Ed Mcbain - Money, Money, Money

He kept opening file after file.

When finally he double-clicked on the file named DIANA, his eyes opened wide.

He was reading all about Diamondback, which was where he conducted business, the uptown ghetto where Jerry Hoskins alias Frank Holt had come calling with a hundred keys of prime cocaine purchased in Mexico.

DIAMONDBACK.

Little ole white girl DIANA hiding up there in the blackest of black holes.

The magnitude of his discovery made him suddenly want to pee.

Grabbing the Cobray from where it was resting on the floor at his feet, he went down the hall to the men’s room at the rear of the office complex.

At that very moment, The Weird Sisters and two very tall, very broad black men were entering the Headley Building through the back door in an alley that was posted with no parking—fire lane signs. This time around, Sheryl and Toni—whose real names were Anna and Mary Jo—wereeach carrying guns with silencers affixed to the muzzles.

So were the black men.

WIGGY DIDN’T HEAR any shooting because the weapons were wearing silencers.

All he heard was screaming.

The screaming wasn’t coming from the two Mexicans, who were dead within minutes after the assassins entered the conference room. Instead, they were coming from Charmaine the receptionist, and Betty Alweiss from the Art Department. Karen Andersen wasn’t screaming. She was learning how to be as cold-bloodedly unemotional as her boss and sometime lover.

“There’s a third one,” Halloway said.

By that time, Wiggy was down the fire stairs and out of the building.

THE WEIRD SISTERS unashamedly stripped the Mexicans naked and wrapped them in tarpaulin. Their two black associates carried the bodies down the fire stairs, hoisted them into the back of a white ML320 Mercedes-Benz, and transported them to a garbage dump on Sands Spit, not far from the airport. It was Halloway’s surmise that the Mexicans would never be identified and therefore would never be missed.

At about four-thirty that afternoon—just as Carella was leaving the squadroom—Anna and Mary Jo went up to Diamondback to look for Walter Wiggins. This time, their orders were to kill him.

CARELLA GOT TO his mother’s house in Riverhead at a little past six that evening. He recognized his sister’s car in the driveway outside the house, and parked just behind it. His mother’s Christmas tree glowed behind the windows fronting the house. At least a foot of snow covered the walk to the front door, and it was still coming down. He climbed the low flat steps, pressed the button set in the door jamb, and heard familiar chimes sounding inside the house. He waited. Falling flakes covered his hair and the shoulders of his overcoat. He was about to ring again when the door opened.

“Hey,” his mother said, and hugged him. “You should wear a hat.”

“I know,” he said. “You told me.”

“From when you were six,” she said.

“Three,” he corrected.

“Come in. Angela’s already here.”

“I saw her car.”

“Come in.”

He followed his mother into the house. This was where he’d grown up. This was what he’d called home during his childhood, his adolescence, and his early manhood. Home. It seemed strange to him now, smaller, somehow cheerless. He wondered if that was because his father no longer lived here. Angela was sitting at the big dining room table, drinking a glass of red wine. Another glass of wine was on the table, just opposite her. He remembered when they were kids and used to hide together under this very table. He remembered Sunday afternoons here in his parents’ house, the pennyante poker games, he and Angela hiding under the dining room table. He remembered his sister once breaking his head with the clasp on a pocketbook she’d swung at him in anger. He couldn’t remember now what had so enraged her. Something he’d said jokingly. He’d loved her to death when they were kids. He still did. She kissed him on the cheek in greeting.

“How’s the traffic?” she asked.

“Pretty bad. The roads are getting slick.”

“Steve, some wine?” his mother asked. “Something stronger?”

“A little wine, yes,” he said. “Thanks.”

He sat alongside Angela. Outside the window, the snow was coming down heavily. He didn’t live very far from here, but the roads were already bad. He was beginning to regret not having gone straight home from the office. His mother brought him his glass of wine, and went to sit opposite him and Angela at the table. They all lifted their glasses.

“Salute,”his mother said in Italian.

“Cheers,” Carella said.

“Health,” Angela said.

They drank.

“So,” Angela said.

“So,” his mother said.

They were both smiling.

Carella looked across the table at his mother. He turned to look at his sister.

“What?” he said.

“We’re getting married together,” Angela said.

“A double wedding,” his mother said.

“Me and Henry, Mama and …”

“I don’t want to hear this,” Carella said.

He was already standing, surprised to find himself on his feet, wondering when he’d got up. Was it when they’d both started smiling? Was it then that the feeling of impending dread had lurched from his heart into his throat?

“Sit down,” his mother said.

“No, Mom. I’m sorry, but …”

“Sit down, Steve.”

“No. I don’t want to hear about you getting married so soon after …”

“Your father’s been dead almost …”

“I don’t want tohear it!” Carella shouted, and whirled on his sister. “And I don’t want to hear about you marrying the man who …”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Angela asked.

“Oh no,” he said. “Oh no, you don’t.”

“Have you lost your …?”

“Never mind what’s wrong withme! What’s wrong with you? Have you both forgotten Papa already? How can you sit here inhis house …”

“Papa is dead, Steve.”

“Oh, is he? Gee, no kidding. What do you think this is about here? What are we talking about here? What are you both planning to do if not spit on Papa’s …”

“Don’t youdare!” his mother said.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Mom, stop behaving like a schoolgirl. And you stop encouraging her!” he shouted, whirling on Angela. “You want to marry that jackass, at least have the decency to leave her out of it.”

Angela was shaking her head.

“Sure, shake your head,” he said. “I’m wrong, right? She meets a Wop fresh off the boat …”

“Not in my house,” his mother said. “Never use that word in my house.”

“Oh, forgive me, what is he? A Yankee Doodle Dandy?”

“I think that lion scrambled your brains,” Angela said.

“And never mind the fuckinglion!” he shouted.

“Not in myhouse!” his mother said, and slapped him.

He looked at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sure.”

Angela suddenly began crying.

“All we wanted was your blessing,” she said.

“Well, you didn’t get it,” he said. “If you can both forget Papa so easily, I can’t. Goodnight, Mom. Thanks for the wine.”

He turned and was starting for the door when his mother said, “I’m not a schoolgirl, Steve.”

He continued going for the door.

“I love him and I’m going to marry him,” she said.

His hand was on the doorknob.

“Whether you like it or not,” she said.

“Goodnight,” he said again, and opened the door, and walked out into the fiercely falling snow.

THE TAPE RECORDER was going.

Tigo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Nor did hewant to be hearing what he was hearing. He wanted to get this conversation back to the reason he was wearing a wire to begin with. He wanted Wiggy to start talking about December twenty-third.