Ed McBain - The Mugger

Hold it now!

Something was moving up ahead.

Her mind, as if instantly sucked clean of debris by a huge vacuum cleaner, lay glistening like a hard, cut diamond. Her left hand snapped to the drawstrings on her purse, wedging into the purse and enlarging the opening. She felt the reassuring steel of the .38, content that the butt was in a position to be grasped instantly by a cross-body swipe of her right hand.

She walked with her head erect. She did not break her stride. The figure ahead was a man, of that much she was certain. He had seen her now, and he moved toward her rapidly. He wore a dark-blue suit, and he was hatless. He was a big man, topping six feet.

“Hey!” he called. “Hey, you!” and she felt her heart lurch into her throat because she knew with rattling certainty that this was Clifford.

And, suddenly, she felt quite foolish.

She had seen the markings on the sleeve of the blue suit, had seen the slender white lines on the collar. The man she’d thought to be Clifford was only a hatless sailor. The tenseness flooded from her body. A small smile touched her lips.

The sailor came closer to her, and she saw now that he was weaving unsteadily, quite unsteadily. He was, to be kind, as drunk as a lord, and his condition undoubtedly accounted for his missing white hat.

“Wal now,” he bawled, “if’n it ain’ a redhaid! C’mere, redhaid!”

He grabbed for Eileen, and she knocked his arm aside quickly and efficiently. “Run along, sailor,” she said. “You’re in the wrong pew!”

The sailor threw back his head and guffawed boisterously. “Th’ wrong pew!” he shouted. “Wal now, Ah’ll be hung fer a hoss thief!”

Eileen, not caring at all what he was hung for so long as he kept his nose out of the serious business afoot, walked briskly past him and continued on her way.

“Hey!” he bellowed. “Wheah y’goin’?”

She heard his hurried footsteps behind her, and then she felt his hand close on her elbow. She whirled, shaking his fingers free.

“Whutsamatter?” he asked. “Doan’choo like sailors?”

“I like them fine,” Eileen answered. “But I think you ought to be getting back to your ship. Now, go ahead. Run along.” She stared at him levelly.

He returned her stare soberly and then quite suddenly asked, “Hey, you-all like t’go to bed wi’ me?”

Eileen could not suppress the smile. “No,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

“Why not?” he asked, thrusting forward his jaw.

“I’m married,” she lied.

“Why, tha’s awright,” he said. “Ah’m married, too.”

“My husband is a cop,” she further lied.

“Cops doan scare me none. On’y the SOBSP ah got to worry ‘bout. Hey now, how ‘bout it, huh?”

“No,” Eileen said firmly. She turned to go, and he wove quickly around her, skidding to a stop in front of her.

“We can talk ‘bout yo’ husbin an’ mah wife, how’s that? Ah got th’ sweetes’ li’l wife in th’ whole wide world.”

“Then go home to her,” Eileen said.

“Ah cain’t! Dammit all, she’s in Alabama!”

“Take off, sailor,” Eileen said. “I’m serious. Take off before you get yourself in trouble.”

“No,” he said, pouting.

She turned and looked over her shoulder for Willis. He was nowhere in sight. He was undoubtedly resting against an alley wall, laughing his fool head off. She walked around the sailor and started up the street. The sailor fell in beside her.

“Nothin’ ah like better’n walkin’,” he said. “Ah’m goan walk mah big feet off, right here ‘longside you. Ah’m goan walk till hell freezes over.”

“Stick with me, and you will,” Eileen muttered, and then she wondered how soon it would be until she spotted an SP. Dammit, there never was a cop around when you needed one!

Now she’s picking up sailors, Willis thought.

We’ve got nothing better to do than humor the fleet. Why doesn’t she conk him on the head and leave him to sleep it off in an alleyway?

How the hell are we going to smoke Clifford if she insists on a naval escort? Shall I go break it up? Or has she got something up her sleeve?

The terrible thing about working with women is that you can never count on them to think like men.

He watched silently, and he cursed the sailor.

Where had the fool materialized from? How could he get that purse now? Of all the goddamn rotten luck, the first good thing that had come along on his first night out since the papers started that Jeannie Paige fuss, and this stupid sailor had to come along and louse it up.

Maybe he’d go away.

Maybe she’d slap him across the face and he’d go away.

Or maybe not. If she was a prostitute, she’d take the sailor with her, and that would be the end of that.

Why did the police allow the Navy to dump its filthy cargoes into the streets of the city, anyway?

He watched the wiggle of the girl’s backside, and he watched the swaying, bobbing motion of the sailor, and he cursed the police, and he cursed the fleet, and he even cursed the redhead.

And then they turned the corner, and he ducked through the alley and started through the backyard, hoping to come out some two blocks ahead of the pair, hoping she’d have gotten rid of him by then, his fingers aching to close around the purse that swung so heavily from her left shoulder.

“What ship are you on?” Eileen asked the sailor.

“USS Huntuh,” the sailor said. “You-all beginnin’ t’take an intrust in me, redhaid?”

Eileen stopped. She turned to face the sailor, and there was a deadly glint in her green eyes. “Listen to me, sailor,” she said. “I’m a policewoman, understand? I’m working now, and you’re cluttering up my job, and I don’t like it.”

“A what?” the sailor said. He threw back his head, ready to let out a wild guffaw, but Eileen’s cold dispassionate voice stopped him.

“I’ve got a .38 Detective’s Special in my purse,” she said evenly. “In about six seconds, I’m going to take it out and shoot you in the leg. I’ll leave you on the sidewalk and then put in a call in to the Shore Patrol. I’m counting, sailor.”

“Hey, whut you—”

“One…”

“Listen, whut you gettin’ all het up about? Ah’m on’y—”

“Two…”

“I don’t even believe you got an’ ol’ gun in that—”

The .38 snapped into view suddenly. The sailor’s eyes went wide.

“Three…” Eileen said.

“Wal, ah’ll be—”

“Four…”

The sailor looked at the gun once more.

“G’night, lady,” he said, and he turned on his heel and began running.

Eileen watched him. She returned the gun to her purse, smiled, turned the corner, and walked into the darkened street. She had taken no more than fifteen steps when the arm circled her throat and she was pulled into the alleyway.

The sailor came down the street at such a fast clip that Willis almost burst out laughing. The flap of the sailor’s jumper danced in the wind. He charged down the middle of the asphalt with a curious mixture of a sailor’s roll, a drunk’s lopsided gait, and the lope of a three-year-old in the Kentucky Derby. His eyes were wide, and his hair flew madly as he jounced along.

He skidded to a stop when he saw Willis, and then, puffing for breath, he advised, “Man, if’n you-all see a redhaid up theah, steer clear of her, Ah’m tellin’ you.”

“What’s the matter?” Willis asked paternally, holding back the laugh that crowded his throat.

“Whutsamatter! Man, she got a twenty-gauge shotgun in her handbag, tha’s whutsamatter. Whoo-ie, Ah’m gettin’ clear the hell out o’ here!”

He nodded briefly at Willis and then blasted off again. Willis watched his jet trail, indulged himself in one short chuckle, and then looked for Eileen up ahead. She had probably turned the corner.