Ed McBain - The Big Bad City

Katie, did you bring the money? I tried to get it, she said. Tried? I called my brother in Philadelphia. He inherited a lot of money when my parents died. They were killed in a car crash last July, Sal.

I'm sorry to hear that. But ... The Fourth of July. He inherited everything they had. I was sure he would help me. He'd helped me before, you see.

Tried? I said.

He turned me down. I'm sorry, Sal. I tried.

No I Go to him again!

He'll refuse again. I almost knew he would, Sal. You see, God had already ... Katie, I don't want to hear about God! Just go to your brother ... It was God who revealed the way, Sal. I prayed so hard for guidance. And at last, He forgave me. Even before I got your letters ... Damn it, Katie ... I knew I could forgive myself. God's will had become my will.

That same unsettling smile was on her face. This was now getting on seven-thirty, the lights had already come on in the park, the sky was beginning to deepen but she seemed to be staring into a blinding light, smiling. I've forgotten the past, Sal. All of it. God has helped me do that.

1o one can folgt tn l.a, I can, she said. I have. Pray to God, she said. Let him forgive you, Let him help you forget, too.

But I was remembering.

As she spewed all this religious crap, I was remembering everything that happened four years ago, on that sweltering night at the beginning of September. The noises of the night outside those French doors open to the river. The two of us in Charlie's office, alone with him.

Charlie's obscene advances. Unzipping himself. Exposing himself to her. A young girl like Katie.

"You want this money?" Charlie asks again, and shakes the bills in Katie's face.

Does God have two thousand dollars? I said. To pay the man who's ready to break my fingers? My fingers! I said, and held up my hands to show them to her, waggling them in her face.

"Stop doing that," Katie says, and flaps her hands on the air in front of her, trying to wave the money away.

My livelihood, I said. My music, Katie! My life.t I'm sorry, she said.

"Cause that's the way it's gonna be. Either the little girl here sucks my dick, or you don't get paid." Listen to me, I said.

Forget that night, she said. Pray to God and He'll forgive you. Sal.

The way He's forgiven me. Believe me, Sal, God will hear you!

Fuck God! I said.

She gave me a shocked little cry. Her hand went to her lips.

t..mi your brother again, sala. then i l go to the police. Tell him I remember it all Katie. All of it! You hitting Charlie with the bottle, you shoving him in the river, everything Go to him, I said. Get the money!

I can't go to him again, she said.

Then get it someplace lse! I don't care where, just... Sal, please.

I'm a nun.

Then go to your mother superior, go to the pope, just get the fucking money. Or I'll go to the police. I promise you. I'll ... If anyone goes to the police ... Yes, I will, I said. it'll be me, she said. I looked at her. I'm a nun, she said.

It was very dark on that path. The sun was gone, there was not a breeze stirring.

A nun, she said.

The leaves in the trees were still, the night was still.

Don't make me do it, she said. You're the one who killed him, Sal.

You.

No.

You alone. I'm a nun.

No!

You killed him because he was ... Shut up, I whispered.

for i'm telling you to ... Shut up! I shouted, and grabbed her by the throat.

"In the end, he believed his own story," Brown said.

"Exactly what happened," Carella said. "Same with her.”

"Believed his story?”

“Believed her own story." Both men were a little drunk.

"Each of them rewriting what happened," Carella said.

"Trying to change the past.”

"He shoved Charlie in the river, she shoved Charlie in the river.”

"Nobody shoved Charlie in the river.”

“Charlie jumped in the river!”

Both men burst out laughing. "Shhh," Carella said.

Teddy was asleep upstairs, the twins were asleep just down the hall.

The clock on the living room mantel read ten past ten. The detectives had each been awake since six-thirty this morning, and on the job since a quarter to eight. It had been a long, long day.

"You think she really would have gone to the police?" Carella asked.

"Oh sure. She had God on her side.”

"Didn't help her much in the park.”

"She forgot to say "Sweet Jesus, help me,"" Brown said, and burst out laughing again.

himself. Brown covered his mouth like a kid who'd uttered a dirty word. CareIIa cut his eyes toward the hallway. Both men were silent for a moment, and then began laughing again.

"Shhhh," Carella said.

"Shhhh," Brown said.

"You okay there? Let me freshen that for you.”

"Just a drop. I got to be running along. Caroline's gonna start worrying.”

Carella went into the kitchen, poured scotch into Brown's glass and Canadian Club into his own: Little soda in each. Fresh ice cubes. When he came back into the living room, Brown was standing at the bookcases, looking over the titles.

"You ever have time to read?" he asked. "Not much. Except on vacation.”

“When are you taking yours?”

“Two weeks from now.”

“Where you going?”

“The shore.”

"Should be nice there.”

"Yes." Carella held up his glass. "Here's to golden days," he said.

"And purple nights," Brown said.

They drank.

"How did either of them ever expect to forget the past?" Carella asked, and sipped at his drink. "You want to know something?" he said.

"What's that?" Brown asked, and sank into the leather easy chair under the imitation Tiffany lamp.

"I'll be forty in October.”

"I hear you.”

"Remember when we used to go out drinking after an important bust?”

"We're doing that right this minute, Steve.”

"I mean in a bar. When we were young. When none of us were married.

Remember that bar near the bridge? Just off Culver? All the guys on the squad used to go there and get drunk. Remember? After a big one? Kling was a patrolman back then. Hawes wasn't even on the squad.

Remember?" He nodded, remembering, and went to sit in the easy chair opposite Brown. He took a long swallow of the drink, and then sat staring into the glass. "There was a cop named Hernandez I liked a lot," he said. "He got killed by a cheap thief who holed up in the precinct, remember? Do you remember a cop named Havilland? Roger Havilland? He was worse than Parker. Sometimes I think Parker is Havilland, come back from the dead. Remember the time that rich guy's kid got kidnapped up in Smoke Rise? King. Douglas King. Funny how you remember the names, isn't it? Remember the time Virginia Dodge came up to the squad room with a bottle of nitro in her purse? Looking for me? Cause I sent her husband away? Remember? Remember the time Claire got killed in that bookshop? Kling's girl, remember? Claire Townsend. Remember the time The Deaf Man tunneled under that bank? I'll bet he never gets old, Artie, not The Deaf Man. Remember ...

Jesus, remember the times? I remember them all, Artie. I remember all of it, all of it. Every single minute. It goes by too fast, Artie. I'll be forty in October. Where did it all go, Artie?”

He looked up. "Artie?" he said.

Brown was snoring lightly. Sleep softened his features, giving him the appearance of a much younger man. Carella went to him, stood watching him fondly, a smile on his face. He turned out the light then, and went to phone Caroline to say that her husband was exhausted and would be spending the night there.

Sonny got to Riverhead before dawn. He parked the stolen car in an all-night garage four blocks from the Carella house, and then walked along Dover Plains Avenue toward the elevated train station, trying to look like any simple colored man shuffling to work on a Wednesday morning just like any other Wednesday morning. He walked past the steps leading up to the platform, and made a right turn into the street where Carella lived. He was a black man on foot in a white neighborhood while the sun wasn't yet up. He hoped no cop car would go rolling by, hoped nobody peering out his window would suspect him for a burglar instead of a man about to kill a police detective. This amused him. He laughed out loud, ducked his head as if somebody had read his mind, and hurried up the street.