Ed Mcbain - Money, Money, Money

It was a quarter to twelve.

The snow was coming down pretty hard now.

Tigo wondered where the fuck Wiggy could be.

WIGGY WAS SITTING at Halloway’s computer up at W&D. One of the Mexicans—he guessed it was Ortiz—came out of the conference room where they were holding the staff, and asked him shouldn’t he be going for the money soon? They had already decided, after some sound reasoning from Wiggy, that he should be the one who went for the cash, in case there was any language problem, not that he meant to be disparaging. He looked up at the wall clock now. It was only twelve noon, and Halloway’s accountant had advised them to allow a half-hour to get there for their one o’clock appointment, which meant there was still plenty of time before him and Halloway had to go out into what looked like a full-fledged blizzard.

“I got time yet,” he told Ortiz, or Villada, or whoever the hell he was.Whoeverhe was, Wiggy planned never to see him or his partner ever again the minute he got his hands on that money.Adios, amigos, it was very nice knowing you.

Meanwhile, there was some very interesting information on the W&D computer.

CARELLA AND MEYER were having lunch in a diner on Culver and Eighth, not far from the station house. Meyer was eating a salad and drinking iced tea. Carella was eating a hamburger and fries. Meyer told him that just two days ago, his wife had told him they should go buy him some clothes for the new year.

“She said we’d have to go to a shop forlarge men, was what she called it. I said, ‘Why do we have to go to a large men’s shop?’ She said, ‘Because we won’t find anything to fit you in a regular men’s store.’ I said, ‘Hey, come on, Sarah, I can buy clothes off the rack at any store in town! Large men’s shops are for men who areobese.’ So she looks me dead in the eye and says, ‘Well?’ ”

“Sarah said that, huh?”

“Sarah.”

“Said you were fat, in effect.”

“Obese.”

“In effect.”

“Do you think I’m obese?”

“No. Ollie Weeks is obese,” Carella said, and popped a fry into his mouth. “You’re what I’d call chubby.”

“Chubby! That’sworse than obese!”

“Well … plump maybe.”

“Keep going. How’s your damn hamburger?”

“Terrific.”

“The fries?”

“Splendid.”

“You forgot stout.”

“Stout’s a good one, too.”

“You ever have a weight problem?”

“Never. I’ve always been svelte.”

“I’ve always been borderline.”

“Borderline what?”

“Obese!” Meyer said, and both men burst out laughing.

The laughter trailed.

“I’ve got other problems, though,” Carella said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Meyer looked at him. Carella’s face, his eyes were suddenly very serious.

“Tell me,” Meyer said.

“You think I’ve changed?” Carella asked.

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Am I different?”

“You seem the same to me.”

“Teddy says I’ve changed since my father got killed. She says I never cried for him. She says I never cried for Danny, either, Danny Gimp. I don’t even remember if I did. She says I’ve been drinking too much, she says …”

“Ah, shit, Steve, you haven’t, have you?”

“No. I don’t think so. I hope not. It’s just …”

“What?”

“Ah, Jesus.”

“What, Steve? Tell me.”

“I think I’m scared.”

“Come on. You’re not scared.”

“I think I am. Teddy’s afraid I might eat my own gun one day. I’ll tell you the truth …”

“Don’t even say it.”

Both men fell silent.

Carella was looking down at his hands.

“I think I’m scared,” he said again. “Really, Meyer.”

“Come on, scared. Of what?”

“Dying,” Carella said. “I’m afraid I’ll get killed.”

“We’re all afraid we’ll get killed.”

“I came so close, Meyer.”

“We’ve all come close, one time or another. O’Brien comes close every day of his life.”

“O’Brien’s a hard luck cop. And he never had a lion sitting on his chest.”

“So what are you scared of? Another lion sitting on your chest? Come on, Steve.”

“He almost had my head in his mouth, I could feel his breath on my face, I could smell his breath. Another minute, he’d have closed his jaws on me. I never came that close to dying before.”

“And you’ll never come that close again. What do you think this is, the African plains? Come on. This is acity, Steve. You don’t run into lions on the streets here.”

“I dream about that lion every night, Meyer. Every fucking night, I see that lion in my dreams. I wake up sweating, Meyer, shaking. I’m scared it’ll happen again. And next time …”

“It’s okay to be scared,” Meyer said.

“Not if you’re a cop.”

“We’re all scared.”

“Cops shouldn’t …”

“Not only cops. Everybody. We’re all scared, Steve. If you meet another lion, just look him in the eye. Stare him down.”

Carella’s hands were trembling.

“Come on,” Meyer said. He slid out of the booth, came around the table, sat beside his friend, and put his arm around his shoulder. “Come on, Steve.”

Tito Gomez walked in just then.

“How tender,” he said.

“Go fuck yourself,” Meyer explained.

“Nice talk. I can’t find Wiggy. I don’t know where he is. What now?”

WIGGY WAS STILL AT Halloway’s computer.

There was a folder named MOTHER, which he couldn’t open because whenever he double-clicked on it, he was told to enter a password. But when he double-clicked on a folder called WITCHES AND DRAGONS—which he thought at first might be some kind of a game—it opened to his touch, and he found a whole list of files with names like ADA and NETTIE and DIANA and EM and TESSIE and RONI and BELA and GINA. Was W&D in the business of tracking hurricanes, or had he lucked into Halloway’s personal little black book of cuties, oh you sly old dog, you! Or were these the names of writers the company published? But then why use first names? And even some nicknames?

Intrigued now, Wiggy double-clicked on the file labeled TESSIE because that was the name of the first girl he’d ever talked into licking Frick and Frack, a thirteen-year-old high yaller beauty fresh up from the South with her grandma. There wasn’t nothing in that file about girls, mellow or otherwise. What was in there was information about the West Side Limousine Corporation, which it would appear was a subsidiary of Wadsworth and Dodds here, and which made all kinds of trips to and from the city’s two airports and the one across the river in the next state, not to mention a trip to Diamondback on Christmas night.

He began wondering why a file about a limousine company would be called TESSIE, and then he realized that there were two S’s in the words WEST SIDE, and also a T, and—lo and behold—an I and an E! So what you had here was little old TESSIE all curled up in the back seat of a WEST SIDE limo!

He double-clicked on the file labeled EM.

What was in there was an itemized list of drug deals that made Wiggy’s little operation in Diamondback look like somebody selling lemonade by the side of the road. Dates, places, number of kilos purchased, dollars paid for them. He wasn’t surprised that the list existed; everybody kept recordssomeplace, man. In fact, his own transactions uptown were recorded on a computer disc called HAPPY DAYS that could only be opened with the password WW2, which stood not for World War II, but instead for his initials and the month of his—it suddenly occurred to him that WITCHES AND DRAGONS stood for Wadsworth and Dodds.

What he was looking at here was a record of drug buys the book publishers had made in Mexico over the past two years. And suddenly he realized that the name EM was buried in the word MEXICO, same as TESSIE was buried in WEST SIDE, was in fact the first two letters of that word, reversed, and he began wondering how many of theother girls’ names in the WITCHES AND DRAGONS folder were buried in larger words, hiding there, so to speak, lurking there in the dark for somebody smart like Wiggy to find.