Ed McBain: Lullaby

The lettering on the window read:

GO, INC

TRAVEL AGENCY

Kling was too cold to appreciate the pun.

He crossed the street, took up position in the doorway to a tenement building, pulled his head into his shoulders, and hunkered down to wait again.

An hour later, Herrera came flying out of Go, Inc as though he were not only going but already gone. Big smile on his face, this was a man with tickets in his pocket, this was a man on his way to somewhere sunny and warm. Falling in behind him, Kling wished for a moment that he was going wherever Herrera was going. Get away from this city with the snow already turned soot black and the sidewalks slick with ice and the sky a gunmetal gray that seemed to threaten even more snow. Get away someplace. Anyplace.

So where are we going now? he wondered.

Where Herrera was going was right back to 3311 Vandermeer Avenue.

Climbed the front steps, walked directly inside, and pool.

Vanished.

Kling took up his position in the doorway across the street. The superintendent came out at a little after one to chase him away from the building. Kling went to the luncheonette several doors up, took a seat at a table near the front plate glass window, and sat eating a cheese-burger and a side of fries while he watched the building diagonally across the way. He was on his third cup of coffee when Herrera came out of the building, this time with a very pretty, dark-haired woman on his good arm. The woman was wearing a short fake fur over a micro miniskirt. Terrific legs. Smile all over her face. Consuelo, Kling figured. It was almost three p.m.

He followed them past the park on Soundview and then eastward to Lincoln and a movie theater complex named Gateway, where two different movies were playing in two different theaters, the Gateway I and the Gateway II. He could not get into line immediately behind Herrera because Herrera knew what he looked like. He waited until Herrera had bought two tickets to something, and then asked the girl behind the ticket-dispensing machine which movie the guy with his arm in a cast was seeing.

The girl said, 'Huh?'

'The guy wearing the cast,' Kling said. 'Which theater did he go into?'

He did not want to flash the tin. Let the girl know he was a cop, everyone in the place would know it five minutes later. Herrera had eyes and ears.

'I don't remember,' the girl said.

'Well, there are only two movies playing, which one did he buy tickets for?'

'I don't remember. You want a ticket or not?'

'Give me tickets to both movies,' Kling said.

'Both movies?'

'Both.'

'I never heard of such a thing,' the girl said.

She was sixteen years old, Kling figured. One of the teenagers who nowadays were running the entire universe.

'How can you watch two movies at the same time?' she asked.

'I like to catch a little of each,' Kling said.

'Well, it's your money,' she said, her look clearly indicating that there were more nuts roaming this city than there were lunatics in the asylums. "That's fourteen dollars even,' she said, punching out the tickets.

Kling took the tickets as they popped out of the machine. He gave her a ten and four singles. The girl counted the bills. 'Ten and four make fourteen,' she said, showing off.

Kling walked to where another teenager was standing beside a long vertical box, tearing tickets in half.

'Ticket, please,' the boy said.

Kling handed him both tickets.

'Someone with you, sir?' the boy said.

'No, I'm alone.'

'You have two tickets here, sir.'

'I know.'

'And they're for two different movies.'

'I know.'

The boy looked at him.

'It's okay,' Kling said, and smiled.

The boy kept looking at him.

'Really,' Kling said.

The boy shrugged, tore the tickets in half, and handed the stubs to Kling.

'Enjoy the show,' he said. 'Shows.'

'Thank you,' Kling said.

He tried Gateway I first. Waited at the back of the theater until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Cautiously came down the aisle on the left, standing behind each row of seats so he wouldn't be made if Herrera was in here and happened to glance away from the screen. Checked each row. No Herrera. Went down the aisle on the opposite side of the theater, same routine. On the screen, somebody was saying he thought he was falling in love. His friend was saying something about him always falling in love, so what else was new? The two guys were teenagers. Who knew all about love, Kling guessed. One of the thousands of movies made for teenagers and starring teenagers. Kling tried to remember if there were any teenage stars when he was a teenager. He couldn't remember any teenage stars. He could only remember Marilyn Monroe's pleated white skirt blowing up over her white panties. Herrera was nowhere in the theater.

Kling came up the aisle, pushed open the door, turned immediately to the left, walked past the rest rooms and the concession and the video game machines, and then opened the door to Gateway II, and waited all over again while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He spotted Herrera and Consuelo sitting in two aisle seats about midway down the theater on the right-hand side. He took a seat three rows behind them. The couple on the screen - both teenagers - were necking. The girl was struggling to keep her blouse buttoned. Kling remembered a time when unbuttoning a girl's blouse was tantamount to scaling Mount Everest. The boy on the screen unfastened an undoubtedly key button. The girl's breasts, contained in a white bra, popped out of her blouse and onto the screen. Kling figured she was supposed to be seventeen. She looked twenty-five. The boy looked twelve. Three rows ahead of him, Herrera was passionately kissing Consuelo. The position of his body seemed to indicate that he had his good hand up under Consuelo's skirt. Kling wondered why they didn't simply go back to the apartment. There was a new scene on the screen now. Two teenagers were fixing an automobile. The hood was up. They were talking about a girl named Mickey. Listening, Kling found Mickey somewhat less than fascinating. Herrera and Consuelo did not seem too interested in Mickey, either. Herrera looked as if he now had his entire arm up under Consuelo's skirt.

Kling kept looking at his watch.

An average film was about two hours long; he did not want to get caught sitting here when the movie ended and the lights came up. He kept checking the action on the screen against his watch. The movie seemed to have sixteen endings. Each time he thought it was close to over, another teenage crisis sprang up, demanding immediate resolution. Kling wondered how teenagers managed to get through an entire day, all the serious problems they had to solve. The movie seemed to be peaking at about an hour and fifty minutes. He got up, walked to the back of the theater, and stood there until the movie did finally and truly end. As the credits began to roll, he stepped outside and walked over to one of the video game machines. Stood there with his back to the theater's doors, but with a good sideward shot at the exit doors to the street. Herrera and Consuelo walked through those doors some ten minutes later. Kling figured they'd both made rest-room stops. He tried to remember when he himself had last peed. It was now twelve minutes past five o'clock.

Already dark on the street outside. Streetlamps on. He followed Herrera and Consuelo back to the apartment on Vandermeer. Waited until they were inside and the lights came on in the third-floor front apartment. He ducked into the luncheonette then, used the rest room, and immediately came out onto the street again. The lights were still on in the third-floor apartment. Kling settled down to wait again.

At seven minutes past six, two Chinese men entered the building.