Ed McBain - Long Time No See

“I’d like to talk to Danny Cortez, please,” he said.

“Who’s this?” the woman asked, the accent unmistakable now.

“Detective Carella, 87th Squad in Isola.”

“Who?” the woman said.

“Police Department,” he said.

“Police? Que desea usted?”

“I’d like to talk to Danny Cortez. Who’s this, please?”

“His wife. Qual es su nombre?”

“Carella. Detective Carella.”

“He knows you, my husband?”

“No. I’m calling long distance.”

“Ah, long distance,” she said. “One minute, por favor.”

Carella waited. He could hear voices in the background, talking softly in Spanish. Silence. Someone picked up the phone.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said.

“Mr. Cortez?”

“Yes?”

“This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad in Isola. I’m calling in reference to a murder we’re investigating.”

“A murder?”

“Yes. A man named James Harris. He was in the Army with you, would you happen to remember him?”

“Yes, sure. He was murdered, you say?”

“Yes. I was wondering if you’d answer some questions for me.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“When’s the last time you saw him, Mr. Cortez?”

“Jimmy? In August. We had a reunion of the company. I went there to New Jersey. That was when I saw him.”

“Did you talk to him then?”

“Oh, sure.”

“What about?”

“Oh, many things. We were in the same squad, you know. He was Alpha Fire Team, I was Bravo. We were the ones got them out the day he was wounded. They were trapped there, we got them out.”

“Were you very friendly with him?”

“Well, only so-so. We were in the same hootch, Alpha and Bravo, but—”

“The same what?”

“Hootch.”

“What’s that?”

“A hootch? You know what a hootch is.”

“No, I don’t.”

“It’s what we lived in. On the base. There were eight of us in a hootch, the non-coms had their own Playboy pad.”

“Was it like a quonset hut or something?”

“Well, it was more like a tent, you know, with wooden frames and the top half screened. Our hootch had a metal roof, but not all of them did.”

“And eight of you lived in this hootch, is that right?”

“Yeah, four of us from Alpha and four from Bravo. The sergeants — the two team leaders and the squad leader — had their own hootch. But what I’m saying is the guys in Alpha were closer to each other than they were to the guys in Bravo, even though we were all in the same squad. That’s because a fire team, you know, is a very tight-knit unit. You depend for your life on the guys in your own fire team, you understand me? You go through a lot together. Like Bravo went through a lot together, and Alpha went through a lot together, but on their own, you understand? Even though we were all in the same squad.”

“Mm-huh,” Carella said. “What did Alpha go through on its own?”

“Oh, lots of things. I mean, in combat and also off the base, you understand me?” His voice lowered. “In the bars, you know? And with whores, you know?”

“What did they go through in combat together?” Carella asked.

“Well, vill sweeps, you know. And on Ala Moana — that was a big operation — they were there when the lieutenant got killed.”

“Lieutenant Blake, would that be?”

“Yeah, Lieutenant Blake. The platoon commander.” “Alpha was there but Bravo wasn’t, is that it?” “Well, we were already going up the hill. There was a patrol out, and the RTO radioed back that they found half a dozen bunkers and a couple of tunnels up the hill. We were moving out to join them.”

“Bravo was?”

“Yeah. Alpha was resting.”

“Resting,” Carella said.

“Yeah. We’d all been through heavy fighting that whole month. Alpha was down where the lieutenant had set up a command post near some bamboo at the bottom of the hill.”

“A command post,” Carella said.

“Yeah. Well, not really a post. I mean, not buildings or tents or whatever. A command post is wherever the officer in command is. From where he directs the action, you understand me?”

“Mm-huh,” Carella said. “And that’s where the lieutenant was when he got killed? Down there with Alpha?”

“Yeah. Well, no, not exactly. This is what happened. Alpha was down there with the platoon sergeant—”

“Tataglia?”

“Yeah. Johnny Tataglia. Bravo was going up the hill to where the enemy was dug in. The lieutenant went back down to see where the hell Alpha was. To get Alpha so they could bring up the rear, you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“That’s when the mortar attack started. Bastards had zeroed in on the bamboo and were pounding the shit out of it.”

“And that’s when the lieutenant got killed?”

“Yeah, in the mortar attack. Frag must’ve got him. It was a terrible thing. Alpha took cover when the attack started, and then they couldn’t get to the lieutenant in time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, in the war over there, you had to pick up your own dead and wounded because if you didn’t they dragged them off and hacked them to pieces. The enemy, you understand me?”

“Is that what happened to Lieutenant Blake?”

“Yeah. He must’ve got hit while he was going down the hill. Alpha told us later they couldn’t go after him because of the mortars. All they could do was watch while he was dragged in the jungle. They found him later in an open pit — cut to ribbons. The bastards used to cut the bodies up and leave them in open pits.”

“Mm-huh,” Carella said.

“With bayonets, they did it,” Cortez said.

“Mm-huh.”

“So what I’m saying, you go through these terrible things together, you naturally get close to the guys who are in your own fire team. You understand me?”

“Yes, I do,” Carella said. “This happened on the third of December, is that right?”

“I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you that. We weren’t even there, you understand me? We were on our way to where they’d found those bunkers. It turned out there was a big cache up there. What I’m saying, there are things that are important to a person in combat because he’s in them. But if he isn’t there to experience them, well, then it’s just another day for him. So I couldn’t tell you if the lieutenant was killed on the third or the fourth or whenever. To me, it was just another day. I was out there on a search-and-destroy, I was in no danger at all. The mortars didn’t come anywhere near us. All we heard was the noise. You ever been in a mortar attack? It makes a lot of noise, even from a distance.”

“Mm-huh. Mr. Cortez, when you were at that reunion in New Jersey, did Jimmy talk to you about a plan he was considering?”

“A plan? No. We talked about what it was like overseas. What do you mean, a plan?”

“For making money.”

“I wish he would've talked to me about it,” Cortez said, and laughed. “I could use some money.”

“You wouldn’t know whether he’d approached any of the other men about such a plan?”

“No, I wouldn’t know. I’ll tell you, none of us are doing too hot, you understand me? In New Jersey we were all bitching about what a lousy deal we got. As veterans, I mean. If Jimmy had some plan to make money... hey, I got to tell you, we’d have gone in with him in a minute.” Cortez laughed again. “Long as it didn’t cost us nothing.”

“But you didn’t know about any such plan?”

“No.”

“Did you give Jimmy your address?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he write to you after the reunion?”