Ed McBain - Tricks

Monroe looked at him again and then turned to Meyer.

"Bag them bullets and get them over to Ballistics," he said. "Call Robbery and tell them we got another one."

"Sounds like good advice," Meyer said.

Monroe missed the sarcasm. He glared again at Carella, and then walked to where his car was parked at the curb.

Wait'll I tell my daughter! Mrs. Davis thought. A ride in a police car!

The patrolmen riding Charlie Four were approaching the corner of Rachel and Jakes, just cruising by, making another routine run of the sector when the man riding shotgun spotted it.

"Slow down, Freddie," he said.

"What do you see, Joe?"

"The van there. Near the corner."

"What about it?"

Joe Guardi opened his notebook. "Didn't we get a BOLO on a Ford Econoline?" He snapped on the roof light, scanned the notebook. "Yeah, here it is," he said. In his own handwriting, he saw the words "BOLO tan 79 Ford Econoline, RL 68-7210. Blue '84 Citation, DL 74-3681." The word BOLO stood for Be On the Lookout.

"Yeah," he said again. "Let's check it out."

The two men got out of the car. They flashed their torches over the van. License plate from the next state, RL 68-7210.

They tried the door closest to the curb.

Unlocked.

Freddie slid it all the way open.

Joe came around to the passenger side of the van. He slid the door open there, leaned in, and thumbed open the glove compartment.

"Anything?" Freddie asked.

"Looks like a registration here."

He took the registration out of a clear-plastic packet containing an owner's manual and a duplicate insurance slip.

The van was registered to a Frank Sebastiani whose address was 604 Eden Lane in Collinsworth, over the river.

The movie had let out at seven o'clock, and they had stopped for a drink on the Stem later. They had begun arguing in the bar, in soft, strained voices, almost whispers, but everyone around them knew they were having a fight because of the way they leaned so tensely over the small table between them. At first, the fight was only about the movie they'd seen. She insisted it had been based on a novel called Streets of Gold , by somebody or other, and he insisted the movie'd had nothing whatever to do with that particular novel, the movie was an original. "Then how come they're allowed to use the same title?" she asked, and he said, "They can do that 'cause you can't copyright a title. They can make the shittiest movie in the world if they want to, and they can call it From Here to Eternity or The Good Earth or even Streets of Gold , like they did tonight, and nobody in the world can do a damn thing about it." She glared at him for a moment, and then said, "What the hell do you know about copyright?" and he said, "A hell of a lot more than you know about anything ," and by now they were really screaming at each other in whispers, and leaning tensely over the table, eyes blazing, mouths drawn.

They were still arguing on the way home.

But by now the argument had graduated to something more vital than an unimportant little novel called Streets of Gold or a shitty little movie that hadn't been based upon it.

They were arguing about sex, which is what they almost always argued about. In fact, maybe that's what they'd really been arguing about back there in the bar.

It was almost eight-thirty but the streets were already beginning to fill with teenagers on the prowl. Not all of them were looking for trouble. Many of them were merely seeking to let off adolescent energy. The ones out for fun and games were wearing costumes that weren't quite as elaborate as those the toddlers and later the teenyboppers had worn. Some of the teenage girls, using the excuse of Halloween to dress as daringly as they wished, walked the streets looking like hookers or Mata Haris or go-go dancers or sexy witches in black with slits up their skirts to their thighs. Some of the teenage boys were dressed like combat marines or space invaders or soldiers of fortune, most of them wearing bandoliers and carrying huge plastic machine guns or huge plastic death-ray guns. But these weren't the ones looking for trouble. The ones looking for trouble weren't dressed up for Halloween. They wore only their usual clothing, with perhaps a little blackening on their faces, the better to melt into the night. These were the ones looking to smash and to burn. These were the ones who had caused Lieutenant Byrnes to double-team his detectives tonight. Well, almost double-team them. Seven men on instead of the usual four.

The arguing couple came up the street toward the building where they lived, passing a group of teenage girls dressed like John Held flappers, sequined dresses with wide sashes, long cigarette holders, beaded bands around their foreheads, giggling and acting stoned, which perhaps they were. The couple paid no attention to them. They were too busy arguing.

"What it is," he said, "is there's never any spontaneity to it."

"Spontaneity, sure," she said. "What you mean by spontaneity is jumping on me when I come out of the shower hellip;"

"There's nothing wrong with hellip;"

"When I'm all clean."

"When do you want to make love?" he asked. "When you're all dirty?"

"I sure as hell don't want to get all sweaty again after I've just taken a shower."

"Then how about before you take your shower?"

"I don't like to make love when I feel all sweaty."

"So you don't like to do it when you're sweaty and you don't like to do it when you're not sweaty. When do you hellip;?"

"You're twisting what I'm saying."

"No, I'm not. The point I'm trying to make hellip;"

"The point is you're a sex maniac. I'm trying to cook, you come up behind me and shove that humongous thing at me hellip;"

"I don't see anything wrong with spontaneous hellip;"

"Not while I'm cooking!"

"Then how about when you're not cooking? How about when I get home, and we're having a martini, how about hellip;?"

"You know I like to relax before dinner."

"Well, what the hell is making love? I find making love relaxing, I have to tell you. If you think making love is some kind of goddamn strenuous obstacle course hellip;"

"I can't enjoy my cocktail if you're pawing me while I'm trying to re hellip;"

"I don't consider fondling you pawing you."

"You don't know how to be gentle. All you want to do is jump on me like a goddamn rapist !"

"I do not consider passion rape!"

"That's because you don't know the difference between making love and hellip;"

"Okay, what's this all about? Tell me what it's all about, okay? Do you want to quit making love entirely? You don't want to do it before your shower, you don't want to do it after your shower, you don't want to do it while we're drinking or while you're cooking or while we're watching television, or when we wake up in the morning, when the hell do you want to do it, Elise?"