Ed McBain - Vespers

a man named Dwight Colby. Check it," she "he's in the phone book.”

"Thank you," he said. "I will.”

“He's black," she said.

The ugly one again.

"Qu tal?”

His first words. Signaling that they would speak only in Spanish, his language. She went along with it. Tomorrow it would be over and done with.

Forever.

In Spanish, she said, "Yo tengo el dinero.”

I have the money.

"Oh?" he said, surprised. "That was very fast.”

"I met with my contact last night. The deal is too complicated to explain, but...”

"No. Explain it.”

"Not on the telephone. You can understand that.

Let me say only that it turned out to be simpler than I thought it would.”

"Well, that's very nice, isn't it?”

Forced joviality in his voice.

Pero, eso est6 muy bien, no?

"Yes," she said. "Can you come here tomorrow afternoon?”

"I'm not sure we want to come there," he said.

"You live in a dangerous place. A person can get hurt in that place.”

Reminding her that there was still an additional debt she owed. For the cutting of the handsome one.

The two million would pay for the killing of Alberto Hidalgo... maybe.

But she knew the ugly one would not be content until the cutting was paid for as well.

Machismo was invented by Spanish-speaking people. So was venganza.

"Well, I'm sorry," she said, "but I'm not about to go out on the street carrying two million cash.”

Show them the green.

"You have the full amount, eh?”

"All of it.”

"In what denominations?”

"Hundreds.”

"How many hundreds?”

He almost trapped her. She surely would counted that much money, she surely would known how many hundred-dollar bills there were two million dollars. Her mind clicked like calculator. Drop two zeros, you come up with... "Twenty thousand," she said at once, and embroidered the lie.

"Two hundred banded hundred bills in each stack.”

“Good," he said.

"Can you be here at three tomorrow?”

Willis would be working the day watch a He'd leave here at a quarter past eight, and wouldn't be home till four-fifteen, four-thirty.

that time it would be finished.

"Three-thirty," he said.

"No, that's too...”

"Three-thirty," he repeated.

"All right," she said, sighing. "You'll have minutes to count the money and get out.”

"I hope there won't be any tricks this time," said.

The word trucos meant only that in S Tricks. It did not have the secondary or tertiary meanings it had in English, where a trick was either a prostitute's client or the service she performed for him. He was not making veiled reference to either her own or his uncle's former occupations. Too much the gentleman for that. No Shad Russell here, this man's mind wasn't in the gutter. He was simply warning her not to come up with any surprises.

"No guns," he said, "no knives, eh?”

Reminder of the debt again.

The cutting of the handsome one.

"No tricks," she said. "I just want this over and done with.”

"Yes, so do we.”

The something in his voice again. The promise.

Running deep and dark and icy cold beneath the surface of his words.

"I'll see you at three-thirty tomorrow," she said, and hung up.

And realized all at once that she was trembling.

He went back to the church again at noon that the first day of June. He had called ahead to ask if i could look through the dead priest's files again, Father Oriella had told him it would be no bother all, he himself had a meeting at the downtown, and would be out of the office most the day. "If you need any assistance," he'd "just ask Marcella Bella.”

Marcella Palumbo, as it happened, was out lunch when Carella got there.

It was Mrs. Henness who let him into the rectory and then took him to the small office. Where there had been scattered all over the floor on the night of the and cartons stacked everywhere when the new was moving in, there was now order and a sure sense of control.

"What is it you're looking for?" Mrs. Henness' asked.

"I'm not sure," Carella said.

"Then how will you know where to look?”

Good question.

He was here, he guessed, to do paperwork again.

To some people, Hell was eternal flames, and to others it was getting caught in midtown traffic, but to Carella it was paperwork. He was being punished now for having walked out of church without having said his penance all those years ago. A vengeful God was heaping more paperwork on him.

He asked Mrs. Hennessy if she knew where Father Oriella had put the calendar, checkbooks, and canceled checks that had been returned to him by the police. She said she thought Mrs. Palumbo had filed them in the M-Z file drawer, though she had no idea why the woman had put them there since checks and calendars both started with a C, so why hadn't she put them in the A-C drawer? Carella had no idea, either. But sure enough, there they were, at the front of the M-Z drawer. He thanked Mrs. Hennessy, declined her offer of a cup of coffee, sat down at the desk and began going through the material yet another time.

As earlier, the priest's appointment calendar told him nothing of importance. On the day of his murder, he had celebrated masses at eight A.M. and twelve noon, and then had done the Miraculous Medal Novena following the noon mass. He had met with the Altar Society Auxiliary at two, and the Rosary Society at four. He was scheduled to meet with the Parish Council at eight that night, presumably after dinner, an appointment he kept. That was it for the twenty-fourth day of Carella skimmed back through the pages for preceding week. Again, there was nothing seemed significant.

He put the appointment calendar aside, took St. Catherine's Roman Catholic Church checkbook from the drawer, and began through the stubs for checks the priest had during the month of May. Here again were checks for photocopying and garage, mortgage maintenance, medical insurance, flower.. missalettes, and so on. Carella turned to the che stubs for May 24.

The first stub on the page was numbered 5699. a hand that was not Father Michael's, and Carella assumed to be Kristin Lund's, the recorded that a check had been written to Macauley Tree Care, Inc. for spraying done on in the amount of $37.50. As he'd done last Friday the squadroom, Carella now went down the one after the other, all of them dated May 24, numbered sequentially:

5700

To: US Sprint

For: Service thru 5/17

$176.80

5701

To: Isola Bank and Trust

For: June mortgage

$1480.75

5702

To: Alfred Hart Insurance Co.

For: Honda Accord LX, Policy # HR 9872724

$580.00

5703

To: Orkin Exterminating Co. Inc.

For: May services

$36.50

5704

To: The Wanderers

For: Band deposit

$100.00

That was the last check Father Michael had written on the day of his murder.

Carella closed the checkbook.

Nothing.

Paperwork, he thought. That's why he was here.

Punishment. The ransacked G-L file. The eighth circle of Hell would be going through that another time, and trying to discern what was mi. from it. Because no one zeros in on a single file, that file drawer out, searches through that file .] haste, tosses papers recklessly into the room a onto the floor, unless that someone is looking f something. And if the something had in fact be found and taken from the priest's office, then t something may have been the reason for the murder. So perhaps if he studied the papers in as they'd been filed, he might discover a break in continuity, a lapse, a gap, a hole in the records.