Ed Mcbain - Money, Money, Money

“I heard.”

Dooley was back with a man wearing a blue uniform with gold trim, blue hat with a shiny black peak. He looked Hispanic to Ollie, but Dooley introduced him as Muhammad Hassid, which meant he had just arrived from the Sahara and was plotting to blow up the nearest municipal building. Ollie asked him if he’d seen Miss Ridley leaving the building with anyone anytime last night.

“No, sir, I have seen no one,” Hassid said.

“What time did you leave here?” Ollie asked.

“I was relieved at eleven-forty-five,” Hassid said.

“Who came on after you?”

“Manuel Escovar.”

“We’ll want his address and phone number,” Carella told Dooley.

“I have them in the office,” Dooley said. “Will you be needin either of us any further?”

“Not right now,” Ollie said. “We’ll stop by on our way out.”

“Good luck to you, lads,” Dooley said.

“Thank you, sirs,” Hassid said.

IT TOOK A GOOD HOUR AND A HALF for the techs to vacuum the place for fibers and hair and to dust for fingerprints. The lights were on when Carella and Ollie finally went in to join them.

“Got some nice latents,” one of the techs said. “How urgent is this?”

“It’s a fuckin homicide,” Ollie said. “What do you mean, how urgent is it?”

“Cause what I can do …”

“The fuckin lady got chewed to bits by lions!” Ollie said.

“I can run the prints for you, was what I was gonna suggest, save a little time,” the tech said, unruffled. “Call you if I get a make.”

“That’d be a help,” Carella said.

“My name’s Murphy, here’s my card,” he said. “Probably be late tonight, early tomorrow morning.”

“Gee, that’s abig fuckin help,” Ollie said.

Murphy looked at him.

“Talk to you later,” he said to Carella and walked out shaking his head.

The apartment was a one-bedroom with a good-sized living room and a utility kitchen. They started in the bedroom, which was where they hoped to learn the most about the woman.

Three furs were hanging in the closet there: an ankle-length sable, a mink stole, and a red fox jacket. The initials in each of the furs were CJR.

Ollie turned to Carella.

“Didn’t you say … ?”

“That’s what Willis told me.”

“So what are they doing here?”

“Maybe she had two of each.”

“Maybe my aunt has balls,” Ollie said.

There were also two woolen cloth coats in the closet, and a fleece-lined brown-leather flight jacket. The jacket had a silver bar on each shoulder and a diamond-shaped leather name patch over the left breast: Lt. C. J. Ridley. Hanging lengthwise on trouser hangers were two pairs of blue jeans and three pairs of tailored slacks. Hanging in the rest of the closet were dresses, skirts, and several bulky sweaters.

The clothes in her dresser drawer were laid out like soldiers lined up for inspection, rolled nylons and pantyhose in one drawer, tank tops and cotton panties in another, T-shirts and sweaters in the bottom drawer, all precisely stored away.

In the top drawer of the night table on the left hand side of the bed, they found a candy tin with a floral design on its lid. They opened the tin. Inside the box was a stack of photographs, several airmail letters, and a small black ring box that contained a slender gold wedding band. The letters were from a Captain Mark William Ridley—the return address indicated he was stationed with the U.S. Air Force in Germany—to a woman named Cassandra Jean Ridley in Eagle Branch, Texas.

“Probably her husband,” Ollie said. “Got killed over there in Germany for some reason or other, and the letter’s from a chaplain or somebody, telling her he was dead and returning the wedding band.”

“Very romantic,” Carella said.

“Let’s read ’em.”

“Also there’s no war going on in Germany right this minute.”

“Be the only place there isn’t,” Ollie said.

They opened one of the letters.

It was dated November 13 of this year, and it was from the dead woman’s brother. He was telling her he’d just received a Dear John letter from his wife back in Montana, and he was sending their wedding band to Cassandra Jean to dispose of because he couldn’t bear doing that himself, nor could he bear even looking at it ever again.

“That’s romantic, too,” Ollie said.

The letter went on to say that the job his sister had lined up for the early part of December sounded good to him, “so long as you won’t be flying anything that might get you in trouble.”

“Might’ve got her in a wholelot of trouble,” Carella said.

“Let’s take these, read ’em all later.”

Sitting on the living room desk was an appointment calendar for the current year. They immediately flipped to the week of December 3. Someone—presumably Cassandra Jean Ridley—had scrawled the wordMexico into the box for Sunday the third. An inked arrow ran over the boxes for the next four days, its point leading to the box for December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, where the wordsEnd Mexico were written in the same hand. The single wordEast was written in the box for December 8.

In the top drawer on the right hand side of the kneehole, they found a checkbook from Chase, another for Midlands, and a savings account passbook from a bank called First Peoples. For yet another bank called Banque Française, they found a safe deposit box key in a little red packet with a snap catch.

A pile of rubber-banded hundred-dollar bills was resting on edge, at the right hand side of the drawer.

There were eighty of them.

$8,000 in cash.

They wished they could take a peek at her Banque Française safe deposit box, but this was the Saturday before Christmas Day, and the bank had closed at noon. Even a court order would not get it to open again before Tuesday morning, the twenty-sixth.

They went to see Manuel Escovar instead.

THE STREETS OF Little Santo Domingo were ablaze with light when they got there at eight that night. Stringed white lights hung from sidewalk to sidewalk, and dancing red and green lights flashed in every window overlooking the street. Spotlighted banners wishedFELIZNAVIDAD to the world. All up and down the street, pushcarts lighted with flashlights displayed last-minute gifts ranging from Louis Vuitton handbags to Hermès scarves and Rolex watches. Christmastime was the biggest thriller of the year, and the countdown had begun in earnest.

“All of this shit fell off the back of a truck,” Ollie commented.

They found Escovar in a little bar off Swift Street, where he was enjoying a few beers with his cronies before heading off to work at eleven. Nervously, he told them his shift began at midnight and ended at eight in the morning. Anything more than two beers would be dangerous, he told them, but he assured them he was all right with just two. Ollie suspected Mr. Escovar here did not have a green card. He suspected the man did not wish the slightest bit of trouble with the law. Which was why his hands were trembling as he smilingly explained that he was just a mellow little man with a sporty little mustache enjoying a few peaceful brews with his pals. My ass, Ollie thought. Instinctively, he knew Escovar had something to hide if only because he was a spic.

“There’s a woman who lives at 321 South Ealey,” Ollie said. “Her name’s Cassandra Jean Ridley. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Miss Ridley, yes,” Escovar said, nodding at once. “Appar’menn nine C.”

“That’s the one,” Ollie said. “Did you see her leaving the building at anytime late last night, early this morning?”

Escovar thought this one over. Because he’s getting ready to lie, Ollie thought. He had never met anyone of Spanish descent who gave you a straight answer. Then again, he had never met any Jew, Chinaman, Polack, Irishman, or Wop, for that matter—present company excluded—who could look you in the eye and give you an unequivocal yes or no. Ollie was a consummate bigot. He knew that virtually everyone he met in this business was inferior to Detective/First Grade Oliver Wendell Weeks. That was simply the way it was, kiddies, take it or leave it. Otherwise, a fart on thee.