Ed Mcbain: The Frumious Bandersnatch

“Nothing,” Endicott said.

The car’s cell phone rang a moment later.

It was seven-twenty-sixP.M. on the dashboard clock.

“WHEREare you?” Avery asked.

“Off Exit 5,” Loomis said.

“Take a left onto Fairlane. Drive downtown to the Grace Wagner School of Design on Cronley. Park in front of the statue there. No tricks.”

There was a click on the line.

“What’d he say?”

“The Wagner School of Design on Cronley. Wants us to park in front of the statue there.”

Corcoran tapped a button on the face of his cell phone.

“Endicott.”

“Heading downtown to Cronley, Wagner School of Design. He wants us to park there. Check out the building. Careful, they may be watching, same as before.”

“Moving,” Endicott said.

“He told me no tricks,” Loomis said.

Corcoran merely nodded.

“IS THIS PICTUREa mystery or something?” Ollie asked.

“No, not at all,” Patricia said. “It’s Shakespeare, I told you.”

“Because it’s called Looking for Richard, you know,” Ollie said, “which sounds like a sort of mystery, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe so.”

“Like a missing person or something, you know?”

They were sitting watching commercials on the screen, eating popcorn and waiting for the movie to start. Ollie had bought two big cartons of popcorn with extra butter, and two Diet Pepsis because a person couldn’t be too careful, and two big bars of Hershey’s chocolate with almonds in case Patricia was still hungry after she finished her popcorn. It bothered him that he had to sit here and watch commercials for restaurants and clothing stores, as if he hadn’t paid for the tickets and was getting something free.

It also bothered him that he didn’t know exactly what this movie was about. If it was about a missing person, he’d had some experience along those lines, you know, and could relate to the movie more easily. But if it was about Shakespeare, the way Patricia said it was, then why had they named it Looking for Richard, which made it sound as if somebody had been kidnapped or something?

“Are you sure this is going to be Shakespeare?” he asked her.

“Oh yes,” she said. “It’s about doing Richard the Third. ”

“Ah- ha! ” he said. “It is a mystery!”

“It is?”

“You just said it’s about doing Richard the Third.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean ‘doing’ in that sense. I meant performing the play. Doing Richard the Third. ”

“So why are they calling it Looking for Richard if there’s no ticking clock?” he asked. Reminded, he looked at his watch. It was seven-forty-three and the movie was scheduled to start at seven-forty-five. So where was it? Why did they have to sit here watching a commercial for an antiques store, as if anyone would want to buy old used furniture and stuff?

“I’m really excited about seeing this again,” Patricia said, and suddenly reached over for his hand and squeezed it.

“Me, too,” Ollie said dubiously.

His hand was sticky with butter.

Which was okay because her hand was, too.

THE GRACE WAGNERSchool of Design had once been called William Howard Taft High School, after the twenty-seventh President of the United States. Back then, it was a so-called academic high school, which meant that its students took subjects to qualify them for college entrance. But that was the good old days.

Nowadays, it was a vocational high school for kids looking for easy entrée to the world of high fashion. If you could maintain a C-average and draw a straight line, you were admitted to Grace Wagner, which incidentally had been named after a woman who’d served on the Board of Education and played flute.

A bronze statue that looked like a huge bolt of lightning striking an oversized soccer ball stood on the patchy front lawn of the school. By the time Loomis pulled the Lincoln up in front of the statue, Endicott and Lonigan had already driven twice around the school’s surrounding blocks. They had seen no one suspicious lurking about, but there was a light burning in one of the school’s top-floor windows, and they thought they’d seen shadows moving past.

Endicott reported this to Corcoran now.

“May be using the same M.O. they did in The Wasteland,” Corcoran suggested. “Take the high ground, cover the area through binocs.”

“I’ll wait for the second car to show,” Endicott said. “We’ll go in the back way, try to surprise them up there.”

“Don’t do anything to jeopardize the girl’s safety,” Corcoran warned.

Loomis figured this was for his benefit.

Besides, his phone was ringing.

“HELLO?” he said.

“We see you,” Avery said. “Get out of the car, both of you. Leave the money on the back seat. Leave the car unlocked with the keys in the ignition. Walk toward the school entrance. Now! Do it now! ” he said, and hung up.

“He wants us to leave the money and get out of the car. He wants us to walk toward the school. Wants it unlocked with the keys in it.”

Corcoran stabbed at his cell phone.

“Endicott.”

“They’re trying an end run,” he shouted. “Get around to the front of the school! Quick! ”

“What?” Endicott said.

The car phone rang again.

Loomis picked up.

“Yes?” he said.

“I said now! ” Avery said, and hung up.

“Let’s go!” Loomis said. “Please!”

Both men got out of the car. Corcoran looked up the street, to where he could see a green SUV moving swiftly toward the parked Lincoln.

“Here they come!” he said, and reached under his jacket into his shoulder holster.

“Don’t!” Loomis shouted.

IT ALL HAPPENEDso fast that later none of the agents or detectives could reconstruct it in proper sequence. It was rather like one of those movies directed by someone fresh out of film school, with jump cuts and flash forwards and four or five stories unreeling at the same time.

The first story was Barney Loomis wetting his pants the moment all those guns opened fire. Actually, there was only one gun at first, and it was in the right hand of Detective-Lieutenant Charles Farley Corcoran and he opened fire the moment the two men got out of what he now could see was a green Montana, and climbed into the black town car waiting at the curb in front of Grace Wagner. The Lincoln’s engine roared into life an instant later, and the car pulled away from the curb just as its rear window slid down and a second gun opened up, a rifle this time spewing automatic fire, which is when Loomis wet his pants because he could actually hear bullets whizzing past his right ear.

The two Mercurys came around the corner at that very moment, Endicott and Lonigan in the lead car, Feingold and Jones in the second. Corcoran had sprinted to the curb by then, and was flagging down the blue Merc. Loomis had thrown himself flat to the ground the way he’d seen them do in better movies than this one, even though there were no bullets flying at the moment.

At the moment, in fact, and even before Corcoran jumped into the blue Merc like somebody about to yell “Follow that car!” the black Lincoln Town car had raced out of sight like the Enterprise zooming off into a star-filled void.

Where it was zooming off to was a spot a mile away, where they had parked the very last of the stolen cars.

THEY HAD LEFT8412 Winston Road in Calm’s Point at seven-thirty, had encountered heavy traffic coming over the bridge, and did not get back to the squadroom till a minute past eight. A minute after that, Carella was calling the number he had for telephone company Special Assistance.

The Joint Task Force’s hi-tech triangulation had ended in something like strangulation, and their Trap-and-Trace routine had proved futile in the face of stolen and disposable cell phones. So it got down to a weary detective sitting behind a cigarette-scarred desk in a grimy squadroom making a good old-fashioned phone call. In many ways the good old telephone company was always reliable if not always courteous. Even dealing with a so-called Special Operator assigned to helping law enforcement agencies working so-called important cases, the civility level was barely acceptable.