Ed McBain: Kiss

"What?" the M.E. said, and looked up at the hanging man.

"Somebody get him a ladder," Monoghan said.

"Go get him a ladder," Monroe said.

Two of the blues went off looking for a ladder.

The blue whose mother had been born in England stood around looking offended.

"What do you think killed him, Doc?”

Monroe said, and winked at Monoghan.

"Assuming he is dead," Monoghan said, and winked back.

The M.E. glanced at them sourly, and lighted a cigarette.

"That's bad for your health," Monroe said.

The M.E. kept puffing away.

Ollie lighted a cigarette, too.

The corpse kept twisting overhead. He was wearing a long blue overcoat, black leather gloves, blue earmuffs, and a gray fedora. The blues finally came back with a tall ladder. They opened it for the M.E., who watched them nervously.

"I've got acrophobia," he said.

"What the fuck's that, acrophobia?”

Ollie asked.

"Intense fear of heights," the cop whose mother was born in England said.

"This one's a mine of information," Monroe said, glaring at him.

"I'm not going up that ladder," the M.E. said.

He was beginning to turn a little pale.

"Then how the fuck you gonna examine him?”

Ollie asked.

"Take him down," the M.E. said. "I'll examine him down here.”

"What shall we do with this ladder?" one of the blues asked.

"Shove it up your ass," Ollie said. "We ain't allowed to touch him till you pronounce him dead," he explained to the M.E. "That's the rules.”

"I know the rules.”

"So if you won't go up the ladder and pronounce him dead, how the fuck can we take him down? We have to touch him to take him down, don't we?”

"I can tell he's dead from down here. He's dead. I pronounce him dead. Now take him down and I'll examine him.”

"I ain't going up that ladder," Ollie said.

"Me, neither," Monoghan said.

"Go on up that ladder and take him down,”

Monroe told the cop with the English mother.

"I don't go up ladders on Guy Fawkes Day," the cop said.

The other two blues went up the ladder. One of them hoisted the body a bit while the other one loosened the rope from where it was wrapped around the asbestos-covered pipe. Carefully, slowly, they walked the victim down the ladder and lowered him to the ground on his back. The rope was wound tight around the corpse's throat. Somebody had done a very good job on him. The M.E. put his stethoscope to the man's chest.

"You still think he's dead?" Monoghan asked, and winked at Monroe.

"Or should we get a second opinion?”

Monroe asked.

The M.E. looked at them sourly. They watched as he examined the body.

"What do you think killed him?" Monroe asked, still running with the gag.

"You think cause of death might have been hanging?" Monoghan asked, winking at his partner.

"I think cause of death might have been a gunshot wound," the M.E. said, possibly because he had just rolled the victim over and found a bullet hole at the base of his skull.

"Oh," Monoghan said.

Ollie tossed the dead man.

That was when he learned his name was Roger Turner Tilly.

Carella got there half an hour later.

Ollie was waiting for him outside the building, sitting on the front stoop, eating. He had sent the blue with the English mother out to get him a bagful of hamburgers and a large Coke, and he was eating his dinner upstairs here because he didn't like to eat where there were dead bodies. Also, he already figured this wasn't his case. That's why he'd called the Eight-Seven and asked them to beep Carella.

Carella was wearing two sweaters under his heavy overcoat, and he was wearing a woolen muffler and a hat with earflaps, and he was still cold. Ollie was wearing only a sports jacket over his trousers and shirt, but he looked toasty warm.

"Your man's downstairs," he told Carella, and bit into his sixth hamburger.

"Tilly, am I right? Ain't that what you said on the phone?”

"Tilly, right," Carella said.

He had spoken to Ollie late last week, on the offchance he'd have some fresh information on the man Emma Bowles said was trying to kill her.

According to Identification Section records, Tilly had stopped driving Bowles last spring because he'd left the city in March-for a prison named Castleview, all the way upstate.

He'd been sent up there because he'd assaulted a man who'd called him un maricón.

Tilly wasn't un maricón. Besides, he didn't understand Spanish, and he didn't even know what he'd been called until someone later translated it for him. That was when he went looking for the other driver. So that he could break his nose and both his arms, in that order.

The other driver was Hispanic. Or Latino. Or whatever other label was being hung on people of Spanish descent these days. That was why he knew what maricón meant. He had called Tilly maricón because Tilly was small and compact and light on his feet. He didn't know that the reason Tilly was light on his feet was that he'd once been a welterweight boxer. Hence the broken nose and arms.

The dispatcher at Executive Limousine, which was the limousine company for which both Tilly and the Spanish-American Hispanic Latino worked, called the police and also the hospital. The police got there first. Tilly punched one of them while they were putting the cuffs on him. This could have made matters worse for him, but the judge who heard his case thought that anyone with a name like Roger Turner Tilly couldn't be all bad. The judge himself hated minority groups of any stripe or color. He sentenced Tilly to a mere year and a half upstate. Tilly got out in six months.

The address he'd given his parole officer was 335 St. Sebastian Avenue, right up here in Ollie's bailiwick. But no one there had ever heard of him, hence the call to the Eight-Three.

Ollie promised Carella he'd listen around.

Now, as it turned out, he wouldn't have to anymore.

"Are you sure it's him?" Carella asked.

"Never saw the man in my life," Ollie said, chewing. "I'm only telling you what his ID shit said. Roger Turner Tilly.”

"Is the M.E. still here?”

"Nope.”

"What'd he say?”

"Gunshot wound.”

"Where?”

"Back of the head. He's still layin' on the floor down there, go take a look.”

"Who else is down there?”

"Just a couple of blues. We been waiting for the ambulance. It's been a busy night,”

Ollie said, and shook his head. "Fuckin Guy Fawkes Day.”

"Who'd Homicide send?" Carella asked.

"Monoghan and Monroe. They're already gone.

So are the techs. I told you, there's just the stiff and a couple of blues down there. Now that you're here, I can go home.”

"What do you mean?”

"I'll turn over all the paper, you can sit and wait for the meat wagon.”

"What do you mean?" Carella said again.

"I mean it's all yours, Stevie.”

"All mine?”

"Right. You can take it from here.”

"Take what from here? What the hell are you talking about?”

"You can pick up where I left off," Ollie said.

"Where you left off? You haven't even started yet. All you've done ...”

"The case is yours, Steve.”

"Oh, really? How do you figure that?”

"You told me you were looking for Tilly, didn't you? You said you wanted him for attempted murder.”

"No, I said I wanted to question him about an attempted ...”

"Same thing. So now you got him, Stevie baby. He's down the basement.”

"Uh-uh," Carella said. "This one's yours, and you know it.”

He was thinking that if Tilly was in fact the man Emma Bowles had identified as trying to kill her, then she was no longer in any danger from him. So why should he take on a homicide from another precinct? Ollie had caught it, the case was his. Ollie felt otherwise.