Ed McBain: Long Time No See

Meyer walked toward the closest R.M.P. car, exchanged a few words with the patrolman, and then climbed into the car and reached for the hand mike. Carella walked to where the photographer was putting a fresh roll of film into his camera.

“Okay to go through his pockets?”

“He’s all yours,” the photographer said.

In the dead man’s coat pockets, Carella found only a book of matches and a subway token. In the right-hand trouser pocket, he found another subway token, a key chain with two keys on it, and twelve dollars and four cents in quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. In the left-hand pocket, he found a wallet with seventeen dollars in it, all singles, and a lucite-enclosed card from the Guiding Eye School at 821 South Perry. The typewritten text on one side of the card read:

THIS WILL IDENTIFY JAMES R. HARRIS OF 3415 SOUTH SEVENTH STREET, ISOLA AND HIS GUIDE DOG STANLEY, BLACK LABRADOR RETRIEVER.

The card was signed by the Director of Training, a man named Israel Schwartz, and the seal of the school was in the lower right-hand corner of the card. On the reverse side of the card there was a picture of Harris and the dog in harness, and the printed text:

Issued for the convenience of transportation companies granting use of their facilities to guide dogs accompanied by their owners. Non-transferable.

The 3400 block was just off Mason Avenue. James Harris had been less than two blocks from home when he’d been killed. Pinned to the inside of the leather wallet was a medallion that looked Catholic to Carella. On Harris left wrist, there was a Braille wristwatch. On the third finger of his left hand, there was a wedding band. On his right hand, he wore a high school graduation ring. Emory High. A school in Diamondback. That was all.

The technician walked over. He squatted beside Carella and began putting the dead man’s belongings into brown paper bags, sealing them, tagging them.

“What do you suppose this is?” Carella asked, and showed him the medallion.

“I’m not religious,” the technician said.

“It’s a saint, though, don’t you think?”

“Even if I was religious,” the technician said, “there are no saints in my religion.”

“Get what you need?” Horton asked.

“Yes,” Carella said.

“I want his hands bagged,” Horton said to the technician.

“Okay,” the technician said.

“I’ll have a man at the morgue first thing tomorrow,” Carella said.

Horton nodded. “Goodnight,” he said, and walked off.

Carella went over to where the photographer was taking pictures of the terrain surrounding the square. “I’ll need somebody from Photo to print him in the morning,” he said. “I’ll have a man there to back up the prints and deliver them to the I.D. Section.”

“What time?” the photographer asked.

“Make it eight o’clock.”

“Crack of dawn.”

“What can I do?” Carella said, and gestured helplessly toward where the lab technician was already slipping a plastic bag over the dead man’s right hand.

Meyer came over from the R.M.P. car. “Get a make?” he asked.

“His name’s James Harris,” Carella said, “lives on South Seventh. What about the dog?”

“Murchison’s sending a vet right away.”

“Good. You want to stay here while I check out this address?”

“Have you made the sketch yet?”

“Not yet.”

The intern approached just as Meyer was asking about the sketch. “Listen,” he said, “if you think we’re going to hang around while you made a goddamn drawing of the—”

“It’ll just take a few minutes,” Meyer said.

“Next time call when you’re ready for us,” the intern said. “And about that dog—”

“What about the dog?”

“Cop there said we’d have to take the dog, too. I’m not carrying any dog in the ambulance. That’s—”

“Who said you had to take him?”

“The big cop over there. The one in the black coat.”

“Monoghan?”

“I don’t know his name.”

“You don’t have to take the dog,” Meyer said. “But I can’t let you move the body till I’ve got a sketch of the scene, okay? It’ll only take a minute, I promise.”

Carella knew it would take more like a half-hour. “Meyer,” he said, “I’ll be back.”

There was no light in the small entrance foyer.

Carella took a small penlight from his coat pocket and flashed it over the mailboxes. The nameplate for apartment 3C read J. HARRIS. He snapped off the light and tried the inner lobby door. It was unlocked. Inside, there was a hanging bulb on the first-floor landing, casting a yellowish glow onto the linoleum-covered steps. He started up the steps. The tenement smells were familiar to him. He had grown accustomed to them after years of working out of the 87th.

He took the stairs two at a time, not because he was in any hurry, but only because he always climbed stairs two at a time. He had started doing that when he was twelve and beginning to get lanky and long-legged. His mother used to call him a long drink of water. He’d stopped growing when he was seventeen, just short of six feet tall. He was broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted now, with the muscular leanness and effortless grace of an athlete. His hair was brown, his eyes were brown, too; they slanted downward to give his face a peculiarly Oriental look.

The tenements in the precinct territory were always either too hot or too cold. This one was suffocatingly hot with the contained steam heat of the day. He took off the woolen watch cap as he climbed the steps, stuffed it into a pocket of the mackinaw, and then unbuttoned the short coat. Behind closed doors he could hear television voices. Somewhere in the building someone flushed a toilet. He came onto the third-floor landing. There were three apartments there. Apartment 3C was at the end of the hall, farthest from the stairwell. He knocked on the door.

“Jimmy?” a woman’s voice said.

“No, ma’am, police officer.”

“Police, did you say?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He waited. The door opened a crack, held by a night chain. The apartment beyond was dark, he could not see the woman’s face.

“Hold up your badge,” she said.

He had the tin ready in his hand, they always asked to see it. It was pinned to the flap of a small leather case that also contained his lucite-enclosed I.D. card. He showed it to her, and waited for recognition.

“Are you holding it up?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, and frowned, puzzled.

Her hand appeared in the narrow open wedge of the door. “Let me touch it,” she said, and he realized belatedly that she was blind. He held out the shield, watched as her fingers explored the blue enamel, the gold ridges set in a sunburst pattern around the city’s seal.

“What’s your name?” she said.

“Detective Carella,” he said.

“I guess it’s all right,” she said, and pulled her hand back. But she did not remove the night chain. “What do you want?” she asked.

“Does James Harris live here?”

“What is it?” she asked at once.

“Mrs. Harris...” he said, and hesitated. He hated this moment more than anything in police work. There was no kind way to do it, nothing that would soften it, nothing. “Your husband is dead,” he said.

There was silence in the open wedge of the door, silence in the darkness beyond.

“What... what...?”

“May I come in?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, please...”

He heard the night chain being removed. The door opened wide. In the light spilling from the landing, he saw that she was a white woman, blond, slender, wearing a long belted blue robe and oversized dark glasses that covered her eyes and a goodly portion of her face as well. The apartment behind her was dark. He hesitated before entering, and she sensed this, and understood the cause at once. “I’ll put on a light,” she said, and turned and moved surely to the wall, and then along it, her left hand scarcely grazing it. She found the light switch, snapped it on. An overhead ceiling fixture illuminated the room. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.