Ed McBain - McBain's Ladies Too - More Women of the 87th Precinct

No, she won't do that.

Suppose she does?

If she does, I'll get a demerit, and never get to make Detective/First Grade.

Come on, you bitch, turn your head. Turn it!

There must be a God, Hawes thought. He watched in fascination as Virginia Dodge slowly but surely turned to look across the room toward the grilled windows.

Hawes moved instantly. His hand darted for the light panel, shoved downwards on the protruding plastic switch.

There was blackness, instant blackness that Tilled the room like a negative explosion.

"What the hell…?" Virginia started, and then her voice went dead, and there was only silence in the room.

The coat, Hawes thought.

Fast!

He felt the coarse material under his ringers, slid his hands down the side of the garment, felt the heavy bulk of the weapon in the pocket, and then thrust his hand into the slit, reaching for the gun.

And then suddenly, blindingly, unimaginably — the lights went on.

He felt like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

For a moment, he couldn't imagine what had caused the sudden blinding illumination. And then he realized the lights were on again, and here he was reaching into the pocket of Virginia's coat, his fingers not an inch from the gun. Oddly, time seemed to lose all meaning as soon as the lights went on. He knew that time was speeding by at a remarkable clip, knew that whatever he did in the next few seconds could very well mean the life or death of everyone in the room, and yet time seemed to stop.

He decided, in what seemed to take three years, to whirl on Virginia with the revolver in his hand.

He closed his fingers around the butt of the gun in the warmth of the dark pocket, and the closing of his hand took twelve years. He was ready to draw the gun when he saw Arthur Brown, a puzzled look on his face, striding rapidly up the corridor. He decided then — the decision was a century coming — to yell, "Get out, Brown! Run!" and then the time for yelling was gone because Arthur was pushing through the gate and entering the squadroom. And then, too, the time for pulling the revolver was gone, all the time in the world had suddenly dwindled down to its proper perspective, perhaps twenty seconds in all had gone by since the lights went on, and now there was no time at all, time had gone down the drain, now there was only Virginia Dodge's cold lethal voice cutting through the time-rushing silence of the squadroom.

"Don't pull it, redhead! I'm aiming at the nitro!"

He hesitated. A thought flashed into his head: Is there really nitroglycerin in that bottle?

And then the thought blinked out as suddenly as it had come. He could not chance it. He released his grip on the pistol and turned to face her.

Thunderstruck, Arthur Brown stood just inside the gate.

"What…?" he said.

"Shut up," Virginia snapped. "Get in here!"

"What…?" Brown said again, and there was complete puzzlement on his face. He knew only that he'd returned to the precinct after sitting in the back room of a tailor shop all afternoon. He had climbed the metal steps leading to the second story as he'd done perhaps ten thousand times since joining the 87th Squad. He had found the upstairs corridor in darkness, and had automatically reached for the light switch at the top of the steps, turning on the lights. The first person he'd seen was Cotton Hawes reaching into the pocket of a coat hanging on the rack. And now… a woman with a gun.

"Get over here, redhead," Virginia said.

Silently, Hawes walked to her.

"You're a pretty smart bastard, aren't you?" she said.

"I…"

The gun in her hand moved upwards blurringly, came down again in a violent sweeping motion of wrist and arm. He felt the fixed sight at the barrel's end ripping into his cheek. He covered his face with his hands because he expected more. But more did not come. He looked at his fingers. They were covered with fresh blood.

"No more stunts, redhead," she said coldly. "Understand?"

"I understand."

"Now get out of my way. Over there on the other side of the room. You!" She turned to Brown. "Inside. Hurry up!"

Brown moved deeper into the room. The puzzlement on his face was slowly giving way to awareness. And fast on the heels of this came a look of shrewd calculation.

Virginia picked up the bottle of nitroglycerin, and then began walking toward the coat rack, the bottle in one hand, the gun in the other. Her walk was a jerky, nervous movement of shoulders, hips, and legs, devoid of all femininity, a sharp, quick perambulation that propelled her across the room. And watching her erratic walk, Hawes was certain that the liquid in her left hand was not the high explosive she claimed it was. And yet, nitro was funny. Sometimes it went if you breathed on it. And other times…

He wondered.

Nitro? Or water?

Step into the isolation booth, sir, and answer the question.

Quickly, Virginia removed Byrnes's pistol from her coat. She walked back to the desk, put the bottle of nitro down on its top, unlocked the desk drawer, and tossed the revolver in with the others.

"All right, you," she said to Brown. "Give me your gun."

Brown hesitated.

"The bottle here is full of nitroglycerin," Virginia said calmly. "Give me your gun."

Brown looked to Byrnes.

"Give it to her, Artie," Byrnes said. "She's calling all the shots."

"What's her game?" Brown wanted to know.

"Never mind my game," Virginia said heatedly. "Just shut your mouth and bring me your gun."

"You sure are a tough lady," Brown said. He walked to the desk, watching her. He watched her while he unclipped his gun and holster. He was trying, in his own mind, to determine whether or not Virginia Dodge was a hater. He could usually spot hatred at a thousand paces, could know with instant certainty that the person he was looking at or talking to would allow the color of Brown's skin to determine the course of their relationship. Arthur Brown was a black man. He was also a very impatient man. He had learned early in the game that the chance similarity of his pigmentation and his name — was it chance, or had some long-ago slave owner chosen the name for simplicity? — only added to his black man's burden. Impatiently, he waited for the inevitable slur, the thoughtless comment. Usually, it came — though not always. Now, as he put his gun and holster on the desk, his impatience reached unprecedented heights. He could read nothing on the face of Virginia Dodge. And, too, though he had newly entered the situation in the squadroom, he was impatiently itchy to have it done and over with.

Virginia pushed Brown's gun into the top drawer.

"Now get over there," she said. "The other side of the room."

"Is it okay to report to the lieutenant first?" he asked.

"Lieutenant!" she called. "Come here."

Byrnes walked over.

"He's got a report for you. Give it here, mister, where I can hear it all."

"How'd it go?" Byrnes said.

"No dice. And it isn't going to work either, Pete."

"Why not?"

"I stopped off in a candy store when I left the tailor shop. To get a pack of cigarettes."

"Yeah?"

"I got to talking with the owner. He told me there's been a lot of holdups in the neighborhood. Tailor shops mostly."

"Yeah?"

"But he told me the holdups would be stopping soon. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because — and this is just what he told me — there's a bull sitting in the back room of the tailor shop right up the street, just waiting for the crook to show up. That's what the guy in the candy store told me."

"I see."

"So if he knows, every other merchant on the street knows. And if they know, their customers know. And you can bet your ass the thief knows, too. So it won't work, Pete. We'll have to dope out something else."