Ed Mcbain - The Heckler

“Goodbye, dearie,” Carella said. “Go take the spoon out of April’s eye.”

He hung up, smiling, wondering how he and Teddy had ever managed to run a household without Fanny. Of course, he told himself, before Fanny there hadn’t been the twins, either. In fact, had the twins not been born, Fanny would not have been hired as a two-weeks, postnatal nurse. And then when they’d moved into the new house, the monster which was on the market for back taxes, and Fanny’s two weeks were up—well, it was difficult to say exactly what had prompted her to stay on at practically no salary, unless it was the fact that she had come to think of the Carellas as her own. Whatever her motive, and Carella never thought too much about motive except when he was working on a case, he was damned grateful for her existence. He sometimes had qualms that his children would grow up speaking with an Irish brogue since, by necessity, it was her speech they imitated and not the nonexistent speech of their mother. And only last week, he was nearly shocked out of his skin when young Mark said, “Dammit, dearie, I don’t want to go to bed yet.” But all in all, things were working out fine.

Carella stood up, opened the top drawer of his desk, took his gun and holster from it, and clipped it to the right side of his belt. He took his jacket from where it was draped over the back of his chair, put it on, and then tore the top page from the pad and stuck the sheet into his pocket.

“I probably won’t be back for the rest of the day,” he told Parker.

“Where you going?” Parker asked. “A movie?”

“No, a burlesque,” Carella said. “I dig naked broads.”

“Ha!” Parker said.

THEY’RE TEARIN DOWN the whole damn city, Meyer thought as he passed the building site of the new shopping center on Grover Avenue and the huge sign announcing that the work was being done by the Uhrbinger Construction Company. In truth, his observation was slightly in error since what they were doing was not tearing down the whole damn city but building up a major portion of it. As Lieutenant Byrnes had reported so accurately, the new shopping center would be a self-contained commercial operation with a large parking lot and with a conglomeration of services designed to lure housewives from everywhere in the city. The new stores were set in a low modern building which clashed violently with the surrounding grimy fingers of the slum tenements but which nonetheless presented an open area of clean space where the city dweller felt as if he could once again breathe while picking up his package of Wheaties or while cashing a twenty-dollar bill at the bank. Of course, entering the bank or the supermarket was still some weeks away from reality. The sites of these enterprises still crawled with workmen in overalls and sweat-stained shirts, so that perhaps Meyer’s observation was not too far from the truth after all. The men rushing about with wooden beams and copper pipes did seem to be a demolition crew rather than a construction gang.

He sighed heavily, wondering how he would ever adjust to this new image of a neighborhood he had come to know quite well over the years. It was odd, he thought, but a person very rarely looked at the neighborhood where he spent his entire working day, until they began to make changes there. And then, quite suddenly, the old way, the old buildings, the old streets seemed to become very dear and the new way seemed to be an encroachment upon something private and familiar.

What the hell’s the matter with you? he thought. You like slums?

“Yeah, I like slums.

Besides, the 87th Precinct isn’t a slum. Part of it is a slum, yes. But you couldn’t call the apartment houses lining Silvermine Road a slum. And some of the shops on The Stem were actually pretty fancy. And Smoke Rise, along the river, was as elegant as anything you were likely to find anywhere. So, all right, I’m rationalizing. For the most part, this is probably the crumbiest neighborhood in the city, and we’ve undoubtedly got the highest crime rate and our fire department is probably the busiest in the world, but I guess I like it here. I’ve never asked for a transfer and God knows there have been times when I was pretty damned disgusted, and yet I’ve never asked for a transfer, so I guess I really like it here.

Which, again, answers your question.

Yeah, I like slums.

I like slums because they are alive. I hate them because they breed crime and violence and filth—but I like them because they are alive.

It was twelve noon, and Meyer Meyer walked the streets of this slum that was alive, passing the construction site on Grover Avenue and then cutting up Thirteenth and walking north. The neighborhood was a rich amalgam of color, the color of flesh tones ranging from the purest white through the myriad shades of tan and brown and into the deepest brown, a brown bordering on black. Color, too, in the April finery of the precinct citizens, and color in the shop windows, bolts of blue silk and pink taffeta, and color on the sidewalk stands, the rich scarlet of ripe apples, and the subtle sunshine of bananas, and the purple bruise of grapes. And color, too, in the language of the streets, the profanity interlaced with the pseudo-musical jargon, the English of the underprivileged, and the bastardized Spanish, the Jewish peddler shouting his wares with a heavy Yiddish accent, the woman on the street corner wailing psalms to the indifferent blue sky of April. And all of it alive, all of it bursting with the juice of life, all of it raw and primitive somehow, stripped of all the nonsense of twentieth century ritual, that is what he meant by alive, this is what Meyer Meyer meant. For perhaps it was uncouth and uncivilized, but there was no question here of which fork to pick up first at the dinner table, and no question here of the proper way to introduce a duchess to a marquis, no question here of the little civilities, the little courtesies that separate us from the barbarians and at the same time steal from us our humanity. The precinct was as basic as life itself—and as rich.

And so he walked the streets there without fear even though he knew that violence could erupt around him at any moment. And he walked with a spring to his step, and he breathed deeply of air which stank of exhaust fumes but which was, nonetheless, the heady air of April, and he felt very glad to be alive.

The loft which David Raskin occupied was directly over a bank.

Mercantile Trust was the name of the bank. The name was engraved onto two bronze plaques, one of which decorated either side of the huge bronze bank doors which were open to admit the noonday traffic. A sign stuck to one of the open doors advised any interested party that the bank was changing quarters on April thirtieth and would be ready for business at its new location on May first. Meyer passed the bank, and the sign, and then climbed the steps to David Raskin’s loft. A thumb-smeared sign hanging to the left of a huge fireproof door advised Meyer Meyer that he had located

DARASK FROCKS, INC.

Women’s Garments Of

Distinction

Meyer did not knock. He went into the loft, stared down at the front of Margarita’s low-cut smock for a second or two, asked for Dave Raskin and was ushered to the back of the loft where Raskin himself, standing in his undershirt and sweating profusely, was working with the girls pressing dresses. Raskin seemed to be in excellent high spirits.

“Hallo, hallo, Meyer!” he shouted. “What a day for pressing dresses, hah? A beautiful April day, what a day! It’s nice out, hah, Meyer?”

“Beautiful,” Meyer replied.

“April, that’s the only time of the year. April is just right for everything, and I mean everything, Meyer, even an old man like me could say it, everything, Meyer!”