Ed McBain - Tricks

"How?" Eileen asked.

"Oh, not by investing in hog bellies or anything," he said, and smiled. "By living well. Living well is the best revenge, isn't it? Who said that? I know somebody said that."

"Not me !" Eileen said, and backed away in mock denial.

"Don't brush them on me, right?" he said, and they both laughed.

He looked at the clock.

"Five minutes left," he said. "Maybe we'll go outside then. Would you like to go outside then? When the five minutes are up?"

"Whatever you want," she said.

"Maybe that's what we'll do," he said. "Have a little fun. Do something new and exciting, huh? Risks," he said, and smiled again.

He had a very pleasant smile.

Transformed his entire face. Made him look like a shy little boy. Blue eyes soft, almost misty, behind the eyeglasses. Shy little kid sitting in the back row, afraid to raise his hand and ask questions.

"In a way, you know," he said, "it has been a sort of revenge. What I've been doing with the money. Traveling, having a good time, taking my risks. And getting even with him, in a way, for Elga. Our housekeeper, you know? The woman he tricked my mother with. Deceiving her all those years. A shrink, can you imagine? Holier than thou, and he's laying the goddamn housekeeper. I mean, my mother was the one who put him through medical school. She was a schoolteacher, you know, worked all those years to put him through school, do you know how long a psychiatrist has to go to school? It's very difficult to believe that women can be so callous toward other women. I find that very difficult to believe, Linda. I mean, Elga behaving like a common hooker hellip; excuse me, I don't mean any offense. Excuse me, really," he said, and patted her hand. "But, you know, you hear all this talk about sisterhood, you'd think she might have had some sense of concern for my mother, I mean the woman was married to him for forty years !" He grinned suddenly. "Do you know the one about this man who comes to his wife, they've been married forty years, he says to her, 'Ida, I want to do it like dogs.' She says, 'That's disgusting, Sam, doing it like dogs.' He says, 'Ida, if you won't do it like dogs, I want a divorce.' She says, 'Okay, Sam, we'll do it like dogs. But not on our block.' "

Eileen nodded.

"Didn't like that one, huh?"

" Mezz' a mezza ," she said, and see-sawed her hand on the air.

"I promise we won't do it like dogs, okay?" he said, smiling. "How would you like to do it, Linda?"

"You're the boss," she said.

"Have you ever seen a snuff movie?" he asked.

"Never," she said.

Here it comes, she thought.

"Does that scare you?" he said. "My asking about a snuff movie?"

"Yes," she said.

"Me, too," he said, and smiled. "I've never seen one, either."

Explore it, she thought.

But she was afraid to.

"Think you might like that?" she asked.

Her heart was suddenly pounding again.

"Killing someone while you were laying her?"

He looked deep into her eyes as though searching for something there.

"Not if she knew it was going to happen," he said.

And suddenly she knew for certain that he was their man, and there was no postponing what would happen tonight.

He looked up at the clock.

"Time's up," he said. "Let's go outside."

CHAPTER 12

The call to the squadroom came at twenty minutes to one. The call came from Monoghan, who was in a phone booth on the edge of the River Dix. He asked to talk to either Brown or Genero. Willis told him Brown and Genero were both out.

"So who's this?" Monoghan asked.

"Willis."

"What I got here," Monoghan said, "is a head and a pair of hands. These guys dragging the river turned up this aluminum case, like it's big enough to hold a man's head. And his hands. So that's what I got here. A head cut off at the neck, and a pair of hands cut off at the wrists."

"Uh-huh," Willis said.

"So earlier tonight I was with Brown and Genero back out behind this restaurant the Burgundy, and what we had there was the upper part of a torso in a garbage can, is what we had. And I got a head and a pair of hands, and it occurred to me this might be the same body here, this head and hands."

"Uh-huh," Willis said.

"So what I want to know, does Brown or Genero have a positive make on the stiff? 'Cause otherwise we now got a head to look at, and also some hands to print."

"Let me take a look at Brown's desk," Willis said. "I think he left some stuff here."

"Yeah, go take a look," Monoghan said.

"Hold on," Willis said.

"Yeah."

"Hold on, I'm putting you on hold."

"Yeah, fine," Monoghan said.

Willis pressed the hold button, and then went over to Brown's desk. He riffled through the papers there, and then stabbed at the lighted extension button, and picked up the receiver.

"Monoghan?"

"Yeah."

"From what I can gather, the body was identified as someone named Frank Sebastiani, male, white, thirty-four years old."

"That's what I got here, a white male around that age."

"I've got a picture here, too," Willis said.

"Whyn't you run on over with it?" Monoghan said. "We see we got the same stiff or not."

"Where are you?"

"Freezing my ass off on the drive here. Near the river."

"Which river?"

"The Dix."

"And where?"

"Hampton."

"Give me ten minutes," Willis said.

"Don't forget the picture," Monoghan said.

The apartment over the garage was perhaps twelve-feet wide by twenty-feet long. There was a neatly made double bed in the room, and a dresser with a mirror over it, and an upholstered chair with a lamp behind it. The wall surrounding the mirror was covered with pictures of naked women snipped from men's magazines banned in 7-Eleven stores. All of the women were blondes. Like Marie Sebastiani. In the bottom drawer of the dresser, under a stack of Brayne's shirts, the detectives found a pair of crotchless black panties. The panties were a size five.

"Think they're Brayne's?" Hawes asked drily.

"What size you think the lady wears?" Brown asked.

"Could be a five," Hawes said, and shrugged.

"I thought you were an expert."

"On bras I'm an expert."

Men's socks, undershorts, sweaters, handkerchiefs in the other dresser drawers. Two sports jackets, several pairs of slacks, a suit, an overcoat, and three pairs of shoes in the single small closet. There was also a suitcase in the closet. Nothing in it. No indication anywhere in the apartment that Brayne had packed and taken off in a hurry. Even his razor and shaving cream were still on the sink in the tiny bathroom.