Ed McBain - Fiddlers

It occurred to both detectives, almost simultaneously, that she did not yet know Christine Langston was dead. Brown glanced at Kling, found him turning to him at the same moment. So who would tell her? They both suddenly wished they hadn’t driven all the way out here today.

‘Miss Hardigan,’ Brown said, ‘there’s something you should know.’

His voice, his eyes transmitted the message before he said the words.

‘Has something happened to her?’ Susan asked at once. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

‘Ma’am,’ Brown said, ‘she was murdered.’

‘I dreamt it,’ she said. ‘The other night. I dreamt someone had stabbed her.’

Brown told her what had actually happened. He told her they’d been talking to associates of hers, students she’d taught, trying to get a handle on the case. Susan listened intently. He didn’t know quite how he should broach the matter of Christine Langston’s… sexuality? This was an elderly woman sitting here in a wheelchair, a spinster woman who reminded him of his aunt Hattie in North Carolina, albeit white. How did you ask her if she knew her close friend had once phoned in a false rape charge back then when you and I were young, Maggie?

‘Did you know of any trouble she’d reported to the police?’ Kling said, gingerly picking up the ball.

‘What sort of trouble?’ Susan asked.

‘Curried favors from a cab driver,’ Kling sort of mumbled.

Curried, Brown thought. Well, an Indian cab driver.

‘A cab driver curried favors from her?’

‘No,’ Kling said, and cleared his throat. ‘Miss Langston curried favors from him.’

‘Nonsense,’ Susan snapped. ‘What kind of favors?’

Kling cleared his throat again.

‘Sexual favors,’ he said.

Brown wished he was dead.

‘Are you talking about that trick she played one time?’ Susan said. ‘Is that what you’re referring to?’

‘What trick would that be, ma’arn?’

‘Back at Harding? The young man who needed an A?’

‘Tell us about it,’ Brown said.

‘But he wasn’t a cab driver. He was a student.’

Plainly about to enjoy this, almost rubbing her hands together in anticipation, Susan shifted in her wheelchair, leaned forward as if to share a delicious secret, lowered her voice, and said, ‘This boy desperately needed an A in the course Christine was teaching. Basic Elements of Composition, whatever it was. This was high school, he was a graduating senior, eighteen years old. But he needed an A from her to pull up his average from a C to a B. He’d applied to a college, some dinky little school in Vermont, and acceptance was contingent on his maintaining a B average.’

Susan grinned. Her teeth were bad, Brown noticed. She suddenly didn’t remind him of Aunt Hattie at all.

‘Well… this is really rich, I must tell you. As a joke, Christine told the boy…” She suddenly winked at the detectives. ‘I don’t know if either of you are old enough to hear this.’

‘Try us,’ Brown said.

‘She told him if he’d go to bed with her, she’d give him an A. Joking, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Brown said.

‘But he took her up on it!’

‘Who wouldn’t?’ Brown said.

‘Can you imagine! She’s joking with the boy, and he thinks she’s truly propositioning him?’

‘So she explained that she was just kidding, right?’

‘Well, no,’ Susan said, chuckling. ‘He was eighteen, she was twenty-three, this was consensual. Nothing wrong with that.’

‘Nothing at all,’ Kling said. ‘What was this boy’s name, would you remember?’

‘She never said. Told me the story one night while we were having dinner together.’

‘You’re saying she went to bed with him,’ Brown said.

‘Isn’t that delicious?’ Susan said, and actually clapped her hands. She leaned closer, conspiratorially. Her voice lowered to a whisper. ‘But that wasn’t the end of it.’

Neither of them dared ask what the end of it was.

‘She gave him a C, anyway!’ Susan said gleefully.

The detectives said nothing for a moment.

‘Was he accepted at that college in Vermont?’ Brown asked at last.

‘No! He got drafted into the Army!’

Brown nodded.

‘Isn’t that the supreme irony!’ Susan said.

* * * *

‘You know something,’ Brown said in the car on the way back to the city. ‘There are people who are ugly when they’re young, and they’re still ugly when they’re old. Nothing changes there. Ugly is ugly.’

They were caught in inexplicable post-rush-hour traffic. Brown was driving. The car windows were open. An incessant buzz seemed to hang over everything.

‘I’ll tell you something else,’ he said. ‘If you’re getting a picture here of a mean old lady, then ten to one she was a mean young lady, too. And probably a mean little brat. Nothing changes. Mean is mean. Susan Hardigan enjoyed telling that damn story. They must have been two prize bitches back then, her and her good friend Christine. Both of them ugly, both of them mean.’

‘Yep,’ Kling said.

They drove in silence for some time, pondering the vast mysteries of life.

‘Got time for a drink?’ Kling asked. ‘Caroline’s waiting,’ Brown said.

* * * *

When Carella got home that night, he explained that the reason he was late was there’d been another murder, and the Loot had them running all around town again.

‘In the Eight-Eight this time, an old priest, same Glock,’ he told Teddy. ‘Ollie Weeks caught it, lucky us.’

How many does this make? Teddy signed.

‘Four.’

Is it some nutcase shooting people at random?

The word ‘nutcase’ was difficult to sign.

At first, Carella read it as ‘Nazi.’

‘Oh, nutcase,’ he said, after she’d repeated it three times. ‘Maybe.’

But he didn’t think so.

* * * *

First thing Kling thought was, She’s a hooker.

Sliding onto the stool next to his, She’s a hooker. Or was that racial profiling? Or had he been drinking too much? Or did he just miss Sharyn too much? When you’re in love, the whole world’s black. Sharyn’s words. The girl smiled at him. Very black girl, very white smile. Short skirt, crossed her legs. Smooth black legs, bare, shiny. He almost put his hand on her knee. Reflexive action. Been with Sharyn too long a time now. Once you taste black, there’s no going back. Sharyn’s words, too.

‘Dirty martini,’ the girl told the bartender.

‘What’s that?’ Kling asked. ‘A dirty martini.’

The girl turned to him. ‘You don’t know whut a dirty martini is?’ she said, and then, to the bartender, ‘He aon’t know whut a dirty martini is, Louis.’

‘Tell him what it is, Sade,’ the bartender said.

Sadie Harris,’ the girl said, and held out her hand. Kling took it.

‘Bert Kling,’ he said.

‘Nice’t’meet you, Bert. Way I make a dirty martini,’ she said, and again to the bartender, ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Louis.’

‘You’re the one taught me how to make ‘em,’ Louis said, grinning.

‘You take two shots of gin,’ Sadie said, ‘and you add three teaspoons of olive juice. No vermouth. Just the olive juice. Then you either shake it or stir it

‘I prefer stirring it,’ Louis said, actually working on the drink now.

‘… over ice,’ Sadie said, ‘and you pour it in an up glass, and add an olive. I like a jalapefio olive in mine, as Louis well knows. Thank you, Louis,’ she said, and accepted the stemmed glass. ‘You want a little taste of this, Bert?’ she asked. ‘Li’l sip of this?’

‘Why not?’ he said.

She held the glass for him, brought it to his mouth. He sipped.