Ed McBain: Kiss

Across the room, Parker burst out laughing at something Weeks had just said. What Weeks had just said was that he loved eating Danish. He had overheard the girl's faint accent and had mistaken her for Danish. Parker found this hysterical.

"... aiming straight for this woman," she said.

"What woman?" Meyer asked.

"This woman walking on the sidewalk.”

"The car was aiming for her?”

"Yes, sir," Birgitta said. "It jumped onto the curb, it tried to run her over.”

"When was this?”

"Just before lunch. I had to wait for Mrs.

Feinstein to get back before I could come here.”

"What kind of car was it?”

"A Ford Taurus."

"What color?”

"Gray. A sort of metallic gray.”

"Did you notice the license plate number?”

"I did.”

A proud little nod. She watched television a lot, Meyer guessed. He supposed they had television in Sweden, didn't they? They certainly had it in Smoke Rise.

"Can you tell me the number, please?" he said.

"DB 37 612," Birgitta said.

He wrote it down, showed it to her, and said, "Is this it?”

"Yes," she said. "Exactly.”

"It wasn't an out-of-state plate, was it?”

"No, no.”

He wondered if they had states in Sweden.

Sweden had Volvos, that he knew.

"Did you see who was driving the car?”

"I did.”

"Man or woman?”

"A man.”

"Can you tell me what he looked like?”

"Not really. It all happened very fast. He turned the corner, and aimed the car at her, and tried to hit her. And she threw herself over this low wall in front of the house next door to ours, and he just drove off.”

"Was he white or black, did you notice?”

"White.”

"Can you tell me anything else about him?”

"He was wearing a red woolen hat.”

Big day for red, Meyer thought.

"How about the woman?" he said. "Anyone you know?”

"No.”

"Not anyone you might have seen in the neighborhood? Before this, I mean.”

"No, I'm sorry.”

"Did you talk to her at all?”

"No. I took the baby inside the house, and when I came out again, she was gone.”

"What'd she look like, can you tell me that?”

"She had blonde hair. Like mine. But longer. And she was a little shorter than I am.”

"How old would you say she was?”

"In her thirties.”

"Did you notice the color of her eyes?”

"I'm sorry.”

"What was she wearing?”

"A mink coat. No hat. Dark boots.

We still have snow on the ground up there.”

Smoke Rise. Like the country up there. Hard to believe it was part of the Eight-Seven, but it was. Big, expensive houses, rolling woodlands, even a stream running through some of the choicer lots. Smoke Rise. Where a man driving a gray Ford Taurus had tried to run down a blonde woman in a mink coat.

"Anything else you can tell me?" Meyer said.

"That's all," Birgitta said. "He was trying to kill her. Will you do something about it?”

"Of course," he said.

The first thing he did was call Motor Vehicles to request a computer check on the license plate number Birgitta had given him. The MVB reported that the car in question was registered to a Dr. Peter Gundler who lived downtown in the Quarter. Meyer wrote down the doctor's address and then called Auto Theft.

The detective he spoke to there took down the license plate number, the name and address of the registered owner, asked for the year and make of the car, settled for the make alone, and told Meyer he'd get back to him in ten minutes. He got back in seven to report that the good doctor's car had been reported stolen on Christmas Day, nice present, huh? Meyer thanked him and hung up.

Easy come, easy go, he thought.

There were times when Detective Steve Carella looked positively Chinese. As he sat in the sunlight that angled through the grilled squadroom windows, the light touching his face in a way that made his dark eyes appear more slanted, pondering the Ballistics report on his desk like a Buddhist monk studying a prayer scroll, it seemed conceivable that he'd been left on his parents' doorstep by a silk merchant from the Orient. He looked up from the report, glanced at the clock. Five minutes to eleven. Ballistics wouldn't be out to lunch yet. He was picking up the phone to dial, when she came down the corridor and stopped just outside the gate in the slatted-rail divider.

His first impression was one of paleness.

A tall, slender blonde woman wearing a long gray cavalry officer's coat.

Taking a crumpled tissue from her pocket now, blowing her nose, returning the tissue to the pocket, hesitating outside the gate.

"Mrs. Bowles?" he said.

"Yes?”

"Come in, please," he said, and put the phone back on its cradle.

She had found the latch on the gate. She opened it and walked to his desk. Long, firm strides, pale horse, pale rider. He asked if he could take her coat ...

"Yes, please.”

... and then carried it to the rack in the corner, near the water cooler. Under the coat, she was wearing a black sweater, a pleated watch-plaid skirt, and black stockings. She resembled a student at a private girl's school.

"Please sit down," he said, and offered her the chair alongside his desk. She looked very grave. Straight blonde hair sitting on her head like a burnished helmet. Dark eyes solemn. Face raw from the wind outside.

"Someone's trying to kill me," she said.

"Yes," he said, and nodded.

She had called not a half hour earlier. When a woman on the phone tells you someone has made two attempts on her life, you ask her to come in immediately. She was here now. And now she was telling him how she'd been coming from a baby shower on Silvermine Oval and was waiting on the subway platform at Culver and Ninth to take a train uptown to Smoke Rise, the Barber Street station up there, do you know it? In Smoke Rise? Waiting for the train when a man pushed her onto the tracks. This was two weeks ago, a little more than two weeks ago. And then, yesterday, he'd tried to kill her again. Tried to run her over with an automobile. The same man.

Closer to home this time.

This was all news to Carella.

The Transit Authority cop to whom Emma Bowles had sobbingly poured out the information on the night of December twelfth hadn't filed a report with the Eight-Seven, and Meyer hadn't told Carella about his visit from the Swedish nanny yesterday. So he listened now while Emma told him that she'd gone out for a little walk before lunch yesterday, strolling up Barber Street and into Smoke Rise, and suddenly this - gray car that might have been a Lincoln Continental came tooling around the corner and climbed the sidewalk chasing her, and would have hit her if she hadn't jumped over this little stone wall bordering one of the houses.

"The same man was driving the car," she said.

"The one who pushed me off the platform.”

"Are you sure?”

"Positive," she said. "And I know who he is.”

Carella looked at her.

"It came to me yesterday, when he tried to run me over," Emma said. "I suddenly remembered.”

"Who is he?" Carella asked.

"He used to drive my husband.”

"Drive him?”

"Martin is a stockbroker. He works all the way downtown, a car picks him up in the morning and takes him home again at night.”

"When you say this man used to drive him ...”

"Yes. He doesn't any longer.”

"When did he stop?”

"Last spring. I don't know what happened then, but Martin got another driver.”

"You're sure this is the same man?”

"Yes, he drove us to the theater once. I know it's the same man.”

"But you didn't recognize him when he shoved you off that subway platform.”

"No, I didn't make the connection. But yesterday he was in a car. And it rang a bell.”