Ed McBain - Long Time No See

“No.”

“Did he telephone you, or try to contact you in any other way?”

“No.”

“Mm,” Carella said. “Well,” he said, and sighed. “Thanks a lot, Mr. Cortez, I appreciate the time you gave me.”

“I wish you luck,” Cortez said, and hung up.

Sergeant Dave Murchison looked toward the iron-runged steps as Carella came down them into the muster room. In the swing room, two patrolmen had taken off their tunics and were sitting in their suspended trousers and long-sleeved underwear, drinking coffee. One of them had just told a joke, and both men were laughing.

Carella glanced briefly through the open door to the room, and then walked to the muster desk. “I’m heading home,” he said.

“What about the dog?” Murchison asked.

“What? Oh, Jesus, I forgot all about him. Did somebody pick him up?”

“He’s downstairs in one of the holding cells. What do you plan to do with him?”

“I don’t know,” Carella said. “I guess I’ll turn him over to Harris’ mother.”

“When?” Murchison said. “Steve, it’s against regulations to keep animals here at the station house.”

“Miscolo has a cat in the Clerical Office,” Carella said.

“That’s different. That’s not in a holding cell downstairs.”

“Shall I take the dog up to Clerical?”

“He’d eat Miscolo’s cat. He’s a very big dog, Steve. Have you seen this dog?”

“He’s not so big. He’s an average-sized Labrador.”

“An average-sized Labrador is a very big dog. I’d say he weighs ninety pounds, that’s what I’d say. Also, he won’t eat.”

“Well, I’ll take him over to Harris’ mother in the morning. I have to talk to her, anyway.”

“You better hope Captain Frick doesn’t decide to take a stroll down to the holding cells. He finds a dog down there, he’ll take a fit.”

“Tell him it’s a master of disguise.”

“What?” Murchison said.

“Tell him it’s a criminal wearing a dog suit.”

“Ha-ha,” Murchison said mirthlessly.

“I’ll get him out of here first thing in the morning,” Carella said. “Dave, I’m tired. I want to go home.”

“What the hell time is it, anyway?” Murchison said, and looked up at the clock. “I got a call from Charlie Maynard an hour ago, he said he’d be a little late. He’s supposed to relieve me at a quarter to four, he calls at a quarter to five, tells me he’ll be a little late. Now it’s a quarter to six, and he still ain’t here. When he called, I told him to get on Tarzan and ride over here as quick as he could.”

“Get on Tarzan? What do you mean?”

“Tarzan was Ken Maynard's horse,” Murchison said.

“No, Tarzan was Tom Mix’s horse.”

“Tony was Tom Mix’s horse.”

“Then who was Trigger?” Carella asked.

“I don’t know who Trigger was. Buck Jones’ horse maybe.”

“Anyway, Charlie Maynard isn’t Ken Maynard.”

“What difference does it make?” Murchison said. “He’s two hours late either way, ain’t he?”

Carella blinked. “Goodnight, Dave,” he said, and walked across the room to the entrance doors, and through them to the steps outside. A fierce wind was blowing in the street.

The wind tore at the blind man’s coat.

He clung to the harness of the German shepherd leading him, cursing the wind, cursing the fact that he had to go to the bathroom and he was still three blocks from his building. The trouble with running a newsstand was that you had to go in the cafeteria or the bookstore every time you had to pee. They were nice about it, they knew a man couldn’t be out there on the comer all day long without going to the bathroom, but still he hated to bother them all the time.

He wondered what astronauts did. Did they pee inside their space suits? Was there a tube they had? He should have gone in the cafeteria before heading home. The bookstore was already closed, but the cafeteria was open twenty-four hours, and the manager said he didn’t mind him coming in to use the men’s room downstairs. Still, you couldn’t go in there every ten minutes, take advantage of the man’s hospitality that way. Tried to limit his necessity calls to lunch time and then maybe once again midafternoon. Always took his lunch at the cafeteria so he could stay on friendly terms with the manager. He went in the bookstore only every now and then, when he felt embarrassed about going in the cafeteria. But it was different in the bookstore because he only bought from them every now and then, when he wanted to give a present to one of his sighted friends, and also they sold magazines same as he did, and he guessed they maybe thought he was in competition with them.

God, he had to pee!

The dog suddenly stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk.

“What is it, Ralph?” he said.

The dog began growling.

“Ralph?” he said. “What’s the matter, boy?”

He smelled something sickeningly sweet in that instant, cloying, medicinal — chloroform, it was chloroform. The dog growled again, an attack growl deep in his throat, and suddenly the harness jerked out of his hand and someone yelled in pain. He heard the shuffle of feet on the sidewalk, heard harsh breathing, the dog’s low growl again, and then footsteps running into the night, fading. The dog was barking. The dog would not stop barking.

“All right,” he said, “all right,” and groped for the harness and found it. He patted the dog’s head. “Take me home, boy,” he said. “Home now. Home, Ralph.”

At home, there was a telephone.

He called the police, not because he thought they’d do anything about it — police in this damn city never did anything about anything — but only because he felt outraged by the attack. The patrolman who arrived at his apartment immediately challenged him.

“How do you know it was an attack, Mr. Masler?”

The man’s name was Eugene Maslen, with an “n.” He had corrected the patrolman twice, but the patrolman kept saying Masler. Maybe he was hard of hearing. He tried again.

“It’s Maslen,” he said, “with an ‘n,’ and I know it was an attack because the dog wouldn’t have begun growling that way if someone wasn’t threatening us.”

“Mm,” the patrolman said. His name was McGrew, and he worked out of the Four-One downtown in the financial district, near the Headquarters building. “And you say you smelled chloroform?”

“It smelled like chloroform, yes. From when I had my tonsils out.”

“When was that, Mr. Masler?”

“When I was seven.”

“And you remember what the chloroform smelled like, huh?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“So what is it you’re saying, Mr. Masler? Are you saying this person was trying to chloroform the dog?”

“I don’t know what he was trying to do. I’m telling you he approached us with chloroform and the dog attacked him and bit him.”

“Oh, the dog bit him. How do you know?”

“Because I heard the man yell.”

“How do you know it was a man?”

“It sounded like a man yelling.”

“What did he yell?”

“He just yelled in pain, but I can tell the difference between a man yelling and a woman yelling. This was a man.”

“Your dog ain’t got rabies, has he?”

“No, he had his shots just last month. The date’s on the tag there. On his collar.”

McGrew thought he should look at the tag, but this was a dog who’d already bit one person and he didn’t want to be the second person getting bit tonight.

“Where did this incident take place?” he asked.

“Three blocks from here. On Cherry Street. Near the Mercantile Bank on the comer.”

“You knew where you were, huh?”