Ed Mcbain - Fuzz

Hawes went to the dresser and opened each of the drawers. They were all empty, except for a cockroach nestling in the corner of the bottom drawer.

“You missed one,” Hawes said, and closed the drawer.

“Huh?” the landlady said.

Hawes went to the closet and opened it. There were seven wire hangers on the clothes bar. The closet was empty. He was about to close the door when something on the floor caught his eye. He stooped for a closer look, took a pen light from his pocket, and turned it on. The object on the floor was a dime.

“If that’s money,” the landlady said, “it belongs to me.”

“Here,” Hawes said, and handed her the dime. He did so knowing full well that even if the coin had belonged to the occupant of the room, it was as impossible to get latent prints from money as it was to get reimbursed by the city for gasoline used in one’s private car on police business.

“Is there a john in here?” he asked.

“Down the hall. Lock the door behind you.”

“I only wanted to know if there was another room, that’s all.”

“It’s clean, if that’s what you’re worrying about.”

“I’m sure it’s spotless,” Hawes said. He took another look around. “So this is it, huh?”

“This is it.”

“I’ll be sending a man over to dust that sill,” Hawes said.

“Why?” the landlady said. “It’s clean.”

“I mean for fingerprins.”

“Oh.” The landlady started at him. “You think that big mucky-muck was shot from this room?”

“It’s possible,” Hawes said.

“Will that mean trouble for me?”

“Not unless you shot him,” Hawes said, and smiled.

“You got some sense of humor,” the landlady said.

They went out of the apartment. The landlady locked the door behind her. “Will that be all,” she asked, “or did you want to see anything else?”

“I want to talk to the woman down the hall,” Hawes said, “but I won’t need you for that. Thank you very much, you were very helpful.”

“It breaks the monotony,” the landlady said, and he believed her.

“Thank you again,” he said, and watched her as she went down the steps. He walked to the door marked 32 and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again and said, “Miss Malloy?”

The door opened a crack.

“Who is it?” a voice said.

“Police officer. May I talk to you?”

“What about?”

“About Mr. Orecchio.”

“I don’t know any Mr. Orecchio,” the voice said.

“Miss Malloy …”

“It’s Mrs. Malloy, and I don’t know any Mr. Orecchio.”

“Could you open the door, ma’am?”

“I don’t want any trouble.”

“I won’t …”

“I know a man got shot last night, I don’t want any trouble.”

“Did you hear the shots, Miss Malloy?”

“ Mrs. Malloy.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Would you happen to know if Mr. Orecchio was in last night?”

“I don’t know who Mr. Orecchio is.”

“The man in 31.”

“I don’t know him.”

“Ma’am, could you please open the door?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Ma’am, I can come back with a warrant, but it’d be a lot easier …”

“Don’t get me in trouble,” she said. “I’ll open the door, but please don’t get me in trouble.”

Polly Malloy was wearing a pale green cotton wrapper. The wrapper had short sleeves. Hawes saw the hit marks on her arms the moment she opened the door, and the hit marks explained a great deal about the woman who was Polly Malloy. She was perhaps twenty-six years old, with a slender youthful body and a face that would have been pretty if it were not so clearly stamped with knowledge. The green eyes were intelligent and alert, the mouth vulnerable. She worried her lip and held the wrapper closed about her naked body, and her fingers were long and slender, and the hit marks on her arms shouted all there was to shout.

“I’m not holding,” she said.

“I didn’t ask.”

“You can look around if you like.”

“I’m not interested,” Hawes said.

“Come in,” she said.

He went into the apartment. She closed and locked the door behind him.

“I don’t want trouble,” she said. “I’ve had enough trouble.”

“I won’t give you any. I only want to know about the man down the hall.”

“I know somebody got shot. Please don’t get me involved in it.”

They sat opposite each other, she on the bed, he on a straight-backed chair facing her. Something shimmered on the air between them, something as palpable as the tenement stink of garbage and piss surrounding them. They sat in easy informality, comfortably aware of each other’s trade, Cotton Hawes detective, Polly Malloy addict. And perhaps they knew each other better than a great many people ever get to know each other. Perhaps Hawes had been inside too many shooting galleries not to understand what it was like to be this girl, perhaps he had arrested too many hookers who were screwing for the couple of bucks they needed for a bag of shit, perhaps he had watched the agonized writhings of too many cold turkey kickers, perhaps his knowledge of this junkie or any junkie was as intimate as a pusher’s, perhaps he had seen too much and knew too much. And perhaps the girl had been collared too many times, had protested too many times that she was clean, had thrown too many decks of heroin under bar stools or down sewers at the approach of a cop, had been in too many different squadrooms and handled by too many different bulls, been offered the Lexington choice by too many different magistrates, perhaps her knowledge of the law as it applied to narcotics addicts was as intimate as any assistant district attorney’s, perhaps she too had seen too much and knew too much. Their mutual knowledge was electric, it generated a heat lightning of its own, ascertaining the curious symbiosis of lawbreaker and enforcer, affirming the interlocking subtlety of crime and punishment. There was a secret bond in that room, an affinity — almost an empathy. They could talk to each other without any bullshit. They were like spent lovers whispering on the same pillow.

“Did you know Orecchio?” Hawes asked.

“Will you keep me clean?”

“Unless you had something to do with it.”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve got my word.”

“A cop?” she asked, and smiled wanly.

“You’ve got my word, if you want it.”

“I need it, it looks like.”

“You need it, honey.”

“I knew him.”

“How?”

“I met him the night he moved in.”

“When was that?”

“Two, three nights ago.”

“Where’d you meet?”

“I was hung up real bad, I needed a fix. I just got out of Caramoor, that sweet hole, a week ago. I haven’t had time to get really connected yet.”

“What were you in for?”

“Oh, hooking.”

“How old are you, Polly?”

“Nineteen. I look older, huh?”

“Yes, you look older.”

“I got married when I was sixteen. To another junkie like myself. Some prize.”

“What’s he doing now?”

“Time at Castleview.”

“For what?”

Polly shrugged. “He started pushing.”

“Okay, what about Orecchio next door?”

“I asked him for a loan.”

“When was this?”

“Day before yesterday.”

“Did he give it to you?”

“I didn’t actually ask him for a loan. I offered to turn a trick for him. He was right next door, you see, and I was pretty sick, I swear to God I don’t think I coulda made it to the street.”

“Did he accept?”

“He gave me ten bucks. He didn’t take nothing from me for it.”

“Sounds like a nice fellow.”