Ed McBain - Tricks

"Hello, boys," one of the techs said. "Kiddy time again?"

"School let out again?" the other tech said.

"How about when they were cleaning out the register?" Meyer asked, ignoring them.

"One of them said, 'Hold it open, Alice.' I guess he meant the shopping bag."

"Alice?" Carella said. "A girl?"

"A woman, yes," Martha said.

Carella thought this was carrying feminism a bit too far.

"Well, this little girl hellip;" he started to say, but Martha broke in at once.

"A woman ," she said. "Not a little girl. These weren't children , Detective Carella, they were midgets ."

He looked at her.

"I used to work the high-wire with Ringling," she said. "Broke my hip in a fall, quit for good. But I still know midgets when I see them. These were midgets ."

"What'd I tell you, Baz?" one of the techs said. "I shoulda taken your bet."

"Midgets," the other tech said. "I'll be a son of a bitch."

Me, too, Carella thought.

But now they knew what they were looking for.

And now they had a pattern.

Peaches and Parker were the only ones not in costume.

"What are you supposed to be?" a man dressed like a cowboy asked.

"I'm a cop," Parker said.

"I'm a victim," Peaches said.

"I'll be damned," the cowboy said.

Parker showed his shield to everyone he met.

"Looks like the real McCoy," a pirate said.

Peaches lifted her skirt and showed a silent-movie director a black-and-blue mark on her thigh.

"I'm a victim," she said.

She had got the black-and-blue mark banging against a table on her way to the bathroom one night.

The silent-movie director, who was wearing jodhpurs and carrying a megaphone, said, "That's some leg, honey. You wanna be in pictures?"

The girl with him was dressed as Theda Bara. "That's an anagram for Arab Death," she said.

Parker looked into the front of her clingy, satin, low-cut dress, and said, "You're under arrest," and showed her his shield.

In the kitchen, Dracula and Superman and Scarlett O'Hara and Cleopatra were snorting cocaine.

Parker didn't show them his shield. Instead, he snorted a few lines with them.

Peaches said, "You're kinda fun for a cop."

This was the first time in a good many years that anyone had told Parker he was kind of fun, for a cop or anything else. He hugged her close.

She went, "Oooooo."

A white man in blackface, dressed as Eddie Murphy dressed as the Detroit detective in Beverly Hills Cop said, "I'm a cop," and showed Parker a fake shield.

"I'll go along quietly," Parker said, and hugged Peaches again.

"Way I figure it," Kling said, "we go over there soon as we're relieved. Maybe get to the Zone around midnight, a little after."

"Uh-huh," Hawes said, and looked up at the wall clock.

Ten minutes to ten. Less than two hours before the relieving shift began filtering in.

"They don't even need to know we're there," Kling said. "We take one of the sedans, just cruise the streets."

They were sitting at his desk, talking in whispers. Across the room, Brown was getting a description of Jimmy Brayne. He was right now ready to bet the farm that Sebastian the Great's apprentice was the one who'd done him in and chopped him up in pieces.

"This guy's extremely dangerous," Kling said. "Juked three people already."

"And you think they may need help, huh?" Hawes said. "Annie and Eileen?"

"More the merrier," Kling said.

"White or black?" Brown asked.

"White," Marie said.

"His age?"

"Thirty-two."

"Height?"

"About six feet."

"Annie never even mentioned she was going out on this," Hawes said. "I talked to her must've been hellip;"

"She didn't get the call from Homicide till late this afternoon. That's the thing of it, Cotton. They pulled this whole damn thing out of a Cracker Jack box."

"Weight?" Brown said.

"About a hundred and eighty? Something like that."

"Color of hair?"

"Black."

"Eyes?"

"Brown."

"I mean, would you go out there with only two backups?" Kling said. "Where the guy's armed with a knife, and already boxed three people?"

"Those don't sound like bad odds," Hawes said. "Three to one? All three of them loaded. Against only a knife."

" Only , huh? My point is, if Annie and this Shanahan guy stay too close to her," Kling said, "he won't make his move. So they have to keep their distance. But if he breaks out, who's covering the backfield?"

"Any identifying scars, marks, or tattoos?" Brown asked.

"Not that I know of."

"Any regional accent or dialect?"

"He's from Massachusetts. He sounds a little like the Kennedys."

"What was he wearing when you left the house today?"

"Let me think."

She was sitting on a bench under the squadroom bulletin board, her hands folded on her lap. Her face was still tear-stained. Brown had one foot up on the bench, a clipboard resting on his knee. He waited.

"Blue jeans," she said. "And a woolen sweater, no shirt. A V-necked sweater. Sort of rust-colored. And sneakers. And hellip; white socks, I think. Oh, yes. He wears a sort of medallion around his neck. A silver medallion, I think he won it in a swim meet. A high school swim meet."

"Wears it all the time?"

"I've never seen him without it."

"Have you discussed this with Eileen?" Hawes asked.

"Yeah, I mentioned it at dinner," Kling said.

"Told her you want to go over there?"

"Yeah."

"To the Zone?"

"Yeah."

"What'd she say?"

"She told me she could handle it."

"But you don't think she can, huh?"

"I think she can handle it better with a few more people on the job. They shoulda known that themselves, Homicide. And also the Seven-Two. Putting two women on the street against hellip;"

"Plus Shanahan."

"Well, I don't know this Shanahan, do you?"

"No, but hellip;"

"For all I know hellip;"

"But you can't automatically figure he's a hairbag."

"I don't know what he is. I do know he's not gonna care as much about Eileen as I care about her."

"Maybe that's the problem," Hawes said.

"Does he wear a wristwatch?" Brown asked.

"Yes," Marie said.

"Would you know what kind?"