Ed McBain - Long Time No See

“What do you suppose the C is for?” Meyer asked.

“What C?”

“Charles C. Clark,” Meyer said.

“Oh. Clarence?”

“My guess is Cyril.”

“No, either Clarence or Clyde.”

“Cyril,” Meyer said.

The light bulb on the second-floor landing had not been smashed or pilfered. Carella snapped out his flash. The metal numerals on Clarke’s door were painted the same brown color as the door itself. There were three visible keyways on the door; Charlie Clarke was no fool. There was also a metal bell twist just below the numbers. Carella took it between his thumb and forefinger, and gave it a twirl. The sound from within the apartment was sharp and jangling. He tried it again. He looked at Meyer, and was about to try it another time when a door at the end of the hall opened. A small boy looked out into the hallway. He was perhaps eight years old. He had brown skin and brown eyes, and he was letting his hair grow into an Afro. He was wearing bedroom slippers and a plaid bathrobe belted at the waist.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Carella said.

“You looking for Mr. Clarke?”

“Yes,” Carella said. “Do you know where he is?”

“At the gym. He’s got a price fighter, did you know that?”

“Name of Black Jackson,” Carella said.

“You did know, huh?”

“Yep.”

“What’s his middle name?” Meyer asked.

“Black Jackson’s? He ain’t got no middle name,” the boy said. “Black Jackson, that’s his name,” he said, and raised his fists in a boxer’s classic pose. “I got the flu,” he said. “I’m s’posed to be in bed.”

“You better get back there, then,” Meyer said. “Where’s the gym?”

“Up on Holman.”

“What’s Mr. Clarke’s middle name?”

“Don’t know,” the boy said, and grinned and closed the door.

They started down the steps again. On the first-floor landing, Carella turned on his flashlight again. A huge black woman wearing a green cardigan sweater over a flowered housedress was standing at the foot of the steps as they came down to the ground floor. Her hands were on her hips.

“What’s the heat, Officers?” she asked. They had not identified themselves, but she knew fuzz when she saw it.

“No heat,” Carella said.

“Who you lookin for, then?”

“None of your business, lady,” Meyer said. “Go back in your apartment, okay?”

“I’m the super in this building, I want to know what you two men are doing here.”

“We’re from Housing and Development,” Meyer said, “checking on whether they’re light bulbs on every landing. Go put in some light bulbs or we’ll be back with a warrant.”

“You ain’t from no Housing and Development,” the woman said. Meyer and Carella were already in the outer lobby. They did not know whether or not Charlie Clarke had done anything, but they did not want a telephone call warning him that the police were on the way. Behind them, they heard the super saying, “Housing and Development, sheeeee-it.”

Charlie Clarke was a dapper little man wearing a yellow turtleneck shirt and a tan cardigan sweater over it. Dark brown trousers. Brown patent-leather shoes. Cigar holder clamped in one corner of his mouth, dead cigar in it. They found him on the second floor of the gym on Holman and 78th, elbows on the ring-can-vas, watching a pair of black fighters sparring. One of the fighters was huge and flatfooted. The other was smaller but more agile. He kept dancing around the bigger fighter, hitting him with right jabs. All around the gym other fighters were skipping rope and pounding the big bags. In one comer a small pale man who looked like a welterweight kept a punching bag going with monotonously precise rhythm. Carella and Meyer walked over to the ring. Clarke had been described to them downstairs. The description proved to be entirely accurate, right down to the dead cigar in his mouth.

“Mr. Clarke?” Carella asked.

“Yeah, shh,” he said. "What the fuck you waitin on, man?” he shouted to the rink. The smaller, more agile fighter stopped dancing around the larger one, and dropped his hands in exasperation. The back of his sweatshirt was lettered with the name BLACK JACKSON. “You never gonna knock the man out, you keep jabbin all the time,” Clarke said. “You had plenty opportunity for the left hand, now what were you waitin on, man, would you tell me?”

“I was waitin on an opening,” Jackson said.

“Man, there was openings like a hooker’s Saturday night,” Clarke said.

“Ain’t no sense throwin the left till there’s an opening,” Jackson said.

“You want to be the heavyweight champ of the world, or you want to be a dance star?” Clarke asked. “All I see you doin is dancin and jabbin, dancin and jabbin. You want to knock down a man the size of Jody there, you got to hit him. man. You got to knock his fuckin head off, not go dancin with him.” He turned abruptly from the ring and said, “What is it, Officers?”

“What you want us to do now?” Jackson asked.

“Go work out on the bag a while,” Clarke said over his shoulder.

“Which bag?”

“The big one.”

Jackson turned and began walking toward the far side of the ring. The larger fighter followed him. Together they ducked through the ropes. A loudspeaker erupted into the sweaty rhythm of the huge echoing room. “Andrew Henderson, call your mother. Andrew Henderson, call your mother.”

“So what is it?” Clarke asked.

“Jimmy and Isabel Harris,” Carella said.

“You’re kiddin me,” Clarke said. “What’ve I got to do with that?”

“Is it true you asked Sophie Harris to marry you?”

“That’s right,” Clarke said. “Listen, what is this, man? Is this you’re lookin for information about somebody you think done this thing, or is it you’re tryin to hang it on me? Cause, man, from what I read in the papers that boy was killed at around seven-thirty last night, and I was right here then, man, workin my fighter.”

“Don’t get excited,” Meyer said.

“I ain’t excited,” Clarke said. “I just know some things. You don’t get to be sixty years old in Diamond-back without gettin to know a few things.”

“What are these things you know, Mr. Clarke?”

“I know when a black man’s been killed, the cops go lookin for another black man. I don’t know why you’re here, but I’ll give you six-to-five it’s cause I’m black.”

“You’d lose,” Carella said.

“Then enlighten me,” Clarke said.

“We’re here because you asked Sophie Harris to marry you, and you know she’s contingent beneficiary of a twenty-five-thousand-dollar insurance policy. That’s why we’re here.”

“You think I killed those two kids so I could latch onto the twenty-five, is that it?”

“What time did you get here last night?”

“Shit, man, I got half a mind—”

“If you’re clean, we’ll be out of here in three minutes flat. Just tell us when you got here and when you left.”

“I was here at seven and I left at midnight.”

“Anybody see you?”

“I was workin with Warren and a sparring partner.”

“Warren?”

“Warren Jackson. My boy.”

“Who was the sparring partner? Same guy there?” “No, a kid named Donald Rivers. I don’t see him around, I don’t think he’s here right now.”

“Anybody else?”

“Only every fighter and manager in Diamondback. Warren’s got a fight Tuesday night. I been workin his ass off. Ask anybody in the gym — pick anybody you see on the floor — ask them was I here workin the boy last night. Seven o’clock to midnight. Had ring time from eight to nine, you can check that downstairs. Rest of the time I had him runnin and jumpin and punchin the bags and the whole damn shit.”