Ed McBain - Long Time No See

He watched the train, and forgot for a moment that he was here to learn about murder. He kept watching it until it rumbled into the platform, and then he picked up the telephone receiver and dialed 411 for information. When the operator came on, he asked for the Golden Inn on Culver, and she gave him the number. He dialed it at once. Through the windows he could see the train moving away from the platform. A library. Something. Walking to the library with books under his arm. The elevated train overhead. Snow on the pavement.

“Golden Inn, good morning,” a man’s voice said.

“Good morning, this is Detective Carella, Police Department.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d check your register for a couple that may have been there this past Thursday, that would have been November eighteenth.”

“Sir?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have to call you back on that.”

“I’m not at the office.”

“Well, it’s... How do I know you’re a policeman?”

“Call the 87th Squad, here’s the number, and ask whoever’s there if a Detective Carella works there. That’s Frederick 7-8024. Then call me back here as soon as you’ve checked — the number here is West-more 6-2275. Have you got both those numbers?” “Yes, sir.”

“Do it fast, please.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll do it right this minute.”

“Good,” Carella said, and hung up.

He waited. Another train pulled into the elevated platform. He waited. The train pulled out. He looked at his watch. On the dresser opposite the bed, there was a picture of Frank and Sylvia Preston, taken when they were much younger. There were pictures of grown children, presumably theirs. There was a wedding picture of two young people Carella assumed were also children of the Prestons. The sweep hand on the electric dresser clock wiped the dial relentlessly. Another train pulled into the station. Carella sighed. He waited. The train rumbled out again. Exasperated, he picked up the receiver and dialed the motel.

“Golden Inn, good morning.”

“Good morning, this is Detective Carella again. Did you check with the squad?”

“Sir, the phone rang the minute I hung up, I haven’t had a chance to—”

“What’s your name?” Carella asked.

“Gary Otis.”

“All right, Mr. Otis, listen to me,” Carella said. “This is a homicide I’m investigating here, and I haven’t got time for you to go checking all over the city to see whether I’m a bona fide cop or not. My name is — have you got a pencil? — Stephen Louis Carella, that’s Stephen with a p-h, I'm a Detective Second/Grade working out of the 87th Squad in Isola. My shield number is 714-56-32, and my commanding officer’s name is Detective-Lieutenant Peter Byrnes. Have you got all that?”

“Well, I... I think so.”

“Good. If it turns out I’m a fake cop, you can sue the city. In the meantime, Mr. Otis—”

“How can I sue the city?”

“Mr. Otis, you’re irritating me,” Carella said.

“I’m sorry, sir, but how can I sue the city? Let’s say you’re somebody’s husband calling to find out—”

“Let’s say I’m a real cop who’s getting very irritated. Have you got your register there in front of you?”

“Yes, sir, but I think you can understand why I’m not at liberty to reveal the names of any of our guests.”

“Mr. Otis, I can go downtown for a court order to look at your register, but that's going to make me even more irritated than I am right now. If I’m forced to do that, and I come over to the Golden Inn and find so much as a cockroach in one of the rooms, I'll call the Department of Health and have the place closed down. So you’d better make sure your establishment is spotless, you’d better make sure it's absolutely pristine if you’re asking me to go all the way downtown for a court order on a Saturday morning.”

“Is that a threat of some kind, Mr. Carella?”

“That is whatever you choose to consider it, Mr. Otis. What do you say?”

“There are no cockroaches in the rooms here.”

“Fine. In that case, I’ll see you later with the court order.”

“But if you’re really a cop—”

“I’m really a cop, Mr. Otis.”

“And if this is really a homicide—”

“It’s really a homicide. Mr. Otis, why are you a desk clerk? Why aren’t you a noted Philadelphia lawyer?” “I’m not a desk clerk. I own the Golden Inn.”

“Ah,” Carella said. “I see.”

“So of course I’m eager to protect my guests.”

“Of course. Mr. Otis, did you register a Mr. and Mrs. Pratt Thursday afternoon? Or a Mr. and Mrs. Pitt? Felix would have been the first name.”

“Just a moment.”

Carella waited.

“Yes, I have a Mr. and Mrs. Felix Pitt.”

“Were you at the desk when they registered?”

“I don’t recall. Oh, wait a minute. Was she the blind girl?”

“Yes,” Carella said.

“Yes, I registered them. Beautiful woman, married to a much older man. I didn’t realize she was blind at first. She was wearing very large sunglasses, I had no idea she was blind. Until he led her to the elevator, of course, and then I realized.”

“What time did they check in?”

“The register entry doesn’t indicate that.”

“Would you remember?”

“Sometime in the late afternoon.”

“And when did they check out?”

“At about eight o'clock, I guess it was. I’d stepped out for a bite to eat, and when I came back they were leaving. He paid me in cash. I remember.”

“Thank you, Mr. Otis,” Carella said.

“I hope you understand why—”

“Yes, I understand. Thank you,” Carella said, and hung up.

He sat with his hand on the receiver for quite some time. He had just confirmed that Isabel Harris and Frank Preston had indeed spent at least an afternoon and evening together in a motel on Thursday. Locked as they'd been in blind passionate embrace, so to speak, neither of the pair could have scooted uptown to Hannon Square to slit the throat of Jimmy Harris between six-thirty and seven-thirty p.m. At eight, in fact, they had been seen leaving die establishment by none other than Gary Otis the Golden Innkeeper. Isabel Harris had probablv got to her apartment just a few minutes before Carella knocked on her door. By that time her husband had been dead for at least two hours, and possibly longer.

He thought back to the questions he’d asked her on the night of the murder, thought back to the specific question: “Are you involved with another man?” The terse answer: “No.” Liars didn’t surprise him. In the murder business, there were lots of liars. Tears didn't surprise him, either. You sometimes got tears for somebody who'd been hated for years. They came unbidden, the response as primitive as the howl of the first man who pulled a burning stick from a fire. He rose, went down the hallway, and thanked the Prestons for the use of the telephone. Preston’s eyes met his questioningly. Carella nodded briefly, feeling like a conspirator.

The two coffins were angled into the chapel so that a passage ran between them, and those coming to pay their respects could walk past both biers simultaneously. There were white men and black men in the funeral home, chatting in whispers in the carpet-covered lobby outside, or sitting in the chapel itself on folding wooden chairs, or kneeling in prayer at the wrought-iron railings behind which the coffins rested on sawhorses draped in satin.

Sophie Harris sat on a chair in the first row, dressed entirely in black — black shoes and stockings, black dress and black veiled hat. She reminded Carella of the family women he had known as a boy, distant widowed aunts or cousins whom he had never seen wearing anything but black. He sat beside Sophie now, and she turned to look at him, and then turned away again.