Эд Макбейн - Learning to Kill - Stories

“Yes... well, okay, if you say so. Well look, Sam, I can’t sell cars if I haven’t got them... You just do your best, that’s all. Okay, fine.” He hUng up without saying good-bye, got out of his chair, and walked over to us.

“Can I help you, gentlemen?”

“Yes,” Andy said. “We’re interested in a car. Are you the owner of this place?”

“I am.”

“With whom are we doing business?”

“Fred Whitaker,” he said. “Did you have any particular car in mind?”

“Yes. The black Buick on the floor.”

“A beautiful car,” Whitaker said, smiling.

“The one with the smashed grille and headlight,” I added.

The smile froze on his face, and he went white. “Wh... what?”

“Did you smash that car up?”

Whitaker swallowed hard. “No... no. One of my mechanics did.”

“Who?”

“I’ve... I’ve fired him. He...”

“We can check this, Whitaker.”

“Are... are you policemen?”

“We are. Come on, let’s have it all. We’ve got a girl to identify you.”

Whitaker’s face crumbled. “I... I guess that’s best, isn’t it?”

“It’s best,” Andy said.

“I didn’t mean to run him down. But the girl screamed, you know, and I thought he’d heard it. He stuck up his hand, and I... I got scared, I suppose, and there was no one around, so I... I knocked him... I knocked him down. Is he all right? I mean...”

“He’s dead,” I said.

“Dead?” Whitaker’s eyes went wide. “Dead...”

“Was it you who smashed that picket fence?” Andy asked.

Whitaker was still dazed.

“Wh... what?” he said.

“The picket fence. On Barnes.”

“Oh. Yes, yes. That was afterwards. I was still scared. I... I made a wrong turn, and I saw a police car, and I wanted to get away fast. I... I backed into the fence.”

“Why’d you bother that little girl, Whitaker?”

He collapsed into a chair. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.”

“You’re in a jam,” Andy said. “You’d better come along with us.”

“Yes, yes.” He stood up, took his hat from a rack in the corner, and then started for the door. At the door, he stopped and said, “I’d better tell my mechanics. I’d better tell them I’ll be gone for the day.”

I looked at Whitaker, and I thought of Benson. My eyes met Andy’s, and I put it into words for both of us.

“You’ll be gone a lot longer than that,” I said.

The girl slumped at the desk just inside the entrance doorway of the small office. The phone lay uncradled, just the way she’d dropped it. An open pad of telephone numbers rested just beyond reach of her lifeless left hand.

The legend on the frosted glass door read GOTHAM LOBSTER COMPANY. The same legend was repeated on the long row of windows facing Columbus Avenue, and the sun glared hotly through those windows, casting the name of the company onto the wooden floor in shadowed black.

Mr. Godrow, President of Gotham Lobster, stood before those windows now. He was a big man with rounded shoulders and a heavy paunch. He wore a gray linen jacket over his suit pants, and the pocket of the jacket was stitched with the word Gotham. He tried to keep his meaty hands from fluttering, but he wasn’t good at pretending. The hands wandered restlessly, and then exploded in a gesture of impatience.

“Well, aren’t you going to do something?” he demanded.

“We just got here, Mr. Godrow,” I said. “Give us a little...”

“The police are supposed to be so good,” he said petulantly. “This girl drops dead in my office and all you do is stand around and look. Is this supposed to be a sightseeing tour?”

I didn’t answer him. I looked at Donny, and Donny looked back at me, and then we turned our attention to the dead girl. Her left arm was stretched out across the top of the small desk, and her body was arched crookedly, with her head resting on the arm. Long black hair spilled over her face, but it could not hide the contorted, hideously locked grin on her mouth. She wore a tight silk dress, slit on either side in the Oriental fashion, buttoned to the throat. The dress had pulled back over a portion of her right thigh, revealing a roll-gartered stocking. The tight line of her panties was clearly visible through the thin silk of her dress. The dead girl was Chinese, but her lips and face were blue.

“Suppose you tell us what happened, Mr. Godrow,” I said.

“Freddie can tell you,” Godrow answered. “Freddie was sitting closer to her.”

“Who’s Freddie?”

“My boy,” Godrow said.

“Your son?”

“No, I haven’t any children. My boy. He works for me.”

“Where is he now, sir?”

“I sent him down for some coffee. After I called you.” Godrow paused, and then reluctantly said, “I didn’t think you’d get here so quickly.”

“Score one for the Police Department,” Donny murmured.

“Well, you fill us in until he gets back, will you?” I said.

“All right,” Godrow answered. He said everything grudgingly, as if he resented our presence in his office, as if this whole business of dead bodies lying around should never have been allowed to happen in his office. “What do you want to know?”

“What did the girl do here?” Donny asked.

“She made telephone calls.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes. Freddie does that, too, but he also runs the addressing machine. Freddie...”

“Maybe you’d better explain your operation a little,” I said.

“I sell lobsters,” Godrow said.

“From this office?” Donny asked skeptically.

“We take the orders from this office,” Godrow explained, warming up a little. It was amazing the way they always warmed up when they began discussing their work. “My plant is in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.”

“I see.”

“We take the orders here, and then the lobsters are shipped down from Maine, alive of course.”

“I like lobsters,” Donny said. “Especially lobster tails.”

“Those are not lobsters,” Godrow said indignantly. “Those are crawfish. African rock lobster. There’s a big difference.”

“Who do you sell to, Mr. Godrow?” I asked.

“Restaurants. That’s why Mary worked for me.”

“Is that the girl’s name? Mary?”

“Yes, Mary Chang. You see, we do a lot of business with Chinese restaurants. Lobster Cantonese, you know, like that. They buy small lobsters usually, and in half-barrel quantities for the most part, but they’re good steady customers.”

“And Miss Chang called these Chinese restaurants, is that right?”

“Yes. I found it more effective that way. She spoke several Chinese dialects, and she inspired confidence, I suppose. At any rate, she got me more orders than any Occidental who ever held the job.”

“And Freddie? What does he do?”

“He calls the American restaurants. We call them every morning. Not all of them each morning, of course, but those we feel are ready to reorder. We give them quotations, and we hope they’ll place orders. We try to keep our quotes low. For example, our jumbos today were going for...”

“How much did Miss Chang receive for her duties, Mr. Godrow?”

“She got a good salary.”

“How much?”

“Why? What difference does it make?”

“It might be important, Mr. Godrow. How much?”

“Forty-five a week, plus a dollar-fifty commission on each barrel order from a new customer.” Godrow paused. “Those are good wages, Mr....”

“Parker. Detective-Sergeant Ralph Parker.”

“Those are good wages, Sergeant Parker.” He paused again. “Much more than my competitors are paying.”

“I wouldn’t know about that, Mr. Godrow, but I’ll take your word for it. Now...”