Ed McBain - Fiddlers

Their eyes met. Communicated.

‘I’ll go say hello,’ he said. ‘When’s dinner?’

‘Mark and me ate at the party,’ April said.

Mark and I, Teddy signed.

‘You ate at the party, too?’ April said aloud, and then signed it, just in case her mother had missed her dynamite wit. Teddy mouthed, Ha ha. Carella was already on the way down the hall to his son’s room.

Mark was lying on his bed, hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. No music blaring. No TV on. He made room for his father, sat up when his father took the offered space.

‘What’s the matter?’ Carella asked.

Mark shrugged.

‘Tough being a teenager?’ Carella said, and put his arm around his son’s shoulders.

‘Dad…” Mark said, and hesitated.

‘Tell me.’

‘You know who I always thought was my best friend?’

‘Who, son?’

‘April. Dad, she’s my twin! I mean, she was my womb mate, excuse me, that’s a twelve-year-old joke, I’m thirteen now, I have to stop behaving like a friggen Munchkin!’

And suddenly he was in tears.

He buried his face in Carella’s shoulder.

‘What happened, Mark?’

‘She called me and my friends Munchkins!’

‘Who did?’

‘Lorraine Pierce. The girl who gave the party for us. It’s because lots of us are still shorter than the girls, and our voices are beginning to change, but that’s no reason to tease us. We’re thirteen, too, Dad. We have a right to grow up, too!’

‘What’s this got to do with your sister?’

‘April let her! She just laughed along with all the other girls and the older boys. My own sister! My twin!’

‘I’ll talk to her.’

‘No, let it go, please. They were just showing off.’

Mark dried his eyes. Carella kept looking at him.

‘What else, son?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Tell me what else.’

‘Dad… I think she’s a bad influence.’

‘Who, son?’

‘Lorraine Pierce. April’s best friend.’

‘Because she called you and your friends Munchkins?’

‘No, because…” He shook his head. ‘Never mind. I don’t want to be a snitch.’

‘Nothing wrong with snitches, son. Why is she a bad influence, this Lorraine?’

‘To begin with, I know she’s a shoplifter.’

Carella was suddenly all ears.

‘How do you know that?’

‘April told me.’

‘How does she know?’

‘She was in the drugstore with Lorraine when she swiped a bottle of nail polish.’

‘When was this?’

‘Two, three weeks ago.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Carella said, and got up to close the door.

* * * *

April had already gone down the hall to her room by the time Carella came back into the living room. Teddy was still sitting under the imitation Tiffany, reading, her hands in her lap, her black hair glossy with light. She closed the book at once.

Did he say anything? she signed.

‘Plenty,’ Carella said.

The way Mark reported it to him…

Around the beginning of the month sometime, April had gone to a Saturday afternoon movie with her good friend Lorraine Pierce. They’d stopped in a drugstore on the way home, and April was leafing through a copy of People magazine, when she saw Lorraine slip a bottle of nail polish into her handbag. At first, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing: Lorraine taking a quick glance at the cashier, and then swiftly dropping the bottle into her bag…

‘ Lorraine !’ she whispered.

Lorraine turned to her. Blue eyes all wide and innocent.

‘Put that back,’ April whispered.

‘Put what back?’

April looked toward where the cashier was checking out a fat woman in a flowered dress. Moving so that she shielded Lorraine from the cashier’s view, she whispered, ‘Put it back. Now.’

‘Don’t be ridic,’ Lorraine said, and walked out of the store.

On the sidewalk outside, April caught her arm, pulled her to a stop.

‘My father’s a cop!’ she said.

‘It’s just a stupid bottle of nail polish,’ Lorraine said.

‘But you stole it!’

‘I buy lots of things in that store.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘I’ll pay them when I get my allowance.’

‘Lorraine, you stole that nail polish.’

‘Don’t be such a pisspants,’ Lorraine said sharply.

They were walking swiftly up the avenue, away from the drugstore. April felt as if they’d just robbed a bank. People rushing by in either direction, the June heat as thick as yellow fog. The stolen nail polish, the swag, sitting at the bottom of Lorraine’s handbag.

‘Give it to me, I’ll take it back,’ April said.

‘No!’

‘Lorraine…’

‘You’re an accomplice,’ Lorraine said.

* * * *

Teddy watched Carella’s mouth, his flying fingers. At last, she nodded.

They could have both got in serious trouble, she signed.

‘That’s what Mark told her.’

What’d she say to that?

‘You don’t want to hear it.’

I do.

‘She repeated Lorraine. She said, “Don’t be such a pisspants.”

April said that ?

‘I’m sorry, hon.’

April?

Teddy sat motionless for a moment.

When she raised her hands again, she signed, I’ll have a talk with her.

* * * *

When the phone on Lieutenant Byrnes’s desk rang, he thought it was his wife, Harriet, wanting to know why he wasn’t home yet. Instead, it was the Chief of Detectives.

‘I was wondering how you thought the department should proceed with this case,’ he told Byrnes. ‘From now on, that is. The media’s having a field day with the blind guy, you know. War hero, all that shit.’

‘We’re okay with it,’ Byrnes said. ‘In fact, we just wrapped a drug bust. That’s why you caught me here.’

‘What’s a drug bust got to do with two homicides?’

‘Long story,’ Byrnes said.

‘It better be a good one,’ the Chief said. ‘Cause I have to tell you, I’m thinking your plate might be too full just now…”

‘We can handle it without a problem,’ Byrnes said.

‘The Commish thinks we may need a display of special attention here, his words. A dead war hero. Blind, no less.’

‘The Eight-Seven is prepared to give the case all the special attention it needs,’ Byrnes said.

The two men were negotiating.

If the case got pulled away from the Eight-Seven, the tabloids would make the squad appear incapable of investigating something this big. On the other hand, if the Chief left the case solely to a dinky little precinct in one of the city’s backwaters, the tabs would be watching like hawks, waiting for the first mishap.

‘The Commish wants a Special Forces man on it at all times,’ the Chief said at last.

‘In what capacity?’

‘Advisory and supervisory.’

‘Riding with my people?’

‘At all times.’

‘No. They’ll file with him, but they don’t need a third leg.’

‘He rides with them.’

‘I told you no.’

‘We’ll call it a joint task force, whatever. Your people and the man from Special Forces.’

‘And just who might that be?’ Byrnes asked, sounding suddenly very Irish and very stubborn.

‘Georgie Fitzsimmons,’ the Chief said.

‘That prick?’ Byrnes said. ‘No way will I let him ride with any of my people.’

‘Pete…”

‘Don’t “Pete” me, Lou. We’re not cutting that kind of deal here. Call it what you want to call it, a joint task force, a special task force, but all we do is report back to Fitz at the end of the day, and that’s that.’