Ed McBain: The Big Bad City

"I don't think he had nothin to do with this one, Juje, I mean it.

Wasn't even his part of the city. This is a big city, man.”

"Things happening all over it, you right. But they have ways.”

"What you mean, ways?”

"Cop ways. They get on your case, they know where you are every minute of the day and night. This man's on your case, Sonny?”

"Yeah well.”

"I'm tellin you. This man prony thinks about you all the time. Can't sleep from thinkin about you. Man, you offed his papa. He ain't ...”

"Shhhh.”

"He ain't about to forget that," Jugu said, lowering his voice. "He ain't about to forgive it neither.”

The holding cells were noisy, really no need to whisper, wasn't nobody goan hear them, anyway. This was nine-thirty at night, lights out would be at ten, everybody was still wide awake and clamoring for a lawyer, nothin closer to a zoo than a city jail. Sonny had been arrested earlier tonight for beating up a hooker called him nigger trash, herself black as a sewer. Funny thing was, he'd robbed a grocery store two nights before but nobody was bothering him about that cause nobody knew he was the one done it. Instead, he was here on a bullshit assault charge, which would go away three, four months from now when it came to trial, he hoped. Or be dismissed even beforehand, who paid any attention to strung-out black hookers? Otherwise, there was a sister out there gonna rue the day she was born. Meanwhile, soon as his lawyer got here with the fuckin bail, he'd be out on the street again.

"Another thing," Juju said, "this man ain't goan be satisfied juss lockin you up, man.”

Juju was one of the people he'd met since he come to this city, funny how you ran into the same people in different lockups over and over again. It was a small community, really, what they called the criminal justice system. Some kind of justice when a two-bit whore could blow the whistle and they booked you for assault, hardly even touched the bitch. Might pay her a little visit even if this thing went up in smoke, teach her who she messin with here.

"He coultla Kllletl me, ,aomy aa" .... chance.”

"Who you talkin bout?”

"The cop. Carella. You know. The one whose father.”

"Coulda killed you?”

"We was all alone in a dark hallway, man. Him, me, and another brother.”

"What kinda brother?”

"Another co:' "A cop ain't no brother, man, don't kid yourself.”

"Kept tellin him to do it. I can still hear him whisperin in that hallway. "Do it. We all alone here. Do it."“

“But he didn't?”

"Which is what makes me think he ain't sweatin this:' "Man, you kill my father, I be sweatin it day and night, believe me.

Waitin for the chance to get at you:' "Then why didn't he do it when he coulda?”

“There was a witness there," Juju said. "The witness was another cop, I tole you.”

“Cops testify against other cops all the time.”

"I don't think he's the kind to seek revenge," Sonny said.

"You're positive about that, huh?”

"I just don't think he's that kinda man.”

“Mm-huh.”

"Else he woulda done me when he coulda.”

“Mm-huh.”

"Is what I think," Sonny said.

"Long as you're dead certain," Juju said. "Cause if you ain't, you goan have to look over. your shoulder every step you take. He won't let you breathe, man. He be after you, man. He be your nemesis. And when he fine you ...”

Sonny was listening hard now.

"Why, he goan kill you, man," Juju said.

Sonny nodded.

"You want my advice? Do him fore he does you. And do it clean, man, cause you the first one they goan come lookin for. Clean piece, no partners, in, out, been nice to know you.”

Juju looked him dead in the eye.

"And forget we ever had this conversation," he said.

IHS.

Carella first saw those initials on a statue of Christ hanging from the cross in the church he'd attended as a boy. The initials were lettered onto a banner above Christ's thorn-crowned head. When he asked his grandmother what they stood for, she said, "I Have Suffered.”

Carella felt fairly certain they didn't mean "I Have Suffered" because that was an English sentence, and what they spoke in Jerusalem was either Latin or Hebrew. So he'd asked Sister Helen, the nun who was teaching him catechism three afternoons a week in preparation for his first Holy Communion, and she said the letters were a monogram of our Lord's name and that they stood for Jesus Hominum Salvator, which meant "Jesus, the Savior of Men." He was only ten years old but he asked her whether Jesus didn't save women, too, and she said he most certainly did and told him to go sit in the back pew of the church.

Several weeks after that, on a rainy Saturday when only two other kids showed up for catechism, Sister Helen took him aside and told him she was a virgin consecrated to God. And as lightning crashed overhead, illuminating the tall stained-glass windows, she removed a slender gold band from the third finger of her left hand, showed him the letters IHS engraved inside, and reverently whispered that she wore the ring in memory of her betrothal to her heavenly spouse. Carella hadn't known what a virgin was.

It wasn't until he was sixteen or seventeen and knew what virgins were and weren't that he began wondering again about those initials IHS.

This was after he'd already stopped going to church and rarely wondered about holy matters anymore, but he kept seeing the letters over Christ's head whenever he wandered past any shop selling religious items. He hated mysteries as much back then as he did now, so he went to the library and began digging. He discovered that the nomina sacra as the various names of Jesus Christ were called were very often shortened or abbreviated and that one of the monograms was the Greek THE for IHZOE, usually followed by XPZ for XPIETOE, which made about as much sense to him as had Sister Helen's Jesus Hominum Salvator. So he dug a bit further and learned that the Greek spelling IHZOZ XPIETOE translated as Iesous Christos, or Jesus Christ, and THE was IHS, or the Greek abbreviation for Jesus.

Jesus, he had cracked the code!

Now, almost thirty years later, he found the initials IHS engraved on the inside of a gold wedding band worn by a murdered woman, and remembered Sister Helen again and the initials inside her ring, and he knew without question that the woman lying beside that Grover Park bench was a nun.

Carella's desk copy of the current "Official Catholic Directory of the City's Archdiocese" listed six hundred and thirty-seven nuns living in thirty-five convents and residences. There were forty-four other convents statewide and Carella chose not to count the number of sisters living in those, thank you very much.

He called the number he had for the archdiocese and spoke to a priest there who listened to his question and said he had no way of knowing whether any of the convents had reported a missing nun. He suggested that Carella try calling each of the convents individually, but ... "I'm sure you know, Detective ... or perhaps you don't.”

"What's that, Father?”

"Well ... in this day and age, not all nuns live in convents. Many of them take up residence close to their work. They'll either rent an apartment or a small house with another nun or nuns, or else they'll live alone.”

"Is there another listing?" Carella asked.

"Sorry?”

"Of these other residences.”

"I'm afraid not. Sisters go where they're needed and where they're sent. Their mother houses would know where they are at all times, but then again ... if you don't know who the nun is, you won't know her mother house, either, will you?”

"Do you mow Wlalcn oglers tlt w,at " e, bands?" Carella asked.

"Wedding band sT "Symbolizing the marriage to ...”