Ed McBain - He Who Hesitates

Pleased, he got off the bench.

He took a last look at the police station, smiled, and walked out of the park, looking for the drugstore he had been in earlier that morning.

5

The sergeant who answered the phone at police headquarters listened patiently while Roger told his invented story about Detective Parker, and then said, "Hold on, please." Roger waited. He assumed the sergeant was checking to see if there really was a Detective Parker in the 87th Squad. Or maybe the sergeant didn't give a damn one way or the other. Maybe he received similar calls a hundred times, a thousand times each day. Maybe he'd been bored stiff listening to Roger's story, and maybe he was bored stiff now as he looked up the number of the precinct.

"Hello," the sergeant said.

"Yes?"

"That number is Frederick 7—8024."

"Frederick 7-8024, thank you," Roger said.

"Welcome," the sergeant answered, and hung up. Roger felt in his pocket for another dime, found one, put it in the slot, waited for a dial tone, and began dialing.

FR7

Quickly, he put the receiver back onto the hook.

What would he say when they answered? Hello, my name is Roger Broome, I want to tell you about this girl Molly, you see we met in a bar and What? they would say.

What they would say.

What the hell is this all about, mister?

He sat motionless and silent for perhaps three minutes, staring at the face of the telephone. Then he felt in the return chute for his coin, leadenly lifted his hand, and deposited the dime once again. The dial tone erupted against his ear. Slowly, carefully, he began dialing.

FR7, 8,0, 2,4.

He waited. The phone was ringing on the other end. He listened to it ring. The rings sounded very far away instead of just a few blocks from where he was. He began counting the rings, they must have been having a busy time over at that station house, seven, eight, nine "87th Precinct, Sergeant Murchison."

"Uh ... is this the police?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"I'd like to talk to a detective, please."

"What is this in reference to, sir?"

"I'd ... uh ... like to report ... uh ..."

"Are you reporting a crime, sir?"

He hesitated a moment, and then pulled the receiver from his ear and looked at it as though trying to make a decision. He was replacing it on the hook just as the sergeant's voice, sounding small and drowning "in the black plastic, began saying again, "Are you reporting a—" click, he hung up.

No, he thought.

I am not reporting anything.

I am getting out of this city and away from all telephones because I don't want to talk to the police. Now how about that? I do not wish to discuss this matter with anyone, least of all the police, so how about that? Damn right, he thought, and opened the door of the phone booth and walked out of the booth and across the length of the drugstore. The colored girl, Amelia, was still behind the cash register. She smiled at him as he approached.

"You back again?" she asked. "I didn't see you come in."

"Yep," he said. "Bad penny."

"You mail your cards off?"

"Yep."

"Did you find your friend at the police station?"

"Nope."

"How come?"

"I figured there couldn't be no friends of mine at the police station."

"You can say that again," Amelia said, and laughed.

"What time do you quit?" he said.

"What?"

"I said what time do you quit?"

"Why?"

"I want to get out of the city."

"What do you mean, out of the city?"

"Out. Away."

"Home, you mean?"

"No, no. Not home. That's the same thing, ain't it? That's the same old box. The city's a great big box, and Carey's a tiny small box, but they're both the same thing, right?"

Amelia smiled and looked at him curiously. "I don't know," she said.

"Go take off your apron," he said slowly, "and hang it on that hook right there, you see that hook?"

"I see it."

"Hang it on that hook right there, and tell your boss you have an awful headache—"

"I don't have a headache—"

"Yes, you do have a headache, and you can't work any more today."

Amelia looked at him steadily. "Why?" she said.

"We're going to get out of the city."

"Where?"

"I don't know yet."

"And when we get out?"

"We'll see then. The big thing now is to do what we have to do, right? And what we have to do is get away from this city real quick."

"Are the cops after you?" she asked suddenly.

"No." Roger grinned. "Cross my heart and hope to die, the cops are definitely not after me. Now how about that? Are you going to get that headache and hang up that apron and come with me?"

Amelia shrugged. "I don't know."

"When will you know?"

"The minute you tell me what you want from me."

"From you? Who wants anything from you?"

"When you're colored, everybody"

"Not me," Roger said.

"No, huh?"

"No."

Amelia kept looking at him steadily. "I don't know what to make of you," she said.

"The apron," he whispered.

"Mmm."

"The hook," he said.

"Mmm."

"Headache."

"Mmm."

"Can't work."

"Mmm."

"I'll meet you outside. Five minutes. On the comer."

"Why?" she said again.

"We're gonna have fun," he said, and turned and walked away from the cash register.

She didn't come outside in five minutes, and she didn't come outside in ten minutes, and by the end of fifteen minutes he realized she wasn't going to come out at all. So he peeked over the stuff piled in the front window of the drugstore and saw Amelia at the cash register making no sign of taking off the apron or of telling the boss she had a headache, so that was that. He walked away from the drugstore, thinking it was a shame because she really was sort of pretty and also he'd never been out with a colored girl before and he thought it might be fun. Now that he had decided not to go to the police with his story, it never once entered his mind that he should go home to Carey. He had tried to explain to Amelia that Carey, and the city, and the police station sitting on the edge of the park were all one and the same thing, that it was just a matter of degree as to how you classed them one against the other. The police station was a small box, and Carey was a slightly larger box, and the city was the biggest box of all, but all of them were trying their hardest to keep a man all closed up, when all a man wanted to do every now and then was relax and enjoy himself. Which is what he thought he and Molly were going to talk about last night, when they were discussing loneliness and all. But then, of course, she had begun to talk about that man in Sacramento, instead.

He had never really had a pretty girl in his life, and Molly was plain as hell until about two o'clock in the morning, he supposed that was when it was, well, never mind that. This colored girl behind the counter was pretty to begin with, which was why she hadn't come out to meet him, he could have told her beforehand she wouldn't, none of the real pretty girls ever did. It was probably just as well. Anybody from back home spied him in the city with a colored girl on his arm, even though she was part Spanish, hell, he didn't want his mother getting wind of nothing like that. Not that he cared much about what his mother thought. If he cared about that, he'd be running right back home to Carey instead of staying here and planning to have a little fun with his time.

He wondered where he should go now that the colored girl had spoiled his plans. Actually, he hadn't had any plans even when he was hoping she'd come out to meet him. But she'd have been somebody to laugh with and talk to and show off for, and, well, he'd have come up with something, he just knew he would have. Maybe he'd have taken her to a movie with a stage show, he'd been to one the last time he'd come to the city, it was pretty good.