Ed Mcbain - Money, Money, Money

Escovar’s drinking buddies had moved from the bar to one of the booths, but they were watching the action here with intense interest now. Ollie glanced in their direction, and they all turned their heads away. He figuredthey didn’t have green cards, either. Escovar was still thinking.

“Take all the time you need, ah yes,” Ollie said, doing his world-famous W. C. Fields imitation.

Escovar took the suggestion to heart, the dumb little spic. The detectives waited.

“This might have been very early in the morning,” Carella suggested. “Four, five o’clock, around then.”

“I’m trine to remember,” Escovar said.

Try speaking a little English, Ollie thought.

“She might have seemed disoriented,” Carella said.

She might have had an ice pick in her forehead, Ollie thought.

“I thought she wass drunk,” Escovar said.

The way he finally tells it, Miss Ridley got out of the elevator at about four-thirty this morning, accompanied by two girls—he called them “gorls”—one on each side of her, each holding one of her arms to support her, it looked like to him.

“Can you describe these girls?” Carella asked.

“They wass big gorls. Very tall.”

“White? Black? Hispanic?”

“White,” Escovar said.

“What color hair? Black? Blond? Red?”

“It wass two blondies,” Escovar said.

Blondies, Ollie thought. Jesus.

“Skinny? Fat?” he asked.

“They wass wearin overcoats.”

Ollie wondered what the fuck that had to do with the question.

“You can still tell if a person’s skinny or fat,” he said. “Look at me. Am I skinny or fat?”

Escovar hesitated.

“Go ahead, you won’t hurt my feelings, I know I’m fat.”

“If you say so,” Escovar said shrewdly.

“In fact, I like being fat. It means I eat good.”

“Okay,” Escovar said.

“So were these two broads skinny or fat?”

“They wass healthy,” Escovar said.

“What does that mean, healthy? Big tits? Did they havetetas grandes, amigo?”

Escovar grinned.

“Bigtetas,huh?” Ollie said, grinning with him.

“Bigger than they gorlfrenn, anyhow,” Escovar said, still grinning.

“How do you know she was their girlfriend?” Ollie asked. He was no longer grinning.

Neither was Escovar.

“How do you know Miss Ridley was their girlfriend?” Ollie asked.

Escovar looked at him blankly.

“Answer the question, Pancho.”

“My name iss Manuel,” Escovar said.

“Answer the fuckin question!”

“Slow down, Ollie,” Carella warned.

“Never mind that man behind the curtain,” Ollie said, jerking his thumb at Carella. “He’s just being Good Cop. I’m theBad Cop, Pancho, you dig? And in a minute I’m gonna ask you for your green card.”

“I hass a green card.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do.”

“I hass it home.”

“I’m sure that’s just where you have it. How’d you know they were Miss Ridley’s girlfriends?”

“They tole me they wass.”

“Oh? When was this? When they carried her out of the fuckin elevator? They stopped and told you they were all good girlfriends here, is that it?”

“Sí,that wass when.”

“You’re lying, Pancho.”

“That wass when.”

“You sure it wasn’t when they camein?”

Escovar looked at Carella again.

“Don’t look at him, he ain’t gonna help you. What’d they do, slip you a few bills to let them upstairs without buzzing the apartment?”

Escovar went pale.

“That’s it, ain’t it, Pancho?”

“They had a bahl of champagne,” Escovar said. “They tole me it wass her burr’day. They said they wass good frenns, they wann to sorprise her.”

“How much did they give you?”

“Ten dollars.”

“To let them in, huh?”

“They said they wass frenns.”

“Some friends, they stuck a fuckin ice pick in her head. What was she wearing, Pancho?”

“I tole you. Overcoats.”

“MissRidley.What wasshe wearing when they carried her out of there? She wasn’t naked, was she?”

“Naked? No. A gray suit. Jacket, skirt, a suit.”

“Was she wearing shoes?” Carella asked.

“Shoes?” Escovar said, looking offended. “Of course, shoes,señor. The two gorlfrenns walk her by where I am holdin dee door open for them, out in the street. I thought she wass drunk,” he said. “I thought it wass dee champagne. I wash them …”

He watched them as they walked up the street to a black Lincoln Town Car parked just outside the Korean nails place. Both of the girls got in the back seat with Miss Ridley. The car drove off around five, five-fifteen.

“Chauffeur driving the car?”

“I theenk so, yes.”

“You didn’t happen to notice the license plate number, did you?” Carella asked.

“I’m sorry,señor,” Escovar said. “I did not.”

It was too early for Christmas presents.

OR MAYBE NOT .

At nine that night, when Carella went back to the squadroom to check on any phone calls and to sign out, there was a message that a detective named John Murphy had called to say he’d run the prints he’d lifted from the vic’s apartment and had got hits on an Army lieutenant named Cassandra Jean Ridley and a guy named Wilbur Colley Struthers who’d taken a burglary fall in this city seven years ago. Struthers had dropped the better part of a five-and-dime at Castleview before getting released on parole two years ago. His last known address was 1117 South Twelfth …

“Right up there in the Eight-Seven,” Murphy said. “Now ain’tthat a stroke of luck?”

Carella figured maybe it was.

HE WENT THERE with three other detectives as backup; the man was a convicted felon whose fingerprints had been found all over the vic’s apartment. The building on South Twelfth was a brick walkup, no doorman. The name under the doorbell was W. Struthers. Carella rang every other doorbell in the row. To the first voice that erupted on the speaker, he said, “Police, want to buzz me in, please?”

“What?” the voice said.

“Detective Carella, Eighty-seventh Squad,” he said. “Please buzz me in, sir.”

“What is it?”

“We need access to the roof. Buzz us in, sir.”

“But what is it?”

“An air vent,” Carella said.

Hawes shook his head, suppressed a smile. The buzz sounded a moment later.

“Thank you, sir,” Carella said to the speaker, and the four detectives entered the building. Hawes was still shaking his head and smiling. Outside the door to 2C, Carella put his ear to the wood. Meyer was behind him, on his right. Brown was standing to the left of the door. This was ten o’clock on the Saturday night before Christmas, the building was alive with sound. Radios and television sets going, toilets flushing, people talking behind closed doors, there was a city in miniature inside the walls of this building. They had no warrant, hadn’t even bothered to approach a judge for one because they’d felt certain Struthers’ fingerprints alone would not constitute probable cause for arrest. They had to hope that the man inside there did not bolt for a window the minute they knocked on the door and announced themselves as policemen. Like most cops, they considered burglars—even convicted burglars—people who were not particularly dangerous. The “Burglars-Are-Gents” myth persisted, even though a surprised burglar could turn as violent as any other thief in the world.

There was music behind the closed door, coming from either a radio, an audio system, or a TV set, Carella couldn’t tell which. Christmas music. He kept listening. He heard nothing but the music.

He turned to the others, shrugged.

Nobody said anything.