mine. There was no expression on her face, and her tone was flat.

“You know,” she said.

“I know.”

She nodded.

“He deserved what he got,” she said.

“Joey?”

“Yes. Joey. He was your friend, wasn’t he?”

“My drinking companion, Mrs. Tse. A man doesn’t get to know much about anyone in the Bowery. Nor about what makes them tick.”

“How did you know? How did you know I... killed him?”

“A few things. A bottle of Imperial, for one. When Joey brought it to me, I never thought to ask where he’d got the money for it. That kind of money doesn’t come easy to a bum. When I saw his stuff at the morgue, there was another pint there, and more money. I knew then that Joey had hit it rich recently and his switchblade knife told me how.”

“Harry was stabbed,” she said tonelessly.

“Sure. Joey didn’t even know who his victim was. When Charlie mentioned it to him, Joey was probably drunk. He said, ‘So that’s who it was,’ without even thinking. Charlie thought Joey had only seen your husband’s murderer. He didn’t know Joey was the murderer.”

“And me? How did you come to me?”

“A guess, and a little figuring. A .22 is a woman’s gun.”

“I have a permit,” she said. “I go through the Bowery often. Harry thought... he thought I should have one.”

“What happened, Mrs. Tse? Do you want to tell me?”

“All right,” she said, and paused. “Charlie pointed out your... friend to me. Joey. I followed him to Cooper Square. I asked him what he’d meant by ‘So that’s who it was.’ He got terribly frightened. He said he hadn’t meant to kill Harry. I think he was drunk, I don’t know. He said he’d asked Harry for a dime and Harry refused. He pulled a knife and when Harry started to yell, he stabbed him. For a... a dime. He stabbed him for a dime.”

“He got more than just a dime, Mrs. Tse.”

“I couldn’t believe it, Mr. Cordell.”

She still couldn’t.

“For a dime! ” she said again, and shook her head. “I took the gun from my purse and shot him. I shot him only once. Just once. Because he’d stabbed Harry, you see.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“So I shot him,” she repeated. Her voice was very small now. “Will you take me to the police?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“But...”

I got to my feet.

“Mrs. Tse,” I said, “we’ve never even met.”

I walked to the door, leaving her alone in the living room that faced a blank wall, leaving her alone because once upon a time I’d lost someone I loved, and I knew exactly how it felt.