Ed McBain - Tricks

"I'll have to find a spare key someplace," she said. "Jimmy had his own key, he came and went as he pleased."

She stood stock still in the entrance door to the living room, a thoughtful look on her face. Hawes wondered what she was thinking, face all screwed up like that. Was she wondering whether it was safe to show them that room? Or was she merely trying to remember where the spare key was?

"I'm trying to think where Frank might have put it," she said.

A grandfather clock on the far side of the room began tolling the hour, eight minutes late.

One hellip; two hellip;

They listened to the heavy bonging.

Nine hellip; ten hellip; eleven hellip; twelve.

"Midnight already," she said, and sighed.

"Your clock's slow," Brown said.

"Let me check the drawer in the kitchen," she said. "Frank used to put a lot of junk in that drawer."

Past tense again.

They followed her into the kitchen. Dirty dishes, pots, and pans stacked in the sink. The door of the refrigerator smudged with handprints. Telephone on the wall near it. Small enamel-topped table, two chairs. Worn linoleum. Only a shade on the single window over the sink. On the stove, the kettle began whistling.

"Help yourselves," she said. "There's cups there, and a jar of instant."

She went to a drawer in the counter, opened it. Hawes spooned instant coffee into each of the cups, poured hot water into them. She was busy at the drawer now, searching for the spare key. "There should be some milk in the fridge," she said. "And there's sugar on the counter there." Hawes opened the refrigerator. Not much in it. Carton of low-fat milk, slab of margarine or butter, several containers of yogurt. He closed the door.

"You want some of this?" he asked Brown, extending the carton to him.

Brown shook his head. He was watching Marie going through the drawer full of junk.

"Sugar?" Hawes asked, pouring milk into his own cup.

Brown shook his head again.

"This may be it, I really don't know," Marie said.

She turned from the drawer, handed Brown a brass key that looked like a house key.

The telephone rang.

She was visibly startled by its sound.

Brown picked up his coffee cup, began sipping at it.

The telephone kept ringing.

She went to the wall near the refrigerator, lifted the receiver from its hook.

"Hello?" she said.

The two detectives watched her.

"Oh, hello, Dolores," she said at once. "No, not yet, I'm down in the kitchen," she said, and listened. "There are two detectives with me," she said. "No, that's all right, Dolores." She listened again. "They want to look at the garage room." Listening again. "I don't know yet," she said. "Well, they hellip; they have to do an autopsy first." More listening. "Yes, I'll let you know. Thanks for calling, Dolores."

She put the receiver back on its hook.

"My sister-in-law," she said.

"Taking it hard, I'll bet," Hawes said.

"They were very close."

"Let's check out that room," Brown said to Hawes.

"I'll come over with you," Marie said.

"No need," Brown said, "it's getting cold outside."

She looked at him. She seemed about to say something more. Then she merely nodded.

"Better get a light from the car," Hawes said.

Marie watched them as they went out the door and made their way in the dark to where they'd parked their car. Car door opening, interior light snapping on. Door closing again. A moment later, a flashlight came on. She watched them as they walked up the driveway to the garage, pool of light ahead of them. They began climbing the steps at the side of the building. Flashlight beam on the door now. Unlocking the door. Should she have given them the key? Opening the door. The black cop reached into the room. A moment of fumbling for the wall switch, and then the light snapped on, and they both went inside and closed the door behind them.

The bullet had entered Carella's chest on the right side of the body, piercing the pectoralis major muscle, deflecting off the rib cage and missing the lung, passing through the soft tissue at the back of the chest, and then twisting again to lodge in one of the articulated bones in the spinal column.

The X rays showed the bullet dangerously close to the spinal cord itself.

In fact, if it had come to rest a micrometer further to the left, it would have traumatized the cord and caused paralysis.

The surgical procedure was a tricky one in that the danger of necrosis of the cord was still present, either through mechanical trauma or a compromise of the arterial supply of blood to the cord. Carella had bled a lot, and there was the further attendant danger of his going into heart failure or shock.

The team of surgeons mdash;a thoracic surgeon, a neurosurgeon, his assistant, and two residents mdash;had decided on a posterolateral approach, going in through the back rather than entering the chest cavity, where there might be a greater chance of infection and the possibility of injury to one of the lungs. The neurosurgeon was the man who made the incisions. The thoracic surgeon was standing by in the event they had to open the chest after all. There were also two scrub nurses, a circulating nurse, and an anesthesiologist in the room. With the exception of the circulating nurse and the anesthesiologist, everyone was fully gowned and gloved. Alongside the operating table, machines monitored Carella's pulse and blood pressure. A Swan-Ganz catheter was in place, monitoring the pressure in the pulmonary artery. Oscilloscopes flashed green. Beeps punctuated the sterile silence of the room.

The bullet was firmly seated in the spinal column.

Very close to the spinal cord and the radicular arteries.

It was like operating inside a matchbox.

The River Dix had begun silting over during the heavy September rains, and the city had awarded the dredging contract to a private company that started work on the fifteenth of October. Because there was heavy traffic on the river during the daylight hours, the men working the barges started as soon as it was dark and continued on through until just before dawn. Generator-powered lights set up on the barges illuminated the bucketsful of river slime scooped up from the bottom. Before tonight, the men doing the dredging had been grateful for the unusually mild weather. Tonight, it was no fun standing out here in the cold, watching the bucket drop into the black water and come up again dripping all kinds of shit.

People threw everything in this river.

Good thing Billy Joe McAllister didn't live in this city; he'd have maybe thrown a dead baby in the river.

The bucket came up again.

Barney Hanks watched it swinging in wide over the water, and signaled with his hand, directing it in over the center of the disposal barge. Pete Masters, sitting in the cab of the diesel-powered dredge on the other barge, worked his clutches and levers, tilting the bucket to drop another yard and a half, two yards of silt and shit. Hanks jerked his thumb up, signaling to Masters that the bucket was empty and it was okay to cast the dragline out over the river again. In the cab, Masters yanked some more levers and the bucket swung out over the side of the barge.