Ed McBain - He Who Hesitates

Seven years old, he thought.

How the hell can you be a man at seven?

Well, I was always big for my age.

Still.

He shrugged.

He was beginning to feel depressed, he didn't know why. His face was wet with snow, and he wiped one hand over it, and then reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, and wiped his face again. He guessed he should try Amelia. He guessed he should go talk to that detective.

He began making bargains with himself. If the next car that comes down the street is a black Chevrolet, then I'll go to the police station and talk to the detective. But if the next car that comes down is a taxicab, I'll call Amelia. If it's a truck, though, I'll go back to my room and pack my bag and just go home, probably be best anyway, people worrying about me back home. No cars were coming down the street for a while because the snow was so thick, and when one finally did pass, it was a blue Ford convertible, for which he had made no provisions. He said the hell with it and found a phone booth and dialed Amelia's number.

The same woman answered the phone.

"What do you want?" she said.

"This is Roger Broome again," he said. "I want to talk to Amelia."

"Just a minute," the woman said, and then she partially covered the mouthpiece and Roger heard her shout, '"Melia! It's your Mr. Charlie!"

Roger waited.

When Amelia came to the phone, he said immediately, "Who's Mr. Charlie?"

"I'll tell you later. Where are you?"

"I don't know, somewhere near the park."

"Did you want to see me?" Amelia asked.

"Yes."

"I can't come down for a while. I'm helping my mother with the curtains."

"Was that your mother who answered the phone?"

"Yes."

"She sounds very sweet."

"Yes, she's a charmer," Amelia said.

"What did you say you were helping her with?"

"The curtains. She made some new curtains, and we were putting them up."

"Can't she do that alone?"

"No." Amelia paused. "I'll meet you later, if you like."

"All right. When later?"

"An hour?"

"All right. Where?"

"Oh, gee, I don't know. How about the drugstore?"

"Okay, the drugstore," Roger said. "What time is it now?"

"It's about two-twenty, I guess. Let's say three-thirty, to be sure."

"Okay, the drugstore at three-thirty," Roger said.

"Yes. You know where it is, don't you?"

"Sure I do. Where is it?"

Amelia laughed. "On the corner of Ainsley and North Eleventh."

"Ainsley and North Eleventh, right," Roger said.

"Three-thirty."

"Three-thirty, right." Roger paused. "Who's Mr. Charlie?"

"You're Mr. Charlie."

"I am?"

Amelia laughed again. "I'll tell you all about it when I see you. I'll give you a course in black-white relations."

"Oh, boy," Roger said.

"And other things," Amelia whispered.

"Okay," Roger said. His heart was pounding. "Three-thirty at the drugstore. I'll go home and put on a clean shirt."

"Okay."

"So long," he said.

"So long," she said.

A squad car was parked at the curb when he got back to the rooming house.

The car was empty. The window near the curb was lowered, and he could hear the police radio going inside. He looked up the steps leading to the front door. Through the glass panels on the door he could see Mrs. Dougherty in conversation with two uniformed policemen.

He was about to turn and walk off in the opposite direction when one of the cops looked through the f glass-paneled door directly at him. He couldn't turn and walk away now that he'd been seen, so he walked casually up the steps and kicked snow from his feet on the top step and then opened the door and walked into the vestibule. A radiator was hissing behind the fat cop, who stood with his hands behind his back, the fingers spread toward the heat. Mrs. Dougherty was explaining something to the cops as Roger stepped into the vestibule. ". . . only discovered it half an hour ago when I went down to the basement to put in some laundry, so that was when I called you, hello, Mr. Broome."

"Hello, Mrs. Dougherty," he said. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh, nothing important," she said, and turned back to the policemen as he went past. "It's not that it was new or anything," she said to the fat cop. Roger opened the inner vestibule door. "But I suppose it was worth maybe fifty or sixty dollars, I don't know. What annoys me is that somebody could get into the basement and . . ."

Roger closed the door and went up the steps to his room.

He had just taken off his coat when the knock sounded on his door.

"Who is it?" he said.

"Me. Fook."

"Who?"

"Fook. Fook Shanahan. Open up."

Roger went to the door and unlocked it. Fook was a small, bald, bright-eyed man of about forty-five, wearing a white shirt over which was an open brown cardigan sweater. He was grinning as Roger opened the door, and he stepped into the room with an air of conspiracy, and immediately closed and locked the door behind him.

"Did you see the cops downstairs?" he asked at once.

"Yes," Roger said.

"Something, huh?" Fook said, his eyes gleaming.

"What do they want?"

"Don't you know what happened?"

"No. What?"

"Somebody robbed the bloodsucker."

"Who do you mean?"

"Dougherty, Dougherry, our landlady, who do you think I mean?"

"She's a nice lady," Roger said.

"Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy," Fook said. "A nice lady, oh boy oh boy."

"She seems like a nice lady to me," Roger said.

"That's because you've only been here a few days," Fook said. "I've been living in this dump for six years now, six years, and I'm telling you she's a bloodsucker and a tightwad and the meanest old bitch who ever walked the earth, that's what I'm telling you."

"Well," Roger said, and shrugged.

"I'm glad they robbed the old bitch."

"What'd they take?"

"Not enough," Fook said. "You got a drink in here?"

"What? No, I'm sorry."

"I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?"

"My room. I've got a bottle in there. Have you got some glasses?"

"Just the one on the sink there."

"I'll bring my own," Fook said, and went out.

Well, Roger thought, I suppose she had to find out it was missing sooner or later. It was just that I didn't expect her to find out so soon. Or maybe I didn't expect her to call the police even if she did find out. But she did and she has, and they're downstairs now, so maybe this is as good a time as any to get drunk with Fook. No, I'm supposed to meet Amelia at three-thirty.

I should have been more careful.

Still, at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Maybe it was.

A knock sounded on the door.

"Come in," he said.

It was Fook. He came in carrying a partially filled bottle of bourbon with a water glass turned upside down over the neck of the bottle. He put the bottle down on the dresser and then walked quickly to the sink, where he picked up Roger's glass. He went back to the dresser, put Roger's glass down, lifted the upturned glass from the neck of the bottle, put that one down beside the other and then lifted the bottle.

"Say when," he said.

"I'm not a drinker," Roger said.

"Neither am I," Fook said, and winked and poured half a tumblerful of whiskey.

"That's too much for me," Roger said.

"All right, I'll have this one," Fook said, and began pouring into the other glass.

"That's enough," Roger said.

"Have a little more. We're celebrating."

"What are we celebrating?"

Fook poured another finger of whiskey into Roger's glass and then carried it to him. He extended his own glass and said, "Here's to Mrs. Dougherty's loss, may the old bitch be uncovered."

"Uncovered?"

"By insurance." Fook winked, raised his glass to his lips, and took a healthy swallow of the bourbon. "Also, may this be only the first of a long line of losses to come. May some no-good thief sneak into the lady's basement tomorrow night and steal perhaps her washtub, and the next night her oil burner, and the next night her underwear hanging on a line down there. May all the crooks in this crumby city come to Mrs. Dougherty's basement night after night and pick it clean like a bunch of vultures going over her bones. May loss pile upon loss until the old bitch has nothing left but the clothes on her back, and then may some bold rapist climb through her window one night and do a job on the scrawny wretch, leaving her nary a nightgown to keep her warm. Amen," Fook said, and drained his glass. He poured it full again, almost to the brim. "You're not drinking, my friend," he said.