Ed McBain - The Mugger

So he ordinarily walked the precinct territory when he was off duty, a few hours each day, watching, snooping, unhampered by the shrieking blue of his uniform, constantly amazed by the number of people who didn’t recognize him in street clothes.

Today he had something else to do, and so he ignored his extracurricular activities. Instead, he boarded a train and headed uptown to Riverhead.

He didn’t have much trouble finding Club Tempo. He simply stopped into one of the clubs he’d known as a kid, asked where Tempo was, and was given directions.

Tempo covered the entire basement level of a three-story brick house off Peterson Avenue on Klausner Street. You walked up a concrete driveway toward a two-car garage at the back of the house, made an abrupt left turn, and found yourself face to face with the back of the house, the entrance doorway to the club, and a painted sign pierced with an elongated quarter note on a long black shaft.

The sign read:

Kling tried the knob. The door was locked. From somewhere inside the club, he heard the lyric, sonnet-like words to “Sh-Boom” blasting from a record player. He raised his fist and knocked. He kept knocking, realizing abruptly that all the sh-booming was drowning out his fist. He waited until the record had exhausted its serene, madrigal-like melody and then knocked again.

“Yeah?” a voice called. It was a young voice, male.

“Open up,” Kling said.

“Who is it?”

He heard footsteps approaching the door and then a voice close by on the other side of the door. “Who is it?”

He didn’t want to identify himself as a cop. If he were going to start asking questions, he didn’t want a bunch of kids automatically on the defensive.

“Bert Kling,” he said.

“Yeah?” the voice answered. “Who’s Bert Kling?”

“I want to hire the club,” Kling answered.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What for?”

“If you’ll open the door, we can talk about it.”

“Hey, Tommy,” the voice yelled, “some guy wants to hire the club.”

Kling heard a mumbled answer, and then the door lock clicked, and the door opened wide on a thin, blond boy of eighteen.

“Come on in,” the boy said. He was holding a stack of records in his right hand, clutched tight against his chest. He wore a green sweater and dungaree pants. A white dress shirt, collar unbuttoned, showed above the V-neck of the sweater. “My name’s Hud. That’s short for Hudson. Hudson Patt. Double t. Come on in.”

Kling stepped down into the basement room. Hud watched him.

“You’re kind of old, ain’t you?” Hud asked at last.

“I’m practically decrepit,” Kling replied. He looked around. Whoever had decorated the room had done a good job with it. The pipes in the ceiling had been covered with plasterboard, which had been painted white. The walls were knotty pine to a man’s waist, plasterboard above that. Phonograph records, shellacked and then tacked to the white walls and ceiling, gave the impression of curious two-dimensional balloons that had drifted free of their vendor’s strings. There were easy chairs and a long sofa scattered about the room. A record player painted white and then covered with black notes and a G clef and a musical staff stood alongside a wide arch through which a second room was visible. There was no one but Hud and Kling in either of the two rooms. Whoever Tommy was, he seemed to have vanished into thin air.

“Like it?” Hud asked, smiling.

“It’s pretty,” Kling said.

“We done it all ourselves. Bought all those records on the ceiling and walls for two cents each. They’re real bombs — stuff the guy wanted to get rid of. We tried playing one of them. All we got was scratches. Sounded like London during an air raid.”

“Which you no doubt remember clearly,” Kling said.

“Huh?” Hud asked.

“Do you belong to this club?” Kling asked back.

“Sure. Only members are allowed down during the day. In fact, nonmembers ain’t allowed down except on Friday and Sunday nights. We have socials then.” He stared at Kling. His eyes were wide and blue. “Dancing, you know?”

“Yes, I know,” Kling said.

“A little beer sometimes, too. Healthy. This is healthy recreation.” Hud grinned. “Healthy recreation is what strong, red-blooded American teenagers need, am I right?”

“Absolutely.”

“That’s what Dr. Mortesson says.”

“Who?”

“Dr. Mortesson. Writes a column in one of the papers. Every day. Healthy recreation.” Hud continued grinning. “So what do you want to hire the club for?” he asked.

“I belong to a group of war veterans,” Kling said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’re… uh… having a sort of get together, meet the wives, girlfriends, like that, you know.”

“Oh, sure,” Hud said.

“So we need a place.”

“Why don’t you try the American Legion Hall?”

“Too big.”

“Oh.”

“I figured one of these cellar clubs. This is an unusually nice one.”

“Yeah,” Hud said. “Done it all ourselves.” He walked over to the record player, seemed ready to put the records down, then turned, changing his mind. “Listen, for what night is this?”

“A Saturday,” Kling said.

“That’s good — because we have our socials on Friday and Sunday.”

“Yes, I know,” Kling said.

“How much you want to pay?”

“That depends. You’re sure the landlord here won’t mind our bringing girls down? Not that anything funny would be going on or anything, you understand. Half the fellows are married.”

“Oh, certainly,” Hud said, suddenly drawn into the fraternity of the adult. “I understand completely. I never once thought otherwise.”

“But there will be girls.”

“That’s perfectly all right.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure. We have girls here all the time. Our club is coed.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s a fact,” Hud said. “We got twelve girls belong to the club.”

“Girls from the neighborhood?” Kling asked.

“Mostly. From around, you know. Here and there. None of them come from too far.”

“Anybody I might know?” Kling asked.

Hud estimated Kling’s age in one hasty glance. “I doubt it, mister,” he said, the glowing bond of fraternal adulthood shattered.

“I used to live in this neighborhood,” Kling lied. “Took out a lot of girls around here. Wouldn’t be surprised if some of the girls in your club aren’t their younger sisters.”

“Well, that’s a possibility,” Hud conceded.

“What are some of their names?”

“Why do you want to know, pal?” a voice from the archway said. Kling whirled abruptly. A tall boy walked through the arch and into the room, zipping up the fly on his jeans. He was excellently built, with wide shoulders bulging the seams of his T-shirt, tapering down to a slender waist. His hair was chestnut brown, and his eyes were a deeper chocolate brown. He was extremely handsome, and he walked with arrogant knowledge of his good looks.

“Tommy?” Kling said.

“That’s my name,” Tommy said. “I didn’t get yours.”

“Bert Kling.”

“Glad to know you,” Tommy said. He watched Kling carefully.

“Tommy’s president of Club Tempo,” Hud put in. “He gave me the okay to hire the place to you. Provided the price was right.”

“I was in the john,” Tommy said. “Heard everything you said. Why’re you so interested in our chicks?”

“I’m not interested,” Kling answered. “Just curious.”