Ed McBain - Fiddlers

One of the girls was truly beautiful. Tall blonde girl in her mid-twenties, they guessed, wearing a black silk robe open over risky tap pants and skimpy bra, beamed them a big welcoming smile when they came in, even though she had to know they were cops. Carella wondered what the hell she was doing in a whore house - not that you’d guess this was one, with its smoky mirrored walls, and its tufted velveteen banquettes. Looked more like a lounge in a hotel lobby. In fact, the only male in evidence was a big black dude who introduced himself as Roger, and said he was the night manager here at Sophisticates, would the gentlemen care for a cup of coffee?

‘Benjamin Bugliosi,’ Meyer said.

‘Benny the Bug,’ Carella said.

Roger looked blank.

‘Does he work here?’

‘Not on my watch.’

‘Whose then?’

‘Don’t believe I know the man,’ Roger said.

‘Would you know where he might have been last night around six thirty?’

‘I come on at midnight,’ Roger said.

‘We’re looking for whoever might’ve killed him at that time.’

‘Oh dear,’ Roger said.

‘Tall white guy, bald as I am,’ Meyer said.

‘Wouldn’t know him, either,’ Roger said.

‘I know them both,’ the good-looking blonde said.

‘Shut up, cunt,’ Roger told her.

‘They sent him

‘I said shut up,’ Roger said, and moved on her.

‘Hold it,’ Meyer said, and slammed the flat of his hand against Roger’s chest. Roger bunched his fists, and |

his eyes glared, but he stopped dead in his tracks.

‘What’s your name, miss?’ Carella said.

‘Trish,’ she said.

* * * *

She told them that two weeks ago, it must’ve been…

‘You lose track of time up here. Was it two weeks ago? Around then, anyway. Me and this other girl who works here, Regina - that’s her real name - went on an all-night out-call to this bald guy you were telling Roger about, looked like a monk or something, no hair at all, no eyebrows, no eyelashes, nothing. Hung like a stallion, but no hair, strange. We were there with him all night, this was a Thursday night, the nineteenth, was it? Is that two weeks ago? What’s today, anyway?’

‘It’s the twenty-ninth,’ Carella said.

‘Already?’

‘All day,’ he said.

They were sitting in Roger’s office, the door closed. She kept glancing over her shoulder at the closed door, afraid it would open and Roger would be standing there, telling her to shut up, cunt.

‘So it was less than two weeks,’ Trish said, and shrugged. The silk robe fell free of her shoulder. Idly, she moved it back into place. ‘Anyway, Regina doesn’t show up for work here after that night. Called in to say she just got the Curse, but then nothing after that, silence. Sophisticates don’t go for freelancing, you know what I mean? So I heard them telling the Bug to go find her, teach her a lesson. I tried to call her, warn her, but she wasn’t answering the phone, and her machine wasn’t on, either, which is strange for a hooker. A telephone is a hooker’s lifeline, you know what I mean? So I figured she’d made some kind of private arrangement with Baldy, he was throwin money around like it was goin out of style. Did he hurt her bad, the Bug?’

“We don’t know,’ Meyer said.

‘I hope not,’ she said, and shrugged again. The robe fell free again. This time, she did not bother to adjust it. ‘I better not come back here no more, huh?’ she said, and looked over her shoulder at the closed door.

‘This out-call on the nineteenth, you said it was,’ Carella said.

‘Around then, yeah.’

“What was the man’s name, would you remember?’

‘Charles,’ she said.

‘Charles what?’

‘Didn’t say. They never do.’

‘Where was it?’

‘The Albemarle Hotel. Downtown on Holman.’

She glanced at the closed door again. Sitting with her robe open, her breasts exposed in their skimpy black bra, her hands folded in her lap, she suddenly looked as forlorn as a six-year-old whose lollipop had fallen into the sandbox.

‘Can I walk down with you guys when you leave?’ she asked.

* * * *

‘Nobody ever did anything like that for me in my entire life,’ Reggie said.

She was cuddled in his arms in the big king-sized bed in the master bedroom of the executive suite on the fourteenth floor of the Albemarle Hotel, the same big bed they’d been sleeping in together for the past it seemed forever now. They were both naked. It was almost three in the morning; they’d made love the moment they got back here to the hotel, and they’d been talking since.

‘My hero,” she said.

‘Some hero,’ he said. But he was pleased.

‘He could’ve killed me.’

‘I thought he was going to.’

‘Dead-Eye Dick here,’ she said, and grinned. ‘I love you so much, Chaz.’

‘I love you, too, Reg.’

‘You killed a man for me!’ she said.

‘Not so loud,’ he warned playfully.

‘Did you ever kill anyone before? I know you were in Vietnam…”

‘I killed five other people since the sixteenth of June,’ he said.

‘Get out!’

‘The Glock Murders? You read about them? That’s me.’

‘You’ll give me a heart attack!’

‘No, no, please

‘Are you serious?’

‘Cross my heart.’

‘Get out,’ she said again.

‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘Counting that man last night, I’ve already killed six people in this city.’

‘And here I thought I was special,’ she said, and kissed him teasingly on the mouth. ‘Why’d you kill all these people, Chaz?’

‘I killed the man last night because he was hurting you,’ he said.

‘Maybe I am special,’ she said, and kissed him again, more seriously this time. ‘And the others?’

‘Because they hurt me.’

‘I better never hurt you,’ she said.

‘I know you never would.’

‘Never,’ she said, and looked into his face, his eyes, studied his mouth, touched his cheek. ‘So now we better get out of here, right? Cause you’re a wanted desperado here, right?’

‘There isn’t much time,’ he said.

‘Come on, there’s plenty of time! Would you like to go to Mexico?’

‘Mexico would be nice,’ he said.

She nodded into his shoulder. She was silent for a while. He held her close.

‘So maybe we could go to Mexico,’ she said.

‘Wherever you like.’

‘Does it bother you I’m a hooker?’

‘You’re not a hooker, Reg.’

She nodded again.

‘Maybe I’m not,’ she said.

There was some sort of commotion in the main room outside. They both sat up in bed just as six detectives in Kevlar vests burst into the bedroom, guns drawn. Some guy in tails and striped trousers stood behind them, a passkey in his hand, looking very frightened. Charles reached at once for the Glock on the bedside table.

‘Don’t touch it, Baldy!’ Meyer yelled.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle.

SEEMED LIKE OLD TIMES.

The good old days, y’know?

Back when strangers were killing strangers for no reason at all.

In recent years, the murder rate in this city had dropped to less than two a day. That was progress. Last year by this time, 307 people had been killed; since January of this year, the total was only 273. But that didn’t count the eleven people - including Benjamin Bugliosi - who’d been killed last night in what the early editions of the tabloids were already calling MONDAY, BLOODY MONDAY!

Since six thirty last night, when Bugliosi was shot and killed outside 753 North Hastings, there had been six killings in Calm’s Point, one in Majesta, and three in the Laurelwood section of Riverhead. One of the Riverhead victims had been stabbed in the chest while struggling to prevent the theft of a white-gold chain and cross he wore around his neck. The victim in Majesta had been shot in the stomach. His seventeen-year-old assailant had fled into a subway station, and, when pursued from there by police, had run into an alley off Dunready Street, where he’d shot himself in the head.