Ed McBain - Tricks

A man in his undershorts was halfway out the window.

"That's a long drop, mister," O'Brien said.

The man hesitated.

"Mr. Sebastiani?" Willis said.

The man still had one leg over the windowsill. There was no fire escape out there, Willis wondered where the hell he thought he was going.

"My name is Theo Hardeen," he said.

"So your wife mentioned," Willis said.

"My wife? I don't know what you're talking about."

They never knew what anyone was talking about.

"Mr. Sebastiani," Willis said, "at this very moment, your wife is driving in from Collinsworth with two detectives from the Eighty-Seventh Squad, upon whose instructions and advice we're hellip;"

"I don't have any wife in hellip;"

"They also have a chain saw in the car," O'Brien said.

"They found a chain saw in your garage," Willis said.

"There's a lot of blood on the saw," O'Brien said.

"Sir, we're arresting you for the crime of murder," Willis said, and then began reeling off Miranda-Escobedo by rote. Sebastiani listened to the recitation as though he were being lectured. He still had one leg over the windowsill.

"Mr. Sebastiani?" Willis said. "You want to come in off that window now?"

Sebastiani came in off the window.

"She blew it, huh?" he said.

"You both did," Willis said.

This time is for real, Carella thought.

No tricks this time.

This time I go west.

Swirling darkness, blinking lights, aurora borealis, murmuring voices, beeping sounds, everything so fake and far away, but everything so real and immediate, it was funny. Floating somewhere above himself, hovering above himself like the angel of death, "Wear this garlic around your neck," Grandma used to say, "it'll keep away the angel of death," but where's the garlic now, Grandma? Crisp white sheets and soft feather pillows, tomato sauce cooking on the old wood stove in the kitchen, your eyeglasses steaming up, the time Uncle Jerry ate the rat shit, thinking it was olives, everyone gone now, is Meyer dead, too?

Jesus, Meyer, don't be dead.

Please don't be dead.

Floating on the air above himself, looking down at himself, the big hero, some hero, open to the world, open to the hands and eyes of strangers, an open book, don't let Meyer be dead, let me hold you, Meyer, let me hold you, friend. Let's go in now, did someone say that years and years ago? Open him up now, open up the hero, big editorial conference out there, but no last-minute editorial decisions this time, no one here to say you can't kill the hero, big hero, some hero, cold-cocked by midgets, bang-bang, gotcha, close the book.

Exit.

But hellip;

Please save that for later, okay? Save the final curtain for somewhere down the line, I'm a married man, give me a break. He almost laughed though nothing was funny, tried to laugh, wondered if he was smiling instead, heard someone say something through the fog rolling in off the water, heavy storm brewing out there, I never even learned to sail, he thought, I never had a yacht.

All the things I never did.

All the things I never had.

Well, listen, who's hellip; ?

All the treasures.

Thirty-seven five a year doesn't buy treasures.

Ah, Jesus, Teddy, I never bought you treasures.

All the things I wanted to buy you.

Forgive me for the treasures, bless me father for I have sinned, A is for amethyst and B is for beryl, C is for coral and D is for diamonds, F is for furs and G is for gold and H is for heaven and I is for hellip;

E is missing.

E is for exit.

But hellip;

Please don't get ahead of me, please don't rush me, just give me a little time to finish the rest of the alphabet, I beg of you, please.

I is for me.

"Careful," someone said.

There's one hot-bed hotel the girls use, plus fifty or sixty rented rooms all over the Zone.

Shanahan talking.

Too many hours ago.

She had lost her backups, she knew that.

She didn't know what had happened on the street outside, but they were gone, that was for sure.

So here we are, she thought.

Alone at last.

You and me.

Face to face.

Not in that single hot-bed hotel, where there was a chance they might find her before the crack of dawn, but in one of those fifty or sixty rented rooms. Lady downstairs taking the money from him, looking at it on the palm of her hand as if she expected a tip besides, up the stairs to the third floor, the smells of cooking permeating the hallways, terrific spot for a honeymoon, key in the door, the door opening on a room with a bed and a dresser and a wooden chair and a lamp and a tattered window shade, and a small door at the far end leading into a bathroom with only a toilet bowl and a soiled sink.

"It's small, but it's cheerful," he'd said, grinning, and then he'd locked the door behind them and put the key into the same pocket with the knife.

That was almost an hour ago.

He'd been talking ever since.

She kept reminding him that time was money, wanting him to make his move, get it over with, but he kept laying twenty-dollar bills on her, "A dollar a minute, right?" he said, and the empty minutes of the night kept ticking away, and he made no move to approach her.

She wondered if she should bust him, anyway. Here we go, mister, it's the Law, run a lineup for the pair of hookers who'd described him, run the risk of them either chickening out or not remembering, run the further risk mdash;even with a positive ID mdash;that he'd talk his way out of it, walk away from it. Two hookers claiming they saw him chatting up the victims didn't add up to a conviction. No. If he was their man, he had to move on her before she could bust him. Come at her with the knife. No easy way out of this one, she thought. It's still him and me, alone together in this room. And all I can do is wait. And listen.

She was learning a lot about him.

He was lying on the bed with his hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling, and she was sitting in the wooden chair across the room near the dresser, her bag on the floor near her dangling hand, and she felt like a psychiatrist listening to a patient. The room was warm enough, she had to say that for it. Sizzling hot radiator throwing heat, she was almost getting drowsy, that's all she needed. His jacket draped over the back of the wooden chair now, his voice droning into the room. She sat with both feet planted firmly on the floor, legs slightly apart, gun strapped to her ankle inside the right boot. She was ready for anything. But nothing came. Except talk.

" hellip; that maybe she was partly to blame for what happened, you know?" he said. "My mother. Listen, I love her to death, don't get me wrong, she's the one who made my freedom possible, may she rest in peace. But when you think of it another way, was it all my father's fault? Can I just hold him responsible? For laying Elga? I mean, isn't my mother partly to blame for what happened?"