Ed Mcbain - The Frumious Bandersnatch

So many things could go wrong.

Would she be able to hear the lyrics clearly enough through the pickup tucked in her hair? Were the Channel Four sound people any good, and where the hell were they, anyway? She’d hate to be rap-ping “One-two, one-two, and through and through, the vorpal blade went snicker-snack!” and instead have the sound from the video telling the cameras and later tonight the world, “ ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” Well, she’d got her start in karaoke clubs, she supposed she could lip-synch her way through tonight, which would be sort of karaoke in reverse, she supposed.

But what if somebody had spilled a drink or something squishy and sloppy on the floor? All Jonah had to do was lose his footing and his grip on her—his grip on himself, for that matter—for this whole thing to go out the window in three seconds flat, Tamar Valparaiso and the rapacious beast doing a comic pratfall in front of millions of viewers when they aired the tape on the Eleven O’Clock News. Goodbye dreams of rock stardom, goodbye little Russa-Mexicana-American girl making it huge in the big bad city and the wide wicked world.

“How do I look?” she asked Jonah.

“Hot,” he said, the friggin faggot.

Tamar’s father used to go to church in Mexico every Sunday morning and pray for something to eat the next day. Tamar’s mother was born in a Communist country and didn’t know from religion or from praying.

Tamar wasn’t praying now, either.

But she was wishing with all her might that after tonight she would be the biggest fucking diva who ever came down the pike. “So don’t let anything go wrong,” she whispered to Whomever. Tamar’s ambition was to bury J. Lo, bury Britney, bury Brandy, bury Shakira, bury Ashanti, bury Pink, bury Sheryl Crowe and Christina Aguilera and Michelle Branch, bury each and every one of them, bury them all.

Was that such a crime?

THE SUBJECT MATTERhad finally got around to ambition and crime.

Ollie and Patricia were sitting out on the restaurant’s wide verandah, looking out over the River Harb and the twinkling lights of the next state. Further uptown, they could see the warmer, somehow cozier lights of the exclusive community, Smoke Rise, and yet further uptown the lights of the Hamilton Bridge spanning the river, a yacht coming under the bridge now, all aglow with lights itself, and moving steadily downstream. Patricia was drinking a crème de menthe on the rocks. Ollie was drinking a Courvoisier straight up.

“My ambition is to become first a detective…” Patricia was saying.

“Ah yes,” Ollie said.

“…and next a detective on the Rape Squad.”

“Why the Rape Squad?”

“Because I think that’s the worst crime there is.”

“I tend to agree,” Ollie said, although he didn’t know whether he actually agreed or not.

Actually, he probably thought killing little girls was a worse crime. But when a woman who looked as beautiful as Patricia did in the moonlight reflected from the water told you she thought rape was the worst crime there was, then it seemed appropriate to agree with her, ah yes.

“Why is that?” Patricia asked.

Not that she doubted him. But he’d seen so much, and knew so much…

“Because it isn’t fair,” Ollie said.

“Who says it has to be fair?” Patricia asked, and smiled, and said, “My mother used to tell me that whenever I complained about anything. But you’re right. Rape isn’t fair. If men had to worry about rape all the time, the crime would carry the death penalty.”

“Do you worry about rape all the time?”

“Not since I became a cop. Not since they let me pack a gun.”

“Are you packing now?” he asked.

“Always,” she said, and tapped her handbag with one painted fingernail. “Even when I go to bed, Josie is right there on the night table beside me. But before? When I was a kid…”

“Josie?”

“The piece. I call her Josie. Doesn’t yours have a name?”

“No.”

“Let’s name it.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a trusted friend.”

Ollie wondered if the conversation was taking a sexual turn. He knew some guys who named their cocks. Women, too. Gave names to their boyfriends’ cocks. Louie. Or Harry. Or Pee Wee in some cases. He didn’t think that’s where Patricia was going here, but you never knew. He’d held her awfully close on the dance floor.

“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” he said. “Besides, I don’t think of it as a trusted friend.”

“Have you ever had to use it?”

“Oh sure.”

“Ever kill a man?”

He hesitated.

“Yes? No?”

“A woman,” he said.

Patricia looked at him.

“She was coming at me with a shotgun. Stoned out of her mind. I shot her once in the thigh, she kept coming. An inch closer, she’d have blown my head off. I dropped her.”

“Wow,” Patricia said.

“Yeah.”

“The same piece you carry now?”

“No. This was when I was a patrolman. It was a thirty-eight back then.”

“What do you carry now?”

“A Glock nine.”

“Me, too.”

“Heavy for a woman.”

“Regulation.”

“Josie, huh?”

“Is what I call her.”

“So what should I call mine?”

“You think of a name.”

“Nah, come on.”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m not good at this.”

“How do you know? Give it a try.”

Ollie furrowed his brow.

“What’s your best friend’s name?” she asked.

“I don’t have a best friend,” he said.

“Well…any friend,” she said.

“I don’t have any friends,” Ollie said.

Patricia looked at him again.

“Then how about someone you really trust?”

Ollie thought about this for several moments.

Back inside the restaurant, the band began playing again.

“Steve,” he said at last.

“So name it Steve.”

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I guess it wouldn’t be professional. Naming a weapon.”

“Do you think I’m unprofessional?”

“Hey, no, I think you’re very professional. You’re a good cop, and I think you’re going to make a very good detective.”

“You think so?”

“I really do. The Rape Squad’ll be lucky to have you.”

“What I was saying about rape before…”

“Yes, tell me. Would you like another one of those?”

“Are you going to have one?”

“If you are.”

“I think I’d like one, yes.”

“Good, me, too,” Ollie said, and signaled to the waiter.

“What I was saying is that in this city, rape was a constant concern of mine. Because, you know, well, I was growing up to be fairly attractive…”

“Beautiful, in fact,” Ollie said.

“I wasn’t fishing for a compliment.”

“But you are beautiful, Patricia.”

“Well, thanks, but what…”

“A cream dee mint,” Ollie said to the waiter, “and another of these cognacs.”

“Yes, sir,” the waiter said, and walked off.

“What I was trying to say,” Patricia said, “is, for example, as a young girl in this city, I never felt safe, never. For example, we’re enjoying a few drinks together here, and I feel perfectly safe with you…”

“Well, thank you,” Ollie said, “ah yes, m’dear. And I feel perfectly safe with you, too.”

Patricia laughed.

“But when I was in my twenties, I’d be out with some guy…well, even lately, for that matter, before I became a cop. I mean this isn’t something that just goes away, it’s a constant with a woman. I’d be having a drink with some guy…”

“How old are you, anyway?” Ollie asked.