Ed McBain - Fiddlers

The small kitchen went silent.

‘I know that’s a terrible thing to say, may God forgive me. But it’s what I felt.’

‘Have you talked to your uncle about it?’

‘About… ?’

‘His mother’s death. Helen Reilly’s death.’

‘No. I told you, the last time I saw him…”

‘Yes, but I thought you might have spoken afterward. When you heard about the murder…”

‘No.’

‘Would you know where I can reach him?’

‘No. I’m sorry. I think he still lives out on the Spit, but I don’t have the address, I’m sorry.’

‘Can you tell me his name?’ Hawes said.

‘My uncle’s name? Well, of course I…”

‘I know it’s Purcell,’ Hawes said. ‘But what’s his first name?’

‘Charles,’ she said. ‘Uncle Charles.’

* * * *

Carella had just finished reading Teddy’s e-mail when the phone on his desk rang. He sat stunned and shocked for a moment, staring at his computer screen, before reaching for the receiver.

‘Eighty-seventh Squad,’ he said. ‘Carella.’

‘Steve?’

Faint accent.

‘Who’s this, please?’ he said.

‘ Il tuopatrigno ,’ the voice said. ‘Your stepfather. Luigi.’

‘Is something wrong?’ Carella said at once.

‘Qualcosa non va? No, what could be wrong? Am I calling at a bad time? What time is it there?’

‘Almost six,’ Carella said.

‘It’s almost midnight here,’ Luigi said. ‘Your mother’s already asleep.’

Carella waited. Was something wrong? Why this call from Milan? Where it was almost midnight.

‘Is she okay?’ he asked. ‘Mom.’

‘Yes, fine. She met me for lunch in town today, and then she went shopping. She came home exhausted. We had a late dinner and she went straight to bed.’ He hesitated. ‘I thought I’d call to see come va, how everything it goes there. I’m not bothering you, am I?’

‘No, no. Bothering me? No. Shopping for what?’

‘Things we still need for the apartment. Not furniture, I manufacture furniture, we have furniture up to our eyeballs, is how you say it? But towels, sheets, pots and pans, all that. We bought this new apartment, you know…”

We, Carella noticed. We bought this new apartment. Not I bought it. He considered this a good sign. A partnership. Like his own with Teddy.

‘… on the Via Ariosto, near the park. Eight rooms, plenty for when you and the children come to visit, eh? Also, this weekend, we’ll be driving to Como to look at a rental for the summer - if it’s not already too late to get one. The lake is about an hour from here, I’ll be able to go there for weekends and for the entire month of August, when I take my holiday from the office. Which would be a good time for you to visit with the children, no? It will be big enough for all of us, I’ll make sure, something nice on the lake, eh? How are the children, Steve?’

Carella hesitated.

‘Fine,’ he said at last. “Well, they’re teenagers now, you know. Their birthday was a week ago.’

‘Did you get what Luisa and I sent? Mama and I?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Madonna, ma com’e possibile? We sent their gifts by courier! I will have my secretary check. Not there yet? Ma cbe idioti!’

‘I’ll call when they arrive, don’t worry,’ Carella said.

There was a short silence on the line.

‘What did you mean, I know about teenagers?’ Luigi asked. ‘Is something the matter?’

‘Well, you know.’

‘Tell me.’

The identical words Carella used when interrogating a perp. Tell me.

‘Well, you have children, you know.’

‘I have children with teenagers of their own!’ Luigi said. ‘What’s the matter, Steve?’

And then, just the way a perp will often take a deep breath before blurting that he’d killed his wife and their pet canary with a hatchet, Carella took a deep breath and said, ‘April’s smoking marijuana.’

‘Oh, madonna !’ Luigi said. ‘When did this happen?’

‘I just found out this minute. Did you ever have such trouble? When your kids were small?’

He still thought of April as ‘small.’ Lipstick. High heels. Small. But thirteen. And smoking marijuana.

‘Yes. Well, not dope, no, although there is plenty of that here, too,’ Luigi said. ‘But yes, when Annamaria was fourteen, she started running with a bad crowd, is that how you say it? Un brutto giro?’

‘A bad crowd, yes.’

‘Alcohol, wild parties, everything. Fourteen years old! My baby!’

‘Yes,’ Carella said. ‘That’s just it, Luigi.’

‘You must talk to April at once. You must let her know this will not be tolerated in our family.’

‘Is that what you did?’

‘The very moment I learned what was happening. We would not let her out of the house for a month. Not until she got herself loose of these bad people. I told her I would call the police! But you are a police, no, Steve? Tell her. This will not be tolerated! Our family will not be shamed this way! Luisa would die! Shall I tell her? Do you want me to tell her, Steve? Figliolo, may I tell Mama?’

Figliolo, Carella thought. Son, he thought. May I tell Mama?

‘Not yet, Luigi, please,’ he said. ‘Let me call you after we’ve talked to April. Be better that way.’

‘Si, meglio cosi. I will wait for your call. Give my love to Teddy. Let me know what happens. Please.’

‘I promise.’

‘Allora, ci sentiamopresto,’ Luigi said, and hung up.

‘Thanks…’ Carella started, but the line had already gone dead and there was only a dial tone.

He’d almost said, Thanks, Pop.

Well, next time, he thought.

He tried the words silently.

Thanks, Pop.

Then, aloud into the dead phone, he said, ‘Thanks, Pop,’ and then, louder, ‘Thanks, Papa,’ and replaced the phone gently on its receiver.

* * * *

When the limo didn’t show up by six fifteen, Charles Purcell went back into the lobby and asked the concierge to dial the car company’s number for him. The dispatcher he spoke to told him that the car had got caught in heavy traffic near the Calm’s Point Bridge…

‘Well, where is he now?’ he asked.

‘Just coming off the Drive, sir.’

Charles looked at his watch.

‘Then cancel it,’ he said. ‘I’ll take a taxi.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, we…”

‘That’s all right, another time,’ he said, and hung up. He went directly out of the hotel to the curb, where he asked the doorman to hail a cab for him. Once seated inside, he gave the driver Reggie’s address on North Hastings and told him there’d be a twenty-dollar tip for him if he got there before six thirty. He looked at his watch again. The driver pulled away from the curb in a screech of rubber.

Charles had made the dinner reservation for six thirty, but now he figured they’d be fifteen or so minutes late, that damn limo company. Well, still time enough, maybe, the way the cabbie was weaving his way in and out of traffic. Amazing what the promise of a little money could do. He was rather getting used to this lifestyle. Pity it wouldn’t last forever, but then again, nothing ever did.

She was waiting on the steps outside her building when the taxi pulled up. Charles asked the driver to keep the meter running, and then he got out of the car and was walking toward her, a grin on his face, when all at once everything seemed to happen in a rush. In that single instant, he was transported back to Nam, the way in Nam things suddenly erupted everywhere around you, and you didn’t realize at first that this was really happening to you, that this attack was directed at you.