Ed McBain - Tricks

Then she threw the gun across the room and began screaming.

Some people never change.

Genero didn't even seem to know she couldn't hear him.

He was there at the hospital to tell Carella what a hero he'd been, shooting four teenagers who'd firebombed a building.

He sat in the hallway talking to Teddy, who was praying her husband wouldn't die, praying her husband wasn't already dead.

" hellip; and all at once they came running out," he said, "Steve would've been proud of me. They threw the firebomb at me, but that didn't scare me, I hellip;"

A doctor in a green surgical gown was coming down the hallway.

There was blood on the gown.

She caught her breath.

"Mrs. Carella?" he said.

She read his lips.

At first she thought he said, "We shot him."

A puzzled look crossed her face.

He repeated it.

"We got it," he said.

She let out her breath.

"He'll be okay," the doctor said.

"He'll be okay," Genero repeated.

She nodded.

And then she cupped her hands to her face and began weeping.

Genero just sat there.

Annie talked to him in the hallway of the Seven-Two.

"The landlady called 911 because somebody was screaming upstairs," she said. "She caters to hookers, she wouldn't have called unless she thought it was very serious."

Kling nodded.

"She quieted down just a little while ago. She's down the hall in Interrogation. I'm not sure you ought to talk to her."

"Why not?" Kling said.

"I'm just not sure," Annie said.

He went down the hall.

He opened the door.

She was sitting at the long table in the Interrogation Room, the two-way mirror behind her. Just sitting there. Looking at her hands.

"I'm sorry if I screwed it up," he said.

"You didn't."

He sat opposite her.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"No," she said.

He looked at her.

"I'm quitting," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"The force."

"No, you're not."

"I'm quitting, Bert. I don't like what it did to me, what it keeps doing to me."

"Eileen, you hellip;"

"I'm quitting this city, too."

"Eileen hellip;"

"This fucking city," she said, and shook her head.

He reached for her hand. She pulled it away.

"No," she said.

"What about me?" he said.

"What about me?" she said.

The phone rang at a little past two in the morning.

She picked up the receiver.

"Peaches?" the voice said. "This is Phil Hendricks at Camera Works, we talked earlier tonight."

Him again!

"What I want you to do," he said, "I want you to take off your blouse and go look at yourself in the mirror. Then I want you to hellip;"

"Listen, you creep," she said, "if you call me one more time hellip;"

"This is Andy Parker," he said. "I'm in a phone booth on the corner. Is it too late to come up?"

"You dope," she said.

It was the last trick of the night.

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