Ed McBain: McBain's Ladies: The Women of the 87th Precinct

She looked up at him, wishing she could speak because she could not trust her eyes now, wondering why someone as beautiful as Steve Carella, as wonderful as Steve Carella, as brave and as strong and as marvelous as Steve Carella would want to marry a girl like her, a girl who could never say, “I love you, darling. I adore you.” But he had asked her again, and now, close in the circle of his arms, now she could believe that it didn’t really matter to him, that to him she was as whole as any woman, “more than any other woman,” he had said.

“Okay?” he asked. “Will you let me make you honest?”

She nodded. The nod was a very small one.

“You mean it this time?”

She did not nod again. She lifted her mouth, and she put her answer into her lips, and his arms tightened around her, and she knew that he understood her. She broke away from him, and he said “Hey!” but she trotted away from his reach and went to the kitchen.

When she brought back the champagne, he said, “I’ll be damned!”

She sighed, agreeing that he undoubtedly would be damned, and he slapped her playfully on the fanny.

She handed him the bottle, did a deep curtsy which was ludicrous in the prisoner pajamas and then sat on the floor cross-legged while he struggled with the cork.

The champagne exploded with an enormous pop, and though she did not hear the sound, she saw the cork leave the neck of the bottle and ricochet off the ceiling, and she saw the bubbly white fluid overspilling the lip and running over his hands.

She began to clap, and then she got to her feet and went for glasses, and he poured first a little of the wine into his, saying, “That’s the way it’s done, you know. It’s supposed to take off the skim and the bugs and everything,” and then filling her glass, and then going back to pour his to the brim.

“To us,” he toasted.

She opened her arms slowly, wider and wider and wider.

“A long, long, happy love,” he supplied.

She nodded happily.

“And our marriage in August.” They clinked glasses, and then sipped at the wine, and she opened her eyes wide in pleasure and rocked her head appreciatively.

“Are you happy?” he asked.

Yes, her eyes said, yes, yes.

“Did you mean what you said before?”

She raised one brow inquisitively.

“About… missing me?”

Yes, yes, yes, yes, her eyes said.

“You’re beautiful.”

She curtsied again.

“Everything about you. I love you, Teddy. Jesus, how I love you.”

She put down the wineglass and then took his hand. She kissed the palm of the hand, and the back, and then she led him into the bedroom, and she unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it out of his trousers, her hands moving gently. He lay down on the bed, and she turned off the light and then, unselfconsciously, unembarrassedly, she look off the pajamas and went to him.

She stood by the window when the rain stopped.

She swore mentally, and she reminded herself that she would have to teach Steve sign language, so that he’d know when she was swearing. He had promised to come tonight, and the promise filled her now, and she wondered what she should wear for him.

“Nothing” was probably the best answer. She was pleased with her joke. She must remember it. To tell him when he came.

The street was suddenly very sad. The rain had brought gaiety, but now the rain was gone, and there was only the solemn gray of the street, as solemn as death.

Death.

Two dead, two men he worked with and knew well. Why couldn’t he have been a streetcleaner or a flagpole sitter or something, why a policeman, why a cop?

She turned to look at the clock, wondering what time it was, wondering how long it would be before he came, how long it would be before she spotted the slow, back-and-forth twisting of the knob, before she rushed to the door to open it for him. The clock was no comfort. It would be hours yet. If he came, of course. If nothing else happened, something to keep him at the station house, another killing, another…

No, I mustn’t think of that.

It’s not fair to Steve to think that.

If I think of harm coming to him…

Nothing will happen to him… no. Steve is strong, Steve is a good cop, Steve can take care of himself. But Reardon was a good cop, and Foster, and they’re dead now. How good can a cop be when he’s shot in the back with a .45? How good is any cop against a killer in ambush?

No, don’t think these things.

The murders are over now. There will be no more. Foster was the end. It’s done. Done.

Steve, hurry.

She sat facing the door, knowing it would be hours yet, but waiting for the knob to turn, waiting for the knob to tell her he was there.

The bar was air-conditioned, a welcome sanctuary from the stifling heat outdoors. They ordered their drinks and then sat opposite each other at the booth alongside the left-hand wall.

“All I want to know,” Savage said, “is what you think.”

“Do you mean me personally, or the department?”

“You, of course. I can’t expect you to speak for the department.”

“Is this for publication?” Carella asked.

“Hell, no. I’m just trying to jell my own ideas on it. Once this thing is broken, there’ll be a lot of feature coverage. To do a good job, I want to be acquainted with every facet of the investigation.”

“It’d be a little difficult for a layman to understand every facet of police investigation,” Carella said.

“Of course, of course. But you can at least tell me what you think.”

“Sure. Provided it’s not for publication.”

“Scout’s honor,” Savage said.

“The department doesn’t like individual cops trying to glorify…”

“Not a word of this will get into print,” Savage said. “Believe me.”

“What do you want to know?”

“We’ve got the means, we’ve got the opportunity,” Savage said. “What’s the motive?”

“Every cop in the city would like the answer to that one,” Carella said.

“A nut maybe.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No. Some of us do. I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Just like that.”

“Do you have a reason?”

“No, just a feeling. When you’ve been working on a case for any length of time, you begin to get feelings about it. I just don’t happen to believe a maniac’s involved here.”

“What do you believe?”

“Well, I have a few ideas.”

“Like what?”

“I’d rather not say right now.”

“Oh, come on, Steve.”

“Look, police work is like any other kind of work — except we happen to deal with crime. If you run an import-export business, you play certain hunches and others you don’t. It’s the same with us. If you have a hunch, you don’t go around making a million-dollar deal on it until you’ve checked it.”

“Then you do have a hunch you want to check?”

“Not even a hunch, really. Just an idea.”

“What kind of an idea?”

“About motive.”

“What about motive?”

Carella smiled. “You’re a pretty tenacious guy, aren’t you?”

“I’m a good reporter. I already told you that.”

“All right, look at it this way. These men were cops. Three of them were killed in a row. What’s the automatic conclusion?”

“Somebody doesn’t like cops.”

“Right. A cop hater.”

“So?”

“Take off their uniforms. What have you got then?”

“They weren’t wearing uniforms. None of them were uniform cops.”

“I know. I was speaking figuratively. I meant, make them ordinary citizens. Not cops. What do you have then? Certainly not a cop hater.”

“But they were cops.”