Ed McBain - Like Love

Carella and Hawes, not unaware of the subtle discrimination taking place behind them, studied the mailboxes and found a listing for Mr. Frank Dumas in apartment 44. They went through the vestibule and up the steps. On the second floor, they passed a little girl who was sitting on the steps tightening her skates with a skate key.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” Carella answered.

“Are you coming to my house?” she asked.

“Where’s your house?”

“A pommin twenny-one.”

“No, sorry,” Carella said, smiling.

“I thought you was the insurance,” the little girl said, and went back to tightening her skates.

On the fourth-floor landing, they drew their guns. Apartment 44 was in the middle of the hall. They walked silently to the door, listened outside for a moment, and then flanked it. Carella nodded at Hawes who braced himself for a flat-footed kick at the lock.

He was bringing back his knee when the shots came from within the apartment, shockingly loud, splintering the door.

* * * *

Hawes dropped at the sound of the first shot, just as the splintered hole appeared in the wooden door. The slug whistled past his head as he fell flat to the floor, and then ricocheted off the wall behind him and went caroming at a crazy angle down the hallway just as the second shot erupted. The wood splintered again., and Carella winced as the slug tore its way across the narrow corridor, inches from his face where he stood to the left of the door, his gun pulled in tight against his chest, his head pulled down into his shoulders. On the floor, Hawes was scrambling away to the right of the door as the third shot came. The next four shots followed almost immediately, ripping wood from the door, ricocheting, into the cracked ceiling overhead. He had counted seven shots, an empty automatic if the person inside was firing a certain type of .45. There was a pause. The man could be reloading. Or he could be firing another type of .45 with a magazine capacity of nine cartridges, or a Harrington & Richardson .22 with the same capacity, or… there was no time to run through a gun catalogue. He could be reloading, or simply waiting, or even carrying two guns-or he could at this moment be climbing out the window. Carella took a deep breath. He backed off across the hallway, braced himself against the opposite wall, and unleashed the sole of his foot at the lock on the door.

The door sprang inward, and Carella followed it into a hail of bullets that came from the window. Hawes was immediately behind him. They both dropped flat to the worn linoleum inside the apartment, firing at the window where the figure of a man appeared in silhouette for just a moment, and then vanished. They got to their feet, and rushed across the room. Carella put his head outside the window, and then pulled it back at once as a shot sounded somewhere above him, and a piece of red brick spattered against his cheek.

“He’s heading for the roof!” he shouted to Hawes, not turning to look, knowing that Hawes would take the steps up, and knowing that he himself would climb onto the fire escape in pursuit within the next few moments. He reloaded his gun from the cartridge belt at his waist, and then stepped out onto the fire escape. He fired a quick shot at the figure two stories above him, and then began clambering up the iron-runged steps. The man above did not fire again. Instead, as he climbed, he began dropping a barrage of junk collected from the fire escapes he passed: flower pots, an iron, a child’s toy truck, an old and battered suitcase, all of which crashed around Carella as he made his way steadily up each successive ladder. The barrage stopped when the man gained the roof. Three shots echoed on the still spring Mr. Hawes had reached the roof.

By the time Carella joined him, the man had leaped the area-way between the two buildings and was out of sight.

“He got away while I was reloading,” Hawes said.

Carella nodded, and then holstered his .38.

When they got back to the squad room, Meyer was waiting with a report on Frank Dumas.

“No record,” he said, “not in this city, at least. I’m waiting for word from the Feds.”

“That’s too bad,” Carella said. “It looked like a professional job.”

“Maybe he is a pro.”

“You just said he had no record.”

“How do we know Dumas is his right name?”

“The car was registered…”

“I talked to MVB a little more,” Meyer said. “The car was registered only last month. He could have used an alias.”

“That wouldn’t have tied with his driver’s license.”

“Since when do thieves worry about driver’s licenses?”

“Thieves are the most careful drivers in the world,” Carella said.

“I also checked the phone book. There are six listings for Frank Dumas. I’ll bet you next month’s salary against a bagel that Dumas is an alias he picked right out of the directory.”

“Maybe.”

“It’s worth checking,” Meyer told them.

He also told Carella and Hawes that Detective Andy Parker’s surveillance of a suspected shooting gallery would be paid off this evening at 7:00 p.m. The lieutenant needed five men for the raid, and the names of Carella and Hawes were on the list. “We’re mustering here at six-thirty,” Meyer said.

“I’d planned to go home at six,” Carella answered.

“The best laid plans,” Meyer said, “aft get screwed up.”

“Yeah.” Carella scratched his head. “What do you want to do, Cotton? Go back to Fairview and talk to the landlady or somebody?”

“She ought to know who rented that apartment,” Hawes said.

“You had lunch yet?” Meyer asked.

“No.”

“Get something to eat first. The landlady’ll wait.”

They had lunch in a diner near the precinct. Carella was wondering whether the lab would come up with anything positive on that switchblade knife. He was also wondering why the killer had chosen to use a knife in the park when he obviously owned at least one gun.

“Do you think he saw us pulling up downstairs?” Carella asked.

“He must have. The way that stoop cleared, he’d have had to be an idiot not to know we were cops.”

“This doughnut is stale,” Carella said. “How’s yours?”

“It’s all right. Here, take half of it.”

“No, go ahead.”

“I won’t be able to finish it, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Carella said. He sliced Hawes’ doughnut in half and began munching on it. “That’s better,” he said. He looked at his watch. “We’d better get moving. He’s got a head start on us already. If we can at least find out whether Dumas is his real name…”

“Just let me finish my tea,” Hawes said.

The landlady at 1137 Fairview Street wasn’t happy to see cops, and she told them so immediately.

“There’s always cops here,” she said, “I’m fed up to here with cops.”

“That’s too bad, lady,” Hawes said, “but we’ve got to ask you some questions, anyway.”

“You always come around shooting, and then you ask the questions later,” the landlady said angrily.

“Lady, the man in apartment 44 began shooting first,” Hawes said.

“That’s your story.”

“Who was he, do you know?”

“Who’s going to pay for all that damage to the hallway, can you tell me that?”

“Not us,” Hawes said flatly. “What’s the man’s name?”

“John Doe.”

“Come on, lady.”

“‘That’s his name. That’s the name he took the apartment under.”

“How long has he been living here?”

“Two months.”

“Did he pay his rent in cash or by check?”

“Cash.”

“Didn’t you suspect John Doe might not be his real name? Especially since the name Frank Dumas is on his mailbox?”